Rambling Rhodes

Blow Job Denial

She was crying.

I never know how to approach a crying girl. It's much like coming across a $100 bill. You don't know what to think, and you look around for a bit before moving towards it.

It was early in the morning, just after 5:30 a.m. It was one of those extremely rare mornings when I actually had to prepare the meat department for the day, which meant uncovering the meat case and filling up any dwindling stock. It was boring, monotonous work, and it was made more distasteful because I knew, in three hours, I would have to take off for my first class of the day: philosophy, I think, or maybe it was Vietnam history. I can't remember. Let's just say it was a sucky class and leave it at that.

Normally, only one person was required to prepare the meat counter in the morning, but because Christmas was fast approaching, the grocery powers that be decreed that two people should be on hand to prepare the varied departments. This meant that one person would do all the work while the other person would sit around and nurse a hangover. It was far more efficient that way.

That morning, my meat department teammate was Stephanie. I'd always liked Steph. She was short and cute and bubbly and fun, and we even had a few summer journalism classes together. We had one of those friendships that was based almost entirely on ripping on one another. She'd call me a dick, I'd call her a bitch, she'd slug me in the stomach, and I'd parry with a punch to her shoulder, and then we'd retreat to separate corners to nurse our respective wounds.

A little blonde unit, Steph had a tomboyish side to her, which on her it was an extremely attractive quality. She could toggle quickly between being "one of the guys" to being coy and teasing and sometimes even sultry, albeit sultry in a Steph way, which meant sexy mixed with a punch to the gut. Trust me, it was cute.

I'd never seen Steph cry though. She was just one of those stoic girls who could lose her hand on the meat band saw and just suck it up until the ambulance arrived, and she'd probably finish cleaning the saw before it even got there. So, seeing Steph cry, with her hands buried in her face, only about a foot away from the deli slicer, made me pause.

On the one hand, she may have been hurt by the slicer, which was entirely possible because I'd lost part of the tip of my finger on the slicer about a year before, and trust me, I wanted to cry. On the other hand, this was Steph. Steph didn't cry. She was incapable of crying. Plus, crying was not allowed in the meat department. The meat department was the manly department. It was secretly understood that crying was banned. Besides, tears made the T-bones taste salty.

I approached Steph tentatively, scanning for blood and accessing my dusty brain archives for my dormant first aid training skills. As I got closer, however, I realized she wasn't injured, at least not externally. All I could think to do was put my hand on her shoulder and ask if there was anything I could do. This was an alien gesture for me when it came to Steph. I felt as if I should punch her in the shoulder for good measure.

She was startled at first, so lost in her misery that she didn't know I was there. Once she saw it was me, however, she grasped my hand in hers and started crying harder. There was no way I was going to get my morning work done at this rate. Women. Well, now she had my hand, and she was crying, and I wasn't sure why, but I was pretty much convinced it had to be a relationship issue, and I wasn't a good enough friend to sit there and listen to how her boyfriend had dumped her. I mean, come on! There was work to be done, after all.

In a move totally uncharacteristic of Steph, she went from a clasped hand to a full-fledged hug, burying her face in my chest, and I could feel her tears seeping through both my meat apron and my shirt. This girl was going to dehydrate herself. I hugged her back, while at the same time I noticed that the boneless chicken breasts really needed to be refilled. The boneless chicken breasts ALWAYS needed to be refilled. They were a popular item, particularly the teriyaki marinated chicken breasts. I'll admit it: the teriyaki chicken breasts were pretty damned tasty, but they were messy, and. . .

Steph bit me. She bit me right on the chest. Hard. Over the next couple of days, that bite would leave a nasty bruise, a purple and blue welt smack dab in the center of my chest, right over the sternum. And let me just state for the record, it fucking hurt like hell. Ladies, if you wish to hurt a man, try biting him on the chest, right over the sternum. I guarantee he'll scream bloody murder.

I shoved Steph back, and she released her mandibular lock on my chest. She looked up at me with a smile that was combined with both sadness and her trademark devilish grin. Whatever was bothering her, whatever made her cry, she wasn't going to tell me. She wiped at her eyes and started busying herself with preparing the meat case.

"That really fucking hurt!" I exclaimed, pretty much blurting out the obvious. "What's the matter with you this morning, anyway? Man problems?"

"Men are always a problem," she shot back. "And you deserved that bite because last time we worked together you squirted meat blood on my ass."

Oh. Right. Good point. Ah, meat department hi-jinx. How I miss it.

"Fine! Whatever!" I said, pretty much saying nothing at all. "Are you going to be all right though? I can cover for you if you're not up to. . ."

"I'm fucking fine," she said, dismissing me with a wave of her hand, and then she disappeared into the back storage area and I didn't see her for the next ten minutes.

I muttered as I worked, rubbing my bite wound occasionally. As much as I disliked preparing the meat department, I have to admit there was something nice about the solitude of the early morning, with only sound being the buzzing flourescent lights and the meat cooler and display cases. It was mechanical, non-thinking work, which freed the mind to think about things it wanted to think about. Strangely, at 5:30 in the morning, my mind usually only wanted to think about sleep.

I went into the big meat cooler to fetch the five gallon pail of chicken breasts we used for marinating them in teriyaki. I always thought it was funny how we used five gallon pails for marinating. Julia Child never did that.

"Sorry I bit you so hard," said Steph, who had snuck up behind me and startled me so bad I dropped the pail of chicken tits on my foot. The force also popped the top off the pail and sent a lonely teriyaki-soaked chicken breast skittering across the floor.

I studied the breast for moment, thinking it would make a nice cheap dinner for the evening if I snatched it up off the floor quickly enough. My thoughts were quickly brought back to reality when Steph grabbed at my chest. It wasn't a violent chest grab, either. It was one of those seductive hands snaking up from the stomach to the neck jobs that make me roll my eyes deep into my skull.

What transpired was the most violent make-out session I've ever had. Period. Upon the first kiss, it became immediately obvious that, in addition to be an emotional wreck that morning, Steph was also drunk out of her mind. Her tongue tasted like a cocktail mixed with a shot of Aftershock. I'd never seen her drunk before, and I wasn't sure why she was drunk, but boy was she drunk. How drunk was she? Well, she was making out with me. That's how drunk she was. Plus, she was making out with me in a meat cooler, which should also tell you something.

I've never actually tried to French kiss a mountain lion, but if I did, I'm pretty sure the experience would be tame compared to what Steph did to me that morning. She bit my tongue. She bit my lips. She bit my neck. And she bit my chest again. I wasn't sure if she was making out or having dinner. Then, she started working on my pants, and I became aware that she was about to give me a blow job.

And I stopped her.

You read that right. I, Ryan Rhodes, perhaps the biggest fan of fellatio ever to walk the earth, stopped a woman from giving me a blow job.

I stopped Steph for many reasons. I stopped her because I knew that the meat department manager was due in at any moment. I stopped her because I had a girlfriend at the time. But, ultimately, I stopped her because I was absolutely certain she was going to treat my penis like a doberman with a rawhide. Given the bruise on my chest and the blood oozing from the bite on my lip, I was not going to give Steph access to my most prized possession. No way.

That moment of clarity brought us both back from the brink of sexual euphoria, and we both realized that what we were doing was somewhat odd, and it probably violated almost every meat department-related health code on the books. Steph detached herself from me with a last bite/kiss and went back out to attempt work, although she was so drunk her usefullness bordered on zero. I managed to get everything up an running just minutes before the manager showed up for the day.

Steph left work early that day, even before I left for class. I didn't see her at work or on campus for about a week. When I did finally see her again, she was picking up her final paycheck. She had taken a different job on campus. We both pretended that the meat cooler incident hadn't happened, which was probably for the best. I saw her in class a few times, and we worked together on some projects, in addition to bumping into each other at the bars once in awhile.

I never found out what had been bothering Steph that morning, and we never mentioned the incident when we were together. I wonder sometimes now where she is and what she's doing, and if she's adopted a more non-violent approach to sex.

And I've never looked at chicken breasts the same way since.

Blow job. Blow job. Blow job. Blow job. Blow job. Blow job.

Posted by Ryan at July 14, 2003 11:47 AM