Chapter 31

Monday I walked into the office thinking all was pretty darned good in my world. It was, really. The major parts of the power distribution system were 'hot', had real live electricity on them, and we had no problems. I thought I was hanging around the project, just waiting for the big generators to make electricity, basically making sure the documentation package: drawings, equipment manuals, reports, the myriad details of 'this is what we built for you', and training the owner's staff on my piece of the pie.

Trouble was, I was a person who 'knew things'. Therefore, I got dragged into discussions about fans that ran on a continuous overload and data networks that dropped packets and a whole bank of instrumentation that didn't send out good signals. Other peoples' problems, basically. But that was one of the reasons I keep getting called on these jobs: I help things along. I facilitate. I pull in resources that somebody else might've overlooked,. And I make things work. And I give credit to the whole team's effort.

So I was late getting home Monday night and Cindy was finishing a TV dinner. She giggled when I pointed out the tater tots. And then cooked me one...

"I talked to Mister Jim today," she said, "Right after school. He says we visit the University of Alabama on Thursday. Can you make that?"

"I should be able to, doll. I got one big motor to run tomorrow, and if everything looks right on my end, I think I can go with you," I said.

"I hope so. S'pose they ask me something I don't know..." She sat across the table from me as I ate.

"I don't think they'll ask you anything earthshaking, baby. I think this is just like Auburn, where they say 'let's see what this bright star looks like'. You're very much able to handle yourself in conversation every time I see you. I watch. You impress people."

"I wanna impress people like YOU do," she said. "I want people to WANT me to be there because I add something they can't get elsewhere."

"You do that for me," I said.

"Not THAT!" she smirked.

"Oh" I said, feigning anguish. "You think THAT is ALL I get from you? What about your mad kitchen skills?" I pushed my TV dinner tray, empty, toward her. "I notice the particularly artful way you peeled the film back away from the tater tots."

Red hair. Green eyes. And a tongue sticking out at me. Giggling.

"It is so good to have you, kitten, to laugh with," I said.

"Me too," she said, hugging me before she removed the empty tray. "We can just relax and be ourselves. Can't we?"

January. I'd known her since the previous August. We'd been living together since the first of November, married since the week of Thanksgiving. I'd never felt the need to be anywhere other than with her every second I could. The only time I'd heard her use cross words was the horrible 'big toe versus the dinette leg' incident. I was required to do extra cuddles that night. So, yes! We could be ourselves.

"Did Jim say anything about our weekend?" I asked.

"He said it was the best weekend he an' Mizz Ann have had in a long time. Said that he was getting used to being impressed with the way you an' I carry on in public."

"That's 'cuz he doesn't want to think about us carryin' on in private," I jibed.

"Oh, I doubt he gives it much thought. Mizz Ann had a big smile on HER face at breakfast yesterday," she tittered.

"C'mere, little angel. I feel the urge to hold you," I said, sitting back on the sofa. That got me the desired outcome, an armful of delightful, giggly redhead. She flopped on top of me, our faces inches apart. I wrapped her in my arms.

She clasped my face between her hands. "Oooo, baby's all bristly," she giggled, and then she rubbed her cheek against a day's worth of beard growth, purring.

Sometimes she was so much like a kitten.

An hour later, showered, freshened, and for me, shaved, we were sitting on the sofa sipping herb tea she'd gotten from Ann, and playing cards. I was in the midst of a retreat.

"I almost wish we didn't have the music thing this weekend, baby," she said. "I long for a big shower and lots of hot water, and me an' you walking along in a park in the dark."

"It's twenty-five degrees out there, sweetie," I said.

"An' we both get cold and rush inside and take off our clothes and dive under the covers."

"Now that's inventive," I said.

"Don't want you to be bored..." Green eyes twinkled.

"With you, cutie, I'll either be VERY interested, or DEAD!"

An almost shy smile spread across her face. "So which one are you right NOW?"

"I still have reflexes," I laughed. "Turn that light out."

With a youthful bounce she had her hands on my waist, following me to the bed at the end of the trailer. I started to crawl up from the foot of the bed, but as soon as I was on my hands and knees a little hand cupped my balls.

"I like YOU from behind, too, you know," she lilted.

I saw her nightshirt flutter onto the nightstand on her side of the bed. That told me that there was, in very close proximity, five feet three inches of eager redheaded girl. I escaped my tender captivity and stripped my own shirt off and turned to accept a collision of nubile female flesh. I fell backward with her in my arms, a mere feather of a girl who held my heart in her hands.

I pushed a hand between us and cupped her hot little pussy, then one finger slipped between wet folds. She grabbed my wrist and pushed me hard, shoving my finger inside her as her mouth met mine, our tongues twisting together.

Her own hand circled the base of my dick, fingers stroking the skin of my scrotum.

"I would REALLY like to eat you, little girl."

Squeal! "I was hoping you'd say that!" and her athletic young form twirled, presenting me with a view of pink wetness, plump with excitement, begging to be tasted, licked, suckled, savored. I enjoyed my happy task, receiving in return some wonderful attention to my dick by precious hands and mouth, until her hip movements took on an insistent rhythm as she neared orgasm.

She came, breathless, speaking words without language, then turned back, kissed me, my face moist with her own juices.

"D'ya mind if I do THIS one for both of us now?" She slid her legs sideways and sat up, straddling me. A little hip bounce and she was impaled on my hardness. She was already biting her bottom lip, the corners of her mouth curled up in a smile as my hands explored her hips, her waist, her chest. That close to her previous orgasm, the next one wasn't far behind, and my first one was waiting at the gates, primed by her beauty and her previous eager attentions.

She was mewing as she came, spurred on by the throbbing of my own orgasm as she held me deep inside her. She collapsed into my arms, semi-conscious.

"Towel," she said. "I don't wanna move."

Beside the bed was a fleecy hand towel for just this occasion. Nobody needed to sleep in the wet spot.

She cuddled into my side and said, "Lights. Music. I love you. Kiss me." I kissed her and slid into another night of being thankful that THIS was happening to ME.

Tuesday was a little better. By mid-morning we had all the players around for the last big motor. I stood by in my substation with a radio, waiting. When the time came, somebody out there initiated a count-down and at the sound of 'zero' I heard an authoritative THUMP, as expected. On my laptop's display I watched the huge amount of electricity rush into the motor as it spun up, knowing full well that too much for too long, and my stuff would shut things down. We got past that, ran long enough for the mechanical people to get vibration signatures, and then I heard what I called the 'unthump', signaling a normal stop.

I leaned back in my folding chair, looking across the table at one of my technicians. "Another day in paradise," I said. "Good work!"

"We do it right, Dan," he smiled. "Most of the time, anyway." Yeah. Sometimes things slip through. Not often. That's why we test and retest.

I walked out and took my golfcart back to the office. Catching my mechanical buddy, I asked, "so when are we doing the four hour run?"

"We're planning on starting at eight in the morning," he answered.

"Great!" I said, seeing the idea of working late disappearing over the horizon. At four I was out of the plant and on the way to the trailer. I found Cindy in there, tapping away at her laptop keyboard.

"Whatcha doin', cutie?" I asked.

"Something for social studies."

"You're doing an assignment?"

"Yep!" she said. 'Cuz I want to."

"Can I interrupt you to ask about dinner?"

"Pizza," she said.

"You don't wanna go out?"

"Nope. I got thoughts I need to put down." She smiled over her shoulder.

Okay! I'd seen Cindy get this way while she was writing before. And yes, she wrote. It's pretty good stuff, really, not only from my somewhat biased perspective, but also from her English teacher's view. And also a couple of university English department people. She was funny in a cute way. She got into a 'zone' until she reached some internal setpoint and then she was right back out of it.

Accordingly, I backed off, ordered the pizza and then sat back on the sofa and picked up a book. I heard the pizza guy show up and met him at the door with money in hand. I guess that was Cindy's stopping point. She closed her laptop and got a couple of paper plates and we dove into pizza.

"What's the assignment?" I asked.

"Well," she said, "the teacher was discussing how societies change and she said something about the 'nuclear family' and I said something about 'does that mean daddy works on a reactor' and she and about three kids laughed.

Okay, I snorted cola in my nose...

"But then she talked about what she REALLY means and assigned us a two-page essay on what WE thought caused changes in the nuclear family." She bit a chunk off a triangular slice and chewed. After a sip of her drink, she continued, "So I have ALL these ideas. You know I read some of this stuff. Like that time I told you about how people used to get married before there were judges and licenses and records an' stuff. But you know I read stuff."

"Yes, you do read stuff, baby," I said. She did. One can't fly around the countryside or make love ALL the time. We did try, though. But back to reading. Library? The local one was, well, 'small' is a rather generous term. But this is the age of the internet, and I showed her free books and she was voracious.

She read a lot, too...

Oh, okay ... Cindy loved learning. "So you're distilling that knowledge into two typed, eleven-point, double-spaced pages?"

"I am proposing a few causative factors," she said. "And THAT is what my paper says."

"Now you have my curiosity piqued." I talked with this person every day and I was often amazed at the turns a conversation might take.

"D'ya think we're normal?" she asked.

"Oh, come on! You're fourteen, I'm forty-one..."

"But let's look at some other things. You're male, I'm female..."

"No doubt about that," I laughed. "I've checked!"

"Neither of us was divorced. I wasn't pregnant."

"When you put it like that," I said, "it sounds good. But when somebody sees us for the first time, what'd'ya think they see? Dad and daughter. Uncle and niece. Teacher and student. They have to have a reason to get past that when they find out we're married. Like Mona Simmons."

"Yeah, the lady at the restaurant the other morning."

"Uh-huh," I said. "She was all full of the wrong ideas about us. Maybe we got through to her, but you gotta know that there's other people out there who've heard about us, maybe even seen us, who still have those ideas, and with some of them, no amount of explanation will be enough."

"Anyway, I was just thinkin' about the whole family and marriage thing since we were talkin' about it in class. I'm the only one in the whole school that's married." She smiled.

"You're in MIDDLE SCHOOL!" I laughed.

"You'd rather I waited?"

"Nope. I am just glad that you seem to not be catching crap about it." At least I'd not heard anything about it from her.

Smile. "No, not when there are a bunch of pregnant fourteen year olds around. Like Mizz Ann said. Even if what we did was BAD, there are a lot WORSE things." Her hand touched mine. "And I don't think what we have is bad. Not even a little bit."

"You don't feel like I'm exploiting you? That's what a lot of people think about relationships like ours."

"Oh, yeah, I think you're exploiting me. I NEVER get to do what I want, even stuff I never expected to want. You know, like flyin', and concerts, and singin' with a band. TWO bands, actually. And COLLEGE. And goin' to your job. And after you get a shower, I plan on getting exploited some more." When she grinned, her nose wrinkled, a characteristic that made me melt.

Wednesday went absolutely normally. The run of the big motor was without a hitch.

Thursday we all piled into my truck to go to visit the University of Alabama.

We were ushered into another well-appointed office, a large window overlooking the campus. The well-dressed gentleman came around his desk, hand extended.

"Welcome! I'm Doctor Raymond Minnets, dean of the School of Engineering." He approached Cindy first. "And you're somebody we've been interested in, Miss Cynthia. Or is it 'Cindy'?"

"Cindy, sir," she said, shaking his hand. "I'm happy to meet you. This is my husband, Dan Richards, an electrical engineer, and my school guidance counselor, Mister Jim Hardesty."

Dr. Minnets shook each of our hands. "Please, folks, sit down. Let's talk with Miss Cindy."

Cindy was dressed beautifully, this time in earth tones that let her pale skin and red hair speak for them.

"Cindy, do you enjoy learning? Challenges?"

"Yes, Doctor Minnets," she said.

"Wait. What do you call HIM?" he asked, indicating Jim.

"Mister Jim," she said.

"Then, please, Cindy, I'm Mister Ray, okay?"

"Yes, Mister Ray," she said, smiling a bit more. "I enjoy learning. I enjoy teaching, too."

"What are you doing right now that you're not TOLD to do?"

I was a bit impressed, seeing him getting into Cindy's idea of her place in the world.

"Oh, let's see," she smiled. "I'm learning to fly. We have an airplane. I'm visiting an industrial construction site two or three times a month since last September. It's a combined cycle cogeneration plant. I'm singing with an amateur bluegrass group. I'm helping tutor my middle school contemporaries (Contemporaries? Yes, that was the word she used.) who have difficulties, mostly in math."