Chapter 150

“For mad I may be, but I will never be convenient.”
—Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

IF IT WEREN’T FOR HAVING RACHEL cuddled next to me in the back seat of Betty’s car, I’d almost regret not driving. It was a long way from Fort Wayne to Lawrence, Kansas for the Kansas Renaissance Festival. Cindy sat next to Rachel and her head was on my hand as she leaned against us. Sophie sat in front next to Betty. Our two documentarians plus Brittany and Desi rode with Donna. Riko and Riley were in hog heaven as they drove out together in the truck with all the merchandise. They’d left two days before the rest of us. Beca had elected to spend the two weeks we were gone with Joan in Chicago. Nanette was working and holding down the fort at the farmhouse. She was going to go up to see Beca and Joan over the weekend.

Livy, of course, had left for service on the fourteenth, eight days before we left for Kansas. They had been pretty weepy days for Rachel. And the rest of us.

I was thankful Betty had agreed to drive. It gave all of us who were teens the opportunity to pretend we weren’t adults and let someone else be responsible. Of course, we all took our turns driving. Still, it was like we had a parent in the car. I’m not so sure Donna felt that way, driving four teenagers across four states.

“Will you make love to me tonight?” Rachel whispered in my ear.

“Of course I will,” I said giving her a little kiss. “How many rooms do we have? Will we have company?”

“Probably. I don’t mind, as long as you fill me and hold me. I didn’t think I’d miss her so much so soon.”

“Until you leave to start basic yourself, it’s likely to be that way,” I sighed. “Once you start, I’m sure you won’t have time to think of any of us.”

“Oh? That’s not what Joan or Emily said,” Rachel said. “But we’ll survive. Sometimes I wish I’d chosen the same induction date but I want to see Emily before I go.”

“It won’t be long now.”

We rode halfway across Missouri in relative silence before pulling in to the same Colony Inn we’d used last year. We piled into three rooms with Cindy and her mom in one and the other six of us split between two rooms with two queen beds. Our agreement with the videographers, of course, indicated they’d have private rooms. Laura and Leon weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend so it wasn’t like they could share. It would be a lot more casual when we got to the faire, since we’d be camped out in tents rather than in a hotel. Even Betty had agreed to camp out, having discovered last year in Kentucky it wasn’t that bad. I could see a glint in Cindy’s eye, though, that indicated she would not be spending every night in her mother’s tent. Even if we were making love in the big tent, Cindy wanted to be with us.

I made love to Rachel in one bed of our room. Brittany and Sophie occupied the other and Donna and Desi were in the other room. We were all quiet and went to sleep pretty quickly.

We were up early in the morning and after a quick breakfast were back on the road. Cindy and I switched cars with the videographers so we could talk program with Desi and Donna. Betty was a little miffed and I found out Cindy had slipped out of her room last night and spent the night with Donna and Desi.

We got in Thursday afternoon, set up camp, and refreshed our memory of where things were in the Renaissance Village. We had a new venue. After our successful circuit last year, we were promoted to the Queen’s Commons Stage at the heart of the village. We had forty minutes every two hours. We’d probably not be doing as much touring around the village singing and dancing as we had last year.

We put some more structure around the Shakespearean Twins theme from last year and would be using that for our performances. There was a lot of silliness involved, but some good music, too. Since we’d be doing the show so often, there was a little less improv involved, though we all had our moments. I was working with my practice guitar. The acoustics weren’t great working outdoors, so I didn’t feel compelled to bring a $20,000 guitar to the site. Or even a $3,000 guitar.

As soon as we were set up in the campsite, we headed over to the stage and got some practice time in. Donna really took to directing us and could pull lines out of thin air if we needed something extra. She got Laura and Leon positioned and even had them come up to get in on the action at one point. Riko and Riley had costumes for them as well. When we’d run things through, we sat on the stage and discussed it. If it came out as well on tape as I thought it did in person, we got some good cuts of our creative process to put in the special.

We started to lose patrons toward the end of May when they discovered we wouldn’t be producing a full program in June or July but when we started posting snippets of our rehearsals and process once a week, we gained share again. We were up over 1,500 subscribers now and it was a good thing since we were paying a modest salary and expenses for Laura and Leon, plus all our own expenses.

My two video classmates were fitting right in with the pod and with Riko and Riley. They worked as hard as any of us but were obviously having fun. I could see working with them long term, though I didn’t think they’d really fit as part of the pod. They were a little too competitive with each other. They even set up their tents on opposite sides of the site. It didn’t interfere with their work, though, so I paid little attention to the drama.

The festival opened slowly at three o’clock Friday afternoon. There were only about fifteen in the audience for our first performance at five, but more than double that for the seven o’clock show. It gave us a chance to gauge how an audience would respond to our antics and test the material.

The Saturday shows had people rushing from the entrance to be at our stage for the eleven o’clock show in the morning. After five shows, we’d been in front of something like 400 people. Donna and Sophie counted out a thousand dollars in tips. Betty agreed to take over the accounting and lock the money in the trunk of her car at night. It sounds like a lot but with six people performing and four on our crew it wouldn’t cover expenses. Especially since we performed four times Sunday and then were off for four days before we started up the holiday weekend.

We took Monday off and did some sightseeing, including going over to the university and wandering around campus. It was a relaxed day and we bought ice cream for dessert around the campfire, promising we would eat it all that night so it wouldn’t melt. We just didn’t have the kind of cooler space to keep ice cream frozen.

And after we’d eaten and sat around the campfire relaxing, we parted and went to our tents. We had a pretty big tent to accommodate the six pod mates. There were two ‘bedrooms’ and a central room where we kept our gear. We only used one bedroom with two huge air mattresses covering all the floor space. The weather was plenty warm enough not to need more than light blankets and each other for heat.

I stretched out in the darkness knowing some one or more of my mates would join me and not being concerned about which it would be. I was in a tent with five naked women and would be happy with whichever slept beside me. It turned out that Donna cuddled into my arms and we had a quiet amorous time together. There were times when Donna was still caught up in her responsible adult mode and it spilled over on how she interacted with the rest of us. She was a schoolteacher, owned a farm, and produced and directed our shows. I think she relished the moments when all the lights were out and she could simply let go of all those responsibilities and be a lover to her mates.

This was certainly such a time. We didn’t have to be up early in the morning and didn’t rush ourselves as we kissed, petted, and ultimately slid our bodies together. And being in Donna was always a sensual experience like no other. Her unique shape let me penetrate more deeply in her than in any of my other girlfriends. When she pulled her legs back at the knees to give me full access to her hot center, I felt like I could fall into her forever. And the deeper I drove, the more active she became in sucking me in.

Eventually sated, we lay on our sides whispering little love words to each other as I continued to pet the beautiful breasts that had attracted me even seventy years ago. It was so much better now that they were bare.

“Can I cuddle with you now, too?” a voice behind me asked. Cindy? “I mean, I didn’t want to interrupt. It was really pretty. Not that I could see, but I could tell what you were doing.”

“Cindy? When did you come into this tent?”

“With everyone else. I told Mom I needed to be with my pod. I think she’s finally beginning to understand.”

“Of course you can cuddle,” I said, correcting my initial shock and welcoming our youngest girlfriend. “Um ... I’m kind of naked. Let me get a pair of shorts on.”

“Don’t bother. I’m kind of naked, too,” she giggled. She cuddled up to my side under my arm and for the first time, I felt Cindy’s bare breasts against my skin. “Watching and listening to you two, I had to take care of my own urges. Now I’m all sleepy.”