TEQUILA SHEILA RIDES AGAIN

Content Warnings: Potentially offensive humour

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Sheila Hagerty looked up from behind the bar she’d been wiping down, the wet dish rag still in her hand. ‘We’re closed,’ she announced tersely.

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 The shadowy figure who’d entered through the unlit side door slipped towards the tables. Dirty glasses and the odd beer bottle still remained from the departed Friday night crowd. 

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‘Surely you won’t refuse just one draft to an old friend…’

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Sheila’s eyes opened wide and she drew in her breath sharply. Pete Latham! An old friend? Really…  Smack, smack, smack, they’d just about worn the veneer off the wooden bar, screwing up against or even on top of it, back in the day…

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Sheila threw the dish rag into the sink, and pulling two large mugs from the shelf, she proceeded to fill them to the foaming brim. ‘Black Label still ok?’ she asked, squinting in the dim light as her former lover seated himself on a stool across the bar. 

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‘How nice of you to remember, Sheila. Our beer… And do you still chase it down with a shot of tequila?’

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Sheila laughed and shook her head. She studied the familiar man across from her and marvelled at the relative smoothness of the skin on his still-handsome face, as compared to her own saggy jowl and wrinkled visage. Holy shit, there was barely a trace of grey amongst the sandy hairs on the head of her former stud muffin.

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‘Looks like life’s treated you well…’ Her voice trailed off, self-conscious of her own altered appearance. 

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‘Let’s have a dance for old time’s sake, girl.’ Pete sauntered to the jukebox in the corner and plugged the electrical prongs, dusty with disuse, into the wall socket. He grinned when the aged machine lit up immediately. ‘E19, our song… Do you still love Elvis?’

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Sheila allowed herself to be led across the empty dance floor, sticky with spilled drinks. She felt the old familiar heat flame between her thighs as she followed Pete’s footsteps while they swayed together. 

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‘You always said you’d sell your soul to the devil himself, Sheila, to get your name on the deed to this place.’ Pete chuckled and gazed down at her as they moved across the floor. 

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Sheila stopped, abruptly, and stared blank-faced at her dance partner. ‘Did I?’

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*

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‘Sheila, you know you’re not supposed to be in this gentleman’s room, dear.’ 

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Sheila Hagerty, now submissive, allowed herself to be led down the hall and into the lounge, where residents sat staring with uncomprehending eyes at a large-screen television. 

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The nurse turned away and called out to a white-coated man stepping from the elevator. ‘Dr Latham, may I speak to you?’ 

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Sheila watched as the retreating figures converged, and then she shuffled once more down the hall to slip unnoticed into the ‘forbidden’ room. 

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Good old ‘Penis Pete.’ Just one more ride, for old time’s sake…

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Susan Morritt: 

Susan R. Morritt is a sixty-one year old writer, visual artist and musician from Waterford, Ontario, Canada. She received an Honourable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest (2019), was short-listed for the Staunch Short Fiction Prize (2020), and her fiction appears in Written Tales 'Tis the Season Anthology (2021). Her poetry has been published in Feathertale, Pulsar as well as others. She is a former race horse trainer and currently still works part-time with livestock on a turkey breeding farm.