Once in Beasejour

Once in Beasejour

       by Drago Reimershavaljevic

                        if you are asked by anyone wise to don a mask

                        that then when you have done so all the world

                        becomes a glossy photo of the places you would like

                        to see adopt a stance on women's rights and whales

                        protection do so willingly and hold back nothing

                        give all you have to such endeavor and you'll find

                        that all the world adopts a glossy image of the one

                        who had adopted them and their attributations of unease

Raymond was filling out an application. When he got to the question, "Sex," he wrote in the little box, using tiny letters, "Yes, but only once, in Beausejour." He had met her at the bar on a Tuesday after a ball game between the Beausejour Redsocks and the Miami Sealers. Running after a grounder right up against the back fence, he had seen her mowing grass in white cutoffs and a yellow halter. Long legs, white tennis shoes and a yellow ponytail energetic with the effort of pushing a heavy Briggs and Stratton up the sloping front lawn. Later she smiled at him when he came over to her table and asked what she was drinking.

       "Corrine," she said, offering her hand the way we still do it here in rural Manitoba.

       "Spike," he said, taking it. "I'm from Deloraine, playing for Miami. I'll get you a, ah, Red Cap, you said, right?" She looked at him with reserve for only a moment before she put on her face of trust and coolness and nodded. They spoke little during the next few hours. She checked her watch now and then and he finally asked her to come join the boys at the table next to the VLT's where the music blared, the lights pulsed, and the jokes were blue.

       "Hear the one about Luigi and his flock of sheep?"

       "Say, tell the one about Snowshoe Jake from Tadoolee Lake!"

       "Did I tell you guys the one about the groom who gets his head stuck in the toilet bowl?"

       Up in the room Raymond had rented they sipped another beer. She began to unbutton her blouse. He sat on the bed looking at her and talking about things inappropo. He had noticed the darkness of her bra under her white blouse and it made him cross-eyed to look at her and away from her at the same time. He didn't want to seem eager. This was his first time but he had no intention of letting her know. He came up beside her, kissed her ears and neck, let his finger move down from her hair to her throat and shoulders and then to her small breasts. He descended on this path till he found himself between her thighs, drinking in the delights there with both wonder and a sense of sudden ambition.

       They did next what couples tend to do next. His penis, hard to the point of discomfort, longing for release in a harbor, like sailors from a ship that has been too long at

sea, angled out and thrust itself forward toward the fish in the pond. He entered her, she moaned volubly and immediately, and after a few minutes of great pleasure and a searing loss of fluid, he rolled over on his side. He continued to stroke her skin, especially her stomach and collarbone, while she whimpered a few sad little whimpers. Too soon she got up and dressed. He asked if she would like to go for another beer downstairs but she shook her head. She had to get home. Tomorrow was Sunday. He walked down to the hotel entrance with her and then into the bar. He resisted telling the guys about it, a few of whom were still ordering.