Chapter 1: Starting the Adventure

This story is a memoir of sorts and cuts back and forth a lot between my adventure on the road and my memories from before—sometimes long before. I find myself daydreaming a lot, but I call it plotting the next story. Like my time on the road, I sometimes get lost along the way.

In July of 2013, I moved into a travel trailer and became a full time RVer. I eschewed freeways and decided to follow some of the old network of highways that cross this nation. This is based on the true story of my travel down U.S. Highways since then.

I took the road less traveled. Now where the fuck am I?

A Few Years Ago: Pushed from the Nest

Treasure and I hadn’t slept in the same bed in a year. I spent most nights asleep in the recliner in my office. Had my pillow there and a blanket. It was a big empty house for two people now that Maddie had her own apartment. Most of our conversations were about proper editorial use of various terms in the manuscripts we edited and the books I published for income. Neither one was paying the bills and we were dipping further into our retirement savings. That formed the other half of our conversations.

There was one thing that had remained constant through years of marriage. I got up at five. Sound familiar? My stories are full of characters who get up early in the morning. It took me about five minutes before I could stand up straight enough to walk to the bathroom after I got out of bed. My back had been deteriorating steadily for several years, even after we bought the $10,000 bed I mistakenly thought was going to be our new playground.

I picked up the newspaper from the front steps—something I could usually do without having to get dressed. I stumbled to the kitchen and made coffee while I scanned the headlines and read the comics. I made a second pot at six-thirty, frothed hot milk for Treasure’s latte, and woke her up. I left the newspaper and coffee beside the bed and went to make breakfast.

Those morning wakeup calls are still some of my fondest memories. That was when Treasure would smile and thank me for the best cup of coffee ever.

The house was expensive. The mortgage was high. The maintenance was a killer. I grumbled in the kitchen that I could work from anywhere. Why was I writing from a basement in Seattle? I should be out seeing the country while I was still young enough to enjoy it. Treasure and I had always talked about traveling more. We could live on the road cheaper than maintaining this monstrosity that I’d come to view as a prison.

“You should go do it,” Treasure said.

I hadn’t even realized she’d come from the bedroom. Nor that I was talking aloud. She wore a robe. I hadn’t seen her naked in a long time. I detected a slight emphasis on the word ‘go’.

“It’s time, isn’t it?” I said. “We should get the house on the market, I suppose. And see a lawyer.”

She nodded.

It took six more months to get things ready. We divided up what we wanted, settled our finances, and filed for divorce. July first, I moved into my new home—a sixteen-foot travel trailer, towed by a new F150.

Then a miracle happened.

I woke up after my first night in the little trailer and made coffee. I just got up and went to the stove and made coffee. It took me a few minutes before I realized that I had no back pain.

17 August 2013

I was on my own, cutting through Montana with nothing but the road, my thoughts, and me. How’d Tony put it? “Me, myself, and I. Which asshole would you like to speak to?” I’d been through road construction like you would not believe all through Montana. One of the decisions I made before I pulled out of Seattle was that I would avoid Interstates and freeways. They were for people who had a destination. I had only a journey. This U.S. Highway was actually just a one-lane dirt track fifty miles long, occasionally interrupted by a stretch of pavement. I drove behind a pilot truck with a sign that said ‘Follow me’, and the line of cars and trucks—mostly trucks—followed in a cloud of dust. I was glad my trailer was safely in an RV park while I went exploring Glacier National Park. I couldn’t have pulled it over Going to the Sun Road in the park anyway, and this construction outside the park would have been murder on it. By the time I got out of the war zone—er ... construction zone—my shiny black F150 was two-tone dust and mud.

I’m sure my throat was the same color. I needed coffee.

McDonald’s serves a pretty decent cup of Joe. I’d had it with paying $3.50 a pop for an espresso when I can make drip coffee in the trailer that is just as good. If it’s decent coffee, I’ll drink it. Even half-way decent. And McDonald’s always has clean restrooms. I was bursting when I got there. My bladder’s only good for thirty miles or thirty minutes—whichever comes first.

I was pulling out of the parking lot when I spotted the girls in short-shorts and t-shirts jumping up and down across the street trying to attract people to their carwash to support the high school cheerleaders. Carwash? Cheerleaders? Wonder if they do trucks. I took my dollar-a-cup coffee and drove across the street.

“You do trucks?” I asked the woman who came out to meet me as I drove in.

“This is Montana, cowboy. Bay 2.”

“How much.”

“It’s donation. You know, thousand bucks or whatever spare change you’ve got lying around.” I laughed, handed her a ten and pulled into the spot she pointed to. Even if all they did was rinse the top layer off, it would be worth it. Three juvenile girls ran up, reminded me to close the windows and told me I didn’t need to stay in the truck. I got out with my coffee and watched them go to work. Apparently the upper classmen were out on the street hustling business because they were ... better at hustling, I guess. These little girls were just that. Little girls.

“Is this for the freshman cheer squad?” I asked the woman who had taken my money.

“Freshmen, JV, and varsity,” she responded. “The older girls get the younger ones to do as much of the work as possible.”

“Are you the coach?”

“I’m actually the mother of one of the coaches. I don’t even have a girl on the squad and I get stuck out here supervising the teenies.” We laughed and talked a bit. Turns out her daughter, the coach, wasn’t much older than the varsity cheerleaders.

“I’m afraid those little girls can’t even reach the hood of the truck.”

“They are little at that age. We’ll let them work on what they can reach and the seniors will show up eventually. You’re not in a hurry, are you?”

“Hurry is a suburb of Seattle I left behind me months ago.”

It was obvious when the seniors showed up. I don’t know what it is, but a miracle occurs between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. I guess it’s called puberty. As I looked around, I could pretty much pick out the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. But when the seniors showed up to take over scrubbing the truck, there was a whole different game to watch. The little girls had grown into young women.

I moved to the back of the bay so I could watch without being on display to the entire community. Nobody needed to see an old dude with a cup of coffee and a hard-on watching cheerleaders getting wet. They all introduced themselves with a wave and a little cheer jump. Julie was about five-two and robust. She hadn’t lost all her baby fat, but there wasn’t an ounce of it I wouldn’t have been willing to nibble. She was bubbly, cheerleaderly, and ... well, the bouncy parts bounced ... a lot. Megan was blonde, about four inches taller and thinner all over except in the boobs. Here’s the girl that screws the quarterback. And when he’s not looking she does the halfback, tackle, and tight end. Correction. She has the tight end. It was encased in skin-tight pink hot pants through which I could clearly see her bikini line. I reminded myself she was seventeen and I didn’t even have Montana plates on my truck.

Then there was Alice. I looked past her at first glance and then I came back to her. Shit, she’s tall! Black hair, smallish tits and thin, but with such a tiny waist that her hips flared out nicely. But tall. Yeah. Close to six feet. I’d either look up at her or really get a good look at her. I have to tell you, I’ve always had a thing for tall thin girls.

A Long Time Ago: Carly the Clown

Nearly every tall thin woman I’ve written about has been based in some way or another on Carly the Clown. That is not a disparaging remark.

Back when I was working with an unnamed theater group years ago ... Well, the important thing was that Carly was part of that group and I thought she was heavenly. She was 6’ 1” and thin. Her boobs scarcely bumped out her shirt. Her hair was black and, when I met her, she was one of those totally natural girls who didn’t shave anything. But damn! That girl kissed with her whole body.

It was the middle of September when I gave her a lift one evening. We were talking and laughing—having a great time. When I got to her apartment, she leaned across the seat to give me a thank-you kiss. The minute our lips touched, the lights flickered. I think it sucked the electricity right out of the power lines. The little thank-you kiss turned into a you’re-welcome kiss. I made sure she knew she was welcome any time. We made out in the front seat of the car for a quarter of an hour when some dude flashed his headlights at us and I realized we were parked across three spaces. I was just letting her off, after all.

“Um ... see you next week,” she said.

“Definitely,” I answered. I was so slick back then.

When she got out of the car, I had to turn the window defogger on in order to pull into traffic.

The next week, September really arrived, complete with the rain that marked the season’s change.

“Would you like to come over for dinner tomorrow night?” she asked as we finished a breath-taking kiss on Friday night in front of her apartment.

“I’d love to. Can I bring a bottle of wine?”

“That would be great. See you at six.”

That was all it took. We actually did have dinner that night, but the lights were flickering all evening. I waited until we’d gone a step beyond kissing, holding her tiny breasts in my hand as I dipped to lick her nipples.

“I’d love a glass of wine now,” I said. We hadn’t opened it with dinner. “I don’t object to where this is heading, but I wanted to be on the road before we drank anything.”

“As long as you’re okay with this heading into my bed, then we can drink anything you want.”

That first night we made love was earthshaking. I already had her shirt off and she had mine open to the waist. We sipped our wine and I ‘accidentally’ spilled a little on her. It ran down her chest and I lowered my head to lick it up. I had to be sure I got everything, so there wasn’t much of her long, elegant torso that I didn’t lick.

“I’m a little sticky. Would you like to cool off in a warm tub?” Carly asked me as she nibbled on my ear and stroked my cock through my too-tight jeans.

“That would be great.”

“I use a diaphragm, so we can’t make love in the tub. Okay?”

“Let’s enjoy the bath and then make love,” I answered. “Carly. Just so you know, I do want to make love to you.”

“Oh, yeah,” she answered. “Oh, yeah. Last week, after you kissed me in the car, all the windows steamed over in the apartment when I walked in. Oh god, Ari. I want you so much.”

We slipped into the tub and Carly leaned back against me between my legs. Just feeling her back and butt against my cock kept me rigid. For my part, gently washing her front as she lay back was an experience I’ll never forget. I’d never been with a woman who didn’t shave, at least under her arms, but I shampooed all her hair and found the silky texture of her pits as erotic as the thick curls between her legs. We finally stepped out of the tub and dried each other on a single towel then went to her bed.

I can’t say that making love to Carly was necessarily the best sex of my life, but I knew the instant I entered her that this was my lover. We might not always be lovers, but whenever we were together we would be lovers. There was something about this woman, taller than me, hairier than me, but as sensuous and lithe as any lover could be. We fit together.

I look back on that time with a sense of yearning. We got together periodically over the years. Even when she moved to Colorado on her way to LA, I found a way to visit one summer and coming together was as easy as it was the first time. The lights still flickered. I don’t know where she is now, but somehow I know that if I ever come upon Carly the Clown, we’ll still be lovers.

Back to Alice

Oh yes. I was talking about Alice. It wasn’t just her tall, thin frame that drew my attention, but the almost cat-like grace with which she moved, playfully tossing a sponge to her friends or dodging the spray across the truck.

“Okay, watch out!” Megan shouted. “I’m going to spray the conditioner on.”

Conditioner? My truck was going to come out shiny and silky soft. I chuckled as Alice ducked over toward me to avoid the spray.

“Hey. That’s a nice truck. New?”

“Yeah. Pretty new. It was a dirty little pig, though.”

“It’s going to be all shiny now. Are you from around here?”

“Oh. No. I live on the road. My address is on my license plate.”

“That’s just a license number.”

“Yep. I pull a travel trailer and just go wherever the truck points.”

“I want to come.”

“I’m ... uh ... not sure I can do anything about that.”

“Oh! You have a dirty mind.”

“That’s how I get paid.”

“How?”

“I’m a writer. I write mysteries, thrillers, and erotic romances.”

“You’re kidding. Those are my three favorite things to read.”

“Aren’t you a little young for erotic romance?”

“I’m eighteen, so I’m not jailbait if that’s what you’re implying.”

“I just ... well, I know you are in high school.”

“I got a late start. Okay, I flunked seventh grade. I’d just found out about sex and was a little distracted. I got my act back together, though. I’ve got grades good enough to stay on the team and get into college. I got early acceptance to the University already.”

“Well, even if you aren’t jailbait, it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to talk to you here about erotic romances.”

“What if I told you there was a place you could talk to me about it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m a year older than my friends and my folks sort of stopped supporting me when I turned eighteen. They still let me live at home and usually feed me, but they’re really focused on my little sister to make sure she doesn’t turn out like me.”

“You seem to have turned out just fine.”

Alice checked to see if anyone was watching and pulled a card out of her back pocket. She wore cut-offs that barely covered her butt-ledge. Her phone bulged out of one pocket. She handed me the card. It was a ‘free admission’ card for Roxie’s Foxes.

“What’s this?”

“The gentlemen’s club where I work. I start at six. Stop by and you’ll see more of this.” She pulled her crop top to the side with her bra and exposed a nipple. “I want to know more about what you write and how you manage to live on the road.”

“Dry time!” Julie yelled. Alice spun away from me in time to catch a chamois so she could help strip the water from my truck. Strip. Yeah. Well. I didn’t need to be back at my campsite tonight. I could sleep in the truck. It was clean, after all.