roses euphemism engaging firecracker
dogleg ruination gaggle Tabasco
Theme: romance
“Roses, lotion, Tabasco, yogurt,” Mason mumbled as he stepped between the automatic sliding doors. With a smile, he recalled the Sesame Street skit when Ernie repeated his short shopping list over and over and still forgot everything when he got to Mr. Roper’s store. That Ernie, Mason thought. He grabbed a basket and looked about the store. “Shit. I don’t know where any of these things are.” He shrugged and started meandering through the aisles. “Oh, well. Roses, lotion, Tabasco, yogurt,” he repeated for the umpteenth time and started forward.
After 30 minutes and a dogleg circuit through the store, Mason exited with a dozen red roses, a bottle of rose scented lotion, two flavors of Tabasco, a tub of vanilla yogurt, and a huge smirk of satisfaction on his face. He was stopped dead in the middle of a gaggle of slow-moving old ladies on their weekly shopping trip getting out of a nursing home van. He maneuvered amongst and around them respectfully. Then rushed back home.
Mason trotted to the small apartment he shared with Sherie. He shoved the yogurt, Tabasco, and lotion into the fridge. Then he set about mercilessly plucking petals from the roses and scattering them around the apartment. He flung the majority of them on the bed.
When the grandfather clock Sherie had inherited chimed 7 pm., he raced out of the apartment to pick up Sherie from work. He appreciated once again that she worked at a restaurant, where she could grab dinner whenever she felt like it. It saved them loads on groceries. And on this night, he wouldn’t have to contend with the delay of feeding her before getting it on.
When Sherie slipped onto the passenger seat, Mason leaned over and planted a slopping wet, open-mouth, tongue-filled kiss on her.
“Whoa! What’s that about?” she asked in alarm.
Crap, Mason worried. That was too much. Okay, I gotta act normal. And then after a while engage her in a whole other way. “How was work? Not too busy today?” Mason asked hopefully.
“Not bad,” Sherie said with a shrug. “You know. Wednesdays are usually our slowest day. How was your day?”
“Good. I’ve been thinking about you. I can’t wait to get you home.” He glanced at her and smiled lasciviously.
Sherie shuddered and smiled back hesitantly. Her discomfort increased when she entered the apartment and saw the withering flower petals all over. “What a mess. What’d you do this for?”
“Relax,” Mason said, and then carried on valiantly. “I’ll clean it up when we’re done.”
“When we’re done with what?”
“Just go wait for me in the bedroom so we can get it on.”
“Get it on? Have you lost your mind? You know how much I hate euphemisms. Saying shit like that is not going to get me in the mood.”
“Just go in there and relax,” he instructed. He strolled into the kitchen, grabbed the lotion, Tabasco, and yogurt from the fridge, and headed into the bedroom whistling.
Sherie was waiting at the foot of the bed, standing with her arms crossed and a doubtful expression on her face.
Mason soldiered on. “Let’s start with a relaxing massage, shall we?” He unbuttoned and removed Sherie’s blouse and bra, forced himself to not grab her breasts, and sat her down at the edge of the bed. He set the lotion nearby and pumped it a few times. Nothing came out. He tried again. Nothing.
“What are you doing back there?” she queried.
“Uh, the lotion won’t come out of the bottle.”
“Let me see that,” she turned around and yanked the bottle out of his hands. “Why is this so cold?”
“Uh, I shoved it in the fridge with the other stuff.”
“The other stuff?”
“Never mind. Let’s move on.” He gathered up a few petals and began to caress Sherie’s skin with them. He brushed them behind her ears, along her jaw, under her nose.
Sherie twitched her ears, scratched her chin, and sneezed. “Uh, Mae, that’s kind of annoying.”
“Well, that’s not what we’re going for, is it?”
“Indeed not.”
Mason went on to the last trick in his repertoire. He planted several long, deep kisses on Sherie. Meanwhile, he twisted off the cap of a Tabasco bottle; he didn’t see which. During a very brief pause in the kissing, he sprinkled several drops of the red liquid on his tongue and turned back to Sherie. As his mouth heated, he drew nearer and nearer to his goal. But his mouth filled with saliva, and his eyes began to water. He had barely touched Sherie’s lips when he aborted his mission. With surprising speed, he pried the lid and safety seal off the yogurt, delved his fingers into the cool slop, and plopped mounds of it onto his burning tongue.
Sherie said nothing. But she spent the minutes of Mason’s agony laughing uproariously.
“What a disaster!” Mason exclaimed a few minutes later. “How did my perfect plan come to this ruination?” he asked with genuine ignorance.
“What is your goal here, Mase?” Sherie asked between chuckles, wiping away tears of laughter.
“I wanted you to see stars, explode like firecrackers, giggle uncontrollably,” he said solemnly.
“And you thought Tabasco was gonna do it? Interesting.”
Mason pouted sheepishly.
“Well,” Sherie conceded, “I did have a good laugh.”