Chapter 5

Caitlin did not, in fact, bring up the change in our sexual lives again for four hours. We had parked to hike a trail, and then stopped at two tourist traps to browse the trinkets they sold and stare into a big box full of rattle snakes. It was covered with a wire grid on top, and was a good four feet tall. Some of the snakes rattled when I looked down into it. Kat said she wasn't interested in disturbing "the poor captive snakes, who probably miss their wives and little snaky children."

We had decided to take side roads other than interstates, to be able to see more. We stayed on historic route 66 initially. We ate lunch at a roadside stand and then got back on the road, heading for whatever caught our interest next. I had a CD playing and even though the songs were from my youth, Kat sang along with me just fine. We passed forty-five minutes doing that, and then she punched the eject button and turned sideways in her seat, to face me.

"You need to find someplace to stop," she said.

"Places to pee are going to be few and far between in these parts," I said.

"I don't have to pee," she said. "I want to suck your dick."

I had a sudden and complete fantasy in which she had said this before any of our sexual play had ever taken place, back when all I did was wish I could see her naked, and touch her and all that. In this fantasy I managed not to crash, but ended up in the ditch. Where she then sucked my dick.

What? It's just how my mind works. That wasn't a fantasy I actually hoped would happen. Well, except the dick sucking part. My point is that this new relationship was still new enough that it was unsettling. To me, anyway.

Kat? Not so much.

"Say something," she said.

"I was just thinking," I replied.

"About what?"

"Never mind," I said. "But I'm glad you brought this up, because we need to talk about it."

"I don't want to talk about sucking your dick," she said, calmly. "I want to suck it."

"Look," I said. "Don't get me wrong. I love everything that's happened between us. And I admit I'd love it if you did what you want to do right now. But we both know that what happened last night took things too far. And it will happen again if we don't take some relatively drastic steps to prevent it. You said you wanted to wait until next year for that level of relationship, remember?"

"I changed my mind," she said.

"You can't just change your mind about something that important," I said.

"Sure I can," she said. "I did. It was easy."

"And what if you're pregnant?" I asked.

"I'm not," she said.

"But what if you are?" I insisted.

"But I'm not!" she insisted back.

"Tell that to the thousands of unwed pregnant teenagers in this country," I shot back.

"What's the big deal?" she asked. "If you're that worried about it, I can always get an abortion."

I almost did end up in the ditch then. Luckily there was a cross road and I used it to come to a stop out of the way of traffic.

I turned to her, but she had one hand up, palm facing me.

"Before you go all ballistic on me, let me say something. Please?" she asked.

"You can talk 'til you're blue in the face, but I'll never agree that abortion is the answer to that situation," I said, ignoring her request.

"So you're anti-abortion?" she asked.

"No, I'm not," I said. "I think there are situations in which an abortion is the wisest thing to do. But this isn't one of them."

"Can you explain that?" she asked.

I pulled back onto the road and got up to speed.

"It's a complicated issue," I said. "Beyond the concept that I believe women should have control over their own health and bodies, there are medical conditions that I feel justify ending a pregnancy. I also think there are women who would make miserable mothers," I added.

"That's terrible!" said my niece. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that there are children all over the world who are neglected and abused by mothers who had no business bringing those children into existence. Some of those children die horribly. They'd have been better off never being born than having to suffer like they do. Women who aren't ready to be mothers, or aren't capable of being good mothers, shouldn't have children."

"But those babies could be adopted!" argued Caitlin.

"That sounds great on paper, but it doesn't happen. People think of children as property. A lot of those mothers, worthless as they are in terms of being mothers, still think of that baby as 'mine' and don't want to let someone else raise it. And even if they were willing to give the child up, there aren't enough others willing to adopt them all."

"So you think I'd be a worthless mother?"

I pulled over again. If I'd looked shocked and angry before, I probably looked even more so now. I know she didn't say another word until I had turned the car completely off and turned to face her.

"I think this is the wrong time in your life to take on the problems of pregnancy while you finish high school," I said. "I think having a baby now would significantly curtail your options, in terms of what you want to do with your life other than be a mother." I looked at her.

"Just answer this question," she said, with the brashness of callow youth. "If I'm pregnant, do you want me to get an abortion or not?"

"No, I do not," I said. "But wouldn't it be much easier if you didn't have to make that decision?"

"Well of course," she said, relaxing visibly.

"Which is why blow jobs and cuddling and all that... which lead to having intercourse ... is probably not a good idea right now."

"I thought giving a man a blow job was a good way to keep him soft, so he couldn't have sex," she argued.

"That might work with a lot of men," I said. "But it won't work with me, because you have a tendency to keep me hard long enough I should probably see a doctor about it."

"What?" She looked confused.

I sighed.

"If you maintain an erection longer than four hours, you're supposed to see a doctor to get it cured," I said.

"I cured your erection last night," she pointed out.

"Which brings us full circle back to having unprotected sex," I groaned.

"Then stop somewhere and buy some fricking condoms!" she moaned. "I just found the best thing that ever happened to me, and now you want to jerk it away from me. I've wanted this for years, Uncle Bob. I've dreamed about it, and when I finally get it, you want to stop me from getting it again!"

Talk about feeling stupid.

I'd been intent on trying to keep her safe through abstinence. I hadn't thought once about procuring a supply of condoms.

Long story short, Caitlin got her way. There was one of those old fashioned rest stops, which was just a gravel semicircle on the side of the road, with a picnic table under a small roof on four poles. It was pretty obvious it wasn't used much. Still, if I was going to let her do this thing, I didn't want to do it in the car.

There was a trail of sorts that led into the woods behind the rest stop. I think it was used mostly for that world-is-our-urinal thing, but since it wasn't used that often, I couldn't be sure. In any case, I led her farther than I'd want to walk to do that sort of thing, and then ducked into the pines until I couldn't see the trail any more.

"Is this where you bring all the girls?" asked Caitlin, peering around.

"You're the only girl in my life at the moment," I said.

"Good answer," she replied, grinning. "Bare it, Bubba."

"You're being awfully casual about this," I said, reaching for my belt.

"That's because I'm very comfortable with this relationship," she said. "I like where things have gone."

"I would too if you were a couple of years older," I muttered.

"So you'd rather put me on a bus at the next town and not see me for two years?" she suggested. I could hear something in her voice that suggested sex might not be an option for the rest of the trip. That was like killing the patient to cure the cancer.

"Don't get your panties in a wad," I said. "We both know all this is ahead of schedule."

"Not true," she said, folding her arms under her breasts. "I make the schedule, and I am quite certain that everything is right on schedule."

"You are so full of it," I said.

"No, I'm not full of it," she said, dropping to her knees and reaching for my pants, which I had stopped undoing. "I'd love to be full of it, but, ohhh no, good old Uncle Bob, because he cares about me so much, won't put it in me so I could be full of it. So this will just have to do."

She then commenced to release my penis and suck it to full rigidity. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought she'd gone to college and gotten a degree in fellatio. She had me ready to pop within five minutes.

Then she stopped.

Just like that.

She stood up and brushed off her knees.

"Thanks," she said, turning back towards the trail.

"What are you doing?" I gasped.

She looked over her shoulder.

"Teaching you what it's like to want your lover, and to have your lover come up with a bunch of reasons why you can't have what you want."

Then she ducked under a pine bough and walked back to the car.

There comes a time in a man's life when his best option is to just shut up and drive. She punched in another CD and started singing along with it, like nothing had happened. She looked out the windshield, and her window, but not at me. At least I couldn't catch her looking at me. Sometimes, in my peripheral vision, it looked like she was doing that, but every time I glanced at her, she was looking elsewhere.

We were about two hours from our next scheduled camping site, and let me tell you, that was a long two hours. It didn't help that, at least four times during that span, I observed her lightly touching herself between her legs. She was wearing jeans shorts, and all she did was stroke the outside of them, but it was obvious they were sexual touches.

We met up with US 95 just north of the border between California and Nevada and followed it up, taking the bypass to skirt Las Vegas. Neither of us had any desire to spend time there, though Kat did press her face to her window all the way through, pointing out this or that thing that caught her interest.

We had decided ahead of time to try and find someplace to camp around Indian Springs, in Nevada. That turned out to be a tiny little town next to an air force base. It just so happened that the first place we saw was a mom and pop kind of operation, with a gas station/convenience store/campground office in a single building. It was called "The Starlight Campground" and at some time in the past, business had been good enough to pay for a big neon sign in the shape of a star.

Mable, as she introduced herself from behind the counter, was happy to see us. She signed us in and I paid in advance. I said "Thank you," and she said "Thank you," and I turned to go, when Caitlin dropped a box of condoms on the counter.

"Don't forget these, honey," she said.

Mable didn't bat an eye. Nor was she reluctant to discuss the matter.

"He looks a bit long in the tooth for a girl as young as you," she suggested to Caitlin.

Caitlin grinned, showing white teeth. "A girl needs a sugar daddy, and you just can't find them as young as you wish they were."

Mable grinned herself, showing teeth that were several shades off of white.

"Guess you got a point. If I'd have found myself a sugar daddy, I wouldn't be stuck here running this place."

"True," said Caitlin. "But then where would we spend the night? I hate to say it, under these circumstances, but we're awfully glad you're here."

Mable looked at me. "I can see why she snared you. Do her parents know where she is?"

"Actually, they do," I said, automatically.

"Well don't that beat all," sighed the woman, who had to be in her seventies. "The world sure is changin'."

She picked up the box and examined it. Then she looked at Caitlin.

"You don't want these. You want the ones in the yellow box. The ribbed ones."

"Oh?" Caitlin's cool exterior cracked, and I could tell she was a little rattled. I'm sure it was her first discussion about condoms with another woman.

"Least wise that's what my customers say," said Mable, calmly. "My more ... uh... experienced customers," she added, dryly.

"Thank you," said Caitlin, stiffly.

But she took the pink box back and I ended up paying for a yellow one.

I don't have a lot of experience with condoms. That's because I don't use them often. In fact, I've never bought a condom. At least not until Caitlin put a box on the counter and I had to pay for them. The only condoms I've ever used were the ones a woman produced and required that I put on before we had sex.

I don't want you to get the idea that I'm anti condom. I'm not. Rather, you need to understand that, before I take a woman to bed, I have to feel something for her. In fact, I have to feel what I think is love for her. I emphasize the word "think" in that last sentence because we humans don't have a very good track record when it comes to identifying who we do and do not love. Then again, maybe it's more that we fall in love easily ... and then fall out of love easily too.

Of course it's more complicated than that. The falling in love easily part isn't complicated. But the falling out of love part is. I think we fall in love within hours, but it takes months and years for the love to die.

Except not always. I've dated probably a dozen women since I got out of college and started taking life seriously. Of them, I liked four or five well enough to think I was in love with them. Those were the women I wanted to have unprotected sex with. By that, what I mean is that, if those women had gotten pregnant, I'd have been willing to marry them.

Yes, I know that sounds stupid, but I was young.