Chapter 53

Playing music with the Hardesty bunch was fun for Cindy and me, but Jim'd given me the itch again. Cindy was amused when I dragged my old acoustic guitar out of storage and hauled it home with us, and she was even more amused when I started dragging it out from behind the sofa in the evening and started practicing, retraining old memory paths and muscles to make fingers go where they needed to produce music.

"You're getting pretty good," she said. "A lot better than the first time I heard you when you put the bass down and tried a regular guitar at Mister Jim's."

"Good enough to impress little redheaded cuties?" I asked.

Giggle. "You 'bout got me ready to pull my shirt up right now!" she smirked, green eyes twinkling.

"Oh, you're an evil little thing," I said.

"Nuh-uhhh," she laughed. "It's not evil when you seduce your husband. But keep practicing."

"I need help," I said. "Some of these songs have words." I was running through some folk and bluegrass standards, simple songs with simple chords and I found that as my fingers limbered and remembered, I could add the licks and the pickings to bring them to another level. A quick spate of internet activity and we printed out lyrics and soon, Cindy and I were doing duets.

I heard a knock on the trailer door. Cindy looked at me and reached beside the sofa, pulling my pistol. She had it cocked and ready. I eased to the door. "Who is it?" I called.

"Bob Skerty. We're in Lot 16. Me and the missus heard you playing."

I opened the door. Cindy was putting the pistol back in its place. "Hi! You wanna come in?"

"Well, we were wondering if you and Cindy would come out. It's not a bad evening at all, and..."

I looked at Cindy. She was putting her shoes on. "I take that as a 'yes'," I said. "Let me get my shoes on."

"Well, if you'll come down to our RV, we have chairs, and Mary's gonna make something to drink."

"We'll be there in a bit," I said. They left. "Looks like we have an engagement," I said. "Bring the lyrics."

And that's how it came to pass that a couple of evenings a week we did our practice outdoors. I related that first time to Jim.

"You're not leaving the band, are you?" he laughed.

"Hardly," Cindy interrupted. "This is all your fault, anyway."

Our weekly sessions with the Hardestys got more polished between my practice and Cindy's solo exposure, and we were getting very comfortable with playing together.

So it was Saturday night and we had a pavilion full of people from the park and now we were gathering people from the church that the Hardesty family attended, and some of the people who had learned of us from the project, and it was getting interesting.

"You're gonna be the MC (Master of Ceremonies) tonight," Jim said.

"Got it covered," I said.

We were setting up the microphones and the amplifier for the bass. It was the only electric instrument in our band. We'd talked about that. "I'd try a bass fiddle, but they're not exactly convenient to carry around," I said.

Cindy and Teresa and Billy were circulating around the crowd when Jim and I finished. Ann, who'd been talking with Helen and Charlie, came up to the stage.

I got on the microphone. "If I can get the rest of the band up here, we'll get started with tonight's festivities." Cindy joined me. Teresa and Billy took their spots.

I went into my spiel. "I'm Dan Richards, and this is the band. Mizz Ann is a classically trained concert violinist. At least she was, until she married her husband, Jim Hardesty, who was a young Marine officer she met in college. Now she's a fiddle player. Jim's playing banjo. Their son Billy's on bass back there, and the little blonde cutie who's gonna sing with my Cindy is their daughter Teresa. Teresa's name comes from a vacation Uncle Sam gave them while Jim was a Marine fighter pilot."

"This little cutie here is my wife, Cindy. And I saw somebody had a canoe strapped on top of their RV out there, so we're gonna start off with the last thing a canoist wants to hear: Banjo music!"

And Jim and I launched into "Dueling Banjos". I'd had to explain the joke to Cindy because that movie was ancient history to her, but to most of the RV crowd, it was reason to laugh. And clap. Because Jim and I were getting good. Maybe not 'Let's sell records' good, but plenty good. And Ann worked the fiddle parts perfectly.

We pulled back after the applause (they applauded us!) and let Cindy and Teresa take center stage. I hit the microphone again. "Much of the music we play tonight falls under the general term of 'bluegrass'. It's the music from rural people who got together informally, and the music was about their lives. Since much in their lives revolved around their churches, a lot of the songs have a religious theme. This is one of them."

We played a little simple bluegrass hymn and Cindy and Teresa put voice to it in simple harmony. 'Cute' was enough to get applause, but cute and good was even better.

We followed with a few more of the same sort, folksy, country.

And then it was our turn. Me and Cindy. We'd practiced. We practiced with the Hardestys. But we'd never tried it in public: Our first duet. We picked a lively, irreverent bluegrass piece, "Salty Dog Blues" because it had breaks to showcase each of our instruments, Ann's fiddle, Jim's raucous banjo, and my increasingly competent guitar, but mainly because it could highlight my favorite musical instrument in the form of a happy, lively redhead with a voice.

We started with a full instrumental entry, then I took the first solo verse. For the chorus, Cindy and I faced each other, singing, and her smile could've melted stones. She took the second verse solo after Ann's violin, oops! fiddle break, and we did the second chorus. She couldn't contain her enthusiasm and was bouncing in time with the driving beat. I took the second break with my guitar, we duetted the third verse and Jim cut loose with a ringing banjo break. I think it was his finest work. We brought Jim and Ann in on the last verse, used all the instruments for the close, and got a standing ovation and calls for an encore.

Cindy tossed her red head, her bangs sweeping a bit to the side, and pulled me back to the front of the stage. "Okay! Cindy says you get an encore." And we did.

We got Cindy and Teresa back in the lead for a rendering of "Wildwood Flower", and kept going for another thirty minutes before taking a break. We were besieged at break. I got clapped on the back, got my hand shook, the normal good words, but Cindy and Teresa got mobbed, hugged by male and female alike. Cindy was glowing when we regained the stage for our last half.

We finished our official show at ten PM as advertised, ending with "Ashokan Farewell", a tune that wasn't traditional bluegrass, but that gave us our best chance to showcase Ann delving into some of the corners of her classical training with a folksy flair, and then I announced the end of the official show, and that we'd be happy to hang around for an hour if anyone in the crowd wanted to come play with us.

We were usually amazed at the talent that walked up and picked up instruments, or in some cases left and returned with their own.

It's a good thing it was Saturday night because it was almost midnight when we loaded the last of the equipment up and followed Jim and Ann and the kids to their house to unload. I commented on the hour.

"Don't worry," Ann said. "The pastor's used to seeing Jim nodding off, and this time he'll know why. He was sitting third row, center, for the whole show."

"Yeah," Jim said. "I have a feeling we'll get a call to do one for a Sunday afternoon social as my penance."

"Uh, Dad ... We're Baptists. We don't do 'penance'," Teresa injected.

"We just don't call it that, baby," Jim laughed.

We got in our truck and left. "Did you have a good time, little one?"

"Oh yeah," she smiled. "I think they liked our duet!"

"I liked our duet," I said. "'Specially when you started bouncing!"

"You know how much I wanna tell the world about us? Well, it was kind of like we were singin' it out to the whole wide world."

I smiled. I smile a lot since I found Cindy. "That's why we came up with the act, baby. For us. And if other people enjoy it, that's just lagniappe." (Lagniappe is pronounced "Lon-YOP". It's a Cajun term for a little something extra, sort of a Cajun 'baker's dozen')

"Made a lot of people happy, I think."

We got back in the trailer well after midnight.

I locked the door behind us.

"I'm not dawdling in the shower, baby," she said. "Whatta night!"

We seldom 'dawdled' in the shower, not with a ten-gallon water heater, but when I got out, I helped her finish drying her hair and we went straight to bed.

"Leave the light on," she said, still naked. "I know the perfect way to unwind." Her face shone.

I met her in the middle of the bed, wrapping her in my arms, our lips meeting, tasting and feeling her purr as we melded. She had me on my back, her in complete control, me just absolutely loving every luscious second of it. The sassy red hair bounced alluringly.

"You know I adore you. This..." The last word escaped her lips in a hiss as she rode me.

I couldn't think of words to describe everything that went through my head, so I just went with the exquisite feelings as my little redhead hit every one of my senses all at once. "You're way past every dream I ever had, princess."

She took my hands and tugged, indicating that I should sit up. She maneuvered herself to keep us coupled as I moved to sitting, and her legs wrapped around my waist, her face level with mine. I bounced a couple of times on the mattress with her impaled on my hardness. Our mouths welded together, tongues knotting happily.

Her hips moved in circles in one dimension and figure eights in another and I was at the point where I couldn't sit still. Our merged mouths trade breath in pants, then she pulled her face back, her eyes tightly closed, her mouth smiling, except she was biting her bottom lip, her nostrils flared.

I was reciting trig tables to myself, trying NOT to just erupt spontaneously, willing, waiting for her to come. She let out a little squeal and a snort and fastened her mouth on my chest, sucking, biting and a shiver told me that she was there. A couple of thrusts compatible with her hips and I pulsed fire deep into her. She felt it, and ground herself down on me tighter.

Finally I had to breathe again. She turned her face up to me. "God, I love you, Dan Richards. Love you."

"I love you too, Cindy Sue Richards."

I could feel the combined juices oozing out of her tight pussy, soaking my balls. I reached for the towel we kept beside the bed. Often, this got me a protest, but tonight, she eased off me and I gently cleaned up the glistening mess from the both of us. Finishing, I turned off the light, punched one of our bedtime playlists up on the iPod, and pulled my drowsy mate into my arms. The smell of recent sex hung in the still air, mingling with the perfume from her hair. It was but one of many pleasant sensations lingering as I drifted off to sleep.

Sometime during the night, we changed positions. I did. I know she did, because I woke slightly when soft fingers grasped my dick gently as she snuggled up against me after I'd moved. She was sound asleep in the morning when I finally had to go relieve my bladder. When I crawled back into bed beside her, her eyelids fluttered, opening to show me a pair of emeralds.

"Morning, love," she said.

"Morning, kitten," I replied. "How'd you sleep?"

"I didn't sleep. I went into a coma. I'm sure of it."

"I heard that people coming out of comas are hungry. Pancakes?"

"And coffee?"

"Might want to put some clothes on," I said.

"I thought you might wanna," I said.

"I might wanna find a place where we don't have to wear clothes at all." She looked at me for my expression.

"I wouldn't mind that a bit, except I don't want every other guy seeing this..." I swept my hands down her shoulders, over her back, and then around to cup those perfect little mounds.

"I don't want to show 'em, either. But I so much love just lounging around naked with you..." she reached in her drawer and pulled out a pair of powder-blue hip-hugger panties. She was smirking as she waved them at me. "If I wear these, can you stand it?"

"You like teasing me."

"Now I do. The first time you saw these I wasn't trying to tease you. I just hadn't had a lot of practice with skirts and pickup trucks and I just wanted to wear the skirt so I'd look nice."

"If I had a weak heart, seeing those panties would've killed me right there."

She giggled. The early days of our relationship, when we were circling like moths around a flame, I was trying to be a decent friend and nothing more, and she was just happy to have a friend who treated her nice, and all the time, we were like two magnets, destined to stick together.

I watched her slender, well-shaped legs slide into those panties. When she stood, she smiled. At this stage of our lives together, she was confident in what she could do to me, and she did things simply because she knew that they brought me little spots of happiness. Of course, I did the same thing for her every chance I got. Seeing her smile, knowing that it was something I did, that brought pleasure to my life.

We finished dressing. She ran her fingers through her hair, fluffing it. I retrieved a hairbrush and tended to her, bringing that bronze crown to sleek perfection. She reached behind her neck and touched. "About time for a trim, baby," she said. "Unless you want me to let it grow."

"I love it like it's always been, cutie," I said. Her hair had never been long enough to touch her collar.

"Me too. It's always been short like this. I don't know if I could stand it longer." She turned around and put her arms around my neck. "And you seem to like it."

I answered by nuzzling her bangs with my lips. "Yes, I do," I said, supporting my demonstration. Reluctantly I released her and watched that jeans-clad little butt sashay towards the door. I followed, puppy-like. And it felt GOOD.

It was one of those clear spring days. We drove to the restaurant, walked into the Sunday crowd, got waved at by the cashier. "Hi Cindy. Hi, Dan. I think we have booth or two open in the back corner."

She was close to right. The busboy was finishing the booth when we got there. We slid right in ahead of the waitress who arrived with two mugs and a carafe of coffee.

She smiled at Cindy. "Is this a pancake day?"

"Yes, ma'am," Cindy answered.

"What about you, Dan?"

"Little breakfast plate. Scrambled eggs. Grits. Sausage."

"I'll have it out for you in a few minutes."

We looked across the room and saw Mona and Jeff Simmons. They were waiting for their check and when they got it, they made their way over to us. I stood to shake Jeff's hand.

Mona smiled at Cindy. "You were in great form last night, darlin'," she said. Mona and Jeff had been at our concert.

"Thank you, Mizz Mona," Cindy said. "We had fun. What'd you think of us doing that duet?"

Jeff laughed. "Looked like you two were telling each other and letting the world listen."

Cindy perked up. "That's EXACTLY what I told Dan," she said. "I'm so glad it showed."

"Well it did, little darlin'," he said. "We really enjoyed it, didn't we Mona?"

"We did. But y'all need to play some more waltzes so this guy will dance with me." She patted Jeff's hand. "But we need to get to church. You two really ought to come."