Chapter 4: Pudding

1 October 2013

One of the issues we needed to work out as we traveled was what Angie would be doing while I was writing. I encouraged her to be independent in her explorations but, in the evening, she was often left with nothing to do.

“Can I read what you’re writing?” she asked one evening.

“I suppose so,” I said. “I have to warn you, though, that my second ex-wife read the first novel I wrote and laughed all the way through the first page. The operative word there is ‘ex’.”

“You write humor?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Like I said, she’s my ex-wife.” I admit, it wasn’t stellar writing, but she could have shown some sensitivity. It was that derogatory ‘You’ll never be a writer’ attitude that started us on the path to divorce. Unlike Treasure, who had eaten up every word that I wrote in the early days, begging me to read aloud to her. Those were good times. “Why don’t you read something that’s already been published? Do you want to read one of my mysteries or erotica?”

“I want to read the real you,” she said. I gave her my SOL address and suggested she start with Model Student. We sat together on the bed, the most comfortable spot in the trailer, and I wrote while she started reading. That became our nightly ritual, just before we cuddled up to sleep.

And, yes, there was a lot more cuddling and skin-to-skin contact. I’d woken up just this morning spooned behind her as she held my hand to her breast. I stayed in that position for as long as I could stand. She wasn’t making any overt sexual moves—at least not obviously. But occasionally, my hand would twitch and squeeze her breast. That seemed to trigger a reflex of her squeezing her butt cheeks together on my rigid cock. Before I made a mess of things, I slipped out of bed and went to the bathroom for relief. Then I made coffee.

Havasu was only of interest because we carried our child-like innocence with us. London Bridge was just a stone arch bridge over a channel separating the mainland from a small resort island in the lake. We walked across it holding hands and occasionally humming parts of the nursery rhyme.

We joined up with old Route 66 in Kingman, Arizona, and went to the Historic Route 66 Museum. What a trip! That’s where I noticed she had earbuds in while she was reading.

“What you listening to, Pudding?” I asked.

“I downloaded all the music on Tony’s playlists in Model Student and I’m listening to them while I read,” she said. “You sure have eclectic taste in music.” I had to laugh.

“I suppose I do,” I said. “But remember, I’m not Tony. He probably has some pieces in there that I wouldn’t listen to.”

“Right.” I’m not sure she was convinced.

I couldn’t get a campsite at the Grand Canyon, so we camped at Williams, Arizona, and drove up to the Canyon for a day trip. It was only about thirty-five miles. My enjoyment of the magnificence of nature was doubled by the childlike excitement of Angie. I’d been to the canyon before, but seeing it with her was something else.

And at night, we read, wrote, and cuddled together for warmth as the nights became steadily colder.

In mid-October, we camped at Navajo National Monument and the campground was empty. There was a sign that said one of the restrooms was closed for the season. The ranger station was open for limited hours during the day to accommodate tour buses that arrived and left within an hour.

I was grilling a couple country pork ribs. I’d stocked up on about everything we could need for a week because there simply wouldn’t be a grocery store within two hours for the next week. We were pretty isolated out here. I turned when Angie brought me a glass of wine.

She was naked except for her camp shoes.

“Pudding, this campground isn’t really clothing optional,” I said.

“Uncle Ari, look around. We’re the only ones in this campground. I thought we could have a campfire tonight and cuddle in the camp chair,” she said. “Please?” I nodded. How do you say no to a naked beauty who wants to cuddle in front of the campfire? I stripped off my clothes.

We spent most of the night wrapped in a blanket in front of the campfire.

The next morning, after cuddling under the blankets in bed against the cold, we got dressed and hurried out to the viewpoint to see the sunrise that gradually illuminated the Betetakin cliff dwellings of the Anasazi Indians.

It was a special moment for me for reasons that had nothing to do with the pleasant company I was currently keeping.

A Long Time Ago: Desert Musings

Joy was beautiful beyond my sixteen-year-old mind to comprehend. What’s more, she was friendly. I guess that comes with the territory. Her mother was a county judge. Her father commuted to Fort Wayne to teach government at IUPUFW (Indiana University/Purdue University Fort Wayne). Joy was destined to become President of the United States. Or at the very least, First Lady. I wish she was running now.

She was part of what I had always considered ‘the privileged’ class, of which I wasn’t. I’d moved during the summer between freshman and sophomore year and my meeting with Joy had been arranged by our parents as a sort of get to know the area arrangement. What I got to know was that Joy was so far above me socially, I couldn’t reach her with a stepladder. Try one of those fire department ladder trucks and I could maybe reach the bottom ledge of her window. But she’d been raised in our little town by parents who believed in an egalitarian society. She went to public school and tried out for the cheer squad—unsuccessfully. Even in our little school, cheerleaders were a special class of their own and simply being smart, beautiful, and rich didn’t ensure that you’d get in.

Joy was one of only half a dozen girls in my class who didn’t turn me down for a date. That’s because I never asked her. Even after the night she let me feel her breasts and make out until we came just before graduation. But that’s a different story. This is the one when she convinced me that I needed to go to a college prep school for the summer like she did each year. It was a cinch that I wasn’t going to get any playwriting instruction at the little high school I was attending, so I researched until I found a school in Colorado that had a playwriting program, applied, and miraculously was accepted on a scholarship.

My sport for the summer was hiking. My summer girlfriend was Sue. That’s a different story, too, but suffice it to say that even though we didn’t go all the way, at the end of the summer, Sue was the only girl whose bare breasts had actually been in my hands and the only girl who had ever had an orgasm with me.

But at the end of the summer session, Sue was assigned to a different unit than I was, so we never got a chance to see what that last step would be like. Instead, I was with a group of 40 boys and girls who rafted down Lake Powell for two days, observing the effects of the Glen Canyon Dam, until we reached Rainbow Bridge National Monument. It wasn’t impossible to reach the bridge via overland trail, but already most visitors were coming by boat.

Our group was to hike from the bridge over that land route to Navaho Mountain where we would be picked up by trucks to take us to Betetakin cliff dwellings and then we’d visit the Four Corners monument and head back to school for our last week of synthesizing our experiences. Presumably, I’d be one of the people who wrote a play about some aspect of the journey.

In the middle of the night, while hiking under a full moon from Rainbow Bridge to Navaho Mountain, we were to pass the other group of 40 students and teachers (the group Sue was in) on their way from Betetakin to Rainbow Bridge.

But before that happened, my group’s leader missed the trail turnoff that would lead to the pickup point and instead led us out into the Navajo Desert. At dawn, we stumbled to a stop beside a puny watering hole as the teachers decided what went wrong.

We camped for the day by that spring but it dried up a little after noon. We slept and talked while we waited for our leader to backtrack until he found out where we’d gone wrong. Then he came to get us at moonrise and we all headed back to what proved to be too rugged a path for some of our group. I recall collecting backpacks from a few people who couldn’t carry theirs and make the ascent.

Disaster struck again with daylight. Mitzi, one of our students, was sick. She had diabetes and no medication as I understood it. So two teachers—Fritz and my hiking coach, Leslie—stayed with Mitzi in shade and cooled her with what precious little water they had while waiting for supplies and rescue. The rest of us began the long climb out of the canyons to Navajo Mountain. Fearless leader had hiked with half a dozen of the strongest boys, out of the canyon to the trailhead, collected supplies, and started back down into the canyon. When we met up on the trail, he was nearing exhaustion. As I figured it, he hadn’t slept in at least 48 hours or longer. I volunteered to exchange packs—since I was carrying about four of them—and take the supplies back down to Mitzi, Fritz, and Leslie.

And thus we spent another night in the canyon.

I told Fritz that I’d seen water up the trail when we came through in the night and I was going to hike back to see if I could refill canteens. He agreed. What I found wasn’t just water. We’d hiked right through a park service campground with water, restrooms, picnic tables, and rustic signs with yellow lettering pointing the direction. We just hadn’t seen it in the night. I returned with water.

In the heat of the afternoon, while the others slept, I absently gathered twigs from around the juniper where we rested. I started putting them together in an elaborate sculpture, balancing one twig on another and building from a small base to a large top like an inverted pyramid. Fritz rolled over in his sleep and kicked it down. It didn’t matter. It was temporal.

Early the next afternoon, we watched as five horses and three horsemen came down the long steep trail into the canyon. We loaded our packs on one horse and Mitzi on the other and the other three of us walked out. Fritz stayed with Mitzi. Leslie and I walked out ahead, being much faster than loaded horses going uphill. We’d been hiking together all summer and even though she was much older than me and was faculty, we’d developed a bit of rapport. She’d even teased me about having to separate Sue and me. Once we crested the canyon ridge, it was a downhill romp all the way to the trailhead and we decided to race the rest of the way to the trucks. I had to keep my hands in my pockets as we ran down the trail to keep my lederhosen from falling down.

We were two days late getting out of the canyon, so we never made it to the Anasazi ruins. We did stop at a trading post somewhere along the line before we crossed back into Colorado and a trader offered me fifty dollars for my hat.

I’ve often wondered about the people I met that summer. Did Ed become a politician? Did Sue get together with Frenchy? I’ve thought of Paul’s explanations of the dreams I’d had that came true. I’ve thought of Leslie’s warning and tempered some of my recklessness. And I’ve thought of emerging from the canyon.

I was changed that summer. It wasn’t radical—at least in my way of thinking. I still fantasized about Joy, but I figured most of the boys in my class did, too. In addition to plays, I started writing poetry that fall. Volumes and volumes of it. Well, if you don’t write poetry when you’re a teenager, you have no heart. And then I quit football. I’ll never forget Coach Hancock’s expression when I said, “Coach, I just don’t think there should be a game like this.” I became progressively more and more a pacifist.

And what does all this have to do with my travels with Angie?

Back to Angie

When we visited the Four Corners Monument and photographed each other with our feet in four different states, I got a special permit to enter Navajo territory. I gave Angie the option of staying in camp, but she wanted to see the place when I told her the story.

I drove up Indian Road 16 in Arizona to Navajo Mountain. As soon as you first see the mountain, the speed limit drops to 45 mph. For thirty miles we watched its incredible hulking presence fill more and more of our field of vision. I drove on up into Utah past the mountain and onto Trailhead Rd. That’s a sand track and we drove out as far as I considered it safe to take the truck. Technically, that trailhead leading to Rainbow Natural Bridge is closed now. We weren’t equipped for backcountry packing. We parked on a promontory overlooking what the newspaper story back then had called ‘the airless canyons.’

I brought my spiritual tools with me and cast a circle. I told the wind, the fire, the rain, and the earth that I was here and it was beautiful.

As I meditated in my circle, I met my younger self emerging from the canyons, whooping up a storm. I found, oddly, that I had no advice for him. It’s his journey. I’ve already been there.

I had a small drum with me and I began to tap out a rhythm. I don’t do it frequently, but I have my own meditation rhythm. Angie and I had listened to hours of Native American flute and drum music as we drove, so no doubt there was some influence on my drumbeats.

I’d pretty much lost track of Angie. I’m afraid I was caught up in my own memories. My attention was caught, however, by a scuffling beside me and her shadow crossing over me. I looked up and as I kept my drumbeats going, Angie danced. She’d been wearing shorts and a bandana top. As she danced, she stripped off the top and used it as a kind of veil to accent her dance. She captured it. The journey. The adventure. The race to freedom. Emerging from the canyons to the mountain. I watched, mesmerized, as this creature of light and sand danced my story and then settled in my lap looking out over the desert.

We camped at Navajo National Monument for nearly a week. It was amazing how little we said during that time.

Of course, we had to stand on a corner in Winslow, Arizona. I actually let Angie drive the truck (without the trailer) down the street and open the door for me to climb in. Then we headed for Santa Fe.

It was getting darn cold at night in the mountains. In fact, it wasn’t always very warm during the day. We drove as far as Taos and camped in a nice RV park with full hookups. I got out the electric heater so I wasn’t burning so much propane and we were toasty warm.

I’d been outside having a smoke and contemplating just how good life is. Not only was I getting a lot of writing done—and I had great prospects for what I was outlining for my new erotic paranormal romance western mystery, Redtail—but I had great company. Every night I held a small goddess in my arms. I touched her breasts and she snuggled her little butt up against my erections until I had to go relieve myself. I was almost glad we hadn’t had sex. What we’d developed was far more than what I ever anticipated.

I finished my cigar and my last sip of wine, and took one last look up into the crystal clear night sky. The next day we’d go across the mountain to the Capulin Volcano. A high mountain pass lay between Taos and the northeastern New Mexican volcano but all reports were that it was clear and open. I walked into the trailer and stopped, stunned.

Angie didn’t notice that I was inside as I slipped my shoes off at the door. She was sprawled out on her back on the bed. Her head was propped up on pillows enough that she could see her iPad. Her left leg was bent with the knee in the air to prop the tablet up so she could read without holding it. Her right leg was spread so far out that her foot dangled off the edge of the bed. One hand was pulling at her nipples while the other was very busy in her pussy. It was obvious that she was near to orgasm.

We tried to allow each other a bit of privacy to take care of those base urges. I knew I should go back outside and let her finish. But it was so beautiful. She was flushed, her shuddering breaths causing a small quake in her breasts. Her hand occasionally abandoned her breast to turn the page on her tablet, but her awareness was limited to the words she was reading and the stimulation of her clit. Tears ran from her eyes.

Her pitch increased and her fingers plunged into her pussy as I watched her. Her nipples looked almost painfully stiff as she pinched and pulled on one and then the other. The tablet rolled off its prop onto the bed as she arched her back and cried out in orgasm. She threw her head back against the pillows and gasped for air.

I’d automatically shed my sweats when I entered the trailer. My rigid cock was leaking lubrication as I continued to helplessly look at her recovering from climax. The tears continued to flow from her eyes.

“Are you all right?” I whispered. She turned her head toward me, making no attempt to cover herself or conceal what had just happened.

“So beautiful,” she said. “So loving. Uncle Ari, touch me. Touch me, please. Make me come again.”

My body moved of its own volition. I was next to her, reaching toward her, before I stopped myself.

“Angie...” My words were cut off when her hand, still drenched with her own juices, wrapped around my cock to spread my own precome. I groaned.

“We’ve been together for a month and a half,” she said. “We’ve been hiding our fantasies from each other. We don’t have to go all the way, but even if we were only seeing each other a couple times a week, we’d have progressed to touching each other by now. Uncle Ari, please touch me and make me come. Please let me touch you.”

She was already doing a pretty good job of touching me. I stretched out on the bed beside her and began stroking her beautiful body. I’d woken up many mornings recently with one of her breasts in my hand and my hard cock lodged against her butt. This seemed more ... deliberate. I kissed her. I’d given her many little kisses on the cheek, forehead, shoulder. In six weeks living together and naked most of the time, I’d never kissed her lips. There was something final about that kind of intimacy. A line that once crossed couldn’t be uncrossed. As I kissed her, I felt the lines dissolve. I explored her body thoroughly with my fingertips and when I found the slick passage between her legs, she arched her back against my hand encouraging me to go deeper as she stroked my cock. The round pebble of her clitoris begged for attention and when I gave it, she came, crying and weeping once again.

“You’d better stop now or I’m going to make a mess,” I said as I felt my balls beginning to contract.

“I wash. Go ahead and make a mess.”

I didn’t need much more encouragement. Another stroke and I was spraying her abdomen. We kissed some more, coming down gradually from our summit and enjoying the afterglow.

“What set you off this evening?” I asked.

“It was so beautiful,” she said. “I read it over and over. Each time I read it, I got more aroused until I just couldn’t contain it any longer.”

“What passage had such a profound effect on you?”

“In Triptych, where Tony places the collar around Wendy’s neck.” Oh yes. I’d taken some flak for that when it was released. Some readers were offended that I’d brought in a character who was submissive and called Tony ‘master’.

“That scene isn’t particularly sexy,” I laughed. I kissed her again. Now that we’d begun, I couldn’t get enough of her lips.

“But it is,” she said. “Tony wasn’t a master. He wasn’t particularly dominant through any of the rest of the story. Even when Wendy needed him to help her choose clothes to wear, he did it in a way that helped her make decisions. And when he put the collar on her, he accepted her. He accepted her for what and who she was, even though it was hard for him to do. It made me realize ... Uncle Ari, you’ve done that for me.”

“Hey, Pudding,” I laughed softly. “You are not a slave in need of a master like Wendy.”

“No. You could have made me into that, but you didn’t. You might not have the title of ‘master’, but in a very real way, you are. You made it very clear from the first night that we would have a relationship built on trust. The punishment you gave me ... You could have fucked me and I’d have been your slave. Instead, you used it to show me I could trust you and that you had to be able to trust me. You broke through my body issues. You got me to run around naked outdoors with other people around. You showed me a bit of your soul up on that rock overlooking the desert. You encouraged me to go off exploring by myself and made me independent. And you’ve shown me love. You ... We might not be ready to have intercourse, but we have a sexual relationship that you’ve allowed me to grow into rather than force upon me. I don’t want us to have to masturbate alone in the dark any longer.”

Is it still called masturbation when it’s someone else’s hand? Or butt. Or mouth? We didn’t get quite that far that night, but my fingers seemed to stay wet in Angie’s juices as we cuddled all night long. For the first time in a long time—possibly since I started this trip—I didn’t wake up early. In fact, after Angie had put me to sleep again with a morning hand job, she actually got up and was humming a tune as she made coffee. I came back to life with the aroma of the blessed brew.

A Long Time Ago: Milkless Latte

In most of my stories, the hero has a coffee addiction. Well, that’s me. When I moved to the Pacific Northwest to work on publishing technology for a big software company, I discovered lattés. Seattle was the home of Starbucks and paying four dollars for a cup of espresso and steamed milk was the norm. So was weight gain.

I was sitting with some of my colleagues—mmm, one of my colleagues. That was during my time with Colette. Irish, about five-three, red hair. Very, very smart, but complained that no one took her seriously because she had big boobs. It wasn’t that they were really so big, but she had a pretty small frame, so they really stuck out under her sweaters. I’m getting sidetracked. I’ll talk about her again sometime. We were drinking coffee and shooting the bull when I came to the sudden realization that...

“I don’t like milk,” I said.

“Then don’t drink it,” Colette answered. Colette always had a simple answer for life’s dilemmas.

“But lattes are full of milk. Drinking coffee flavored milk is the same as drinking milk. It’s the coffee I like.” Colette went to the Starbucks coffee bar that was in every cafeteria in our company and a moment later returned with a tiny cup. She set it down in front of me and waited. “What?”

“It’s a latte without the milk,” she said simply. Espresso! Oh yes!

The only problem with drinking straight espresso is that a shot is only one and a half ounces. That’s great for an energy boost in the middle of the day, but it makes a lousy beverage. I could remember a time in college when I would start a huge pot of coffee in the scene shop in the morning and drink cup after cup all day long. So, I set out to find the perfect brewed coffee.

It took a while, but I discovered Chemex. It wasn’t just the elegant shape of the pot, like an hourglass figure. It even has a nipple. Did you know that James Bond in Ian Fleming’s books used a Chemex pot to brew his coffee? From Russia with Love, 1956: “It consisted of very strong coffee, from De Bry in New Oxford Street, brewed in an American Chemex, of which he drank two large cups, black without sugar.” I got the brewing technique down pretty quickly, but it took a long time to find the right coffee. De Bry went out of business years ago. None the less, Angie was expertly copying my method for brewing a pot of coffee just like I like it.

Hot, strong, and black. Just like God made it.

Or in this case, a goddess.

Just call me Bond, James Bond.

Back to Angie

“We should probably go use the showers before we pack up this morning,” I said. “You, sweet girl, are covered with dried come.”

“And you smell like a pussy,” she laughed. She grabbed her sweats, towel, and shower kit and opened the door. “Ari ... I think we have a problem,” she said.