Chapter 79: Tall Trees, Bright Water

June 27, 1981

Lunchtime found us at a restaurant in Madison, near the campus. I should’ve guessed we’d head this way. Given the big university, Dad would swing through town.

“It’s pretty, Dad. Wisconsin would be on my list, at least this far out. Dean and Grant are both going here, right?”

“Yes, they’re both going to school down here.”

Angie chimed in. “Cold in the winter. Hard to dress like that,” she giggled, looking at a couple strolling by, dressed in very hippie-style outfits.

“You’d think you don’t like the cold, Ang,” I grinned.

“I don’t! I like warmth! I’ve been in too much cold!”

“Where us Houstonians want snow. And real winters.”

Dad looked at Mom. “I’m still good without those.” “Me, too!”

“Yes, but you’re not natives. I’ve never lived anywhere where half an inch of snow isn’t shut-down-the-city time.”

“You’ve got a point there!”

When we hit the road, we veered west, not north. I didn’t mention this to Angie. I stretched out and put my head in her lap, opening my book. She was reading, too.

Mom glanced back after a bit. “Awwww! You two are so cute!”

Angie laughed. “Thanks, Mom. I told him that he should just lie down, rather than risk motion sickness.”

“I wish I had my camera!”

Angie grabbed her backpack, dropping it on my face. “Hey!”

“Shush! This’ll just be a minute.”

She pulled out a camera, handed it to Mom, and put the backpack down. “Here, use one of mine. This is for family pictures, anyway.”

“Thanks, honey. Smile, Steve!”

I smiled.

Click! Click!

“There. That’s so cute.” She handed the camera back and Angie tossed it into the backpack.

“Just shout if you want us. I’m putting my Walkman on.”

“Me, too!”

Not that long — maybe an hour — the car started slowing and stopping and turning. We had to be getting somewhere. I sat up, realized where we were, and grinned.

Angie was watching and caught it. “Hey! You know where we’re going! Tell!”

I pointed to a sign that read ‘Spring Green Inn’.

“So? What’s in Spring Green?”

“Houses.” She pretended to smack me. “No, I’m serious. Specific, historically significant houses.”

“Huh?”

“Frank Lloyd Wright’s ‘Taliesin’ — his home and workshop — is here. There’s a museum and stuff.”

“I thought that was in Arizona.”

“That’s ‘Taliesin West’.”

“Oh!” Angie bounced a bit. I knew this would appeal to her. It appealed to me, too. “Cool! And thanks, Dad!”

“Welcome, honey!”

We pulled up to the visitor center, Dad bought tickets, and we were off on a guided tour.

I was right. Angie loved it. I liked it, but she just ate it up. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t want to study architecture as a career, but who knows? It was at least an interest. Both of us snapped more pictures. Perhaps we’d use up the cameras after all.

After getting going again, I fell back into my book. That lasted about an hour. I sat up, looked. And was a bit confused. Maybe even disappointed. But I decided that if this was the plan, I’d give it a chance.

Angie spotted something on my face and gave me a questioning look. I shook my head slightly; she nodded.

We pulled up to what looked like a pretty nice motel. Dad looked around. “Before you either get too enthusiastic, or not, we’re just staying here one night. We’ll do a bit of sightseeing and then get on our way. It’s certainly more scenic than a lot of places we could stop.”

“And I haven’t been here in more years than I want to admit to!” Mom added. “We used to go down here when I was a girl. Of course, it wasn’t like this!”

I looked up and down the street, which was just starting to fill in with souvenir shops, mini-golf, and other tourist traps and nodded. “I imagine not. I’ve really never seen the river here. That’ll be fun.”

Dad got us checked in and I lugged the bags to our room. Fortunately, it was on the first floor; Angie’s suitcase wasn’t light.

Then I went back and lugged Mom and Dad’s bags. “Thanks, Steve!” Mom called. “Half an hour and we’ll go get dinner.”

I headed into our room. Angie’d flopped on the bed. I joined her.

“So, what was that look in the car?”

“Probably an unfair one. I don’t care much for Wisconsin Dells.”

“Why not? I mean, looks like a tourist trap, but some of those are fun.”

I shrugged. “It’s a philosophical thing, I guess. Take Vegas.”

“Mmmm?”

“Vegas is loud and garish and overdone. But, OK, there was a green spot there, but pretty much, it’s a desert. A lot of tourist traps are that way. Something more or less uninteresting gets made interesting by piling up shops and arcades and mini-golf and whatever.”

“Gotcha. So?”

“The point of Wisconsin Dells is that the river is very scenic here. So, people come here and what do they get? The same tourist crap you can get anywhere. The actual reason people started coming here in the first place is a little minor sideshow.”

“Ahhhhh. OK, I get that.”

“If we just go see the river and goof off a bit, that sounds cool. I’m good with that. But spend a few days here? I wouldn’t be in favor. I can do all this stuff in town in Houston. Or a bunch of other places.”

“Makes sense to me. It’s all new to me, but I get why you’d rather do stuff that’s unique to the area. Did you stay here before?”

“Nope. Never. Just drove through.”

“Well, I guess we’ll see how it goes. I love the trip so far. Seeing Frank Lloyd Wright’s house and workshop and all was amazing! And it’s gorgeous up here. Well, not in town. I see what you mean there. But around the town it seemed really pretty.”

“Some of my dislike is ... anachronistic? Does that apply? It’s a lot worse in the future.”

“Which of course you can’t mention. Except to me.”

“Right.”

Dinner was at a German restaurant — or German-themed, anyway; it didn’t feel that authentic — just off the main street. The food was good; so was the small amount of beer they gave us. I think Dad and Mom have about two beers a year. Tonight was one. Mom said we couldn’t go to a German restaurant in Wisconsin and not have beer, so we had beer.

Despite my attitude, which I was holding in check, we strolled around for an hour or two, browsed the souvenir shops, and played mini-golf. I did fairly well, while Mom and Dad had fun missing shots.

Angie? A shark.

I stroked Angie’s back through the soft material of her camisole as she smiled up to me.

“I think we need to talk about something.”

Never a phrase that makes a guy feel confident when coming from a girl he loves. Even when that girl is his sister. “Yes, sis?”

“Look, I know you’ve, um ... relieved some tension ... a few times. And you know I have. It’s not like we’ve made a secret of it.” She was just a trifle red, likely matching me.

“Um ... yeah. I won’t make it two weeks. I wouldn’t make it two weeks if I didn’t have the hottest blonde in the world sleeping in my arms and occasionally wearing her birthday suit.”

“‘Hottest blonde in the world’. Always the shameless flatterer, Mister Marshall!”

I shook my head. “Loving me increases the hotness. Being my beloved sister also increases the hotness. Who else is going to compete?”

“OK, fine. Admission of extreme bias noted. Anyway, I could make it two weeks, but why in the hell should I?”

“Back to our discussion of girls being just as horny but showing it completely differently.”

“Right. Anyway. The thing we need to talk about is: if we’re doing it anyway, and we know we’re both doing it, and we’re not hiding it, how much does it change things if we don’t hide it? Meaning, bluntly, I want to watch. And if you tell me you don’t want to watch me, I will smack you for lying!”

I laughed and touched noses. “I’d never tell you that. Aside from the risk of a heart attack from the beauty...” She rolled her eyes. “ ... I can’t imagine saying no to that. Unless we decide it changes things too much.”

“So... does it change things too much? Is it within ‘behaving’?”

“Wellllllll, we need to decide what’s ‘behaving’, I guess. And if there are exceptions.”

Angie shook her head. “I really, really want there to be exceptions. Which, right now, is a good reason to say we can’t have any. Like we agreed, the last reason to do... stuff ... is because we’re two horny teenagers. We’ll stay horny teenagers for years, but we need to wait. I don’t want to, but we need to.”

I nodded. “The same. I love you, and nothing changes that. And I’m very tempted by... stuff. But this trip is the wrong time. We wouldn’t be ‘behaving’, we’d have to tell Doctor Stanton, she’d tell Mom, and Mom would likely guess, anyway. It’d be a mess. And it’d make something beautiful into a bad memory.”

“Good. I didn’t want to be a cock-tease.”

“Nah. But what counts? We’ve already decided, implicitly, that showers, nudity, kisses, snuggling, sleeping — just sleeping, mind you — and touching in, um ... non-sensitive places ... doesn’t count. Either that or we’ve crossed the line and screwed up already.”

“Those are all OK. Full stop. I’d never agree that any of those are misbehaving. Sorry, Mom, ‘cuz I know a few of those are, to you.”

“So far, so good. How about ... anything where we’re directly doing something sexual to each other? And we use our judgment on that. If you touch my cock, which is pretty sexual, but it’s bumping into me in the shower: not sexual. Where something a lot less sexual — you pinching my ass, say — is a gray area in some cases.”

“I can go for that. And watching has no ‘to each other’ component.”

“No, we can’t say that yet.”

“Huh?”

“Where’s the most important sexual organ?”

Angie blinked, then smiled. “Gotcha!” She tapped her forehead.

“Yup. So, if I’m talking about how great it feels and expressing a fantasy about you and encouraging you to do things to yourself, is that doing something sexual to each other?”

“Ummmmmmmm. I ... still vote no.”

“I’m comfortable with that vote. Though, it’s right up to the line and we need to be watching. While there’s a difference between you stroking my cock and you telling me how to do it, it’s also on the line.”

“Speaking of. When we got that phone line, there were some ... um ... side purposes in mind. Did they... ?”

“Hasn’t happened yet. You?”

“A couple times. Gene. Kinda fun,” she giggled.

“It’s ... edgy. I’m going to put it on the behaving side, because I wouldn’t feel obligated to tell Doctor Stanton. But ... close.”

“Comparing it with me and Gene, and how that felt ... the same. Close, but behaving. I think.”

“OK. Now what?”

Angie nuzzled my chest, then planted a quick kiss there. “Not tonight, big brother. It’d be, you know, a horror movie. At least once, though. Maybe it’ll be a ‘we know it when we know it’ thing. Probably.”

“I’m good with that. I’m not desperate tonight.”

“Me neither,” she giggled, then poked my chest. “And just to be clear — I still think we’ll do stuff no one would call behaving. And it’ll be glorious. But not yet. Heck, maybe not soon. Maybe years. We’ll know it...”

“When it’s time. Yeah.”

We rubbed noses again.

“Love you, big brother.”

“Love you, little sis.”

“Night.”

“Night!”

June 28, 1981

We slept late. Quite late. Late enough to be awakened by a knock at the door. “Angie? Steve? You up? We’re hungry!”

I tickled. “Heyyyyy!” Whap! “No fair! Not behaving!”

“Behaving, by the rules. And we need to get up.” I popped her ass. “Also not behaving! For that, you have to join me in the shower.”

“Oh, no! Please, anything but that!”

She giggled and headed off to the bathroom. I went to the door. “Hey Mom! Angie’s in the shower, and I still need the bathroom. Give us maybe ... twenty minutes!”

“We’ll try not to die of hunger!”

I headed for the bathroom, peeling off my clothes, stepping into the shower.

“Gotta hurry. Soap me.”

“That seems likely to add delays, not remove them.”

“Soap me!” I did. “Now I’ll get you.”

Now I could use some alone time.

We dried off, started dressing. As always, I was ready well before Angie, though she still was very quick at getting ready. For a girl, especially. I was pretty used to how long girls took to get ‘presentable’ by now.

We headed out, over to Mom and Dad’s room, and knocked. Mom answered and something passed between her and Angie. She looked, Mom nodded, we went in. I glanced at Angie and she gave me another nod and a quick smile.

“Let’s go find some breakfast! I’m starving!” Dad said. We ventured out and wound up at Paul Bunyan’s Cook Shanty. Pancakes; eggs; sausage; biscuits and gravy. Everything a growing boy needs. Or a growing girl. Or not-so-growing parents.

After breakfast, Dad got us checked out of the motel and we loaded the car. Then, instead of leaving, we embarked on a duck-boat tour of the river. And, I will admit, the river is gorgeous here. There’s a good reason for this area to draw tourists. It’s a pity many of them will miss the beauty for the gaudy.

After the tour, we loaded into the car. “About four hours of driving, kids. Let us know if you need a stop.”

I grinned. I had a guess as to our destination. Again.

Angie leaned over after a bit and whispered. “You know something. Spill.”

I whispered back: “You’ll need your bathing suit.”

“Spill!”

“Dad has a friend along the lake. Just inside Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula. I think maybe there.”

“Oooh! Sounds pretty!”

“It is, really pretty.”

“Don’t let on that I told you. It’s supposed to be a surprise.”

“My lips are sealed.”

I was right. We rolled up to a medium-sized house overlooking Lake Michigan perhaps forty-five minutes after crossing the Michigan state line in Menominee. I could see another couple of small buildings on the property. Looked like a boathouse and maybe a cabin.

“Welcome to my friend Andrew Denton’s home, kids. He’s lived up here with his mother for a few years.”

“This is beautiful, Sam!”

“Yeah, Dad, it’s just gorgeous. Wow!” Angie chimed in. “We’re staying here?”

“For a few nights, yes. Nothing to do but relax.”

“Cool, Dad!” I grinned.

As we parked, a man about my dad’s age with thinning, graying hair came out, followed by a woman likely in her late seventies or eighties, with long gray hair.

“Sam!”

“Andrew!” They shook hands and then Dad turned to the car. “You remember Helen.”

She was climbing out of the car, smiling. “Hi, Andrew!”

“And these are our kids, Steve and Angie.”

“Hello, Steve and Angie! Welcome! This is my mother, Millie. Mom, you remember Sam and Helen, right?”

Her voice was clear and firm. “I do! It’s so nice to see you again, Sam. And Helen. And what good-looking children you have!”