She had to be at least six-one and looked like she weighed three hundred pounds, and all of this flesh, her enormous breasts, her big ass, her lumpy legs, and her mottled arms were all poured into skin tight white pedal-pushers and a black top open to her ample cleavage, a place a small cat could get lost in. To top everything off, her fat pale face resembled something out of a Francis Bacon painting, all out of focus and red-lipped and black-mascarad.

She had a mincing little girl voice that more suited her tiny starched boyfriend, a neat little man in his fifties who wore tan knee socks and green Bermuda shorts, and his sport shirt was actually starched and pressed. “I’m kinda scared, Henry,” she kept squealing in Henry’s ear as they all got locked down onto their seats so nobody fell out and sued Astroland. Henry just looked bored, as if he could give a shit if she were scared or not.

Gus was scared. Right now, as the car bumped and climbed, his stomach clenched as if he were back in the army waiting for the biggest guy in the company to give him a good shot in the gut on initiation night. He remembered that he’d passed out on that occasion, and promptly vomited when he’d come to. He hoped that wouldn’t happen now. The only reason he was locked down into this steel and vinyl trap on this hot august day with his gut clenched and his heart in his throat was sitting next to him on the hot red seat.

Mimi. The delectable Mimi, thirty-five years old and hot, with her big smile full of bright impossibly big teeth. Gus had never seen anybody with so many teeth in his life; she had teeth for miles, rows of gleaming white rectangles barely contained by her lush red lips.

Everything about Mimi was lush; she oozed fecundity like some ancient fertility goddess carved from the rarest of ivory. “Wow, this is great, Gus. I haven’t been on the Cyclone in years! I love it! We’ve got to do it three times in a row!” she’d declared as Gus bought the tickets. A chill had gone up his back upon hearing this.

He hoped he could last out three trips on this thing without getting killed or dying of fright. He hoped he could hide this almost paralyzing fear from Mimi; he couldn’t let her think him a coward, which just wouldn’t do. At least not until after he went to bed with her a few times, this was their second date, and if it didn’t happen tonight, Gus was done.

The expensive dinner and sappy movie he’d had to sit through (a chick flick) the week before was nothing compared to this. It’s easy to pretend you like a boring movie and not resent spending hard earned cash and not getting laid, but hiding fear, that was something else entirely. He knew he’d turned pale at the first suggestion of the Cyclone. Mimi didn’t give any indication that she’d noticed, that was the good thing about dating a self-absorbed girls fifteen years his junior, they didn’t notice things that did not concern them.

Gus was sweating. That he was sure Mimi had noticed. Mimi herself was as dry as a cracker; she was excited and beamed like a kid getting a new toy.

Mimi had noticed that he was sweating, and she did think that sweaty fifty-year-old men were kind of gross, but Gus wasn’t too bad. He was smart and fun, and he made her laugh. He wasn’t bad looking, either, for an older guy, a bit of a paunch, but he was well muscled and had a rugged, handsome face. He could look scary at times, and that turned her on.

She thought of herself held tight in his grip as he told her he wasn’t taking no for an answer. But right now the look on his face was more scared than scary. But Mimi kept this to herself, no need to deflate the guy’s ego, especially if she wanted to fuck later. Guys could be so delicate when their masculine image was involved. And at his age, there could be a problem.

In her bag Mimi had a solution to a possible erectile dysfunction problem on Gus’ part in the form of a one hundred milligram Viagra. She’d copped a few from the last guy she had dated, Clayton. Dopey Clayton and his puppy dog eyes, always slobbering all over her and telling her that he loved her. Clayton and his syrupy, sappy lovemaking. Mimi didn’t want to make love, she wanted to fuck; and Gus looked like he could fuck.

Mimi hoped she wasn’t wrong about this, and judging by the way Gus was looking- a little green around the gills- Mimi began to worry. Maybe they only had to do the cyclone once. God, she didn’t want to give the guy a heart attack, she needed him alive for later. He could have his heart attack after. They should go to his house, Mimi thought. He might even have his own Viagra.

Gus’s knuckles shone white against the skin drawn tight over them. He was all tensed up as the wretched roller coaster reached the top of the first drop. He wanted to close his eyes but couldn’t take the chance that Mimi would look over and catch him doing it. He felt each tie bump, bump, bump, hard against his ass with each rising inch. Suddenly they were at the top, this was it, they were going down.

Gus hoped he didn’t scream like a girl, the way he did when a German shepherd had bitten him on the calf when he was eighteen, he’d never forget the look in the dog’s eyes has he had ground Gus’s calf muscles between his powerful jaws. But this wasn’t going to be painful, he told himself. Just close your eyes and it will be over in minutes. No! Keep your eyes open, he remembered. And smile! Don’t forget to smile, as if you like this shit, Gus, it will be worth it! Gus stole a nervous glance at Mimi just before the car dropped. Mimi beamed. Mimi looked like she was ready to orgasm.

His stomach seemed to drop away unexpectedly, the rest of his body following a split second later in a rush of sudden horror. To his dismay a sound escaped his throat, luckily not a girls’ shriek but a strangled sort of grunt, like he was bench-pressing a bit more weight than he could handle. Gus could live with it. And his eyes stayed open, watching the crowd below whip by in a frenzy of sound and color, the hard seat slap-slap-slapping his ass murderously with each ripping foot of descent.

The loud clattering of the wheels and the cacophony of screams, yells, and the mechanical groans of the old roller coaster accompanied this. Mimi was screaming next to him, but her screams were the terror of a kid at a Halloween party, not the wrenching fear in his gut. Mimi was having a ball.

The car almost seemed to jerk itself off the track at the bottom, as it pulled into a sharp turn and started a new ascent. This time it was fast, Gus had no time to think, in seconds they were at the top and a new wave of panic surged through him; he actually felt as if he were about to be thrown from the car. The car dropped anew.

By the time the car leveled off and slowed to pull into the platform, Gus felt like a rag doll that had been mauled and shaken by a large dog, most probably the self-same German Shepard that had mauled him so long ago. As the car stopped and the attendant lifted the safety bar, Mimi stood and stepped out onto the platform, her short skirt riding up and offering Gus a glimpse of her underwear, a black thong. It was what he needed to gain his legs.

Rising unsteadily, Gus wobbled over to the bench set against the wall and sat. His whole body was trembling and he didn’t trust himself to stand yet. He felt a pain at his shin and lifted his pants leg to have a look. His shin was scrapped and bruised; he was going to have a black and blue in the morning. Mimi stood over Gus eagerly. She was ready. Looking down at his shin, she knelt quickly, and grasping his calf in one hand firmly pulled his leg up, and bent to plant a kiss on his red scrape.

“You poor thing!” She exclaimed. “I’m going to have to give you some tender loving care, big boy.” Gus felt better already. As Mimi had put her hand around his calf, the tip of her index finger had settled into an indentation. With her other hand, she took Gus’s ankle and twisted his leg to look at the back of his calf. There were four scars set evenly apart, four slight but noticeable indentations on the back of his leg.

“Hey, what happened to you?” She asked. Did you get shot in the leg?” This prospect intrigued Mimi, made Gus even more interesting. “Uh, I think I got bumped around a little” he said. “No, I mean these holes in your leg, how’d that happen?’ “Oh, that! I got bit by a dog when I was a kid, that’s all.” “Oh” she managed, a little disappointed. But still, Mimi had gotten her ride, Gus hadn’t died of fright or a heart attack, and she was as ready as she would ever for the big first time with Gus.

She dropped his leg and stood erect. Gus got up as steadily as he could muster, hoping he didn’t falter or break out into a new sweat. “Ah, so do you want to go again?” he asked with just the slightest hint of anxiety in his voice. He hoped she hadn’t noticed. “Nah” she said. “Lets get out of here. I’ve had enough Coney Island for today” Gus breathed an inner sigh of relief. He was getting too old for this stuff.

Mimi put her arm through his as they walked to the exit. She leaned heavily on him and put her head on his shoulder. They went through the turnstile in silence and walked out into the loud Coney Island night. “Hey, I know,” she said. “Lets go to your place, OK?” “Yeah, sure” Gus answered, smiling broadly inside.