DatingGod

Dating God: Chapter 31

Chapter 31 is up:

            “How’d you do it, Ruf? How’d you pull it off? You seem to have gotten yourself loved and free and happy.”

            “I keep telling you, Ellie, it’s The Land. If you give yourself to it, it makes you free. I grow my own food, make a little honey wine, celebrate the holidays of my choosing, sing, pick a little on the guitar. And here on The Land, I’m surrounded by people who Get It. They know civilization’s a misery. And with what’s coming for us in the next decade, what with peak oil and global warming and the food supply screwed eight ways from Sunday, there ain’t going to be much left of civilization anyways.”

            “I finished A Language Older Than Words a while back. It was good,” I said.

            “Take it easy on the Derrick Jensen. He’s righteous angry and spot on. But too mucha that boy and you’ll lose your will to live,” he said.

            “Dang skippy, right?” I replied. “But, actually, what I keep thinking about are bees. Bees pollinate plants, I knew that, but I don’t think I gave much thought about what they really mean, what any of it means, how without bees we can’t grow fruits and vegetables.”

            “Eh, don’t get me started on my girls. The hype is how all of a sudden they’re disappearing. But the truth is they been dying off for a hundred years. Global warming and all that shite is getting popular now, so they toss the bee issue in there with it, when what’s really going on is all beings - insects, people, trees, you name it - everything is dying off, mutating at crazy rates.”

            “I keep dreaming about them.”

           “Bees?

           “Yeah, bees. It’ll be a normal dream, then the person I’m talking to in the dream leans in close, and instead of normal eyes, their eyes are made up of thousands of these hexagonal lenses, and I understand I’m talking to a giant bee. But instead of feeling scared, I feel incredibly happy, as if my long lost bee best friend just found me.”

           “The bees are trying to make contact with you,” he said. . .

 

Chapter 31

Dating God: Chapter 30

Chapter 30 is up:

 

            The next night was a busy one at the restaurant. Due to an overcorrection of coffee trying to rectify a vicious red wine hangover, combined with not enough sleep, I wasn’t exactly in top form. And managing the joint for Vito was not proving to be the funfest I thought it’d be. I was running around seating people at dirty tables because the busboy was, yet again, stoned out of his gourd. The phone was ringing off the hook with take out orders. The cooks, at a special decibel level of hostile, were back to pretending to be non-English speaking, unleashing screaming Spanish at the waiters, busboys, customers, me. And Buck? As usual, he was up to his quivering, red-rimmed eyeballs in margarita mix and sweat, requiring me to jump behind the bar to bail him out not one, not two, but three times.

            When the insanity finally cooled down around ten p.m., I poured a couple fingers of tequila into a cup with strong black tea, eased my barking dogs up on a barstool. Sipping Mexican tea, drift-dreaming, I closed my eyes and everything went soft and quiet. 

 

Chapter 30.

Dating God: Chapter 29

And now for free-flowing red wine and fabulous girlfriends, Chapter 29 is up:

 

            After we’d turned the restaurant over to the staff on for the night shift, Billie and I headed out for some hang time.  There was a ridiculously trendy restaurant one of her law school peeps had told her about, so we walked the few blocks west to check it out. It was like teleporting into another world. Enormous, lifelike aquatic animals hung from barnacle-encrusted rafters, the floor rippled like an ocean floor, covered in polyurethaned sand. The furniture was shaped like seaweed beds, coral reefs, frondy plant life. The long, flowing-haired waitresses, dressed as mermaids and sirens, were especially surly, even by New York City standards, and Billie and I deemed them “piranhas-of-the-sea”. We decided it was a red wine night and slowly, methodically, began to drink our way down the by-the-glass list.

            “Chica, we haven’t been out like this in forever,” she said, brushing her inky black bangs across her forehead.

            “Yeah, I’m a bad girlfriend,” I said slapping my own hand. “Bad, bad girlfriend.”

            “No corporal punishment required,” she said, laughing that wonderful high-pitched bray of hers I loved so much. “Your heart is getting rehydrated and shit. You're getting laid regularly. I'm happy for you, honey.”

            “Yeah, Bill. S’wonderful and all, but it's also terrifying. Know what I mean, jellybean?”

            “Love can jack the nerves, oh yeah,” she said, her cocoa-colored eyes warm and sweet, if a little bloodshot. She always seemed to look more than a little tired these days, even if that zinging energy of hers never seemed to dial down to less than super-charged. She played with her salad, scooting the hijiki to the side of the clamshell bowl. “But everything’s still going well with you guys?” she asked.

            “I’m not sure,” I said, reaching over to score her hijiki for my own clamshell. “He's pulling away, and it’s freaking me out a little. I’ve barely seen him in over a week. He’s got all these excuses. Mostly they're good. Mostly valid. But something's up. I can feel it.”

            Our service piranha walked by and Billie tried unsuccessfully to get her attention. “Sure,” she said. “Look at who you're dealing with.”

            Something about the way she said it pinged oddly. “He and Buck seem to go way back,” I said, going on a fishing expedition. “How long have you known him?”

            “Oh, God, six, seven years? He used to come in all the time when I was bartending at The Taco Toilet. Wasn’t he around when you were behind the bar?”

            “Not that I remember. What was he like back then?”

            She opened her mouth but nothing came out. She reached for her wine glass, quiet for a moment, then she started chattering at high velocity in between sips of wine, avoiding my eyes the whole time. “I used to date him, actually it was more like friends with benefits without the friends part, I know I should have told you, but my experience with him wasn't so great, and you guys were getting along so well, and he really seems different with you, I mean he's older, more mature, but he treats you differently than he treated me, and I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to spoil what was obviously going really well for you,” she said, followed by a series of tight little laughs.

            “It’s okay, Bill. Seriously. I knew it was something like that,” I said, reaching over to squeeze her hand.

 

Chapter 29.

 

Dating God: Chapters 27 & 28

New chapters up for ya'll: 

 

            The afternoon drug its way toward early evening, and I tried to stay busy. I was in the middle of cutting up lime wedges for the evening shift when the door opened, the strip of bells attached to it by a cord tinkling lightly. It was the hip, polished guy from the other night, the one so full of smarm and pseudo-spiritual pap. He sat down at the bar, gliding movements that took him from standing to sitting in one fluid motion. Placing his hands lightly atop the raised lip of the worn bar, his fingertips touched the flat part as if he were about to play the piano. He looked at me in silence. I looked back. I knew what he was doing. He could wait.

            After a long minute of an unwinnable staring contest I asked “Yes?” in a light singsong, drawing the word out for several seconds, hoping it came off as cheerful.

            He pursed his lips in what was almost a kissing motion, tapping his fingers on the bar.

            Billie brought up a drink check and I walked over to the waiter’s station. One margarita, rocks, salt. One frozen marg. Two strawberry frozen margs. Two club sodas. One oj. And one Grey Goose dirty martini with extra olives. I placed the martini in front of the immaculately dressed man who’d watched my every move, smirking when he raised an eyebrow in acknowledgement.

            “Thank you,” he said, elegantly, and took a sip.

            “You are most welcome,” I said, mimicking his tone. He didn’t smile. “So, where are your friends?” I asked.

            “I gave them the night off,” he answered. “They’re a little too hyphy for what I have in mind this evening. This is a solo trip.”

            “How brave of you,” I said, a little more sarcastically then I intended.

            “A truly luscious woman will make a man do all sorts of heroic things, don’t you think?” he said with what he obviously believed would show up as smoldering charm.

            Instead every last receptor in my body pulled away from him, repulsed.

            “Why are you afraid of me?” he asked, eating the olives one by one before starting in on the alcohol.

            “I’m not afraid of you.”

            “Yes, you are.”

            “No, I’m not.”

            “You most certainly are.”

            “Am not, am not, am not,” I said in a snotty-little-girl voice.

            He shrugged and motioned for more olives.

            “Why would you say that?” I asked, dropping a half dozen olives and a slosh of cloudy brine into his glass.

            “Because you retract your energy when you experience the extension of mine.”

            “What is it with you and your fascinating comments on my energy?” I said as I reached into my tip cup for the cigarette pack. “Seriously, share,” I said and lit a cigarette. “You feel the need to give me a love massage? Spin a story of our entwined destinies? Please,” I said. “I’ve done the Bangladesh-granolahead route. There was nothing there but bad bean products and people who ate fucking clouds for breakfast.”

            “And gurus who sexually abuse their students,” he said.

            My stomach did a swan dive into an bottomless abyss. “What did you say?” I asked.

 

~~~~~

The ride is about to get real bumpy  . . . 

 

Dating God: Chapters 26

Chapter 26 is up:

 

            The next day, I was beyond tired. From an onslaught of PMS, working too many shifts, my still sore ankle, staying up all night with Raphael talking and humping the hell out of each other, just plain freakin exhausted. But there were errands to run, bills to pay, general life stuff that accumulates when we’re busy being in love. 

            That night Raphael drove to Brooklyn, picked me up, and we went back to his house. He was in Direct Deposit Screw Up Hell and I convinced him to take my wallet, fill up his gas tank, buy himself some take-out. Back at his home, I fell asleep on the couch, exhaustion still running my show. A couple of hours later he shook me awake. I staggered into bed but passed out dead asleep before he could convince me to go anywhere near sex. He punished me with partial cuddles for the whole night. I woke up cranky, uterus aching, still not wanting sex. He pouted like a five-year old. Which made me laugh. And the funkier he got, the more I laughed. Until finally he was laughing, too.

            “It's your job to slap me upside the head a few times if I get a case of the babies,” he said.

            “Okay,” I said cheerfully, smacking him fairly lightly on the side of his head.

            “Thanks,” he said.

            “Not a problem. None whatsoever.” I said, going in for a second bop.

~~~~~

And happy freaking new year from Elle, Ray, Scooter, and the gang . . . 

 

Dating God: Chapters 24 & 25

Chapters 24 & 25 are up:

~~~~~

            “Honey, you need to be a little more gentle with that. You're going to choke me on that thing.”

            “Baby, I'm sorry. I got a little excited.”

            “Seriously. You're really big. You should have made me sign a waiver.”

            “Ha-ha, very funny,” he said.

            “I'm serious,” I said.

            “No, you’re not.”

            “Yes, I am.”

            “You women are taught to say that.” He reached over and put me in a headlock.

            “We are not,” I said, enjoying being squeezed between his delicious bicep and tricep.

            “To make us feel better.”

            “You're calling me a liar, Señor Bratwurst?”

            “You’re trying to pump me up,” he said.

            “I’m trying to keep you from suffocating me. Like now.”

            “Yeah, right,” he said, still not getting it, but releasing my head.

            I poked him in the chest. “Raphael, you need to wake up and smell the triple cappuccino. You are Home of The Whopper. You need to come to terms with it or seek professional help for your delusions of lack of grandeur.”

            “Maybe your perspective is off.” He grabbed my finger, turned it into a popsicle.

            “It is not. I’ve been with lots of guys with large penises and trust me, yours is a big one.”

            He pulled my finger out of his mouth. “I didn’t need to hear all that.”

            “You were the one who brought up perspective. I needed to compare and contrast to make my point.”

            “Okay. Fine.”

            “Admit you have a big one.”

            “You need to stop.” He was getting embarrassed.

            “Say it. Say ‘I am Raphael The Huge and I admit it to the world!” I said rolling on top of him, pinning his arms above his head. “Say it!”

            “So, you're saying I’m endowed.”

            “El Grande, Raphael.”

            “And it's not opinion but fact.”

            “Super huge. Deluxe. King size. Extra, extra large. Jumbo! Not just width but girth, I tell you, girth!” I yelled, bouncing up and down on him.

~~~~~

Have at it. And have yourself a super chill holiday, too. Don't forget to drop the No and just say yes to the Yes. :)

 

 

Dating God: Chapters 22 & 23

Two chapters are now up for you, to make up for the fact that I'm posting late, and because the editing has been going well :)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

            Scooter waved my question away. “This week’s Doomer Porn?” he asked, after draining the second glass of water much like the first.

            I held up the book so he could read the title.

            “Guns, Germs, and Steel by the illustrious Jared Diamond,” he said, flipping through the pages. “So this one is, wait, let me guess, this one’s about online porn? No? No online virtual porn? Then is it about death, war, and the evils of America? I bet it’s the latter. It is, isn’t it? C’mon you can tell me, Elle.”

            “It’s actually really good, Scooter. It’s a history of how different groups of people conquered or were conquered by other groups. The impact things like agriculture and available large mammals for food or domestication had on population growth. How the lethal germs the Europeans brought with them weakened North and South American Indians, allowing them to be more easily conquered.”

            “Why do you read this bummer bullshit?”

            “It won a Pulitzer,” I said.

            “Then it must be true!” he said, handing it back to me. “Don’t you get it’s just more bullshit? That garbage like this is like the “Green Movement”, just another way to keep people feeling guilty and spending their money, but instead of greed, it’s for the environment! Buy things, buy green things, keep spending, use up more resources to help save the planet!”

            “Scooter, are you drunk?”

            “Elle, are you high?”

            I laughed. He did, too.

            “Scooter,” I said.

            “Elle,” he answered.

            “I need to ask you something. But I need to know how drunk you are. I can’t always tell with you.”

            “I know. I’m a highly skilled professional.”

            “So?”

            “So, I’m between almost drunk and not drunk enough.”

            “So, can I ask you something?”

            “Shoot,” he said, watching the latest sports figures flash across the bar tv.

            “Seriously,” I said.

            He turned to me, took my hands in his, put a very serious look on his face. “Seriously, shoot.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~  

To read more of Chapters 22 & 23 Go Here. 

 

 

Dating God: Chapter 21

Chapter 21 is up:

            ... Javier laughed. “It's working, whatever you’re doing. He walks around like the world's his oyster. Nothing can bring him down.”

            “That's the plan,” I said, squeezing him on the shoulder. “More schnapps?”

            “This one’s on me,” he said, pulling out his wallet.

            “Then make it tequila, my hombre,” I said, and we both laughed.

            As dawn closed in on us, fiver after fiver got chucked into the jukebox. The bartender cranked the volume up. Buck did the white boy bop, punk style. Raphael and his buzz-cut crew punk-pogo-ed, copboy style. Billie gorgeously serpentined her zaftig limbs, channeling 1970’s Soul Train. And me? I twirled and twirled and twirled. We laughed like howling wolves, tossing back beers and shots, more beers and shots, dancing til the sweat ran off us like rain. Watching everyone dance and holler, cops and hooch slingers alike, I had a boozy-beautiful flash of clarity. We weren’t that different from any other tribe, dancing and singing in grateful supplication for the survival and fruits of a day’s good hunt. We were prayer in motion, for more, for Yes, for sex to make manifest the sacred union of heaven and earth. Our hands in the air, hips in ecstatic grooves, Life was dancing evolution itself through us. And it was dang good...

 

Chapter 21 

Dating God: Chapter 20

Chapter 20 is up. An excerpt:

            “I see kids dancing on street corners up in the Height, think of her, what it meant. Been thinking about her a lot lately. I arrest black or brown-skinned teenagers. Send them off to a youth detention center, juvenile correctional institution, prison camp. What’s the difference?”

            “At least they don’t have to work in a tobacco field.”

             “There’s that.”

            “But seriously, if I were a ghetto kid I’d do the same thing, run around trying to scare up some action, some excitement, a little cash. Supposedly crime doesn’t pay, but a minimum wage job at a fast food joint? That’s a hefty vig to pay in self-esteem and dead-endedness. If it were you, wouldn’t you fight?”

            “From my perspective as a cop out in the middle of it, it’s chaos. A barely contained war. My job is to keep it from exploding, throwing us back to a time without justice. No consequence for murder, rape, theft of home or life. Or maybe I am a perimeter guard for Utopia. Put in place so the poor don’t organize themselves.  Band together. Overthrow the real minority. But thinking like this is poison. I need to figure this nonsense out because if someone points a gun at me, I have to pull mine. In that moment, I have to know I fight the good fight. I have to believe it’s a good fight.”

            “It is, Raphael. It is because you’re good.”

            “Am I?

Chapter 20

(And if you're reading the novel chapters, and are liking them, please pass the link along, post about it, etc. to any of your folks you feel would like to read about the psychic bar-goddess and the hero cop and the days in NYC before the Towers fell)