Saffire may have looked like a million other strippers, but she was different. Sure, she had long blonde hair, double-D breast implants, and a tattoo of a butterfly on her ankle. But she also had health insurance, both medical and dental, with the best prescription drug coverage the free market allowed. And she had never displeased the government by signing questionable petitions, sending questionable letters to the liberal media, reading questionable publications, participating in questionable protest rallies, or feeding street bums. And she liked watching only movies and TV shows that respected the government and law enforcement. And she liked listening to the station that played lite rock with the occasional power ballad from her elementary-school years.
She even dated a good Christian, a faith-based motivational speaker named Blaine who attended that new megachurch, the one with the largest plasma screens in his gated community. She’d met him at the local Walmart, in the cute-puppies-dressed-in-camouflage poster section. He had Aryan features and only four percent body fat. She liked his designer business-casual wear. He liked her retro-Eighties Chuck Norris T-shirt.
On their first date, our couple dined at the Ground Round, where they discussed the current season of American Idol. They agreed that Simon Cowell had been a bit harsh on that Celine Dion soundalike. However, Saffire respectfully disagreed when Blaine said Paula Abdul should dial down her perkiness. Paula’s perkiness set the contestants at ease, Saffire thought.
After dinner, our couple drove to the mall multiplex and saw Extreme Patriots, that PG-13 movie about our brave troops in oil-rich Venezuela. Our couple loved the movie, particularly the part where Bruce Willis used hip-hop slang before setting off those explosions. She reminded herself to download the film’s Nineties grunge power-ballad theme song from iTunes.
After the movie, our couple went to her place. She led Blaine into the kitchen. She offered him a beer, a domestic brand, not one of those weird-tasting foreign jobs. They stood around and drank for a few minutes. She set her beer down onto the table. She moved behind him, knelt down, unsnapped his pants, unzipped them, pulled them down, pulled down his black mesh panties, gently spread his buttocks, and suddenly realized she’d forgotten to TiVo that documentary about the country’s latest and largest supermax prison.
June 30, 2006
DAVID V. MATTHEWS 