Lenore smiled tentatively, staring a bit, and Milo felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. He smiled back, pulled the bottle of Serpis from his pocket and offered it to her. Grabbing it, thinking it was tequila, she took a hard shot. The van lurched across the centerline as her full attention was suddenly flooded by the sweet, unfamiliar taste of star anise counterpointed by the astringency of wormwood and the powerful heat of overproof spirits. The same taste that Hemingway had diluted with Freixenet and aptly named 'Death in the Afternoon'. Recovering from her surprise, she steered the laundry van back onto the right side of the road.
"Jesus, what is that?"
"Absinthe... Spanish."
"Absinthe," she echoed. "Well that's a first for me."
Her greedy gulp of the liquor had affected Lenore almost immediately; she felt her libido kick in like the afterburners on the Phantom jets that took off from Vandenberg. "Ya wanna smoke a joint?"
"Sure."
She pulled back to the side of the road, shut the motor off and produced a perfectly-rolled pregnant guppie from somewhere hidden. Watching her was like watching magic. She deftly moistened it with her tongue, sliding it quickly once, twice between her full lips. Then with her free hand she flipped open an old stainless Air Force Zippo and sparked fire so suddenly that it startled Milo. Her strange face glowed warmly as she touched the tip of the joint and inhaled luxuriantly. The end caught and burned fast down one side, so Lenore licked a fingertip, touched it to the ricepaper cylinder near the glowing ember to even the burn, and exhaled a huge patchouli-scented cloud of fragrant grass smoke.
She offered the joint to Milo, who inhaled long and deliberately. They passed it back and forth until Lenore burned her thumb on the roach. She tossed it out the window and turned to gaze again at Milo's silhouette, smiling to herself dreamily.
They passed the Serpis back and forth a couple of times, Lenore expectantly, sensuously swirling the new tastes around her tongue as Milo took short, measured pulls off the bottle. Lenore let her fingers deliberately draw light contrails across Milo's thigh as he took the bottle from her, raised it to his lips, replaced the cork and stuck it under the seat.
Quite suddenly, there was no turning back. Milo had no way of knowing exactly what was going to happen, although his suddenly high hopes likely had a bearing on how fast it all transpired. Sticking to her porn-loop checklist, Lenore didn't generally kiss her sojourner companions, and hadn't intended to this time either. But somehow the pervading smells of stale urine and pungent marijuana and the novelty of artemisia absinthium broke anything that was left of her inhibitions.
For a long minute she stared and drank in the image of this poor lost man, alone in the thickening jungles of central America. Without warning his face broke through the mortar of her heart's fortress.
"God," she thought, stunned. "This couldn't be real love, not now, not here. Not like this."
Not before Milo had at least had a chance to take a good, hot bath. Too late...
Milo lunged toward Lenore in the same split second as she silently lurched to him. Her tongue darted past his unbrushed teeth into his mouth, and his grubby hands found her small breasts. He pushed her tongue back into her mouth with his own, she sucking it gently. Their soul kiss seemed to last for a reeling eternity, then finally hissed out in the face of increasing urgency as Lenore moved her attention to Milo's belt. The unbearable pressure in his pants eased as she unzipped his trousers and Milo's cock uncoiled through the slash in the front of his unwashed ginch, with a powerful gush of stifling air.
Lenore popped him in her mouth, and tried hard not to breathe through her nose. She was so turned on...
"Absinthe... Spanish."
