34 - Hog-Tied

     "Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, no siree!"  Said Marrianne over the scratchy cell phone.  "That's just not going to happen."  I could see her shaking her long brunette curls back and forth.  I pictured her eyes closed and her lips pursed.  "What am I going to do with you?!?"
     "Wait, wait. What you're saying is that you don't trust me?" I asked trying to look innocent even though she was almost two hundred miles away.
     "Let me get this straight.  You want to go out in the city, drink Jagermeister all night, come back to my apartment, and 'just sleep' in my bed?"
     "Yeah.  That's it.  That's the plan."  I could feel the slick smile cut across my face before I finished the first sentence.     
     "Do I sound like I'm from planet 'College Girl'?  Don't even try that slick bullshit with me mister.  I'm not one of your little chicks on the side."  I could just picture her sitting on her bed in her blue tie-dyed T-shirt and gray sweat shorts.
I knew her ice blues were cutting across the room looking for something to throw at me.  She is statuesque.  A beautiful woman with looks that could be appreciated now or in the Victorian Age.
     "The only one who sleeps in my bed with me is me."
     "Well see now were on the same page.  I agree.  The only person who should sleep in your bed with you is me.  You see I'm all about me, too."  Even though I couldn't see it I could feel the ice in her gaze freezing the phone in my hands.
     "The only way you will sleep in my bed with me, mister, is hog-tied, duck taped, and blindfolded."
     "This is supposed to be a deterrent?!?"
     "Here's how it goes.  You come up to visit, we walk around the city, eat dinner, have a few drinks, catch up, and then you sleep on the couch with the cat." 
     I loved Marrianne.  She was one of the women I know who could probably kick my ass sideways and then slap me back into shape.  There was something striking yet very subtle about her.  Men loved her but never knew they couldn't handle her free spirit until it was too late and she was bored to tears with them.
     It had been almost two years since I'd seen her, but I felt like we just talked yesterday.
     "Sounds like a plan."  I said pretending to be disappointed.
"But could you explain how that hog-tying thing works?"
     "Ahhhhh," she said in disgust.  "What am I going to do with you?"

That Beautiful Black Man