Chapter 23

I woke at my usual early hour thinking that I should run, but I could hear rain on the roof. I was on my back with Donna's head on one shoulder, and a platinum-haired head on the other. There was a tiny person lying on my chest sleeping, and a hand from the person on the other side of Janet who had her hand on my chest. This has to be the ultimate feeling of being loved. I think my eyes were leaking, but I was becoming a real wimp by being emotional so often lately.

I closed my eyes and went back to sleep, but woke up again and saw that it was six o'clock. I moved to let people know it was time to get up. We should all have had enough sleep by now since we were in bed before ten. All four girls woke up, and each one gave me a kiss before getting out of bed to use the bathroom. Janet sat up with me, and asked, "What do you think about that? That felt really good, and even Gin seemed to relax and give me some kisses before we went to sleep. I'm surprised you didn't do Donna last night with the way she was spread out over you. She sure was tempting you, and Nikki, the little imp, crawled up on you and used you for a mattress. I want you to sleep next to Gin so she can feel you if we do that again. You need to use that gift of yours to help her relax. She's afraid that she'll do something that will upset you, me, and the other girls."

"I don't know what to think, Lover, but we should get up and shower."

The girls came from the bathroom and began dressing. Donna said, "We need to go home and get ready to go to school. We all have early classes. We like to get done by lunch time so that we have the afternoon to study. We alternate afternoons at Sal's office. We can study there too, as there really isn't much to do. It gets exciting sometimes, but not that often.

Janet and I showered and dressed for work. I was in slacks, knit shirt, with a sport coat over the arm to wear later. I was having coffee with Steve and Glenda when Chuck came to me with one of Peaches' girls. Chuck said, "This is Sheena, your hostess for today. She's had a lot of experience, as has Timetra, but it's Sheena's turn. She's worked all the Gulfstreams and the BBJs. [Author's Note: "BBJ"="Boeing Business Jet", a Boeing 737 passenger jet configured for executive transport.] She'll be an asset."

The young lady was dressed in a reasonable length navy blue skirt and white blouse with a red and blue scarf around her neck. She looked very professional. She told me, "Since you don't have uniforms for me yet, I sort of made up one for you. Do I look okay?"

"You like great, Sheena. We'll leave for the airpark as soon as the sandwiches get here. We have to pick the food up from the restaurant kitchen, and we can be on our way." I was raising my cup for another sip of coffee when I remembered to ask her, "Do you have your passport?"

Sheena grinned and said, "Sure do. I've been to Canada a couple of times, and to England and Ireland."

Steve told me, "You'll get used to charters like this pretty quickly. This is a good one because they want a lot of expensive frills, but that's the way some of the super wealthy are. Money doesn't mean anything to them. Some have so much that they always ask for the top shelf of everything. I'm sure these people are thinking that they're saving money because they are hiring a small single pilot aircraft and can still get all the extras that they would get in a Gulfstream charter."

The sandwiches came, so we took three and headed to the airpark. It was still raining hard, so I chased the food and then held the umbrella for Sheena to get on the aircraft with it. I had to take the car to the pilots' parking area and walk back with the umbrella. I stayed remarkably dry. I wonder why they didn't let me fire up inside the hangar, but I suppose the exhaust would put soot in the interior and the heat might damage something behind the aircraft.

I had to do the exterior check with the umbrella, and wondered where the helpful maintenance guys with ponchos were. At least I would know the aircraft is right. I finally finished, disconnected the ground power, got in the aircraft, and closed the door. Sheena had found a supply of towels for just this occasion and dried the door area.

I wasted no time and rapidly but accurately went through the checklist, and started the APU to get the air conditioning working and to keep the fridge cool and ice maker working. Both engines immediately spooled up and all the electronics were doing what they were supposed to be doing and reporting. It was right then that we heard the ominous boom, ba-boom.

Well, shoot, what's with a thunderstorm when we're still on the ground? I called the tower to ask about where the cells were and they requested I hold my transmissions while they dealt with an emergency. I switched the frequency to listen to hear what the emergency was and heard Janet's voice saying she thought she could make the runway on a single engine. I knew she was in a King Air, but not which one. I had pulled forward a little to see if I could see her coming in, and saw her lights through the now fairly heavy rain showers. She was going to make it and I watched as she touched down and immediately shut the other engine down. Two of our trucks were rolling out to meet her, with one of them to tow her back in. I saw the twin stop and the door immediately open. Janet ran off the aircraft and stood about fifty feet from it, watching.

Jimmy was in one of the trucks and was the first to reach Janet and the aircraft that was still on the runway. Jimmy ran to the aircraft with a fire extinguisher in each hand and some kind of headgear with an oxygen tank. He set one extinguisher down by the left wing and climbed into the plane with the other. There was smoke pouring from the doorway all of a sudden and it then slowed down until none was coming out. Jimmy came out and went to each engine and checked to make sure there was no fire present. He waved for the other pickup to back up to the plane and put the long tow bar on the nose gear before hooking it up to the truck.

I was hoping Janet didn't get burned in the process. She didn't act as if she was injured, and she finally got into the truck with Jimmy who had recovered the other fire extinguisher. My CJ wasn't in the way so I shut everything except the APU down, then grabbed the umbrella and watched where Jimmy went. He drove straight to the charter office and dropped Janet off. I was only one hangar away, so I ran to the charter office to make sure the soaked lady of my life was okay.

Janet was standing at the counter cursing the weather as soon as I entered the office. She saw me and a very wet girl hugged me, before saying, "Lightning got me at fifteen thousand while climbing out. Everything went black and most everything didn't want to work. I had just enough control to keep turning until I was lined up to land in the wrong direction, but knew that I could reach the runway. The right engine was on fire for a couple of minutes, but the onboard stuff doused it. The left engine was pulling me fine, just sluggish. The cockpit then began filling with smoke that had that sharp stink of burning wiring insulation and that scared the shit out of me. I saw the front beacon flashing in the clouds so I knew that the electrical wasn't completely gone. I pulled the breaker on the nonessential electrical bus but left the essential bus on, and followed Rule #1: Fly the airplane. I controlled that pigg and got it on the ground. I shut off the master electrical switch, pulled the plug on everything, pulled all the circuit breakers, and then ran off that thing. The cockpit was really smoking by the time I was stopped. Thank God for having taken all those emergency procedures classes."

DeDe asked, "You didn't breathe a lot of that smoke, did you?"

"No, the air conditioning was still working and was sucking it out of the cockpit. I was just afraid of fire. There's nowhere to go, as you know."

DeDe said, "How about we scrub today's stuff for you and you take the day off. I think you've had enough excitement for one day."

Janet thought about it a minute and said, "How about I change into my uniform pants and a shirt, and ride with Chuck. That would calm me down." She looked at me and asked, "Want a second on this flight? We really haven't flown together yet."

I smiled and said, "Go change and let's boogie. The weather cell looks like it has passed, and we can get on top pretty fast."

Janet ran to the locker room and we heard a locker door slam. DeDe went back to collect the soaked clothes and came back out with Janet trying to comb her thick platinum hair out. DeDe said, "It'll dry, so keep brushing it out on the way and it'll be dry before you reach Canada."

The two of us walked back to the Citation under the umbrella. We got in, I shut the door, and Sheena dried off the door once again. I was going through the spool up when Janet took the checklist from me and read each step as I prepared for takeoff. The tower gave me clearance direct to the runway and for takeoff, and advised me to fly west about ten miles before turning north.

The rain was slowing and we climbed as fast as possible flying through the heavy clouds on the way to FL325. We didn't see any more lightning, and came out on top at around twenty-nine thousand. I radioed a PIREP (pilot report) back to the tower so they could pass it on. The winter tops weren't like the summer ones that reached all the way to the tropopause.

I flipped the internal PA on, and asked Sheena, "Do you know what we did with our sandwiches, and are you the good hostess who has some coffee brewing?"

Sheena got up and leaned over us and said, "The sandwiches are in the warmer and the coffee will be served in a minute. It's a good thing that you brought an extra sandwich for Janet."

The flight north was uneventful and we were out of the weather before we hit the last waypoint in Buffalo. That's when I remembered to ask Janet if she had her passport. She just smiled and told me that she kept it in her flight case where it should be.

We lined up to land at Toronto while still over Lake Ontario and descended until we were locked onto the ILS there. We landed and were directed to park right in front of the General Aviation Terminal at a specific numbered location so that we could connect to ground services.

Janet's hair was now dry and fluffy, as she had thoroughly brushed it. She looked good considering that she had been soaked a couple of hours earlier. Sheena busied herself making sure the cabin was clean and sprayed Febreze everywhere to make the aircraft smell good. Actually the new leather was doing a good job to make the cabin smell good.

We only had a half hour to kill, so we took turns running to the operations building to use the restroom. We each carried our passport in case someone wanted to check us.

We were ready when our customers showed up. I stood outside with Sheena while we left Janet in the right seat as we had the APU up and the ground power disconnected. Sheena helped seat and get the two couples comfortable. I advised the passengers that we would stop in Miami for fuel as the customs people couldn't meet us in Tampa when I got on the plane. I knew what was going to happen. The Miami Customs people wouldn't even come to the plane.

Sheena began preparing to serve the special luncheon they had requested when we took off from Miami. She had the apples sliced and the cheese cut into small bite size pieces. The chicken was served just slightly cooler than warm, and was perfect with the chilled wine in our real crystal glasses. Janet and I watched the customers on the video monitor and could tell they were comfortable and enjoying the ride.

I tried to make my landing on the island as smooth as possible, and smiled when I didn't even feel the tires touch down. Janet commented, "How do you always land so softly. I know you really try to do that, but you are uncanny the way you can land so gently."

"It's something I really wanted to learn to do. I've flown so much over the years in the Marines and just knew that all those bumpy landings weren't necessary and swore to myself that I was going to learn how to do it right if and when I began to fly."

The customers were excited to be at the resort and were immediately carted to the boat with their luggage. They said they would call to set up the return trip. I was thinking that we might take a Gulfstream if Janet was available so that she could get checked out on another aircraft and give the customer a break by taking a larger aircraft. It would be faster as we wouldn't have to stop for fuel in the States. We could fly straight through to Toronto.

I asked Janet and Sheena what they thought about immediately taking off for home, and they both thought it would be neat to get back the same day. We all used the facilities, fueled up, and took off for home. We had to stop in Tampa to clear Customs, and then it was up and down to our home field.

Sheena had the aircraft cleaned up and all taken care of by the time we landed. We had to take the glasses and mugs from the aircraft for washing, but that was all. The aircraft exterior didn't get all that dirty, so there was no reason to wash it. I used a tow motor to put the airplane into its assigned position in the hangar.

We all had to go take a look at the damaged King Air. Jimmy was working with an insurance adjuster to try and figure out the repair cost. This was going to be expensive. Considering the damage it might be a total loss and only worth salvage. It could have been worse and been a bunch of crumpled junk on the ground with casualties and injuries. Lightning often leaves pinholes in the wings, and it did so on this occasion, which meant that the wings were going to have to be opened up, the fuel bladders removed and replaced, and the damaged panels repaired or replaced. In addition, both engines, not just the one that caught fire, had to be disassembled for inspection. At first glance, it looked like the engine fire was relatively minor, fueled by engine oil from a cracked line. I was told that was indicated by the white smoke from the fire, because, to my surprise, engine oil burns with white smoke while jet fuel and aviation gas burn with gray or black smoke. Who knew?

I asked the girls when we were getting ready to leave the airpark, "It's late and I'm sure they thought we would stay over down in Costa Rica. How about I treat the two of you to supper at Park Place? The diner type restaurant was packed with a waiting line when we arrived out there. We knew it was too late for the fancy restaurant, so we checked the pool and game area and saw that it was possible to get a place to sit. Sheena looked in the little lounge and wanted to go in as it hardly had anyone there.

We decided on a bunch of snack foods such as jalapeno poppers, mini-calzones, quesadillas, and a small everything pizza. Everything was everything the cooks could toss on the crust, sauce, and cheese. All three of us enjoyed a draft beer with the food. Sheena told us that she wasn't twenty-one yet but wouldn't tell anyone. She said Chuck would let her have a beer with Sunday night food fairly often.

I drove Sheena back to her cottage in Chuck's compound, and marveled at the huge home he had with cottages and nearly four thousand square feet of apartments over the big garage. It made me wonder how many square feet Chuck's house was. I wondered if he even knew.

The folks at the patio were just about to close it up, but Janet and I were primed to have something else to drink. Tiny wanted to hear about the near disaster Janet had, and that interested Steve enough to stay. Steve called Chuck to tell him that we were talking about Janet's close call, and Chuck said he would talk to her in the morning.

Janet told the story as it happened, and you could feel her fear as she related how she felt when all her instruments went dark and the aircraft began to become sluggish. She told about how she had used the emergency hand pump to lower the gear as soon as she turned to come in toward the runway, and was relieved to hear and feel it lock into place. She re-emphasized the value of the emergency training she had received in the simulator and the value of being able to react to the emergency in a calm manner, although she wanted to panic. [King Airs used to use a crank to lower the main gear in an emergency, but that was when the landing gear was electrically actuated. Since they converted the system to hydraulic actuation 25-30 years ago, they use a hand pump.]

The people, including Jimmy, who were listening, were fascinated with Janet's description. You were even more certain you would feel comfortable riding in an aircraft she crewed when she finished.

We found some Fritos and dip to have with another drink, but the other listeners said it was time for them to turn in. Janet said, "You know, I'll bet that we're still up because we're still wound up from flying almost four thousand miles. We probably should have stayed over down there, but I wanted to be right here doing what we're doing. Let's go to bed after this drink and put each other to sleep. Wake me up if you get up to run in the morning, so that I can run with you."

We cleaned the bar up by putting the glasses into the dishwasher, the dip in the bar fridge, and sealing the Fritos, and putting them away. We hugged and kissed a little before shutting the lights off and locking the door. We walked back to the room on the far end of that part of the manufactured home and stopped short when we opened the door. There were three female heads snuggled together sticking out from the covers. Janet almost broke up laughing, but I cautioned her that the girls might have been overly worried about her.

We didn't get to give each other any help getting to sleep, but she had me cuddle to Grenaline's back, and she spooned with me. Gin moved my hand from her belly to her breast, and sighed while wiggling her naked butt into my rising maleness. She raised a leg and Janet tucked me between Gin's legs.

We went to sleep.

I woke to lip kisses and hands stroking me. Gin was grinning at me while doing the kissing and stroking. She softly said, "You made me feel so loved when you snuggled to me and held me last night. I wanted you to feel my breast, so I put your hand there and you rose to the occasion very fast when I wiggled. It would have been easy to do what all three of us want to do, but you didn't push it. This is such a tease that we're going to explode one of these times."

I asked, "How come you girls stayed here last night?"

A small head peered over Gin's shoulder, and said, "We thought we should show you and Janet that we were more than three kids experimenting. My mom said that we should be here for you two and for us if we want something as much as we say we do. Get used to us. We asked Sue, Kathy, Juanita, and Mercy what they thought about us moving in. All four wanted to make sure that it's something we really wanted to do, and whether or not we were ready to commit the rest of our lives to this relationship."

Donna said, "We all said that we were, but they made us agree to enjoy the closeness with you two, but not to become sexually active with you, Chuck, until we felt we could live with you two forever. They know how we've saved our virginity for our one and only. We all think we're forever, but I can see how people may think we may not be sincere. The three of us think that we want you to watch us graduate and then we'll talk about a forever commitment. We've been talking to Brandy and those five, and had a long talk with Lisa and Tina. Tina's a doctor now, and even has a baby. Lisa is an extremely strong woman who has four babies. All the women who love Chuck say how loving and committed he is to them. We think that our Chuck will be that committed to us too.

Gin said, "We'll move our clothes Saturday and officially move in. We even asked if you should get your own place and Mercy and Sue insisted that you two need to stay with them and have us with you for now. You know that we're very close to our family, so we're going to be homesick, but we'll see them every day and can talk to them any time we want. There's something about Chuck that is very soothing. He's our strength just like the other Chuck is the strength in his family. He has help though, as he has Lisa and Etta who are also very, very loving."

The girls got up and said, "It's raining again, but we still need to go home to get ready for school. We'll see two later. Today is Gin's turn at the R&D center, so Donna and I will be around doing homework this afternoon."

The three girls got out of the bed, used the bathroom, and left. I looked at the clock and it said six o'clock. Janet pulled me down for some heavy duty kisses that caused both of our libidos to blossom into some lovemaking we both wanted and felt that we needed. Janet asked, "Can you listen to those girls to see if this is really going to work?" when we were still joined but laying on our sides.

"I suppose I could, but shouldn't we see if this comes about naturally? I know I've never considered a relationship with more than one woman, but it looks like these three really want to have us be a part of each other. The idea that they're willing to stall this collective lovemaking party to give up their virginity is pretty impressive. I'll bet the girls will need some private time with each other, and maybe with you, to take care of some hormones. You'll be able to gain valuable information about each of them if you join their conspiracy. We seem to easily be able to take care of each other. I'm sure they will be the same."

Janet and I went through the shower and wore only shorts, T-shirt, and flip flops to join Steve and others out on the patio. I poured coffee for Janet and me, and then warmed up Glenda's, Tiny's, Ruth's, and Mercy's. I used my cell phone to call the charter office and found out that there was nothing pending. I handed the phone to Janet, and it had been decided to give her another day off after her incident yesterday. Because of the amount of damage, it was classified in the FAA reporting system as an "incident", but there was no question of pilot or mechanic fault, so the local FAA office was satisfied with a telephone interview with Janet.

I told Janet, "Let's go down to Miami so that you can meet my Juanita, Izzy, and my Aunt Connie. We could run down to see my best friend in life, Butch, and if possible, we can get my other two buddies to have lunch with us. I've seen your folks' place, you need to see mine. Call any of your friends who are footloose down there, and they can join us at being vagrants. We need to keep getting to know each other."

Janet wrapped her arms around me and kissed me like we were truly lovers. She softly, but loud enough for everyone to hear, said, "Wouldn't a rainy day like this be fun in bed all day?"

That made me blush, but it didn't seem to bother Janet at all. The women around the table were agreeing with Janet, and the guys were enviously looking at me. Steve said, "You keep talking like that and my women will want me to stay in and play too."

Mercy said, "Juanita and I are going to go over to check out the big boat, as well as Chuck's. They are both in right now, and I want to see if anything needs replacing or upgrading. I somehow get the feeling that we're going to be sailing again soon. I think we could all use some time out on the water together for some family fun. We'll have to have a family meeting to figure it out. We could send the new plane out to get Dewey and family so that they can be a part of the decision making process."

Mercy turned to Janet and me, and said, "I'm addicted to sailing like you two are addicted to flying. It's like flying, but much more relaxing. Chuck and all his family love being on the water. All our kids love being out as well. Chuck has this monster boat that we can all sail on and have plenty of room. Several of us have our Captain's licenses and can take the helm so that no one is saddled with the job all the time. It's also a way for us to have only our family and extended family with us, no strangers. You two would really enjoy the intimacy of a cruise."

Steve said, "I can tell you that it won't be long before there will be a plan when they begin talking like this. Chuck and family are late this morning. I hope all is okay."

We heard an ambulance, and then saw the lights between the trailers as it went to the far end of the park where the houses were. Steve was out of his chair and hurrying toward the door. I couldn't let him go alone, so I ran for my boots and slid them on to run with him to get his cart. We drove to where we thought the ambulance had been going, and found it in Chuck's driveway. Steve and I got off the cart and didn't have to go far as Brandy and Lisa were under the cover where the carts park. Lisa said to Steve, "Pop had some kind of attack or something. Nancy said that he seemed fine last night, but he was complaining that he wasn't feeling well when he woke up this morning. Chuck and Tina are with him, along with the paramedics."

A fire engine arrived and the firefighters went to the Pop's cottage where the paramedics were working on Pop. Bonita showed up in a cart with Lizzy, and they went to stand next to Lisa. I heard Lisa say, "I think Pop is somewhere around ninety. I know that we celebrated Nancy's eighty-fifth birthday last October. She says she married Pop when she was thirteen, and they've been together all these years."

I sent warm thoughts out to Pop and Nancy, as they had always been so cordial to me. Etta's voice came into my head and told me, "That is very sweet, Chuck. That's exactly what they need."

Lisa's voice came to me, and said, "Pop is such a sweet and gentle man who always treats everyone with a smile and respect. Let's both think those thoughts to him."

We watched as Pop was carried to the ambulance and slid into place. Tina and Nancy got in with him and Chuck told the two that some folks will follow to the hospital as soon as they were dressed. The ambulance was on the way to University Community Hospital.

Bonita and Lizzy were standing with Lisa who was holding two of her little ones. Bonita and Lizzy each had another one as the two teens had tears on their faces. Lisa kept telling the two girls, "You need to stop crying and listen to the soft warm sounds from the babies." That's when I realized that I could hear an almost kittenish purring sound coming from the babies.

Steve came back to the cart, and said, "Let's help get the rest of Chuck's family to the patio. I'm sure some of the ladies will want to go in to see Pop."

I assisted the women to get all the tiny ones into baby seats, and then the older group into their seats. They all had assigned seats and there was no switching allowed. I was admonished mentally and verbally to let me know they knew where they were supposed to ride when I tried to put one where someone else should be. I drove the one big cart to the patio when the caravan was made up. I had Etta in the seat beside me, and she said that she was probably taking Julie's spot, but it would be okay because I wasn't their Chuck.

It was an amazing effort that it took to get all those kids from one location to another, but Chuck and all the adults did it daily and often multiple times a day. You had to love these people. Janet thought that it was cute when I was carrying babies into the house and then herding the toddlers inside to play with the others who were there. She was using her phone to take pictures of me hauling tiny people and showing the older ones where they should be playing.

Janet came to me, and said, "We, or rather you, have a charter. Someone needs a ride to Miami and Key West. I thought that we could do that and then go see your house and friends. We can do the charter this morning yet if we can get to the airpark quickly. Your aircraft is being pulled out and prepped."

The two of us dressed half decently, not in jeans and T-shirt. I wore slacks, knit shirt, and a sport coat with dress shoes, while Janet wore pants with a blouse that matched my sport coat. The rain was letting up now, so we were able to run between the drops and arrived at the charter office to greet the four passengers we were giving a ride to.

Janet hustled the paying passengers into the aircraft while I did the exterior check. I came in and pulled the stairs up and door shut, and headed to the cockpit as Janet wiped the inside of the door down.

I already had the APU up by the time Janet slid into the right seat. I continued down the checklist while Janet buckled up and was spooling the left engine up and asking for taxi clearance. Janet called and filed a flight plan to stop in Miami, continue on to Key West, with a return to Miami Executive Airport.

This was a no-brainer flight, but I still kept watch over the passengers. Janet got up to offer coffee, but the passengers didn't want any. Something made me nervous about them, but not that bad. I had some kind of feeling this morning and wore my shoulder holster with my new gun. I had even checked to make sure there was a round in the chamber.

I saw the one guy lean over and saw a shoulder holster, pointed to the monitor, and backed the video up and replayed what I had seen. Janet looked at me and said via the intercom, "I have mine in my purse today. It's usually in my flight bag, but it seemed like a good idea to have it in my purse. I'll back you up if anything happens. I'm a damned good shot, but will hate to put a hole in your airplane."