Ch 2     Ch 3     Ch 4     Ch 5     Ch 6    

Chapter 1 - Summer 1962 

 

Achievement, for me, became secondary to getting laid---after the storm, anyway.  It wasn’t always like that.  I remember, God, so long ago now, when I left home and moved to Mission Beach.  There were four of us guys, all about the same age and predilection for pussy---an unpleasant word, to be sure, but accurate in its disregard for the bearer and focus on the object. 

We wanted something on the beach, where the girls wore as little as possible.  When we sat in the realtor’s office listening to her drone on about apartments for four hundred and up a month, I finally said, “There must be something for less.”  She regarded us for a moment, then said, “Well, there is an old house scheduled for demolition next year, but surely . . .”  The rent was eighty a month.  We paid cash on the spot, sight unseen.  My cash.  For that, I took one of the two bedrooms.  She told us it would take a couple of days to remove the wood panels from the windows and doors.  The old, dilapidated shanty had a den and dining room both with stained-glass French doors for two more bedrooms.  The smallish kitchen had a fridge and stove that might have been bought second-hand during the Depression.  The bathroom had narrow wooden battens for a floor.  The open shower nook drained directly into the sand beneath.  How bitchin’ was that? 

I was a smart kid with too many options.  Valedictorian of my Junior High School, in accelerated classes for kids with Stanford-Binets of over 140 at Grossmont High School, letters in track and tennis, and it all fizzled after a year of college when being well paid for working as a technical illustrator in the defense industry became more enticing than a degree.  I wanted stuff.  Like every Californian, I was into cars---like every twenty-year-old, I wanted freedom.  Another five years in academia sitting in front of constipated professors made me want to puke. 

I was also distracted---no, upended by a capricious god and transported to Mar’s lighter gravity and lack of oxygen---by a vision.  Ah, yes, no less than that.  One afternoon as I walked along the beach wall just beyond our back door, I saw her in a vision.  A coppertoned gazelle leaped over the knee-high wall to join her friends on the beach.  Hair flew from her shoulders in a fan of corn-silk blond, her yellow bikini outlining her perfect breasts, tanned narrow waist, the flare of agonizing hips, her long golden legs.  Stunning.  Electrifying.  I couldn’t breathe. 

For days I prowled the beach in the afternoons hoping to see her again.  I had my buddies checking her whereabouts while I was at work.  I learned her schedule.  I finally found her.  She lay on a towel on the beach.  I sat on the beach wall and waited.  Maybe she sensed me.  She rose in balletic grace and walked toward me.  The moment of truth.  What in the world could I say? 

“Do you have a moment?” I said when she was within hearing. 

To my utter amazement, she stopped, smiled, nailed me with knowing blue-gray eyes.  “Why?” 

“I have to know your name.  Just your name.” 

She tossed her hair.  It flowed in the breeze off the ocean and swept away my heart.  “Stormy,” she said. 

My vision swirled.  Stormy?  God.  I struggled to refocus.  I had the feeling she’d been in situations like this a lot.  Anyone as beautiful as she had to have been.  She waited in a confident pose for me to say something stupid.  I understood there wasn’t much time for me to . . .  “I apologize,” I began in my most sincere voice, “but you are the most beautiful animal on this planet.” 

First, a subtle frown while she checked me for sarcasm, then she grinned.  “Animal?” 

“Yes, animal.  You go beyond the human condition.” 

“Interesting,” she murmured.  “What are you?” 

Not what’s your name, not what do you do, just, what are you?  I had about a second, I figured.  In that time a million clever responses flashed in my head.  I abandoned all pretense.

“A Michael,” I said simply. 

She inspected me with mild humor.  “Are you an angry young man?” 

I shifted my gaze to the breakers rolling in off the Pacific---away from those penetrating blue eyes.  Angry young men were very au courant, very trendy.  It wasn’t my style.  What could I say about my vagabond life?  So many schools, so many cities, so many friends left behind, too many odd ideas gained from living in too many differing cultures.  “No,” I said.  “Just an outlaw.” 

It was summer in San Diego.  She was visiting with her family from Phoenix.  She had a brother who was nosey and a stepfather who was viciously protective.  I was dazzled. 

We met secretly on the beach every night for two weeks.  We talked about the human condition, the state of art, the complexities of relationships.  I was astonished at her acumen.  She was brilliant as a conversationalist, erudite and visionary.  I fell deeper under her spell.  There were nights when she cried happy tears over our dialogues. 

Priscilla Stormy Landerson was her full name.  Anyone can see why she used her middle.  Dangerously provocative, and it suited her.  She was seventeen, I was twenty.  Her birthday was September 10^th and mine, the 12^th.  Kismet.  I was in love, really in love, for the first time in my young life. 

"What's the big deal with her?" my friends asked me one day. 

I thought for a moment.  "Last night we watched the full moon.  I said, 'Tycho.'  Know what she said?  'Mare Ibrium.' " 

Six eyes went blank with confused expectation. 

I smiled.

On a sunny afternoon, I washed my ALFA Romeo Giulietta Sprint Coupe on the narrow lane in front of the beach house.  Stormy walked up in white shorts and a yellow cotton top tied in a knot beneath her breasts.  She sat on a granite boulder next to my shack.  “You take good care of your car.” 

“Yes, I do.” 

“You like to take care of things.” 

“That’s true,” I said. 

“Hmm,” she said.  She sat quietly and watched. 

“Would you like to go for a Coke?” I asked.  

“I’d love to.  Just let me tell my stepdad where I am and how long.” 

“About an hour?” 

“Perfect,” she said. 

She was back in fifteen minutes and we went for a drive.  She loved the ALFA.  I loved her.  We stopped at an open beach-bar and sipped Cokes on stools as though we were imbibing exotic martinis.  We talked of many wonderful things and I took her home. 

The next day when I came home from work, she was gone.  The expensive apartment in which she and her family had been staying was vacant.  No forwarding address.  No telephone numbers, no addresses, not a way in hell to contact her. 

 

 

 

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Chapter 2 

 

Three years earlier, in my senior year of high school, I pursued Frances Josephine Garritt.  She was the youngest of three daughters of the Santee Postmaster and one of the most beautiful and desirable sophomores in the school.  I’d made runs at some female classmates, but none had held my attention or I hadn’t held theirs.  I was a virgin loath to surrender casually.  For some reason, I felt a strong desire to make that step with someone special, someone I cared for deeply and . . . I hadn’t thought it any farther than that.  While my buddies satisfied their emerging sexuality by screwing the school tarts and parading their conquests, I, with some trepidation, occasionally masturbated to assuage my raging hormones.  My Protestantism told me it was wrong, my body said it was right, and my heart said it was better than sport fucking. 

I went to great lengths to get close to Fran.  I attended her Methodist church, became, as well, the janitor, so I could be close to her.  My pursuit was rewarded with her attentions and we became a couple.  After a year of gradually increasing groping and foreplay, she grabbed me by the metaphorical balls one night and had her way with me in the front seat of my ’57 Plymouth Belvedere two-door.  We surrendered our virginity to each other that night and entered a risky sexual dimension punctuated by the terror of several delayed menstrual cycles. 

I loved Fran.  Love wasn’t new to me.  I’d had serious relationships since I was five: Nancy Mangum in Kindergarten in Portsmouth, Virginia, ending when she didn’t score well enough to matriculate to the first grade; Ann Porter in Norfolk, Virginia during the fourth grade for whom I designed and sewed doll clothes and nearly killed a competitor for her charms; Barbara Wollom, a US diplomat’s daughter in Naples, Italy with whom I first held hands in a Seventh Fleet sponsored movie theater;  Susan Ring, the admiral’s daughter in Stuttgart, Germany who was first a tomboy who tried to fight me one day in the schoolyard and months later kissed me on the lips for the first time; Katie Brown, back in Norfolk, to whom I bade tender goodbyes with a kiss to her cheek in front of her wealthy parents, which scandalized them and made my mother blush; Shirley Pederson in the eighth grade at Santee Elementary in California whose parents lived in a seedy trailer behind the feed and tackle store.  And then, in high school, Fran, the Postmaster’s daughter. 

The Postmaster didn’t like me.  He didn’t like anyone who dated his daughters.  When, at nineteen, I approached him formally to ask him for Fran’s hand in marriage he gave me the most contemptuous look I’d ever seen and said, “No.  Put it out of your mind and stay away from her.  I forbid it.” 

He was an impressive man.  Cool, capable, an Elder of the Santee Methodist Church, physically shorter than I, but handsome, with a shock of gray hair swept back from an elegant brow, his equally elegant but imposing wife who always greeted me with a scowl.  Together, they were intimidation personified.  Implacable and mean.  Fran’s older sister, Carrie Lou, was an emotional disaster because of their interference.  She’d run off and married a man out of desperation and, two children and ten years later, committed suicide. 

My relationship with Fran began to cool.  Her parents’ opposition was so strident, I realized there would never be a place for me in their household or their hearts.  I felt the stirrings of wanderlust and contemplated a move to Los Angeles to seek my fortune. 

 

 

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Chapter 3 

 

My contemplations to move to Los Angeles matured at the house on Mission Beach.  My friend and roomy, Terry Donnelley, and I made arrangements for temporary lodgings with a friend of his parents’.  Terry’s dad was a senior editor with the San Diego Union newspaper and had influential contacts in the film industry.  One of those was Nitski, an older woman whose husband had died two years earlier and left her well-off and a fourth-floor condo on Hollywood Boulevard with several bedrooms that we could stay in while we found jobs and our own place.  Terry’s dream was to act.  He’d played as an extra in Shakespearian summer stock at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego and had a yen for acting. 

As arrangements were made, I desperately fought for any information that would guide me to Stormy.  I racked my brain, reviewing in increasing detail our conversations for any hint of her whereabouts.  Terry was sympathetic, as were Bill Baecht and Jeff Tomley, my two other housemates, all of whom were uncharacteristically impressed with, perhaps even envious of, my relationship with Stormy.  She did that to people.  I was just the lucky sonuvabitch she’d chosen. 

 

Bill Baecht was a guy I’d met in college during my first year.  We’d shared two classes.  He’d helped me through Geology, which bored me to tears, and I’d written his papers for English Comp because he hated it.  He had been the light man at the Old Globe where he’d met Terry Donnelley, and knew Jeff Tomley, the old man of our group at twenty-three, who could buy beer and keep Bill in Jack Daniels.  During Christmas break, we’d traveled across country in my Plymouth to Quincy, Massachusetts, where Fran was visiting relatives, and blew a piston on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut on the way back.  There was synchronicity. 

Our Greyhound ride from Norwalk, Connecticut to San Diego had been edifying.  Almost three weeks and four thousand miles after running due south past Washington, DC to Savannah, Georgia, and finally the long slow slide west to the blue Pacific.  A TB ward had to be better. 

I never got on a bus---of any kind---ever again. 

 

My buddies were almost as desolate as I.  They sat with me in our living room trying to help me remember anything, any clue, of how to find Stormy.  I had one, but not enough. 

“She said something about another place, another stop in . . . somewhere in Arizona.”  I shook my head.  “But I don’t have any idea where.” 

“There must be something,” Bill Baecht said.  “Think, Mike.  You’ve been talking to her for two weeks.  There must be something.” 

“What’s her last name?” asked Jeff Tomley.  “Can’t you call her parents?” 

“Her name’s Landerson” I said, glum.  “It’s not the same as her stepfather’s.” 

“What’s her stepfather’s, then?” he said. 

I studied him with hooded eyes for the longest time, slightly out of focus. 

“What,” he demanded, almost defensive. 

“Something about a business in Phoenix,” I mused.  “She told me his name.  Something like kettle . . . no, gettle, first name Paul.  He owns a business there.” 

Six eyes stared at me waiting for me to reach some satori, some revelation. 

“So, call Phoenix,” Bill Baecht said. 

The next day I tried it.  Terry Donnelley sat in a chair next to me while I called information in Phoenix. 

“A business by the name of Gettle,” I said to the operator. 

There a long pause.  “How do you spell that,” she asked. 

“No idea,” I said.  “Maybe like kettle.” 

“There’s no business listed by that name.” 

I despaired. 

“But there’s a Goettle Metal, here,” she said, spelling it out.  “I know because my brother works there.  Could that be it?” 

I soared.  “Give me that.” 

Number in hand, Terry and I worked out a strategy.  Not a very good one, but possible. 

“Can you make it work?” he asked with a tentative frown but ecstatic with the unfolding drama. 

“Necessity is the mother of deception,” I said. 

I dialed the number. 

The telephone was answered by a receptionist.  “Goettle Metal, how may I help you?” 

“I’m trying to reach Paul Goettle,” I said. 

“One moment, please.” 

The call was transferred to someone, no doubt his personal secretary.  She answered, “Mr. Goettle’s office.  How may I help you?” 

“This is Michael Patent with D&M Engineering,” I said.  “I met Mr. Goettle in San Diego during his stay here and need to reach him.” 

“Mr. Goettle is still on holiday,” she said with typical formality. 

“I know,” I said.  “He mentioned that and I’ve misplaced his itinerary.  Can you give me a number to reach him?” 

“I’m sorry, but he’s. . . let me see.”  She paused for a few beats.  “I don’t have a number for him.  It’s a lodge in . . . who are you, again?” 

I breathed in and exhaled.  In my lowest voice, I said, “Patent is my name, with D&M Engineering in San Diego.  We discussed a business arrangement and I need to contact him.  He said I should call you if I needed to reach him.” 

“Of course, Mr. Patent, he’s currently in Luna, I think it’s Arizona but it may be New Mexico.  Perhaps you could call . . . I’m sorry, I just don’t have that number, yet.  I’m sure he’ll call in.  Give me your number and I’ll let him know you’re trying to reach him.” 

“You shouldn’t have given your real name,” Terry admonished when I hung up. 

“He doesn’t know it.  But now I know where she is.” 

Luna---Luna, Arizona, maybe New Mexico.  I bought a Rand McNally Atlas and inspected Arizona to no avail.  New Mexico was a blank.  It wasn’t listed in the index of cities and towns.  An odd fear welled up in me.  Was this the end?  I took Thursday afternoon off from work and visited the local library to inspect thirty-by-forty maps of the two states.  Three miles east of the Arizona-New Mexico border was Luna, a tiny gas stop of no consequence, permanent population around fifty---only a pinprick on the map, but, goddammit, I had a destination.  I talked to Terry about it when I got home. 

“You’d be stupid not to try,” he said. 

The next day at work I spoke to my manager and asked for a long weekend---Monday and Tuesday off. 

He gazed at me for a long, strange time.  He winced.  “I’m sorry to say this, but you’ve been fired.” 

“I . . . what?” 

“The VP wants you fired.”  My boss was a good man, a mentor who had trained me to be one of the best illustrators and most productive employees at the small company.  “Confidentially,” he continued, “we’re involved in some kind of investigation of fraud and the VP needs someone to fire.  You’re the only one who doesn’t have family obligations or expenses.” 

“Fraud?” I mumbled.  “Why . . . what does that have to do with me?” 

He nodded.  Sympathetic.  Sorrowful.  “It doesn’t make sense, Mike, but there’s nothing I can do.  I know it has nothing to do with you, but, there it is.  You’re young and talented.  You’ll have no trouble finding another job and you can rely on me for a recommendation.” 

Suddenly I had lots of time, but I had been fired from my first real job.  Fired.  A political firing.  The American Dream---work hard, be reliable, excel at skills---the path to success, suddenly fractured like the San Andreas Fault.  I was a scapegoat.  Just like that---fired. 

Somehow, it didn’t bother me.  It played into my hands.  I was free to pursue Stormy and then move on to Los Angeles.  I was okay. 

“I want to come along,” Terry said when I told him about it. 

“Pack your shit,” I said.  “I’m leaving in the morning.” 

I drove day and night.  Terry wasn’t accustomed to the ALFA’s five-speed stick and I didn’t trust him with it.  We covered the seven hundred miles to the Apache National Forest in the high plateau mountains---the definition of the middle of nowhere.  It was three in the morning when we arrived at the intersection of highway 180, two lanes paved, and 610, a narrow logging road.  A tiny hand-painted road sign said Welcome to Luna.  A gas station-general store-post office and a diner called Albert’s were both dark and long slumbering.  A motel with a small lighted sign saying Hunter’s Rest, Vacancy, was a short walk up the hill to the south.  I pulled the ALFA onto a clearing off the road above the motel and turned it off. 

“You think she could be here?” Terry asked, doubt in his voice. 

“I have no idea,” I said, dismayed, exhausted, depressed. 

We dozed in our seats in the car until the sun rose in the shrouded valley. 

“What do we do now?” Terry asked, rubbing his eyes.  “There’s nothing here.” 

“Find her,” I said, miserable.  “This is Luna.  If she’s not here, she’s lost forever.” 

My teeth were dusty, my breath smelled.  My underwear clenched my balls.  I got out and stretched.  “That diner down there,” I said.  “Let’s get a coffee, maybe a bite.” 

We drove the block down the hill and parked the car.  Walked in.  A single counter with no more than fifteen stools confronted us.  One guy in a ball cap and a fur-lined jacket sat hunched over a coffee at the far end.  We took two stools in the middle.  A cheery waitress popped over.

“Watcha need?”  Big smile, pretty, maybe eighteen. 

“Coffee,” I said. 

Terry nodded. 

“Comin’ up,” the teen said. 

I was desolate.  Terry was silent with commiseration.  We’d come a long way and there was nothing here. 

She placed our coffees on the counter.  “Anything else?  Food’s good.” 

“Only one thing,” I said.  “Have you seen a girl come in here?  Maybe with a younger brother?   Blond, about your age?” 

The waitress’s eyes widened.  “Oh, you mean Stormy?” 

I froze in place. 

Terry’s mouth dropped open. 

I stared at the second most beautiful person in the world until I realized I was making her uncomfortable.  “Yeah,” I said.  I sipped my coffee.  “You have no idea how happy you’ve made me.” 

She frowned.  “Yeah?” 

Terry said, “He’s driven fourteen hours straight to find her.  We didn’t know for sure if she’d be here.” 

The waitress grinned.  “Sure.  She’s staying at the motel just up the road.  I see her every day.  We’re the only place to eat for a hundred miles.  Most people who come here are hunters who go off on the trails with guides or by themselves.  There’s just the one motel.  Only a few people actually live here.  We’re kind of a bump in the road.” 

“We’ll have breakfast,” Terry said.  He correctly surmised I had nothing else to say.  He ordered.  He took care of me. 

I ate without tasting a thing.  I didn’t hear a thing.  I didn’t say a thing.  I felt only the sweet thrill of knowing I was within a hundred yards of Stormy.  Terry chatted merrily with the pretty waitress who was eager for conversation with people close to her age.  I had no idea what they said but theirs were the only words spoken---the only human sounds made in the diner.  I think he apologized for my detachment---his retarded brother. 

The old guy at the end of the counter waved his cup in the air for a refill. 

 

 

 

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Chapter 4

 

Fran Garritt had been to the Mission Beach house only once---one afternoon after she’d left her teller job at the First National Bank in downtown San Diego.  I’d just moved in and she wanted to see the place.  We were still more than friends, but drifting apart.  Her parents’ vitriolic stance against our relationship had taken its toll.  She was bright, personable, a good daughter who valued her family and the sense of shared community they’d established all her life in one house in one small town in honest-to-god cowboy country.  I was a Navy brat with no ties to any place---without lifelong friends, no committed religious views, a smartass with attitude.  She sensed we might be too young, that her parents could well be right to insist she wait until she was older to make serious judgments about a husband and a family of her own. 

She’d taken a small studio apartment in the downtown area and I’d never gone there.  By teenage driving standards, the ten-mile drive between us was miniscule, but the emotional distance was light years. 

I called one day to let her know I was planning to move to Los Angeles with Terry Donnelley.  She said we should get together before I left.  She suggested dinner.  To say whatever we had to say about our waning relationship.  I agreed and we set a date for several weeks hence. 

The date turned out to be just a couple of days before I was fired from my job, and congruent to my leaving for New Mexico to find Stormy.  I drove to her place and arrived around eight.  She opened the door and invited me in.  She’d done a nice job decorating the furnished studio apartment and cooking aromas permeated the room.  We chatted nervously, dancing around the issue we both knew was at the crux---that we might not ever see each other again.  I made no attempt to hide that possibility.  I talked of my hopes to work in the defense industry and Terry’s plans to get into acting as a profession.  I made no mention of Stormy Anderson.  She said she was doing well at the bank and had been noted for quick advancement.  After dinner, we shared a bottle of Lancer’s wine I’d brought, got a little weepy, hugged, then kissed, then wound up on a deep-pile throw rug with my cock buried as deep as we could get me into her warm, soft body. 

 

 

 

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Chapter 5 

 

Terry Donnelley and I sat in the car in the clearing above the motel most of the morning watching for any sign of Stormy.  We drove off a couple of times to kill time but there was nothing to see but lofty evergreens shading the lonely two-lane highway.  We mostly sat watching from the clearing off the road.  There were only three cars parked in the motel lot. 

“Why not just walk down and ask what room they’re in?” Terry mused. 

“Wouldn’t work,” I said. 

“You think her stepfather is that fucked up?” 

“Hell yes.  Look how he just swept her off in the middle of the night.” 

A fellow in heavy jeans tucked into hightop mountain boots, black wool cap, and Pendleton jacket walked by on the far edge of the highway carrying a rifle. 

Terry stretched in the reclined seat and closed his eyes.  “Ever noticed that everybody in this hole carries rifles?” 

“It’s a hunting hole,” I said. 

Evening came, the sun slid down behind the San Francisco Mountains directly to the west, darkness hit so fast we could hear the thump. 

“Okay,” I said.  “Time to rock-n-roll.” 

I put the ALFA in gear and drove across the road and down into the motel lot---parked in front of the office. 

“Oh shit,” Terry said. 

“What?” I said and turned to him. 

Just beyond his face I saw an Arizona State Trooper car edge into the spot next to us.  The trooper looked straight at me and smiled through our open side windows.  “Hows about we have a little chat, boys.” 

I leaned my head back on the seat and let out a breath.  This was not cool.  The cops busting us right in front of Stormy’s room was not cool.  Christ. 

The trooper got out of his cruiser and walked around the ALFA inspecting every inch.  He jotted down my license plate, flashed his light in the abbreviated back seat and over the floorboards at our feet.  He stepped back from my side of the car, put one hand over the open holster at his left hip. 

“Maybe you boys’d better get into my car over here, hmm?” 

In the porch light of the motel office I saw he was stocky, a little shorter than I at about five-ten, maybe forty-five or fifty, that weathered Southwestern face furrowed with dry heat and too much reflected ultra-violet.  He backed off two steps and one meaty hand feathered the handle of a Colt .44 long-barrel six-shooter in the holster.  He took off his Stetson with his other hand as I got out and brushed his brow with his forearm like his forehead itched.  He didn’t look threatening but he didn’t look easy. 

Terry exited from the passenger side and stood looking at us.  He shot me a look of real terror.  In San Diego, we were accustomed to “pigs” who regularly preyed on our age group for riot practice---where chances were about fifty-fifty we’d get a nightstick to the head and a couple of broken ribs.  At least we didn’t have Beatle haircuts or flower-child clothes on. 

I waited.  The night air was cold, even after the heat of the day.  In the high desert country, the temperature could drop forty degrees an hour after sunset. 

He asked Terry to step around the back of my car, asked us both to open our jackets and turn around, decided we weren’t armed.  “Okay, then.  Come on.  I gotta talk to you two.” 

He motioned me to his passenger seat, Terry got the back seat.  He sat behind the wheel and raised a finger to me, a wait gesture.  He punched a few buttons on his dash while holding the communicator.  “Damn,” he spat.  “Can’t get through.”  He replaced the mike in its clip and turned to us, throwing an elbow over the back of the front seat.  “Where’re you boys from?”  I told him San Diego.  “Long way from home, huh?  Okay, let’s see some ID.” 

He checked our driver’s licenses and I showed him my Voter’s Registration Card with the same address.  He handed back all our identification, pursed his lips, frowned a bit.  “So, what’re you doin’ here?” 

Terry looked at me. 

“Getting a room,” I said. 

He nodded.  “Gettin’ a room.  Hmm.  Then maybe you could tell me why you been sittin’ up there in that layby watchin’ this motel.  You coulda got a room anytime.” 

“I’m here to see someone.” 

He frowned at me, swung his eyes to Terry for a moment, back to me.  “He don’t say much.” A wry smile deepened the creases on his face. 

“No.” I agreed.  “This is my thing---he’s company.” 

He nodded again.  “Your thing.”  He peered through the windshield.  The night manager stood watching at the office window.  The trooper gave him a wave.  “And just what might that be?” 

He hadn’t been a shit about anything.  If anything, he seemed interested.  I didn’t get it.  I thought about what to say, how to finesse him and get him out of here before he blew my chance to see Stormy.  His steady gaze told me bullshit wasn’t going to float.  But the truth might not, either.  He might have a daughter.  He might be a protective father.  He might . . . fuck it, tell him the bare assed truth. 

I looked him straight in the eye.  “I’m looking for a girl I met in San Diego.  We made plans, but her stepfather doesn’t like me.  He doesn’t know me but he doesn’t like the idea of me.  He packed her up and brought her here.  I want to see her at least one more time.” 

His eyes bored into mine for what seemed an hour.  I held that inspective gaze.  He turned to Terry.  “That right?” 

Terry nodded. 

“What’s her name?” he said to Terry. 

“Stormy.” 

The trooper’s eyes widened.  “Stormy.”  He paused, turned back to me.  “You’re meeting a girl named Stormy.” 

I smiled.  “If I can.” 

Another head shake.  “Jesus.  And you’re gonna get a room here?” 

“If I can,” I said. 

A broad grin spread on his face.  “Well I’ll be a . . . you got balls, son.”  His face hardened.  “You got any idea how close you come to gettin’ shot?” 

An expression of confusion crossed my face. 

“No, you don’t,” he said, shaking his head.  “Did you happen to see a lot of men carryin’ rifles while you was sittin’ up there off the road?” 

“I . . . yeah, we noticed.  We didn’t think---” 

“That’s right,” he interrupted.  “You didn’t think.  This place has no law, son.  These folks have to protect themselves.  And here you are sittin’ up there like a target makin’ everybody nervous.  I don’t even have jurisdiction here.  I’m outta Show Low in Arizona.  We try to help out here, bein’ the closest law enforcement they have.  That’s sixty miles.  You’re lucky they didn’t just shoot you and bury you in the hills---dump your fancy red sports car off the nearest cliff.”  He blew out a breath.  “What kinda car is that, anyway?” 

“ALFA Romeo,” I said.  “Italian.” 

He said, “I had a buddy during the war.  He came back with a fie-at, or something.” 

“FIAT,” I said.  “Also Italian.” 

“Thought so,” he said with a nod.  “You’re the dumbest sonsabitches I ever . . . well hell.  Here’s the deal.  You’ll never get a room here unless I go in with you and tell that guy standing there watching us you’re okay.  Got that?” 

“Yes, sir,” I said, relief flowing through me like direct current. 

“And don’t make any mistakes.  I got all your information, get it?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Just don’t get shot.  Nobody’d ever know.” 

The Arizona State Trooper took us inside the office and stood by while I rented a room in the ten-unit motel.  I asked for the room at the long end of the L-shaped building and paid cash for two nights.  The manager was gruff and suspicious but took my money.  The motel was mostly empty.  August wasn’t hunting season. 

The trooper left with a “good luck” and a wave.  As far as I could tell, we’d made no noticeable scene at the motel, my hopes were still possible. 

In the room, Terry said, “This is what amazes me about you and Stormy.  Who wudda thunk you’d get a romantic for a cop?  We talked about how you two always seemed to be protected by the gods.” 

“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” I said, hopeful, but not sure what my next step was. 

 

Dawn spread through the valley and I was up.  I brushed my teeth and threw on my clothes.  I put a chair outside and sat down to watch every motel room door. 

Terry followed me out, scanned the morning, said, “Can I take your car to get some coffee or something?” 

“Sure.  Just be careful.” 

He raised his eyebrows and held his hand out for my keys. 

About noon, I still sat on my chair.  Terry came out of the room.  “Aren’t you going to move?” 

“Not until I see her . . . or someone.” 

“Christ, Mike.”  He went back inside to read the book he’d brought.  Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. 

As a sci-fi aficionado, I’d read it some years before---it was also in contemporary vogue.  In fact, I’d had the incredible pleasure of meeting Huxley in his Del Mar cottage north of San Diego.  A late-night jazz disk jockey, Corian Shea, with whom I shared a love of Stan Getz, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis and Gil Evans, took me and Terry there one evening.  An amazing night and a story in its own right. 

The afternoon came hot and dry and there was still no sign of human occupancy.  Or Stormy.  My nerves were frayed.  I’d come so far with so little chance.  I got up and went inside to use the bathroom.  Moments later Terry rapped on the bathroom door. 

“You better get out here.” 

My heart leaped.  Something in his tone told me.  I zipped up, washed up, rushed out.  Stormy stood just outside the motel room doorway framed in sunlight.  She glowed.  She stared at me, incredulous, tossed a furtive glance back toward her own room, motioned me forward. 

I hustled to the door.  “Don’t come out,” she said.  “He might see you.  Meet me in an hour at the diner, okay?” 

“God, yes,” I said. 

“I knew you’d come.  I’m so glad you found me,” she said, her eyes shining.  “My brother will be with me.  He won’t let me out alone.” 

“He” was obviously her evil stepfather.  I nodded.  She spirited away.  

“Sonuvabitch,” Terry said.  “How’d she know?  I parked the car around back.” 

“Karma,” I said with a silly smile.  I had no better idea. 

Terry remained in the diner with the cute waitress while Stormy and I, and her evil eleven-year-old brother, Diddle, walked down the middle of the highway.  He followed a few yards behind at her insistence.  Not a single vehicle interrupted our reunion. 

“My brother told my stepfather about us.  I was afraid he might.  He’s a little shit.  He said all kinds of crap about us and right after we went for Cokes, my stepdad packed us all up and left.  He wouldn’t let me out of his sight.  I pleaded with him.  He got a little crazy.  I was afraid he’d start hitting me, he was so mad.  I can’t believe you found me.  I prayed there was something I’d said, some way you’d know.  And, God, here you are.” 

“I know,” I said.  “Don’t think about it.  Just walk with me.” 

I took her hand and pulled her forward.  We skipped down the road, laughing.  Diddle cried out for us to wait.  We ignored him.  She was excited about my plans for Los Angeles.  I was excited just being within her aura.  The sun dappled us with sensuous warmth.  The evergreens were greener and suffused the air with aphrodesia.  We had about a half-hour. 

She stopped me and gazed into my eyes.  “I have to give you a way to contact me.  Do you have something to write with?” 

“Just tell me.  I won’t forget.” 

She gave me her mother’s address in Farmington, New Mexico.  “She doesn’t have a telephone, she’s . . .” a pause.  “I’ll be there in a month when college starts,” she continued.  “Maybe sooner as soon as my stepdad finds out you’re here.  Diddle will tell him.” 

As though on cue, Diddle yelled in a sing-song voice, “I’m gonna tell Da-ad.  You’re gonna be in trou-ble.” 

Stormy scowled at him and gave me a confirming glance.  “I have to go.  I’m in trouble already.” 

We walked hand in hand back toward the diner with Diddle chanting threats.  I thought about what the trooper had said.  Maybe I could murder the little shit and bury him in the woods.  He and his younger brother were the natural sons of her stepfather.  Diddle had no allegiance to Stormy. 

She turned to me as we came in view of the diner.  “You won’t forget me?” 

I let out an almost hysterical gasp.  Forget?  I said, “No, Stormy, I won’t forget you.” 

“I’ll be in trouble when I get back.  I’m not sure what he’ll do.  How long are you here?” 

“Till tomorrow.” 

She stepped into me, pressed her lithe young body into mine, put her hands to the sides of my face, kissed me long and deeply.  I held her in my arms with no inclination to let go.  She put her head on my shoulder and wrapped her arms around me as though her life depended on it.  When she pulled away, there were tears in her eyes. 

“Please don’t forget me,” she said, and turned away. 

She walked stiffly up the hill to the motel with Diddle running off the mouth about telling Dad.  She turned once to wave with Diddle yanking on her other hand. 

I walked into the diner and sat down on a stool next to Terry.  There were a couple of guys sitting at the counter staring at us with hard faces.  I didn’t see any guns. 

The cute waitress bounced up to the counter.  “Did you see her?  Stormy, I mean?” 

I smiled.  “Yes.” 

“Terry told me all about it.  I think it’s the most romantic thing I ever heard of.  You came all the way from California?  I don’t know anyone from California.  This is really bitchin’,” she said with high glow.

I gave Terry a hooded look. 

He grinned and nodded.  “What else was I supposed to do while you and Stormy did your thing?” 

I nodded back.  I was satisfied, in a state of ethereal peace.  If the hounds of hell came into the diner at that moment, it was all right with me. 

By that evening, and in accordance with all predictions, Stormy and her stepfamily were gone. 

The old man was a paranoid bastard. 

 

 

 

 Top of Page

Chapter 6

 

A week later, Terry Donnelley and I had bid our farewells to our roommates in Mission Beach and were in Hollywood at Nitski’s door.  It was early afternoon.  He’d called her from a gas station to announce our arrival.  She greeted us wearing a bright red smile and a white teddy under a diaphanous white-lace, thigh-length robe.  She was built like a fullback, wide shoulders, big bosoms, narrow hips, skinny legs ending in red high-heeled pumps.   Makeup caked her face shadowed by inch-long eyelashes.  A real Hollywood matron, she had to be sixty going on twenty-six.  She threw open the door and greeted Terry with air-kisses to both cheeks, pulled him inside.  She gave me a cursory glance and a practiced smile in acknowledgement, took Terry’s arm and launched into an effusive monologue about how long she’d known his father and the professional relationship they’d enjoyed over the years.  I followed them inside with our two bags.  She went on about how eager she was to help Terry get a start in show business and rapid-fired names of several personal contacts to put him in the fast lane.  She never took her hands off him. 

I watched in wonder.  This was all Terry’s show.  I was eager to let him handle Nitski.  I never knew her last name.  I knew she was scary. 

Terry was star-quality; over six feet, broad shoulders, a hooded Teutonic visage with a great shock of dark brown hair he wore short.  Nitski could have been in love.  She fawned over him each day, always dressed in nightwear that would have been hellishly provocative on a younger woman.  On Nitski, it was just hellish. 

Three days and Terry pulled me aside one afternoon.  “We gotta get outta here.  I can’t do this anymore.” 

We set out to search the hillsides up from Hollywood Boulevard and within two hours found a tiny one-bedroom with a fold-out couch in the living room off a kitchenette.  I paid the first month’s rent on the spot and we left Nitski in the dust with a tremendous sigh of relief.  “Don’t worry, he told me, “I got her contact list before I told her we had another place.  I’m just glad I didn’t have to ball her for it.” 

He got a bit part on Gunsmoke almost immediately.  I signed up for unemployment.  His first acting check barely made up for the Screen Actors Guild dues but he got another small speaking part in Bonanza a couple of weeks later.  I collected unemployment checks and waited for September. 

Bill Baecht and Jeff Tomley came up from San Diego one night to see Terry and me.  They brought six-packs of beer and we lounged around on old-fashioned tufted chairs in our small living room.  We laughed about Terry’s narrow escape from Nitski.  We roared with pejoratives about the queens in the laundromat at the bottom of the hill on Hollywood Boulevard, who, whenever we did our laundry, were fatally smitten by either of us. 

“The only way we can beat them,” I said, “is if Terry and I do the laundry together.  They think we’re in love and don’t hit on us.” 

The conversation came around to Stormy.  I realized with some surprise it was a big reason why they’d come up.  I let Terry tell the story of finding her in Luna, New Mexico and how the old man had spirited her away within hours after I’d seen her. 

“What’s she like, Mike?” Jeff Tomley asked.  “I mean . . . what’s it like?” 

I put down the beer I’d been milking for two hours.  I didn’t like beer, or any alcohol for that matter.  “And your meaning?” I said. 

“You know,” he said.  “Is she good?  I mean, like, you know.” 

“Did you pop her cherry,” Bill Baecht said, enunciating each word in a voice worthy of a Delphi oracle and reaching for his fourth beer. 

We were all products of staunch middle-class families and discussions about sex were still considered dodgy territory by white, God-fearing, Christians. 

“Yeah,” Jeff said after a gulp.  “I mean, damn, man, you were with her every night for two weeks, almost.  Did you do it?”  He held up his hands, made a round hole with one thumb and index finger, and poked the index finger of his other hand in and out of the hole. 

There was silence.  The three of them were on the edges of their seats staring at me.  This was, apparently, the BIG question.  I was a little pissed off.  In my own life, I didn’t talk to anyone about personal experiences that I didn’t want on the local news.  I’d learned long ago to keep my mouth shut.  But, in this case, there wasn’t a problem. 

“Sorry to disappoint you, but, no, we haven’t . . .” I mimicked Jeff’s gesture. 

“You’re kidding,” he said. 

“It must be serious,” Bill Baecht said. 

“Trust me,” Terry said, “it is.” 

He was right.  Yes, Fran and I had been screwing like bunnies for a couple of years and I had never told a soul.  And there’d been no other.  And, suddenly, there was Stormy.  Stormy, for whom I had feelings that I’d not thought were possible.  Those nights we spent on the beach in each other’s arms talking were as real as a Vulcan mind-meld.  The intensity of sharing thoughts on an almost telepathic level was so overwhelming that I had easily deferred sex for some other time, some more salubrious place. 

Besides, I revered women, and the girls I cared for.  My mother was one.  And she was a lovely woman.  She’d loved me, fixed my cuts and salved my infections, she’d answered my precocious questions and when she didn’t know the answer, she’d given me a little smile and said, “Find out, Mike.  And when you do, tell me and we’ll both know.”  She challenged me and encouraged me to continue reading books when other boys my age and older were still sweating to grasp the words in comic books and defended my intellectual yearnings against my father’s inexplicable disapproval.  She gave me comfort.  She confided in me to an extent, while Dad was off with the fleet for months or years at a time, but never, ever, complained of him. 

I was the oldest, born two months before Pearl Harbor and Dad went off the war.  Eight years later, after three miscarriages because of the Rh-Negative factor, my brother and sister were born a year apart.  She managed the household, fed and watered me and my younger siblings, took care of everything.  If no one else appreciated what it was like for a Seagull, I did.  That’s what Navy wives like my mother were called, Seagulls---birds who followed the ships at sea for castoff food and sustenance. 

My father had been honed by two World Wars, the Korean War, and the Cold War.  He’d joined the Navy at sixteen and made officer by hard work, a no-nonsense disposition, and an ability to lead men.  He was a good man, tempered by harsh times, who loved my mother.  His occasional leaves at home meant little to me.  He didn’t know me---his first-born son---well at all.  He’d spent his entire adult life among warriors and I was a skinny little kid with asthma who loved to read---he didn’t trust that.  He’d been born to a humble family of no pretense---the salt of the earth---who survived the Depression.  I seemed “soft” in his eyes, and we developed a growing animosity over the years.  I didn’t trust him. 

I trusted my mother.  I extended that trust to all women.  They were good.  Men were the enemy.  There was no way I would disparage any woman or break a trust, no matter how young, no matter how fucked up, to other males of the species.  I was absolutely dedicated to the reverence and protection of women.  My love of them was second only to myself and, between my mother’s commendation and my father’s condemnation, I had a mess of conflicting illusions of my intrinsic worth. 

I sat stone-faced in front of my friends. 

Jeff, already in his cups, pressed on.  “Come on, man, give.  You must have at least felt her up or---” 

Terry lifted and pointed his beer bottle at Bill, then Jeff, and said, “Leave it.” 

Bill Baecht nodded. 

Jeff Tomley gave up with a frustrated shrug. 

The conversation moved on to other things. 

 

My mother called on September 11^th  from my ancestral home in El Cajon, San Diego County’s eastern cowboy country.  “Someone named Stormy called you.  I said you were living in Los Angeles and didn’t have a phone.  I wasn’t sure what . . . do you want her number?” 

  The afternoon sun blazed through the French doors of the living room.  I’d just returned from my first job working as a part-time gas pump jockey.  The cash pay I got was ridiculously low but I got free gas and I didn’t have to report the income to the unemployment office.  My heart jumped into overdrive.  “Yes,” I croaked. 

“Are you all right?  You sound like you have a cold.” 

“I’m fine, Mom.  I . . . she’s . . . yeah, I want that number more than life itself.” 

She chortled.  “Well, from the sound of her voice, and now, yours, she must be special.” 

“At least that,” I said. 

“She sounded nice.  You’ll have to tell me all about it when you want to.  And Happy Birthday tomorrow.” 

I took the number, told Mom I loved her, and dialed.  The rotary phone took eons to get past every digit. 

“Hello?” Stormy said. 

My heart leaped tall buildings.  “Happy Birthday,” I said. 

“Uh. . . . oh, Michael . . . I, um, oh . . . I just didn’t expect, oh trick, Happy Birthday to you, too.  I just got off the phone with your mom.” 

“I know.  She just called me.  How did you get the number?” 

“I decided to call every Patent in the San Diego directory until I got it.  Actually, I got it on the third try.” 

“Our luck is holding.” 

“Amazing, isn’t it?  God, you’re old enough to get into bars without a fake ID.  Where are you?  She said you were in Los Angeles?” 

“Yeah, with Terry.  We have a dilapidated apartment in Hollywood.” 

“Hollywood, huh?  Home of the stars and sleaze of the planet?” 

I laughed.  “By God, I think you’ve got it.” 

We exchanged telephone numbers.  “I’m staying here with my mother and used my own money to get a phone,” she said.  “My stepdad is such a square---he thinks I’m a lost cause.  Being eighteen is a welcome relief.  He couldn’t believe you came all the way to New Mexico to find me.  My mom thinks it’s cute.  I just started classes at U of A, here.  Easy as pie.  Can you come?” 

My heart beat faster than a speeding bullet.  “When?” 

“As soon as you can.  I can’t stand this.  I have to see you.” 

“This weekend?” 

“Can you?”  Her voice had a breathless quality to it.  Undeniable, incomprehensible. 

“Bet your ass,” I said. 

“Oo-oo, neaty-weaty---if you don’t mind me lapsing into the current vernacular.” 

“I don’t give a damn how you say anything as long as you’re saying it to me.” 

A pause.  “I feel that, too.  Please . . . come now.” 

 

Terry insisted on accompanying me.  “I’ve been with you two from the start and you owe it to me to see this through.  I’m going to write about it and produce the love story of the century when I make it big.” 

Our preparations were minor.  Neither of us was committed to anything special.  I blew off the gas station job at no surprise to the owner.  “Don’t try to come back,” he snarled. 

I laughed all the way home. 

Terry Donelley and I drove into Farmington, New Mexico in the afternoon.  I had just enough cash left over after my car payment and rent share to get us a room in a cheap motel.  We tossed our shaving kits on the counter, dropped our brown paper grocery bags with a change of clothes on the beds and I used the phone to call Stormy. 

A strange voice answered the phone.  A voice somehow ruined by too many cigarettes and slurred by alcohol.  “Yeah?  Well, Stormy’s outside an’ I donno . . . wait a minute, okay?” 

It made me fear for her. 

I waited, and she came on the line.  “Michael?” 

“Yes.” 

“I knew it was you.  I don’t know why, I just knew it.  Where are you?”  Her voice was hopeful. 

“At a motel in Farmington.  I’m here.” 

“Omigod,” she said in that perilous, breathless voice.  “You’re here.  Can you come?  Of course you can,” she answered herself.  “I mean, let me give you directions.  Is Terry with you?” 

“Yeah, he’s here.” 

“Can you come alone?  Just you?  Will that bother him?” 

“Not a bit,” I said.  “He knows.” 

“Yes, he does.  I see that in him.  He loves you.” 

“In his way.  A good way.” 

“And you love him,” she said. 

“As much as any male,” I said. 

She laughed.  “Good for me.” 

She gave me directions.  She finished with a caution to not expect too much.  “My mother lives in a trailer.  She’s, well, she’s . . . she has troubles, Michael.  She’s an alcoholic.  It’s why my stepfather divorced her.  I . . . I’m sorry, I---”

“Stormy,” I interrupted, “you don’t have to make excuses.  I’m here because I have to see you---be with you.  That’s all that’s important.  Don’t worry about anything else.” 

“She’ll be okay,” she said.  She’s excited, in her way, that you’re coming.” 

Terry was almost as energized as I.  “Goddamn, man,” he said.  “The beat goes on.” 

I left him at the motel and drove into a bleak area on the eastern side of Farmington.  I passed tiny tract homes down streets with dogs rummaging in overturned trash cans and Navahos dozing in cheap lounge chairs on water-starved, weedy little front yards.  The trailer park was hidden behind all this luster. 

I pulled the ALFA up to the designated trailer and turned off the engine.  I’d seen better areas.  No matter, she was here. 

The fragile door burst open and flexed wildly as it banged against the side of the trailer.  Stormy threw herself into my waiting arms. 

We didn’t speak.  No words cut it.  We gazed into each other’s eyes for a minute, at least.  She pulled away, kissed me, took my hand, and led me into the trailer.  Her mother made a brief appearance.  A small woman with frizzy blonde hair and faded blue eyes, razed by her addictions and disappointments into an almost troll-like state, smiled at me, welcomed me in slurred tones, and dutifully disappeared. 

It didn’t matter to me.  All that mattered was standing pressed to my side with her arm around my waist eagerly awaiting whatever came next between us. 

It would be near sacrilege to describe our communion over the following hours and I don’t really remember it.  I was with her.  I could feel her.  I could touch her.  It’s possible we didn’t talk much at all---or maybe we talked a lot.  I don’t know.  It didn’t matter.  There was a tiny black and white television set on a bookshelf, no radio that I knew of, nor did I care.  The afternoon drifted into evening, then night.  Stormy and I sat on pillows in the narrow trailer’s living room wrapped in each other’s arms and shared in our own special way.  Words were spoken---moreover, thoughts and emotions were intimately exchanged. 

She fell asleep in my arms and the hours passed.  I didn’t move, didn’t want to change position for fear I’d wake her, wanted her to lay in my arms just like this for the rest of my life. 

Six hours later the morning sun glinted through the trailer’s slatted windows and every bone in my body was asleep, my muscles were stone dead.  She woke with a start, gazed into my eyes with a warm smile, kissed my lips, and pulled back. 

“I didn’t realize,” she said.  “You must be. . .” she paused. 

“Yeah, I can’t move.” 

“Lay back,” she commanded, and proceeded to massage my arms, my legs, my chest and, after ordering me to turn over, my back.  It was a premier erotic experience of my tender life and we were both chastely clothed.  I was lucky I didn’t mess my drawers.  I was even luckier to have my circulation restored, which was probably why I didn’t mess my drawers before the fact. 

“Feel better?” she asked. 

I could barely contain myself.  I managed a bloated, “Can you come with me to breakfast?” 

She told her mother where we were going and got her blessing.  We drove back to the motel, picked up Terry, and found a local eatery.  Afterward, we drove into the mountains and stood in awe of the beauty of the high desert. 

We returned to the motel and Terry, no flies on him, excused himself.  “I think I’ll take a walk,” he said. 

The moment the door closed, she was in my arms, her fragrant mouth attached to mine.  We staggered, thus attached, to one of the beds and I laid her down.  She gripped me in an intimate vise, spread her legs wide, pulled me on top with a small gasp.  There was blood in only one part of my body.  My head swam, my senses reeled, and other attributable clichés appropriate to such moments.  If anyone had asked me where I was, I wouldn’t have been able to identify the planet I was on, let alone my position on it. 

Our kisses were soft, sweet, then urgent, demanding.  I wrested away from her mouth and kissed her ears, her neck.  I lifted her sweatshirt.  She wore no bra.  I licked the hollow of her throat and moved down, slowly, ever so slowly, kissed the curves of her breasts and slid down to her nipples with light touches of my tongue.  They blossomed like desert flowers in a rain after a ten-year drought.  I covered one nipple with my mouth and sucked, ever so gently.  Then the other. 

“Ah-h . . . God . . .” she breathed. 

Her hips pressed into me with a swaying, yearning motion that took me out to maybe the orbit of Jupiter. 

I tongued the line beneath each breast and trailed down to her bellybutton.  She pressed harder into me.  I raised up and unbuttoned her shorts.  She raised her hips.  I slipped the cloth off with slow kisses down the insides of her thighs to her ankles.  She kicked them away.  She wore bikini panties.  I’d never seen bikini panties before.  The only panties I had been privileged to see were waist high. 

It took nothing to slide her panties just off her hips.  I nuzzled the silky skin below her bellybutton and kissed the light blond hair of her pubis.  I touched my lips to her vagina and blew the hot breath of my life into her body.  Her hands held the sides of my head with passionate strength. 

She heaved with brief spasms for a few moments.  My initial alarm was assuaged by her soft cries of, “Yes, oh yes . . . oh-h God, Michael, yes, yes.” 

She moaned and threw her arms wide on the bed. 

I started to pull away. 

“No, wait,” she whispered, hanging on to me.  “Your tongue.  Can you use your tongue?” 

The bikini panties went away.  Her elixir was sweet, fresh, flowing.  I pressed my lips into her and gently sucked, absorbed her fluid.  She panted.  I slid my tongue up and down her labia. 

“There!” she croaked with surprise.  “Oh . . . God . . . yes, there.  Oh-h, God.” 

A tiny bump.  I tongued that tiny bump with no expectation of the power of her exultant gasps when her body flexed in another series of spasms, then again, stronger, and surged yet again with cascading ecstasy. 

I was beyond the solar system and still going.  I’d never experienced such a reaction with Fran.  I’d never done what I’d just done.  I’d just done what seemed right---no, it wasn’t that cognitive, I’d done what my heart and body wanted me to do. 

  She pulled me up to her face and smothered my mouth and face with intensely wet kisses.  “I . . . I can hardly . . . breathe.  How did you do . . . I’ve never . . . did you know I would feel that?  Do that?” 

I grinned.  Far be it from me to tell her I’d only heard about “muff diving” but had never even considered the idea before now.  For the moment, I basked in heroic myth. 

“Wow,” she breathed.  She studied me for a moment, threw off her sweatshirt and tore my shirt open.  She pulled me down on top of her, her breasts pressed against my chest.  She writhed her hips against me, her legs wrapped around my back.  I was harder than granite.  If any man were ever ready, I was he. 

She froze.  So did I.  Instantly. 

“Michael,” she whispered, “Wait . . . I . . . I’m . . . damn, I’m so sorry, I’m---” 

Realization hit me.  “Fertile,” I finished for her. 

She held my cheeks with both hands and looked me square in the eyes.  “You make me . . . I didn’t think . . . I’m so sorry.  I wanted . . . want this.  More than you could ever imagine.” 

A shudder swept my body.  I stood up slowly, my hands lingering on her body to show I wasn’t angry.  “I understand,” I said.  “You’d be surprised what I can imagine.” 

“You’re right,” she said with a desolate frown.  “I’m sure you know exactly.”

“Don’t worry,” I said.  “We have the rest of our lives.” 

She regarded me with an odd look.  “Maybe.  Take off your pants.” 

“But, you just said---” 

“Take off your pants.  I want to see you.” 

She sat on the edge of the bed and unbuttoned the waist of my jeans, unzipped me, slid them down to my thighs.  “No underpants,” she said with about the same emphasis as if she’d noticed I wasn’t wearing socks. 

I felt embarrassed.  “I . . . the long drives . . . they scrunch up and---” 

“Take them off,” she ordered. 

I stood in front of her with my jeans at half mast not able to fathom what I felt.  I took them off and stood before her.  I wasn’t the only one standing tall. 

She viewed me with an interested smile.  “Come here,” she said from the edge of the bed, spreading her arms and legs wide. 

I took a step. 

“Closer.” 

Another step. 

She put her hands on my hips and pulled me up to her, locked her heels behind my ankles, pressed her mouth to my stomach, licked my bellybutton.  She raised her head, locked eyes with me, rubbed my penis with her breasts.  “Is that . . . am I doing it right?” 

I put my palms on her cheeks.  “I don’t have the slightest idea.  I’ve never . . .” 

“I haven’t either,” she said.  “Tell me what to do.” 

“Stormy, you don’t have to do this.”  In my life, I was taught good girls didn’t do this.  Not that I agreed, but it was part of that Puritan heritage I’d been brought up with.  “I can wait, you know, for a better time.” 

“Hush,” she said.  “I want to.  I just had the most incredible orgasms of my life and I want to do this for you, right now.  Tell me what to do.” 

She leaned over and kissed the head of my penis.  I was leaking and she licked the tip delicately, then ran her tongue around the swell of my glans.  “Is that okay?” 

“God, ye-es,” I moaned. 

“This is amazing,” she murmured.  She cupped my testicles in one hand, rolled them with infinite gentleness in her fingertips.  “Can I do that?  Am I hurting you?” 

A little laugh tried to escape but caught in my throat.  “Ah-h-h, no.” 

“Trick.”  Wide eyes swung up to mine.  “They feel like soft eggs.” 

All I could muster was a low growl. 

Her lips touched me again.  “Mmm,” she said, and slid her mouth down . . . down to where e=mc² meets the reptilian complex. 

 

We lay, clothed, sated, delirious in each other’s arms, contemplating the emotional side of unified field theory when Terry knocked on the motel room door. 

“Come,” I shouted. 

His smile couldn’t have been brighter, and Terry didn’t smile that often, being the dour Prussian he was.  He peered at us for a moment.  “You have no idea what you look like.  Just watching you two makes the whole world shimmer with gladness.” 

“How poetic,” Stormy said. 

“Very rare,” I chided. 

“I’m a thespian,” he said. 

 

Two hours later we all sat in a quiet country diner over a late lunch.  We talked and laughed and expressed our dreams. 

Stormy went quiet, a slight frown furrowed her brow.  “Take me with you,” she whispered. 

Terry’s brows shot up.  He started out of the booth.  “I’ll leave you two to---” 

“No, wait,” I said.  “You don’t have to go.  Stay.”  I glanced at Stormy. 

She nodded twice in affirmation. 

Terry resettled. 

“I know it can’t be today, but I want to be with you,” she said.  “When you get settled?  Can you come for me?” 

“Say yes, Mike,” Terry said with a huge smile. 

I gave it all the thought a nanosecond could provide.  I plummeted into her steady blue eyes.  “Yes.  I can and I will.” 

“I love you,” she said softly with no embarrassment. 

“And I you,” I said.  “Almost more than I can stand.” 

“You stand just fine,” she said, a small grin fled across her lips. 

Terry’s face pinched in a way that showed he didn’t get it.  Then he reared back, made the sign of the cross in front of us.  In his best stage voice he said, “By the authority vested in me, I pronounce you man and woman.” 

Ahh, but what the fates had in store. 

© 2007, Copyright Michael G. Patrick, All rights reserved.