Chapter 7: Arkansas

I went back to my bench in the shade and looked up the phone number for the Alexandria, Louisiana Police Department. I called in on the non-emergency number from my cell phone and asked for either Detective Roux or Fournier – the two men that I’d talked to during my arrest and the two that had ultimately released me after they’d checked out my alibis.

“Roux here!”

“Detective Roux, this is Jim Mellon. I ... well, you arrested me two days ago and then...”

“Yes, yes, I know who you are? What’s up?”

“This may sound silly, but I’m north of you in Ruston ... and, well, I just saw my clone – a guy who looks a lot like me on a nearly identical motorcycle. I wanted you to know.”

“Hmmmm. Where is he now?”

I felt stupid, but replied anyway: “Last I saw him, he was riding north through Ruston on U.S. 167. I ... lost sight of him.”

“Well, Ruston’s a little outside our jurisdiction, but if you see the guy again ... and can safely tie down where he lives or works, I’d appreciate you letting us know. Please don’t get involved; let the police handle this.”

I acknowledged his suggestion and ended the call. Hopefully, I’d put the seed of an idea out in the Universe to grow and fester in Roux’s head. Something might come of it.

When the call ended, my pulse had returned to normal. I collected my laptop and notebook, and walked back to my motorcycle that had been hidden in the shade. After I stowed my gear, I headed north on the highway again.

As I came into El Dorado, Arkansas, I started looking for the motorcycle shop I’d looked up on the Internet. I wanted a seat cover for the Harley that wouldn’t heat up to boiling sitting in the sun the way my leather seat did.

A short distance after I turned west on Main Street, I saw the cycle store. More surprising, parked in front of it, almost as if it were on display, was the near duplicate of my machine – the one I’d seen earlier.

I made a split-second decision and turned away from the Cycle Shop. A diner sat across the street, so I turned into their parking lot and put my motorcycle in the far back of the lot under a shade tree so it couldn’t be seen from the street.

So, I could watch, I went into the diner and ordered a diet coke from a pretty waitress, the only worker in the diner. I had a perfect view of the shop across the street. A few minutes later the man who looked like me came out of the store. He had a rag and a can of polish; he wiped down the motorcycle, shined up the chrome, and removed specs of dirt here and there on the machine. He rolled the motorcycle over and parked it with some others that were for sale. Could it be that he worked there?

When the waitress passed by, I flagged her down, smiled, and asked her about the shop across the street: how long had it been there, did she know anyone who worked there, were their prices any good, did they carry parts?

She answered with a sneer, “I don’t know about some of that, but two brothers own the place; you’d think they own the whole town the way they carry on. They come in here and bother the other customers. They’re bullies.”

I noticed how cute the petite waitress was as she talked. She stood by the table wearing a plain gingham dress with a white apron, and her blond hair up in a hairnet. Her face had a scowl on it as she talked about the brothers.

I asked, “They pick on you particularly?”

“Yep,” She responded with a toss of her pretty head. “But I spilled hot coffee in Darren’s lap one time; I put really hot pepper in John’s burger to put him in his place too. Now, they go elsewhere most of the time – thank goodness.” She looked smug.

Just then my doppelganger again came out in front of the store to attend to one of the other parked bikes. I gestured at the guy and asked her: “Which one’s that? Do you think we look alike?”

She did a double take between the two of us and said, “That’s Darren, and you do look similar. John’s much older by way. You’re not related, are you?”

“No, no,” I assured her. “I was just curious. I saw him riding by earlier and wondered.”

She accepted my assurances, and then went to wait on one of the other customers.

Since the diner had Wi-Fi, I brought in my computer, ordered a late lunch, and began my stakeout of Darren. I even managed to take a couple of photographs of my double with my iPhone as he paced around the parking lot in front of his shop.

By three o’clock, I was the only patron at the diner. The pretty waitress came by and said playfully, “You should start working here, you’ve spent almost as much time here today as I have. We do need help, you know.”

I gave her a big grin, she inspired that kind of response, “I don’t know; so how about you tell me about it.” I thought about hanging around town to see if I could catch my lookalike in a criminal act. It was dangerous I knew, but I was really pissed at the guy for making me spend a night in jail.

She got serious for a minute; “We need a counterman – someone who can cook and serve as well. The guy we had quit two weeks ago, and I’ve been trying to do it all. Daddy used to do it – he still owns this place, but he’s the mayor now and doesn’t even think about this place except to come by and mooch a free cup of coffee occasionally.”

“I can help you out for a few days until you find a permanent person. I worked in a deli just after I graduated high school so I know a little about what you need, but that was a long time ago. In the long term though, I’m just passing through on a road trip.”

She asked eagerly, “Can you start right now?”

“Sure, why not?”

We introduced ourselves more formally to each other: Jim and Pat. She gave me the nickel tour of the place, showed me where various food items were kept, explained about the register, and talked about my hours and pay. She talked a mile a minute and covered all these things in about two minutes.

Next I knew, I had on a golf shirt that said ‘El Dorado Diner’ on the pocket, a white apron, and my own Boston Red Sox baseball cap. I was ‘official.’ Customers started to come in for the Early Bird Specials or to get a bite to eat before going on the next shift at the timber mill down the road. I served everyone as fast as I could, treating him or her the way I’d want to be treated if I were a customer.

Pat would stop now and then and make a suggestion, or nudge me to a customer that needed something. By eight o’clock, when the diner closed, I was tired. I hadn’t worked for almost six months. At least I’d kept up with the dirty dishes part of the time, so the pile wasn’t too daunting when I went to clean up.

“What time do you open?” I asked.

Pat said, “Six a.m. I open, close, and work all day – fourteen hours. This is my life right now – Monday to Saturday midday.”

I thought of a million things I could have said about that, but I bit my tongue and just nodded. Instead, I said, “If I can camp out behind here, in that small clearing behind this place, I can be at work on time.”

Pat gave me a funny look. She asked, “You mean you want to sleep out in the back and help me open up – at six in the morning? None of our countermen ever helped open up.” I nodded. She said, “OK with me. I’ll leave the back door unlocked so you can use the bathroom or if you want a midnight snack.” She laughed at her last remark.

“You’re trusting. You barely know me.”

“I think I’m a good judge of character,” she said with a laugh and toss of her head. “Don’t disappoint me now, you hear?”

I not only was at work on time, I had the place open and running when Pat came in the door at five minutes of six. She looked surprised but didn’t say anything; I had six customers at the counter, and bacon, sausage, and eggs on the grill. Later, she took great delight in teaching a northern boy how to cook grits.

One new thing I learned as I frequently looked across the street at Darren’s Cycle Shop was that Darren used the Harley that looked like mine to get around, although it was for sale along with several other bikes.

About ten o’clock in the morning, I took a break, and called Detective Roux again. Now, I could tell him where ‘my’ suspect worked – and by a check of his street address in telephone book, where he lived. I also told Roux that I’d taken a part-time job across the street from the Cycle Shop. Roux admonished me for staying involved, but nonetheless sounded relieved that he’d gotten some sort of break in the case. He asked that I call him back in mid-afternoon; he wanted to think about what I’d told him and talk to some colleagues. As agreed, I emailed him one of the snapshots I’d taken of Darren too.

After the lunch crowd thinned, I re-called Roux. He told me to expect a small package at the diner by FedEx first thing the next morning. He also gave me some detailed instructions, and we talked about how to conduct a small ‘Special Ops’ task that would help the police. Just thinking about taking action that would compensate for my night in jail gave me a jolt of energy.

Pat noticed my overt curiosity with the cycle shop too.

Pat and I started a little repartee as we worked – tossing comments, compliments, sarcastic remarks, and quips at each other as we passed by. Most of our comments were out of earshot of the customers. There were little things said like: “That’s a darling hairnet you’re wearing; where do you get these cute little white aprons; didn’t the Red Sox ‘not’ win anything significant for almost a hundred years?”

Towards late afternoon, Pat surprised me by upping the ante – things got subtly physical. Behind the counter, there suddenly wasn’t enough room for her to pass by me without sliding her butt against mine; or when I’d done a good job on something, along with the compliment I also got a pat on my fanny – and later, when no one was around, a quick kiss on my cheek. I accused her of being an outrageous flirt, a point she didn’t argue.

We also had a more serious conversation that lasted all day between the other banter. We learned a lot about each other, but questions and answers, and parts of answers, were often separated by many minutes as we waited on customers or worked on some culinary delight in the kitchen. We worked well together. I could tell I made it fun for Pat to be at work: yesterday I had sensed drudgery; today I sensed enthusiasm for life and work. She smiled more.

I kept up with the dishes better on my second day, so by closing time there was little for either of us to do. After closing up, Pat came out and saw my camping arrangement. She asked what I did when it rained; I explained about my tarp. She also asked about my showers, a polite way to inquire about my cleanliness I presumed. I explained I’d spent considerable time in the diner’s washroom before opening. I also told her I thought I would put myself through the dishwashing machine after she went home – a remark that earned me a playful punch in the arm.

Just before Pat turned to go home for the night, she gave me a serious kiss on the lips – a kiss more significant than the earlier peck on the cheek for a job well done. And then, she turned to her car and left.

I yelled after her, “FLIRT!”

I caught up with my journal that night, sitting in my makeshift tent and madly typing away for an hour. I thought about Karen, my late wife. Somehow, with the internal excitement about this guy Darren and my fascination with Pat, it didn’t seem like anywhere near El Dorado would be a good place to spread some of her ashes or even meditate. My brain was a jumble on too many other things.

My internal dialogue about my sexuality continued to rage in my head: how I hadn’t been ‘open’ to hearing about a significant part of Karen’s sexuality, the affection of her sister for me, the serial loving of the three women in Pennsylvania, all that Kim had taught me – and the implications of that body of knowledge in terms what I hadn’t learned up to that point, the assignation with Betty Sue, and then the playful session with Lacie and Lindy – the mother-daughter combo! I thought of Lauren’s prediction about having a sex-filled trip too; how had she known?

In the diner that first full day, whenever someone wanted pie a la mode with vanilla ice cream, I’d reach into the vanilla carton in the freezer and think about my sex life: Mr. Plain Vanilla. Ugh! How could I have remained so naïve until my fucking mid-thirties? I bet Karen knew more about sex and making love when she was fifteen than I did until I met Kim and she took me under her wing ... and into her bed for her class sessions.

At eight o’clock the next morning the FedEx deliveryman came into the diner and had me sign for an express package from the Alexandria Police Department. I opened it immediately and inside found two electronic devices – one large and one small. Detective Roux had sent me a miniature global positioning system or GPS data recorder on a magnetic mount, and a slightly larger device with a small directional antenna that could wirelessly interrogate and download the data from the GPS recorder provided you were within one hundred feet of the smaller device. My ‘Special Ops’ job today that I’d talked to Roux about involved secretly placing the GPS gadget on Darren’s motorcycle without being detected or having the device found later by him.

Things slowed down at the diner after nine o’clock, and by ten thirty I felt I could take a break. I asked Pat to cover for me while I ran an errand. She agreed, yet I could tell curiosity nearly overwhelmed her.

I went out the back entrance of the diner, cut behind some of the stores next door to the diner, and walked down the street away from the Cycle Shop. When I got nearly out of sight, I crossed the street, and walked back to Darren’s motorcycle dealership. I palmed the device and as I approached the store. I made a beeline for Darren’s motorcycle – the one that looked like mine. In two seconds, I’d attached the tracking device to the inside of one of the rear struts. The clearance to the tire and chain was only about a quarter of an inch; I worried that the tracker would fall off if the cycle hit a hard bump; however, it was out of sight unless one did a careful search.

I continued to fawn over the motorcycle, only now standing back and admiring the machine from a distance to reduce suspicion that I’d done anything to the bike in case Darren had been looking outside. About a minute later, Darren came out of the store with a smile and a handshake. “Hi there. Great morning for a motorcycle ride, isn’t it? You interested in this baby?” Darren patted the handgrip on the bike nearest him.

I shifted my interest to the next motorcycle in line, and replied from my position about ten feet away from the bike, “Nah, I was just passing by and saw this beauty – had to take a look. What are you asking for it?”

“We’re hoping to get $15,000, but we can put you on this bike for something like eight dollars a day. How does that sound?”

I replied, “It does sound interesting and enticing. Let me think about it. I’ll be passing by here more frequently for a while. You keep this one around, and I’ll keep looking at it.” I smiled and gave a wave as I turned and kept walking. Darren went back inside the Cycle Shop.

On the way back to work, I hummed some country song to myself. I used to love music and listen all the time; I liked to sing along to some of the songs I knew, particularly if I knew no one was listening. I could even strum a few chords on a guitar. Since Karen died, my music hobby had fallen by the wayside. I got in the alley that ran behind the diner so I remained hidden from the Cycle Shop. I paused behind the diner and called the Alexandria Police Department and left a message for Detective Roux – “GPS device installed. Tell me when you want its data. Regards, Jim.”

That afternoon I had to wait on a really cantankerous stereotypical southern gentleman at the counter. Everything I did to please him seemed to lead to a complaint or gripe of some kind. I was too slow, too fast, inaccurate, used stale bread (it wasn’t), not cooked right – over cooked or under cooked, or I wasn’t polite enough, needed to show some spine, and on and on.

I rolled my eyes at Pat when I’d turned away from him at one point. She seemed to have a special sparkle in her eyes as I mimed my difficulty, so much so, that I began to think something was afoot. Consequently, I redoubled my efforts to please the older gent, this time bringing him a complimentary cup of coffee.

As I put the cup down in front of him and told him it was ‘on me,’ he pulled back and studied me. He was sizing me up.

He finally spoke again, this time in a more genteel way – his southern drawl more pronounced than ever, “Boy, do you know who I am?”

No one had called me ‘Boy’ in over twenty-five years. I replied, “No sir, I don’t. You seem important; however. I’m must apologize for the shortcomings of the food and service today. I’m new, so please don’t think my mistakes apply to the entire establishment.” I smiled apologetically at him.

He laughed – and behind me I heard Pat laughing too. Pat came up and took my left arm; “Jim, let me introduce you to my father and the mayor of El Dorado, Otis Peyton.”

Otis put his hand out and grabbed mine and shook it really hard. “You did just fine, son; and you can call me Otis. I was trying to rattle you – had to see what kind of man we have working here with my daughter. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. Patricia said you were sleeping out back?”

“Yes, sir, and thank you for the compliment. I travel light and camp out a lot. I’m making a tour of the forty-eight states; this just seemed a good place to stop for a few days since Pat told me she needed help, and ... well, here I am.”

Otis slapped a single key down on the counter. He turned to Pat and said, “Patricia, have this fellow use the house in the back – no charge. We’ve got a storm coming up tonight, plus that place has better plumbing than what he’s apparently used to.” He laughed again, stood, slapped a twenty-dollar bill on the counter for an eight-dollar lunch, turned and walked out the door with a wave over his shoulder.

Pat gave me a love pat on my butt again. I went and waited on a couple of other customers, but not before I jested with her a moment about setting me up with her father. Later, I asked her about the house Otis had referred to; it turned out to be about three hundred feet behind the diner through thick foliage and up a dirt path that connected the rear of the diner to the house. I hadn’t noticed the cut through in my comings and goings.

Pat continued to brush against me and flirt all day. The longer we were together, the more liberties she took. I watched carefully, and there wasn’t one other customer that she paid the least attention to in the way she had started to hit on me.

One time after she had slid by me rubbing her butt against mine, I jokingly asked her, “Hey, pretty lady, what have I done to invite your attentions this way?” I glanced down at her pretty rear end.

Pat laughed, ran her hands down her hips, and said, “You’ve got pheromones – nice ones. You know what those are?”

I responded with a grin, “Aren’t they some special kind of odor or smell I give off – it’s supposed to make me even more attractive to females?” I grinned and puffed out my chest.

Pat looked around the nearly full diner at all the patrons engrossed in eating; no one needed service that instant. She then pulled me into the doorway to the kitchen and in response to my answer to her question said, “Right and right.” With that, she stood on her tiptoes, pulled my head down to hers in a bold gesture, and gave me a solid kiss on the lips. After a few seconds, she pulled away and looked at me.

I patted my chest and fanned my face as though I felt faint and needed to catch my breath because of the kiss. I said, “Well, I guess they’re still working.” As Pat turned to go back to the counter area, I reached down and playfully pinched her shapely and petite bottom. She loudly squealed and jumped out of the doorway into the restaurant causing the customers to turn and look at her. She turned scarlet with embarrassment. They could all hear my laughter from back in the kitchen.

During a lull in the afternoon, Pat had me fold up my makeshift tent and my camping gear behind the diner and take it to a little white house just out of sight of the diner. The trail through the trees was wide enough that I could ride the motorcycle though from diner to house, and so I did, parking the bike in the empty carport attached to the house.

The little white house sat on a slab, had two small bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room with an old TV, and a kitchen, and small eating area. There were a few worn but useable furnishings in each room. The whole place couldn’t have been more than six hundred square feet. I checked that the beds were clean and freshly made and the bathroom spotless. Pat later confirmed that she kept this place up for her father to use for special visitors to the town, although they were few and far between.

The afternoon lull continued after I got back to work. Pat and I talked, and she started to ask me increasingly personal questions. So, I shared with her my reasons for my cross-country trip. I told her about my marriage, Karen’s death in February, rebuilding the motorcycle, my sister Anna’s suggestion I ride cross-country to visit her, and then my expansion of that idea to include a visit to part of each of the lower forty-eight states. I even explained about my ceremony of spreading some of her ashes in each state.

As we got busy, I started to hum and even sing in a very low voice. The words to a couple of country songs kept running through my head. I took my return to music and singing as a signal that I’d passed some hurdle in my healing from Karen’s tragic death. I did feel happy. Maybe I should have considered going back to work.

Pat and I worked through the dinner crowd, and again I kept ahead of the dirty dishes whenever I had a spare moment. Shortly after we closed, Pat declared us finished and able to go home.

At Pat’s request, I turned off the lights in the diner and shut off the outside signs. We parked our aprons on a couple of hooks behind the kitchen doorway. When I turned to go to the back door, Pat was right there in the dim light from the street. She put both arms up around my neck and pulled my head to hers for another serious kiss – a very serious kiss.

This time I eagerly entered the kiss – and the ones we shared after that.

As our kisses got increasingly physical, our bodies started to grind together. Pat unbuttoned a couple of buttons on her dress, took my hand, and pulled it inside her dress to her breasts.

After fumbling around with my hand at an awkward angle, I kissed her and used both hands to unbutton all the buttons from the top of her dress down to her mid-section. When I’d finished, I gently reached around her tiny frame and undid the clasps that held her bra. The weight of her breasts pushed the lacy brassiere forward. I used both hands to slide the dress and bra down her arms; I tossed the frilly brassiere onto the lunch counter.

After a French kiss, I used my tongue to trace down her neck and upper chest, circling first one taut breast and then the other. My hands gently stroked each mound. I could feel her nipples harden as I got closer and closer to the tip of each tit. I could also hear Pat’s breathing getting deeper and faster as I ministered to her. When I finally got to her areolas, I allowed my tongue to graze her nipples – erect nubs of flesh protruding from the peak of each breast about a half inch. Pat had become one sexually excited woman.

Pat’s hands tried to rub the front of my pants, right where my hardening cock lay trapped inside. I knew my rod would come into use tonight. Now, I realized that all the funny banter and jesting had been foreplay.

Pat spoke in a throaty voice just past a whisper: “You darling man. I want you to take me. I want you to take me here – on this counter, in that booth, on a stool, everywhere. I’ve had a fantasy for years of making love here, and now you’ve come to rescue me from everlasting boredom and make my fantasies come true.”

I pushed Pat’s dress over her hips to the floor. She still wore the white sneakers that were her daily work shoes. I laughed to myself at the incongruity they posed, as she stood there nearly nude.

Beneath her dress, Pat wore little lace panties. I knelt and blew hot air into the gusset of her pants, allowing the heat to penetrate deep into her body right about where her clit and vagina were. She moaned some more until I couldn’t stand it, and I pulled the feminine panties down her legs.

Pat kicked off her shoes and stood nude before me, now fumbling with the buttons on my shirt and my belt simultaneously. She couldn’t undress me fast enough. She panted in anticipation as she removed each article of clothing I wore.

When we stood naked, we both pulled apart and studied each other for the first time, the only light in the diner came from a couple of neon signs outside, a street light, and the reflections from passing headlights. Pat was beautiful: about five feet tall, trim, shapely legs, gorgeous full breasts with silver dollar sized areolas, a bubble ass, and a face most models lusted after.

I whispered my desire to her, and she flowed into my arms, intentionally trapping my cock against her belly as I bent down to kiss her. I picked up her small frame and set her on the diner’s counter only a few feet down from the cash register. The move put her pussy exactly at the height of my cock. Pat opened her legs and pulled me to her as she started to wrap both legs around my body. I used one hand to position my hard shaft against her pussy, rubbing some of the rapidly flowing female juices on my rod.

And then, I was inside her. Pat had her heels on the edge of the counter and her cunt pushed forward into me. The way she used her arms to push into me also pushed her breasts forward into my chest. My cock sank deeply into the warmth of her nest as I leaned forward to kiss her. As I bottomed out in her, Pat’s eyes had grown to the size of saucers. She whispered to me, “My God, you’re huge. You feel sooooo good.” Her panting continued, now more audible and apparent. She could thrust back and forth a little with that leverage, and she did as I started to pump slowly into her. Slowly was a must according to Kim; it stretched out the lovemaking and heightened the intensity of the orgasms. In my limited experience, she was right. Prior to that, I had two speeds: on or off.

Thanks to Kim, sex had become a spiritual experience for me, an act not limited by the close-in boundaries of lust. As I’d learned about Tantric sex a little over a month earlier, I’d come to see making love as a way of joining two beautiful physical bodies together to form a spiritual whole. I found new energy in the physical union: the power to lift me not just to an orgasm where I ‘pop my rocks off’ in some cunt, but an energy that carries me upward to some higher space – to where I really feel connection with a greater Universe of wonder, awe, and delight.

I whispered my thoughts to Pat, and with each sentence she thrust harder and harder against me, finally enjoying not just one orgasm, but also a series of climaxes that started to blend as we actively joined. I felt certain that the diner had never heard such moans or sounds of sexual excitement.

I lifted Pat from the counter while my cock remained deeply buried in her body. I carried her over to booth number three. She lay back on the table and put her legs up over my shoulders. I pounded my shaft into her tunnel in this new position – something obviously exciting to her as she stored up memories of our sex acts around the diner to reflect on later – maybe tomorrow when the place was full of customers. The window overlooking the street was only a few feet from her head. I watched Pat’s breasts oscillate in time to the moves our lower bodies made into each other. I felt the spirit of Eros fill my body and hers as we fucked – we honored the Greek God of sexual love and beauty.

We were in resonance with each other. I moved her to another booth, and another, and had her kneel on the bench seat as I entered her from the rear. She moaned loudly as the tip of my cock started to stroke against her G-spot. She started another series of orgasms, or it might have been one orgasm that just lasted and lasted. In another booth, she came over me and bounced up and down, repeatedly rising and dropping down my shaft as fast and as hard as she could.

I had her sit on one of the high counter stools and put one leg over my shoulder as I penetrated her depths and looked into her blue eyes. She climaxed immediately, and looked at me with huge doe eyes – pleading with me to stop while simultaneously imploring me to never cease our mating. Her panting revealed a new level of excitement inside her; I’d tapped into a part of her I hadn’t seen before: that part where lust and love and all the worldly emotions come together in perfect harmony and balance.

I moved her back to our starting point near the cash register. We were both damp with sweat from our lovemaking. There was nothing about Pat I didn’t love, and nothing about me she didn’t adore. We were in harmony. Pat came again and again.