I met Melanie in August of '67. I was married then, but Lloyd and I were hard on the skids. That last night we had another fight. He came home drunk, threw me down on the bed and tried to have his way with me. I beaned him with my purse and ordered him out of our bedroom. He refused and we struggled for a while. He pinned me down, but when I thought it was going to get really ugly, he came to his senses and let me go.  He tossed a few insults my way then went to the refrigerator for another beer.  I locked the door, packed my bags, and left.

As I climbed into my '59 Biscayne, he yelled "Good riddance" after me as I drove off. I headed west but having nowhere else to go but Mom and Dad's house in St. Louis. About an hour down the road on Route 18, I realized I was tired and a long, long way from my old bedroom. I was hungry and I needed to think. So I stopped and got a room at a place called the Navajo Motel. The Navajo isn't there anymore, the land is all developed now, but for the time it was nice, and all I really needed was a bed. I got my room, I put my things away, hungry and bored with TV, but not wanting to be alone. I couldn't sleep so I went to the motel bar.  The place was called Plato's.

Despite the name, I was expecting a honky-tonk in a joint like the Navajo. A place to get a burger and a drink; maybe even a few drinks. And I wasn't entirely disappointed in what I found. They had a kitchen and a  jukebox, but Plato's wasn't like the bars I knew from Geauga County.  The decor was a bit over the top. Somebody had painted a mural of Greek columns, horses, young men, and seductive women in togas on the wall. They had a jukebox but it wasn't playing Porter Waggoner or Herb Alpert, they were radical, psychedelic stuff. I heard the Jefferson Airplane and a Whiter Shade of Pale. I heard distorted, spacey guitars with a driving beat. The patrons gave me a long look when I came in, but when I went to the bar and ordered a drink they got back to dancing. Plato's was nothing like the bars Lloyd frequented. Men there didn't line up to buy me a drink or try to talk me out of my pencil skirt. And the girls seemed queer, half of them ordinary like me in proper makeup with long hair and a bullet bra. Some of the women dressed like men, in flannel shirts and jeans and it seemed like each mannish girl was hooked up with each of the more feminine customers. But I really didn't care what other people did. I was there to leave my old life and the unfamiliar surroundings helped.

Melanie was my bartender. She was wearing a button-down dress and a little makeup, but there wasn't much girlie about her except for her figure. She had short, boyish auburn hair and lean body, a sharp chin, and smooth pale skin. She had left off her bra, a thing I could not miss and a thing we never did in the sixties. I could see her nipples through the material of her dress, which was daring enough to make me look twice. I'd have never dared risking that myself even if my bras were uncomfortable. Strange as she seemed, Melanie was friendly enough. I didn't mind when she looked me up and down while asking what I wanted. I ordered a cheeseburger then decided to throw caution to the wind and ordered a martini. Mom and Dad were about ten or twelve hours away. Tomorrow I figured I'd get an early start. Tonight I could let my hair down and let it all out. But I wasn't going to weep. That could wait until after I got home.

"You look like your best friend got run over," Melanie said.

"I left my husband," I explained. "I got tired of him out drinking and neglecting me. Tired of the constant fighting, tired of his endless demands, particularly when drunk. And the man was drunk a lot.”

"Most men are like that," she said. "Act like you're property. Treat you real nice until they get that pussy. Once they've had it you're their property. And being nice doesn't matter anymore."

"You just spoke God's own truth.  But they aren't all bad, and right now I'm pretty angry," I admitted.  

"Are you supposed to be happy?  Most of us have been married.  The happiest day of my life was the day I left Dave. You got any kids?"

"No, thank God."  And I thought about it, I was lucky we didn't have children. I'd have had to stay then.  But then maybe Lloyd might have been better with kids.  "We tried for a year, but it just wasn't meant to be. Right now I'm glad, though he was a lot nicer when we were trying."

"They always are when a man wants something," she said washing glasses, then moved to tend to the order of two young men a few seats down. I could see one of them squeezing the other's bottom. I could see their eyes, locked on each other the same way Lloyd used to lock onto mine when we were courting. I ignored them, raising my glass for Melanie.

"He got everything he wanted but a son."

"I bet that man blames you too when he might have been the problem."

And then I realized why this bar was strange. In most places, men and women are mixed.  At Plato's, men danced with men and women with women. Especially men dancing with men, that just wasn't done, not back home in Geauga county. But I had a room and it was on the way to St. Louis and nobody had given me any trouble. I took my martini, took a long sip and smiled at Melanie. She smiled back. She was nice.

She really wasn't right about men, at least all of them. Peggy's husband Greg was a jewel. Lloyd always cut him down behind his back, maybe because he couldn't do what Greg could and put his wife first. On further thought, I figured Lloyd didn't want to put me first.  Lloyd was all that mattered to Lloyd.  Just like his father. To men like my husband, I was just an appliance with a pussy. Melanie was right about too many husbands I knew, men who cheated on their wives and laughed about it. I wondered if Lloyd had ever cheated on me. Decided it didn't matter now if he had. Of course, I'd stayed loyal, though I'd had chances. But I'd been a good girl. And what had it gotten me? 

I stewed a bit thinking about what Mom and Dad would say when I got there. Mom always was all about staying pretty and doing whatever it took to keep a man. Maybe Mom was like that because she loved Dad, only Dad was a lot more like Greg than my Lloyd. They didn't know my husband, not really.  Lloyd had always stayed on his best behavior around others. Unless you really knew us, he acted like the perfect husband. So I didn't figure I'd get much sympathy for leaving.  Leaving made me a big failure as a wife, as I had been as a would-be mother. A divorcee. I knew what men said about divorcees, how we couldn't get enough. Well, I'd gotten more than enough during my marriage. I finished my martini and ordered another, and tried to contemplate going back home, getting a job, and how almost everyone would tell me I should turn around and beg Lloyd to take me back. I saw face after face, pointing fingers at me, whispering behind my back.  

That's when I broke down, right there at the bar. I cried in my drink right in front of everybody, bringing my napkin to my eyes to mop up the tears and the runny mascara—I sat there sobbing.

Melanie came around the bar to wrap her arms around me. I found her shoulder and just sobbed. Melanie stayed positive. "That's okay, girl. It happens to all of us when things don't work out. You think you're the only person here who never got divorced. I was married for two years. How long were you married, Frank?" And I realized she was speaking to one of the men who'd been dancing together.

The man who had been pressing his bottom into his partner's hand turned to look at me, a sad look on his face. He had a thin black mustache and he smiled at me, though he had a sad look as recognized me. He was handsome and had kind eyes, but held himself in a very effeminate way and held his body tight to a man whom I now recognized as his lover. "I was married six years," he told me in a soft voice. "I tried, I really tried. But I just couldn't."

Melanie mopped up my face, her fingers soft on my cheeks, her body close to me, breath in my ear. I could smell her perfume, Chanel, expensive and not what I would have expected. And I hugged her tight and until I calmed down. Melanie didn't hurry me. "It'll be okay, honey. You aren't the only person to break down in this bar. You won't be the last. To tell the truth, you'll be better off without him."

I gathered myself to smile at her and smiled at everyone in the bar to let them know I was okay. Then I ordered another martini. Normally I was a one-drink woman, but the night you leave your spouse counts as a special occasion. So I treated myself that way. The Association was spinning on the jukebox, then the Yardbirds got going and people started dancing. I didn't want to be depressed. I didn't want to be down. I wanted to live, to cast off the straightjacket that had bound me for years now. And so I got up and started to dance, slowly, awkwardly. Lloyd hadn't liked dancing. He stopped taking me not long after we got married. But I'd always liked it.

One of the butch girls came over to dance with me. She was tall and skinny and wore a green man's work shirt and Levi's. I nodded yes. I danced with her and it didn't feel wrong. And a couple of the femmes (though we didn't call them that back then) joined in. Pretty soon we twisting the night away in a circle. Slowly the sadness left me and I began to feel the music of the Monkees and the Turtles, and I enjoyed the Satisfaction of The Rolling Stones. It wasn't long until I was smiling.

Plato's did not have a two-thirty license so they closed around midnight. I went back to my room, still feeling alone. I wasn't ready to sleep. I was agitated. They had a porch and a couple of lawn chairs out front so I got a Coke out of the machine in the office and took a seat out front to watch the stars and the cars passing by on the highway That's where Melanie found me after she closed up.

She came walking by in her long dress. I waived at her and she came over and sat next to me. "I have a little wine," she said. "Would you like to share?"

"Of course." I went into my room and unwrapped the two glasses they had and brought them out. The wine was pink and fruity, but it was what I needed as I sat there with her, slowly sipping.

"You aren't going to spend a long time alone," she said. "Not a woman as pretty as you."

"Do you think I'm pretty," I asked, sincerely. I hadn't felt pretty in a long time. Lloyd was always bitching about something.

"Oh yeah." She took out a hand-rolled cigarette and lit it, taking a long drag. Then she handed it to me. The flavor and smell were sweet, not like tobacco, and it tasted a lot better too as I sucked in the smoke. "Girl like you will have everybody lining up for a dance."

"I sure hope so," I said, coughing a little. I hadn't tried marijuana before. But I'd heard of it, and this had to be it. It was a good night for firsts.

"I'd ask you," she said. Her eyes were focussed on me, intent, and I could see that even in the moonlight.

"I'd dance right now, but we haven't got any music."

"Can you count time," she said. "Were you ever in marching band?"

"Clarinet," I responded promptly. “I was in marching band and we finished fourth in the state.”

"Let's dance," she said, rising and offering her hand.

I took it and Melanie led me inside and shut the door behind us. We set our glasses on the table and came together, "Let me set the beat," she said. "And a one, and a two, and a three, and a four." She started moving and I moved with her, and then she stepped close, pressed her body tight to mine.

I'd slow danced before, at school dances, with boys, but we always kept a little distance. The chaperones had to make sure there was no funny business going on. Melanie and I had no chaperone. She pressed her body tight to mine. I could hear her breathing in my ear as she counted the beats. I could feel her breasts pressed tight to mine, and her hips rocking into me. Her thigh between mine, not hard, just a little, but I could feel it touching my mound in time to the music. After a while, I really started feeling it and liked the feeling. Slowly relaxing as the wine and the smoke moved through me, her breath filled my ears.

I started feeling woozy, not woozy, warm like I had on a good date. I looked at her. She wore no makeup like me, but her cheekbones were high and her chin had a dimple and her lips looked soft and full. I found myself wanting to kiss her.

Melanie didn't make it easy on me either, she kept her brown eyes fixed on mine and her mouth but inches away. I felt her straddling my hip and pushing into it, then pressing her thigh into my mound and it felt good. It felt really good and found myself pushing back. And finally I just plain broke down and kissed her.

It felt so nice to kiss a face as smooth as mine to feel lips soft as mine, to find a person who wasn't in a hurry to plunge her tongue into my mouth or do anything. We just stayed close, lips pressed together exploring the softness of each other's body. My mouth slipped open and her tongue slid in, gently, naturally seeking out mine to circle and touch and I felt our hips falling into the rhythm of our dance, cunts pressed tight to each other, chest to chest, lip to lip.

Melanie broke the kiss first. "How can you stand that damned heavy bra? I tried wearing one because my Daddy insisted, but I could never get used to it."

"I'm pretty big," I admitted. "But I take it off at night". 

"It's nighttime. Take it off." Melanie's long fingers began unbuttoning my blouse. And I went for my skirt, slipping off the buttons and the catch wriggling out of it to explore my half slip. Her fingers slid behind me to unsnap my bra, doing it far more smoothly than Lloyd ever had. "God, you're beautiful," she said as my bra fell away 

I blushed as she told me I was beautiful.

Melanie stepped back. Her dress buttoned down the middle and she started to unbutton the top, her eyes watching me the entire time. Steadily, she worked her way down, revealing her breasts for me, small and delicious, her nipples poking high. She kept going until she could just slip out of the dress and let it fall onto the floor. She wore no girdle, and hooked her finger to side down her panties down in one quick motion, then she lay back on the bed, naked for me. I looked at her for the first time, truly studying her female body. She was like me, yet different and somehow wonderful. I peeled down my girdle and my panties then my stockings and sat next to her on the side of the bed.

Melanie pulled me into her arms. She pulled me on top of her, so unlike Lloyd, letting me press down, letting my full, heavy breasts cover hers, Our nipples touched and it made me feel so good. Her fingers slid to my bottom, gripping it and kneading the flesh. touching me as no one ever had. Her kiss was hungry and urgent yet somewhat tender and found myself growing ever needier for it.

Then she gripped me by my hips and rolled me over her body sliding between my legs, hips undulating on my mound and my now moist pussy. I felt her teeth scrape my neck, her fingers on my nipples slowly tugging and kneeling. I felt her mouth on me, pinning my nipple and pulling it with her teeth, the tightness just right, just what I needed to feel as she pulled on and stretched my breasts. I heard myself moaning, My hands clutched her head, fingers on that short, boyish haircut, pressing her into me as her fingers pushed their way inside me.

Lloyd had tried to finger me. Melanie showed me everything Lloyd could never learn. Her fingers kept up a steady rhythm, her thumb gently circled my pearl. I cried out to Jesus. Her fingers thrust into me. Melanie seemed to know just how deep and fast to pump me. Soon I was moaning, my hips bucking as her fingers plunged in and out. For the first time, I felt a song of joy rising in my body, hips, and breasts bouncing. Melanie left a long line of kisses down my belly. I guessed where she was going, but I couldn't believe it until she slowly and inevitably kissed my hood with her full lips and sucked my clitoris into her mouth. As her tongue danced across my sex, my body erupted, and I cried out aloud, consumed with ecstasy for the first time in my life. I'd never really liked sex before that night. Melanie's touch was a revelation. 

It was the morning light when she parted, by then I was too exhausted to think of driving to St. Louis. So I decided to stay another day because I wanted more. And well, that miraculous night is how your Aunt Melanie and I ended up together.