More Than a Kiss

by Layce Gardner

  “Irma loves you,” a voice said.

  Jordan looked toward the door. It was Irma. Jordan had been so engrossed in Petronella’s sob story, she hadn’t noticed Irma coming in.

  “What do you know about love?” Petronella sniffled.

  “Irma knows a beautiful, talented woman when Irma sees one,” Irma said as she slowly approached Petronella.

  Petronella met Irma’s gaze. If she wasn’t mistaken, Jordan saw something in Petronella’s eyes, something that burned from deep within, a desire that hadn’t been there before, if ever. Irma, the woman in black, gazed longingly at Petronella, the woman in white. Well, she was usually all in white. Right now, she was covered in colors.

  Petronella said, “You are a strong, sexy Russian woman. Why would you want me?”

  Irma knelt before Petronella’s chair and placed her hands on Petronella’s knees. “Irma wants to make love to you. Irma wants to take care of you. Irma wants to love and protect you for all time. If you will have Irma?”

  “Untie me,” Petronella whispered hoarsely with desire coloring her cheeks. “Untie me and show me what it is to be loved so completely.”

  Jordan whispered to Edison, “I think that’s our cue to leave.”

  Edison nodded and whispered back. “I just puked a little in my mouth.”

  Jordan and Edison quietly left the room and shut the door on the new lovers. “I think Petronella was telling the truth.”

  “Me, too,” Edison said.

  Jordan pulled the rubber ball out of her pocket and squeezed it. “So if Petronella didn’t do all that stuff, who did?”

  Lezebel

  Amy was on her way to Chad’s room at the hospital. She knew he would be held hostage by pain medication, so what better time to confront him about his unwanted advances. Unwanted advances was the phrase Amy had substituted for what was really beginning to look like a severe case of stalking. She was starting to think that Chad wasn’t only missing a finger, but was missing a few marbles, too.

  As Amy neared his room, she saw the twins, Veronica and Valerie, peering through the rectangular window of his door. They were snickering and talking in hushed tones. Unbeknownst to them, Amy peered over their shoulders and through the window. Chad’s room was decorated entirely in lobster motif. Jeremy had been good on his word. There were lobster lamps, nightlights, curtains, towels, blankets, throw rugs, and plastic/rubber lobsters everywhere. Chad was lying in bed, tossing and turning, intermittently moaning and whining as he slept. He was probably having a dream about giant lobsters chasing him. At least Amy hoped he was.

  “I’ve never seen anyone with so little pain tolerance,” Veronica whispered. “He acts like he’s had major surgery.”

  “It’s a finger not a pancreas,” Valerie said.

  “I never figured him for such a pansy,” Amy said. Her already low opinion of Chad was dropping as rapidly as a runaway elevator.

  The twins parted, allowing Amy into Chad’s room. She walked up next to his bed. “Chad?”

  He stopped whimpering and opened his eyes. They were red and swollen. “Amy,” he breathed. “I knew you’d come.”

  “I love what you’ve done with the room,” she said.

  “God, how I’ve missed your sense of humor. I love the room. I know you did it to make me feel better - like making lemons out of lemonade.” He smiled and patted the bed beside him with his good hand.

  Ignoring the gesture, Amy picked up his other hand and checked the bandage.

  Chad said, “Will you still love me now that I have a freakish hand?”

  “It’s a Mickey Mouse hand now,” Amy said. “Cartoon characters only ever have three fingers. You ever notice that?”

  Chad tried to smile, then gave up. “Was that supposed to make me feel better?”

  Amy slid into doctor mode. “The surgeon did a great job. He says you should regain most of your mobility. Do you have any feeling?”

  “I feel your love for me.” He gazed at her with unfocused eyes. Amy realized he was completely and utterly looped.

  “I meant do you have any tactile sensations in your finger,” she said.

  He made a clumsy grab for her. “Come here, I want to kiss you. I want to marry you. Amy, oh my beautiful Amy.” He rolled toward her with outstretched arms. Amy took a step back and Chad wobbled on the edge of the bed. He teetered and then he tottered, caught in limbo between the safety of the bed and the danger of the hard floor. Instinctively, Amy reached out to save him from falling. But she was too late. Chad tottered too far, and fell, taking her down with him. She hit the floor first, cushioning his fall.

  Lying prone of top of her, he looked into her eyes and said, “You little Vixen. You couldn’t even wait until I was released from the hospital.”

  “I think I’m getting sick,” Amy said. This position and Chad’s breath in her face brought back some very unpleasant memories.

  “I knew you wanted me,” Chad said, nuzzling her neck.

  “Get off of me.” Amy struggled but she couldn’t budge him.

  Amy heard the door swing open. “Help me,” she muttered.

  Jeremy’s face appeared over Chad’s shoulder. “Whoa, get a room, you two.”

  “Hey, buddy,” Chad said. “I told you I’d get the girl.”

  “Jeremy, please, get him off me,” Amy said, still struggling to free herself.

  “What happened?” Jeremy dead lifted Chad to his feet. Chad staggered and then went limp as a noodle. A very big noodle. Jeremy pushed him onto the bed.

  Amy said, “He fell out of the bed. I tried to catch him.”

  “Next time just yell timber and get out of the way,” Jeremy said.

  Chad grabbed Jeremy’s hand, saying, “I love her, man. She’s my everything. I love her so friggin’ much. I love her hair. I love her eyes. I love her breasts.”

  “Whoaaaa there, big boy,” Jeremy said, interrupting him before he could add any more parts to the list. “You’re talking about my roommate, Dude.”

  “How much morphine did they give him?” Amy inquired.

  Chad’s head bounced to Amy. He smiled in surprise that she was still in the room. “Marry me, Amy. Marry me.” He looked back to Jeremy, saying, “Be my best dude at our wedding?”

  “Sure thing. I’m so there for you.” Jeremy put the bed rails up. “It’s beddie bye time, Dude.”

  Amy leaned over the rail and took Chad by the chin. She waited until his eyes focused, then said, “I can’t marry you. I can’t be with you. I can’t be your girlfriend and I can’t date you. I came in here to tell you that. Understand?”

  “You’re so funny,” Chad said. “I love your sense of humor.” Then he closed his eyes with a big smile still on his face.

  Amy sighed and turned to Jeremy. “What am I going to do? Nothing works.”

  “He won’t remember any of this,” Jeremy said. “You’ll have to try when he’s not so medicated.” He opened the door just as Jordan was opening the door. They collided, bouncing off each other.

  “We have to stop running into each other like this,” Jeremy said.

  Jordan laughed. “Sorry. I was looking for Amy. A couple of twin nurses said she was in here.”

  “Ah, she’s right here,” Jeremy said.

  Amy stepped forward. “Jordan! Hi!”

  “I love you! You’re my little love button,” the reawakened Chad yelled at her back.

  Amy laughed nervously and pushed Jordan out of the room before she could get a good look at Chad, saying, “Don’t pay any attention to that patient. He’s so drugged up he doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

  As they all three stepped into the hall, Chad yelled, “Don’t leave. That woman is a Jezebel. She’s a lesbian. She’s a Lezebel!”

  Jeremy quickly shut the door. He laughed and flapped his hand in Chad’s direction. “Homeless dude. Crazy. Loco.” He twirled his finger in little circles beside his temple. “Cuckoo cuckoo.”

  “I’ll say,” Jordan said. She smiled at A
my, “So, I just dropped by to see if you want to do lunch?”

  “Sure,” Amy said.

  Jordan looked at Jeremy. “You know, Jeremy, I’d like it if you’d come too. I haven’t really met any of Amy’s friends yet.”

  Amy and Jeremy exchanged a look. Jeremy clasped his hands under his chin. “I promise to be good,” he said, making puppy dog eyes.

  Amy laughed. “Okay, but you’re buying.”

  Jeremy rubbed his palms together. “Deal. But if I’m buying, we’re going to this new place I’ve been scoping out.”

  “What’s it called?” Jordan asked.

  “P.C.’s,” Jeremy said.

  “Never heard of it,” Jordan said.

  “It stands for politically correct. It claims to have the smallest carbon footprint of any restaurant in the world. It’s a gas.” He paused, then added, “Not literally a gas, you understand.”

  Amy looked uncertain. Jeremy and Jordan each took one of Amy’s hands, and in unison said, “C’mon, it’ll be fun.”

  Zombie at the Restaurant

  P.C.’s turned out to be housed in what was once a car dealership. The entire front of the restaurant was glass and there was plenty of parking. This was a bonus in a city with parking issues. Amy wondered if that wasn’t the big draw to the place. They’d taken Jeremy’s Buick Le Sabre inherited from his grandmother. They’d popped Jordan’s bike in the humongous trunk.

  “I mean I love this car but I can’t hardly park it anywhere,” Jeremy said, sighing with relief as they parked easily. “One of the bonuses of this restaurant. Miles and miles of parking. Who knew?”

  “Yeah, but is the food any good?” Amy asked.

  “We’ll soon find out,” Jeremy said. They all got out of the car. Jeremy lovingly patted the hood of the Buick.

  Jordan said, “There are a lot of cars. The food must be pretty decent.”

  “There’s a lot of BIG cars. Doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose? An organic restaurant that attracts gas guzzlers because it has a huge parking lot,” Amy replied, as they walked to the restaurant which seemed to be a half a mile away from where they were parked.

  “Not necessarily. If the food is all sustainable and does positive things for the environment then the carbon foot print with the car thing brings it to the level of a Burger King,” Jordan said, as they passed into the slide glass doors. “It’s kind of a wash.”

  “I like how you think,” Jeremy said.

  Jordan thought that the inside was exactly how you would expect a used car dealership turned restaurant to look - all chrome, glass and plastic. Jordan took one look at the booths and chairs and joked, “You know how many naugahydes had to die to make this place?”

  Amy giggled and put her hand over her mouth like a little kid in church. Diners stopped chewing and scowled at them.

  Jordan marveled about how everybody in the whole place was so solemn. Obviously, being P.C. was serious business. She set her face to serious mode and scowled back at the patrons. Amy giggled again, then snorted behind her hand.

  “Sorry,” Amy said. “That happens sometimes when I laugh.”

  “No snorting allowed,” Jordan said. “Didn’t you see the sign?”

  Amy snorted again. Jeremy moved several feet away, trying to appear as if he didn’t know them.

  A hostess rustled up to Jeremy. She was wearing a plastic mini-dress that crinkled when she moved. Which, because of her curves and the way she sashayed, involved a lot of crinkling.

  “Can we have one of those big booths?” Jeremy asked. “In the back? Far away from other diners?”

  “Of course.” The hostess grabbed three menus and said, “Follow me.”

  “With pleasure,” Jeremy said, following her swinging hips and barely managing to keep his eyeballs in their sockets.

  The hostess showed them to an oversized booth - the kind where seventeen people could sit comfortably and still have elbow room. As Jordan scooted in, Amy asked the hostess, “What sort of a car dealership was this place?”

  “Hummer,” the hostess said. “The owners, Labia International, wanted to take the worst possible place and transform it.” When she said the word transform, she waved her arms up and down her body in an imitation of Vanna White.

  Amy said, “Excuse me. Did you just say Labia?”

  “Yes. It’s an acronym. It stands for Lesbians Against Brutality In Animals,” the hostess explained.

  “So then, this is a vegetarian restaurant?” Jordan asked.

  “Oh no,” the hostess said. “Dead animal flesh is served as tasty entrees, but during the animal’s life it is given a name and treated as part of a family. All our meat has died a natural death. The animal has not been brutally killed for its flesh to be devoured by consumers. Its life was not cut short during its prime, but it was allowed to live to a ripe old age.”

  “I see,” Jordan said. “So, if I order a hamburger, it comes from a really old cow who died of old age.”

  “That’s correct. Today’s bovine was Sonja. She lived her life with the Johannson’s of eastern Nebraska. She loved hay and sunny days and standing in the pond.”

  “I’ll have a salad,” Amy said.

  “Would you care to hear the bio of our chicken, Florence?”

  “No, thank you. But I do have one more question,” Jordan said. “Is that a plarn dress you’re wearing?”

  “It is. Do you like it?” the hostess asked, evidently very impressed that Jordan knew what plarn was. “I crocheted it myself.”

  “I love it,” Jordan said. Actually, she didn’t love it at all. She thought it looked scratchy. And how would you clean it? You could wash it, but wouldn’t it melt if you put it in the dryer? And if you hung it out to dry, there was the possibility of it molding. Jordan thought she would stick to cotton.

  The hostess stuck her ample chest under Jeremy’s nose. “Wanna touch it? It’s softer than you’d think.”

  Jeremy was more than happy to oblige. He ran his palms up and down her front. Bliss was written all over his face. Amy stuck out a tentative finger to touch next. Jordan laughed and swatted Amy’s hand away.

  Jeremy was in complete and total lust. “Do you want to go out sometime?” he asked.

  “Love to. Here’s my card.” The hostess pulled a business card out of her plunging plarn neckline. It appeared to be made out of ordinary card stock.

  How very un-P.C., Jordan thought.

  The hostess rustled her way back to the front. “Wow, this place truly rocks,” Jeremy said, studying his newly and unexpectedly given phone number.

  “What is plarn exactly?” Amy asked.

  “It’s plastic bags cut into strips, knotted together into one long string and then crocheted or knitted together to form whatever you want,” Jordan said.

  “Do you have any plarn clothing?” Amy asked.

  “No, nor do I intend on getting any,” Jordan replied. “It’s too loud for my taste. Just like those wind pants people wear. You can hear them coming a mile away.”

  Jeremy was checking out his silverware which appeared to be fashioned out of cut up tin cans wrapped with Duct taped handles. “How very dystopian,” he said.

  Jordan examined her fork. “It’s like something Tina Turner would use in the Thunderdome.”

  “My mother would love this place,” Amy said. “She upcycled before upcycled was even a word. How did you know about all that plarn stuff?”

  “I downloaded this video from Norway. It was a knitting show where you watched people knit for nine hours. It was called Slow T.V. and it’s a big hit with the Norwegians. They have other videos where you watch a fire being built and burn for twelve hours, a constipated dog doing circles for commercial breaks which are five minutes long, a three hundred and seventy eight hour documentary of looking out a train window. You get the idea,” Jordan said.

  Dumfounded, Jeremy and Amy stared at her until Amy asked the million dollar question: “Why?”

  “I don’t think there is a reason
. It just is. When I get stuck writing I watch these videos because they are so incredibly boring that it inspires me to do something. I watch for as long as I can stand it. Then I can work again because nothing I do can be as dull as that. I haven’t had to watch since you came along. You are truly my muse.”

  Amy blushed.

  Jordan turned to Jeremy and said, “You do realize that a woman who hands out business cards for dates might be a bit on the odd side, right?”

  He nodded. “It says here she also sells Herbal Life supplements.”

  “I’d stay away from that if I were you,” Jordan said.

  “You’ll have really icky stools,” Amy added. “Remember when Veronica and Valerie got into that stuff?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jeremy said. “It was like a full on biohazard hit the place.”

  “The housekeeping staff threatened to go on strike if the twins continued to drop stink bombs,” Amy said.

  “The maintenance department was right behind them. Remember they kept clogging up the toilets,” Jeremy added.

  “I can’t believe you’re small-talking about stools. Is that what doctors do?” Jordan said.

  The waitress, tall, blond and stacked, appeared at their table. She was wearing a maxi-dress made out of potato chip bags. “What can I get you to drink?”

  “Are those potato chip bags?” Jordan asked.

  “Yes, this dress is made from snack sized chip bags,” the waitress said proudly. “My entire wardrobe is made from my neighbor’s trash.”

  “Hmmm. If I did that with my neighbor’s trash I’d be wearing a Budweiser can suit with Spam can earrings,” Jordan said.

  Amy laughed. “I’d be dressed in Lean Cuisine.”

  Jeremy got in on the joke. “If my neighbor orders one more pizza, I’ll have a car.”

  The waitress frowned. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Noooo,” all three said at once.

  The waitress seemed satisfied with that answer. She pulled out her order pad. “What can I get you to drink?”

  “What is there?” Amy asked.