Chapter 6

When we woke up the next morning, nothing at all was mentioned about the little sexual interlude I'd awakened to at three that morning. We quickly finished our morning ablutions, dressed, and headed off to the storage locker to begin our separate workday.

I felt really good all day, working on opening up new outlets starting from just before nine that morning, and not quitting work until a little past seven that evening. I'd made two trips back to the storage place to get new product during the day. The first had been a normal stop after I'd gotten low on product to place in my new accounts, but the second had been after I'd received a frantic phone call from the day manager of that new truck stop, complaining because he was out of steak pieces and running really low on all the other jars and canisters I'd put in there the previous Wednesday afternoon.

I had sold them over nine hundred dollars worth of product when I opened the account three days before, including six hundred streak pieces, two full cases. The new order came to almost twenty three hundred dollars, including eight new cases of 300 count steak pieces, and twelve cases of mixed beef jerky jars. The manager told me he thought they were all right for the pepperoni sticks which I'd kind of loaded them down with when I'd opened the account, because I'd sold them a case of each of the four flavors I carried.

Even with the new price I was now paying for steak pieces, that re-order made over a nine hundred dollar profit for Nancy and me. I'd turned the account over to her on Friday, so she was entitled to half the profit I'd made on this sale.

When I finally called it a day, I'd opened seven new commercial accounts. For me, that was a new one day record for opening new outlet accounts.

I pulled up in front of my apartment at seven thirty, hoping to see Nancy's truck parked in the guest parking lot, but it wasn't there. I turned around and drove over to her parent's house and was rewarded for my effort. Her truck was parked in the driveway right behind a white van with Towns Cleaners painted on the side. I parked in the street and went up to the door and rang the buzzer. When the door opened, my first thought was that I'd had the misfortune to come calling while Nancy's uncle, Earle Towns, was visiting. I was wrong though, because it was Nancy's father, Merle Towns, that had come to the door.

"You must be that Ralph fellow I've been hearing so much about. Come on in, we're just getting ready to sit down to supper, so you're in time to join us. Hey "Ninney", your boss is here.

"Ninney?"

"Family nickname. When she was first born, that was how her brother, Dave, pronounced her name. As she got older, her own actions proved to us that the name might be appropriate."

Just then, Nancy came scurrying out of the kitchen. I was still trying to get adjusted to the uncanny resemblance Merle had to his brother, and trying not to think about what I'd face if I ever accidentally referred to Nancy as "Ninney".

"Ralph, why are you here?"

"I needed to warn you about that big new truck stop that opened up just north of the airport. I opened the account on Wednesday, and today they called me to get more product. They were out of everything but the pepperoni, and the manager said he really needed a refill right away. I took him over almost twenty four hundred dollars worth of jerky and steak pieces. This is on top of the nine hundred I placed there initially. The counter guy told me they've been selling the jerky by the jar, for thirty bucks each. When I put out three boxes of the steak pieces, two guys came over and bought twenty five each. Some of these drivers are as big as Fat Frank, and they seemed to like smoked meat almost as much as he does too."

I handed her my sales book for the day, so she could copy out the seven new addresses and contact information for the new accounts I'd opened. Her father showed me where I could wash up for supper, and then went into the kitchen to inform his wife that they were having company that evening. Nancy followed me right into the bathroom, watching me as I washed my hands and face.

"Uncle Earle called me this afternoon. He asked me a lot of questions about you, Uncle Jimmy, and what your plans were. I told him I didn't know anything about any plans you might have. He wasn't happy before, when I told him we might start working together, and now I guess Daddy told him that we were business partners. He's even less happy now. He gave me this long sermon about family, and how something like this could unravel everything he's worked so hard to build up. He said he won't be able to assume responsibility if this ends up badly for me."

"Did you ask him how much responsibility he'd assumed when you were out of work for so long?"

"Are you kidding? I don't say things like that to him. You don't understand our family situation, Ralph. Uncle Earle has all sorts of ties to everything we either have or do. Like this house. When my parents bought it, Uncle Earle had to go to the bank and sign papers guaranteeing that we'd make the payments. He owns the dry cleaners, and he's the one that helped my mom get her job with the state liquor board. It isn't just our little part of the family here either. He has these kind of holds over all my uncles and aunts, even my mom's brothers. If he gets mad enough, he can bring a lot of pressure to bear on all of us."

"He would look pretty bad if he started bullying you because you had a job now and were finally making decent money. It would look to others like he couldn't stand to see you doing well without his help."

"He asked me to have you come see him. He said he has something we might be interested in."

"He said "we"?"

"Yes, I asked him about that too."

"After what happened before, I can't see myself wanting to do any more business with him."

Dinner was great, some kind of beef roast with mashed potatoes and gravy and corn. Dessert was a cherry pie, which Nancy told me she had made, while she had stopped off at home for lunch earlier. Dinner conversation was minimal while we were all eating the main course, but it picked up quite a bit over the pie and ice cream.

"My wife keeps wanting me to ask you about why you keep having "Ninney" over to your place so often at night?"

"Daddy!"

"Don't be yelling at me, girl. We're your parents, and we have a right to ask these kinds of questions."

Nancy got up and left the dining room. She seemed in a hurry to get away from the interrogation that was just starting.

"Well?" I couldn't detect any teasing or even a sense of humor in his question.

"Well, what?"

"I asked you why you keep having my daughter spend her night's over at your place?"

"It would be pretty hard to do what we like to do over the telephone. Shouldn't you be asking Nancy these kinds of questions?"

"Am I to infer, from that flippant remark you just made, that you think my questions are some kind of joke that you can just play off?"

"No sir. Tell me what you want to know, and I'll try to satisfy your curiosity."

"I want to know why you keep having her spend the night at your apartment?"

"Your daughter and I are in the process of negotiating the parameter's of our future relationship. It is to be an adult relationship, and, because of that, it requires a certain degree of privacy amid intimate surroundings. My apartment is a dump, but it does have a door that locks, and places where we can go to further our acquaintanceship in relative comfort."

"Are you abusing her in any way?"

"We talk, we argue, we disagree about so many things, and often, when we engage ourselves in that way, one or both of us get so frustrated that we need to have time away from each other, time to be separate. We also have our reconciliations, and time where we no longer wish to be separated from the other. As I said earlier, it is a process. At this moment, it appears to be going well for us."

"Are you sleeping with my daughter?"

"Every chance I get."

"That was all you needed to say. How did you like that pie of Ninney's?"

"I no longer eat her pie, since she refuses to reciprocate."

I had the satisfaction of listening to him choking on the piece of pie he'd jammed into his mouth right after asking his final question of the night. I found it very interesting that Mrs. Towns started laughing after I'd answered him.

Overall, I thought the evening went pretty well. Merle did a little glaring at me for a few minutes, but he didn't say anything more to me about his daughter. I got up to excuse myself, thinking that my departure might reduce the tension I was presently feeling. I thanked my host and hostess for an enjoyable meal, and for the after supper entertainment.

"You have gumption, I'll grant you that much, Ralph. I'm starting to see how you might be a burr under my brother's saddle. Are you planning to go over to Milwaukie and see about what he wants?"

"I'll have to think about that. I can't see myself giving him another chance to try to put me out of business. It bothers me that he's able to intimidate Nancy like he does. I'd hate to see her suffer, because he feels such a strong need to try to push his weight around. I might go over there to let him know that I'm not going to just sit around while he tries to make her life miserable. That's my job."

"She's been a sight better recently. Even seems like she might be starting to stand up for herself, like she used to do, before all her troubles. I'd like seeing her happier, but that doesn't mean I approve of how you two have been carrying on. I'll stay back for a while, watching how this process of yours looks to be playing itself out, but I'm not giving any long term permission or approval to what I've been seeing going on here."

We shook hands, rather solemnly I thought, and I walked, under my own power, through their front door. I had only made it halfway down the driveway to my truck before Nancy came running out the door with an overnight bag over her shoulder. I could see she had on that same dress once again. I opened the passenger side door and held it for her as she climbed up into the cab.

"Don't you have any other dresses?"

"I have several, but this is my only "whoo hoo" dress. When I'm wearing it, I feel like I'm the person who's in charge of my life."

"It was so strange meeting your father, then finding out that he's a dead ringer for that evil uncle of yours."

"You think Uncle Earle is evil?"

"Maybe evil is too strong a description for him. He's definitely mean, and he's overbearing too. I strongly disagree with most of the choices he seems to have made when it comes to living his life. It appears to me that he's at a place in his life where he can afford to be kinder, more benevolent. He appears to have plenty of money, and a lot of people who, one way or another, are somewhat dependent on his whims and shoot from the hip decisions. I think he will eventually allow his bullying nature to sully his legacy within his own family, and that is never a good thing, in my opinion."

"He has helped a lot of us in the family. He's done quite a bit more than anyone else to help keep everyone afloat. We all know he can be ruthless at times, but we also know he'll help us if we ever really needed it."

"Your father really ran me through the grinder after dinner. I'm glad he waited until after I'd eaten all your mother's food. I felt like I was at a Spanish Inquisition there for awhile. Doesn't he know you're an adult? I could see it if you were sixteen years old, but you aren't."

"He loves me. They both do, and, because of all the stuff that happened to me, they worry more than they probably should."

"I'm sure they both hate me."

"No they don't. That's silly. If they hated you, they wouldn't have had you over for supper like they did."

"They didn't have me over for anything, I rang the doorbell when you were all getting ready to sit down and eat. They invited me, because it would have been too awkward not to have."

We had arrived at my apartment complex. After getting out of my truck we walked to my apartment. I reached out and took her free hand as we walked. That seemed to please her a lot.

"We need to make a ruling about last night."

"We do?"

"Yes, for that little accident we had right before you woke up. You were probably wondering how that happened?"

"Not really. I knew we were spooned together when I fell asleep. Sometimes, when you do that, things just seem to happen. That wasn't the first time something like that has happened to me."

"I didn't put it in with my hands, but I did use them to move it around some before I fell asleep. I left it right at my entrance, just outside, a tiny bit. That's how it was when I fell asleep. When I woke up though, something had happened, and it was all the way up inside me. You need to make a ruling. Did I lose?"

"Did you put it in your pussy while you were awake?"

"No. Almost though, but I only rubbed on the outside for awhile, and that was just for a minute or two. Five minutes at the most. When I fell asleep it wasn't in me. It was in me when I woke up though, and I didn't try to take it out until after I knew you'd woken up too."

"When I woke up, you were fucking me pretty good. It seems suspicious to me that you only stopped when you realized I was awake."

"I know. That's why you need to be the one to make the ruling. I was asleep when it went in, but I was awake later and kept on using it. I didn't cum on it though. I might have if you'd stayed asleep, but you didn't."

"It never slipped out while you were fucking it, or did anything else to make you put it back in?"

"No, I was super careful about not letting it do that. In the beginning, I moved around only a little bit. It was only near the end that I got a little bit carried away. It didn't fall out though, I took it out. At the, end I mean."

"Based on what you've told me, I'd have to rule that no one has won or lost the bet yet. The bet is still on."

"I'm glad. I would have hated to lose while I was asleep."

We wasted very little time getting undressed and back in the bed. Once there, Nancy demonstrated exactly what she'd done before she fell asleep. She spent a good ten minutes swabbing the head of my cock up and back in her slit, including giving me a running commentary of how that earlier stimulation had affected her. She certainly had never shown any tendency to have a need for any artificial lubrication. The girl's pussy was in full salivation mode.

"Show me how you left it before you fell asleep." I wanted to avoid ejaculating prematurely again, and felt this was my best chance of avoiding it. She placed it right on the channel where her opening was. Half an inch of the head of my cock was splitting the lips of her vulva. This was torture for me. So close, but I knew I had to be strong.

"Right like that. It even feels the same as it did last night. My pussy is going crazy right now. I want to push back on it and make it go all the way up inside me again."

"I'm afraid to move even the least bit. We are definitely right on the very edge here, Nancy. One push from either of us and we're both fucked. If you catch my meaning?"

"I know it. My heart is beating really fast. Give me your hand so you can feel it."

"I know that trick, nice try. Look on the wall behind me! Is that a black widow spider?"

"No fair making me laugh. It makes me jiggle around too much. How can you stand not pushing it in me?"

"I don't have to. You'll push back on it yourself, in the next minute."

"No I won't."

"Will too."

"Won't"

"You're the one. I love you, Nancy."

Fifteen minutes later, and we both were ready to talk about it. I was afraid of how she'd take my declaration. I hoped she didn't think I'd just said it to win a stupid bet.

"Why did you tell me that?"

"Because I thought it was time you knew it."

"You meant it then?"

"Yes."

"That was even better than I thought it would be, and I had some real high expectations too."

"It was good for me too."

"Are you waiting for me to say it back to you?"

"No, not really. I realize that people move at different speeds. It was time for me to tell you now."

"I would be waiting for it, if I was the one who had just said that to someone."

We fell asleep together, facing each other, with our lips less than an inch apart. Whatever happened after this, I was always going to be happy I'd said it. I realized it was very likely the very first time I'd ever said it when I really did mean it, without there being any reservations. Before, I'd said it because I felt an obligation, or else knew it was expected of me. This time I'd said it because I'd been unable to hold back from doing so, for even another second more.

Waking up with my arms around Nancy was just as satisfying to me as going to sleep like that had been. I felt content and at peace with my place in the world. I realized that I was the happiest I'd ever been as an adult. I didn't need anything else to happen in order to complete my life.

"Good morning, Ralph. I can't believe that neither of us moved at all during the night. Tell me again."

"You're the one, and I love you."

"I want you to love me. I need it. You've made it possible for me to be able to get my life moving forward again. When we're together, I'm not afraid anymore. You make me happy, and make me feel really protected. I love you too, of course."

"Of course. How could you not?"

We took a personal day for ourselves. Not that we would normally work on Sunday, just that we stayed in my apartment and kept the rest of the world at bay. We were truly alone, with each other, for the entire day. We talked about almost everything. Nothing that memorable was said, other than what was memorable to us, personally. We managed to solve nothing of any real importance to anyone else. In spite of that, we both felt we'd accomplished quite a lot. We hadn't argued or fought the entire time we were together, this time.

"Ralph, we've hit a little snag. Somehow, Earle Towns got wind of what we were up to. He's been calling around, trying to see if he can reopen the bidding for all that smokehouse equipment we said we'd buy. He's offering more rent money to our landlord, trying to break that lease we just got done agreeing on. He even went and offered J.C. his old job back again. Sounds like he doesn't want to let no competition get started. That's one sorry ass sombitch."

"He called Nancy and asked her to set up a meeting with me. He claims he has something I might be interested in."

"Maybe he finally figured out how to keep them Nuggets of his from growing hair."

"What nuggets?"

"About seven or eight years ago Earle came up with an idea for these cubes of beef that he cured for five days in maple sugar, then slow smoked them in a real oak chip smoker. They had so much sugar in them that it was near impossible to keep them from getting mold within three or four days after coming out of the dryer. He spent a boatload of money on it, but never did figure out how to keep them from spoiling. Hell of a taste to 'em too. In a way, I got the idea for my crosscut pieces from what he was doing. I don't try a long sugar cure with mine though, and I use gas to preserve each piece. Could be he found a cheap enough way to wrap and gas them. If he did, he sure might be onto something. All that sugar cuts way down on the weight shrinkage on the meat. His product would cost half as much by weight as regular jerky, because the meat shrinks less than half as much, and the sugar adds weight too. Trick is to control the moisture, and to find some way to tie up less time in the production process. That might be why he wants a whole new smokehouse operation now."

"You think he wants to talk to me about selling it for him?"

"That's what I'd do if I was him. You have a lot of the local customers, and you sure seem able to handle quick expansions. You need to sell a lot of something if you want to make any money off it."

"I can't see myself doing any more business with him. He already screwed me over once. I don't want to give him any new chance to do it again."

"I just wanted to see if you could come up with any good ideas about how we can keep Earle from knocking loose all our plans for that new smokehouse?"

"You have agreements with people for both the equipment and the lease. Are they verbal, or in writing?"

"I have faxes from both parties, agreeing to go ahead with the terms we negotiated. My lawyer and my bank people have separate memos from both of them. I know I can sue if they try to back out, my lawyer already made that clear enough, but that isn't my style."

"Sue Earle then. Slap an unlawful restraint of trade suit against him. I'll testify, if it comes to court, and I bet J.C. would too. I'm betting he'd pull in his horns if his lawyer told him how much it would cost him to defend against it, and how much he stood to lose if your suit prevails. Earle is a bully, and most bully's are cowards down deep."

"Earle ain't any kind of coward. He's a mean bastard, and he loves a good fight. Don't sell him short, because you'd be making a big mistake in doing that."

"Talk to your lawyer and run it by him before you discard it completely. It is a valid assumption that part of Earle's motives are that he's hoping to prevent you from coming to the area and giving him competition. He may love a good fight, but he's a man who cares enough about money that he's screwed his own twin brother out of his share of a business. A man who's so worried about money that he's capable of something like that, he can be pushed if he gets entangled in any kind of legal wrangle."

"I'll call my lawyer and run it by him. Anything else?"

"You could try calling him on the phone and ask him to please stop messing with you."

"That would be the day. I'll get on the horn with my legal beagle and try to sic him on old Earle. That bastard might turn tail if he honestly believed he'd lose a bundle if he kept on with it. Let me know if you hear any information I might could use."