The M.I.L.F. Man

Lupita Part 2

Oh, all right. If you must know...

I danced Lupita away from the smirks and stares. Spun her out onto the back patio and into the parking lot beyond where she laughed and told me what a "crazy kid" I was.

"I like crazy," I told her.

And she tossed back that hair once I'd finally let go and said, "I used to."

Her eyes were incredibly sad. Out of nowhere, the whole world went dark.

And then this little dust devil went whirling through the lot--they materialize so magically in the desert. Churning up dust, bits of trash, everything in their paths...

This one rather playfully raised that wide skirt of hers and made it ripple like waves.

And I said, "My kingdom for a camera—wait! Don't move!"

She balked a bit when I raised my cell, but I got the most amazing shots—any artist would kill to capture a moment like that. This voluptuous creature, smiling, hair flying. Free, for a moment, to just be.

I wanted her to see herself like that. So I sat there in her big, pimped out, pearl white Escalade making her into works of art with an app she'd never heard of. It stunned her, that I could change those images so many ways. Intensify them, tone them down, change the colors, change the background, make it Picasso...Warhol...

I held up the one I liked best and said, "Look at you..."

"That's not me, though. You did all that...stuff to it."

"More you than you think. You've just buried all that."

"Under all this blubber?" she asked.

"Your words, not mine."

She smiled at the picture for a bit. And then she said, "Where you been, girl?"

"She went out dancing tonight," I told her.

She gave me the most enchanting smile. And the harsh parking lot lights showed me that her eyes weren't black. They were a very unique color—a very deep violet. And they were brimming with tears.

"See, you need to quit that," she said. "Making me feel all some kind of way."

That was so Tucson, that "some kind of way." It was the way a lot of Black and brown people described the most indescribable emotions.

I'd first heard it from a Black girl in a club. And I'd known precisely what she was trying to say. But I'd also seen the very big guy with whom she'd made a rather spectacular entrance earlier. And I wasn't quite ready to die for love yet...

Lupita's eyes, I might have died for. The way they looked just then.

And she wiped at them and said, "Where's your car?"

"I walked. I live...well, not far from here..."

"I bet you've got some money honey," she teased me. "One of those big old lofts they built?"

"It's...fairly large. Mid-size, for that building, probably."

"Where's that accent from, son?" she asked me. Squinting a little bit, as she tried to place it.

"It's...I've traveled a great deal. My father...well...long story."

"Those little bitches had no idea what they were dealin' with! But then, they're not half the woman I am," she said, pausing to see if I'd react to the "joke."