Chapter 12

Carlie’s turn:

A few months ago there was a scared, worried girl at a bus station.

Seems like a fairy tale.

A few months ago, a poor little unfortunate princess found herself a prince. He presented her with a weird little castle on stilts next to a lake in Louisiana, married her, and gave her wings.

No, really! WINGS! They might be over seventy years old, bright yellow, and slow, but in my entire high school class I am the only one in possession of a student pilot’s license. I am also in possession of a 4.0 grade point average since I showed up.

And another thing. I have a wedding band, a husband who can support me (but doesn’t need to) and I don’t have a positive pregnancy test or a toddler running around.

I didn’t hide the fact that I was married, nor did I flaunt it. It was known amongst a few close friends, and from there it leaked out.

Naturally, Jessica’s the first to know.

“I won’t be going to school next week,” I told her before the wedding.

“Something wrong?”

“Noooo,” I said. “Something perfectly right. I’m marrying Bob.”

“Uhhh,” she said, exasperation rampant, “Are you bein’ exploited, Carlie?”

“No, Jess. Bob’d never hurt me in any way.”

“He’s too old...”

“Nope,” I said. “He’s perfect. Good to me. YOU said you thought he was good-looking...”

“I didn’t mean marry him.”

“Well, we are gonna...”

“Seriously...”

“I’ve decided...”

“I knew it. You were living there. I knew there was...”

“There hasn’t been, Jess. Swear. I’m a virgin.”

“And you...”

“Have kissed him. That’s all. Even went out of town, stayed in the same hotel room. Nothing. He respects me and he respects the institution.”

“And you’re marrying him. Like in ‘forever’.”

“Yes, I am.”

“When?”

“As soon as HE asks me. It won’t be long. Then we have some legal things. But next week.”

“He hasn’t asked yet?”

“I know he wants to. He’s scared. Trying to be honorable about me bein’ there. I think the honorable thing is for us to get married. He’ll do it.”

By the time the week was over, the news was all around school.

I picked Jess up Monday morning.

“Girl, you’re sooooo pregnant...”

“I am?”

“Gotta be right. It’s the consensus.”

But I wasn’t pregnant, showed up at school every day, smiled at people, even a few that didn’t actually rate smiles. I did my work, helped out a few who wanted help. But social life? That begins when the bell rings at the end of the day. It’s almost always Jess and me. Occasionally we’ll drag another.

“So is today a flying day?” Jess asked me.

“Yep. Instructor’s gonna meet me after I drop you off and get to the airport.”

“You got a problem with me comin’ along, watchin’? Never saw anybody learning to fly.”

“Tell you what – today’s a day I don’t fly MY plane. I can call Bob, have him meet us there, if you want to go up in my airplane.”

“Your airplane. That’s just cool...” she laughed.

“Yeah, when people think it’s a Gulfstream or something. Seventy-year-old Cubs are another thing. Nobody knows what I’m talking about.”

Jess got her airplane ride. I’m on track right now. Instructor says I’m ready to go. All I have to do is stay proficient until I turn seventeen, then I get my private license. In the meantime, I can go drag the old airplane out and fly by myself, but that seldom happens. Sometimes I make Bob sit in the front seat because I like flying from the back seat, like I do when I’m solo.

Only time I’m solo, though, is for specific training purposes. I learned to fly because Bob opened that path for me. He’s who I’m meant to fly with.

We got crazy, flew down to the coast, landed on an isolated stretch of beach. Romantic walks on the beach? Did it. Pulled a silly little tent, a couple of sleeping bags, an air mattress and a meal out of our hats to camp overnight.

Bad idea. Salt water makes you sticky. Uncomfortable. But we did it and we laughed about doing it together. We flew back home, put the Cub away, drove madly to the house.

I can’t ever remember a shower being more welcome as we sluiced the salt off ourselves.

Spent the rest of the day naked. Had nothing to do with salt.

“Okay, the salt water’s a mistake, baby,” I laughed. “But try this on for size.”

“What?”

“No water. Desert. We work our way west. Figure out an itinerary, call up the airport, tell ‘em to expect a UPS package from us. That’ll be a couple of days’ supplies. We fly there, taking a couple of days like we did, camping. Get our fresh stuff, ship the old stuff home.”

“One problem, Sunshine,” he said. “You’re a student. By the time school’s out, the desert’ll be too hot to be fun...”

“So we’ll do a little one for spring break...”

Come spring break, we did exactly that. Little country airports. The only criteria was they had to have an FBO so we could buy fuel and they could receive and send packages. Most of them just smiled when they found out that we were air-camping in a J-3 Cub.

“Like something out of the fifties,” one old guy said. He pointed out the waterhose. “Nobody around after I leave, most evenings,” he said. “We ain’t got a shower, but you’re welcome to the hose. And I’ll leave you a key to the office so you can use the restrooms.”

“We’ll wait until you show up tomorrow,” Bob said.

“Nah, if you wanna leave early, just slide the key under the door.”

“Well thank you, sir,” Bob said.

Nice thing is that springtime is when the desert blooms. Air is crisp, necessitating zipping two sleeping bags together and doing power snuggling. There are other ways to generate heat as well.

Oh yeah, sex hasn’t slowed down a bit. If anything, we’re more into each other now. It’s almost like breathing to us. Oh, I love it. It’s us in our most basic level, no set time nor place, but honestly, the ones in bed are really the best. The guy has mastered me. He knows about the little spots just above my nipples, the ones behind my ears. And below my waist, there’s this thing he does with his tongue that has me bucking like a rodeo horse in three minutes.

Of course, there’s the converse. I can render him catatonic. Ask him about getting sucked off in the middle of the lake when the fish weren’t biting. Well, if the fish wouldn’t, then Carlie certainly would.

“Somebody could’ve seen us, baby...”

“Oh, sure,” I said, making a show of wiping a non-existent drop from the corner of my mouth. “Now you complain...”

“Well ... Okay, stinker. Wow! Just holy wow! I adore you, and it’s stuff like this...”

I giggled. “You finally admit that you married me for sex.”

“Never said I didn’t, darlin’,” he smiled. “Just so you realize there are OTHER things. But this was memorable.”

“I bet so. How many times in a man’s life does he expect to get blown in the middle of the lake?”

“I can die happy,” he sighed.

“Oughta get a boat with a cabin. I think water makes me horny.”

“There’s NO WAY we’re gonna get our bare asses showin’ out here,” he declaimed.

Fifteen minutes later.

“There WAS a way...” I sighed. “Now I got goop all up in my panties.”

I started the boat’s little outboard up, heading us back home. Poor Bob. He’s still sitting there shaking his head.

Hard to talk over the buzz of the outboard. We put the boat away and I walked up the stairs. I think I was squelching. Bob was behind me because “You have no idea how mad I used to get at myself for watching your heinie climbing stairs.”

Door closed. “Shower!” I said.

“Next time you accost me in the middle of the lake, make sure we have more paper towels or something,” he laughed, stripping down.

Love him in the shower with me. Soap and water enhance the worship of my body by loving hands. Reciprocal.

Hot shower. Best way to cool off is to lay out on the bed, completely naked.

Tuned. We’re tuned to each other’s wavelength. We lay flat, side by side for a bit, cooling off, then his fingertips touch mine.