On a Date: CPR

Walking to the restaurant for dinner, my date and I came across an unconscious homeless man in the middle of the sidewalk. I hopped over him but my date lingered near the body, concerned.

"I don't think he's breathing."

I used my phone to report it to the police and when that was done I tugged at my date's elbow to get her moving, but she resisted.

"We can't leave him here! By the time the police get around he might be dead!"

I looked down at the body.

"But we have reservations..."

She kneeled down and began yelling in his face.

"Can you hear me?!"

A crowd began to gather. My date pressed her ear to the man's chest and looked up at me gravely.

"He needs CPR," she said, and I stepped back.

The crowd murmured as she spread the man's peeling lips and swept his airway with her manicured finger. No blockages. She looked at me one last time and then put her mouth over his and breathed into his lungs. She applied chest compressions, her necklaces dangling over his fat gut. She licked her lips and continued with artificial respiration and this time the man began to sputter and gasp. The crowd cheered as my date wiped her mouth and the man vomited a little on the sidewalk. Shortly afterwards an ambulance arrived to take the man away, leaving me with my date, who was a hero.

We had dinner and I asked if we could postpone drinks for another night, then I walked her home. At her door she lingered for a kiss. I stared at her mouth and thought of the cesspool she had just pressed it against, that putrid throat which had shared her breath.

"Well, goodnight." I turned and began to walk away down her front steps.

"No kiss?" She asked.

I felt bad. I walked back up the steps and placed my hands on her hips, staring at her full, pink lips and knowing that they only appeared clean.

"I'm sorry. I can't."
"Is it because I gave CPR to the man on the sidewalk?"
"Yes."
"Well, I understand."

I said goodnight and walked down the steps as she called to me once more.

"Can I call you after I get tested for STDs and stuff?"

I considered the reliability of medical science. The exotic germs, overlooked by the limited annals of pathogenic taxonomy, which could have been allowed to thrive, unchecked, in the primordial conditions of that man's mouth...

"I don't think it would be a healthy choice."