Chapter 7

OK, so we got through Christmas and New Year's, and, remarkably, neither Tess nor Kim made much of a fuss about going for eight consecutive days without playing a round of golf. Oh, there was a putting green in the Henderson's back yard, and they putted -- or puttered -- around out there in the chill of early January, but nothing serious.

I kept expecting the other shoe to drop in connection with the Great Kim Joint-Seduction, but nothing kept happening. Tess and I were openly sharing her bedroom while I stayed with her in her parents' home, although there was a separate "guest room" set aside for me across the hall. Nobody seemed to be concerned that the bed in there was always neatly made when the housekeeper came around each morning.

But Kim (who had her own guest room, just down the hall from mine) was still sleeping alone. Poor baby! Roy, Junior had never made his move, and after the holidays, he had said his goodbyes and was out of the picture. If we stayed around Chapel Hill for the entire month of January, we'd likely see him again. But although his relationship with Kim was warm and cordial, there was no hint (any longer) that he was interested in advancing the ball. There wasn't going to be any ball.

I could have asked Tess for a status update -- not about Junior -- about Kim, I mean, but I continued to pretend that I just wasn't all that interested.

Of course, I was interested, but I wasn't exactly sex-starved, either. Tess, unable to work off her excess energies on the golf course, was wearing me out in the sack, instead. In the darkness of virtually every pre-dawn winter morning, I would awaken to find myself receiving still-another go-to-hell blowjob. Tess knew I loved coming awake with my dick in her mouth, and she didn't often disappoint.

I was just spoiled rotten. It didn't get much better than this. Tess may have been eager for the golf tour's schedule to get underway, but I was doing just fine, right there in Chapel Hill.

When I wasn't getting laid, I tried to make myself useful around the Henderson household. I would perform little chores and the odd repair for Tess' mom, or do a little light shopping, and I took on a winter pool-cleaning that turned out to be a bigger, uglier job than I had anticipated. That little indiscretion on my part ended up involving five days of hard labor. The Henderson family was appropriately appreciative, but it was a dumb thing for me to have taken on.

I mean, it wasn't like Roy, Senior couldn't afford to hire a contractor to clean his empty pool.

Still, all this volunteerism made me feel a little better about freeloading for so long, and about balling their daughter right under their noses. The elder Hendersons were perfectly cordial to me, nowadays, but I could kind-of tell that they still didn't think of me as first-rate future son-in-law material.

Life was easy, for those early January days, but I knew it couldn't last, and it didn't. One Sunday afternoon Tess called Kim and me together over the dining room table and passed out sets of computer print-outs to both of us, keeping a third, apparently identical, set for herself.

"This is the tour schedule," she told us. "We gotta make our initial plans. We have to decide which of the early tournaments we're going to try to compete in, and start working out the logistics."

I looked over the schedule. Of course, we all were aware already that the Tour would begin with two consecutive weeks in Hawaii. We'd have to be over there from at least February 13 (two days before the beginning of the SBS Open) until the second Hawaiian tournament, the Fields Open, ended on February 24.

Well, eleven days in Hawaii wasn't exactly my idea of rough duty, but it would be expensive from the standpoint of overhead.

Kim anticipated Tess' question and assured us that she had the necessary wherewithal to cover her own expenses for the time we'd spend on the Islands. However, Kim planned to save money by living in a little less luxury than Tess probably would. Kim was right: Tess was planning to be "comfortable" -- meaning she'd spend a small fortune on accommodations at the two tournament locales.

Meanwhile, Kim would no doubt be searching out the Oahu equivalent of the "Traveling Lodge." Tess, of course, offered to subsidize Kim to the extent necessary for her to stay with us, but -- not surprisingly -- Kim declined the offer.

Maybe Kim's attitude would change, I thought, if the Great Seduction were to take place between here and there.

Tess also announced, right there at the dining room table, that she didn't plan to play in the Master Card Classic, scheduled for Mexico City beginning March 9. Kim did intend to play there, but would have almost two weeks break between the Hawaiian events and the Mexico City tournament.

"Let's drive the RV to Arizona," Tess suggested. "We can fly to Hawaii from there. The Safeway International is going to be at Superstition Mountain, Arizona. We can fly back to Phoenix from Honolulu, and stay there, in Phoenix, between tournaments. Kim -- Phoenix would be a reasonable jumping-off point for you to fly down to Mexico City, too, and you could meet us again, when you came back."

"Why are you sitting out Mexico City?" I asked Tess. "You're champing at the bit to get started now, but after those two weeks in Hawaii, you're going to have almost four weeks off, before that Arizona tournament."

"Four weeks?" Tess said, consulting her schedule more closely. "Yikes! You're right!... I was assuming these events were all stacked on top of each other, and I wanted a week off before the Superstition Mountain tournament. But I don't need -- or want -- that much time off!"

Kim had, evidently, studied the events calendar with greater care on an earlier occasion. "Not only are those early events not stacked up," she said, "but there's plenty of break time, both before and after Mexico City. We can play all five of the LPGA tournaments that are scheduled for February through the end of March, without putting too many physical demands on us at all!"

"That fifth event is the Nabisco," Tess pointed out. "That's going to be our first LPGA major."

"So?" Kim said. "It's being held in Southern California, and we've got four days between the Arizona tournament and the Nabisco. We can do it!"

"Do you want to drive the RV to Mexico City?" Tess asked me.

"I don't think we should," I said. "It's a long, long drive from Phoenix, and I don't know much about the facilities down there, or the roads, or anything. I also barely know enough Spanish to get by. Let's just fly, and rent a car down there."

So it was agreed. We also agreed that both Tess and Kim would sit out the Ginn Open -- scheduled after the Nabisco -- because it was in Florida, clear across the country.

"Who in the world set up this tour schedule?" Tess complained. "Just look at it! After the Nabisco -- in California, the very next event is in Florida. Then, the next one's back in Mexico, again! And then Oklahoma!"