When Michael Douglas Offers You A Joint...

When I finally came to, I was in a completely unfamiliar room and completely naked. I felt her bare back up against mine though, and remembered exactly where I was. I reached my hand back and caressed her side, and felt her silk skin underneath my palm. I immediately cracked a massive grin, and rolled over to her.

She hated being snuggled in the mornings. I mean, hated it. She was not a morning person what so ever. At least, not with me she wasn't. I always had a good fifteen minutes of bare holding her though before she would wake up enough to realize that she hated that she had woken up.

I think a large part of this was due to the fact that both of us were literally furnaces when we slept. As much as I wanted to spoon her for every second I was in bed with her, I never could because we would both end up sweating like we just finished running a marathon. I took in a deep breath and inhaled her natural scent. Boo's smell, even without perfume, was something that I never will be able to forget. It would tickle my nose hairs and cause a pulsation throughout my nervous system and make me shake like I was standing outside amid freezing temperatures in only shorts and a tee-shirt.

The bed we were sleeping in was enormous, a California King I do believe is what they would call this mattress size, but we still managed to only use as much as we would have in a twin. Even though we wouldn't always cuddle, we always had some piece of both of us touching each other, letting each other know that the other was there. It was a form of connecting, which was a word that better described what we had than any other one that I have ever been able to come across.

I wanted to wake up and begin the day, but I didn't want to leave where I was. Every second I spent with this girl, I cherished as if it was the very last. When I was with her, I wanted to make sure that there wasn't anything left to do, because it all felt so right. Today was going to be incredible. I knew this not only because I was waking up naked with this amazing girl, but also because we were in Florida.

The weather the previous day had been nothing short of spellbinding. Skies so clear, that you couldn't see a cloud anywhere in them. The water was a luscious green, and the sands were pearly white. If romance had a place to call home, this had to be it. She began to toss a little, and I could tell that she was about to wake up, and shift away from me like she always did.

Sometimes though, people surprise you. Maybe it was because of where we were, or maybe it was something in her at that second, but she rolled over and put her arm across my chest and raised her leg over my thigh. She let out a raspy 'good morning' and I felt more at home than I had in years. My desire to do anything else left me stranded in that room, and I fell back asleep.

I don't know how much time had passed, but I felt her get out of the bed, and heard the snapping sound of spandex as she raised her panties over her unmentionables. I opened my eyes and watched her thin-yet curvey frame disappear through the bathroom doorway, and I stretched a bit and got out of bed myself.

I found my trusty white basketball shorts on the floor beside the bed, and put them on and made my way in to brush my teeth and see what she was up to. Her tooth brush weighed heavily on the right side of her mouth, while she made intense brush strokes on the sides bottom row of teeth. She leaned of the sink and looked deeply into the mirror with a pointless gaze, then took her left hand and slid the travel sized tooth paste in my direction.

The way that she would behave in the mornings was comical to say the least. Like I said earlier, she was never the warmest person; but was usually the first to accuse of me being either ‘grumpy’, ‘cranky’, or ‘quiet’ in our first minutes of being awake. It was turning into somewhat of a little game we played, but this morning, there was not a tee time to be had. She spit the built up toothpaste foam from her mouth, and touched me on the arm as she exited the bathroom.

Boo was wonderful when it came to always having coffee made. No matter where we were; be it at work, my home, or anywhere else she would always have a fresh pot brewing by the time I would come join her in the kitchen. So, when I made my leave of the bedroom a few minutes later; it came to me as no great shock that the strong rich smell of a freshly brewing breakfast roast filled the room.

The place where we were staying, was right on the beach. The back wall of the living room had a series of three over-sized sliding doors, that’s glass served as spectacles looking out into the gulf rubbing the Florida coast line. I walked over to them, and opened the door- letting the sweet, peaceful sounds of the ocean enter the room.

Boo absolutely could not stand the fact that I smoked cigarettes. When I was with her, it was usually incredibly easy to pass up the urge for a nicotine fix, yet first thing in the morning it was often a temptation that I would let myself indulge. Remember like I said, Boo wasn’t the friendliest person in the hours of the A.M., so I usually saw it as my ‘Get-out-of-jail-free” card time.

I lit up the square, raised up into a bar-stool type chair and put my feet on the rail of the balcony. She came from inside and placed a cup of coffee, made just the way I took it, on the table to my left. She leaned slightly into the balcony and looked out into the sea. Seeing her in the foreground of the picture I was already taking in my mind, made it all the more inspiring. She raised the mug to her lips, and I watched as she closed her eyes taking a sip.

She made a snappy comment about how trashy smoking was, in a completely light hearted tone, then we began to talk about what all we were going to do that day. The afternoon had been booked for us the second we arrived there. We were going to spend that day as we did the one before and would the day after, with towels spread out on the beach, drinking casually and every half hour or so heading down into the water. That evening would be different though. We had been trying to find different things to do in a town over-run by people daunting the average age of deceased.

Whenever I was with Boo, I always felt like I was connected to her. It was a feeling that I had yet to come across with anyone else I had ever known. When people were talking to us, its like I could read her mind on what she was really thinking about the words that were coming from their mouths. Whenever I would reach to touch her hand, I would usually end up meeting hers in the middle of my reach because her hand was looking for me at the same time.

As Boo walked in front of me towards the beach, I watched her shape move. Boo moved like a song. She had a different kind of sex appeal for me. You see, with Boo I could go on for days about all of the ways that she was physically appealing- but it really didn’t have much of anything to do with what I was drawn to. There was just this connection with her, that I really never even could lay a finger on. I felt like there was something inside of us that synched up. The way that we would do everything, it felt more like one person doing it rather than two.

We spent a great deal of time that afternoon walking all over the shore. We had an interesting way of talking about absolutely nothing and everything at the exact same time. Our conversations were never dull, and would undoubtedly end in one of laughing until the muscles in our stomach cramped. As we talked, we walked down towards a clear spot where the water and sand were saying hello’s and good-bye’s and sat down beside eachother.

She leaned her head into my shoulder, and we both took a deep breath at the same time. I mean DAMN, we were so connected, we even pulled from the air with our lungs in rhythm. As we sat, the water would rush under us both coming and going. With each passing turn, I felt myself sink further into the sand, and within seconds both sets of our feet had been completely buried. Today was perfect.

I wanted dinner to be special that evening. I had read about a place on the very far side of town, that was supposed to be one of the top restaurants in all of Florida. We got ready independently of each other, to make it even more date-like. When she finally came from the bedroom door, she was wearing a red cotton dress, that had white polka dots. The dress conformed to her shape as if it was another layer of skin. She had a huge smile on her face as she walked towards me, I met her in the middle of the walkway and we exchanged a kiss.

The restaurant was simply divine. She ordered a rack of lamb, and I had a rib-eye steak. The meat seemed to melt in my mouth, and the wine sang a perfect harmony with its robust flavor. I looked across the table at her, staring at her smooth green eyes that were decorated with tiny brown spots, and a question ran through my mind. “Was this the best steak I had ever tasted?”

We paid our waiter, who I might should add gave us the best service I had ever received at a restaurant anywhere in my life, and made our way back to the car. We headed back in town to a bar, to catch the tail end of the Warriors-Jazz playoff game, and to have a night cap before returning to the place where we were staying.

We sat at the bar, and tried a couple of different beverages that the bar tender was serving up. Rum was a really big deal in Florida, so I found that most every concoction that he was shaking and stirring was heavy dosed with the Puerto-Rican import. Boo’s laugh would make me light up like a nebula. Her laugh was drenched in such a pure enjoyment of the moment, it was no wonder that it attracted a person that was sitting down from us to come see what all of our fuss was about.

He came up to us, and turned to me first and informed me that I was in the company of the most beautiful girl in the bar. I quickly combated this with “try in the state”, which got both of Boo’s eyes rolling, yet lit up that smile at the same time. The gentleman looked exactly, and I mean to the ‘T’, like Michael Douglas the actor.

His voice was just as raspy, his hair just as grey and poofy; it was surreal. He talked to us about his experiences with women and romance for a good twenty minutes. As his sentences would finish, the two of us would both exchange glances confirming to the other just how much amusement we were receiving from this former stoner’s interesting ways of trying to impress us. By us, I probably mean her, but he was definitely including me as much as he could, in some kind of strange attempt to keep me from becoming somewhat of an aggressor towards him.

Most of what he told us was quite forgetful, but even like mid 90’s disaster movies, he had his memorable moment. He grabbed my hand and gave me a joint, and then gave us an extraordinary suggestion.

“You kids are young, and you don’t realize how unimportant your current job is. You two should just take off from here and drive down to the Keys, and get lost for a while. I promise you that you will not regret anything but not doing it man.”

I laughed it off. What a ridiculous comment. We were both nearing the tapping of our vacations budget, and we had responsibilities back in Texas. We had to get back to work and home, we had things to take care of. Going to the Florida Keys for an undetermined amount of time would be just ridiculous. He kept on trying to persuade us though. It was strange at the time, but maybe he was seeing something that neither of us could.

“We both had pains, we both had eyes, but neither of us can see.” Why is Brandon Boyd always right?

When we got back to our temporary residence, we went out to the beach, and took a night time stroll. She held on to my arm with both of her hands, and we stepped through the sand for several hundred yards before I finally stopped her.

“Boo, I don’t want to ever forget this. I don’t ever want you to forget this either. This moment. The way that the sky was clear, and the moon was half-full. The way the lights look in these buildings, how cool the sand feels on our bare feet, how there isn’t much of a breeze at all, the smell of the ocean, hell- even the large boat that’s moving right down there. Boo, promise me that you will never forget this feeling, because I know I never will.”

It was dark, but the various light sources lit her face up enough for me to see her smile and exude a peaceful joy. We didn’t say anything for a few seconds, just stared into each others eyes. It was too dark to see her jade lenses, but it was bright enough to see into her soul. She was happy with me there, she loved me right then, even if it only was for that moment.

Words can often mess a lot of things up, get twisted or exaggerate emotions to where they almost become tainted, but eyes are honest. Right there on that beach in that minute, our eyes were telling the other things that words would never be able to convey. We kissed as deep as the ocean’s depths, and I felt the connection stronger than I ever had before. She tilted her head to left and I tilted mine in response, and as I opened my mouth I felt her soft tongue lightly massage mine. I loved the things her tongue would say to me when we kissed.

In my life, I have never had love like I did that evening. I laid beside her in complete tranquility, we felt like one. This connection seemed to be as real as the rain and the earth. It seemed to be as sure as the sun rising and falling. It was the first time I could remember in my life really believing in something as strongly as I did. I had faith that she was supposed to be in my life, and I in hers. No one knew this connection.

If I would have known this faith I had to be blind and misleading, I probably wouldn’t have let myself fall asleep that evening. I had no idea about the future though, only that moment. I relaxed my muscles and closed my eyes. We both sighed simultaneously. Our breathing was still in sync.