I met you at Arby’s. In line for a roast beef sandwich with coupons from your local paper. I never understood why Arby’s puts out coupons. Puts out like a cheap whore, you had said. “With discounts,” I agreed as you paid for your sex with your coupons. Delicious meat packed between two buns. Arby’s really knows how to treat a man.
We started to talk and you waited with me while they toasted my buns. Right then I was wishing that it was you toasting my buns. When I got my sexy sandwich, we sat down together and you said, “Baby, what’s your profession?”
I grinned at you, Cheshire cat-like and sexier than both our sandwiches combined and said, “I’m a stripper.” You sort of blinked at me so I had to say, “No, really.”
“Well, okay, but what do you do?”
“I take off my clothes and sit in men’s laps and whisper things of romance into their ears. I’m a stripper and a poet, all for the price of one.” He seemed to get it then. I saw the sadness in his eyes.
“What did you want to be?” he said.
I had about finished my sandwich by then. I felt nervous as hell because I really sort of like ol’ No-Name. “Jane Goodall,” I told him, and then I threw away my trash and thought about that reg on Tuesday, Mike, and how much he’d love this story whispered in his rich, middle-aged ear.
