If there's a reason for this bout of fluff, I surely have not found it. MI-ers will understand the compulsion to give this pair the lovin' they deserved!

For my Texas buddy, Alamo. Who luvs ya, Baby!


Displacement

(or 'My Kingdom for a Bench Seat')

It was a case of life imitating rumor. When they finally buried the corpse of pretense, it was with the knowledge that the eyes upon them already reputed as much. No one ever died from giving truth to false supposition and they were merely guilty of moving slower than the gossip. Which was a lack of speed for which they were rapidly making up.

There were rules; bolded, underlined and italicized in seventy-two point font. And the paper on which they were scrawled had been crumbled underfoot as a surgically-attached pair blissfully trampled on a great many good ideas. Like decorum, professionalism and other nominal inconveniences that choke the life out of a good kiss. They stumbled into a corner, employing the shadows as sullen watchmen and blessed the night for offering corporeal secrecy. What's accomplished in blindness is easier to deny.

By the light of prudent day, there were no strangers in this cramped alcove. But the inkwell of dark called upon woefully underused senses to mold familiarity from newness. Since rumors assumed she knew the feel of him, hands were pressed into the service of mapping the scope of his solidity. Because gossip held that he knew the taste of her, his mouth volunteered to sample every exposed inch of skin. So much supposed knowing led quickly to so few excuses.

That a building full of presumption tower above their fused heads was sufficient permission to start the discussion. It was never a vocal debate; one didn't coax the other into defying regulation. Perhaps the prolonged eye contact, with all its words coloring the silent language, would accept the instigator title. After all, the instant between colleagues and coitus ticked away in a gaze. The act was, in its haphazard way, a function of duty; the world at large would be disappointed if they persisted in letting truth get in the way of a good story.

In that spirit of fact-finding, sighs and the nature of their cause were catalogued for future reproduction, and as each replication increased volume, new coordinates were required. The difficulty escaping the building was compounded by an intense inability to separate. Only the dead and empty hallways witnessed the couple trying to get to a locked vehicle while keeping all hands engaged in immodesty. Even disinterested strangers wouldn't have laid odds that they'd have made it past the parking lot before...

The engineer responsible for on-the-floor gear shifts clearly failed to anticipate this seating arrangement. Surely the level of commotion did little for the shocks. A frantic leg, wrapping around a body and, by default, the shifter, nearly had the car in reverse before the key was turned. The flash of brake lights signaled a foot seeking traction as one shoved the other between the bucket seats. Somewhere in the vastness of a subcompact's rear compartment, bodies longer than the space allotted collided in a haphazard rush that, despite the bruises, garnered no complaint.

Innumerable things were displaced in the span of one spontaneous kiss followed by one frantic coupling. A headrest sagged on a broken post, the rearview mirror slept on the floorboard and every unlikely tale gained concrete legitimacy. As of that moment, all of the fanciful theories became reality.

So claimed the grounds guard and his precision flashlight.