Chapter 4

I went back to my room, gathered up my few possessions, and moved into Helen’s apartment. It was very clean and surprisingly spacious. She showed me where to hang up my few trousers and had cleared out a couple of drawers for the rest of my clothes. She moved my suitcase into a storage area and came back into the room. Pointing over to her couch, she said we should have a bit of talk. She assured me that contrary to the local lore, she was not promiscuous and really fell hard for me on our first meeting. She had visited her doctor earlier in the day with the thought that we might be headed in a closer connection. After renewing her birth control, she had several vials of blood drawn for verification of her disease-free condition. While she said she trusted me, would I have any objection to going in to submit to the tests too?

My pants were obscenely tented with her revelations, and I quickly agreed to her suggestion. There was no downside for me. I would be her housemate and be expected to earn my keep with both physical labor and whatever else she would need. Of course this would be on the QT but considering that I really didn’t have many other choices, I was happy. We fell into a happy embrace and eventually headed back into her bedroom and her king sized bed. She reached over and produced a cover, whispering that she had hopes of needing it tonight. Wow, this was only getting better in my mind.

Another wakeup blowjob started the morning off right. We cleaned up and had a light breakfast in the apartment. We were both cognizant that there were not unlimited funds available and I asked where she did most of her grocery shopping. While she did some locally at “the largest general store in three counties”, she liked to venture a bit further out to a much better provisioned market about twenty miles away. I offered to make that run to add a greater variety to our meals and save a bit over the local shop. I delicately mentioned that I was almost flat broke since the dearly departed magazine owed me several weeks pay but it didn’t seem likely that was ever going to be forthcoming. She countered that if we both did the housekeeping this morning, we could make a day of it together. This was fine by me so she listed up the chores she’d expect me to do while she did the room make-up herself. This being the slow season, it wasn’t necessary to do full loads of laundry in her commercial washer. What she would really like for me to do this morning was some grounds cleanup after the storm and note any general maintenance items that would need to be looked after.

After spending a backbreaking morning moving branches, some the size of my thigh, I was ready for a cooling shower. Clean and refreshed, I heard the the apartment door open and Helen made her way into the bathroom. Leaning over to kiss her, she pushed me away. She said she was really ripe and didn’t want to dirty me up. I didn’t care, so I bent over and stole a kiss. Helen smiled at my persistence as she stepped into the shower. JT, as he now thought of himself, fixed a couple of sandwiches as Helen tidied herself. She spent a couple of minutes going through the kitchen and pantry to create as thorough a list as possible. Out here in the boonies, it just wasn’t practical to run to the market if something was missing.

With sandwiches and a couple of Dr. Pepper’s in hand, Helen got in behind the wheel and headed off to the carriageway. She pulled off a mile or so down the roadway and turned into the carpark for a small building. She grabbed my hand and led me into her doctor’s office. Twenty minutes later, after being prodded and having blood drawn, we were back on the road. We ate our sandwiches and chatted as the miles melted away. Helen had many questions for her new lover, where he was born, parents, school; all the information that was usually exchanged before the first date. Theirs was a bit of an unconventional romance, so that this just seemed right. He told her of his new self-given nickname, JT, and she thought that fit right in with everyone else in LBC. Helen told JT that she had moved back to LBC after uni and her parent’s passing. He sensed that there seemed to be something else she was not disclosing but he didn’t want to seem like he was being too nosy. He tried to ask her about BB and his stories but she just shrugged her shoulders. She did say that there were many unanswered stories and events that might never be disclosed in their lifetime. This puzzled JT even more. What were the secrets that were so tightly held?

He tried a different approach and, this time, asked if BB was reliable. She said that he was about as reliable and anyone else around here. That answer was about as nebulous as could be. Was no one reliable or was there a different meaning to her answer? He was thinking how to rephrase the question when she slowed down and headed down a ramp. He had lost track of the time and wasn’t paying any attention to the road. This was a much more developed area than he’d encountered so far and it didn’t seem too far away. Thinking back to their conversation, perhaps it was some 20 or 30 miles from Little Beaver Creek. He’d pay better attention on the way back.