Fantasy Baseball
My older woman fantasy became reality after meeting Maria at a Royals game. I was holding a hot dog drowned in mustard, just the way I like it. She was holding weak, stadium Budweiser. There were two empty seats between us, but I could hear each slurp of her beer. I could smell each burp, and determined she too had enjoyed a hot dog with plenty of mustard.
One of the players on the opposing team got his barrel on a fastball and sent it flying up and over the diamond, beyond the outfield, just inside the right field foul pole. Maria stood first, her beer sloshing over the rim of its plastic cup to splash across the front of her Metallica tank top. I watched Maria watch the ball, its unlikely trajectory to the limited space between us. With her free hand, she clawed the air, projecting where the baseball would travel, hoping to seize it for herself.
Maria edged closer, her beer precariously tilted in the direction of my lap. I scoffed the last bite of my hot dog, stood up, and prepared for a collision, which seemed inevitable at this late stage in Maria’s laser focus for that home run heading right between us. I could feel mustard clinging to my mustache, which I have worn for over a year, deciding to keep since trying it out during last Movember. I saw its imprint, a golden crescent, stamped on Maria’s shoulder when she barreled into my face, when she stumbled over my Crocs, my foot within, and I felt the full weight of my fantasy crush my metatarsals in a series of hairline fractures.
Naturally, I shouted in pain, which the jumbotron displayed for the humble, daytime attendance. My agony came across as fevered excitement, rabid fandom. On sports news, they showed the debacle, calling me a super fan who buckled under the pressure, buckled under Maria, who caught the ball, as she knew she was fated to do. Me, I caught the bug –the big, bad love bug– my face lost in the ample burden behind that soft, cotton layer of the Metallica logo.
Maria got to her feet first, then raised up her ball to show the world. She helped me up, and the kiss cam gave us no warning at all. Without reservation, we kissed with our tongues, escalating to heavy petting with a mixed reception of boos and cheers.
We sat back down, no longer two seats between us. We sat side by side, hand in hand, Maria’s plump, stubby fingers intertwined in mine, the summer sweat collecting on our palms, trickling down our wrists. The Royals lost the game, but I did not care. Baseball was far from my mind, replaced by baseball innuendo, the prospect of getting to third base with an older woman, finally, after all these years.
That night, as we did, in fact, get to third base, I thought about baseball. I paged through baseball phrases in the library of my mind: well known expressions, like “getting to third base,”or “out of left field.” I did this as a means of distraction, a tactic to keep me from reaching climax too quickly. It worked, too, until I realized that meeting Maria the way I had came out of left field, even if we had been sitting in right field, and I was, at that present moment, getting beyond third base with an older woman. I showed signs of climax, so Maria choked up on the bat. She put some barrel on the ball and sent it flying. Together, we hit a home run. As a team, we won big, champions of fantasy baseball.
I know it was the wrong thing to do, but in the morning I snuck out of bed. I watched Maria breathe, the sheets rise and fall in great mountains, and almost crawled back in for a doubleheader. But my broken foot was swelling, purple and large, and no longer fit into my Crocs, which I had to carry with me as I snuck out the door, walking out onto the street with an ugly shoe in one hand, a home run ball in the other.
Horror Sleaze Trash 