Chocolate Haze: Denial denied

I love driving around and discovering new places. Driving out in the country and imagining living in one of the houses I find occasionally, set back from the road, with an inviting covered porch and a cute dog or two in the yard. So that is how I found myself driving along some back roads, intrepidly exploring the great outdoors from the comfort of my portable air conditioning unit, otherwise known as Big Bertha, aka my sweet little silver lilac Audi Quattro TT. I stopped occasionally to take shots of some of the wild flowers, cows, and horses that dotted the landscape and inhale the sweet smell of honeysuckle, clean air, and, sometimes, cow manure. It gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling to be out in the countryside. I didn't grow up in the country but it was like a homecoming for me, being out here. Maybe some sort of an instinctual, cellular level connection to the earth.

So there I was, driving around, feeling connected to nature and my higher self, and feeling pretty high on life when I stopped to take some shots of a run down barn surrounded by a field of wild flowers and then it happened.

I was focused on a shot of a butterfly landing on one of the flowers, adjusting my lens for the shot, when I heard a voice. Next to my ear. Whispering softly like a warm caress. "Fancy this then, running into you way out here" the voice said, "it's almost too good to be true."

It took a second for me to realize that it was not just a daydreamed voice, but an actual person who had managed to move up next to me whilst I was otherwise occupied, and was whispering in my ear. Maybe the first clue to that was that it was an actual warm caress, as his breath came out hot against my neck as he spoke to me.

I felt an involuntary tingle race through my body. And sighed. "Hi Nick," I said.

"You always do insist on doing things on your own time and in your own way, don't you?" He whispered back, still right next to my ear. I had not yet turned to face him as I had gotten my shot and was focusing on another shot. I was hoping that if I did not see him then he wasn't really real.

"Princess...." He said in a frustrated whisper, "Look at me." And then rubbed the back of my neck with his thumb again, his tried and true way to get through to me. I knew without looking that he was smiling that sexy crooked smile when he felt me tremble beneath him. Yeah, he knew he still had what it took to turn me into a hormone filled pile of mush.

"I ought to wear a gas mask around you," I muttered, "your pheromones are toxic."

He laughed out loud at that. And that's when I turned my head to the side to look at him, as he was lit up smiling and laughing and looked like his undeniably gorgeous, lady killer self. Damn. When will I learn, I thought.

"Soooo....." he said, "what brings you out to my neck of the woods?" I sighed again. I really was horrible at keeping my resolutions. I had resolved to never see him again voluntarily but here I was out near his farm house, on the edge of his property, taking pictures.