Chapter 661

A Luxury Hotel in Berlin Germany Continued

Six Weeks Earlier

...”Look,” Phillip said, “I know that you seemed to be getting along with her now that she’s been with the Matthews for a while, but a phone conversation every month or six weeks isn’t the same as living with her.”

“I know that,” Dessie hastily agreed, “but we seem to be gaining. Lately, I haven’t felt retarded while talking to her the way I used to when we were a family.”

“Baby, we were never...”

Phillip was interrupted by the suite’s door chimes.

Dessie jumped to her feet. “Oh, I hope that’s our delivery,” she gushed as she hurried over to check the security camera. A second later, she snatched the door open to find the concierge standing there smiling, along with two porters and a delivery person. One porter was pushing a cart piled high with equipment while the delivery person and the other porter had their arms full of boxes.

“The articles you purchased at the sporting goods store have arrived,” Charles said unnecessarily. “Would you prefer them in your suite, or shall I have them placed in storage until they are needed?”

“Oh, no. We have to plan, so we definitely want them here in our suite,” Dessie gushed as she stepped on her husband’s foot while hurriedly backing to open the door to its widest. She didn’t have to look to know that Phillip was frowning at her exuberance in front of the people who brought up the items, let alone having his foot stepped on.

“Oh, don’t be an old stick in the mud,” she whispered to him as the little cadre of people, all, except for the concierge, pushing a cart or carrying merchandise as they filed into the sitting room of the extensive suite.

Although Dessie motioned to the area where she wanted the merchandise to go, Charles, the concierge, repeated and expanded on her instructions, arranging and neatening things to his liking, much to Phillip’s amusement.

Discreetly, Phillip handed sufficient money to the concierge to take care of the tips for the group, while wondering how much Charles would keep for himself.

When the commotion was over, and they were alone again, Phillip stood grinning as he took in the volume of “necessary” backpacking equipment strewn about the room, supposedly in some kind of order.

“Don’t you dare say anything,” Dessie said before her husband could comment. “A lot of that is yours. Besides, we have a base where most of it will stay until we have a use for it.”

“I have a feeling that our first backpacking trip will be cut short.”

“Why?” Dessie asked with a frown as she began moving boxes, apparently searching for something.

“Because we’ll want to go back to the castle, rest up and lighten our packs.”

“Oh, poo. Both of us are in reasonably good shape. We’ll be sore for a few days, but we’ll get used to it. Besides, we’ve done this before — many times.”

“Yeah,” he responded, chuckling, “twenty-plus years ago. I don’t know how much loving you’re going to get out of me after I lug that backpack all day.”

“Who says we have to hike all day?” she asked rhetorically as she unfolded a large map of the area she had gotten from somewhere. A moment later, they were kneeling on the floor as she indicated places on the map.

“Where did you get this?” Phillip asked.

“I saw an advertisement in a backpacking magazine just after we had our initial conversation about the general area we were considering for our hikes. I thought a hard copy of the detailed map of the area might come in handy, since we probably won’t have access to the net once we are in the mountains. I want to get off the main hiking trail to someplace that is pretty as well as secluded — the way we used to do. I really think we’re going to enjoy ourselves,” she said, almost bubbling with enthusiasm.

“The main trail stays in the foothills and valleys while passing through several small towns and villages. From what I can see on Google Earth and this map, the area farther toward the mountains is heavily forested and quite rugged, with numerous streams throughout, which will surely mean waterfalls. We’ll take our time exploring the area until we find the perfect place to stay for a few days.”

“Are you sure you hadn’t rather go skiing in the Alps? We haven’t been in a couple of years.”

She glared at him. “I hope you’re kidding. I am nowhere near ready to go skiing again. I can still see that tree coming at me after that drunk ran me off the trail. He should never have been on the slopes drunk.”

She stared at her husband. “A week after I got hurt, I went to have my hair done. When I got back and met you at that lounge, someone was being loaded into an ambulance, and he looked like the drunk who ran me into the tree. I didn’t get a good look at his face, but both of his arms were being supported as they put him into the ambulance. It just seems like too much of a coincidence, and I still think you had something to do with it. But, Margie and Jim both swear you were with them at the lounge for the last hour. Darnit, Baby, tell me the truth.”

“He hurt you and smirked about it,” Phillip said as a frown crossed his face. “Margie and Jim are good friends, but I was never even asked about his broken arms, so they didn’t have to lie to keep me from going to jail,” he said, his expression cold.

“So, you did do it,” she exclaimed.

“No,” he said firmly. “He fell on the ice.”

“Well, you are going to get some thank-you pussy tonight, anyway.”

“That might be hard to turn down, thank-you pussy or not,” he said with an odd look on his face.

She kissed him with force, folded the map and bounced down on the couch, causing her breasts to jiggle even with her bra on. “Oh, Phil, I can’t remember when I’ve been this excited.”

“Not even when that French guy pulled out his thick ten inches?”

Dessie lost her smile. “That’s crude, and you darn sure know that I wouldn’t let him come near me with that thing. Besides, you disappeared for three days with that actress. And you admitted having sex with her without a condom.”

“I had changed jackets and didn’t have condoms with me. That stupid hotel she picked didn’t have any, either, and they couldn’t seem to get any delivered. She didn’t want me to leave to find a place to buy some and even insisted on having our meals in the room because she didn’t want her public to see her out with someone that wasn’t her boyfriend. I explained everything to you and went to be tested first thing. I wore a condom with you until I was certain I was disease-free. But back to Big Dick. If you didn’t fuck him, why did you walk funny for the next couple of days after I got back?”

“I had sex with the other two guys — just not him. That thing would have split me open. Besides, I’ve spent far too many hours with Kegel exercises to throw it all away by being stretched out by that thing. As for the other guys, each of them was normal in size. And I did not walk funny.”

“But, you’re still looking, Dessie, and you know it.”

“I am not. I can’t help but flirt a little, but I am not looking for sex outside our marriage — not anymore. I’ll keep our agreement just as I said. What about you? Do you have any regrets about the agreement? I saw you checking out that little sexpot in the lobby.”

“I barely remember her, but I just noticed her as I would any good-looking woman. I did not check her out, and likewise, I’ll keep our bargain.”

“Our youngest daughter... alluded to our lifestyle during our last conversation. At least, I think she did. But, believe it or not, she was very subtle, indeed. Certainly not normally one of her strong points — at least before now.”

He just looked at her. “I don’t even know how to respond to that. So ... shall we trial-load our backpacks?”

Thirty minutes later, they slumped on the couch together as they stared at their first attempts.

“If we’re going to stay out for a week on our first trip, we’ll have to take everything that’s in our backpacks. The problem is, they’re already full now, and we don’t have a single thing to eat in them yet,” she said with a frown as she motioned to the stacks of trail food sitting nearby.

“Looks as if we’ll have to make a trip to pick up a dolly,” Phillip said, unperturbed. “Damn, they had a nice two-wheel one with tall wheels that should make it easy to pull over roots and rough places. I knew I should have gotten the thing.”

“So, call the store and have them send it out.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that,” he agreed.

“Oh, and that reminds me. I need to add the extra M&Ms to the trail mix, which means a trip to the grocery store in the morning. We’ve never used that brand of trail mix before, but it seems to have everything in it that we like except for the M&Ms.”

“Those two big jars should feed us for a month without us ever touching our trail food, and that’s before you add the M&Ms,” he joked.

“Not with the way you eat it, remember.”

“Well, it’s full of energy, and we don’t get nearly as hungry if we munch on trail mix all day. But it wouldn’t be our trail mix without M&Ms. Be sure to get the assorted ones, though.”

“Don’t I always? I like them in our trail mix as much as you do, and don’t worry, there will be plenty. Shall we continue our tradition with steak for one of our first hiking meals? I can’t imagine that the manager at the castle would not allow us to keep a couple of steaks in his freezer overnight.”

“Sounds great. A steak grilled over a crackling fire in the woods always tastes better than anything in the best restaurants.” Phillip leaned forward and rummaged through his backpack to pull out the solar charger. “We need to make sure this works before we get two days down the trail and find it doesn’t,” he reasoned.

“How are you going to test it?”

“This one has a meter on it, so all I have to do is step out into the sunlight.”

A few minutes later, he came back from the balcony with a grin on his face. “Works fine. We have plenty of batteries, and with this, we should have power when we need it — if there’s sufficient sunshine. Where are our homemade fire starters? I threw in a pack of butane lighters just in case,” he admitted with a sheepish grin.

“One of the lint tubes is near the top in each of our cases. I also put a pack of candles in the left pocket in each of our packs, but I can’t believe you would put in lighters on a supposed primitive backpacking trip.” Before he could comment, she said, “Good. I hate to try to start a fire in the rain no matter how hot the sparks are supposed to be, but I made sure that we each have a fire striker in our pack.”

“Rain gear?”

“There,” Phillip said, pointing. “I’m glad we decided on camo instead of that neon orange we looked at.”

“Those will be useful,” she agreed. “I think it’s somehow guaranteed that there will be rain just about any time we are in or even near mountains — remember? The mountains certainly look green at the base, so you know there has to be a good amount of rainfall. You did get rechargeable batteries, didn’t you?” she asked.

“I got both, and way more than we’ll ever need,” he said, pointing to packages of standard batteries in varying sizes, then other packs of rechargeable batteries, “but we can leave the extras at the castle.”

“I can’t wait to try out our new cookware,” she said with a smile as she pointed to their mess kit and coffeepot. The two large cups that could double as soup bowls fit inside the coffee pot, and all the pieces of the mess kit fit into one unit.