The Big Ka-Bang

For the costume-wearing, role-playing folks who know how to have fun.

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Edited by Sinclair Sexsmith

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Jackie took a sip of her sweet tea and pressed the fabric of her white Sunday dress flat against her ladylike-positioned knees. “It’s been lonely since Jim passed away.”

Adel was ten years her senior, was a widow herself, and knew about these things.

“Loneliness is a killer,” Adel confirmed.

“I mean” —Jackie went on, adjusting the brim of her straw hat— “loneliness as in the conversation, not the company.”

Age lines bunched together as the older woman laughed heartily. She looked radiant in her pale blue pantsuit, string of pearls, and short, curly, salt-and-pepper hair. “Is that right?”

Jackie found it difficult to focus on her companion’s face when she’d neglected buttons on her blouse, and those perfect, small breasts jostled underneath. She attempted to cast her eyes elsewhere, down at Adel’s high polished pumps, all the while wondering whether this woman had bothered with a bra, or anything else.

“We were married almost two years,” Jackie sighed, “but not once did my Jim give me that ka-bang I’ve heard the other women at church speak about.”

Adel choked on her tea. “Ka-bang?”

“Oh, you know…” Jackie leaned forward as if to tell a secret, no matter no soul was in earshot of the porch or anywhere else on the farm on a Sunday. “Where your legs go stiff and your feet shake.” She nodded her head in response to Adel’s raised...