Falling for Love
Friday, June 24, 2011 at 12:56AM , running, running, running over the details in my mind.
A car thrashed by and I chose to accept the wilful smile of its driver as an invitation to enter it. She chose to accept my frantic running as payment for her benevolence.
My date earlier that night started badly and ended worse. Set up with my mom's friend's cousin's daughter, I thought it might shut my mom up for a while when it came to my dating life. The girl arrived a half hour early to pick me up--she had offered to drive in some misguided attempt to ignite her understanding of what constituted a modern romance.
Three courses and bar tab exceeding $300 later and I had suckered my way into (but not yet out of) another date with a woman trying to convince me of how laid back she is by letting me take advantage of her. I smirked between sips, which she could have only interpreted as flirtation. I was golden.
When it was time to head home, she ignored my directions and placated me by saying she'd grown up in the area and knew a shortcut. This "shortcut" took four times as long to get to the destination, which of course ended up being nowhere near my house. She stopped the car in the middle of a field that looked more like a desert, all of its bounty having already been harvested for the year. Turning off the engine, she turned to me with a devilish yet uncertain look in her eye. She wanted so badly to be the confident, bad girl, but in reality she was merely naive with questionable intentions.
Forcing herself on me, I realized what it felt like to be receiving this punishment. How the very act of forcing these lies reduces all enjoyment of future truths. I don't believe in harming women, but I had to push against her with considerable force to make my escape. To preserve any chance I'd ever have at enjoying truths with women I cared for in the future.
Which brings us to the car--the first to come by, rescuing me from the hellish date, and the last I'd ever ride in. Temptations of the flesh plagued my first date; compulsions of the soul guaranteed the end of my second one. A few minutes later, the driver of my car, a mysterious lady in a white eyelet dress, placed a red 20-pound bowling ball on the gas pedal, unbuckled her seat belt, turned up the radio to its highest setting, and climb aboard my confusion as the car sailed off a cliff. She caught my screams in her mouth. I knew there was no point in fighting it; removing the ball from the pedal now wouldn't slow our descent into madness.
