Heaven’s Gate
17 Traveling
Saturday night, Hannah and I took our cónyuge Samantha to the master bedroom and locked the door for her twenty-third birthday. We massaged her, kissed her, and loved her all over. We slept with Sam sandwiched between us, waking to kiss her again in the morning.
Sunday, Dani and I went car shopping. Lamar had loaned me his Cadillac to take Amber out a couple weeks ago and it pointed up the fact that my Suburban was ten years old and not really the right car to be taking my ladies out on dates. There was no way we could all get into one vehicle anyway, so it didn’t make sense to try to get a car that everyone could ride in. We always took multiple vehicles. But I was a family man, and I needed a good family car.
I was impressed with the Chrysler Town & Country, but it was almost thirty grand. And it was a van. I still had trouble seeing myself as the kind of guy who drove a van. It did have good seating, though. It would seat as many as the Suburban when we had all the seats in. I tried to remember when the last time was that we had all three rows of seats in the Suburban.
Dani nudged me and I looked at a one-year-old Chrysler Concorde. It was low mileage and had a lot of extras on it. The slick salesman came right over and explained that it had been a demo model and they’d just replaced it with the new model year. It had a full warranty. Dani and I sat in all the seats, testing out legroom and head room.
Monday morning, Dani, Xan, Cassie, Sam, and I drove my new car to Champaign/Urbana for another week. April got there Sunday night and her crew had things pretty well set up. She and Sam fussed about where the chairs would be set, how guests were going to get up on the platform, and if we needed someone to give them a hand on the steps.
I hadn’t worked in this type of setup. It was a hotel banquet room and I’d be performing on a raised platform. In our studio, the audience was on risers around us. In the sorority houses, we’d all been on the same level. It certainly did a lot to separate the performance area from the audience. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like that. The background was just a black drape and we had a couple potted plants on the stage. And the chairs weren’t even particularly comfortable. But they were the best the hotel had to offer. We were committed to five nights here. At least we were starting early enough that there shouldn’t be any difficulty getting the taping finished before Joyce started the feed to CEN. It had been touch-and-go Friday night.
Since we were in a hotel, we had an added bonus. One of our five audiences would not be a sorority. And it would be our first mixed audience. Barbara had been busy and had a combined group of Job’s Daughters, Rainbow Girls, and DeMolay. All I had to be sure of was that I kept the material at a level that was appropriate for a younger audience.
Tuesday, Sam returned to Corazón. She wasn’t really needed onsite and the task of lining up guests in each of our locations was as daunting as getting audiences. Barbara was doing a great job of the latter, but frankly, having the mayor of Champaign on the show to lecture the college students on the new police crackdown on drugs was flat-out boring and not relevant to our wider audience. We needed some bigger talent and we didn’t have quite as much pull as Elaine did. I’d love to have Heaven on the show, but she, Amy, Maggie, and Jess were on their European tour and wouldn’t be back for another three months.
Xan fussed a little when I woke up Wednesday morning. I changed her and gave her a little milk. She was almost off the bottle now except for early in the morning. She greedily sucked down the milk and I danced around the room with her.
I’m so thankful I have Cassie, Dani, and Xan with me. It gets so lonely here, honey. It’s silly to talk about being lonely with two incredible women in my bed, but I get used to being surrounded by all our hearthmates and lovers. I want us to have our special time when we wake up in the morning. I want the comfort of Rose and the enthusiasm of Jennifer and Courtney. I want Mary and Nikki and Elaine. I want to reach out and touch Liz’s tummy. Isn’t it amazing? She has our child growing in her. I know she’s worried that she’ll get her period this week and it will all have been a false hope, but I’m pretty confident that it’s there. You can tell just by the way she glows.
I suppose that’s silly. Monday she’ll go get a test kit and pee on the stick. Then she’ll be able to relax and enjoy her pregnancy. Hug and kiss Doreen, Matthew, and C-Rae for me. I wish more of my family could travel with me. Little Xan is cuddled in my arms fast asleep again. We love you.
I placed Xan back in the crib the hotel had provided. She curled up and never stirred.
“Come and make love to me,” Cassie whispered. “Please?”
“Are you awake, my love?” I asked as I slipped back into bed with her.
“I am. I miss our family. Don’t you?” she asked.
“Yes. I miss every single one of them. I’m so glad you are traveling with me.”
“Show me how glad. I need you, Brian. I need to feel you moving in me and loving me.”
I kissed her. Her kisses were soft and tender, open and loving. I kissed her with promise and intent as I held her breast in my hand. She ran her fingers through my tangled hair and held my head so she could kiss me more firmly. I let her control the depth and intensity, but was by no means idle. Cassie’s skin was soft beneath my fingertips. I ran my hand down her back and cupped her butt in my palm. She moaned softly and pushed her sex toward mine as our kisses increased in passion. I started to move down her body to give her more oral pleasure, but she held me close.
“Just touch me and fill me, lover. I want more of your kisses.”
She nudged me with her knee and I lifted so she could spread her legs beneath me. I settled back down, teasing her lips with little nibbles and touches of my tongue. Cassie reached between us and guided my cock to her waiting warmth, stroking it through her wetness before it came to rest, poised at the entrance to her temple.
“Push into me slowly, darling. I want to feel you entering me, spreading my lips, opening my vagina. I want to savor each inch of you as you fill me.”
It was almost painful to prolong gliding into her welcoming passage. I fought off the temptation to thrust and bury myself, letting us meld together in our love. When, at long last, I was buried fully within her, we held ourselves still and kissed some more. A twitch of her hips got me to move, pulling out as slowly as I’d entered her and pushing back with that long, languorous stroke. After a few of these delicious moments, Cassie grasped me and held me deep inside her as her breath caught and shuddered through her lungs. She kissed me again, her body shaking in a quiet but intense orgasm. She opened her eyes and looked deep within mine.
“Again,” she whispered. We renewed our slow loving.
The third time she shuddered through her orgasm, I erupted. I felt the flow through its entire passage. Felt her grip me and renew her orgasm as I pulsed. We did not even attempt to part, but rolled to our sides still connected. We drifted toward sleep again and felt Dani’s hand slide across our skin to hold us both as she spooned against Cassie.
“So beautiful,” Dani sighed. “Such love.”
During the day Thursday, I rehearsed the monologue Chuck and Frankie had prepared for me. I wasn’t sure our collaboration was working. I couldn’t say that any of my opening monologues so far had been a smash hit, like Elaine’s had been. They ended up all being way too serious. I was going to have to talk to Nikki and then have a meeting with my writers. Of course, Elaine took material and made it her own. I was like a highwayman: Stand and deliver.
Cassie called in to Samantha at one o’clock as we waited for room service to bring our lunch. My guests would arrive about three-thirty and from that point, Cassie would take charge of getting them ready for the show. She needed to be up to speed on everything before we went down to the ballroom where we were recording. After she’d talked and taken notes for nearly half an hour, she handed the phone to me.
“Sounds like things are hopping back home,” Cassie said.
“Hi, Sam. How’s my love? I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, Brian, but this is Barbara.”
“Oh. Sorry, Barbara. I didn’t mean anything by that. You know Samantha is one of my cónyuge. I thought she was on the line.”
“I’m not suing for sexual harassment,” Barbara laughed. “She was on the line and transferred the call to me.”
“What’s up?”
“A couple of interesting propositions. The principal at West Monroe High School called. He was wondering if we could record a show at the school,” she said.
“Really? That could be interesting, I guess,” I said. I thought the show Tuesday with the DeMolay and Rainbow Girls had been my most successful so far. Why not do another high school audience?
“He saw the show Tuesday night,” she continued. “But while we were talking, I realized that I don’t think he really wants to do a broadcast from the school. What he really wants is to have you come as a special speaker. A convocation of sorts.”
“What do I know about talking to high school kids?” I squeaked. “What would I say to them?”
“Brian, our target audience is 17- to 24-year-olds. You speak to high school kids every night. You don’t have to make any decisions right now. Just think about it. We’ll have it on our slate for staff meeting Monday before you fly to Penn State. And relax. This is our first shot at doing a three-day. At least you get to come home. April and her crew are flying directly to University Park so they’ll be ready for Monday.”
“I wondered how they were getting home. Samantha took their car.”
“Here’s one that’s going to interest you a lot,” Barbara continued. “You lit a fire at Delta House. The sorority officers took it to Delta National. The chairwoman of the conference committee called me this morning. They want you to broadcast from their National Conference. At least one show and preferably all five during the week.”
“Holy shit! I thought they hated me.”
“No, they loved you. They thought they had handled themselves poorly and would like to field a variety of guests from several sororities and fraternities in the audience. It looks like they’ve mobilized the entire Panhellenic Association and the National Interfraternity Conference.”
“In a week?”
“I’d say the Greek societies are flexing their muscle.”
“So when do they want to do this?”
“The week of March 13. In Fort Lauderdale.”
“March? Fort Lauderdale?” Visions flooded my memory. “That’s Spring Break.”
“You should be able to get some interesting material together for that.”
“This car practically drives itself,” Cassie said. “Nice choice, Brian.”
“It might drive itself, but I’d prefer it if you kept your hands on the wheel,” I laughed as I got comfortable and put her hand off me and back on the wheel. I let my hand fall softly on her thigh. In the backseat, Dani entertained Xan until the baby fell asleep.
I could have driven, I suppose. But we’d come off set at a quarter after nine and gone straight to the car. I was bushed. It was three and a half hours back home and Cassie was willing to drive. We wouldn’t get in until one in the morning, but I just couldn’t stand being gone from my family another minute.
I know a lot of guys—I guess women, too—do this all their adult lives. They leave their spouses and their children and go to an office or a factory or a farm or to war and work long hours to provide for the family they never get to see. They see their kids through high school or college and spend the next twenty years putting away money for their retirement that seems so far away. And it kept moving further. My grandfather had full Social Security benefits at age sixty-five. My dad could get full benefits at age sixty-six. I wouldn’t be able to get benefits until I was sixty-seven. I wondered if Matthew would ever get any benefits at all.
I knew Dad had been careful and put aside a portion of his pay every payday for a retirement account. But I also thought of all the things we didn’t do when I was growing up because Dad had to go to work. What was the trade-off? When was enough too much?
I was thinking this as I nodded off to sleep and didn’t wake up until we were home.
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