Chapter 17

Barb’s turn:

So here I am naked in bed with Paul. Not like that’s a new thing. We’re in the wonderful aura of afterglow. Different this time, though. I pull my left hand free, hold it up and look at the physical evidence of a momentous occasion.

Yep, that’s a wedding band. Less than four hours old.

We’re married. A judge listened to our story, decided that I was mature enough despite my calendar age, filed a waiver, wrote out a license, and married us. He says it’s legal, there’s precedent in the law, and that he’s done it before.

So the guy who’s tracing a loving finger over my glowing body is no longer a felon. I will never tire of this: His touch, his eyes when I walk into the room, how he and I fit together from the bedroom to the kitchen to the great outdoors.

Great outdoors. Saturday morning we’re hitching up the travel trailer to his (I guess it’s ‘our’ now) pickup truck and heading off to West Texas. It’s work for him. His old company made a ridiculous offer of compensation to buy his services for the last project he worked on before he quit.

I was more than a little bit worried before today. Going to an area unknown to me, us really, setting up the trailer in an RV park, then him going off to work, me left to my own devices, that was bad enough, but the idea of him, an adult male, and me, a young teen, living together, waiting to be discovered, was the real fright.

Rectified. Got the papers. And the ring. And, I’m told, a silly grin that is pure hell to try to erase before going out in public.

Other options? I can do solitude. I love to read. Now I’ve got my writing. I’m hoping that I can develop access to a library. They’re generally safe spaces as far as my socialization issues are concerned. I am sure that other options might present themselves.

Our last night at home, we make a few efforts to secure the place for extended absence. We didn’t mess up the bed too badly. Breakfast was on paper plates. They went into a bag of garbage that we’d drop into the community dumpster on our way out. We walked around the place securing real shutters over the windows.

And into the truck. Rumble through the community. I hopped out and tossed our bag of trash into the dumpster and off we went. At the stop sign at the main highway, we turned to each other.

“Adventure!” I told my mate.

It takes an hour just to get out of Louisiana. Our plan is to avoid the interstate highways.

“Boring,” Paul told me when we were planning. “Traffic can be nuts.”

So that’s what we did. Avoided the interstate. Whipped up north a little into the piney woods of western Louisiana, crossed into Texas, then it was secondary roads and small towns through the Texas piney woods which look amazingly like Louisiana piney woods – pines, pines, pines, mixed, then hardwoods and a creek then the sequence reverses, some four-lane, divided, some two-laned, hills.

“So this RV park we’re headed for, what do you know about it?” I queried.

“Brandon’s staying there. Family ranch with three RV hookups. He’s got one, somebody from Washington state’s got another, third one’s ours.”

“That’s what we talked about – those big ones. I heard stories about them filling up with construction workers. Lots of stuff going on that we really don’t want to deal with. This one’s what? Five minutes from town?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I talked to the owners, remember?”

“Yeah. I trusted you to take care of us. I’m usually right with that idea.”

Paul’s turn:

“I took you on as my ward...”

“And let me curl up in your bed,” she giggled. “One of the good parts.”

“Well, you’re stuck with me now, baby doll.”

“Yes, I indeed did adhere to you as long as we hewed to old standards.”

“Until death. I was serious, Barb. I believed you when you started talking about forever.”

“Like this road,” she sighed.

“Texas. Where you drive all day and you’re still in the same state.”

I picked a truck stop for a halt – bathroom break, a bunch of diesel – I think I’m getting eight or nine miles per gallon, but then we’re not pushing Texas’s rather generous speed limits, either. We get passed a lot.

Back in the truck, each of us happily drained, with an icy Yoohoo in hand. “Let’s not wait as long next time. I REALLY had to go,” she said.

We could’ve made it in one day, but we’d either have had to start out earlier or arrive late. We did neither. Pulled into the parking lot of a motel in yet another small town, ate at a recommended café then retired to the motel room.

“Our last chance to do a mutual shower,” I stated. “We can both fit into the trailer’s shower, but washing ain’t happening,” came the reminder. So we enjoyed the bigger shower. The rest of the things we enjoyed, well, we’ve already done a test run of the bed in the travel trailer.

Barb’s turn:

Mid-afternoon the next day we pulled the trailer into a slot at the little RV park. We’d called when we were an hour out.

A middle-aged lady came out of the park ‘office’. “Hello, folks. I’m Mimsy Smith.”

Paul took the lead, introducing himself and me. “And this is my wife, Barb.”

Miss Mimsy eyed me. “You’re young, darlin’.”

“I am,” I said. “And married. And doing online college courses. Paul’s gonna be working. You need a helper?”

Smiling, she answered, “I dunno. We got three rental slots, two of ‘em are filled now and I think the third will be filled in a week. It’s not a lot of work. What can you do?”

My turn. “I write. If it comes with a keyboard, I’m good with it. and I’m an excellent conversationalist.”

Something in my head went ‘BOINNNNGGGG!’ when I said that because ‘conversationalist’ was NOT one of the descriptors that went with my ‘condition’.

“We may have some things to talk about,” she said.

Paul and I made short work of unhitching and leveling the trailer and hooking up the water, sewage and electricity. Those tasks completed, all we had to do was open the door to our new home and turn on the HVAC to freshen the air inside.

New home. Small. Cozy. Neat. Gonna take some getting used to it. Paul gave me a push toward the bed ‘room’ at the end.

I laid back, pulled him on top of me, feeling his weight press me into the mattress. That’s all it takes to get the juices flowing. A flurry of bi-directional kisses moved things right along. I gave him a really good one, then, “If we proceed along this path...”

“I know,” he sighed. “Just reminding you that you are IT to me.” He rolled sideways off me.

Okay, he’s IT to me, too, so I followed, lying atop him, a position we both love. We were still fully clothed and that impediment is all that kept us from descending into a sticky, orgasmic mess.

We got up, locked the door behind us, and took his pickup truck on a tour of the area. First goal was his worksite. It’s still growing, a combination of newness and chaos in the middle of a caliche field, surrounded by a chain-link fence. Interesting. ‘Caliche’, I’m told is hard, white, rock-like clay.

It’s Paul’s world, that is, his world before he ended up with enough money and ambition to escape to be a writer. Now he’s back in it. When he got the offer, we talked at great length about it.

“I’m sorry, baby, but it’s kind of exciting,” he admitted. “Obviously I’m flattered that they offered me this much to get into the project. But the other side is that I really like this part of being an engineer. I get to play with some of the biggest puzzles in the world. This one – an electric power system – lots of pieces. I told them what pieces they need, they got ‘em, now I get to make sure they’re put together right and do what they’re supposed to do.”

“You designed it. They built it. I guess I was thinking it was a done deal. Pack up the tools, push the button, then go home.”

“Hundreds of pieces. Miles of wire. Thousands of connections. One of ‘em in the wrong place and ... Might not show up for years, then – disaster. I interned doing this stuff in the field. That’s how I know.”

So I smiled. MY Paul. Here’s a chance for me to give him some extra happiness. And here we are, stopped on the side of the access road, looking into the place.

“Your next job,” I told him, “is to get me in there for a tour. I wanna see that part of your world.”

He looked at me. “I’ll do what I can. Depends on the boss and the safety people.”

“Just so you know...”

“We’ve talked about this before. Trust me. I know.”

So we spent the late evening sitting outside our trailer waiting for the dark to get serious. Mimsy and Jody, her husband, dropped in, Paul introducing himself, talking with Jody about his part of the project.

“What are YOUR plans while he’s at work?” Mimsy asked.

“I’m kinda stuck while I figure that out,” I said. “No driver’s license. I have books. Internet. Working on some MIT courses.”

“Hon, you can’t stay cooped up like that.”

“I can manage, I think...”

“Look, hon,” Mimsy stated, “I got this little antique and collectible...”

“Junk,” Jody injected, getting him a glare from Mimsy.

“ ... antiques, collectibles, some consignments. You’re welcome to come with me if you want.”

“That sounds interesting. Uh, not trying to be picky, just curious. Do you have internet there?”

“Of course, Barb,” Mimsy said. “I’ve been thinking about posting some of our stuff online for sale. So we got internet.”

“That’s great,” I said. “I can hot-spot off my phone, but sometimes that signal’s poor. I just want to be able to get on line for research and those MIT courses.”