Vacuum Lovers

I asked Joleen to go with me on a picnic. As dusk settled in, we held hands and watched wordlessly as a pretty pink and purple sunset settled in over the lake.  

It was our third date and I asked her if she would like to come over to my apartment for drinks. “Mmmmm, I’d like that,” she purred. I looked forward to and I think she did too to fulfilling the legend of third dates. My pretext was to show her my extensive library of books across three tall shelves. We found we had a shared interest in Scott Thurow, Cormac McCarthy, Vladimir Nabokov, Nora Roberts, Saul Bellow, Danielle Steel, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Patterson, among others. 

I had cleaned the standard-issue drab and undistinguished apartment in anticipation. When we entered, I asked her to make herself comfortable as I started a sexy Lana Del Rey mix and went to get a bottle of Pinot Grigio wine, and two glasses.  That’s what she had ordered at dinner on our first date.  

When I returned to the living room, Joleen was standing up straight. She looked beautiful with long auburn hair, wearing a deep V-neck blouse and a short blue jean skirt. I hugged her and she asked sweetly, “Do you have a vacuum cleaner?” 

I stammered yes and showed her a cordless stick vacuum with a detachable dustbuster. 

“Perfect,” she cooed and got to work, vacuuming everything in sight, including all the books. I sat down, baffled, then relaxed as I got several good looks down on her cleavage as she bent to the task and even caught a glimpse or two of her hard nipples. She clearly enjoyed the work. When she reached up to vacuum the curtains, I saw her tight derriere in lacy panties.  

When she finally got done, she stood in front of me, looked down and exclaimed “Well, I can see the vacuuming really gets you excited! Must be the suction sound.” With that, she ripped off her blouse and sat down beside me. 

Thus started our little ritual of vacuuming and sex. After a few rounds, I asked her to move in with me, knowing we would always have clean floors and couches and cushions and curtains and coitus.  

Once she settled in, she bought a heavy-duty Hoover with lots of attachments so she could get to every nook and cranny. Before long, we were vacuuming choice parts of each other’s bodies, very erotic. 

We got married in Las Vegas with an Oreck vacuum sales associate as our witness. We honeymooned in North Canton, Ohio and toured the Hoover manufacturing where we saw a model of the first Hoover vacuum invented by James Spangler in 1908, a handsome white model of the Suction Sweeper Company with ornate decorations and a silver bag attached. It took a while to convince her not to buy a commercial Hoover vacuum and she was not pleased. That evening, we had a dry honeymoon night then another dry night before she calmed down and returned to her amorous ways after we bought a dustbuster. 

We settled down in a cozy house back in Chillicothe, Missouri, the proud Home of Sliced Bread. She sold vacuum insurance, and I became a vacuum actuary. 

Every day she vacuumed the house, adding just a little bit more to the routine. After a couple of years, vacuuming had become an obsession for Joleen.  

She’d come home, switch it on, start and not stop until midnight. First thing in the morning, she’d switch it on and vacuum until it was time to go to work. She would take out each book from the shelves and vacuum it front and back. We stopped vacuuming each other. Joleen only noticed me when I got in the way, and she would shove me out of the way. 

I tried going to bars, joining clubs, joining the gym, playing poker with the boys, going to the movies, but everywhere I went, all I could hear was a loud suction sound. I could not even go to sleep – the suction sound kept me awake all night. The only relief I could get was reading book after book after book after book after book, the suction sound receding into a pleasant ambient background noise, but when I stopped reading it increased in volume.  

I started hallucinating. I felt little vacuums in my ears, nose, and throat. I felt constant vibrations all over my body. I became convinced a cord came out of my butt and tried to plug it in a socket. 

I looked up and saw St. Peter approaching me with a USB drive in his hand. He said, “You desperately need relief, Jack. This USB drive has every book ever written on it. Just plug it in your ear.” 

I did. Heaven! I’m in heaven! And the reason for my happiness I find is listening to all these books all the time! 

~~~ 

Background – I got the following texts from a friend: 

“Leslie says to tell you she always remembers your story about when you get to heaven (?) you download a chip and get every book that’s ever written. She repeated it again to a bookstore staffer.” 

It was the story of the normal guy who went loony. And his wife. And the vacuum cleaner.” 

Only I did not write this story. So, I took these texts as a prompt and wrote this story about the story I never wrote. 

Weird, huh?