It was about 4:00 one late spring afternoon and I was driving casually up a country road, on the way back to town after doing a soil stability analysis on a rural site.
https://livesex.bar I was coming up on a bicyclist headed the same way, half watching him/her to be sure I wasn't crowding the rider with my F250. The rider was wearing one of those tight, ugly unisex cycling outfits, and I had given up checking out cyclist's rear ends after a couple occasions of discovering, on passing the rider, that the cute butt at one end of the bike had a beard at the front. I've got no problem with gays, but I'm not and I can't help it if I found the experience disturbing. I stuck to watching them just enough to be sure I was sharing the road fairly after that.
I had just swung out to pass the rider with plenty of space when a black and white blur flew out of the roadside bushes and hit the front wheel, sending the rider ass over teakettle. I slammed on the brakes and turned to see a big, ugly dog snapping at the downed rider as he/she tried to fend it off with the bike from a sitting position. Well, that's ridiculous; I grabbed my hawthorn walking stick from behind the seat and jumped out, waving and yelling. The dog turned to me and got a couple good whacks in the ribs before it put its tail between its legs and ran off yelping. I turned to the rider.
"You hurt?"
I looked a little closer. Definitely female, even under the eyesore cycling outfit. She pulled off her helmet, releasing a tangled mass of strawberry blond hair, and looked up at me.
"Scraped up but nothing worse, I think. Where did that thing come from?"
"Must belong to one of those hillbillies out here. Let me help you up."
She started to take my hand and then winced.
"Darn, my hands are really scraped up."
"OK, let's try it this way."
I held her upper arm to keep her steady as she picked herself up. She took a couple steps and then staggered, almost going down, and I threw an arm around her waist. Not a big waist, I noticed in passing. She let me take her light weight.
"You hit your head or something?"
"No, I think it's just adrenaline aftershocks. That was scary."
"No kidding."
I dropped the tailgate and half lifted her onto it.
"Just sit there for a few minutes and get your bearings. Let me see your hands."
She held them out. Both palms were well scraped up, with a couple fairly deep cuts that looked like they had gravel in them. Nice hands otherwise, long fingers well cared for.
"I need the first aid kit. Sit tight a second."
When I came back I noticed a line of blood running down her leg. Potentially attractive legs under better circumstances.
"Looks like your knees took a hit too. How do they feel?"
She swung her legs a little.
"Just scraped and bruised, I think."
She sucked on her lower lip. Cute gesture on her.
"I'm really putting you to a lot of trouble here. Don't you need to go someplace?"
"What am I going to do, leave you ten miles from town injured and with a busted bike? I work for myself so there's no one tracking my time. I'll take off if you insist but I wouldn't feel right about it."
She smiled. A smile that should be registered as a lethal weapon, even through the streaks of mud and sweat across her face.
"I appreciate it, believe me. I just hate to be such a bother."
"Forget it."
I pulled the Leatherman off my belt and folded out the tweezers.
"Let me see those hands again."
I quickly removed the gravel and applied Neosporin and a bandage, and then did the same to her knee.
"You're pretty good at that."
"I was a Devil Doc years ago. Once you've learned to deal with IED injuries a scraped hand is pretty easy. Ready to walk to the door of the truck?"
"You don't have to do all that."
"Like I said, I can't leave you out here stuck. Go hop in."
She carefully walked to the door of the truck, keeping one hand on the side for balance, while I tossed her bike in the back and climbed in the other side.
"First things first. Hi, I'm Ben McLoughlin."
She started to stick out her hand and then thought better of it.
"Jill Williams. I'd normally be glad to meet you, but this way of doing it is painful."
"Hope it doesn't happen often- at least the bike wreck part of it. So, Jill, should I take you home or to the doctor's office?"
"Home would be great. I just want to get cleaned up and get some rest. I live over on Decatur Street."
I tried to make small talk on the way, but she was obviously worn out and struggling to hold up her end, so I let it go and finished the ride in silence except for the directions to her house. She lived in a small house in an older but comfortable part of town, and had a Miata parked in the driveway. She lifted herself out of the truck gingerly, and I climbed out my side.
"Where do you want the bike?"
"Just set it next to the garage for now. Look, you've been really great."
"No problem."
"Well, thanks again."
For the last half of the ride I had been debating whether to suggest that I'd like to see her again. I decided to skip it- she obviously wasn't in any mood to be flirting after the crappy day she'd been having, and it would be sleazy to act like I was expecting something for helping her out.
"Glad to do it. Good luck."
As I drove off I wondered if I was making the biggest mistake of my life.
A couple days later I found an unfamiliar cell phone under the seat of the truck while I was looking for my spare batteries.
https://sexchat.bar Nobody on my crew recognized it, but one had the same model and charged it up for me. None of the names in the directory looked familiar, so I took a chance and pushed the "Home" button. I got a female voice.
"Hello?"
"Uh, hello... I'm not sure who I'm calling here but I think I have your cell phone."
Slightly suspicious.
"Who's this?"
"My name's Ben McLoughlin. I found this thing in my truck."
The voice warmed up like the sun popping out from behind a cloud.
"Oh, Ben, this is Jill Williams! Remember you saved me from that dog and gave me a ride home?"
"Of course I remember. You must have dropped your phone. How would you like me to get it back to you?"
"Can we meet up tomorrow?"
"Well, tomorrow's Friday. I have to be out in the field most of the day. How about I buy you a drink after work?"
"Sounds good, but I'm buying. It's the least I can do after you were so helpful."
"You don't owe me anything, but we'll figure something out. Say 6:00 at Anthony's?"
"Works for me. See you then."
Anthony's is a seafood restaurant and bar on the waterfront boardwalk, which makes it a great place to have an after work drink and watch the sunset. I got there early enough to grab a table at the window overlooking the marina and ordered a beer while I waited. As I idly watched a seal in the harbor I heard a low whistle from the next table. I turned and saw most of the men in the bar looking in the same direction. A stunningly beautiful woman in elegant business clothes had just walked in and appeared to be looking around for someone. Some guys have all the luck. Her strawberry blond hair was in a neat French twist- wait, strawberry blonde? I looked again and she saw me, smiled, and strode toward my table, making me the target of all the envious looks for once in my life. I stood up and held her chair.
"Jill? Wow, you clean up well!"
"Thanks. I really wasn't at my best the other day."
"No surprise given the kind of day you were having. How are your hands?"
"No problems, just waiting for them to heal."
She showed me her palms, which did look better. Graceful gold watch, no hint of a ring- this was looking better all the time.
"What did you say you were? A Devil Dog?"
"No, a Devil Dog is a Marine. I was a Devil Doc- a Navy corpsman attached to a Marine unit. That was a long time ago, though."
"Sounds scary."
"Not really. I got out before 9/11. Actually, I spent most of my service in Korea. Sometimes I thought that every new Marine had to learn the hard way not to fight with Korean civilians. I patched up more drunk jarheads on Saturday nights than I care to remember."
There actually had been some pretty scary nights along the DMZ, but why bring up a downer like that?
"You in medicine now?"
"No, I'm a civil engineer. The Navy was more a growing up experience than a career choice. So what do you do?"
"I'm a lawyer with the state Department of Justice."
"How did you get into that?"
The waitress came by and Jill ordered a glass of Chardonnay for herself and another Red Hook for me. The conversation never slowed down, and before we knew it the sun was all the way down.
"Want to order some dinner? Any other plans tonight?"
"Dinner sounds great. All I was going to do tonight was read a bunch of work files."
"Sad thing for a pretty woman to be doing on a Friday night."
She shrugged.
https://sexcam.bar"Thanks. I'm too busy for much of a social life outside of work and I learned the hard way that dating other lawyers is a dead end street. The legal community gossips more than my college sorority. This is the closest I've come to a date in months."
"So is this a date or a friendly dinner?"
She winked.
