"I don't see how they can't have air conditioning in this church Warren!" I paced back and forth across the floor of the choir dressing room. My tuxedo jacket was tossed carelessly over a chair in the corner of the room. Little beads of moisture were beginning to appear down the center of my ruffled pink shirt.

Warren was digging at his leg, also struggling with the oppressive August heat. "Just my luck the air conditioning goes the day before my wedding. This is almost too much. Don't feel too bad though Leisure, I'm feeling the worst of this. Come over hear and help me with this leg."

I walked over and grabbed his right leg that was encased in a walking cast. He had broken his fibula during a wrestling camp two weeks prior to the wedding. In his hand he had a coat hanger from the dressing room closet and was forcing the bent edge down into his cast, itching and moaning with primal pleasure.

"This heat is just killing my leg. It's one of those days that you just sit and sweat. Imagine" he said, looking right at me "having this cast on in this heat and feeling those tormenting trickles of sweat moving down your leg and you're not able to itch them!"

I didn't feel so bad after Warren's petit rage. After all, I was the best man and had to take charge and ride out these minor difficulties. I walked over and grabbed my tux jacket, throwing it on and wincing slightly. The organ started to chug outside in the sanctuary and I knew the time was at hand for Warren to get out there and marry his bride. "Marriage" I thought. It all seemed to be happening so fast and it was one of those occasions that made most people think along particular life lines. Birth, marriage, retirement and death. There I was sitting decked out in tuxedo and sweating for the heat... Or was it a nervous sweat? That sweat of one not comfortable in his own skin. I had just re-established a relationship with an old lover not two months prior to this event and knew that decision was one of haste. Hell if I even knew what I wanted out of life. To enjoy, yes, but what of enjoyment? Did I never want strife? I don't think that was it. Setting the stage for this great tragedy, I had somehow convinced Leanna that the wedding would not be a whole lot of fun and that it was probably better that she not come. Possibly all I wanted was strife, for I had in the past two days, made a few choices that would stay with me forever and that would ultimately lead me into the swamp of my malcontent existence known as the District of Columbia.

"Peter! What's up? Come to old buddy it's time." Warren had shaken me out of thought and was shoving his bride's ring into my hand. "Here's the ring. Bring it up to me when the pastor signals. Oh, and the envelope for the pastor. Give it to him sometime after the service."

I looked up out of my daze and accepted both the items into my pockets. I noticed the pastor leave the doorway and head back to the sanctuary. Warren and I embraced and then separated. He walked off after the pastor and I walked out to the front of the church to take my place beside the maid of honor. I glanced one more time after him. He wobbled out the door in his walking cast, all the more noble for it.

***

I walked down the aisle with Mercedes' arm in mine, sweating my ass off. All I could do was think of the evening previous, my stomach churning. If I could just get through this blur of ceremony I could, with a little glue and nails, maybe piece my life back together. For it was wild what happened to me. And I courted every second of it.

I arrived two nights before the wedding at Heather's parent's house sometime after sundown. They welcomed me in and put some strong drink in my hand which I promptly slammed and was handed another. Warren and Heather showed me around the house and introduced me to all the new people I had never met. Everyone was drinking heavily.

Warren was running around showing me everything that his future father-in-law had been constructing around the house. He showed me the new treated-lumber deck outside the back porch which wound around into the back yard in several levels.

"Look at this thing Peter!" Warren was going-off in his usual enthusiastic manner. "It really wouldn't be all that heard to build. You know, dig some footers in the ground. Make sure they're level! Then add the main supports and finally add the floor and surrounding fence."

I acted interested, but actually had no plans too build a deck anytime soon. My mind was wandering about and waiting to focus on someone or some activity.

"Now take a look at those flood lights on the back of the house. See them?"

"I see them Warren. They're pretty awesome" I said laughing.

"Well, those things aren't ordinary flood lights. With the flick of a switch inside they become security lights and will flood the area with light if it detects any movement behind the house."

"That does seem pretty useful, but I wonder if it is ever a pain in the ass like of a rabbit hops through their lot."

This threw Warren a bit, but he quickly recovered. "Well, I'm sure it's worth that little bit of trouble."

Soon enough Warren and I had worked our way out of the gathering crowd and had settled into two chairs beside the artificial pond that Heather's father had erected. I stared in a glazy way down into the water, catching occasional glimpses of white and orange speckled fish.

"What do they do in the winter?" I wondered out loud to Warren.

"Dude, they hibernate. The water doesn't freeze to the bottom entirely, so they build themselves some nests and sleep it out."

"Nests? Fish build nests?"

Warren gulped down his drink and continued. "Sure do. Rock bass are especially like birds that way. Hell, go to the shallow water around any pond and you'll see the nests. The bass come gliding by now and then to check on their eggs. It's pretty cool."

"Really." I reflected for a moment and then thought again about the goldfish. "But what if you have a super cold winter and all that water does freeze?"

"Well Peter, I guess you're gonna be buying new goldfish."

I was stunned by the news and stared silently at the helpless fish. Then I heard Heather's voice. "Warren, Mercedes is here!" she shouted from the back porch.

***

Mercedes was in the middle of the living room. Warren and Heather introduced us quickly, but I was riveted and didn't take my eyes off her. It wasn't her beauty, though she was pretty, that kept me focused. It was her intent gaze that fell upon me. I felt like easy prey of wise panther. I was nearly left helpless. I stayed by her side the rest of the night.

Shaking her hand with a smile, "Glad to meet you" I said.

"Likewise. I've heard some stories about you Peter." She giggled like woman who held elusive secrets and had most of the answers. That caused me to look accusingly at Warren, who just shrugged his shoulders.

***

We started kissing in the dark on the living room floor. I was on top of my sleeping bag with Mercedes on one side and Warren's brother on the other. Everyone had quieted down and the last words were spoken by someone before the deep breaths of sleep could be heard coming from everyone except Mercedes and I. There was something tangible in the air. Maybe only I could sense it. But it was like looking into Mercedes' eyes when I had met her and knowing it was more than a gaze in my direction. Something was to happen. I was not tired. I was on the other side of the world from sleep. Then she reached over and grabbed forcefully at my groin. At the same time she rolled in my direction and put her tongue into my mouth. We messed around in the living room for timeless moments, but I was being overcome by sickness of the event and had to get outside to get some fresh air. I was nauseated by my acts and the stale recycled conditioned air. What was Leanna doing? How could I so casually lay with another woman? I was still drunk on the seven and sevens, that's how. I stood up with my pants down around my thighs dick bobbing around in the air as though blind and looking for an outlet, pulling Mercedes after me towards the back door.

Once outside of the house we embraced and put our mouths together once more. She caressed my erection and ran her painted fingernails all over my private parts. We moved further out on the deck, but as she lowered herself to her knees the area was suddenly flooded by light, exposed for the infidels that we were. Of course we were both startled and ran around the house and into the driveway. There we could wait no more. Mercedes dropped to her knees and sucked me off. I gazed to the sky, an unholy man, powerless to stop myself. For all I knew Heather's father was about to open the door to find out why the lights had gone on. He didn't comeout. Maybe he thought it was just a rabbit.

***

It did not end there. Mercedes was an incredible devourer of sex. She could not get enough and I don't think I was able to deliver all she wanted for I could not get myself into the hedonistic present. I was plagued by thoughts of Leanna and every second I was with Mercedes I became a smaller man. I had grown twenty two years to get to where I was and I was mowing all that work down in a few hours of sexual escapades.

"Peter. Let's get away from the house." Mercedes spoke to me and opened her beautiful eyes that were accentuated with well timed innocent blinks. "I think I'd die if anyone caught us here. I have to fuck you tonight."

I didn't even have time to think on those words for Mercedes grabbed my hand and led me down the driveway and across the street as I struggled to get my pants up with my one free hand. Thinking that we were off to find some locale in which to have sex took my anxiety to new heights to where I was nearly overcome with vertigo.

"Mercedes, where can we go?" I asked weakly, but I knew in my heart that if two people wanted to have sex bad enough, NO MATTER WHERE THEY ARE, THEY WILL HAVE SEX.

"There by those hedges." She whispered and motioned with a lunge of her head and trotted off as quickly as possible to the dark leafy forms. We took refuge between a large sycamore along the road and the hedges. She undressed me and I her and then suddenly there we were naked along a street in Southern Jersey in the early morning hours exhibiting a passion rarely seen anywhere. I was on top of her and divided. One part of me could find nothing wrong with this turn of events. The other, though, was bedeviled by these deeds. It proved the strongest.

"What's the matter?" She looked up at me for an explanation.

I looked down to our crotch areas, that were trying unsuccessfully to unite, for some answer. "I think I'm too drunk" I lied.

Mercedes let out a frustrated sigh and laid her head back into the cool night grasses. I waited with baited breath for her reaction.

She lightly scratched her fingernails along my back and looked at me gently, "Oh well, Peter. That's alright. We've still got plenty of time left in the weekend. Let's just lie here in the night and talk."

That we did. I told her of my future which at that point consisted only of a desire to be an artist.

"What kind of artist?" she asked apparently confused.

"Well, I like to draw and I want to explore interpretations of things that I see. I just don't want to draw things the way everyone sees them. I need to draw the way I see things. You know, the effect or impression that something has upon me. It could be an overall experience or it could be your face. I don't know. I don't know where I'm going to end up." I paused after speaking and was not too sure of what I had just expounded. Nervous, I threw the hot potato of conversation back at her. "Well, what are you going to do now that you're out of college?"

"I think I'm going to go on and get a master's in business administration." Her answer was as safe as if we had remained on the living room floor pretended to sleep and had never touched or never come outside. How could a woman so passionate utter such a safe answer? I knew that even if I could not always experience the passion fully, then I at least had to try. Apparently that was how I ended up with Mercedes, naked under a hedge.

I didn't give a response. My attention focused on a slight movement in the street. Not a car had gone by the whole time we had been there. If we had seen the headlights, we would have gotten quickly dressed and bolted back to the house. But I hadn't figured on what happened next. All too quickly I saw a figure approaching us quickly out of the dark. A figure on a bike.

"Here comes someone on a fucking bike!"

Mercedes grabbed at her clothes but it was too late. I merely pulled her under me, glanced up and smiled at the biker when he rode by.

"Hello" I said. I got no response. The biker looked our way, digested the scene instantly, and then sped away. All he saw was my happy face and my naked ass. It had to freak him out considerably.

"What kind of an ass is riding his bike around in the middle of the night anyway?" I asked no one in particular, handing Mercedes her sweater. We had most of our clothes back on. As we walked back to the dark house, I had her one hand in mine and she clutched her underwear with her other.