February 28, 2005

The mirror in Zed’s room stands rather indecently at the foot of her bed. Thus, after softly kissing Laura’s belly in the morning, I looked behind me to catch a glimpse of my naked butt reflected in Zed’s mirror.

“Wow, check out that sweet ass!” I said, flexing my muscles and arching my back. She laughed at my sudden fascination with my own buttocks, and I laughed too as I pulled up my pants.

We met Zed for breakfast at George’s Diner, a place drenched in the intoxicating aromas of old people and urine. The waitress had jaundiced eyes and white hair and looked ready to slap us for ordering breakfast.

We were intimidated and ate timidly, afraid of the old men with wrinkled asses sitting behind us. As we gulped down the food without chewing we softly confessed our sins:

“This city killed my academic self,” Zed whispered.

“I’m a hypnic jerker,” I confessed.

“All I want is a good description of cunts,” Laura said.

That’s when the waitress showed up with a pot of coffee and a hateful glare. I smiled and she filled my cup; Laura smiled and the waitress poured her half a cup before unexplainably stopping. She left without saying a word.

“Maybe she hates everyone,” we thought, dressed for leaving.

Breakfasts served with hate make me sleepy as fuck. I craved to be back in Zed’s bed, so I made Laura take me home where I crawled under the blankets and then told her to go away.

“Go drive through this strange city without a map or any directions and let me sleep,” I said. Four hours later when she still didn’t return I was afraid I lost her.

But she eventually came back with wine, Zed, and giggles and we started drinking. I must have been pretty drunk when I started roaming through downtown St. Catharines wearing a blanket and a bonnet. I remember eating meat with my hands and meeting wonderful people. And late in the night I remember Laura’s warm hands on my back and dirty things whispered in eager ears.

Next morning Laura and I left the city after one final greasy breakfast. Zed looked ravishing in men’s clothes; her boy looked like a zombie John Lennon. I showed them what catatonia looked like and we giggled.

After one final hug and sloppy kiss, Laura aimed the car homewards. We stopped in Dundas an hour later where she forced me to cross waterfalls on rusty beams, blood shaking my heart and my knees. She tried to kiss away my fears; I called her an asshole. She kissed me again in Cambridge, where we walked under bridges, bought toys, and made a dirty movie about love and death.

And once she stopped laughing, and we were about to return to Waterloo, her eyes filled with sadness and doubt.

“I don’t know what happens now,” she said. “And I’m afraid.”

“I don’t know either,” I said, and we left it at that. We returned home in a snowstorm, windshield wipers slapping time, singing Janis Joplin songs.

Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…

This has been the third and final part of our orgasmic road trip across the province. You can go back and read the other two parts here and here.