US Highways
In Ari We Trust
21 September 2013
“IT’S SO SMALL!”
Not exactly the words any man wants to hear. No matter what the subject.
“I told you.”
“Yes, but it’s such a surprise to actually see it. How will we fit?” Angie asked. I couldn’t help myself. I wrapped my arms around her from behind and breathed in her ear.
“Closely together,” I whispered. I felt her shudder with the chill in her ear, but she didn’t pull away from me. She pushed back into to my embrace and rocked her head against my shoulder. I think women have a marking instinct, not unlike what a cat or dog might do. When she claims something as her own, she rubs her cheek on it. That was the feeling that I got from Angie. She started to pull her sundress up to take it off. I pushed her hands down.
“We aren’t staying in the trailer right now, so keep your clothes on,” I said. “We need to get the hitch on the truck and connect the trailer. Get your gear stowed and then we’ll head to Costco and restock the food supplies. We’ll camp at Joshua Tree tonight and for the next couple of days while we settle in and get used to each other.”
“Whatever you say, sir,” she sighed. “Where shall I put my things?”
“Here’s an empty drawer for your toiletries, undies, and T-shirts. Anything small will fit. There are eight hangers in the closet. You can share this drawer with me for a pair of jeans and shorts,” I said, going through the limited storage space in my trailer with her.
“What about the rest of my clothes?” she squeaked.
“How many clothes do you think you’ll need?” I asked. “You saw the little roll aboard that I packed all my clothes in. It will take me five minutes to put everything away. The only additional things in the closet are the sports coat that I’ve only worn once in the past three months, and my hiking boots. Those are down here. You should have room for any shoes you need here.”
“I have two suitcases.”
“Be selective. If you discover that you need something that you didn’t plan on, we can open the back of the truck and get at it. I’m not asking you to burn all your clothes,” I laughed.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to just take off my clothes and leave them off?” she asked. Oh, yeah.
A Long Time Ago: Going Naked
Lynn and I saw each other for about six months until my relationship with Anabel got so tumultuous that Lynn couldn’t put up with it. You might have read my very fictionalized account of our relationship in One-Hour Do-Over that got third place in the Halloween contest a few years ago. Anabel Lee was going by the shortened version, Belle, at the time. Things are never as neat and tidy in real life as in stories. That’s why we call it fiction. I try to end my stories ‘happily ever after.’ Life is not so cooperative.
Lynn was certainly bewitching, but she wasn’t really a witch. In my book, she was an angel. Even though we didn’t live together, we spent several weekends together. I often stopped by her apartment on my way home from work.
We made love.
Lynn was always ready to make love, though she hated condoms. She said she’d rather I come in her mouth than feel latex in her vagina. Still, we both liked making love and she was highly orgasmic. She had the biggest breasts of any of my lovers up to that time—maybe ever—and could come from me sucking on her nipples. If I had my hand in her panties, at least. So much for my theories on the concentration of nerve endings in small breasts.
So, as I was saying, we’d made love. It was Friday night and I had no plans for the weekend other than feasting on her glorious body, repeatedly. She rolled out of her narrow bed and started toward the bedroom door.
“We need food,” she said. “I have some stuff ready to heat. It will be ready in about fifteen minutes.” She turned and looked at me as I sat on the edge of her bed reaching for my underwear. “I don’t see any reason we need to dress this weekend,” she said. “Were you expecting company?” I looked at her. She turned toward me and then pirouetted. I certainly saw no reason for her to get dressed. She headed for the kitchen. I tossed my underwear onto the pile of clothes at the foot of the bed and went to use the bathroom. I washed things up so that I was clean when I went to the kitchen. When I found her there, she had an apron tied around her front so she wouldn’t get any delicate parts spattered as she cooked. The rear view, though…
I walked up behind her and she leaned back against me. The pasta was boiling and the sauce looked hot. She rubbed back against my stiffening cock and sighed.
“No real reason to get dressed at all.”
I called that my first experience with nudism, even though Lynn and I were mostly excited about being nude together, not just being nude. I was pretty shocked the first time I didn’t get an instant erection when I saw her naked. But as soon as she sidled up to me and said, “Would you like to make love again before dinner?” I came to full attention.
Did I mention how sensitive her nipples were?
Back to Angie
After we’d agreed on the rules and how things would work yesterday, Angie moved her suitcases to my room at the resort and undressed. Once her mother had left the room, Angie stood in front of me nervously. She was suddenly blushing furiously. You’d think that she’d have been more embarrassed to be naked with me in front of her mother, but I believe it was the realization of the intimacy of our situation and her furtive glances at my semi-hard-on that burst in on her. We had just begun a new relationship, living with each other. Just the two of us. The nudity took on new dimensions.
A man she had known for less than a week was going to look at her naked body. Blatantly. Whenever he wanted.
For my part, I won’t deny that I was a little embarrassed, too. I had never anticipated that I would leave this resort at the end of the week with a beautiful naked young woman as a companion. There was certainly some churning in my loins. I figured the best bet would be to ease into our relationship with food.
I cooked.
“We’ll get comfortable with working together soon enough,” I said when she asked what she should do. “I don’t expect you to have to ask me for instructions on every little thing. In fact, if I need to tell you to do something obvious, I would consider that a failure to observe and be fully a part of our relationship. I’m cooking. Food will be ready in about ten minutes. You should find something helpful to do.”
She stood looking at me and blushing some more before the wheels started turning at full speed. It was delightful to watch her open the cabinets and reach up to get plates and glasses out. That simple act of stretching her arms lifted her breasts into a ‘winged victory’ position. Standing on her tiptoes as she leaned forward sculpted her butt and legs into an ideal shape.
She saw me looking at her and, despite blushing furiously, she lifted down just one plate before slowly reaching up to get the next one. She held the pose a second longer than was necessary, but not long enough for it to become uncomfortable. She disguised her posing as simply being careful about what she was doing. She repeated the moves with the same amount of stretch to get down each glass, even though they were on a lower shelf than the plates.
She set the table and I told her that I had a bottle of wine chilling in the refrigerator. As I moved the chicken breasts and Asian broccoli from the pan to a serving platter, I watched her get the wine. She glanced my direction to be sure I was watching and then bent at the waist much farther than necessary to retrieve the wine off the bottom shelf of the fridge.
It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the display of her feminine charms. I did, and intended to appreciate them much more in the future. But I didn’t appreciate the idea that she’d decided teasing me was okay. She was trying to get me to make a pass at her. To control me. There was going to be a contest of wills here and I needed to find a suitable means of disciplining her without making her think I didn’t want to see her body.
After dinner, I picked up my glass of wine, my reader, and a cigar, and headed for the lanai. I had a robe next to the patio doors since the lanai is not a particularly private area. Angie went to grab her robe and made to follow me. I cocked an eye at her and glanced toward the table. If she had cooked dinner, I’d have immediately done the cleanup. But I cooked. She followed my look and dropped her robe. She gathered the dishes from the table and went to the kitchen to clean up. I relaxed and enjoyed my cigar while keeping one eye on what she was doing.
Okay. I didn’t give a fuck what she was doing. I was just keeping an eye on her. My lust was beginning to get the better of me and I was inspired as to her punishment.
“Come here, Angie,” I said from the easy chair in the living room. The girl approached and faced me. I looked her up and down, letting her know that I was appreciating the view of her tits and pausing for quite a while as I looked at her smooth pussy. She was a little fidgety. Good. “Here,” I said. “Come sit on my lap.” She could clearly see that I was partially aroused and sucked in her breath. That did nice things for both her stomach and her breasts. Nonetheless, she perched her bare bottom on my lap and eventually slid back far enough to make contact with my stiffening cock.
“Yes, sir,” she whispered.
“I believe you have been teasing me this afternoon,” I said. “You’ve been making sure that I got especially good looks of you as you got dishes from the cabinet, got wine from the fridge, and did the dishes.”
“We’re naked,” she defended herself. I scowled at her.
“You put your robe on when you joined me on the lanai, but made sure your legs were well-spread when you were facing me,” I said. “If it is a compliment you are fishing for, then, yes, I think you have a very pretty pussy. I intend to look at it a lot while we are together.”
“Um… Thank you?” she whispered.
“But you are not going to tease me into fucking you. I told you that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to fuck you yet. I don’t expect you to try to make me lose control. We are going to be naked with each other. A lot. You do not want that to mean that I can automatically start fucking you whenever I want. Sex should always be mutually agreed. I am very displeased.”
“Are you going to spank me?” she asked.
“Angie, I don’t like to hit people. Least of all, women. If there comes a time when you would like to play a spanking game because it turns you on, we’ll discuss doing that. But I will never raise a hand to you to punish you,” I said.
“How will you punish me, sir?” She hung her head and looked contrite.
“It seems that you wanted me to notice your pretty, smoothly shaved pussy. So, I’m going to have you show it to me.”
“Um… okay?” she said hesitantly.
“But, you won’t see the results.” Now she looked really puzzled. “Stand up and face away from me,” I directed. She was shaking as she stood and turned away. “Spread your feet apart. This is your punishment position.” When I nudged the inside of her bare foot, she moved her feet about two feet apart. “Now bend over and put your hands on your knees. Keep your eyes facing forward.” She complied.
I looked directly into the eye of God.
A Long Time Ago: Building Trust
My niece trusted me.
That was the beginning, middle, and end of the story, as far as I was concerned.
Well, she wasn’t biologically my niece. I know that in Triptych Interviews I let people believe that Amanda’s mother was my sister. But that was fiction, you know? I’m constantly twisting the truth and building on it.
Boeing, in its infinite wisdom, decided airplanes should be built by the lowest bidder and was moving its plant to the Carolinas. Allen was transferred and he and April put the house up for sale. It sold before they stopped to consider that Amanda was half way through her senior year in high school and DID NOT WANT TO MOVE! Treasure and I offered her a place to stay.
But that isn’t why Amanda trusted me.
When we moved to that Leave It to Beaver neighborhood, we discovered more than sidewalks and white picket fences. We found a neighborhood. We found people who became friends. Neighbors joined us for dinner, for backyard barbecues, for birthday parties, and just to have a margarita or a martini after work. Allen was the master of margaritas. No one has ever improved on my martinis. But Allen and April weren’t the only neighbors. We got together with many like-minded people. Of course, one of the things that drew us together was our children. Amanda was the frequent and preferred babysitter for our daughter, Maddie. And Maddie adored her.
When the parents were sipping martinis one night while the kids played tag in the park, some ‘new’ ideas in childcare came up. I say new because most of us hadn’t heard about some of this stuff and many were first-time parents, but it made a lot of sense to us. We were all reeling that week because some kids from the local high school—our high school—had been out partying and were in a car accident. One of the kids was killed. One was crippled. When the teenage driver was charged with vehicular homicide, he committed suicide. Our whole community was devastated.
The parents agreed in principle and eventually we signed a pact that we shared with our children. The pact included a little card that had the phone numbers of every parent on the agreement. The numbers were entered in the cell phones of all the kids that had them with the prefix ICE—In Case of Emergency. If any of our children were intoxicated, stranded, or endangered in any way, that child could call any parent on the list. Said parent would immediately go to get the child. There would be no lectures, no punishments, and no recriminations. Our number one concern was to get our children home safely and alive. The child could even spend the remainder of the night with the rescuer’s family and we’d just let his or her family know the kid was safe.
We all prayed that our children would never have to use the numbers.
But, of course, they did.
Amanda wasn’t the first to use the safety net, but she was the first one to call me. She was precocious and had started dating in junior high. As a freshman, her boyfriend was a slimebag. Her mother did everything but forbid her to see him. We knew how that would play out. She’d just go behind everyone’s back to see him. She was smart and knew how to get around just about any rule.
“Uncle Ari,” she said when I answered my cell phone out of a sound sleep. I squeezed my eyes so I could focus on the digital clock. Just after midnight. “I’m scared. Can you come and get me?”
“Where are you, Amanda?” I said. I was already out of bed and pulling on my clothes. Treasure stirred and looked at me to see what was going on. I held up a finger to delay her question. The address Amanda gave me wasn’t good, but I could be there in about ten minutes.
I cruised up 164th slowly, but didn’t want to stop until I saw her. I just hoped she was still safe. This was an area known for late night drug trafficking and prostitution. There’d been reports of gang activity.
I heard three gunshots in rapid succession some distance away. I was about to accelerate out of the area and dial the police when Amanda raced out from behind a parked car and jumped in the passenger seat. I hit the accelerator before the door was fully closed.
“I’m sorry, Uncle Ari. I’m sorry.”
“Mandy, honey, you don’t have to say anything else,” I said. “We promised you no questions asked and you are safe now. I need to call the police about the gunshots.” I hit 911 and gave them the neighborhood. I was moving onto the main artery and away from the area. The 911 operator said a patrol was on the way to investigate.
“It was Pal,” Mandy said softly. Her slimy boyfriend. “I ran away when I saw he had a gun. He said he was just going to conduct a little business. Those gunshots. He’s either dead or he killed someone.”
“Amanda, do I need to take you to a hospital?” I asked. She was fifteen years old. What a fucked-up world we live in. “I’m not asking to criticize you, but I need to know if you are in danger of overdose or… or a disease… or if you’ve been raped.” She gasped. I’d already headed toward the hospital.
“No, Uncle Ari. I’m… I’m a little high. But I didn’t have anything hard and nobody… used me. I think… I think Pal was going to trade me. That’s why I ran.”
“You did the right thing, sweetheart. You’re safe now.”
“Can I spend the night at your house?”
I let her parents know that she was safe and at our house. Of course, it was after curfew and they’d been up pacing. But we’d all agreed to the terms of our contract. No recriminations. Amanda had gotten herself into a stupid situation despite repeated warnings, but she’d used the safety net and got away safely. Treasure and I met with April and Allen and even with our misgivings, we decided to abide by the terms. None of us ever mentioned the event again.
Amanda, it turned out, was hard enough on herself. Pal was arrested for murder that night. He’s still in prison. I’m happy to say that Amanda is a doctor.
She trusted me.
When Allen took the transfer to South Carolina, Amanda asked to stay with us until she graduated from high school. Both families agreed.
We had a large room in the lower level of the house that was supposed to be my office and den. The reality was that I occupied a corner of it and the rest of the room was filled with boxes and the general shit that people with attics put upstairs. Christmas decorations, Halloween decorations, Thanksgiving decorations, 4th of July decorations. Treasure was big into decorating for the holidays. Add to that every piece of paper that Maddie had touched from the scribbles to her most recent short story, her gymnastics awards, her collection of Harry Potter books in both the US and the U.K. versions, a couple computers that we’d outgrown but I’d never gotten rid of, and so on and so forth. The room was a mess. There was a small guest room next to it and a bath across the hall.
After a lot of debate, we decided against putting Amanda in the little guest room. It had all the space I needed for an office and we devoted ourselves to clearing the detritus out of the big room so Amanda would have a space she could call her own, complete with study nook, bedroom, and huge closet. She was thrilled. I was pleased because I didn’t have to wade through a bunch of crap to get to my desk. Maddie was jealous, but had already declared that when Amanda went to college, she, Maddie, would get the big room. Well, fair was fair.
Amanda became part of our family.
Treasure and I had been growing gradually apart. It seemed that we just didn’t have much in common other than the well-being of our daughter and the current financial crisis—whatever it happened to be. I was spending more and more of my time in my little office where I’d moved in a reclining chair next to my desk. I had a sweet setup. I could sit beside my desk with my keyboard in my lap. My huge 24" monitor swung out from the desk and could be positioned at the perfect height for whatever I was doing. Or working on. Or watching. I’d given up on television a long time ago. That was another difference between Treasure and me. She not only watched a few hours each evening, she recorded so many shows to watch later that there was never room on the DVR for a show I wanted to watch if one happened to come on. So, I just watched Netflix on my computer when I wanted to see something. I got further and further out of touch with the things Treasure was seeing.
Ever since the days of Lynn, years ago, I’d been pretty casual about nudity in the house. Usually, I remembered to put clothes on, or at least a robe, before I walked out the front door to get the newspaper in the morning. I was often up puttering around the kitchen early in the morning in my altogether. My normal wake-up time was a couple of hours before anyone else.
I often wore my robe to my office in the morning and when I settled into my chair, let it slip off my shoulders.
I was never blatant about exposing myself to either my daughter or our new guest. I’m sure one or both caught a glimpse of my bare behind as I ran into the bathroom in the morning on occasion, but it was nothing they couldn’t ignore. No one else in the family shared my joy in being fabric free.
That’s why it was such a shock to me when I saw Amanda.
It was about eleven on Friday night and I was watching some anime series that was exclusive to Netflix. I had a glass of wine by my side and figured that in half an hour or so, I’d either drag myself to bed or fall asleep in my chair. It was an even chance.
That’s when I heard Amanda come in from her date. My door was open and she could tell I was watching a movie. Thank god it wasn’t porn and even though I was naked, I wasn’t beating off.
“Hi, Uncle Ari,” she said as she passed my door. She just kept going into her room as I grunted a greeting. I didn’t really think anything of it.
Until she came back to my office. Naked.
“Can we talk for a minute, Uncle Ari?” she asked. She didn’t really wait for an answer. She’d brought a pillow with her and threw it on the floor and settled down on it. She popped a can of sparkling water and tipped it back. I pulled off my headset and stopped the movie as I looked at her. I was reminded of a line that Mad Aunt Hattie used when describing herself as a teen in one of my first online serials, Accidental Witness. ‘Beauty sits on a teenage girl like the blush of dawn on a new day.’ Amanda wasn’t and would never be a Playboy model. But she was beautiful. She wasn’t preening or displaying herself. I could clearly see her breasts in the low light of my computer screen, but she wasn’t spreading her pussy or anything. And from her angle, I was sure she couldn’t see my cock, which having recovered from the shock of seeing her was lying at about half a chub on my right thigh.
“What’s on your mind, Mandy?” I asked as soon as I had taken a breath and gotten oxygen flowing to my brain again.
“I think I’m going to quit dating,” she said. “I just don’t have time for the games. It’s not like I don’t like boys or I’m a lesbian or something. They’re just so demanding.”
“Are boys trying to get you to do things you don’t want, honey?” I could understand, but I’d still kill them.
“Oh, it’s not that. Face it, all the guys I know are teenagers. The only thing they know is ‘must touch tits’.” I laughed. She did a good caveman imitation, even though the tits in question were right in front of me and looked supremely touchable. She kept on with her diatribe that boys were simply too high maintenance for a girl with a future to deal with. Amanda had already decided she was going to become a doctor. I listened as she talked. That seemed to be all she really wanted.
While I listened, I looked at her.
I saw at once both the little girl she had been when we moved into the neighborhood and the beautiful young woman she had become. There was no way to keep from noticing how firmly her breasts stood out from her chest. Definitely more than a handful, I decided. Her light brown hair was cut just above her nipples. The nipples were like accents to her breasts, not something that overshadowed them. They were a few shades darker than the pale skin around them, and puffed out, though I wouldn’t have said they were quite erect.
She wasn’t skinny, but she didn’t have rolls of fat like so many girls her age. It seemed like fat was in these days, especially if you could wear clothes that caused it to hang out. Amanda wasn’t a toothpick by a long shot. She shifted and I saw her dark bush. She hadn’t adopted the fad of shaving everything, so she looked like an adult woman and not like a busty twelve-year-old.
She looked, in short, like someone I’d like to cuddle in my lap and make out with until we slid together and made love.
But I didn’t.
She finished her diatribe and I made some affirming comments. She stood up, came over and kissed me on the cheek, grabbed her pillow, and went to bed.
I turned off my computer, suddenly uninterested in anime. I sat there in the dark, reliving having Amanda sitting naked in front of me. My cock, which had been reasonably well-behaved while she was in the room, grew to rigidity. It didn’t take too many strokes before I was scrambling for tissues to mop up the mess. I pulled a blanket over myself and went to sleep with images of the naked teen in my head.
It didn’t become a habit, but twice more before she graduated, Amanda wandered into my office naked to talk about what was on her mind. Whether she should live on campus at SCU or if she should find an apartment in Seattle. Plans for her graduation party and her excitement that her parents would be here for a week before and a week after graduation. She wasn’t teasing. She’d obviously seen my casual attitude about nudity and considered it safe to try it out herself.
No. Even though I had a few fantasies about her, I never touched my niece inappropriately. I never made suggestive comments to her. I didn’t give her long hugs, even when she was clothed. I didn’t try to kiss her.
She trusted me.
End of story.
Back to Angie
I had every intention of just stroking off a good come while I stared up Angie’s twat. Relief. God knows, I was hard enough. But there was more at stake than a quick come. In fact, there was more to Angie’s teasing than trying to get me to fuck her. Angie was risking her body, being demeaned, becoming a slave, based on my promise.
Angie trusted me.
I got out of my chair and headed toward the bedroom. At the door, I looked back at the girl. She was still bent over in front of the chair, but she was looking at me. Tears were running down her cheeks.
“Angie, your punishment is over. It’s time to get ready for bed now,” I said.
I didn’t expect her response. She ran to me and wrapped her arms around me, hugging me like her life depended on it. I was still hard and having her naked stomach pressing my erection between us didn’t help.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, sir. I teased you and I tried to make you break your word. I didn’t believe you weren’t going to use me. I’m so sorry!”
“There, there now, Angie. We’ve been together for less than a whole day. We both have a lot of learning to do. All is forgiven. Let’s get ready for bed now. I have to find out if you snore.”
“I don’t!” she giggled through her tears. She snuffled and I grabbed a tissue to wipe her nose. She hugged me again. “You’re… um… you still have an erection,” she said. She didn’t rub against it, but she pressed firmly.
“Yes.”
“I can give you a hand job or a blowjob,” she said. “It’s my fault. I thought you’d come when I was bent over in front of you. I don’t want you to suffer because of my teasing.”
“No. I think I’ll live with this for tonight. Just as a reminder.”
“Of what?”
“That you trust me. Our relationship—as it develops—isn’t about me using you as a sex slave. I’m going to show you the country in a way you might never have expected. I’m going to keep you safe. We’ll have a lot of fun,” I said. “Angie, one day, if it all works out, we might make love. But that isn’t why you are here with me. You are here for adventure and to see a little corner of the world. You are here because you can trust me.”
“But… You shouldn’t have to suffer. I could just…” I stopped her hand reaching for my cock.
“What’s more, I need to trust you, Angie. I don’t want you to touch me like that or to try to get me off tonight. Leave it alone. You can’t go with me tomorrow if I can’t trust you,” I said. She gulped and withdrew her hand. We got ready for bed.
Once we were lying down, Angie hugged the edge of the bed. I tried to give her room, but I lay down where it was comfortable. I usually sleep on my back and I don’t like to have a leg hanging out of the covers. Especially in an air-conditioned hotel room.
“You know the bed in the trailer is large enough to be comfortable, but it’s not a king size like this one,” I said.
“Is it… um… okay if we touch?” she asked.
“Of course it is, Angie. We’re going to be in intimate quarters. We will often touch. It would be way too awkward if we had to avoid brushing against each other all the time.” She rolled toward me. She was shaking.
“Will you… hold me?” she pled. I opened my arms to her and she flowed toward me. It wasn’t long before she was in that favored position that women have, tucked under my arm with her head on my chest.
It had been a stressful day. We were asleep by ten.
My eyes flicked open at five o’clock. Angie had rolled away from me during the night but she still held my hand. Those beautiful breasts were uncovered and I spent a few minutes just watching her breathe. It was hypnotic. Swell and relax. Rise and fall.
I crept out of bed and into the bathroom. Knowing full well what I was about to do, I locked the bathroom door. My ‘reminder’ was still standing at attention in front of me. I assumed it had gone down sometime during the night, but watching Angie’s nipples had it back at attention before I stepped into the shower. I cleaned the appendage extremely well. Twice. For the first time, I considered that traveling with this doll might be a painfully frustrating experience. I’d set the rules. I was the one she could trust. She’d shown me last night that I could trust her, as well.
I made coffee and wrote for an hour and a half on my first Props Master story before I went in to wake her and get us rolling. We had to eat, pack up, and get the trailer hooked up before we could begin our adventure together.
Angie woke up and stretched luxuriously, doing wonderful things for the shape of her torso and breasts. When she realized what she was doing, she started to cover herself. Then she looked at me, took a deep breath and kicked the covers off. I watched her pad off into the bathroom.
“Take a long, hot shower,” I called after her.
“Are you suggesting I stink?” she said, sticking her head out the door.
“No. I’m suggesting that we have no idea when we’ll have an unlimited supply of hot water again,” I answered.
“Oh. Oh, shit!”
I heard the shower start and made another pot of coffee. In my experience (having a daughter) even a short shower would take a long time.
And that’s what brought us to the trailer and Angie’s unfortunate comment about how small it was.
Margaret met us with another suitcase of Angie’s clothes and an envelope of papers that she entrusted to me, including Angie’s health insurance papers, checkbook, passport, and birth certificate. Margaret said that it also had all her emergency contact information—just in case she was needed. She inspected the trailer, hugged us each goodbye, and left.
Angie got her things stowed and paid careful attention as I backed the truck under the hitch. She accompanied me all the way around the rig and asked why I was doing things.
“I moved the rig forward four feet so I could get the leveling blocks out from under the tires on that side,” I said as I stowed the blocks. “Now all we have to do is the walk-around.”
“What’s a walk-around?”
“Oddly enough, it’s something I learned from reading stories by Dual Writer about characters who became pilots. Before you get in an airplane and take off, you check to make sure everything is where it should be and is functioning correctly. So, front of the trailer. The hitch is secure, the drag chains are connected, the power is connected. The post is fully retracted. The front lights are on. The shutter for the front window is closed and locked. The bicycle is locked into place and the straps are tightened so the lock doesn’t flop around and scratch things up.”
“I need a bicycle!” she said.
“We’ll see. I don’t use mine very much and have been thinking of selling it. You can try to ride it if you want, but it’s a pretty big frame for such a little… frame as yours.”
“Very clever. Do you write like that?” she laughed.
“Unfortunately, yes.” We continued the walk around, making sure that all blocks had been picked up and stowed, all hatches were closed and locked, the slide-out was securely all the way in, no water, electric, or sewer connections were left, steps were up and hand-hold collapsed in. Awning in. All lights work. Truck lights all work and are on.
“I need to write this stuff all down.”
“I had it listed once but I’ve done it so often now that the big thing is that I do the walk-around. I just check everything that could fail. There’s a different list when we dock. You’ll see this afternoon,” I said. “Now, miss. It’s time to roll. Mount up.”
I let her run around the truck and open her own door since I was at the driver’s door. I believe in opening doors for a lady, but when she is completely capable and it doesn’t make sense to halt everything so that the convention can be followed, I’m fine with letting her get her own door. Besides, Angie had to get used to lifting her little body up into the cab. I wasn’t her servant.
I don’t think.
We made the stop at Costco, shopped, had all-beef franks with sauerkraut for lunch, refilled our soft drinks, and hit the road.
Angie was a little disappointed. She was still tuning the radio and trying to discover all hundred XM stations when we got to the park less than two hours later. I’d made a reservation, so a quick flick of my National Parks pass had us directed to the campground. I stopped on the way to our site and filled the water tank from their potable water source. I also had six gallons of bottled water stowed in the shower with two boxes of wine. When I’m in the area, a rule I try to follow is ‘Buy wine in California and gas in Arizona’.
Even the RV sites at Joshua Tree have no services. We were going to be dry camping. We’d see how Angie handled this end of the spectrum.
The site was long enough that I didn’t unhitch. We were going to be here for three days and I had no intentions of driving anywhere. We went through the checklist. I ran out the slide and turned on the water heater and water pump.
“I need to charge my phone, sir,” Angie said. “But there’s no power in the outlet.”
“No. When we are dry-camped, we don’t have 110-volt service. We only have 12-volt. The solar cells keep the batteries charged up as long as we aren’t wasteful. I’m running the water heater and the refrigerator on propane. You’ll find a phone charger in the cab of the truck. Your phone won’t run down the truck battery while it charges.”
It was two o’clock in the afternoon and I was ready to do some writing. I got my computer and sat in the shade of the awning.
“Um… sir?” Angie said. I really needed to deal with that. Being called ‘sir’ all the time was embarrassing.
“What is it, Angie,” I said. I scarcely looked up because I’d had a scene developing in my head all day today.
“What should I do?”
“Angie…” I said, looking up at her. She looked like a little lost waif. I set my computer on my side table and opened my arms for her to sit in my lap. “Pudding,” I said. She looked at me.
“Is that a new nickname for me? I kind of like it.”
“Well, we might arrange that. But I’m thinking of a Broadway musical called Hello, Dolly!”
“I’ve heard that song. What’s his name, who plays trumpet?”
“Louis Armstrong. Well, in the musical there are two shopkeepers who decide to go have an adventure in the city. Cornelius and Bartleby have never had a day off and decide this is it. Only Bartleby doesn’t really know what an adventure looks like.”
“He sounds like Winnie the Pooh,” Angie said. I laughed.
“Yes. You are quite right. Bartleby asks Cornelius how he will know when they are having an adventure. Cornelius promises to tell him and they agree on the code word, ‘Pudding.’ When the time comes, Cornelius will tell Bartleby, ‘Pudding!’ and Bartleby will know they are having an adventure.”
“So, you’re telling me ‘Pudding’ to let me know I’m on an adventure?” she asked. I nodded.
“The thing is, you need to discover what kind of adventure you are having,” I said. “I’m a writer. I sit and write a good part of each day. But I like adventure, too. So, I usually write first thing in the morning and in the afternoon after I’ve been driving. On the days when I’m in one location, I head out to find my adventure for the day after I’ve written in the morning. Here we are in one of the most famous National Parks. There are hiking trails, exhibits, a ranger station and naturalist building. This is what you came out to see, Angie. It’s your first big bit of pudding.”
“Wow. I guess I just assumed that we’d do all this stuff together.”
“Some of it, certainly. But I write. My pace is probably different than yours. I’m a little bit older.” She snorted and I scowled at her. She looked contrite. “When I’m writing, you can hang around the trailer reading or writing or just sitting naked inside looking beautiful. Or you can go have an adventure of your own and tell me about it when we eat dinner tonight. What’s it going to be?”
“I guess I’ll go explore a little,” she said. “I’d better put on a pair of jeans instead of my little sundress.”
“That’s a good idea. But, Angie? I liked the sundress while we were traveling today. You are very cute in it.”
“Thank you, sir. Um… Mr. Aroslav? Could I be your pudding?”
“Puddin’, you definitely are my adventure.”
She went off to explore around the campground and immediate area. I went back to writing. I was just at the point where Wayne and Judith were going out on their first date. It was a story I’d originally written years ago, but I’d decided to let the sex aspects that I kept alluding to in the original emerge in the foreground. It was turning into something fun.
“I saw a fox!” Angie said. When she arrived at the trailer, her clothes went flying. She stowed her hiking boots and stripped out of her jeans and T-shirt before I’d managed to get the food off the grill. Her breasts were bouncing with the same rhythm as her voice as she told about her afternoon.
We sat at the table in the trailer. I’d grilled a steak and tomatoes. I’d also tossed a couple zucchini on the grill. We’d get into a system eventually, but right now, Angie was excited about the things she’d seen while out exploring. I had my doubts about a fox being out there in the afternoon, but she was convinced. I restrained myself from telling her I could see a fox sitting right in front of me.
“We’ll have more opportunity to explore tomorrow,” I said. “It’s one of the reasons I always stay at least two days when I camp.”
“Even if there’s nothing to see?” she asked.
“Pudding, if there was nothing outside to see, I could just sit in the trailer and stare at you.” She blushed. I noticed that it made her nipples rosier.
“Thank you, sir. That makes me feel pretty,” she said.
“We need to do something about this ‘sir’ business. I’m not comfortable with it. Nor with you calling me Mr. Aroslav. They are terms that make me feel old,” I said.
“But I want… I need to show proper respect to you. I can’t call you Father. It just isn’t right. My father… well, I wouldn’t have run around naked in front of him. It just sounds so disrespectful of me to call you Ari.”
“Well, I have a pet name for you now. You need to come up with something that we can live with. When we’re out in public, I don’t want people looking at us like I’ve enslaved you,” I said. “That means absolutely no reference to any term that could be construed to be a slave’s relationship. I know I heard you mutter ‘master’ before we went to sleep last night. Absolutely not in public.”
She ate quietly for the rest of the meal. I explained the two-two-two rule of travel. Never drive more than two hundred miles. Always arrive by two o’clock. Always stay at least two days. We wouldn’t simply get in the truck and drive to Florida the next day. She cleared up the dishes, which amounted to washing our plates and silverware. I scanned through my email and looked up to find Angie standing in front of me.
“Can I cuddle with you?” she asked.
I moved to the bed and propped my pillows up against the headboard.
“Do you want the inside or the outside? I need to warn you that I often get up in the night and rise early. I’d have to be crawling over you if you take the outside.” The bed in the little trailer was transverse mounted and only one side was open to get in and out of. It made it a bitch to make the bed. But I’m a guy. Realistically, how often am I going to make the bed? Angie crawled over me, which wasn’t unpleasant at all.
“I’ll take the inside. It will make it easier for you and I don’t mind climbing over you if I have to use the bathroom.” She settled in next to me and I wrapped my left arm around her. She sighed. I put the computer away and switched to my tablet. I figured I might get some reading done. I saw a new chapter of Jay Cantrell’s A Flawed Diamond was up. His stories could keep me from working for days at a time.
“It’s pretty warm, so I probably won’t sleep with a blanket. If you get chilled, though, the blankets are rolled at the foot of the bed. I only use a bottom sheet. Kind of a European thing. These new microfiber blankets are warm and wash easily. All you have to do to make the bed is roll the blankets up at the foot,” I said. Even though we had been together all day and had been nude for dinner, this was the first time since we left the resort that I’d held her. I liked it.
“Uncle?” she whispered.
“What?”
“Could I call you Uncle Ari?” she said. “It would sort of make sense. I mean, we’re not related, but in lots of cultures an unrelated older man who is important to a person is referred to as uncle. I’d feel like I was showing you the respect that I want to and it wouldn’t make you feel old or masterful would it?”
I had a brief flash of Amanda sitting in my office discussing her latest boyfriend dilemma. Uncle would do just fine.
A Long Time Ago: Wang
I worked in an office once, supervising a staff that operated a Wang word processor. It was before we became socially aware of the sexist environment we’d created and was the kind of office that was constantly filled with double entendres. Most of us were either single or didn’t care and the women made as many suggestive comments to the men as the other way around. Working in real estate and home building was like that. We had an afterhours bar in the break room and often sat around for an hour or more after work to drink and flirt. Cynthia was my special nemesis, teasing me unmercifully.
“Ari, does your Wang ever go down?” she jibed.
“Not if you don’t fuck with it,” I snapped back. There came a time when she did, but that’s another story.
The point is, I like being hard. I’ve written about it before and I suppose it is a part of my nature. The idea of a four-hour erection is not a medical emergency to me, it’s a medical miracle. So, I don’t rush to orgasm. I want to feel that impending crisis for as long as I can.
Back to Angie
It was obvious that it would be hard having Angie running around naked in the trailer and curled up against me to sleep.
As the week progressed and we moved camp south, our relationship got easier. Angie made a casserole in the microwave that wasn’t too hard to clean up. We laughed about it and even though the cook isn’t supposed to clean up, Angie was appalled at the mess and dug in to scrub out the microwave with me.
We got south as far as the Mexican border and turned back north. I had no real desire to cross—certainly not with the truck and trailer, nor with a beautiful young blonde—and suggested that we go visit London Bridge.
“Go to England?” Angie said.
“No. I went there a long time ago with a theater troupe,” I said. “Everybody thinks Tower Bridge is London Bridge. It isn’t. London Bridge is just a steel girder bridge across the Thames downriver from the Tower. What I didn’t know when I visited is that the real London Bridge, built to replace the one in the nursery rhyme in the 1800s, was bought by some developer and moved to his resort on Lake Havasu. I’ve always wanted to see it.”
“Yes!” she shouted happily. Then she went into a rendition of ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’, holding my hands and making a bridge. Apparently, the nursery song and dance hasn’t changed since I was a toddler.
Of course, getting to Lake Havasu wasn’t a one-day trip. We stopped off in Quartzite to camp out in the BLM lands for a couple of days. Quartzite is a little town of about 2,500 surrounded by Bureau of Land Management land. During the late fall and winter, snowbirds flock to the area until some have estimated that over 250,000 populate the campsites. There are no hookups. You cart your water in and your sewage out. People who don’t have solar power use generators to power their humongous motor homes.
The first of October was too early in the season to see many snowbirds, so the whole territory looked empty and desolate.
“What do people do here?” Angie asked.
“From what I’ve heard, the two major activities are drinking and rock collecting,” I said. “However, we are going to the Magic Circle. Angie, this is definitely pudding!”
There were only two other campers in the section of the park designated as the Magic Circle. There would be hundreds by January. We efficiently set up camp and I leveled and stabilized the trailer. I extended the slide-out, turned on the water pump and furnace, and made sure I had a full propane tank on standby. Nights were chilly in the desert and we might need heat.
Angie opened the back of the truck, got our tables and chairs out, set up the grill and ran the awning out so we had shade. I choose east or north-facing sites when possible so we can sit out in the afternoon without having the sun straight in our eyes.
Angie’s eyes popped when she saw me come out of the trailer naked. She was used to seeing me naked, but not outdoors.
“Uncle Ari! You’re naked!”
“Yes, Pudding. You should get your skin in the wind, too.”
“But we’re outside!”
“So are they,” I said, gesturing toward the couple who were walking toward us. It was an older man and woman and aside from the rugged boots they wore, they had nothing else on.
“Greetings, neighbors,” the man said. “John and Leah, here.”
“Hi. I’m Ari and this…” I turned to introduce Angie, but she’d disappeared into the trailer. “Angie, are you going to come out and meet our neighbors?” I called.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I’m coming.” The door opened and Angie stepped out in just her boots. Both John and Leah were appreciative of what they saw, but they didn’t make it obvious.
“This is Angie,” I said. “We’re on an adventure to explore the south this winter.” Angie put her arm around my waist and held on. I could feel her trembling.
“Well, there aren’t many of us down here just now. Still too early in the season,” Leah said. “We’re the camp hosts and just wanted to welcome you. How long will you be staying?”
“Just three days, I’m afraid. We’re headed up to Havasu for a couple of days before we go to the Grand Canyon.”
“I saw a picture on the internet that showed snow around parts of the Grand Canyon already,” John said. “Stop by for a drink later if you’d like. We’ve been going out rock hunting for a while each day. We can show you some good spots if you want to pick up a few specimens. Enjoy your time here!” They continued their walk around the track that served as a road in this section.
“They seemed nice,” Angie said. She didn’t let go of me. I wrapped her up in my arms. “We’re outside naked. And they didn’t even notice!”
“Oh, they noticed,” I said. “There are seventy-five acres out here that have been set aside as clothing optional. So, all winter, nudists will be coming for a week or two or even all season. And believe me John and Leah noticed you. But they’ve been around nudists for a long time.”
“How can you tell?”
“It isn’t hard.” I gave it a minute to sink in and then Angie sputtered in laughter. “Did you notice that he had his arm around his wife when they walked away? She’s probably whispering something along the lines of ‘Remember when I used to look like that?’ They might not rush home and fuck like bunnies, but when they cuddle up tonight, they’ll both have a fresh vision of what it was like when they were young.”
“But she’s… fat.”
“I won’t pretend to understand the individual makeup of people who have different body-types,” I said. “There is no body-shame among nudists. That’s the only lesson you need to learn while we’re camped here this week. Now, who’s cooking tonight?”
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