Chapter 32

We were home, in our own little nest, the door closed behind us. I touched her shoulder to wrap my arms around her and she beat me to it, pressing her jeans and sweatshirt-clad self against me. Long kiss.

"You know what time of the month it is, don't you?"

"Yeah, I kind of thought so. You taste a little different right before, ' I said. "So just starting?"

"Yep. Darnit!"

"Uh-huh. Like THAT'S the only thing I love about you."

Another kiss, green eyes sparkling. "Lemme get my shower. You're scratchy..."

"Shower, then, cutie," I said.

"On the way, babe," she said.

I heard the water running as I sorted a couple of days' worth of laundry into piles, debating on whether to sacrifice a handful of quarters in the park Laundromat or to spend the better part of a day using the miniature washer-dryer combo in the trailer. The water stopped and in a minute she stepped out of the tiny bathroom, her hair dark from the moisture. She was wearing panties, her concession to that 'period' thing.

I undressed and slid past her, nude, a move that got me a good groping from a giggly teen. I started my own shower, mindful that the hot water supply was not only finite, but likely half gone, and January wasn't the time to be taking a cold shower, and if I was desirous of warm water to shave with, I needed to be careful. I wet myself down, turned the water off as I lathered and scrubbed and shampooed, then turned the water back on to rinse off. When I stepped out of the shower, I heard the hair dryer blowing.

I shaved and stepped out to help her with her hair. Oh, yeah, she was perfectly capable of drying that short copper-colored style, but to me it was almost the level of a fetish. When I finished, she turned to me, smiling, and she was perfect.

"Come on, baby, it's late," she giggled.

Her period. Every time she had one, she steadfastly refused to harbor the thought of intercourse, and honestly, I wasn't that heated on the idea myself, but I'd do anything for her. So on Period, Day One, at almost midnight, I surmised that we'd do a little kissing and cuddling and slide off into slumber.

I shut the lights off in the trailer except for the little overhead light above the head of the bed, and she was sitting cross-legged in the middle of it as I made my way there.

That wasn't what she had in mind. "Lay back," she said, her eyes laughing.

"Baby," I started.

"Hey, sometimes it's not about YOU," she giggled. "I like this, too, you know..."

"Well, if you insist..."

More giggles. She crawled up and kissed me passionately, stroking my hardness as she insinuated her slim form atop me, then she bit my chest, sliding downward, and then she started working me over with her lips and tongue and teeth, knowing what made me work. Of course my moans and involuntary thrusts might've given her some ideas, too. Her tongue was urging the spurts as I came. She kept me in her mouth until I began to soften, then she crawled up beside me.

"Now, don't you feel better?" she smiled.

"You have no idea," I sighed.

"Yes I do, guy. 'Cuz you do the same to me..." She molded herself into my side as I set up some music to fall asleep with and turned off the light.

Wonderful winter Sunday morning. The trailer was below sixty degrees, our "Let's snuggle" temperature. As the vestiges of a winter sunrise made it past the edges of the blackout curtains on the windows, I stirred, wakened by my internal clock, and then I realized what day it was, where I was, and most importantly, what that warmth was, pressed against my hip. I turned over to drift back into sleep and that motion precipitated one from my delightful partner. A tiny "mmmm" came from her lips and then soft motions as she twisted to find her own version of comfort.

We drifted back off together for another half an hour before pressure from my bladder made me have to get up. As I stood, happy with the feeling of an early morning piss, I felt the trailer shudder slightly with the footsteps of my young love. Her hand touched my back as I finished and she took her turn.

"Breakfast?" I asked. "Here or..."

"The diner," she said.

"Got it," I said. That put me on the path of dressing for the trip. She came out and took her own tack toward that goal and when I finished, I watched her buttoning a long-sleeved flannel shirt, then brushing her short hair.

I put the first load of laundry in the little washer and then we made the short dash out the door and shivered in the cab of the pickup until it warmed enough to defrost the ice on the windshield. And off we went. The diner had the expected Sunday crowd, including Mona and Jeff Simmons.

They saw us walk in and waved enthusiastically for us to join them. We slid into their booth.

Mona was smiling today. "Ya'll, we had a wonderful night. Ya'll do pretty good on the music! And I actually got HIM to dance with me."

Jeff grinned. "We don't do the clubs and it's been a long time since we went to a family thing where there was any kind of dancing." He patted Cindy's arm. "When I saw you an' ol' Bill, I figured if YOU could dance with HIM, then I could give Mizz Mona a whirl around the floor."

"We had a good time!" Mona said. "I think everybody did."

"Well," I said, "The Hardesty's are good friends, and we certainly enjoy playing together."

We enjoyed our breakfast with them, talking, laughing. They left for church, inviting us to go with them, but we were in jeans and flannel and we respectfully declined. Jeff picked his ticket up to leave and I grabbed it.

"Hey..." he said.

"Hey, yourself. We enjoyed sitting with ya'll. I got this." I smiled.

"Well, I get the next one, then..." he replied.

"That's fine, but I'm not worried."

"Thank you," Mona said.

Cindy just smiled and said, "You're welcome!"

Cindy and I finished our second mugs of coffee after they left, then got up and paid our ticket and got back in the truck. As was a general rule, yesterday's nasty, blustery day gave way to blue skies and a brisk north wind. As I turned to get into the truck, I faced into the breeze, letting the sting make me feel even more alive. I slid in and Cindy was already in the middle of the bench seat, waiting on me.

I bent over and kissed her. She giggled. "I remember how much I wanted to be able to kiss you in broad daylight, Dan," she said. "Remember? When we first got started?"

"Oh, yes, sweetness, I do." I thought back to those days when I thought I must be absolutely crazy, but couldn't stop myself from adoring this girl. "I'm glad we don't have to hide now..." I cranked the truck and we drove back to the trailer. We spent the rest of the morning doing laundry and ended up having canned soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. And after lunch...

"It's sucha pretty day, don't'cha think, babe?" she smiled. "The sky's just soooo blue..."

"That somebody should be carving a hole in it?"

"Can we?" she grinned.

"Of course we can," I answered.

"Then let's swap the laundry and we can go..." she said.

We were on the road again and a half an hour later we were dragging the plane out of the hangar to spend a couple of hours making a grand loop out of a chunk of Alabama, as well as some interesting arrangements of climbs and banks as I showed her the sort of maneuvers she'd be learning once she got old enough to actually log time for her own license.

"Maybe I oughtta go back to Louisiana an' let Hanna teach me in the Extra," Cindy said. "That little thing ... the controls are so easy..."

"I've never heard of somebody getting a private license in an Extra," I said. "Of course, most people don't do it in a 180, either, but you're doing pretty good with it." Yeah, I still followed her pretty close on landings and take-offs, but she was getting pretty good. Sadly, the law said she had to be sixteen to be an official student so my wife could neither drive nor fly on her own.

"Show me that 'stall' thing again, honey," she said.

Four thousand feet over the Alabama countryside I talked her through pulling the throttle back and holding the nose up. "Feel the controls get mushy?"

"Uh-huh," she said.

"Now hold the nose up, and the wing is going to stop flying..."

The nose dropped. opped.

"Now release the back-pressure and add power and let the wing start flying again."

"Ooooo-kayyyy, I see," she said.

"Climb back up to four thousand," I said.

The Continental engine pulled us back to altitude. We talked about the maneuver and how simple it was. "Unless you get stupid when you're close to the ground, and you don't have the altitude to let your nose down to recover. Stalls are usually fatal near the ground. Let's do another and see how much altitude it takes you to recover."

This time she did it all. "Four hundred feet," she said. "We lost four hundred feet."

"You can do better than that with practice, but remember, you wouldn't be practicing stalls near the ground. You'd be doing something like trying to make the end of the runway without adding power or something, and it'd catch you by surprise..."

"I see," she said.

"Now let's look at another kind of stall..." And I showed her some more. "Let me know if you get queasy," I said.

"Oh, please, baby," she huffed. "Hanna an' me did lomcevaks!"

"That was then. This is now. I don't want to have to clean up a mess."

She looked at me. "So, okay ... Full power. Forty-five degree bank. Establish the turn. And pull back!" Accelerated stall. The plane shuddered and rolled as the wings lost lift. "An' release the back pressure." And we were flying again.

"That's the same scenario, Cindy. You're on approach to the runway and you misjudge, and you haul back too hard to tighten a turn, and you're in the trees."

She got us back to four thousand feet. "Okay! One more. Other direction."

"And then home. It's gonna get dark." I folded my arms and let her play and then she flew us back home. The shadows were getting long as we left the airport in search of fried catfish. The restaurant, at least. I got mine grilled.

Sitting there sipping iced tea while we were waiting on the food to show up, she was grinning. "D'ya know how much fun THAT was?"

"What?" I asked.

"Stalls. Learning more stuff." She was glowing. My baby loved to learn. Life was her adventure. She was mine.

By the time we got back to the trailer, the wind had died down, the temperature dropping fast after sunset. While she showered, I folded laundry from the dryer. And put the wet clothes from the washer on to dry. She was out of the shower, wearing her panties and nightshirt, and she started drying her hair. I did my nightly ablutions and we cuddled up on the sofa, a blanket and our body heat fighting the chill as the temperature dropped.

I wrapped my arms around her. "You know, little girl," I said, "I've spent many a cold night in my life, but none of them was ever as enjoyable as being with you, all cuddled up." Her red head came back against my chest. I kissed the crown of it, and rubbed my cheek against that outrageous bronze thing.

She giggled. "Ya know," she answered, "Me too ... Last winter, Mom's heater used too much propane, so we had a little electric thing and I'd get so cold sometimes that I'd just curl up under the blankets and not wanna come out." Giggle. "Now I snuggle with YOU an' don't wanna come out..." She rolled from laying back in my arms to facing me. "Just like this!" And our mouths melded.

"Oh, yesssss," I said. "wonderful!"

"Yes we are, aren't we!" More kisses. TV was being ignored. The computers hadn't even been booted up. THIS was entertainment, even though she was 'stupid period!'.

"When we get that last load out of the dryer, we can move this to the bed, okay?" I said.

"Uh-huh. Hold me." She turned her freckled face to mine.

I don't know if she knew exactly how perfectly delightful I found her face but I knew. It was like somebody'd scanned my brain for every neuron that ever fired on 'cute' and then built HER to hit them. I had her in my arms. She was lying on me and our legs were entwined, and it was love.

"You're perfect," I said, planting little kisses on her face.

"I'm not, except to you," she smiled, "and you're perfect to me, an' that's the way it's s'posed to be..."

"You betcha, babe," I said.

"Turn that TV off," she said. "Let's get some music going..."

That's when the dryer buzzed and I folded the rest of the clothes as she turned back the bed's covers and selected some music for us.

I lowered the thermostat to 'snuggle' temperature and then joined my little sweetie under the comforter in our bed. I was reaching to turn off the light when I felt a hand slide up the inside of my thigh and she softly said, "Nuh-uh."

I looked at her and she was smiling.

"Would you mind terribly if we played with this for a little bit? Hmmm?" she smiled.

"Yeah. I'm gonna refuse that," I laughed. "I belong to you, little one," I said.

"Good," she giggled. "Like, I know this TRICK," she said playfully. "If I do THIS," and she started stroking me from the base to the tip, her hand sliding lightly over my shaft, then her grip tightened and she was sliding the skin up and down. "an' If I do THIS," and her head bobbed downward, the head of my dick disappearing into her mouth, and she turned her head so I could see her eyes twinkling mirthfully, "I think I can get SOMETHIN' to happen..."

In a matter of minutes, something did indeed happen, and when it was over, her head popped back up, green eyes, red hair, and a sublime smile. We kissed, not because of some fetish about swapping semen, but because she was mine and I was hers and we were supposed to kiss.

As she pulled the comforter up to cover us, I said, "Baby, you know..."

She stopped me with another kiss. "Dan, don't even start. You KNOW I'm not doing this 'cuz of anything but I love you and I LIKE doin' it with you. You say you get happy that you can make ME come so hard an' so many times," she said, kissing me again, "Well, I'm the same way about you."