Chapter 29: Caution Construction Ahead - Signs and Signals Modified

I found myself pacing back and forth along the rough road, but since it was so hot that day I stayed in the shade of the trees. I was perhaps fifty yards away from the opening where the Jeep was parked, wishing I could see the two women even if I couldn’t hear them. Then, I paused for a moment, wondering why I was so worried.

One thing that I’d taught myself was to examine my motives in order to discover my underlying feelings and desires. If ever there was a time when I needed to examine my own emotions and consider my desires, that was it, even though I didn’t have any influence on the situation. After all there I was, standing in the nude, waiting for the results of a discussion that I could neither hear nor influence. To make things seem even weirder, you have to realize that discussion was happening between my present, live-in girlfriend and a girl that I had dated previously, if only for a short while. The strange thing was that my former date was trying to calm my girlfriend and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to be involved with the discussion they were having.

I’d just reached that point when I heard Sandy call my name. So I shifted mental gears and trotted back to see what the gals wanted, now I was curious if Sandy had eased Carissa’s mind about her body image. As I approached them, they were both staring at me. Carissa looked like she had been crying. Even Sandy looked quite sober. They’d moved the blanket into the dappled shade of a clump of birch trees and were sitting on it, side by side. When I was about twenty feet away from them, Sandy held up one hand, palm forward, as if asking me to stop so I did.

“What’s going on?”

“We want you to answer some questions,” Carissa sniffled.

“Okay. I’ll answer anything I can.”

“First, what do you see when you look at us?” Sandy smiled slightly. “In other words, describe your impression of each of us from your point of view.”

“Do you mean a physical description?” I frowned.

“No, not really that so much what we look like, but how you see us as people,” she smiled slightly more. “Could you give us an overall description of your impression of each of us?”

“Wow. This could take a while,” I sighed. “Besides, I feel a bit like I’m stepping into a minefield. My descriptions may not be what either one of you wants to hear.”

“We don’t want details; we just want a general idea,” Sandy said again, obviously trying to control the situation.

“Well, I’ll have to cover the physical side too. For instance, you are very pretty, tall, a bit on the thin side, but quite sexy and you use those things to your advantage when you’re dealing with people. You’re losing your shyness and becoming more independent than you were when we first met, but you’re still very friendly and caring. Right now, you seem almost afraid of the future, but you’re calling on reserves to meet it head on. Being the oldest child in your family, you’ve learned to manipulate your Dad to get what you want a lot of the time, but you seem to expect all guys to act like him and we don’t all do that.”

She stared at me, open mouthed. “You think I want to manipulate you?” she finally managed to ask quietly.

“Oh come on, I’m a guy. You’re a gal. All gals manipulate the guys around them, or at least they try to,” I caught a bit of a grin on Carissa’s face at that comment, so I went on. “Even Carissa manipulates me, but she’s craftier than you. Unlike you, she may be more familiar with guys younger than her father because of all the dates she’s gone on, so she may use tricks you haven’t learned yet.”

“Hey,” Carissa said shortly, looking at me as if she was a bit upset, but I held up my hand.

“Whoa, don’t get upset. I’m not and I’m the guy being manipulated,” I grinned and winked, then turned to gaze at Sandy again. “As an example, think about our discussion about a bathroom this morning. Carissa didn’t enter into it, but I could see the sneaky smile on her face as we were talking. She wants a bathroom in the cabin even more than you do, but she’s already let me know her opinion and she knows all about the discussions my family has had. She’s crafty enough to let you argue with me, knowing that it chips away at my resolve to put that project off for a while.”

“Well, you know how I feel about that darn outhouse, so you know I wouldn’t argue against her,” Carissa shrugged, the frowned slightly. “Do I really try to manipulate you though?”

“Yeah, but I return the favour,” I grinned. “I just lose more often than you do, but I expect that. After all, I’ve watched Mom and Beth run most things at home for years.”

“Hmmph. Besides the fact that I manipulate you, what else do you think about me?” she demanded.

“Well, let’s see,” I grinned and lifted my hand to my chin as if I was thinking. “You’re just the right height for me to cuddle and when we cuddle, you’re very sexy, sort of voluptuous, smooth, soft and just a great armful of woman. Mmm, you’re wonderful in bed too. Besides, you’re great at teaching me how to please you, then wonderful about rewarding me if I do it well. Mostly though, I like your ability to learn quickly and how you can adapt quite readily to change.”

I think what I said pleased Carissa, at least her eyes were shining and she was smiling at me.

“Wow,” Sandy sighed. “You make me feel like a scarecrow in comparison.”

“Well, I certainly don’t think you’re a scarecrow,” I chuckled. “Heck, if you were, I’d have never have dated you in the first place.”

“Well, since you described me sexually, what do you think she’d be like in bed?” Carissa asked.

“That’s impossible to guess,” I laughed and shook my head. “From what little I know about Sandy from our date, she’s a very warm person and like you, she’s extremely sensual. However, I think she’s even more impulsive than you are. She’s probably going to be a firecracker in bed, very inventive and expressive. She’ll drive her boyfriends crazy, but they’ll love it.”

I think Sandy thought what I said was true, but complimentary as well. At least she was smiling, but blushing at the same time.

“So what would you do if both of us were to end up in bed with you at the same time?” Carissa asked another loaded question.

I thought about it for a minute and decided to treat her question somewhat humourously, so I grinned at her. “Run like hell, otherwise I’d go nuts and probably offend one or the other of you and I don’t want to do that to either one of you.”

“Hah. I want a serious answer.”

“Then ask me a serious question.”

“I was being serious.”

“Actually so was I, at least partially. I would be afraid of offending one or the other of you. As well as that I’m certain that I’m not very good at paying the kind of attention needed to more than one woman at once. My body and mind are only meant to concentrate on one gorgeous woman at a time. So, since there’s only one of me and there are two of you, I’d rather not be put in that position.”

“Then you wouldn’t be interested in having sex with two women at once?” Sandy asked.

“Interested yes, but realistic enough to know that I’d probably screw up and I’m not tempted to fuck up a wonderful relationship for a possible thrill.”

“So what about playing around with two women, but only one at a time?” Carissa asked, but she was smiling.

“I can’t see that working either,” I sighed. “Can I be brutally honest for a minute?”

“Yeah, but aren’t you being honest now?” she frowned.

“I’m being honest, but not to the point of being brutal about it,” I tried to explain. “What I want to say might be taken wrong, but I think it’s the truth. I’d want to be able to explain my thoughts before either of you got badly offended.”

“I can live with that, if you allow us to offer our opinions too,” she said, looking at Sandy who nodded in agreement.

“Well okay, but in a way, it’s not complimentary,” I sighed. “I might be able to handle a dual relationship, but I doubt if either one of you could, not without getting extremely jealous. That’s not a fault on your part, it’s simply the way men’s and women’s minds work.”

“I think I know what you mean, but could you explain yourself?” Sandy asked.

“Okay. I believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution,” I smiled at her.

“That’s an explanation?”

“Well yeah. It is, if you really think about it.”

“Even I need another explanation on top of that one,” Carissa laughed and shook her head.

“Okay according to Darwin, all animal life has a commonality that goes back to the very first protozoa, right?”

“Yeah, so?” Sandy grumped. “Get on with it.”

“Okay I’ll use an example that you can see in real life,” I grinned. “If I had a herd of twenty mares and I turned out two stallions amongst them, how many foals could I expect to get from each stud?”

“I suppose you’d get fifty percent from each one,” she frowned.

“Unh uh, wrong,” I shook my head slowly. “You see between the mares and the studs, as well as Darwin’s theory of natural selection, I’d end up with at least nine tenths of the foals from one stud. The biggest, strongest and smartest stallion would more than likely service almost all of the mares. We can see the fighting when stallions get together, but really those fights would be only part of what happens. While the fighting goes on the mares would be watching and they’d look for the stallion who does best and is most able to dominate the other horse. By doing that they can pick out the stud whose genes give him the best chance of survival when they chose a mate to sire their offspring. Women do something the same with guys.”

I paused and both Sandy and Carissa leaned forward. I could see I had them hooked and waiting, but I wanted one of them to express curiosity.

“Well? Don’t leave us hanging,” Carissa caught on to what I was doing.

“Okay, women are a hell of a lot more intelligent than dumb old horses. They also want the biggest, strongest and smartest male to sire their offspring, but they want more than that. They want someone who is compatible with them, but on top of that they want a man who can provide them with the most care and greatest comfort. They want what’s best for them and their children, but that’s not just selfishness on their part either. In addition, that means that they can give their kids an advantageous start in the world.

“Women look for the best competitor in man’s crazy world and set their sights on him, then they do their best to be whatever they feel he wants so they can mate with him. After they’ve convinced him to be their mate they know that they can expect that man to care for their children as well as he possibly can. That means that their competitive mate will give their children a head start in their life as well as providing great genes to carry on afterward. What I’m saying is that women take advantage of men’s competitive nature.”

“Are you saying women aren’t competitive?” Sandy asked.

“Oh hell no,” I laughed. “Look at you two for instance. Both of you are actually competing with each constantly even if you don’t know it, and because of that I’m gaining the benefit of your competition.”

“What?” Sandy squawked.

“We are not!” Carissa said, almost at the same time.

“Oh, but you are, you’re just not physically fighting like the females of other species might,” I chuckled softly. “Instead each of you is showing me how alluring she is, as well as how open minded and cooperative she is. The way I see it, both of you are trying to seem to be as attractive to me as possible, but you’re doing it competitively even if you don’t want to acknowledge that you are.”

“You always were the smart ass who had all the answers,” Carissa laughed.

“Hell, I don’t have all the answers, I don’t even know all the questions,” I grinned. “But, I do know that until I brought attention to myself at school, I never had a real date. At first I was a laughingstock because I drove an old Model A Ford, but I didn’t like that attention much since I was thought to be a joke of some sort. However, I really showed up on most people’s radar when I traded the Model A to Frank Dolens for the car I have now. Of course after the grad party and that stupid picture fiasco I was suddenly the center of attention. Suddenly I was someone all the girls thought was worth checking out. Up until then I was just another face in the crowd to both of you and to almost everyone else.”

“Hey, that’s a bit cruel,” Carissa protested. “I don’t see it that way at all.”

“Okay, then tell me what you knew about me before the night of graduation.”

“Well, you were always quiet and really smart,” she said slowly. “I always thought you were way too shy to do ... Oh, migawd, you’re right! I really didn’t know much about you, but that’s as much your fault as mine.”

“It probably was partly my fault,” I grinned. “I was shy, but then I was always the youngest in the class and everyone always treated me as if I was a little kid, not a regular student. I’d been slapped down for trying to have anything to do with my classmates so often that I’d given up trying to make friends with any of them.”

“I knew who you were before all that stuff,” Sandy explained. “Mostly though it was second hand, through Beth and the twins. When I heard about what you did about those pictures, it really wasn’t much of a surprise because it fit right in with what they’d already told me about you. So when you showed up in the hospital after hurting yourself, I felt I had to meet you. I guess you’re right in a way, because you suddenly appeared on my radar then and I wanted to know you better.”

“Yeah, you wanted to tease me about bed pans,” I laughed.

“Will you get off my case about that damn bed pan thing?” she grouched, but blushed.

“Probably not,” I chortled. “When I mention bedpans, you blush and making you blush is something I find enjoyable.”

“Why the dickens do guys like to make girls embarrassed enough to blush, anyway?” Carissa asked. “It’s stupid.”

“No, it’s not really all that stupid. I think it’s another of those biological tests that come up almost automatically in the mating dance between a guy and gal.”

“What? You have to be kidding me,” Sandy protested. “How is my blush a biological test in this mating dance of yours?”

“Well, first off it’s not my mating dance; it’s the mating dance of human society. Secondly, it’s a test of the maturity of the female who is being teased. The guy makes a reference to something that’s slightly off-colour to the gal. If she misses the point and asks for an explanation, he assumes that she’s not mature enough or knowledgeable enough to understand. If she blushes he can presume that she’s knowledgeable, but inexperienced. If it doesn’t bother her or she returns the smart crack, he’ll probably gauge what she does or says to mean she’s mature. For most guys, it’s subconscious of course.”

“I don’t get the point.”

“Well, it lets the guy know more about the physical and mental development of the gal. Each guy has his own preferences about what sort of lover he wants. Some guys are cherry pickers, who like to educate an innocent gal. Other guys like their peaches ripe and ready,” I laughed.

“Where do you get all this stuff?” Carissa grinned at me. “I think I had the same sex ed courses you did, and I don’t remember any of this.”

“Oh what I’ve said didn’t come from any course,” I laughed loudly. “I’ve done a lot of reading about sex and biology, but a lot of the ideas I have about sex are my own. They come from what I’ve read, what I’ve seen and what I’ve inferred from my own experiences.”

“So they’re just your opinions?”

“Yeah, but they’re opinions based on the observation and supposition of known facts.”

“Jeez, what are you trying to become, a damn professor of sexology?” Sandy snapped.

“Nope, I’m just trying to find my way through the world in a way that allows me to judge what’s going to happen next from what’s happened before. All I’m trying to do is be a good guy who doesn’t rock the boat too hard,” I sighed. “Now, time is ticking away on us, and I think we should think about heading back in order to do the chores pretty soon.”

I don’t think either of them was ready to leave, but neither of them argued with me. Inside of ten minutes or so, everyone was dressed and we’d loaded the Jeep, ready to leave.

“Say, we’ve got time to go the long way, don’t we?” Carissa asked, looking at her watch. “If we did that Sandy could get an idea just how big the ranch really is.”

“You mean this pool is on the ranch?” Sandy asked.

“Yes, it’s only half way down the upper portion, the part that Chris and Beth care for,” Carissa looked back at Sandy with a grin, then turned to me. “Please Chris, can we go the long way? Then she can look down across the lower valley and see just how much more land there is below the cliff.”

I sighed, looked at my watch again, then gave in. While I was driving along the trail, Carissa was explaining about Grampa Bender’s lease. Then she was telling Sandy about the latest version of our lease agreement with him and about his latest will. Sandy was fascinated by the idea that Beth and I were literally going to be in control of the whole area we were driving through.

When I drove across the creek at the lower ford, both of them made comments about the small amount of water in the creek. I had to explain to them that since it was midsummer it was surprising that there was as much as there was. On summers in the past I’d seen the water in the creek reduced to a trickle at times, but this year the flow was decent.

Sandy was blown away as we stood at the drop off and looked out across the lower section of the lease toward my family’s farm. She couldn’t seem to understand that the whole area was under one lease because of the dependence of ranches on water, so I had to explain it to her. Without open water cattle couldn’t range freely over an area and the only year-round source of water in the whole upper valley were the springs on Grampa Bender’s homestead. As a result, when Grampa Bender had filed on his original homestead he was able to control the use of water downstream of his place. Because of that the government had granted him a ninety-nine-year lease on all the land between it and the next source of water, which happened to be on land that had been homesteaded by other members of my family. In fact my great grandfather, my grandfather and great uncle had filed on all three of the homesteads that stretched from one side to the other of the lower valley, so the valley walls defined the extent of our lease. I pointed out that a second creek ran through George’s father’s farm and joined ‘our’ creek near the closest corner of Dad’s farm. Then a third creek came in from the other side of the valley near the far edge of Uncle Tom’s farm and joined ‘our’ creek somewhere across the main road and over on the Davis’s farm. I even mentioned that the third creek running through Uncle Tom’s farm was the one running under the bridge at the big gully on the dirt road that we drove along coming up to Mile High Ranch.

Of course she wanted to know where the water in the creek came from in the first place and I repeated that it came from the springs that fed the lake at the top end of Grampa’s homestead. Those springs were fed by underground streams, which came from the mountains off to the west of us. The only time surface water came down to us from above the lake was during the spring thaw or after extremely heavy rains.

I think it was almost more than Sandy could understand, so she was quite quiet on the drive up the other side of the valley and back to the cabin. When we pulled into the farm yard and stopped in front of the cabin, Carissa pointed past it and toward cliffs above the lake, telling her that was where the lease started. Sandy just shook her head as if she couldn’t believe the whole explanation.

I’d just carried the picnic stuff and the blankets inside the cabin when the phone rang.

“Hello” I answered it.

“Hello, Chris? This is Frank Dolens.“

“Hi, Frank, what’s going on?”

“There’s a regular race at Pine Lake on Sunday evening. Tom and George say they can have the car ready, but only Tom will be able to be at the race. Will you be willing to drive?“

“Umm, I guess. I can’t think of any reason that I wouldn’t be able to go.”

“Okay then. Time trials start at seven, racing at eight. If you want to drive up early, we have a barbeque planned for five.“

“Darn, I’ve got chores to do sometime that evening,” I frowned.

“I talked to your Dad about that. He said that at this time of the year the chores are easy to handle. Beth and George are willing to do those for you if you want to go.“

“Well, I guess I could then. Just a second, I’ll ask Carissa what she thinks. Maybe she’ll want to come.”

“Well I certainly hope so. Her folks are planning to be there this time, “ he answered.

I put a hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Carissa. “Frank wants me to race on Sunday evening, but he’s planning a barbeque for late in the afternoon. He wants to know if we can be there. Oh, and he said your folks would be there.”

“Well, you’re his driver,” she snorted with a grin. “If Mom and Dad are there, that gives me two good reasons to go.”

“Could I go along too?” Sandy asked quickly.

“You’re not working?” I asked.

“Not until Tuesday, then I have a double shift,” she smiled, and ducked her head. “I was hoping that I could stick around with you guys for the weekend because of the fight I had with Dad.”

I just stared at her in surprise for a minute, then Carissa frowned at me and pointed at the phone. “Uncle Frank.”

“Oh yeah,” I literally jerked as I realised I was still holding the phone. “Frank? Carissa says she’ll be there and we might have a guest.”

“Great, I’ll arrange for gate passes for both you two and your guest. Now I’ve got to go talk to a customer, but before I go, is there anything you need for Sunday? The barbeque is on me by the way, you don’t need to bring anything in the way of food.“

“I can’t think of anything I need right now,” I answered, my mind still wondering what was going on with Sandy.

“Okay. So long for now. See you on Sunday.“ Frank hung up.