Big Yellow Taxi

Carrot Enema

Rowan reached for Daniel's hand and held it.  Her slim fingers slid between his thicker ones and she turned towards him, standing close enough that she could wrap her other hand around the back of his palm, sandwiching his hand between the two of hers.  The skin on her hands was warm and smooth despite the many decorative tattoos that circled her fingers and covered the backs of her palms.  

Tattoos hurt.  Daniel had several himself and he knew how much it hurt to get them.  The less fat in the area to cushion the sharp vibration of the needle, the more it hurt.  The one Daniel had on the inside of his arm had hurt like a summbitch and he had only been able to sit through it by dry swallowing one of the large white pain pills that his brother had pressed into his palm as the older man hissed at him to stop acting like a little p***y.  Daniel could only guess that the hands and fingers would be an even more painful choice than the meaty insides of his arms. He couldn't picture Rowan sitting through something that intense. She appeared so gentle and slight that a strong wind might blow her over.  

Aside from the pain factor, full intricate hand and finger designs were an odd choice for a first tattoo.  Since he told himself that he was only checking her for tattoos, Daniel let his eyes roam over Rowan's body.  Her lower half was covered in her long skirt, but most of her upper body was exposed. Her skirt hung low on her hips, exposing the top curve of them where they dipped in to form her slim waist.  Under her freckles her shoulders were tan from the sun. His eyes followed her tan lines down to the creamy flesh of her breasts.  

By the time Daniel's eyes climbed back up to Rowan's face he had forgotten why he had been staring at her body in the first place.  She was blushing pink under the speckled design her young friend had painted on her face, and Daniel realized he had been staring at her.  Not just staring, but gawking at her body with his mouth hanging open like a codfish. His first impulse was to mumble some sort of lame apology  But before he could form the words her eyes caught his. In the evening sun, he could see they were not brown as he had thought earlier at the market, but more of a dark hazel green with a darker blue green rim around the outside of the irises.  As he looked into them, the black center of her eyes expanded until he could see his own reflection. Seconds stretched into minutes and minutes stretched into eternity.  

A soft squeeze of his hand brought Daniel out of the trance he felt like he was in. Instead of exciting him further, the touch of Rowan's hands on his was calming.  As she touched him, it crossed Daniel's mind that he had never held hands with a woman before. Holding hands was not something he would have expected to enjoy. His brother’s voice echoed in his mind.  Hand holding is for p*****s.  But Daniel liked it.  He liked touching her.  The rough feel of the few calluses Rowan had near the tops of her palms in contrast to the rest of her much softer skin was comforting.  She was a real girl that actually used her hands, not some pampered princess that couldn't even touch a dishrag for fear of chipping her manicure.

A high pitched feminine giggle tore Daniel's attention away from the woman that was clasping his hand between her own.  Marv had his hand clamped on the slim waist of Rowan's blonde friend. He was whispering something into her ear. Judging by how red her face was, Daniel didn't even want to guess what his brother was saying to her.  He was only glad that Marv had the good sense to whisper whatever he was saying to the girl instead of hollering it out loud for everyone to hear in his usual obnoxious way.  

"Would you like a tour...," Rowan asked.  "We usually give tours to all the guests when they arrive," she added, feeling rather lame.  She honestly couldn't think of anything else to say. Not anything proper anyway. She had plenty to offer about many other topics.  How blue Daniel's eyes were and how strong his hand felt and how good he smelled and how hard her n*****s were. She would like to give him a tour.  A tour of her bedroom complete with the scenic view of her naked body.

Despite how lame it made her feel, Daniel's face did brighten up slightly at the suggestion of being shown around.  Rowan could tell he was curious about her home. Most people were. But his curiosity seemed more genuine as opposed to the voyeuristic vibe Rowan often got from visitors in her community.  Those people would poke around, hoping to see something strange they could tell stories about later. They always left disappointed when the most action they saw was people milking goats in the barn.  Daniel just seemed like he wanted to know more about her, which made her feel good inside and much more flattered than a hundred insincere compliments.

"I'd like a tour," Daniel assured her.  But just as the words were leaving his lips, his stomach let out a loud angry grumble.  

"Or maybe something to eat first...," Rowan suggested with a smile.  Like when she had caught him staring, Daniel's first impulse was to be embarrassed of his unruly bodily functions.  Having his stomach grumble reminded him of grade school. Watching everyone else eat lunch and pretending he wasn't hungry because the Mason's don't take handouts.  But like the staring, Rowan didn't seem to mind his stomach's loud protests. On the contrary, she was the one acting embarrassed. Like she was a bad host for not offering him something to eat earlier.  

At the suggestion of food, Marv announced loudly that he was ready to eat his own hand off if he didn't get something to eat soon.  This made both women laugh and settled the matter of where they were going. Rowan led them inside a large building that reminded Daniel a little of someplace children would go to eat when they were away at summer camp.  He had never been to summer camp. Camp cost money, something his parents never had. But he had seen a few movies where kids went away to camp. Most movies ended in the vast majority of them being murdered, but that did not change the fact that they took their meals in a large rustic looking cafeteria much like the one he was currently standing in.  

Instead of showing them around like a proper hostess, Rowan dropped Daniel's hand and swished over to poke at the many assorted platters and bowls of food that were set out.  Her hips swayed as she walked. Not in a way that seemed deliberately s****l but more like she was moving to music that only she could hear. Daniel took his eyes off her and started looking at the food, nervous that he was going to be offered something strange to eat that he couldn't pronounce the name of.  He wasn't a picky eater, but his tastes were simple and he didn't like eating things if he wasn't sure what they were.

To his relief, there was nothing strange laid out on the two messy buffet tables.  One was a cold salad bar set up with a few different types of already mixed salads as well as different types of fresh vegetables chopped up in bowls.  On the other table there were hot foods in metal steam tables and crock pots. Since Rowan gave him no direction at all as to what sort of dining behavior was expected of him, he watched her to see what she would do.  

Rowan grabbed a raw carrot from a plate with her fingers and chomped away on it as she headed over to casually examine the hot food.  She lifted the lid off one of the crock pots, letting a delicious aroma out into the air. Leaning down closer, she closed her eyes as she smelled the food.  Liking what she smelled, her half eaten carrot was quickly switched to her other hand as she dipped the tip of her little finger into the orange soup inside the crock pot.  Placing the same finger between her lips she hummed her enjoyment. Grabbing a spoon, she dipped it into the soup and took a slurpy mouthful. For Daniel eating was something he did because he had to do it to survive.  Except on the rare occasion that he took the time to properly grill something that he had hunted or fished for, eating wasn't something he enjoyed. And it definitely wasn't something he was used to seeing women do with so much enjoyment.  Watching Rowan eat was cute and sensual at the same time, a combination that was all the more appealing for how strange it was. He felt the corners of his mouth perk up into a ghost of a smile.  

"Finally found a woman with worse table manners than yers," Marv quipped, jabbing a hard elbow into Daniel's side with a chuckle.  Since Marv's quiet voice was about the volume of a normal person's speaking voice, Rowan heard his joke. Instead of becoming upset at the thought of being made fun of, she just laughed along with the man and admitted that she really should get herself a bowl instead of eating directly from the crock pot.  

Daniel fought the sudden urge to rabbit punch his brother right in the gut for what felt like the tenth time that day.  He quickly turned his attention to the food, grabbing a plate and filling up on whatever he thought looked or smelled good to him.  Having filled a large white cereal bowl with soup, Rowan hovered around next to him and made suggestions on what she thought he might like.  She had discarded her spoon and was sipping her soup directly from the bowl like it was a giant coffee mug.  

A man appeared in the doorway that led into the kitchen.  Daniel heard him laughing before he saw him. "Damn Roe," the man called over, "you better slow down before you get carotenemia again."  This made Rowan laugh into her soup. The man hurried over and slid an arm around Rowan's slim waist. He pulled her close and kissed her on the cheek in a way that suggested they were more than friends.  Rowan allowed the contact for a moment before she wriggled away from the man, throwing herself and her soup bowl slightly off balance. A bit of the soup sloshed out over the side of the bowl and dripped onto the toe of Daniel's motorcycle boot.  He found himself getting angry. Not because his boots got soup on them, but because he didn't like another man touching the woman he liked in such a familiar way.  

"This is Eron," she said, taking another sip of her soup and smiling indulgently when the man leaned in and sipped from her bowl himself.  "He's Jeff's partner," she explained. Daniel felt the relief rush into him before he knew it was coming, his lungs releasing the air he didn't know he was holding in.  He thought there was something odd about this man, and once Rowan mentioned the other man Daniel realized that this man was dressed in a matching outfit to the man that had shown them where to park.  Complete with a flowered crown and a rainbow tie-dyed tank top. For probably the first time in his life, Daniel felt relieved to know that the man he was being introduced to was homosexual. He might be queer, but at least he wasn't competiton.  

"What's carot-enema," Daniel asked, so eager to change the subject from Eron's s****l preferences before his brother chimed in with his loud opinion that he didn't care if he was pronouncing the unfamiliar word wrong.  

"Once I tried being a vegan," Rowan explained, ignoring laughter from both Eron and her pretty blonde friend, "But it made me so hungry.  I ate so many carrots, the tip of my nose turned orange." She paused for her friends’ laughter to die down before she went on. "Now I eat meat and cheese again."  Ayla unplastered herself from Marv's side long enough to laugh and add to the story, telling about how Rowan had nearly scrubbed her skin raw trying to get the yellow stains off before she figured out they were being caused by her diet and not by the large patch of dandelions she had rolled in earlier that day with her dogs.  

The story was so funny that Daniel felt a laugh bark out of him before he could help himself.  It sounded more like a strangled cough than a real laugh and Rowan turned to look at him, afraid he might have choked on something that he was eating.  She knew it then. It wasn't the odd choked sound of his escaping laughter. It was the embarrassed look on his face after he made the noise. He didn't laugh much.  She didn't think he smiled much either. More than anything she wanted to be the one to make him laugh. And not a short barking laugh like the one that had barely escaped his lips.  She wanted to make Daniel laugh the kind of laughter that would make his sides ache and tears streak down his face. Part of it was the healer in her. But another part of it was new.  Something this man was bringing out in her. She wanted to make him happy.