The Yellow Rose of Texas

If you were a college football fan in the 1970s you might remember me if I used my real name, so I’ll go by Mark in this story. When I walked into a bar in a middle-sized Texas town, I had just one agenda: to get blind drunk. If that happened to be a down payment on drinking myself to death, I was alright with that. The bartender was an older fellow who looked like a cowboy. He brought me my first whiskey, and said “Mark, you can call me Red”. The bar wasn’t too busy yet, so we talked for a bit while I was working on my whiskey. He remembered my football career, and he told me “life really dealt you a shitty hand. I’m so damned sorry.”

I wasn’t ready to talk about that yet, so I asked about him. I was right, he had been a cowboy earlier in his life. At one time he’d been about as well-known on the rodeo circuit as I was in football. But he got old, and he was having some heart problems, so he retired and used his savings to buy the bar. He had saved a decent amount since he never married or had kids. He probably could have gotten by on his savings, but he loved running the bar. The crowd was starting to come in so Red went back to serving the other customers. When I raised my glass to order another whiskey, this young woman (young but about two years older than me) served me.

She said “my name’s Rose, pleased to meet you Mark. I was two years ahead of you in college, and I was and still am a big football fan. There is a warm place in hell for those bastards who did that to you.” She wasn’t the kind of drop dead gorgeous cheerleader type I had gotten used to. She was blonde, but not platinum or golden, more dishwater blonde. She had a pretty face but was a bit on the chubby side. She did however bear a strong resemblance to Dolly Parton in the chest area. I really like large tits, but it isn’t a deal breaker one way or the other. What was striking about her was her attitude. She came across flirtatious and sexy (but not cheap) on the one hand, but more than a little motherly on the other. Or maybe more like a big sister.

I wasn’t really interested the way I was feeling, and wouldn’t be if she was a flaming hot fox, either — that wasn’t where my head was at, though a man never fails to notice what a woman has to offer, that’s how we are wired. But I felt safe with her, and we talked quite a bit while she brought me more whiskeys. At one point, my inner comedian went for the obvious joke “so you’re the Yellow Rose of Texas?” She laughed a bit and answered me “you are only the tenth or twelfth guy that’s asked me that this week. Wish you boys would come up with something original.” She stormed off in an obvious imitation of being angry.

After I downed a couple more whiskeys, she said, “cowboy, you’ve had enough for the night, I’m cutting you off, but I’ll bring you a big pot of coffee.” She went behind the bar and brewed some. Then when it was ready, she asked one of the regulars to cover the bar for a while, since Red had gone to bed in the back room a long while ago, and she didn’t want to go wake him. She brought the pot to my table and sat down, saying “Mark, I can tell you’re hurting bad and I have a general idea why, but I think it would help you to tell me the whole tale. I’m all ears for as long as you need.” I started in telling my story, in a much more drunk and disorderly fashion than I’m doing here. She listened and asked questions that made it clear she was listening well, and cared.

I was born in California. My mom and dad were killed by a drunk driver when I was three. I don’t remember much about them, but I was very aware of how much they loved me and one another. Still hurts every once in a while, but I’d come to terms with that grief by the time I got to college. I had no relatives nearby who could take me in, so Child Protective Services sent me to my mother’s parents in Texas. The lived on a ranch not far from town. Grandpa was the stereotypical strong silent type, but when he spoke he made it obvious that raising me was a joy not a chore, and he loved doing it, and he loved me. Grandma wasn’t a bit quiet about it at all — she felt the same.

Being that football is the Texas state religion, grandpa got me started in Pop Warner football the minute I was old enough. It turned out I not only loved the game but had a real gift for it. I grew up big and strong and surprisingly fast for a big man. My college coach said I was the fastest big man he’d ever seen. In high school our opponents feared me. I was versatile and could handle any position except quarterback and place kicker. That came in handy because we were a small school, and we were often left short-handed by injuries. My senior year we went undefeated and won the state championship in our division.

My college won the bidding war to recruit me. I got everything the NCAA allowed (and quite a bit that wasn’t allowed), including of course a full ride scholarship for four years. I wasn’t aware enough to get my scholarship guaranteed. That failure bit me in the ass big time. One of under the table things they did I’m still grateful for: by the time I got to college, Grandma was getting feeble and grandpa was getting senile. The college paid for extensive home health for them, while they arranged to have the ranch sold and kicked in enough extra money to set up a trust to pay for lifetime care at the best nursing home in Texas, which catered to rich people and accordingly had excellent quality care and a very comfortable environment. That bought the college more than a little forgiveness for what they did to me later.

The team was pretty strong already in most areas, but they needed another running back who also had good blocking skills. We had a good quarterback and a some wide receivers who could get the job done well when passing was needed, but we were primarily a run oriented offense. The fact I also had good hands and was a capable receiver was a plus, but the focus was my running skills. In my freshman year I surprised opponents who just saw a big man and didn’t realize how fast I was. If they left an opening (and I was strong enough to force one), I could run like the wind. My freshman year we had a good team, and we beat almost everybody, one game I scored so many times that the scoreboard operator stopped waiting till I crossed the goal line to put the six on the board once I broke loose and really started running. By then end of the year, pro scouts were giving me the eye. We beat our traditional rivals and cruised to the conference championship. It was a close game and I scored the winning touchdown.

Off the field I was living the high life. I had money and was into partying and exploring the sexual proclivities of cheerleaders and other sexy ladies. One thing I’d like say up front: I’m not particularly moral, but Grandpa taught me honor and Grandma taught me to respect women. Other players at my school and elsewhere did some very wrong things up to and including what is nowadays quite properly regarded as rape. I never laid a hand on a woman who didn’t say straight out she wanted me to, and who was a good enough approximation of sober that she knew what she was doing. Guys who play the game a different way are welcome to burn in hell. With the memory of my parents’ death, I also never drove drunk, no matter who deeply I explored the bottom of a bottle (or more likely the bottoms of a shitload of bottles). People who play that game differently are equally welcome to join the drunk who killed my parents in hell.

My sophomore year was another great season, and our annual game with our rivals was their homecoming, and we beat the living shit out of them. I scored four of our seven touchdowns. They vowed revenge on our team and on me in particular, and next year they would get it. Another conference championship. By now, it was obvious that after college I’d be a high pick in the NFL draft, likely first round. I had the world by the tail. I still did a lot of drinking and screwing, but I was beginning to settle down. By the start of the next season, I was going steady with Linda the head cheerleader, a stone fox with flaming red hair who was deeply into kink. That isn’t really my thing, but I don’t mind at all doing anything that makes a woman happy. I did also learn some more vanilla skills that were quite useful, such as how to eat pussy like a pro. She said I’d be a first round pick in the National Sex League draft. I really cared about her and believed she cared for me. We had talked about getting married after graduation.

That season was off to a great start, we were undefeated for our first six games and had a shot at the National Championship, the papers were saying that I had a pretty good shot at winning the Heisman. I was at the top of the world. Our seventh game was at home against our rivals who had vowed revenge. In the first half that wasn’t going too well for them, we were drubbing them again. They struck gold in the third quarter. Five minutes in to the third, I got outside and was streaking down the field on the sidelines for another sure TD. Their players on the field hand no chance to catch me. Their defensive captain yelled “now” and the other player players were yelling “get him”. One booming voice screamed out “kill him.” Two guys from their bench came on the field and blocked my path, forcing me further outside. Then one dove low in front of me and the other hit me high in the back, harder than anyone had ever hit me before. Last I remember, I was flying through the air towards their bench, and all the other players had moved out of the way. The bench was a permanent fixture, stainless steel mounted on steel poles set in concrete. It wasn’t going anywhere. I hit the bench hard and blacked out.

I woke up a day later in the hospital. The doc told me I had a concussion, but my prognosis was good, and he didn’t detect any signs of brain damage after a butt load of tests. He said “you were lucky, if you had hit that steel monstrosity head first, you very likely would have died, probably before the ambulance arrived. But I have bad news, you hit the bench with your right knee first, and the impact completely shattered it. We will do our damnedest to repair it, but the outlook is uncertain.”

The rival college paid for all the surgeries and rehab for the next four months (or rather their insurance did), and at the end I could walk with a cane. The doc said that if everything healed well, I might be able to stop using the cane at some point, but I’d always have a limp, and running was out of the question: my football career was definitely over. Linda dumped me the day I woke up in the hospital and hooked up with another star player, a guy I thought was my friend.

God, I felt like I had been hit between the eyes with a pole ax, in truth I kinda wish I had been, it would have been kinder. Then when I got back to my room at college, they had another surprise for me. A bill for tuition, books, and room and board, retroactive to the day I woke up in the hospital. So that ended my education as well. I had a bit of money put aside, so I could live off it for a little while. Then the State of Texas put me on disability. I hadn’t been much of a student in high school, and my college classes were a joke. They had me majoring in some bullshit subject, I don’t even remember which. I couldn’t do much physical work, and I didn’t have the education for other types of work. I dropped out of college and got a crappy apartment in another part of town. I stayed in the apartment and drank a bit, but I did my rehab exercises faithfully just in case they did any good.

The doctor was right, after about six months I could walk without a cane, though I still had a noticeable limp, and probably always will. I was trying to drown my sorrows in whiskey, but I wasn’t accomplishing it fast enough, so I hobbled over to the neighborhood bar down the street intent on drinking until I passed out. The bar was Red’s place, of course. I finished my tale with “so that’s how you ended up across the table from a sorry ass drunk spilling his guts to you.”

At this point, I was crying my eyes out. Rose didn’t say a word, but her eyes were wet too. She crossed over to my side and just held me like she was holding a motherless child for the next half hour. Then she let go and said “I need to close the bar. Don’t go anywhere, it’ll take about fifteen minutes.” So instead of stumbling off home, I waited for her.

When she finished, she came back to me and said “Mark, hurting like you are, you really need not be alone tonight.” She took me be the hand and half led me, half carried me to her small one bedroom house on the back lot. When we got there, I started to lay down on her couch. She said “I said you need not be alone tonight, and I meant it. Come with me.” She led me to her bedroom. She had a double bed. She instructed me to go in the bathroom, use the toilet and do anything else I needed, then strip to my underwear and come lay down on the left side of the bed. I wasn’t sure what her intentions were, but she hadn’t made anything I could read as a move, and that wasn’t where my head was at that night, anyway.

I took care of business in the bathroom and came back and laid down on the bed and Rose went in the bathroom and took care of her own business. She came out wearing a sheer nightie that I would have found sexy if my head were in better place. She joined me in bed and snuggled up next to me. We talked a bit, I cried a bit, and she held me like she had in the bar until I drifted off to sleep. I woke up at ten the next morning, the first peaceful night’s sleep I had since my injury. She brought me breakfast in bed, then sat down next to me, and we talked. My first concern was whether I had acted like a gentleman under the unusual circumstances, and she assured me I had. She said “you never made a move on me, and never acted like you were dying to. With the pain you were in last night, I wouldn’t have minded if you had… and I wouldn’t have said no.”

Rose continued, “your mind will start healing and you begin to find life worth living again, and I aim to help you any way I can. You need to cut down on drinking or stop altogether. But you are always welcome in the bar, and I will comp you as much coffee as you want. Along the way you’ll have bad nights and if you need to be held like last night, you are welcome in my bed. There will be times you need sex, and aren’t ready to try one of the type of women you prefer or you are having bad luck with them. If that happens, you are also welcome in my bed. I don’t have any silly romantic notions, I know I’m not your type and I know your have been a player and will want to be again at least for a while. Truthfully, I am too, but I’m selective. I won’t just jump in the sack with just any random cowboy, I insist on a man who approaches me with honesty and respect. Mark, you meet that requirement and you are right easy on the eyes to boot. I like you, and I want to be your friend whether sex is part of that or not, but if sex does happen, I will give you the time of your life, and I’m pretty sure you’ll want to return the favor.”

I was rather surprised, but in no way disappointed, quite the contrary. I answered “Rose, I’m not ready for sex yet, but when I am, I believe will be taking you up on that. Your aren’t the cheerleader type that I usually go for, but you’ve got a heart like none of them have and you are easy on the eyes as well. Meanwhile, you will be seeing a lot of me, I aim to be as good a friend to you as you have been to me, and not just because I think I owe you, though I do. I really enjoy your company, and I want to get to know you better. Let me know if you need any help at the bar. I can’t get around fast, but I still have a strong back and I learn quick, though I never did much in school.”

She said “I will be taking you up on that. Why don’t you head on home right now and get some more rest while I go open up the bar, then come see me after supper, and we’ll talk. May the Lord God hold you in the palm of his hand till we meet again.” I returned her blessing, got dressed and ambled on home. A part of me wants to write that I fell in love with her then and there and maybe a small part of me did, but that’s not how it happened. I did go home with the knowledge I’d made a friend, likely as not with benefits somewhere along the way, and a feeling of gratitude that I’ve never been able to fully put into words, a gratitude which would stay with me until my dying day even if (God forbid!) I never saw Rose again. I had been joking when I’d called her the Yellow Rose of Texas, but the truth is she did save my soul from the hell I’d been living in.

I came around that evening, and we discussed some things I could do around the bar. She would give me some money and store it in the safe for me in a big manila envelope with MARK written on it, so I could save up for a car and other things I needed. Rose said “You can have any of your money any time you want, but you I don’t want you to put it in a bank and have the State take away your disability before you can earn enough that you don’t need it.” The rules were strict in those days, and there was no program to let you keep your money while you got back into the work force (or as in my case, got into the work force for the first time) gradually, like you can nowadays.

Red enthusiastically agreed to the idea: “You need a helping hand, and we aim to give it to you, and those fat cat bastard politicians and bureaucrats in Austin ain’t gonna stop us. I’m much obliged to Rose for thinking of it. That girl really has a head for business, she won’t steer you wrong in that or anything else. I love her like the daughter I never had, and I’d come after the man who did her wrong with my 10-gauge that I keep under the bar. But I don’t expect I’ll need to come after you. I want to get to know you better, but I think I already know you well enough to be sure of that. I’d advise you not to prove me wrong.”

Over the next few weeks, I stopped by every day and helped out quite a bit, at first mainly moving heavy stuff Red couldn’t lift anymore and helping clean up. Rose taught me some things, like how to mix drinks, so I could help out behind the bar when it was busy. I got to know Red and our regulars, and I really got to know Rose. She had put herself through college with her earnings at the bar and got a degree in Business Administration. She could have got an office job somewhere and climbed the corporate ladder as far as a woman could go in those days. But she made enough money at the bar to get by comfortably, and she had come to love her work there. She also wanted to stick close to Red as he aged, because she had come to love him like a father. Hardly surprising, considering I was also starting to love him that way too. He was that kind of man. He loved people and drew them to him. When he died, I ended up crying harder than I did the night I met Rose, and that’s saying something.

I cut way back on my drinking and stopped drinking whiskey altogether. I limited my self to a couple of beers a day at the bar and an occasional cocktail if a pretty lady bought me one. I never drank alone and never got seriously drunk again in my life. That’s another thing I’ll be grateful to Rose for until the day I die.

I learned a lot about Rose along the way. She had been a surprise baby when her mom had mistakenly thought she had finished going through the change and couldn’t get pregnant. Unlike a lot of folks nowadays, her parents weren’t all upset at their golden years being ruined and didn’t at best resent her big time and at worst haul mom’s ass to an abortion clinic. This was well before Roe v. Wade, and abortion was highly illegal in Texas, though it was always easy for a rich woman to arrange one and poor women had the back alley. But her parents never wanted that anyway. Rather, they loved her extra special and treasured her as a wonderful surprise from God.

Her youngest sibling was twelve when Rose was born, and most of her brothers and sisters were grown and gone. They were scattered all over the country and one sister had even moved to France. She was never close to any of them, but they were on cordial terms and kept in touch. By the time I met Rose, her parents had both passed on within a month of each other. They were happy, and they were healthy until their last year. They were spared long years of decline. Rose grieved them, but it was a nice clean grief with no tragedy in it.

Rose got her old textbooks out of storage and taught me out of them when business was slow. I hadn’t learned much in school but I had become a good reader, which made things go quicker. Once I learned some basic concepts that I missed in school, I found a had a real gift for math, not as big as my gift for football had been, but I became damned good. I also found business fascinating. Rose and I grew closer. I loved her like a big sister (with more than a touch of mother). My sex drive was starting to come back and I won’t say the thought of committing “incest” never occurred to me, in fact I was pretty damn sure I would some time, but I decided to explore the dating game first. There were some mighty fine ladies that came to the bar.

Red was getting older and feebler, and he decided needed to retire entirely from running the bar. One day he said to me, “Son, I need to go to my lawyer and draw up a couple of documents, and I can’t drive anymore. But my old pickup still runs. Could you drive me over, and come in to be a witness for me? I’d normally ask Rose, but I want to surprise her.” I had an inkling of what he had in mind. On the way over he said, “Mark, I don’t have anything within a country mile of rich, but I have a useful amount saved up. I don’t have long for this world, and I want to make sure my will is in order so that Rose gets everything when I go. I am also gonna deed the bar over to her today and keep it out of probate. I also wanna see her eyes light up when I show her.”

We got to the office and signed the documents. The lawyer gave us certified copies and set the originals aside to file at the court house the next day. On the way home Red said, “Mark, I’ve got a couple more things I want to tell you. The first is a order: take care of Rose. I’m pretty sure you would have anyway, but my ghost will haunt you if you don’t. I expect that I’ll rest peacefully. The second is advice, you’re free not to take it, but if you have the sense God gave a goose, you will take it. In the name of God, love that girl! Get married raise a passel of young’uns. Truth be told you are already in love with her, your mind just doesn’t know it yet. I know Rose like the back of my hand, and I’ll swear on my own grave that she feels exactly the same about you.”

I answered “you have me a powerful lot to think about regarding your advice, but about your command, I promise to a higher Authority than you that I’ll take care of Rose. May Almighty God strike me dead where I stand if I don’t.”

When we got back from the lawyer’s, Red put the documents on the bar and said “Rose, come here a minute. The lawyer gave me some paperwork, and I be obliged if you’d look it over.” She read the deed and the will and her eyes did indeed light up. Then it hit her hard what it meant — that Red wouldn’t be with us long. She gripped him in a tight bear hug and cried rivers. I spent the night in her bed, holding her like a fatherless child.

I pondered what Red had told me, but I went through with my plan to try out my luck with the ladies. Rose went along with my plan, and she turned out to be a great wing man. She would talk me up in a way that another guy couldn’t do without having it dismissed as bullshit. Sometimes I’d score and have some fine sex, sometimes I’d strike out, but the ladies let me down easy. The were impressed with me even if they weren’t interested. One hot brunette said “not tonight, but I’ll keep you in mind in case my current relationship goes south.” Rose assured me that the brunette wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

I kinda wondered why I never shared a roll in they hay with Rose. I knew I was welcome to. Looking back, if it was going to happen, I wanted it to mean something more than just friends with benefits. When I’d score, I’d get white-hot right away, but I’d take my time and do whatever the lady would like until she was as hot as me, and we’d screw each other’s brains out. But my brain went back in my head pretty quick, and I cooled off and lost interest. Don’t get me wrong, both me and the lady had honest smiles on our faces and went away satisfied, I just never wanted it to go further and I didn’t care if I ever had her again (though I had no objection to having her of again). I never wanted to feel that way about Rose, she deserved so much more.

Rose went through all this with a smile, though later I realized that she was having pangs of jealousy. I was convincing myself that was living the life I wanted. I was having fun to be sure but there was an emptiness inside me that I couldn’t quite understand. Then three things happened in quick succession that rocked my world. On a Tuesday, Rose went home with another guy. He had been honest and respectful and Rose is a healthy young woman with a working set of hormones, and she gets horny now and then. She’s entitled. For once, I recognized my own feelings with crystal clarity. I was hurt and jealous as hell that she was going home with him and not me–and I didn’t have the ghost of a right to feel that way. I could have staked my claim to her body and her heart any damned time, maybe even the night we met, and I never did. I heard Red’s voice in my head telling me what a damned fool I was. He was haunting me, and he wasn’t even dead yet. I can’t say I didn’t deserve it.

Wednesday, Rose didn’t come in: she was hanging out with and more than likely screwing that guy. So I took a pathetic shot at picking up another woman. She shot me down hard, first time that had ever happened to me: “get away from me you friggin’ loser. You look like a cowboy, if you’re horny, go screw a cow.” That stung my pride more than a little, but at the end of the night I was relived rather than hurt that I didn’t screw her.

Now I realized for a natural fact that I was in love with Rose, and had been for some time and was too pig headed to let myself realize it. Red had called the turn on that. But I was so afraid that I was too late.

Wouldn’t you know the next song on the jukebox was The Yellow Rose of Texas. “… She knows I’ve done some hard times, I stumbled and I fell. She kept my pride from dying, she saved my soul from hell… “. It was like God his own self was stabbing me in the heart and twisting the knife. And I sure as hell deserved it. If the Mississippi had gone dry at that moment, my tears would have refilled it. I wanted to go to Rose right then, but she might well have been getting busy with that dude, and even if not, she deserved better than a pathetic basket case professing his love for her. I closed the bar, went home, and got in bed. I never went to sleep. I was pretty sure God had forsaken me, but I prayed harder than I ever had before.

I was fearful that I had lost Rose for good, and I was expecting the worst. But when I got the bar that afternoon, she smiled at me and said “I’m glad I went home with that dude, he took good care of me and I really needed my ashes hauled. I think my pussy was getting cobwebs, it had been so long. But I won’t be seeing him again. He didn’t do anything wrong, and I’ll tell you straight out that my body enjoyed the feeling of his cock inside me. But my heart was telling me how much I wanted it to be your cock, not his. When you were off screwing those hot girls I was jealous. Not so much because you were screwing them, but because you weren’t screwing me.”

“I want you bad, Mark. We will want to talk things over a bit more first, but tonight I’m gonna have you. But I need to put all my cards on the table. It’s more than just that, I’m in love with you and I want to give you all of me, not just my body. What do you have to say to that?” I took no time to ponder, I was absolutely certain what I needed and wanted to do. I took Rose in my arms and kissed her passionately for a long while and then spoke to her about how much I loved her. I didn’t need to mention how bad I wanted her, my rock hard erection covered the topic quite sufficiently.

“Rose I’m in love with you and I’m sorrier than I’ve ever been that I ever touched a woman who isn’t you. And if you’ll have me, I’ll never touch another for the rest of my life. God burn me in hell for eternity six times over for being so blind. You are the best that’s ever happened to me, and the best that ever will happen to me this side of heaven. I don’t even begin to deserve you. I want you, I need you, and I love you more than I knew it was possible to love someone. If you wanted to tell me to go jump in a lake, you’d have the right. But thank God Almighty that you don’t want that. I’ve been a fool. But I’ll spend rest of my life making it up to you if you’ll let me. Now what else do you have to say?”

She didn’t speak a word, she took my in her arms, held her body close to me super tight, and kissed me as passionately as I had kissed her, and for a longer time. I was so exited that I came in my pants. I was embarrassed when the wet spot showed on my jeans, but Rose said, “don’t worry about it, Mark, I wanted to make that happen. Consider it a preview of coming attractions. You’ll come inside me tonight, and unless I miss my guess badly, more than once, like as not more than twice. My juices are already flowing like the Rio Grande just thinking about it. I’ll have a wet spot of my own in a minute or so, and I ain’t ashamed of it, in fact I’m damned proud of it. I think I’m gonna close the bar a mite early tonight.”

I went in the back room and fell on my knees and thanked God, then I cried enough tears of pure joy to refill the Gulf of Mexico. Then I smiled the biggest smile of my life and went back into the bar room. Red had stopped by to grab a beer and chat with a few regulars like he did most days. He was sitting on a bar stool, and when he saw me, he got up and grinned real big, clapped me on the back, and said “Congratulations! Rose told what you said to her. Took you long enough, but when you finally got it right, by God you really got it right! Welcome to the family!”

But our world was going to get rocked one more time. About 8 o’clock, a biker guy in a Outlaw jacket that we’d never seen before came into the bar. He was a mountain of a man, outweighed me by maybe seventy pounds, and his picture is in the dictionary under “mean drunk”. Rose was bringing drinks to the tables at time. He took one look at her and roared “whiskey, straight, and bring the bottle NOW.” Since he was obviously already severely intoxicated, she refused to serve him, as required by Texas law. He said “that’s alright, sweetheart, you got something else I want more than whiskey” and grabbed her and started pawing her and dragging her towards the door. Rose is a strong woman, and she could take care of herself in a confrontation with a man anywhere near her size, but this bastard outweighed her by 150 pounds. Red got the shotgun from under the bar and several people drew pistols, but nobody had a clear shot at him without risking hitting Rose.

I don’t know how what happened next happened. My brain was a blood-red haze. Remember that I can’t run, and can only walk with a limp. But I wasn’t thinking about that. I knew what he wanted to do to Rose and I wasn’t gonna let that happen. I put my head down and charged, moving faster than I ever did on the football field. I hit him in the gut and knocked the wind out of him, which made him lose his grip and let go of Rose. But he pulled a big knife and stabbed me, and I fell to the ground bleeding like a stuck pig. He hovered over me and raised the knife for a final stab. Meanwhile, Rose ran over to the bar and Red handed her the shotgun.

If the biker had just gone about his business and stabbed me again quick, I’d have died, but he wanted to taunt me. He waved the knife around and roared “no man lays a hand on me and lives”. At the same moment, Rose gave him both barrels. About six pistols went off, but they weren’t needed — both barrels of a 10-gauge at point-blank damn near took his head clean off. He was in hell before his body hit the floor. I heard sirens and passed out.

I woke up three days later in a hospital bed with a pain in my side, a transfusion pumping into my veins, and Rose sleeping on my shoulder. The doctor came in and said “Cowboy, you had a really close call. He got you in the spleen and you almost bled out. But we stopped the bleeding. You lost your spleen, but he didn’t damage anything else but some skin and muscle. This girl saved your life, but from what I hear, you saved hers too. She hasn’t left your side. Rose woke and shouted “Praise God!” when she saw me awake. Then she covered me with her kisses and her tears. When she stopped sobbing, I held her close and I whispered, “Rose will you marry me? If possible, the day after I get out of here?” Then she shouted “yee-hah” and said “yes, yes, yes”. The doctor said to me, “you are going to be here a few days, good chance we can do better than the day after you get out. I know some people.� Later that day someone from the office brought mea stack of papers to sign about my hospital stay. He set one paper aside and said “Rose will need to sign this one too.” It read “State of Texas Marriage License.”

The doc was true to his word, he’d pulled some strings. The next day they wouldn’t let me walk yet, so they put me in a wheelchair and let Rose wheel me to the hospital chapel, which was full of regulars from the bar. Red was there to give Rose away. We said our vows and the reverend said “you may kiss the bride.” Twenty minutes later he said, “you can stop kissing the bride already.”

They wheeled me back to my room, then the doctor took me aside and said “I’m sorry your honeymoon won’t be until you get out of the hospital, having intercourse wouldn’t be safe yet. You must avoid any strain on your wound until it heals a bit more, you can’t risk reopening the wound. But I think you two can figure out what else you can do in the meantime. We will make sure you aren’t disturbed.”

When we got to my room (a private room), we saw they had brought in another bed, and pushed the beds together. About an hour later, it was time for my meds, and the head nurse came in and gave them to me herself. She said, “it does my heart so much good to see y’all together and so happy. When they brought you in, I was sure you were a goner, and you’d be the fifth tragic death this week. We see too much that here as is. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong in my life. Doc did a great thing setting up the wedding, but he didn’t think of everything. Pushing the beds together was my idea. We will have to interrupt you which medical stuff for a while, but from nine o’clock on, no one will bother you, I already have a copy of your nursing orders on the door.” She handed me another copy, it read “Do not enter room after 21:00 unless called” in big block letters.

Except when they came in to do medical stuff, Rose and I spent the evening talking and kissing. We had a very frank conversation about sex, sharing likes and dislikes. That was unheard-of in the Texas in the 70s. It isn’t heard of enough in 2021. But it was very special to us, and having some foreknowledge about what’s gonna happen never hurts anybody. We both had good general knowledge of how the male and female bodies work, but every human being is different. I knew how to please a woman, but it excited me that I was beginning to learn how to please Rose. That’s about as much more valuable to me than pleasing a random woman as gold is more valuable than dog shit.

That night I learned something about myself. I’ve described myself as an unselfish lover and that’s partly true. I was always (once I leaned how) willing to spend whatever time and effort it took to get her as hot as me, and let her get off real good. That’s basic human respect and fairness. But underneath that, my motivation was about me: if she gets off better, I’ll enjoy it more, and she’ll be more likely to want to come back another day and do it again. But with Rose, pleasing her a much as possible and learning to be even better at it is a goal in itself, a goal I desperately wanted to accomplish. If God forbid I lost my dick tomorrow and couldn’t get any physical pleasure from sex, I’d still want to give her as much as I could with what I had left. As for how Rose feels about me, we are looking at each other in a mirror.

The nurse came by a little before nine for my last dose, then dimmed the lights and closed the door, and we started in kissing and fondling each other for a good while, then Rose stripped off my hospital gown, and she asked me if I wanted to have her do a strip tease for me or if I’d rather unwrap her like a Christmas present. I choose the second one, but admitted how difficult the choice was, seeing that I wanted to do both. I stripped her, pausing after each garment to enjoy the view.

Sweet Jesus, what a view! I called Rose chubby, but that’s an insult, she is voluptuous: she has curves in places where skinny women don’t even have places. And what wonderful tits. I just loved fondling and sucking them, and she squealed with delight. I silently gave thanks to God that He didn’t let my stupidity make me miss out on this. Then we snuggled closer on the bed and I started exploring her body further south, meanwhile she was fondling my dick and balls and had me harder than I’d ever been. Her doing that felt better than screwing Linda had, and that had felt like heaven.

I worked down to her dripping wet pussy and massaged her lips. I wanted to taste her so bad. I tried to position myself, so I could use my tongue, but the motion put too much pressure on my wound, so I had to stop and try something else. I gently put my middle finger in her, and she moaned in pleasure. Then she asked me for another finger and then another. Then I used my thumb to massage her clit, and she went wild. A few minutes of that, and she came hard and drenched my hand, and grabbed me so tight that she clawed me a bit. Totally worth it–it woulda been a fair trade if I’d lost a pint of blood. She said “oh my God, I love sex but that was incredible.” I said “I think you need another one” and started in doing it again. She came even harder. Rose said, “I could do that all night but I’m dying for that beautiful cock.” She licked up and down my shaft and kissed the head while she squeezed my balls. God I love that. Then she took my balls in her mouth, at first one at a time, then both together. It hurt so good that I almost came. She said “I want it in my pussy, but since we can’t do that yet, I’ll just have to find a home for it in my mouth.” There was a distinct limit to how much I minded. She started in just licking and sucking the head and then gradually took more until she had it all. She was gently massaging my balls at the same time, then she slapped them a little and I came.

I shot much for so long, that if we were screwing and didn’t use protection, I’d have given her quadruplets. Rose saw that when I was done I only went semi-soft, so she said “you need another one, too” and did it again. I didn’t shoot quite as much, but it felt just as good or maybe better. I hung limp, completely satisfied. “Rose, you are absolutely perfect. All hail Rose, the goddess of sex. I guess I won’t get to taste you till I finish healing, but you are worth the wait.”

She said, “not so fast, Mark, there is something we can try. If I sat on your face and you can breathe OK, if you are able to hold me up and take all the strain in your shoulders, it won’t hurt your wound.” She climbed on, I grabbed her by the hips to keep her steady, and began exploring her pussy with my tongue. She came three times before she asked me to stop. My face was totally drenched. We cleaned up a bit and fell asleep in each other’s arms. They kept me in the hospital five more nights, and every night at nine we did the same thing. We tried some variations and found out what worked the best.