Theo Falls in Love

Theo Falls in Love

by Kay de Welf

Nina Martina the Flame-Throwing Diva was performing all week at the Otter Lake County Fair. Theo was a local grunt, making two bucks over minimum, doing work that avoided waiting tables or anything else that connected him to the public at large. Watching curvaceous Nina was a perk he would have paid money for.

"Hey Hot Stuff!" Nina called to Theo as she sat on a stump, lacing her Victorian style booties in the open-air backstage.

Theo put down his cheese fries, wiped his fingers on his howling wolf t-shirt, and stepped toward Nina. "Yes, ma'am. What can I do you for--" a joke response that sounded funnier before he said it. He shook his head and started again. "What can I do for you, Miss Nina?"

"Theo, I need a propane tank switched out. Could you please remove the one at stage left, and bring in the one that's stored next to my trailer?"

Theo looked in the direction of her pointing finger and nodded his head. "Of course, anything."

"Thanks, doll." Nina stood and wiped some drippy cheese from Theo's beard. When she stuck her fingers in her mouth and licked it off, Theo felt a flare of heat that traveled and landed smack at the center of his core. He blew out a long slow breath to steady his heart, and watched her tight orange satin rear-end as she strode away across the grass.

"Hot damn," he muttered.

****************************

Theo opened his fridge, grabbed and cracked open a cold can of Labatt's, and had half the pilsner sucked down before he reached his couch. As he slumped into the cushions, he burped a flavor of beer and old fryolator oil. He picked up the remote, peeled back the duct tape to find the "on" button, then settled back with the midnight clearance hour of the Home Shopping Network.

"Basic TV sucks. I gotta get me a satellite dish."

But Dish TV was for fancy folks, like paper napkins printed with cocktail glasses, or houses with two bedrooms. Dish TV was for people like Nina Martina who was a flamethrower, but nothing at all like a diva. Nina Martina who held gymnastics awards and a Masters degree in Theater Arts. Nina Martina whose round, toned butt was custom-made for fire-orange, super-hero hot pants.

"Aw, shit." Theo glanced down at the rising remote in his lap. "I ain't firing off the skin pistol to Sabrina Lee on the Shopping Network. Not anymore. I want a live woman. I want Nina."

***************************

"She's gone?" Theo groaned to Chuck, the pretzel guy.

"Yeah, left a coupla hours ago," Chuck said with his back to Theo. It was only ten A.M. but already the sun burned hot and Chuck was cranking up his umbrella.

"She didn't tell me she was leaving."

Chuck turned and looked Theo in the eye. "It was on the schedule. You of all people should have known."

"What's today?" Theo asked.

"Sunday. That ventriloquist is in--the Quebecer who puts a fake mouth on his dog and pushes an hour out of a two-minute gag."

Theo turned in the direction of the stage and sure enough, there was Mathéo and his Muttering Mutt. The dog, a thing like a small wiry hairbrush, was peeing on the stump that one day earlier had held Nina's heavenly hindquarters.

"Friggin' little rat," Theo gritted through his teeth.

Mathéo noticed Theo and called to him, "Bonjour! Are you Téo?"