cover image copyright Sommer Marsden 2009
PRAY FOR RAIN copyright Sommer Marsden 2009
Content Warning: This is a work of EROTIC fiction with EXPLICIT content. It is intended for ADULTS ONLY. Please always practice safe sex! :)
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Pray for Rain
By Sommer Marsden
I walk for several reasons. Firstly, to lose the twenty pounds that had attached to my ass when I quit smoking. Secondly, to rev myself up for an upcoming charity walk. Lastly, for my sanity. Once upon a time, my marriage had been magical. Then it had turned ordinary. Now it's torturous. He has his agenda (and his women), I have my charities, my girlfriends and now my laps around the parking lot. I walk them obsessively--the sound of my feet hitting the pavement drowning out the sound of my withering life.
I saw him on a cool October day on lap twelve. Spectacular in his youth. White tee, faded jeans, work boots. Tanned skin and dark hair and a cell phone almost perpetually pressed to his ear. I called him Mr. Clean because even from afar I wondered how he did it. How in the hell he managed to keep that white shirt so impeccably white when he drives a backhoe and deals in mud and spades and shovels all day.
He waved to me on lap sixteen.
I refused to wave. I am thoroughly done with men. But my stare did stagger a bit. I didn’t look away quite fast enough and I saw, for the first time, a wonderfully crooked grin that heated my skin and made me want to look at him some more. “Go on with your digging,” I muttered under my breath.
That was the first day.
*****
My house faces an old school. The school, at some point, morphed into a senior center. So when my stress is too high or my relations with Edward are too low, I walk. I walk in the morning when I would have smoked. I walk in the afternoon when the housewife doldrums get the better of me. I walk when I have the urge to eat an entire chocolate cake. I basically walk to exist. And I watch.
Across the street sits the new Sheriff’s building. It is still empty but the workmen scurry around the outside like soldier ants. They work from sun-up until sundown trying to get the building ready before the full-on wet autumn season sets in. I watch them dig and move dirt and lay pipe. And Mr. Clean watches me. Sometimes openly, sometimes on the sly. But I can always tell by the crooked smile.
I round the corner and the sky rumbles noisily. They are calling for rain today and I want - no need - to get my walk in before the skies open up. And before Edward comes rolling in with martinis on his breath, lipstick on his collar, and words of mergers and take-overs rolling off his semi-drunken lips. I pump my arms and eye the sky. It looks menacing but it might hold off. Just as I think this, little dots of rain wet me. It is spitting. Fuck it. I keep walking. I won’t melt if I get wet. It’s the only kind of wet I get these days, anyhow.
Within minutes, the burly workmen have clamored from their heavy machinery. God forbid a workman get wet. I know, I know, safety first- but let’s get real. There is real rain and then there is rain that only really qualifies as heavy air. Not quite fog. Moisture that clings to the skin but isn’t really rain. They all get in their trucks and drive off. Red trucks, black trucks, blue trucks. The weather report for today is rain, rain, and more rain. Heavy, intense, never ending rain. I shudder at the thought. I’ll have to ride my exercise bike if I get desperate. Or dig out my poncho. I snort and pump my arms more and picture myself swathed in the shapeless flaming orange plastic drape. Walking laps in the deluge like an animated Halloween jack-o-lantern. As I round the corner, I see a flash of white.
He’s standing, arms crossed, under the overhang across the street. Work boots stacked in his bent knee stance. He grins and my heart races, my pussy grows flush. I feel swollen suddenly between my legs. Ripe. That is the word that comes to mind. From one crooked smile.
“God, Bonnie, snap the fuck out of it,” I hiss to myself and pump my arms faster.
He gives me a nearly effeminate finger wave and I keep right on moving. Every woman is allowed to ignore a man. After all, he could be a rapist, a murderer, a lunatic. Or, he could just scare you to death because when he smiles at you, your pussy gets wet and your mind takes a decidedly filthy detour from planning your next dinner party.