Double Tears
Chapter 110
“The only really good performance is the one where you make yourself vulnerable, while pushing beyond your familiar comfort zone.”
—Kim Gordon, Girl in a Band
WE DIDN’T SPEND all day every day in bed. We went running. We went out for breakfast. We went for walks on this beautiful campus. It was immaculately maintained. The grass was cut short enough to be a putting green. There wasn’t a speck of litter. The garbage cans were all emptied daily. The sidewalks were edged. The bushes were trimmed. All this because there were National Service conscripts taking care of the lawns and grounds. They were preparing for careers doing the same jobs they did when they were twelve to earn enough money to buy rollerblades or a skateboard. They weren’t even going to be offered the opportunity to volunteer for six more years so they could one day be considered for entrance into a management program. Because there were another 2.5 million just like them who would get inducted next year waiting to take those precious lawncare jobs.
V1 still liked the idea that everyone served his or her country for two years. But the implementation grated on V3’s nerves. And I kept thinking, ‘How am I ever going to save Cindy from that kind of life?’ Or save any of us. What were my hands going to look like after two years of service picking artichokes in California? Would I even be able to play the guitar again? Would I have any interest in using the government’s funds to go to a junior college somewhere and learn remedial English? Em was already questioning whether she would go back to school. She feared she was already forgetting anything she’d learned in high school and she was being moved someplace where she wouldn’t even have the educational resources she was using in California.
We went back to her room and made love more desperately than we had the first time we got together.
I joined Desi, Riko, and Riley Thursday as Em went back to driving a grocery truck from farm to table. For the first time, I really didn’t feel like playing my guitar. Riley suggested we needed a break from that routine until the next Renaissance Festival and we went back to playing our anime characters.
And that was perfect for the San Diego Comicon. It was far more comic oriented than the fairs. And a lot of the cosplayers were playing characters from popular movies.
Desi and I had a rocky start Thursday but Friday we were into our roles. ‘Red Dragon boost!’ my costume echoed as I poked Desi in the tits to the cheers of other cosplayers.
“Come to me, lover,” Desi said as she lay naked in our bed Friday night. “I can see you are frustrated and I want you to be sated in my body. Come here and make love to me… No. Just fuck me. Come here and fuck my pussy and my ass and my tits and my mouth. Take me and pound out all your frustrations.” She spread her legs and used her fingers to open her vagina to me.
I slapped myself mentally. I could see from the foot of the bed she wasn’t ready for me to do any of that. Sweet Desi was just trying to lift my spirits.
I lay down between her legs and began kissing and licking her. I didn’t try to rush things or drive her over an edge. I just wanted her to know that no matter what else I was feeling, she deserved more from me than a desperate fucking. She deserved my attention. She was my lover, not my fuck doll.
Desi had a deep earthy scent as her juices started to gather. When I finally reached her nub, she was ready for anything. When she came, I shifted my focus to the trickle of fluid running from her pussy down her butt cheek and redeposited it with my tongue on her asshole. I played with it and licked it and drove my tongue into her until she pinched it as she came again.
“You’re driving me crazy, Jacob. Please, give me your cock.”
That was a different kind of request than that I fuck all her holes. I moved up her body, kissing my way to her nipples and squeezing her breasts. I kissed up her neck and chin until I reached her lips and then kissed her with all the depth and passion I had in my heart. And while we kissed, I felt her wet heat with the tip of my cock and pushed into her.
“I love you, Desiree,” I said as I moved in her. “I might get down when it seems like nothing is working out the way I thought it would but I love you to the depths of my soul. I want to always think of you first when we are making love. I know how much you love me and how willing you are to give yourself to me. I want you to know how much I love you, too. I want you to have more pleasure from our lovemaking than you think you can stand and then give you more. My sweet darling, I want to fill you—not just your vagina but your heart.”
Someone once said a woman’s G-spot is located in her ears. Desi writhed beneath me as I whispered in her ears and when she came this time, she dragged me with her and I emptied my heart into her.
“I know you’ve been stressing about it, but I have an idea for our performance. For you and Cindy,” she whispered to me as we cuddled and kissed in bed. “It’s something we already know you can do and we can all be a part of.”
“It’s been on my mind a lot. We didn’t get much planning and rehearsal done while we were on the road with her. We don’t even have a piece of music we’ve agreed on. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed.”
“Think back to last fall… the first time you and Cindy worked together,” Desi said.
“The Masque of Beauty and the Beast?” I asked.
“Yes. We have all the costumes. You have lots of things that started out as improvisations and some that included established pieces that you played together.”
“Yes, but that had a whole cast and I think we’d have to pay some kind of royalty to do a performance,” I said. It was fun, though.
“Set the stage like this. You and Cindy enter playing different things but when you meet, you are suddenly in harmony. You play off each other, even dance a little while you play your instruments. Then a scary beast comes down from the mountain. It’s me in the beast costume with Brittany and Sophie operating the wings as I harry the two of you, finally capturing one of you and attempting to flee. But the other won’t let me go. You keep pursuing me with music until I finally release my prey and fly away. Then you have a sweet love ballad you perform with each other.”
“Wow! You need to write all that down!”
“No. You need to. All I really thought of was a plot. Now you need to come up with the action and the music. And the costumes are really fine for performance at the Ren Faire. It’s an act we could do once or twice a day for the live audience, but we could do a video of it in the morning. Maybe each morning so we’d have several angles and renditions to choose from and edit together. Think about it, Jacob. Maybe it’s not the right one for this time but think about all the costumes we have available. Sometimes we just need to use what we have and make it our own.”
I thought about it. Cuddled with my head pillowed on Desi’s generous bosom, I slept and dreamed a dream that was no nightmare at all.
Monday morning, after we’d packed the truck, Desi and I met Em for breakfast. Her little Prius had everything in it she owned, which wasn’t much more than what she moved to San Diego with.
“I have to report for work orientation in Salina at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday,” Emily said. “Three days to make the drive.”
“Drive carefully,” I said as I hugged her by the car.
“You, too,” she said. “You have farther to go to get to Kentucky than I have to get to Kansas.”
“Yes, but we have two drivers,” Desi said. “We’re going to switch out more frequently than you guys did driving to Denver. One will always keep the other alert. If we need to sleep, we’ll pull over and use the bed in back for a while. And we have five days. Mom and Dad left as soon as the truck was packed last night and will make it by Wednesday night to set up, but the show doesn’t open until Saturday morning on the first weekend.”
“Still, you are my boyfriend and girlfriend,” Em said. “Please be safe.”
And our 2,000-mile trip began.
It was a different experience to spend a week alone with Desi. Sure we were supposed to have two weeks of me being her sex slave when we first got together, but the truth was even on the night of her deflowering, three of our girlfriends were with us. Here, it was just us.
We made regular stops as we drove—about every hundred miles. I remember the days when V1 said he was good for thirty minutes or thirty miles, whichever came first. Still, we didn’t miss much in the way of rest areas as we drove across California and Arizona. In Phoenix, we turned north and hit I-40, which would be where we stayed until Oklahoma City. Our rotations and frequent stops left us a long way behind Emily. We waved toward Kansas when we crossed I-35 in Oklahoma City. We continued on I-44.
It was amazingly comfortable to drive the 70- and 75-mile-per-hour speed limits across the plains. For one thing, there wasn’t a line of cars going 85 and passing us. Once we locked our speed with cruise control, we pretty much maintained our position in traffic unless there was someone towing something heavy who couldn’t move that fast. I wonder what enforcement of the speed limit meant in terms of traffic fatalities. I could just imagine how that would have gone over in V1’s reality. Probably the same people who seemed to chant an unending chorus of ‘It’s my right,’ would be defying authorities on speed limits as well.
“So, I want to do something related to theater or performance of some sort,” Desi was saying as we cruised into Missouri. “Not Broadway. That would be like getting a last-minute ticket on the Titanic. And Hollywood hasn’t done anything original in thirty years. I suppose I could hit the regional theater circuit but they are always so strapped for funds they sound like public radio during pledge week. Or month. Or year.”
“You’re in the same boat as Cindy and me. Her, really. I like performing but my life wouldn’t come to an end if I had to follow plan B—writing!”
“Talk about two hard-to-succeed careers. But I think you’ve got the right idea. I mean about being independent instead of part of the established circuit. You can even publish your own novels and avoid the big publishing houses.”
“Is that a death threat? I might as well just give them away if I don’t land a major publishing contract.”
“And is that so bad?” she asked. “We give away our performances at the Ren Faires. No one is paying us to be there. No one has to pay us to perform. But we’ve cleared $4,000 in tips this summer, split three ways. It’s not a bad deal.”
“Well, I’ll split my share with Brittany and Sophie. It’s not fair for them to tag along and dance all day, even if they say they’re just doing it for fun.”
“I think we should do something nice for them, but we should also respect what their desires are. Let’s face it, they came along just so they could sleep with you since it’s difficult at home.”
“And with each other,” I laughed.
“And the rest of us,” Desi said. “For your special video, I think we should set a rate that everyone gets paid and everyone knows up front it’s not the same as just having fun. But you and Cindy should be the principals who are providing the bulk of the talent with music and we’re filling in around the edges.”
I sighed. A lot of what Desi said was true but I wasn’t sure what I could do. I didn’t even know how we could effectively charge for our content. Mr. Bryce would be appalled that I was even contemplating something like this without a better business plan. It was so easy to get caught up in the enthusiasm of my teen friends and leave my old man brain in the dust.
Having so much time together relaxed our lovemaking, too. We could go to bed at night, knowing we’d wake up together in the morning. We’d drive, knowing the day would end and we’d be together. And a couple of times, the mood just struck us and we spent an hour in a rest area in the back of the truck, giggling and whispering about how naughty we were being.
It was almost like being on a honeymoon. And, if anything, we arrived in Eminence, Kentucky Friday afternoon more in love than ever.
One of the nice things about the site was that there were regular campsites where we could circle the wagons and have our whole crew in one place. With a bonfire! There was a firepit right in the middle of the site, a picnic table, an electric pole, and nearby restrooms and water. Friday night, our whole crew arrived. I was happy to see even Donna had come down to camp with us. And Cindy and Betty pitched a tent in our circle, even though most of us decided to sleep under the stars. Riko and Riley didn’t need to sleep in the booth. These Kentuckians took security seriously. The entire fairground was fenced and security guards armed with considerably more than a broadsword patrolled the grounds with dogs after hours.
The Ren Faire was also the culmination of an entire summer of festive events. Located about halfway between Louisville and Lexington, it drew a big crowd every weekend for such a variety of things as Viking Days, Fools and Villains, Highland Games, and Pioneer Days.
Rachel, Livy, and Beca put together a big feast and spread it out on the picnic table. And we had lots of hugs and kisses all around. Cindy planted a kiss on my cheek when she got there and then turned scarlet as she rushed to Desi to kiss her.
“Hmm. This seems to be the standard greeting,” Betty said as she kissed me on the cheek. This time I turned red. “Are there any other camp customs we should be aware of?” She arched an eyebrow at me and I started sputtering. It took a minute to recover my wits enough to get a decent answer out.
“No, ma’am,” I said. “I mean there’s the usual stuff about sharing in cleanup and making sure garbage is picked up.” She nodded. “And we try not to be loud enough to disturb anyone sleeping nearby, you know. Of course, this is a public campground, so we keep our clothes on. Most of the time.” I looked at her innocently as both eyebrows shot up into her hairline.
“If we hang around here too long, you’ll corrupt both my daughter and me,” she sighed. Hmm. Corrupt Betty Marvel? Well, if it weren’t for the family thing with her husband, two sons, and Cindy, it would be tempting. I could certainly recognize her as an attractive woman and had just enough common sense not to do anything about it.
“Jacob has an idea for your video, Cindy,” Desi said. “I personally think it’s brilliant and I only thought up half of it.”
“Really? Tell us about it. I haven’t even thought up a piece of music,” Cindy said.
“Think about our performance for The Masque of Beauty and the Beast last fall,” I said. “All those little stabs and improvs we did as well as the more melodic pieces we incorporated.”
“And as you imagine it,” Desi added, “Think of the costumes onstage.”
Betty and the Whitcombs were at the picnic table chatting and playing some game so I grabbed my lute guitar. Seeing me do that, Cindy brought back both her flute and recorder.
“I think the flute,” I said.
“Will we be too loud?” she asked.
“It’s only nine and the sun is scarcely down. People are still laughing and drinking all over the campground,” I said. Technically there wasn’t supposed to be any ‘visible alcohol’ in the campground. Which meant you could have it in a camper, a tent, or a paper bag, I suppose.
We tuned and Betty turned to smile at us. We hadn’t played together in two weeks, so we needed to refresh a little. She went back to her game. We all leaned in near the fire.
“Once upon a time, there wandered a minstrel, hither, thither, and yon around the countryside, playing his tunes as he went.” I launched a Russian Gypsy guitar tune that was pretty short and before I was halfway through it, I continued my storytelling. Forty hours driving with Desi had given us plenty of time to rehearse the story even though we had no intention of telling it when we performed. As Donna had told us, the purpose of the story was to hang the music and action on, not to be a piece of literature. I thought, though, that I’d write this all down in a format I could present in print. It was fun.
In short, it described the wandering minstrel as lonely but he encountered a sprite who accompanied him on his journey, playing counterpoint to his music. Cindy knew the piece I was playing as we’d used it over the summer, so she joined in as I described it. Then I told of wandering into a village that was threatened by a terrible monster who lived on the mountain and demanded tribute from them every month. I simply looked at Cindy and she launched some eerie music that might have been a little reminiscent of ‘Syrinx’ but she definitely wasn’t sticking to the score.
I described how the minstrel, the sprite, and the village huddled in fear as the dreadful monster approached. At this point, I shifted into some riffs from ‘Mozart in Hell’ that Cindy could follow with. No one expected, though, that Desi would join with a descant, at first sounding far away and growing closer and louder. I described how the monster swept in on the village. The minstrel went out to do musical battle with it but was overcome and disappeared in the monster’s wings and was flown away.
This shocked the little sprite who searched far and wide for her friend. Finally, her plaintive tune was heard in the lair of the monster where things were not going well. She wanted the minstrel to play, but poke and prod him as she would, she could get no music from his strings. Until he heard the sprite’s anxious melody. Then the minstrel joined in the music. The monster learned to blend her voice with the musicians and together they traveled the countryside weaving a spell of music over all.
Of course, we were a bit ragged, having not practiced any music with the story and Cindy hearing it for the first time, but we improvised something that wasn’t half bad, just pulling from bits and pieces of music we knew. It took us about fifteen minutes to tell the whole story and our mates applauded.
“That’s remarkable!” Donna said. “Jacob, will you please write out the story so I can read it?”
“It’s probably too long for a performance,” I said. “We’ll need to refine it and do some cutting.”
“For the performance, yes,” she said. “But I suspect there is a bit of a fantasy underlying what you told us and I would love to read the whole story in all its intimate details.”
“Sure. I’ll work on it more this week.” Then I looked at her and she winked at me.
‘All its intimate details?’ Was Donna asking for a sex story? Okay, then.
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