When your parents were in the other room you kept it quiet. When your college roommate was asleep a few feet away in that dorm room you kept it quiet. And when you're in the nose cone of a rocketship slide on a Catholic school playground fairly close to where you just went streaking around town. You definitely keep it quiet.

She's anything but; I can't get her to shut up.

"Shhhhhhh… C'mon," I whisper. I'm loving this too but we gotta be quiet." No answer. She's lost in her own little world. Really, I only have one option here, to end it quickly. I pick up the pace and we go absolutely nuts together for about three minutes during which time she manages to be even louder than before. Finally the moment is at hand and I collapse on top of her exhausted.

She nuzzles up to my neck and I can feel her quick gasps of breath on my skin. "…'t worth it?" she asks.

"Huh?"

"Was it worth it?" she asks again.

"You mean the wait or the sex?" I feel her nod against my neck. "The sex was fantastic. You're incredible. The wait? Well, I don't think I've had it that bad since the 8th grade when my English teacher Ms. Toolerone started wearing those nearly see-through blouses." She giggles quietly.

"You know, there's something I've wanted to say to you all night," I say.

"What?" she asks, brushing a few curls out of my eyes.

I try to remember the pronunciation. "Mi peña… est la peña del fuego…" I manage to get out in a pretty close approximation of the Spanish phrase Farmer Tim taught me earlier. I guess I expected her to swoon or give me a cute look or something. But she starts laughing hysterically.

"Shhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! Quiet, be quiet!" I say.

"Do you have any idea what you just said?" she manages to get out between bursts of laughter.

"Yeah, but shhhhh," I whisper. "We have to be quiet."

"You just said 'My penis is the penis of fire,'" she says. We both roar with laughter.

"Shhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!" I say finally, putting my hand to her lips again. She punches me.

"Ow!!" I exclaim.

"That's what you said," she whispers, poking me in the ribs.

"Farmer Tim said it meant something like 'your eyes set me on fire.' But I guess it works anyway. I do have a penis of fire,'" I point out.

"No, no, no," she whispers. "Eyes - that would be…" She stops to listen.

"Did you hear that?" I ask. "I think I just heard a car on the parking lot." We both hold still and listen, and then I hear another noise - sounds like a radio or something. I start to rise up to look out of the portal when I hear the voice come crackling over a loud speaker.

"Alright you two. Come out of the spaceship!" I peek out the window out just in time to get a face full of cop car spotlight and duck back down quickly. My heart kicks up into 5th gear and suddenly my head is back on the Adrenaline diet again. 'Come out of the spaceship!' he said. Ordinarily this would be fucking hysterical except we're naked, cornered and about to get busted for streaking.

Alright. Think… We can get out of this. If there's one thing I have faith in it's in my own luck. I have a tremendous amount of it - I really do. Not the kind mind you, that wins you the lottery or helps you gamble or gets you dates. I have the sort of luck that saves my ass when the odds are against me. I like to call it "crucial luck." Put me in a situation like this and I instantly know what to do. It's like I was born knowing. Maybe I was a criminal or prison escapee in a past life or something. I don't know, your guess is as good as mine.

"Bet you never thought we'd be going home in a cop car tonight did you?" she asks, grinning.

"We're not going home in a cop car," I say calmly.

"What do you mean?" she asks.

"There's only one car out there and one patrolman. The woods are about twenty feet to the right of the slide. And he's twenty feet to the left on the parking lot with his flashlight out."

"We're gonna run for it?" she asks.

I nod.

"You're too fucking cool," she says. "I had to push you to streak with me and now you're suggesting we should run from the police."

"Hey," I whisper. "Streaking is one thing but I don't really look forward to my name in lights in the newspaper article tomorrow morning about the streakers being caught having sex on the Catholic school playground. Know what I mean? Now we have to move fast here because this is the suburbs and he's probably called this in which means that one - if not two bored Chesterfield cops are probably on their way to join in the fun. So get yourself into a crouch and when I give you the signal we're gonna make a run down that slide."

"Ok." She nods.

"Don't slide, don't jump," I say. "Just run right down to the bottom and work up some speed. He's knows we're up here but he probably isn't expecting us to come running down the slide. And chances are he doesn't know we're completely naked either. So that should distract him for all the time we need to hit the woods."

"Come on out!" we hear on the loudspeaker. "I'm not coming up there after you!"

I make eye contact with her again. "He's gonna chase us."

"How do you know?" she asks.

"Because you can hear it in his voice. He's one of those self righteous cops."

"Is there any other kind?" she asks.

"Yeah, there's the lazy kind that rely on helicopters with search spotlights but I don't think he's the type," I say. "So here's what we're gonna do. When you hit the bottom of the slide run for the woods but cut off to the right, ok? I'm heading the opposite direction - off to the left. He'll chase one of us but at the very least, the other will get away."

"We're going to split up?" she asks.

"Yeup."

She gives me the thumbs up.

"Ok, Team Naked on three…." I whisper into her ear, and she nods. "One, Two… Three!!!"

This is the second stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. And the first was earlier this evening.

We bolt down the slide and Team Naked is back in the game again. "WhhhhhhOoooooOOOoooooooooooooO!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I yell, plummeting downwards, my feet hitting the sand at the bottom of the slide. Elizabeth is ahead of me. She's already darting for the woods off to the right just like we planned. I make a mad dash to the left, nearly running right past the stunned patrolman. I make eye contact as I run past and he has a dumbfounded look on his face. Yeah, I called it pretty well. He didn't see that one coming. He's just standing there thinking "naked people?" But unfortunately it's only going to be a few seconds before he's thinking, "Chase them! get 'em for resisting arrest and indecent exposure."

I hear him yell something from behind as I dive into the woods. In my adrenaline filled mind he says, "Stop or I'll shoot" but whatever logic I still possess manages to explain that away pretty quickly. Like he's really going to shoot a naked and obviously unarmed suspect. I dart through the woods, spinning around trees here and there. I think I'm going the right direction but I'm not sure. I run a few hundred feet before I look back. And here he comes! He's chasing me!

I start laughing. This is absolutely the most ridiculous moment of my life. I'm completely naked and running from a policeman! And he's chasing a naked man! I wonder if the absurdity of this has crossed his mind yet too? I can see his flashlight bouncing through the woods behind me and hear him on his radio calling in the pursuit. What's with this guy? He had a chance to chase a naked guy or a naked girl and he chooses the guy. Of course, I'm flattered that he chose me, but you know, you could draw some pretty disturbing conclusions here if you were so inclined. Bring out the gimp Zed.

I've been laughing my ass off as I run through the woods but now I shut up. I'm only giving away my position. I loop left, then right and then here's a big creek coming up ahead. I pick up speed, accelerating for I don't know what. Am I going to try to jump this thing? Without thinking, I make a heroic jump from the edge of the creek, grabbing hold of a hanging branch in midair to get a little extra distance, and for a few moments I'm airborne, rocketing over the creek with the confidence of a stuntman. I land in a crouch with perfect grace on the opposing bank. Man, normally I'm not a braggart, but that was pro-style! Absolutely pro-style!

But no time to marvel at my Evel Knieval feat. I need more distance between me and that flashlight beam. I need to get deeper into the woods where the street lights don't make my white running body glow like a beacon. Then I think I can lose him. Finally I get some running room. The trees are starting to thin up ahead so I run my ass off for like five minutes before I even think to glance back. And when I finally do, he's gone! The creek must have stopped him. Yes! Score one for Team Naked! I've escaped!

I slide down a hill and run across an open clearing. This might be one of the clearings we stopped in earlier but I have no idea. There's no sign of Elizabeth anywhere. But the adrenaline keeps me hearing her. From time to time I feel like I can almost hear her laughing on the wind. Time to slow down, settle down and catch my breath.

The landscape is looking a little different than it did earlier. But then again, I wasn't really paying too much attention on the way here. I've run for about a half an hour making an effort to keep running in one uniform direction so at the very least I might reach some part of civilization. After all, how far can you run in West County before you run right into someone's condo, a strip mall or a subdvision with "Farms" in the name? And apparently this logic has payed off because I can see street lights up ahead through the trees. It must be a subdivision.

Now I couldn't have missed this on my way here, could I? The streetlights are totally bright through the trees. I must be lost.

I creep through the trees for a better look. Maybe I can spot a street sign or something. The edge of the woods gives way to a hill that overlooks a huge sprawling subdivision. From here I can see hundreds of homes and scores of two-lane streets that probably have names like "Lil' Ponyride Lane" and "Wheat Field Way." But the best part is that from this hilltop vantage point I can see all the way to Baxter Road. Sweet! Now I have my bearings. I'm pretty proud of myself. Tonight I got laid. I streaked. I eluded the police. I made a heroic jump across a creek, I navigated through the pseudo-wilderness of Chesterfield and…

Are those clothes hanging out to dry behind that house? Yes! This is way too good to be true.

I step out of the woods and into a backyard but then I hear a screen door open and a porch light flips on. I duck back into the darkness just in time. A little girl comes trotting out onto one of the houses' back porches to let the dog out. I watch quietly from the trees as she kicks at bugs on the screen door, waiting for her dog to do his business and after what seems like an eternity, she finally lets him back into the house, the door closes and the back porch light goes off.

Time for action. I hum the Mission Impossible theme as I loop in and out of trees, avoiding patches of light, and heading for the clothesline. My heart jumps every couple of seconds, startled by the zap of a bug-zapper or some other suburban sound. But I imagine most people have gone to bed by now. It must be fairly late. Finally I duck behind a shed mere feet from the clothesline and check out the available garments in this late night yard sale.

Someone really has to be looking out for me here. In the age of washers and dryers who leaves their clothes out to dry on the line anymore? No one. But I guess if you live in a subdivision named after a farm you might be more inclined to return to the wonderfully quaint days of Little House on the Prairie and string your bloomers and britches across the backyard to the delight of your neighbors. I start trying things on.

What do we have here? Lots of children's clothes. Pass. A few dresses. Pass. Some jeans. I try them on but they don't even come close to fitting. And then I spot some old faded overalls. And they fit! They're huge and they probably belong to a guy named "Big Larry" but they'll have to suffice. The legs are too long and drag the ground but I roll them up countryboy-style. And now I look like Huckleberry Finn. But at least I don't look like a naked guy.

I start to walk up towards the front yard when the guilt hits me. I'm stealing someone's clothes. It's only a ratty pair of overalls but "Big Larry" probably loves them. I can't believe I'm doing this but I walk back to the clothesline, grab a stick off the ground and dig into some bare earth in front of the shed. "SORRY. AM NAKED," I write in big bold letters in the dirt. "WILL BRING BACK LATER. PEACE AND LOVE!"

The last part I add on a whim. Maybe they'll think some hippie stole their clothes. And that's exactly what I look like skipping down the sidewalk in the glow of the street lights - a twenty nine year old barefoot hippie wearing a ratty old pair of baggy overalls and a big old grin. I grab a long piece of grass out of someone's yard, stick it in the side of my mouth and head off in the direction of Baxter Road. As I walk along, somehow I get started singing Steve Millers' "The Joker." I guess for some strange reason it just seems kind of appropriate right now.

"Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah… Some call me the gangster of love," I sing. "Some people call me Maurice. Cause I speak of the pompitous of love."

I sang it all the way back to the barn, which turned out to be dark and empty and lacking that rendezvous I had expected. I sang it while I waited for Elizabeth. And after waiting like forty-five minutes she didn't appear. I knew she hadn't beat me back there because her clothes were still hanging on the fence and Bogart was just standing there with this pissed look on his face like, "You fuckers left me out half the night! What kind of irresponsible idiots are you?"

I got dressed. I put Bogart back into his stall. I hung around forever. But still no Elizabeth. Finally I wrote her a note in the dirt next to her clothes and headed on back to the party.

Steve answered the door in his underwear, not panties but the white saggy kind I described earlier when I had that word choice dilemma. "Ahhh, Steve. I'm sorry," I say. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"Wake me up?" he roars. "Shit man, we're still partying. We're just playing strip poker and I'm losing." He lets out a belly-laugh.

"Elizabeth isn't here is she?" I ask.

"No, you mean she's not with you?" he asks.

I chuckle. "Steve man, that's kind of a long story."

He grabs me by the shoulder and drags me in. "It's always a long story with her," he says. "Didn't your friend warn you about that when he set you two up?"

"Umm, no. Funny you should say that though. Randall isn't very good with warnings."

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