Chapter 31: Arizona II

“I’ve never done what we did last night before,” Trish said in a sheepish tone.

“Fucked a stranger?” Dave sounded surprised.

“Well, not that way. I’d meet guys that I was going to do a porn flick with and we’d be fucking a few minutes later, but I mean as a ‘civilian’ ... somebody not in the industry that I’d then fuck right away. I liked Jeff. Come to think of it, I didn’t know any of the band members at the After Party. I guess I’m still a super-slut.”

“You kind of fucked me on our first date – our first appointment. I am really glad and you seem to be.” He chuckled.

“It didn’t feel like a first date with you. I knew Alice, and she told me even more about you than I’d learned from the TV series. She had me read Cricket’s book, too. You were featured in it. When I knocked on your door, I knew you were a sure thing if I could only seduce you. Alice made some suggestions; nudity was a key element to your seduction apparently.”

“Regrets?”

“Oh, God, no. I’m in love with you, plus you’re going to change my whole life. Do you know that when I pause and think about what I’m feeling, besides love for you, I feel myself expanding like a balloon filling with helium to sail into deep space? I’m growing, I’m getting smarter, I’m feeling more expansive about life and love for other people, I’m ... better, every minute that passes.”

“That’s good. It’ll pass, and you’ll feel the need to integrate all those feelings into your life more. Then you’ll find some other opportunity or meet someone, and all that will start up again.”

“But YOU made it happen for me. You’re making it happen for me. That just makes me love you that much more. What can I ever do to repay you? I’ll do anything you can think of.”

“Don’t repay me. Pay it forward.”

“Huh?”

“After you feel you’re on solid ground on your own, reach out and help someone else. Make it specific so you are directly giving something of value to you to another person – maybe your time to help them in some way. This isn’t about sending money to a charity. Do something for someone you’ve met. Make sure it takes them in a good direction – something that helps and lasts in their lives. Education does that, but there are many other things including lasting friendship and love. Find a way and do it. Pay it forward and tell them to do the same.”

“Thank you. I will. That just makes me more excited about this journey. I know I’m going to love the Circle and everyone there.”

“I got you a little gift.”

“You did? When?”

“While you were in the shower, I booked you into the spa for the afternoon. They’re going to pamper the devil out of you all afternoon – manicure, pedicure, exfoliation, mud pack, and a few other things I’m told women like, including, so you might have the experience – a massage. I have to go in town and meet up with the band for a rehearsal session for the afternoon.”

“What are we doing tonight?”

“I think Jeff wants to plunder your hot little body again. He said his brother and his wife were coming to stay with them, too; thus, there’ll be at least a couple of new players. If you don’t want to, we can bow out.”

Dave looked at Trish to gage her feelings and response.

Trish smiled with a saucy expression, “I liked being naughty. Let’s get together with them and fuck like bunnies. If you didn’t like Barb, I can say skip it, however.”

“Barb was nice. She’s got great tits, the best money could buy she said. I don’t know about her sister-in-law.”

“Artificial tits?”

“Still great.”

They both laughed.

Dave and Trish changed hotels on Friday to one in downtown Phoenix to be with the rest of the band the night before the Saturday concert. Trish met more band members and discovered a new intimacy with many of friends she’d already made. Friday things weren’t as raucous, and everyone seemed to head to bed around eleven p.m.

Dave got Jeff, Barb, his brother Steve and wife Victoria VIP tickets. They also appreciated meeting the band and attending the Pre-Concert Orgy, as well as the After Party. Barb was a big hit – so were her tits, which would be talked about for weeks, Dave felt sure. He’d got their contact information in Austin for when he had a concert there. They wanted him to stay at their house and promised a great visit.

Dave Prentiss and The Hawks had a Wednesday evening concert in Tucson. He rode south from Phoenix on his bike on Sunday, with Trish following in her new Honda CRV loaded with all her belongings. She stayed the following four nights with him and they made sweet love and bonded in a large way.

The Wednesday night concert had been at the University of Arizona’s McKale Center. The place was a sellout – fifteen thousand fans. Dave and the band stayed at the Tucson Marriott University Park. The suites were more like upscale rooms without the square footage or luxury furniture. The band took one wing on the upper floor; later that became their party area.

The After Party was as raunchy as ever. Dave didn’t personally pick anybody worthy of bringing to the party from the crowd of fans. The woman he brought on stage to sing a love song to turned out to be a gray-haired grandmother. The audience seemed to love the contrast to the women he usually picked. He didn’t even offer the party to her, although the lively woman with sparkling eyes might have attended.

Trish headed east for Sarasota and the Circle on Thursday morning, after the concert After Party the night before. Dave had armed her with fist full of cash and instructions for her safe travels – good restaurants and safe, brand name motels, and safe gas stops. The parting from Dave was a teary event in the morning. Her crying made him cry. He promised he’d be seeing her again and off she went to her new life.

When Dave got back to his room in the hotel after bidding goodbye to Trish, he found a note on hotel stationery slipped under his small suite’s door. The note was hand printed and said, ‘Stay and have lunch at 1:00 p.m. at the pool bar. Important.’ There was no indication who sent the note. Since it was already ten a.m., he decided to just have some coffee in the room and skip breakfast. He exercised in the hotel gym instead.

Dave went to the pool bar and got a seat about ten minutes early. He ordered a diet coke and nursed it, wondering what would happen or who would appear.

At exactly one, someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and gasped in a whisper. “Wendy – oh, my God.” Tears of joy immediately came to his eyes as he hugged her. She put a finger on his lips and hushed him.

“Ssssssh. Quiet. Don’t call attention to us or our meeting. Come with me.” She looked around to see if anybody had noticed. They hadn’t.

Dave signed his bar tab, and followed Wendy out of the hotel. There was a car illegally parked at the curb, and she walked around a got into the driver’s seat. She gestured to the passenger door, and Dave got in. As soon as the door closed, she sped away from the curb and made an immediate turn onto some side streets. She wove back and forth through streets and even an alley, and then got on a major thoroughfare and followed traffic to the north.

Dave was all questions, but finally just studied Wendy Connor – Dev’s wife. The wife that had been plucked out of the Circle years earlier by some clandestine government agency for her and her family’s protection because of some deed her husband had done while on a mission. He was on death’s door in a Houston hospital after that happened, shot repeatedly as he escaped from whatever mischief he’d done.

Wendy said, “Dev and Sharon both want me to wait and we’ll tell you together what’s been happening in our lives. We have a home in a suburb here – Oro Valley.” The gorgeous blonde hadn’t changed much; her hair was longer, a different shade – redder, and the large sunglasses hid part of her face. Her beauty remained as evident as ever.

Dave still probed, “He pulled through all that shit, last I knew he was on death’s door from being shot up?”

“He pulled through, although there are some scars and damage to prove it. You’ll see. Moreover, you will find that Willow Ray has grown considerably. She’s very smart and is now a tween – fourteen years old. She was your first child in the Circle.” She smiled at him.

“Does she know what happened?”

“She does and she remembers the Circle all too fondly. We have not told her about you being her father. Maybe someday. She’s promised herself to go back there someday. There are other options in the wind, but it’s too early to talk with her about them.”

Wendy shifted the conversation to Dave, “So, I’m listening to the radio about a year or so ago, and suddenly a duet comes on of Ashley Steerman and Dave Prentiss singing Texas Dawn. I only know one Dave Prentiss, and I only knew one Ashley Steerman, and the odds of the two of them singing together were pretty low when I had to leave the Circle. So, I find you changed careers in a big way.”

Dave chuckled, “She got me singing in a rehearsal, and then a few days later on stage I did pretty well. I guess the rest is history. I’ve been surprised as anyone.”

“Pretty well? What an understatement. You have two recordings in the top ten, and from what I can tell your concerts are all sell-outs. We joined your fan club, so I know you’re on a cross-country trip on the motorcycle your girls all bought you. That’s how we found you after a little detective work about where the concert entourage stayed.”

“And I guess you saw that I had a concert appearance?”

“Dev, Sharon, and I were there with Willow. We were in the back of the crowd, but there. You’re good – very entertaining. That girl that sang with you, Shiloh, was super, too.”

“I discovered her almost the same way Ashley discovered me,” he explained.

Wendy pulled into an upscale neighborhood, and then into the driveway of a home that really deserved the term hacienda. It was very Spanish in its architectural style and laid out on one story. They got out of the car in a carport and walked into the house.

Dev got up from a living room chair as they entered the room. Tears came to Dave’s eyes and the men hugged and slapped each other on the back. “God, I’ve missed you.” Dave cried.