The Pickup Line

by Louisa Trent

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  Atlantic Bridge/Liquid Silver Books

  http://www.atlanticbridge.net

  Copyright ©2003 Louisa Trent

  First Published by Liquid Silver Books, Imprint of Atlantic Bridge, February, 2003

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Published by Liquid Silver Books, Imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 6280 Crittenden Ave, Indianapolis, Indiana. Copyright 2003, Louisa Trent All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  When hip, avant-garde artist, Blue Heron, and ultra-conservative businessman, Lou Franco, meet in a pickup line at a trendy vegan restaurant they quickly agree to a weekend of erotic, anything-goes, sex.

  But a pink flamingo and a giant inflatable penis turn anything-goes into something else, something neither of them expects.

  ...because sometimes all a man and woman really have in common is nothing and sometimes nothing will keep them apart...

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  CHAPTER ONE

  As usual on a Friday night, Sprout's Café was packing ‘em in. Not a table stayed vacant for long in the popular restaurant down on old Fenton pier.

  Lou Franco stood in the pickup line crush at the front counter, one of the many unhappy patrons getting flattened while waiting for his takeout order. Cheek-to-jowl isn't exactly how he would've described the ticklish position he found himself in with the customer ahead of him, but it came mighty damn close.

  Hoping to extricate himself from the tight spot, he tried putting it in reverse.

  And got nowhere quick. His back was literally up against the wall.

  Next, he sidestepped. Left side. Right side. Any side?

  Nope. Forget edging forward. That was suicide; he was already riding the customer's rear bumper. Until the line moved, he wasn't budging. On the bright side, the front to back squeeze presented an opportunity made in heaven. Sure, his love life pretty much sucked but maybe this was his lucky break.

  Except- was he goosing a girlish-looking male or a boyish-looking female?

  He didn't know. Couldn't tell. And not the sort who swings either way, the ambiguity presented a definite problem.

  When a guy is single and rapidly approaching farty-

  Damn! To get him riled, Pete always deliberately mispronounced his old man's next birthday. As if the milestone wasn't humbling enough already, his son had to relegate it to the level of potty humor. Now the kid had him doing it too.

  Okay, where was he?

  In an embarrassing case of brain freeze, Lou blanked. Not for the life of him could he remember his last thought. Was this one of those senior moments all the old farts-er-middle-aged talked about?

  Wait a sec. No need to worry. It was all coming back to him now. Situational anxiety, not premature senility, was to blame for making him forget his place, which was stuck in this damn takeout line, up against the wall, nowhere to go, doing the back door tango with a person of indeterminate gender-

  When a guy is single and rapidly approaching ... ahem ... the Big Four-Oh, sex is plenty complicated enough already without throwing the current androgynous look into the mix. Call him old-fashioned, but to simplify things, he wanted to know up front, before the first pass ever got made, that he and his date would be using separate restroom facilities during the course of the evening. Considering the zipper tracks he was leaving on a stranger's back pockets, the gender question was becoming a real important concern. The unisex at Sprout's excluded, Lou figured he better find out pronto if the customer in front had the same pissing rights as he to the urinal.

  Covertly, of course. This was a complex issue, after all, with all kinds of far reaching ramifications; he couldn't come right out and ask. A question like that might be construed as rude. There was also the distinct possibility of such a query putting a damper on the start of an otherwise beautiful friendship, even a blossoming romance.

  That is, if he was nuzzling up to a person of the feminine persuasion. Otherwise, he was pretty much in the crapper.

  At any rate, be the customer a he or a she, Lou didn't expect to walk away from this little melodrama without an altercation, maybe even an assault rap ... or possibly a name to add to that little black book he'd been meaning to get. It was still pretty much up in the air as to which way things went.

  Except-no if's, and's, or butts, he owed the person ahead of him an apology. It was only right. This was one close encounter. ‘Course, the apology would go a lot smoother if he knew to call the customer ‘M'am’ or ‘Mister’ when he said he was sorry. Since he/she was tall and lanky, just shy of Lou's own six-two, but also kind of delicately made, body build only confused the question of gender. This left him the following options:

  He could strike up a cutesy conversation in the hopes of determining genitalia by way of vocal cords. An iffy proposition at best, and with his tin ear, doomed to fail. Damn, half the male pop singers these days sounded like girls to him.

  He could ask the customer to turn around so he could do a face check. Sound idea, that.

  Except—if either of them could move, he wouldn't be having this rambling conversation with himself.

  No joke, Sprout's really was a friggin’ nuthouse tonight. The line at the trendy riverfront restaurant now stretched out the art deco door onto the fish pier, and in this PB&J sandwich, his nuts were getting jammed.

  Deep breath here. No need to panic. Yet. He'd just do a discreet survey of the customer's wardrobe. That's what he'd do. Everybody knows clothes make the man, while a woman makes whatever clothes she's wearing kind of wonderful. It was all about the clothes. He'd go with the clothes. Shoes were as good a place as any to start.

  Lou dropped his eyes past his gray silk tie to the floor.

  And snorted. Mustard colored work boots. Like they told him anything! Even Mister Antoine, the interior decorator he'd just hired to class-up The Pink Flamingo's strip club image, wore work boots. Everybody and their Granny wore work boots-

  Though ... though ... the feet encased in those work boots were on the pygmy side. That could mean something. Like, the customer was female, for instance.

  Then again, it might just mean he was courtin’ a dude with small feet.

  The shoes, Lou decided, gave nothing away.

  Neither did the baggy, multi-pocketed cargo pants. Sure, they hung low,
but the hips they hugged were gender-bender slender, and their slippage revealed tasteful red plaid boxers.

  A brick wall appeared out of nowhere and hit Lou in the face.

  Ever since fashion designers started sticking their collective noses into underwear, the one place they should've kept their haute couture nostrils out of, males and females alike now wore boxers. And that was just so wrong.

  What was up with the world today?

  Men should look, talk, act, and think like men and women should do the same. This transgender business was getting carried just way too far...

  Good thing Pete wasn't here, Lou thought glumly. He was in no mood for another stern lecture on getting in touch with his feminine side. What feminine side? He'd always ask his kid in return. He'd gone looking and it just wasn't there.

  While figuratively raking both hands through his scalp-figuratively because the line was packed too tight to do it for real-Lou realized he had overlooked something, a sex specific something, that might help clear up his current confusion.

  Twisting his jaw, he narrowed his sights onto the top of the customer's head, zooming in on those cylindrical, keratinized, often pigmented filaments characteristically growing from the epidermis of a mammal.

  Because the chromosomal truth, baby, is always in the hairdo.

  This do was a definite don't. The style was a cross between shaggy-dog-shaggy, like some real twisted barber with a diabolical sense of humor had gone at it with a hedge trimmer, and something right out of the pages of Vogue. Lou knew not which. As to the length, the ends were shoulder-top skimming. The color was brown. Plain brown.

  The hair, Lou determined, told him not a damn thing. He couldn't catch a break tonight even if his balls depended on it. And, whoa mama, they just might. The boys would be doing some powerful hurtin’ if space ever got freed up and that customer decided to turn ‘round and raise a kneecap.

  With the little tingling action below his belt swelling to some major excitement, Lou got desperate and did something he ordinarily would never have done: He copped a Peeping Tom look down into the customer's gaping cotton work shirt.

  And breathed a sigh of relief. The customer was definitely female and he was definitely an A-wipe for wondering what else she had pierced besides that sexy raspberry-toned nipple.

  Gritting his teeth, Lou awkwardly levered a hand between the press of their bodies and tapped her wide shoulder. “Excuse me, miss,” he apologized, because there really was no place for him to go butt into her. “About my-uh-uh-”

  A man didn't bump into this circumstance any too often. How was something like this sensitively phrased? No way could he ask if his cock was rubbing her the wrong way. That wouldn't go over too big.

  Lou deliberated some more.

  He could always say something smarmy, he supposed.

  Except-the last time he'd tried turning on the charm with a woman in a crowd he got shot down so bad his short hairs were still smokin'. ‘Course, as it turned out, that crowd was a bunch of female office workers pounding the bricks on their lunch hour to protest sexual harassment in the workplace. Too busy checking out all those sweet womanly curves file by, he hadn't noticed the rally signs the ladies were carrying.

  Best to stick with tact, he concluded.

  “About the position my-uh-condition is in, if you feel the need to slap my face or anything, go right ahead.”

  At that exact moment, the line inched forward.

  The customer twisted around; her wash-and-wear look crinkled into a smile. “Slap your face? I don't think so. The only question is, do we introduce ourselves first or say fuck the formalities and go straight to bed?”

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  CHAPTER TWO

  She was his kind of woman.

  Straightforward and to the point, damn cute too, in a tousled, natural sort of way. Her smile was big and white and candid, and her blue eyes danced merrily. This was a lady knew who how to have a good time. Would she consider having a good time with him?

  Lou took a chance. “I've got no place to go ‘til eleven. What do say we compromise and do both?”

  He stuck out his hand. “Lou Franco. Your place or mine?”

  He groaned inwardly. Could he get any more trite? Man, he was out of practice!

  Obviously the forgiving sort, she didn't draw attention to his blunder.

  “Blue Heron, here. Free ‘til 7pm tomorrow. Either place will do.”

  Her brisk, no-nonsense handshake suited her to a tee. As did her name. Blue Heron. Just like the bird, she had long legs, a long neck, sort of a pointy chin ... and wings. Not the kind angels wear. And not the kind advertised on those feminine hygiene products that Pete and he always slanted their eyes away from when they came on the tube. Wings, as in a free and soaring spirit. Considering that his two feet were always planted firmly in the mud, this attribute appealed to him.

  After their hands separated, she kept smiling at him. As if she wanted him to say more, was waiting for him to say more, was expecting him to say more.

  Kiss of death, small talk. He didn't know how to trade the witty give and takes that constitute social conversation—as evidenced by the ‘your place or mine’ cliché he had just let loose on an already cliché-ridden world.

  When he didn't say more, when he just stood there with his tongue tied up in knots, she said, “Ahem ... well ... I guess ... I'll just get back to my menu selecting now,” and turned away.

  A handshake, an introduction and already he'd blown it.

  Lou stared at the back of Blue's crazy mixed-up hair-do, pondering his own bewilderment, his firm mouth twisted in indecision. This was a momentous, make or break moment. The ball was in his court. It was all up to him. Could he open the door back up or was it slammed for good?

  Damn! The social pressure of being a man in today's world! It was enough to make him want to hang up his dick forever.

  As Pete would say in his post-modern, pop psychology, crapola, Lou was feeling a mite conflicted. How should he play this, real deal or pretend cool?

  Cool, his rosy rear. He wasn't cool. And besides, his full-blown, very un-cool hard-on pretty much gave away the genuineness of his interest.

  He'd just have to settle for real.

  Boring. Average. A guy who had dragged his tired butt out of bed every morning for the past twelve years to drop a sandwich and an apple in his kid's brown bag lunch for school. And now that his kid was off to college, he still woke up early though there was no longer any need. Pathetic.

  What woman wants pathetic?

  Women want exciting. Navy Seals. Spies. Body guards.

  Hey, he was once a police detective! Maybe he could somehow work his former occupation into the conversation—

  Naw. That was a lifetime ago. An undercover cop wasn't who he was anymore.

  “You a vegetarian?” Lou finally thought to ask, grabbing at straws, wanting to keep the conversation going, wanting to hear her voice again, wanting to get to know Blue Heron.

  She popped a look over her shoulder at him. “Why, yes, I am a vegan. You?”

  This was going great! Terrific! He asked a question, she answered it, and then asked a question of her own. Back and forth. Give and take. Looked like he wasn't completely shutout.

  “Vegan? No, not me,” he said, manfully. “That would be my son. His conversion happened four years ago in high school. According to Pete, Sprouts is the only restaurant in Fenton that has stuff on the menu that ‘doesn't feel pain'.”

  In front of him, a wide set of shoulders rumbled in laughter.

  “I love my kid,” he continued, since he was on a roll. “But sometimes I don't know which planet Pete beamed down from. Feel pain. What kind of organic propaganda is that? Humans are carnivores, right? Not herbivores. Man needs to eat meat, the rawer the better-”

  Lou stopped. Listen to himself. What an idiot he was! Blue wasn't laughing with him; she was laughing at him. When had he started saying humiliating stuff like that?

/>   He knew the exact moment. It was eighteen years ago when a maternity nurse placed a little blue bundle in his arms. And Lou had not a single regret. Not about having to worry about unexciting things, like sneaking protein into his kid's diet so he wouldn't get anemic. Not about highfalutin’ things, like losing touch with the ‘child within him’ so he could concentrate on the child who'd be up the creek without him. But wasn't life strange sometimes? He'd never aspired to single parenthood at twenty-one. He never thought he'd end up so out of it at thirty-nine.

  Mortified, Lou straightened his cufflinks.

  Blue turned toward him again; her smile was sunny and warm. “Relax Lou. It's a go. Just so happens, you caught me in a horny mood.”

  “Yeah?”

  His voice, even to his own ears, sounded almost pitifully hopeful.

  Did she mean that the way it sounded? Did she mean what he thought she meant?

  She nodded reassuringly. “Uh-huh. Now your son-not to worry. I've been a vegan longer than your Pete, and apart from a bout of prolonged sexual frustration, I'm perfectly healthy.”

  She looked at him pointedly. “And that's in every area.”

  Her voice turned solemn. “You?”

  “Healthy? Oh, yeah. Real healthy. I jog three times a week and my cholesterol is right where it should be.”

  She gave him a probing look, one of those searching gazes that made him realize that she wasn't talking about that whole confusing HDL versus LDL business his doctor was forever explaining to him. What she was looking for was a statement as to his sexual history. Could he get any thicker?

  “Oh, that kind of health. Yeah, I'm healthy, very healthy. Real ... um ... healthy I guess you could say,” Lou answered, thinking that Blue Heron was the most forthright person he'd ever met, because if that question wasn't a sexual go-ahead, he didn't know what was.

  Looked to him like he hadn't blown this pickup, after all. And that was the best news he'd had in a very long time, because man, no boner about it, his love life really did suck. Pete hadn't needed a babysitter for years but he was too full of testosterone to be left alone for the whole night. So after The Flamingo closed at 2 AM, Pete's dad went straight home from the club. Alone. Always alone. And that was every night. With an impressionable teen waiting there for him, and to whom he was forever preaching the joys of responsible sex, he was not about to bring some bar floozy home with him. As a result, Lou went without for extended periods of time.