Gary didn’t understand dating. Sure, he got the romanticized notion of meeting your perfect mate and spending the remainder of your life in perpetual bliss but that was the stuff of fairy tales and children’s stories. To Gary, in the real world, dating was about sex plain and simple.

Gary drove a truck, a tractor-trailer to be more accurate, as far east as Chicago, as far south as New Orleans and all over the Western States. He’d be on the road for days, sometimes up to a week. Then he’d have a few days off to rest and take care of life’s other requirements. When he was supposed to fit in dating confounded Gary.

Gary lived in Fallon, Nevada - less than an hour from Carson City where his company would load up and receive trailers full of anything and everything. After unloading at the docking bay Gary and his semi would take the 80 east past Reno to US-50 and US-50 right to downtown Fallon, both blocks of it. But it had everything Gary needed. If he needed a trim, he went to Grouchy’s. If he needed more meds for his back pain, he went to see Dr. Mullen. And if he needed sex, Gary went to Salt Wells.

The Salt Wells Villa was a brothel that catered to truckers and servicemen from the Fallon Naval Air Station. The Villa had a large, sunken-floor parlor straight out of the 70s with red-orange shag carpet and wood-panelled walls. The women were not flashy like at some of the places down by Vegas, but dolled-up and working the parlor each was as beautiful as a bride on her wedding day, and every day for these women was their wedding night.

Gary’s favorite woman at the Villa was Deena, a tall, dark-haired lady with emerald green eyes and some meat on her bones. (Voluptuous is how they market a fat whore, Deena was not voluptuous, she was nobody’s fetish, unless your fetish is perineal tear scars. Her twin boys were now six and not too far away from learning what their mother really did for work from their classmates.) Deena was marketed as a MILF or as the girl-next-door.

Deena was Gary’s favorite because she was soft and caring. She would lie naked on a bed in one of the hostel-sized bedrooms that ran the length of the back hallway and let Gary rub her all over, some days for hours. It got such that they didn’t even have sex. They’d call it in as a half-and-half but there was no sex, Gary didn’t even take out his pecker anymore. He’d still have sex, but with the other women. With Sheri or Aspen or even Mia. But they’d make all sorts of noises and say rude things. One time Mia said, ‘There’s no way Deena’s as tight as me, eh Big Daddy?’ Gary stopped seeing Mia after that.

After running a wiggle wagon down to Tuscon, Gary thought about Deena during the return trip. He thought about how nice it’d be to get home and have Deena waiting there for a rubdown instead of at the Villa. He told Deena what he’d been thinking the next day at Salt Wells. Deena put her arms around him and started crying. ‘Oh, Gary. You’re the sweetest person to me. I think it’s a beautiful idea.’

They got married and Deena and the boys moved in with Gary. She stopped working at the Villa and became a full-time housespouse and rubdown receiver. Gary’s commute home from Carson City became a joyous jaunt, filled with anticipation. For a while, anyway. At some point Deena stopped waiting for Gary in bed and the rubs would take place that night or the next day. Then, after one of his trips, they didn’t happen at all. Soon it became the new norm.

Gary grew frustrated. One day he decided to head on over to Salt Well. Deena asked him where he was going. ‘Oh, no!’ she said. ‘You’re not going there. No husband of mine is going to a whorehouse.’ Gary put his keys back on the side table and sat in his chair. He did not understand marriage.