Garden's Lot: A Short Prose
The botanical garden’s parking lot is gravel and covered in a thin sheet of snow. I arrived earlier than their opening and leave my vehicle running for warmth. Removing the bookmark from Trocchi’s Young Adam, a motor’s rumble shakes and gets louder. A car is following my tracks. The rearview reflects a red Toyota and a tuft of brunette hair in the driver’s seat. The sloshing comes closer and she pulls in next to me.
Throwing the shifter into park, her car bucks back and forth. Her cheek is exposed in slices through wet strands of hair. She doesn’t care to notice me and is involved in her phone. It’s pressed against the heater in her hands and the charging cord is taught. My book still open. She quickly turns her head toward me.
Her eyes catch mine through our car windows and the brief glance strikes through me. It shakes me. I recognize her, but it’s out of context. She’s wearing a fleece pullover and a scarf dangles loose around her shoulders. She appears frantic. Slowly, I tilt my head back to the novel, but instead of words, the pages are filled with the contours of her face. The text shifts shape and forms the outline of her jaw. The off-white page glows with the same rose as her cheek. It hit me.
She works in the garden. I only saw her when she wore khakis and a green polo or sweatshirt. I peek over and she’s still rubbing her hands. I admired her, or, the way she worked while pruning and watering flowers and shrubs, rather. Anonymous to me, she worked as I watched her tending to the garden. I notice her work attire strewn about the car. Switching her focus from phone to window, she catches me glancing at her and drops her phone to the floor.
Unabashed, I’m still watching as she scrambles and her bun bobs up and down. Laughing, she looks over at me and rolls her window down. I press and hold the button so the window zips down.
“Do you have heat?” she asks.
Taken aback at the question, I don’t even think while answering. “Of course.”
Her window closing, she’s grabbing at articles on her passenger seat. Shutting the ignition the car hums and halts. She opens the door and pulls a bag from the seat and throws some clothes over her shoulder. She slams the door shut and looks through my window walking toward me. Her red slippers crunch in the snow.
Instinctually, I unlock the car and the pin shoots up. She opens the door and slides into the seat tossing her bag and clothes into the back.
“You’re a savior,” she tells me, pulling strands of hair from her cheek.
“Not really.” I reply and she doesn’t seem impressed.
“I’m late. I have no heat in my car and need to get into these clothes before walking in. I’m jumping in the back and changing, so don’t peek, okay?”
“You think that’s possible?” I tell her.
“Maybe not, but I’m doing it anyway.”
Jumping over the center console her thigh hits my arm. She’s wearing thin pajamas that slide down along her ass as she drops into the back.
“Graceful,” I laugh.
“You haven’t seen anything, yet. Now, love, eyes forward.”
She struggled with her scarf for a moment and then slips out of her pullover. A worn, torn, black shirt covers her breasts loosely. She is not wearing a bra. I’m watching her movements in the rearview.
“If you’re going to be blatant,” she smiles at me in the mirror, “you should just look." Surprising her, I turn fully and catch her removing her shirt as it hikes past her breast, her firm, pink nipple flicks out from under what must be her sleep shirt. I turn the heat on blast and swing my leg over the console. Throwing myself in the back, I’m next to her, close, where she can feel my heat.
“If you’re going to talk to me in such a tone," I smile, "you may as well say it to my face,” I tell her seriously, offsetting its harshness with a wink.
Looking at the sparkling diamond in her eyes, both my hands raise against her collar. Her skin is still cool from the cold and my palms warm her pressing her down until her back is firm against the seat. She stretches her legs underneath me and I can feel her warmth. Opening her lips I kiss her deeply and she is comforted in my weight.
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