American Backroads
Civil Rights
21 February 2015
I WAS AT A LOSS. Did this start out as the best year of all time or the worst? Of course, celebrating the New Year with Alice was an incredible blast. We might have no real future together, but there was no question that we both loved each other. Two weeks later, she was gone. There was no chance that we’d see each other until summer. We were both agreed that she needed to focus on school and that required her to be in Montana.
I wandered around some, sort of following wherever Andy and Cassie led. I planned to be in Florida by the first of March so I could indulge in Spring Training games. And bikinis. I have a weakness. It became apparent that my travel style was incompatible with Andy and Cassie. They picked goals: ‘We’re going here.’ Then they would drive non-stop until they got there, whether it was 20 miles or 500 miles. I max out at 200 miles. My general rule for rest stops is that I'm good for 30 minutes or 30 miles, whichever comes first. I don’t have a destination, just a general direction.
And I shouldn’t give you the impression I wasn’t writing anything. Some author, I don’t remember who now, had posted two or three incest stories a day in December and January. I’m a sucker for those stories, but the more I read of them the more they all sounded the same. Brother and sister look at each other one day, suddenly realize they are madly in love, fuck, get pregnant, and Mom and Dad reveal that they are brother and sister, too. I got to thinking that would just never be the way it would work. So, I decided to write a brother-sister incest story. I had a little experience with the genre since I wrote Blackfeather. But I let it rip in “My Brother Reads Incest Porn. zOMG! He Writes It!” In the story, I let the sister instruct her brother on the fact that it would never work that way with her and explain why. Gradually, she comes to realize that he really has a crush on her and eventually it is reciprocated. It was the first short story I’d written or even seen that scored above an 8.0.
Then I found out about the Valentine Story Contest. SOL has a strong bias toward long stories. It’s the way the site works. It is not a flaw. It’s what readers want to read. So, I decided that I would write a long short story for the contest. “100 Days” won the contest, albeit that it never quite broke an 8.0. The prize money put a tank of gas in the truck.
While I was struggling with the plot and storyline of Living Next Door to Heaven, I was still managing to get other stories up. And I really had more ideas that I was plotting out than I could possibly write in the next five years.
Cassie and Andy wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. In January. I’d been there in October a year ago, and it was damned cold. I’d told them I’d meet them in Sedona where I was reasonably sure I wouldn’t be frozen out. They wanted to go to Winslow, so I crawled out of the canyon to Flagstaff along icy switchbacks. They wanted all of five minutes in Winslow to take a picture on the corner and go. I pressed them to join me in Canyon de Chelly for a couple days. From there it was a long haul to Albuquerque, New Mexico. They decided to ski in Taos. I remembered being caught in the snow there with Angie last year and chose to go south. We agreed to meet in El Paso in a week. They decided to go north to visit friends in Indiana before they headed back south, instead. I went across Texas.
I guess you can tell that even ‘traveling together’ we weren’t really in sync and I was alone most of the time. Texas is a big fucking state to cross. To give some idea of how big, if you were driving from San Diego, California to Jacksonville, Florida in three equal legs, both of your overnights would be in Texas. I headed Toward San Antonio, then Houston, and across Louisiana to Baton Rouge. The last time I’d been through this territory, I’d left Angie at the New Orleans airport and traveled along the Gulf Coast all the way to Fort Myers Beach. This time I cut north through Louisiana to get to a site I’d read about. Poverty Point National Historic Monument had recently been added to the UN register of World Heritage Sites. And, it was fascinating. It was hard to believe the scope of an entire civilization that predated most of what we would term Native Americans on this continent. You almost feel the old energy of this site. Someday I’ll write a story set in that time and place.
I headed east on Route 80 across Mississippi and into Alabama. Cassie and Andy had looped north into Indiana to see old friends and were supposed to meet me in Montgomery. They hadn’t left Indiana yet, but the way they drive, it’s only a day trip to Alabama down I-65. And so, five weeks after parting from Alice, I found myself standing on a bridge in Selma, Alabama.
A Long Time Ago: Marching to Montgomery
I wasn’t too young to remember. My teacher stood in front of the class with tears in her eyes and told us the president had been killed. We were being sent home and school would be closed for a few days.
What I remembered was that on Saturday morning, the one day of the week I got to watch television, there were no cartoons. Every station on the television showed stuff about the murdered president. And my mother stood at the ironing board crying as she watched. Sunday night, Dad jumped up from the dinner table and shut off the TV that had just shown Jack Ruby killing Lee Harvey Oswald live.
Less than two years later, after riots and burnings, a march from Selma to Montgomery to demand voting rights for African Americans began. On Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, the marchers were beaten back by county sheriff’s ‘deputies’ who showed up en masse at the county line. On March 9, Dr. King led the marchers back into Selma, obeying a federal injunction. Finally, on March 21, protected by 3000 troops and Alabama National Guard, the marchers continued toward Montgomery. 8,000 people began the march. Through Lowndes County, where Highway 80 narrowed to two lanes, only 300 people were permitted to march. Lowndes County was 81% black, but there were no black registered voters. 2,240 whites were registered, which was 118% of the adult white population of the county.
When they left Lowndes County three days after entering it, the population of marchers swelled until, on March 25, 25,000 people gathered on the steps of the State Capitol building to listen to Dr. King.
How long? Not long, because ‘no lie can live forever.’
How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
In school, I had never seen a black person. There had once been a Kenyan missionary student at summer camp. He was the only black person I had ever met. There was one student of color when I was a freshman in a school of 1,800 students. She was a Thai exchange student. When I moved from St. Joe Valley High School to the even more rural Tippecanoe Valley High School, the only person of color I met in three years was a Haitian exchange student my senior year. We didn’t have black people in Indiana, so we never had any problems. Except in the big cities. Gary had black people. They came from Chicago and played basketball. Indianapolis had black people. I didn’t know where they came from. But they played basketball.
I didn’t understand what the big deal was with civil rights. All men are created equal. It says so right in the Declaration of Independence.
Red and yellow, black and white,
They are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
I just did not get it.
I still don’t.
Back to Selma
I didn’t walk the whole route. I walked out a mile from the bridge and saw the souvenir shops that were set up to market to the memorial march that was slated for just two weeks later. I didn’t stay for it. I drove from Selma to Montgomery and, on the way, stopped at each of the campgrounds and at the memorial park half way between the two cities. I camped in Montgomery and spent two days just walking the route through town and looking at the shops and visiting the museums. I still didn’t understand why there was so much racial tension in our country.
Cassie and Andy bubbled into town two days later and stayed a night. Then we were off to Columbus, Georgia and Ezell’s.
A Long Time Ago: Sin City
There is nothing important about Columbus, Georgia that I know of, except that I did some training presentations on color production and printing. It was a good session and there were good people working at the print shop. It was a subsidiary of a big publisher in middle America, for which I had provided training for several months. They were highly skilled craftsmen and artists who photographed artwork and made color separations for printing on greeting cards.
After five grueling days, during which I was taught as much about color proofing and printing as my students were about new technology and manipulation, my six exhausted students and I went to Ezell’s for catfish. It was a time of cutting loose and celebrating the completion of the training. It was a time for teaching this Yankee about real Southern food: catfish and hushpuppies. The table was covered with brown butcher’s paper and deep-fried catfish, hushpuppies, and fries were unceremoniously dumped on it. A huge bowl of coleslaw was served in the middle and we were each given a plate. We ate until we couldn’t eat any more.
And that was where I met Marcie.
I mean in Columbus, not just at dinner. She was one of my students. And she was the blackest person I had ever met. I had taken pictures of all my students, hoping to remember some of them. Marcie had laughed at me.
“If I close my eyes and my mouth, it will look like you took a picture of a deep dark shadow,” she said. She was right. I did not have an adequate camera to capture what I considered extraordinarily beautiful features. I was fascinated by her and all through the week I’d taken any opportunity to be in her presence. She was just the kind of woman I liked to be close to—witty, conversational, and beautiful.
We finished our dinner and paid the tab. No, I wasn’t springing for dinner for everyone. I was being paid to be here and their company was covering my expenses. Dinner for the company’s employees was not included.
“Hey, I need a ride to my hotel. Anyone headed my direction?”
“I’ll take care of you,” Marcie said. “Over here.” She led me to a newer model Chrysler New Yorker. What a monster of a car! Burgundy with that matching leather-look wrap on the back quarter of the square-back roof. I whistled.
Inside, the car was clean and smelled almost new.
“You smoke? Not in the car,” she commanded. I occasionally smoked a pipe, but seldom had one with me when I went to work. “Are you done for the evening or would you like to go for a drink?” she asked.
“I could stand a drink,” I said. Ezell’s doesn’t serve liquor and I was willing to do about anything to stay around Marcie for a while.
“Jazz, rock, or cowboy?” she said. It took a second to figure out she was talking about a kind of bar.
“Jazz or rock. Either is fine. I have to be in exactly the right mood for a cowboy bar,” I said.
“Smart. I don’t think you want to be face-to-face with a six-foot-six brother in a Stetson,” she laughed. “We’ll stop by my place and I’ll change.”
We zipped across the bridge and in ten minutes we were in front of a brownstone apartment building in Phenix City, Alabama. “My momma got a divorce from my daddy when I was ten. We just up and moved out of the shithole where he lived and left. I asked her where we were going and she answered, ‘We’re goin’ ta hell, baby.’ She meant Phenix City.” She looked at me critically as I started to open the door. “You’re staying here,” she said, laying a hand on my arm. I closed the door. “Slouch down in the seat and pull your hat down over your face. Do not look around or get out of the car. I don’t want to have to replace a window because some nigga wanted to cut yo’ ass.”
Oh, shit! I figured my best bet right now was to do as directed. I’d close my eyes and shut my mouth and just be a deep black shadow in the car. I was thankful for my hat. I’d started wearing fedoras back in college and seldom ever went anywhere without a hat. I dozed off while I was waiting.
I heard the driver’s door open and Marcie slid into the seat. She started the car and put it in gear.
“You can look now,” she said. I straightened up as we pulled out of the neighborhood onto a main street. I glanced over at her and did a double take. I’d been with this woman in training sessions for a week and never thought twice about her figure. She wore standard business attire, including slacks, conservative blouses, and usually a boxy jacket that covered her butt. The woman next to me was hot!
“I… uh… Wow, Marcie! You changed,” I gasped.
“Can’t go to a club dressed for the office.” She looked over at me in my suit. “Keep the hat on. You’ll be fine,” she said. I couldn’t help but glance down at the miniskirt. Not actually at the miniskirt, but at the mile of very shapely leg it exposed. The top she’d chosen didn’t quite meet the skirt and exposed a very tiny waist.
“You look like a million bucks,” I said. “I feel way underdressed.”
“A million bucks is what I tell them I charge,” she said. “Look, I’m taking you to my kind of place tonight. I can take you because people know they can’t fuck with me—as long as you don’t make an ass of yourself. They look at my car and know they don’t have a car they can entice me into for a ride. They look at my body and know they can’t afford me. Can you dance?”
“Yeah. I’m not bad,” I said. I thought back to my wild dance with Cynthia a few years ago. Of course, I was a little out of practice.
“Right. White men can’t dance. Just try not to trip over me.” For a couple of minutes, we drove in silence. I was thrown by her attitude. Then I realized she was putting on her club persona. She’d just explained it to me. I breathed deeply as she pulled up into a parking lot.
“So are you supposed to be my sweetheart or my bitch,” I growled. She snapped her face toward me and smiled.
“They’d challenge you right away if they thought I was your bitch. Better be your sweetheart. It will give us a couple of hours,” she nodded. I smiled back at her.
“Darling, wait right there while I come to open your door,” I said. “And try not to step on my toes.”
It was all kinds of fun. I wasn’t the only white face in the club. I’d had visions of the lesbian bar I’d visited years ago and didn’t think being an honorary black man would fly. It didn’t have to. Marcie took my offered hand and never let go. We had a drink and danced to some great music. They had a DJ who kept a variety of music going, ranging from hard jazz to soft rock with a little swing tossed in for good measure. About midnight, we called it quits and got a few waves as we left the club.
Marcie drove me back to my hotel—a good quality business hotel, but not one that would rate four stars. While she drove, she reached over and took my hand again. She didn’t pull up to the door of the hotel, but into the parking lot. She turned to me and pushed the center armrests up out of our way as she unbuckled.
“Tell me, Ari. Have you ever gone black?” she asked as she scooted toward me slightly.
“I’m afraid I’ve always been as pale as you see me here,” I sighed.
“The white girls say that once you’ve gone black you never go back,” she whispered as she leaned in for a kiss. As our lips touched, I realized what she meant. Oh! “Want to risk it?”
“I think I’m up for that risk,” I said as I pressed the kiss back to her. “You might be risking being stuck on white guys, though.”
“You’re hung bigger than a brother?” she laughed.
“No. But I’ve heard brothers don’t go down.”
Marcie pulled away from me and looked me in the eye.
“No shit,” she sighed. She opened her door and grabbed an overnight bag out of the backseat. “Well? Are you coming?”
We rushed to my room, ignoring the desk clerk’s stare and as soon as we were inside, we started in on the kiss again. I had gone to an insanely popular movie a couple years previously where the two leads were all over each other and trying to rip their clothes off to fuck on the kitchen counter. That scene was okay, but the movie was so disgusting I walked out. I’d never been in a situation where clothes actually got torn in the hurry to get naked. That changed in my hotel room. Buttons from my shirt flew all over the room.
Marcie was ‘properly’ dressed, meaning she had underwear on. The blouse was a pullover, but I managed to get it and her bra off without tearing anything. I found the zipper on her skirt and shucked it off her round ass with the thong. I glanced down to see she was still in her strappy high heels and decided that I liked the porn look on this woman. She was stroking my cock with my pants around my knees, but I wasn’t going to move straight to fucking. I’d promised this woman eating and I planned to make good on the promise.
I lifted her and literally tossed her on the bed so I could finish stripping out of my pants. She looked at me hungrily, but she wasn’t focused on my cock. She was looking to see if I was serious. I was. I pushed her legs back and apart and went straight to the center.
I’d never seen anything quite like this. Oh, I’d seen shaved pussies by this stage of my life, but I’d never seen a bright pink gash surrounded by nearly coal black labia. I don’t know what I expected to find. I just was mesmerized by the contrast and wanted to look and enjoy for a minute before I dove in.
“Aren’t you going to?” she asked plaintively.
“Oh, yes. I’m going to really enjoy this,” I said. I swiped up through her pussy and she gasped. That gasp was accompanied by a flood of fragrant juices and I set to work trying to make this experience one we’d both remember for a long time to come.
She was a little bristly. I don’t think that when she went to work in the morning, she planned on having an up-close and personal genital exam in the evening. Or maybe her hair just grew that fast. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment of her hot pussy, and from the squeals that started about five minutes later, I don’t think it affected her enjoyment either. I didn’t let up, but continued to press her after her first orgasm when she thought I’d quit. I think I would have seen how many I could give her in a row, but my cock was beginning to ache.
I stood between her legs and pushed into her.
“Oh fuck! Yeah!” she screamed.
Once I was in, I slowed down. Marcie was panting and welcomed a moment’s respite while I looked at the woman below me. Her breasts weren’t too big, but since she was small, they seemed to stand up on her chest. The areolae and nipples were scarcely a shade darker than the surrounding flesh and I leaned forward to kiss each. I loved the way her ass cushioned my thrust. But what was truly remarkable was the tiny waist. I could almost put my hands around it and have the fingers meet.
Marcie’s eyes opened and looked at me. My smile was met by hers.
“I’ve never seen such a tiny waist,” I said. “I’m afraid I’ll break you.”
“I know. I eat, but I’ve never gotten big there. I don’t break, though. Grab hold and show me what you’ve got!”
I slipped my arms under her legs and reached forward to hold her waist. It did provide a good grip. This position also brought her high-heeled feet up to where I could turn my head and nibble on those ankles. Having taken a little time once I was in to catch our breath, I bounced against her round ass for a while without reaching the point of no return. The position also gave less direct stimulation to her clit, so Marcie settled in for the ride as well.
“Do me from behind, Ari,” she said. We didn’t even try to stay connected as we moved to a new position. I got fully up on the bed as she knelt on all fours. This position is a nice change, but isn’t one that I usually prefer because I can’t see my lover. But with Marcie, sinking into her from behind was a real treat. Not only was she hot and tight, but I could slide my hands forward to cup her breasts and then back to circle her little waist. And once she was sure I had a good grip there, she took over slamming back into me over and over, bouncing her phat ass against my stomach. I slid a hand around her stomach and found her clit just in time to send her over the edge as I started pumping. Fuck!
I didn’t get much sleep that night. Marcie was surprised when I ate her again, even after I’d come in her. She went ballistic over it and then returned the favor with a long, sensuous blowjob.
I managed to check out before noon on Saturday and Marcie took me to the airport.
“I might consider dating a white guy again,” she sighed as she kissed me at the curb. “Do all y’all have tongues like that?”
I kissed her again and we tried to see exactly how long that tongue was.
Back to Ezell’s
Cassie and Andy liked the catfish and hushpuppies. What’s not to like? Deep fried grease and breadcrumbs pretending to be fish. And the jalapenos in the hushpuppies liven them up.
The RV park we’d located was decent and we sat outside with a drink while I smoked a cigar after dinner.
“What are you working on?” Cassie asked as I tapped at my laptop.
“Wrapping up the contest entry for my new Erotic Paranormal Western Romance Adventure,” I said. After Jay sent me back the Blackfeather manuscript, I completely tore the story apart and rewrote it. Completely. I’d even gone so far as to outline the entire story using the twelve stages of ‘the hero’s journey.’ Now I was about to hit send and enter it in a contest as a ‘romance.’ Cassie leaned over my shoulder to read the synopsis.
“Incest doesn’t seem like a big thing?” she exclaimed when she read the last line. “Are you crazy? If I read that in the synopsis, I wouldn’t read any further. I don’t care if they did go back in time and become their own ancestors.”
“But Redtail did better in the Clitorides as an incest story than as a western!” I defended myself.
“Is this a Clitorides entry form?”
“No. It’s for a literary competition.”
“You need to find out who your audience is. If you and Andy are the judges, I’m sure you’d win. If Sarah and I were judging, you’d never be considered,” she declared.
I should have listened to her.
We were on the road again and I tried to follow Cassie and Andy in their big rig. Hopeless. The closer we got to Florida, the less the speed limit seemed to matter to anyone. They hit Interstate 75 at Tifton and were like two old horses headed for the barn. They planned to be home in Orlando by the end of the day. I told them I’d catch up again before I left the state in April and headed down US 41. It would take me the rest of the week to get to my reserved spot in Fort Myers Beach. I’d already printed my ticket for the first game of the Twins vs. University of Minnesota. I’d probably spend the 28th of February parked at Walmart overnight so I could pull into the RV park early enough in the day on the first that I could be set up and out to the stadium in time for the first pitch of spring training.
I’ve never been that much of a sports lover. In high school, I tried playing football, but got into non-violence and turned my back on the game. I was never coordinated enough to play anything more than intramural basketball. When I travel and people see my Washington license plates, I’m often asked if I’m a big Seahawks fan. My standard response is, “I don’t really follow hockey.” Usually ends any sports discussions.
But baseball—especially the Twins—has a special place in my heart.
A Long Time Ago: First Kiss
Treasure and I had been dating for a few weeks. It had taken our tealeaf reading to get us to admit we were dating. I might not have mentioned that Belle bankrupted me before she left. I had my house on the market and was two months behind in my mortgage payments. The bank was working with me because they really didn’t want a foreclosure. I was earning enough money in my new job to make the current payments.
That job was something else. Toby Moore, the owner of the company had come to my rescue. All I needed to do was bring him my clients and he would take them over and hire me to service them. Talk about being a paid whore. He made it sound like I’d be spending time in a breeding stall with my editing and publishing clients. I’d convinced Dan to take the job of GM for the company so I wouldn’t have to deal with Toby. I got a little tipsy one night when a bunch of us were out after work and someone decided it would be fun to play “Three Words on Your Tombstone.” What would they be?
The game ended when I said, “Fuck you, too.”
But it was October now and Treasure and I had agreed that we were dating. Things were looking up. And the Twins were in the World Series. My Uptown house was about four miles from the Humphrey Dome as the crow flies, but the cheers of the crowd there could be heard from my front steps. Treasure had agreed to watch the game with me.
I had a small TV that I’d picked up at the Salvation Army. The sofa had been one of the pieces of furniture too heavy for Belle to remove from the house. But Treasure and I chose to sit on the floor and lean against it so we were closer to the little TV. When we saw something exciting in the game and cheered, a few seconds later we could hear the cheer from the stadium.
Then it was time for the seventh inning stretch. We both stretched and turned toward each other. It was a good evening. Our team was ahead. Our lips were sort of right there next to each other and kind of touched. And then stayed touched.
Through most of the bottom half of the inning.
The Twins scored again before the inning ended.
I did, too.
Oh, that doesn’t mean we were fucking on the floor. Just that during that first kiss, I’d decided this woman was going to be with me for the rest of my life. Just under a year later, we were married.
Back to Florida
All I can say about the first game of spring training was that Minnesota won. I’m not sure if it was the Twins or the Gophers. I didn’t score.
In fact, as much as I’d enjoyed my time last year, I wasn’t sure I’d spend much time on the beach while the college kids were there. At least, not until my daughter joined me the last week of the month. Becky the Reckless had been a little overwhelming last year.
Still, the lure of the beach ‘bums’ drew me and Tuesday afternoon I found myself planted in my chair, just under the shade as I looked out at the college beauties and their hunky, if slightly tipsy boyfriends. I’d decided that since I was following the hero’s journey in my writing, I should reread Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth. It was one of the books I read back when I was first collecting reference work on mythology for Behind the Ivory Veil.
I was lost in the interview between Campbell and Bill Moyers (the book is an edited transcript of 24 hours of interviews) and I was even a little drowsy when a shadow passed over me and a young woman spread a large towel on the sand next to my chair in the shade.
“Where’s your bitches?” she asked. I glanced down automatically. At first I’d thought she said my ‘britches’ and I had a momentary panic that I’d forgotten them. I had my swimming trunks on. I turned to look at the very shapely form of a young brunette in a very small bikini.
“I beg your pardon?” I said.
“The girls who were fawning all over you last year. Haven’t got a new one yet?”
“Do I know you?” I asked.
“Would it help if I fell on top of you and shoved my tit into your hand?”
“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t recognize you. I don’t think we were ever properly introduced. I’m Ari.” I held out a hand and she looked at it as if to decide if she was going to shake it or shove her tit into it. She took it in her hand.
“Ella. So where is the hardbody who was with you last year?” she asked.
“I haven’t talked to her for a couple months. She graduated last spring and got a job. We aren’t really a couple,” I said.
“Just a convenient piece of ass,” she said disgustedly. I did not need to put up with the snipes of a little bitch I didn’t know. Just as I was about to tell her to get lost, she continued. “Sorry. I’m not having any fun this year. Didn’t mean to take it out on you. I never should have come down here.”
Women can twist me around a little finger faster than putting a tie in their hair. In a few words, she changed from a target for disdain to a damsel in distress. Story of my life. Let me lie down so you can walk all over me.
“What’s the problem? Why aren’t you out there playing in the sun and having a drink?” I asked. “If I recall correctly, you were used to three margaritas for lunch.”
“Bloody Marys. That was the problem.”
“What?”
“Last year I came to the beach for spring break and fun. I got drunk, sunburned, and pregnant. I’m staying sober and in the shade this year. With my knees clamped together.” Fuck!
“I’m sorry,” I said. I don’t know what I was apologizing for. “With that kind of past, I don’t think I’d have returned.”
“Yeah. Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. I’m not trying to hang a paternity suit on you. But I thought I might see the guy again.”
“You don’t know him? He doesn’t know?”
“Huh-uh. I just want to tell him…”
“Tell him what?”
“That I had an abortion and his bastard is in a landfill in Virginia and that I hope he joins it.” She stared straight out at the water, rigid. Her shoulders shook a little, but I couldn’t see her eyes. Why had she even come to tell me this? It hurt.
A Long Time Ago: Endless Possibilities
Pammy was one of the stream of young women Belle brought into our home and into our bed. I never quite understood. Belle didn’t want to do anything with another woman. I don’t think she really wanted me to do anything with them. Maybe. But she put us in situations where something was almost inevitable. Like sleeping together.
Pammy came over for dinner one Friday night. We had a cocktail or two. A bottle of wine with dinner and another after dinner. We sat on the screened-in front porch and smoked cigars. All three of us. There was a lot of flirting, a lot of footsie, and a lot of risqué stories told among us. And finally, about one in the morning, Belle said, “You don’t want to drive home tonight. It’s not safe. Stay here with us. We have a big bed. There’s plenty of room.”
Pammy wasn’t the first. And frankly, she was a good-looking Italian girl who claimed her big boobs were the result of her father feeding her olive oil. Whatever. The pattern had already been set. Belle gave Pammy one of my T-shirts to wear to bed. She crawled in on one side of the bed and put me in the middle. Pammy got the other side. I wore briefs. To start.
I gave Belle a long and steamy kiss to settle in for bed. When we were done and I had one of her breasts firmly in hand, she gave me a shove toward Pammy. “Kiss her goodnight, Ari.” By the time Pammy and I broke from our kiss, Belle was sound asleep, my hand was under the T-shirt playing with Pammy’s big nipples. I could feel Pammy stroking the front of my briefs. The briefs were too tight to contain a full erection and she spread my lubrication around the head of my cock.
We’d been flirting all evening. There had been light little touches and innuendoes. And now there was kissing and touching. I got her T-shirt up over her boobs and bent my head to feast on her nipples. Pammy was a real moaner and I was sure she’d wake Belle and that would put an end to our playtime. But Belle slept on. Or maybe pretended to. It wasn’t too long before Pammy’s panties and my briefs were lying next to the bed.
Pammy was a swamp. She’d been getting more and more turned on all evening and there was a wet spot on the bed before I managed to give her the first come. Belle slept on through the rather loud moans and gasps that came from the other side of the bed. Pammy gripped me and pulled me on top of her, spreading her legs and positioning my cock for immediate admission.
The bed bounced and squeaked a little. Both Pammy and I were making guttural sounds. When I felt the muscles in her pussy clamp down on my cock and saw her inhale for a scream, I slammed my mouth down on hers and choked off the scream with my tongue while my cock spat its juices into her. We lay there in the afterglow with her bust flattened beneath my chest, my fingers still playing with one of her nipples. She jerked her hips forward a little.
“Don’t come in me,” she said. What the fuck? “I’m not on anything.”
“Pammy, it’s a little late. We both came several minutes ago,” I said.
“Oh, shit. I’d better go to the bathroom and empty out. Don’t worry. I’m really deep. It’s the wrong time of the month anyway.” She grabbed her panties and headed for the bathroom. I pulled my briefs up over my wet cock and was nearly asleep when she returned to bed and cuddled up. “All better,” she whispered.
I got a call a few weeks later. I’d seen Pammy a few times in the intervening time.
“Hey, I’m cooking my best Italian pasta tonight. Want to come for dinner?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said. “I’d love to.”
I know it sounds strange, but Belle and I were often out and seldom had dinner together unless we had guests. I knew, in fact, that Belle was out with her high school boyfriend this evening. She had openly declared her intentions, like she had the previous October when she sent me to distract Lynn at a Halloween party so Belle could seduce the host. I wrote about that in my short story, “One-Hour Do-Over” a few years ago.
And it wasn’t the first time Pammy and I got together. One night we’d eaten dinner at a chain restaurant and Pammy gave me a blowjob in the front seat of the car that was reminiscent of Deb. By the time she was finished, or I was, her underwear was around her ankles and my fingers were plunging deeply into her pussy as she came.
“Do me a favor,” she said as she caught her breath. “If I ever choke to death doing that to you, stuff an Oreo down my throat.”
Renewing my acquaintance with Pammy again while Belle tried to seduce her one-time boyfriend was a desirable diversion as far as I was concerned.
“Doesn’t it irritate you that she just announces she’s going to sleep with someone else and goes to do it?” Pammy asked me over an incredible dish of stuffed pasta shells and a to-die-for sauce. She said it was cannelloni. I thought it was heaven.
“She is a study in frustration,” I said. “And an addiction I can’t seem to shake. Her high school boyfriend came out of the closet. They never had sex in high school, so Belle is convinced that she can prove he’s not gay. She’s going to be angry that she failed for the next two weeks. For at least a week of that she’ll prove it’s not because she’s undesirable by fucking me within an inch of my life. Sorry, I really don’t want to talk about Belle while we’re together.”
“Speaking of which, why don’t we move our conversation to a more comfortable location,” Pammy said. She poured us each another glass of wine and took me to her bedroom. We proceeded to kiss and undress each other. We’d already slept with each other—fucked in a bed next to Belle—so there wasn’t quite the sense of leisurely taking time like I normally would with a new lover. Dan had told me once that there was simply no experience like watching a new lover undress and I had to agree with him. Our bodies weren’t new to each other, but we both felt we had the time and space to appreciate what we were seeing. And I liked it.
Pammy wasn’t a petite woman. She was soft and welcoming. Those bountiful breasts were a delight to touch and taste. And she was an appreciative lover. We took our time and toasted each other with the wine, licking up imagined drips from one another. And soon I sank into that luscious welcoming core. I’ve had the callous habit at times of referring to certain women like they were cars—a sporty little model, a hotrod, a luxury sedan. There was a character in Living Next Door to Heaven that I even named Mercedes. While Brian never made it with her, I had. I modeled her after Pammy. Sinking into her was literally finding myself in the lap of luxury.
“Don’t even try to cover my mouth when I come this time, Ari. I’m going to scream. Keep going. Like that. YES!” And scream she did. And clamp like a vice on my cock.
“Oh, Pammy, I need to pull out. I’m about to come,” I said.
“It’s okay now. You can go ahead. Yes. I want to feel it. Yes.” Pammy had a way of gripping with her pussy muscles such that I could feel the strength of my pulses echoed in her own. Oh, god, it was good! We lay clenched together. I was cushioned on her breasts and her hips continued to rock up against mine as we kissed. Eventually, I slid out and we began to catch our breath.
“I’m glad you went on the pill,” I said. “That was pretty spectacular.”
“I didn’t,” she said. I pulled back so I could look at her in the eye. “It doesn’t make any difference tonight. I’m already pregnant.”
“Oh, god! Pammy… I… I’m so sorry.”
“Ari, listen to me. Don’t panic. I’ve already decided to have an abortion. Next week.”
“But…”
“You don’t get any say in it,” she said firmly. “You’re married. I have no desire to be a single parent. Or a parent at all right now. Look at us. Your wife is trying to fuck her high school boyfriend tonight while you and I are doing our best imitation of horny teenagers. Frankly, you’re not very good daddy material. Don’t even consider any of the options you think are going through your mind right now. They don’t exist.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked. I was overwhelmed. At first there was the selfish sense of relief that she’d decided to have an abortion and I didn’t have to take any responsibility. Then there was the feeling of loss and betrayal. I hadn’t really considered having a child, certainly not with Belle or with Pammy. But the idea that the six-week old fetus was in there… My brain was frozen.
“Ari. Focus on me. You can run out of here and never look back if you want. Or you could come with me next week and hold my hand. Either way, you could let me get you hard again so we can make love some more,” she said. Well, the last option was a good one.
I did go with Pammy and held her hand while the zygote we’d created was removed from her body. I took her home that night and sat with her, just holding her in my arms. We both cried a little. In the instant when the doctor was inserting the needles up through her cervix, I had visions of endless possibilities of what could have been in store for that child.
Pammy and I didn’t have much of a relationship to start with. We saw each other a few times after that. We had oral sex in my basement after Belle left. I sat in a broken rocking chair as Pammy got herself off while we kissed and she rubbed back and forth on my thigh. Then she unfastened my trousers and sucked me into her mouth. I saw that a few feet away, Belle’s cat had left a pile of shit on a stack of carpet squares. It was distracting.
“Pammy, you know this isn’t going anywhere, don’t you?”
“Shut up and let me suck you.”
When we considered screwing, the memory of the abortion held us back.
Years later, when Treasure bore my daughter, I could almost hear the little girl say to me, “You weren’t ready before. Now I’m here.”
Back to Ella
“Do you blame me, Ella?” I asked softly.
“Yes! You’re a man,” she snapped, then shook her head. “No. Don’t be ridiculous. I came to the beach horny and figuring I’d get laid. If I hadn’t been so drunk, I’d have been more careful and he promised to pull out. And I… My father… God damn it! I hate men!” She turned to look at me and snorted. Snot bubbled out of her nose and she scrambled for a tissue in her bag and blew noisily. “Present company excepted,” she laughed.
“What happened when you told your father?”
“I didn’t. I got back from spring break and found out he’d left my mother and me and I was going to have a little half-brother from one of the bitches I’d been here on the beach with. My mother filed for divorce while I was still here. I saw that fucker who knocked me up turn around and fuck my future step-mom. People are such pigs. I didn’t tell my father. I figure it served him right.” Ella sank forward into her hands. I guessed she was right.
“If my daughter felt that way about me, I don’t think I’d live,” I said.
“Oh, come on, Ari. People don’t die from having their feelings hurt.”
“No. They die from killing themselves,” I said. “I’m truly sorry… no, make that sad for you. Sorry is such a crappy word that we use for all kinds of things that aren’t apologies. I’m sad that you have gone through so much and that you’ve felt alone. I sympathize, and I don’t say that to be condescending. I say it because I’m a caring human and I wish I could wave a magic wand and make it all better.”
It was true. I wished that about a lot of things in this stressed out, crappy world. I always wanted to fix things when they went wrong for my daughter or my wife or my friends or my employers. But there was no magic fix for this. Ella looked up at me. There was a little angry moisture around her eyes, but she hadn’t let the tears go. Perhaps she was already cried out.
“Ari, I heard the stories last year. You have a reputation for being trustworthy.”
“I hope so, Ella. Life isn’t worth much when you can’t trust people.”
“Would you… hold me? My father… wasn’t there… to hold me. He should have been there.” I held out my arms and she moved up onto my lap so I could wrap my arms around her.
“I can’t guarantee that parts of my body won’t respond to having a beautiful nearly naked girl in my arms,” I said. “Just ignore me if something comes up.”
“I can live with it.”
As it happened, nothing came up. Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, she was wearing a tiny bikini that exposed most of her skin to my touch. But she was so vulnerable and fragile that my daddy instinct took over and I just held her and petted her hair whispering, “It will be okay. You’re strong. You’ll be okay.”
We sat there until the sun had moved far enough west that our shade was gone. I think she might even have fallen asleep for a few minutes. When we stirred, we had to get things moved and out of the sun or we’d both be burned.
“Thank you, Ari. Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel more… playful. I did like being held by you,” she smiled. “Um… Just so you know. I’m still a hot little fox.” She took my hand and pulled it around her until we faced away from the beach. Then she stuffed it into her bikini top. “I let you feel me up last year. No reason you shouldn’t get that chance this year. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She tucked things back into her top, grabbed her towel, and took off.
I headed back to my little trailer.
I really didn’t figure Ella would be back at the beach. She’d had her catharsis. I was surprised when I arrived at my usual spot and there were half a dozen beach towels spread out with girls sitting and talking to each other. I looked up the beach to see if there was another suitable spot.
“Ari, we saved a place for your chair,” Ella said from the group. Between two of the towels, there was, indeed room for me to plant my little chair. Another girl jumped up and took my cooler and satchel so I could get settled and then arranged them near me.
“I wasn’t expecting so much company. Ladies, it is nice to meet you all.” They introduced themselves, but I knew I wasn’t going to remember all their names. There was a good variety. Different hair colors, body shapes, weights, and so forth. One black girl had the very definition of a perfect bikini butt. Wow! A blonde seemed to be obsessed with whether her bikini was correctly covering her. She kept adjusting her straps and pulling the fabric out of her butt. It wasn’t really a big social gathering that I was included in. They talked to each other, not to me. I used the excuse of my reading to conceal the fact that I spent just as much time looking at their lithe little bodies as they shifted and turned.
I drank a cold water. A few of the girls would get up periodically and run to the water or to get ice cream. They were a pleasure to watch and the day was all too short. I stood to fold up my camp chair as the girls rolled up their towels and gathered things together.
“Can I have a hug, Ari?” Ella asked. I opened my arms and she flowed into them, gripping me tightly. “I told them that if they were good you might give them each a hug,” Ella whispered as she held me. “They all know my story and a little about you. Will you hug them?”
“Of course. As long as no one gets out of hand,” I said.
“Or into hand,” Ella giggled. She stepped away and there was a chorus of “Me, too,” as the girls lined up for a hug.
Hugging some of those luscious ladies was arousing. None tried to directly stimulate me, but most were aware of their effect. When they’d gone, Ella remained for a minute.
“Hope you didn’t mind, Ari,” she said. She turned in my arm again and pulled my hand to her breast. “Kiss me?” she asked as I fondled her nipple. I was happy to comply. “See you tomorrow.”
Don’t go thinking that I collected a harem, though a few more girls joined the pack the next day. Early in the afternoon, I left them to use the restroom. When I got back four guys were standing in front of the girls who were all still lying back lounging. A couple were laughing.
“Hi, Daddy!” Ella called out. The guys all abruptly stopped talking and looked at me while the other girls turned to greet me as ‘Daddy.’ Hmm.
“Hello, daughters. Who have we here?” I asked.
“These guys want to party with us,” one of the girls, a redhead, said.
“Exactly what does that mean?” I asked, looking at the guys. They were a little confused but shoved one forward.
“Uh… We were just… We saw all… We’re going…” The kid might be their spokesman, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.
“What’s your name, son?” I asked.
“Eric, sir,” he answered promptly.
“Did you want to ask someone here out?”
“Yes, sir. We… we’re having a bonfire later tonight down on the beach about half a mile from here. We just wanted to invite… um… these women to join us.”
“I see. You four guys and these nine young women?”
“There’ll be others. Well, a fire kind of draws people to it. We just wanted there to be some ladies present.”
“Are you going to be drinking, Eric?” I asked. The four guys looked at me like I’d grown a new head.
“There will be a keg, sir. Are these really all your daughters?”
“For now. Here’s the deal. The young women here can join your party if they want to and if you four personally guarantee that no one will try to take unfair advantage of them or assault them,” I said.
“You mean no fucking around?” one of the other guys asked.
“What’s your name?” I demanded.
“Peter, sir.”
“Don’t be a dick, Peter,” I said. The girls laughed. “No, I don’t mean no fucking around. I mean that if anything like that happens, it will be with explicit consent and a condom. And to be perfectly clear, a drunk woman cannot give explicit consent. Understand?”
Eric scowled at Peter.
“Yes, sir. We’re not rapists. We just like to party.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Would any of you ladies like to join these guys tonight?” They looked around and Ella raised her hand. That surprised me, but all the others turned to her. “You want to go, Ella?”
“Sort of. Eric and Peter and… who are you two?”
“John.”
“Timber.”
“That’s an interesting name,” Ella said looking up at the one guy who must have been six-six. “Eric, Peter, John, and Timber, can Ari come? We all would like to party, but we don’t want to leave him alone.”
“Oh.” Eric looked at his partners. “Sure. It’s not like we own the beach. He’s welcome to come.”
“Ask him,” Ella demanded.
“Uh… Sir… Mr. Ari, would you like to come to our bonfire tonight with the girls?” Eric stammered.
“Thanks,” I said. “It’s been a long time since I went to a bonfire on the beach. I might stop by. It’s up to the ladies as to whether they want to join you.”
“Let’s see how good you are with that Frisbee,” an Asian woman said. With that they all jumped up and ran out onto the sand. Soon there were three or four disks whirling through the air. I grunted as Ella landed in my lap.
“Hug?” she said. Of course. She didn’t let go. “Ari, I don’t want to go hang out with a bunch of horny guys tonight. Will you go to the bonfire with me? I know you were just saying you’d stop by as a show of support for us, but personally, I’d like to hang out with you more.”
“You make it hard to refuse, Ella.”
“At least I’m making something hard,” she giggled and then she bounced off my lap to go play.
A Long Time Ago: Touching Base
When Maddie was little Treasure and I took her on a lot of playdates, including some where we didn’t really know everyone. There were activity centers where we took her for socializing and we met some other parents and some children with whom Maddie became lifelong friends.
There was an interesting phenomenon. The kids were slow interacting with each other at first, clinging to a parent. But then someone would throw out a ball. A toddler would chase it. Another would catch the next throw. Soon there were kids playing all over the space.
But as they played, a toddler would periodically break away from the others and run to his parent. Sometimes he’d get his nose wiped or his diaper checked or just get a big hug, then turn and rush to play again. They just needed that little bit of assurance that it was okay to make new friends but that Mom or Dad was still close by.
Back to Ella
I didn’t try to go out and join the kids playing on the beach. I can’t throw a Frisbee worth a damn. I noticed a couple more guys join the group. It was good odds. One girl got another guy to join by just throwing the disk to him as he walked along the water. Some other girls joined as well. That little section was becoming the most popular part of the beach.
But every so often, one of the girls who had her towel near my chair would come for a drink of water or a bit of lotion. Before she returned to the games, she would come and sit for a moment on my lap and give me a hug.
“Peter’s actually a pretty nice guy,” Janie said as she hugged me. “Thanks for setting him straight. I like him.”
“I have such a weakness for tall guys,” Addie said as she hugged me. “I think Timber might get lucky tonight.”
“Just be careful,” I said, giving her a little squeeze. “Make sure he uses protection.”
“I’m on the pill,” she said.
“But you don’t know where his dick’s been. Condoms aren’t just to prevent pregnancy,” I answered.
“Oh. God! Sorry. You’re right. It’s nice to have a daddy around.” She was off again. Some of the girls were definitely in heat and planned to have a good time tonight. Others were glad they could go and not feel obligated. It would be a good time.
My time was spent with Ella. We had dinner together and then wandered down the beach to where the fire had been lit. She’d insisted that I bring my chair because it would be way more comfortable to sit in that than on a log or the sand. She was right, of course. We found a place about thirty feet from the fire and I settled in. Ella settled on my lap.
Although some wore T-shirts, there were also many bikini tops—like Ella’s—that had not been covered. The little resort town was casual and she’d only pulled a wrap around her waist for dinner. Flip flops were considered shoes here. There was the promised keg and a fair number of people who had obviously had too many plastic glasses already.
“Hi, Dad,” Janie said when she came up to give me a hug and a little kiss on the cheek. She was holding Peter’s hand and he greeted me a little more reservedly.
“Are you having fun, sweetie?” I asked.
“Yeah. I love campfires, don’t you?”
“I do. Thank you for including me tonight.”
“Would you like a beer, Ari?” Amie said when she came to hug Ella and me. “I’ll get you one.”
I hardly had a chance to respond before she was gone and back with two plastic cups for us. Ella kept her place in my lap, no matter who came over to greet us. She lifted her glass to toast the night.
“Ari, you’re really big on this explicit consent thing, aren’t you?” Ella asked me.
“Yeah. Think about it, Ella. You didn’t have an opportunity to consent to the jerk coming in you without a condom last year. You were, by your own admission, drunk. Would you have done that if you weren’t?” I asked.
“No. Well, I’d probably still have fucked him, but I never intended to have unprotected sex,” she said. “A lot of the girls come down here to have a little fling and not have it get back home. We get horny, too.”
“There’s no harm in that and I’m not judging you or any of the others for wanting to have fun. I’d have done the same thing, but I find that sex is usually more pleasant if I have all my faculties about me. Especially at my age. Alcohol impairs more than judgment. It affects performance, too,” I said. I was enjoying the contact that Ella and I had, my hand wrapped around her bare waist.
“It makes it hard on a girl to say that she wants to have sex instead of just letting her inhibitions go with the alcohol and take what comes,” she said. She lay her head back on my shoulder. “I want you to know in advance that I don’t mind if we have sex tonight, even if later I get a little tipsy. Just use a condom, please.”
“You don’t mind?”
“I’d kind of like it, but not right away. And I reserve the right to say no later,” she said. “Yeah. I wouldn’t mind at all.”
“Let’s see how the evening goes.” We watched as people started dancing to music that was playing through a small pair of speakers on the other side of the fire. It wasn’t obnoxiously loud. Authorities tended to let things go on the beach during spring break as long as they didn’t get loud.
“Will you kiss me?” she asked. Mmm. I was not impaired and I could see no downside in kissing the cuddly girl on my lap.
“Are you at least eighteen?” I asked as our lips softly brushed together.
“Yes. I’m even old enough to drink this beer,” she laughed. “Unlike some of the kids out there. Are you going to stop them?”
“No,” I said. We pressed our lips more firmly together and I welcomed the intrusion of her tongue into the mix.
“Excuse me,” a guy said from next to me. I saw one of the girls—the black woman with the incredible butt—standing a few feet behind him. “Are you Aroslav?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Are you like the chaperone?”
“No. I’m just here enjoying the fire and the company.”
“Oh. Well, um… Jackie said I needed to introduce myself to you before she’d consider doing anything with me,” he said.
“Anything?”
“We were, uh… dancing and stuff. I don’t know what else we might do.”
“And what’s your name?”
“Phil.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Phil. Jackie’s a nice girl.”
“Yeah. She sure is.”
“Before you get to other ‘stuff’, just be sure she has consented while she is not under the influence. You should consider whether you want to be under the influence when you do ‘stuff’ with her, too.”
“You mean I have your permission?”
“No. I can’t give you permission. Only she can.”
“Oh. Okay. Um… Thanks. That’s cool.” He turned around to talk to Jackie, but she stepped around her and hugged Ella and me.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I just wanted to make sure he knew I wasn’t all alone out here. I think we’ll go have some fun now.”
People came to the fire and people drifted away. It seemed like a lot of them came to me and introduced themselves—both boys and girls. As I saw a few reasonably sober couples leave, I couldn’t help but think that there were going to be some very happy boys out there. I hoped the girls were, too.
About one in the morning, Ella suggested that she was tired of the party and asked if we could leave.
“Sure. May I escort you somewhere?” I asked.
“To your place?” she said, kissing me again.
We packed up my little chair and waved at the remaining girls to let them know we were leaving. I was surprised when Addie left the group and ran to join us.
“Can I walk back to the hotel with you guys?” she asked. “I decided I don’t want to stay out here.”
“Trouble?”
“Not exactly. I just decided… I’m too sober to let a random guy into my pants. What there is of them. I’m afraid if I stay, he’ll just assume that’s what I want. I might tomorrow. I just don’t want to go there tonight,” she said.
It was only a block to her hotel and my truck was parked farther down the street. She gave both of us a hug and kiss on the cheek before she turned to the door of her hotel.
“You know what? I never realized how much fun a fire on the beach could be when I’m sober. It was really cool. G’night.” We walked on.
“Ari, if I’m not ready tonight, can we still sleep together? Would it be too difficult?”
“No, sweetheart. It might be hard but it won’t be difficult.” We both laughed and I drove her to my little trailer.
We didn’t make love that night. Or the next, even though Ella stripped off her top and cuddled back against my stiff cock while holding my hand on her breast all night. Friday, we walked along the beach and were greeted by nearly everyone we met. Just friendly waves and smiles. The water was warm and lapped up around our knees as we walked.
“Ari, I’m going to stay in my hotel tonight. I have an early shuttle to the airport with a bunch of friends in the morning,” she said as she held my hand. Well, that was the end of that fantasy. Even without doing anything else, I’d grown fond of Ella’s breast in my hand and soft butt against my groin. She sighed.
“It’s all right, sweetheart. Thank you for sharing the past couple of nights with me. It was more than a guy like me should ever expect,” I said. “I have no regrets and I hope you don’t either.”
“I don’t,” she said quickly. “I want to make love to you. But not here. We did a lot to erase my bad experience last year just being together. I doubt that I’ll ever come back here, but at least I have good memories now. It’s just that I don’t want to have sex here. I watched kids pair up this week. And even switch off. I think that after your talk, the guys were careful and the girls kind of let go a little. But it didn’t mean anything to any of them. I’ll bet most of them don’t even have contact info in their cell phones for guys they slept with.”
“Sometimes that’s for the best, I suppose.”
“Yeah. I’m not being critical. It’s just that I want something more than that. Ari, last year a guy fucked me and planted a baby in my womb and I don’t even know what his name is. Last name. His first name was Brad. But that’s all I know. I don’t want that kind of sex again,” she said. She squeezed my hand. “I don’t think I could have that kind of sex with you. I’m not asking or expecting a lifetime commitment, but when we make love, I’d like to know that it was intentional. That we planned it and that you’ll care enough to call the next day or the next week. Or even next year.”
“Ella, I’m glad you feel that way. Sometimes I’ve just fallen into sex on the spur of the moment with no thought for the person I was with and no real desire to see her again. But it’s not really the same as making love. Maybe someday we’ll both find that magic person,” I said. I thought of Alice and sighed.
“Um… I’m hoping we’ll see each other again. Could you… maybe… visit me on your way north?” she asked. “At the very least, you can sleep with your hand holding my tits and your cock pressed into my crack,” she giggled.
“That sounds great, but I’m not headed through Virginia this time. I’m going north through Tennessee and Kentucky on my way to Indiana.”
“Oh, I never said… I’m not in Virginia any longer. I mean that’s where my parents live and I used to be, but I started my Master’s degree at Vanderbilt this year. It’s in Nashville,” she said. Hmm. Nashville could be on my route north.
“Why don’t we keep in touch and talk over the next couple of months and if you still want me to visit when I head up in May, I will,” I said.
“Classes are out at the end of April,” Ella grinned. “Maybe you could take me with you!”
“Who knows, Ella. Life has revealed stranger things.”
And continues to do so daily.
Comments
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