Chapter 2

I was standing outside the revolving door after leaving my security, my job. My thoughts were interrupted by, "You too? I thought they might take you up on your two weeks notice. The four argued about it until Stan finally said they needed to abide by company policy. He had me send personnel a note requesting your check and mine. Really a class act."

Sonja asked, "How about taking me home so I can pack? You do that and we can be on our way in the morning."

Holy shit, it was happening. Did I get pushed into doing this? Is this what I really wanted? The answer to the big question was, "Yes; I wanted to do this, and I wanted to get going."

When I went to the apartment office, the girl became very anxious about my leaving. She asked me to wait and talk to the manager.

The manager was a nice guy who always gave you a smile and wave. When he waved me to sit in a chair in front of his desk, he asked, "I'm told you want to drop your lease. You only have two more months left, so I'm sure we can make a deal."

I told him, "I will pay the two months, but I will use the apartment for those two months then move."

The man was cagey, "Are you going to be living here or just use the apartment as storage?"

"Probably storage. My new place is bigger to accommodate my new live-in partner."

He rubbed his chin and asked, "What can I do to convince you to abandon the apartment early so a new tenant can move in?"

I stared at him for a few seconds, before answering, "You could buy me out a month and give me back my deposit. You do know that I should have had the deposit refunded to me last year as I have leased here longer than the required three years."

"Ahem, ah, you may be right, but for us to buy back your first month might be more than we can offer."

I told him, "That's okay, I'm sure I'll be fine just using it for storage. If I have to pay for two months, I might as well use it."

The man stood up behind his desk and actually began pacing back and forth, until he said, "I'll give you one month's rent back if you will abandon the apartment this weekend. I'll give you one month and your security deposit if you're gone by Sunday afternoon."

I asked, "What would you give if I was gone by noon tomorrow?"

The man looked incredulously at me. "If you are out of there and the apartment clean by noon tomorrow, I'll give you two months rent and your security deposit."

I stood, shook the man's hand and said, "Be at my front door with the check at eleven tomorrow, and I'll hand you the keys."

The wait to get out of his office was almost too much. By the time I was outside, heading to my apartment, I was laughing so hard that I thought people were going to call the wagon for the funny farm. This was almost too good to be true.

In my apartment, I began packing the few things I had. The kitchen took a whole banker's box. My clothes in drawers took another. The few things on the wall took the third, and I was standing in the living room taking stock. I called the furniture rental people who said I could have the furniture because I had paid for it so long. It was difficult to get across to them that they had to come and pick it up or they could be sued. Their answer was, "The truck will be there by four this afternoon, be there."

I called Sonja, "I have made my deal with the apartment people, and the furniture rental place will be here at four. How are you doing?"

It was easy to hear the smile in Sonja's voice, "I'm done, just waiting for the pickup truck limo to get here. Do you want to get on the road tonight? Or... ?"

"Or what? I'm for getting the heck out of here. I'll call the apartment manager and he'll check me out real quick. I should be there by five."

Son of a gun, the furniture rental guys showed up at two. As soon as he came into the apartment, the guy said, "If you're not ready, we can't pick up until Monday."

I smiled and said, "Let me help you load."

While we were loading, I had the apartment manager come to inspect my place. It was perfect as all I ever did there was to watch a little TV and sleep. I had a very uninteresting life until now.

When I had the check in hand, I drove straight to the bank it was drawn on and almost had to argue about getting cash for the check. Several calls later, I was on my way to pick up Sonja.

It took two trips to carry Sonja's stuff to the truck. She had more hanging clothes than I did, but not by much. I was still able to put hanging stuff to each side so I could see out of the back windows.

It was four fifteen in the afternoon when we passed the city limits sign on our way south.

The traffic was just a little heavy and not too terrible. Both Sonja and I were overly anxious and excited, we were actually making a break to where we wanted to be. We chatted about everything under the sun, discussing and disclosing everything about our families and of our youth and experiences. By the time we were exiting Kentucky into Tennessee, we were getting tired and hungry. It was nearing ten in the evening, and we did need to get gas.

I pulled into a small town gas station off of I-75 to fill up. The place was a popular truck stop that had a restaurant, with a motel next door. I told Sonja, "Let's stop here. We'll get a room before getting some good truck stop comfort food."

Sonja was agreeable, so we were sitting in the truck stop being served by eleven. Sonja said, "You know, we don't have to kill ourselves getting down there. Let's take it easy and drive until we get tired, then knock off for the day. I think I might want to stop in Tampa for Busch Gardens, or go to Orlando to see Disney."

"Sounds like a plan, Sonja. We'll take seventy-five to Tampa, go to Busch Gardens, then spend at least a day at Disney. We might be spending more than we planned for fun stuff, but it will be fun."'

We spent an entire day at Busch Gardens, riding all of the rides and being entertained by all of the animal displays. On Monday, we went to Sea World on the two-day deal they had with Busch Gardens. Tuesday and Wednesday were at Disney, where we didn't see it all, followed by Universal Studios for a day. We spent a ton of money going to these places, but it was a once in a lifetime experience.

On Wednesday, we found Interstate ninety-five south to begin the final leg of our trip. We drove to Miami and decided to check out that crazy city. We drove all over the city, including the infamous South Beach area. It was cool to see everything, but Sonja and I agreed it was too superficial for us.

We were once again headed south on Thursday morning. Sonja called her dad and told him we were going to get there in a couple of days. I called my sister, who lived with my aunt on Marathon Key, and was promised a good time if we were to visit them.

As we passed through Homestead, Sonja said, "How about a motel for tonight instead of your sister's? We can go there tomorrow night, but let's relax tonight. We're going to be busier than a one-armed wallpaper hanger as soon as we get to Key West. Let's take a break while we can."

We stopped at the last motel before the hundred and ten-mile trip across the bridges to Key West. After eating some great seafood at the restaurant, we walked along the beaches near the motel talking, bumping into each other in a friendly, familiar manner.

Sonja said, "You know what? You're the first guy I've found that just let me be me. You haven't tried to make me into someone you wanted or asked me to do something I didn't want to do. Everything we've done has been by consensus and what we both wanted to do."

I nodded in agreement as we strolled barefoot along water's edge.

"That makes me happy too, Sonja. I have wanted a buddy for a long time, but as you know they are hard to find. You have been a lot of fun, and I don't want that to go away."

Sonja stopped and held me back, turning me to her, "Pete, I don't want to leave you and go do something else. I want us to find a way to keep what we have and make it down there. Do you think we can do that?"

I put my arm around Sonja and turned her back toward our room, "Sonja, we've had some good times these last few days. We're both leaving a lot behind us in search of new lives down here. I'd love for us to remain close as we are now."

Sonja stopped and faced me again. She raised her head and looked me in the eye, "Then let's take this a little farther, Pete, I want us to be more than traveling buddies, more than just everyday buddies."

Sonja pulled my head down to kiss me. Whether it was shock or intense desire, I'll never know, but we molded together as if we were one. When we pulled apart, gasping, Sonja said, "Hurry, we have something to do."

That something we had to do was to seal the deal. We consummated our togetherness with one hell of a lovemaking session. Neither one of us had a whole lot of experience, but we found out how to please each other over and over again.

When we woke on Friday, Sonja said, "Can we stay here another night? I don't want to leave yet, and we haven't finished learning about each other."

On Saturday, we drove through to Marathon Key and found my aunt's and sister's place. They were ecstatic to have us visiting, and equally excited that we were planning on settling in Key West.

Their place was on the water, and I spent a lot of time sitting on their dock watching the bubbles from the fish surfacing and snapping at bugs that were flying over the water.

Sonja was all over me that night. She was doing stuff to me that I never imagined. She directed me to do several very pleasurable things to her that had her nearly screaming with pleasure.

The next morning, my aunt said to Sonya, "Sounds like you taught Pete a lot of the things we taught you yesterday. Fun, wasn't it?"

Sonja wasn't bashful at all. While I was blushing, she smiled and said, "Thank you for teaching us. We'll be back for our graduate course very soon."

We began the final leg of our trip on Sunday. When we pulled up to her dad's place, I realized his house backed up to a public beach. You could walk out his back door, around his pool, and straight out to the Atlantic. This was like heaven.

When it was time for bed Sunday night, Sonja led me upstairs to a big room with a queen sized bed. As I sat on the bed, Sonja began doing a delicious striptease. By the time she was stripped, I had serviced her multiple times, giving her as many orgasms as she could stand.

As I held myself over her on stiff arms, still intimately connected, Sonja put her legs around my hips to pull me deeper into her, "Oh, Pete, this is so right, so good. Let's try to keep it just this way."

We were up early Monday with the intention of doing some early job hunting. Sonja's dad said to wait until a little later, and he would introduce us to a couple of club owners. He told us that it should be easy for us to find work since we were willing to do almost anything.

Around eleven, Sonja's dad took us to a beach restaurant and club near their house. The manager interviewed Sonja first, before leading me to the bar. He began asking me to make various drinks. Everything he asked for was popular right now, nothing really tough. He asked me, "Make a pitcher of Margaritas without ice so we can use it tonight. I'll take a half glass with ice to make sure it's good."

The next was a tequila sunrise. Something that is always fun, because it has a variety of good stuff mixed in. After tasting the last two drinks, he asked, "Can you do a mint mojito?"

That was a no-brainer, and he thought my answer to rubbing the mint around in a bowl, acceptable. I used a single small piece of ice and stuffed a bunch of mint into the mini food processor. Using my washed fingers, I rubbed some over the rim of the glass, swished some around the upper edges, and added the booze with another touch of the processed mint in it. Instead of minutes to make the drink, it was seconds. He tasted the drink and smiled, "You're hired. You have to teach my other bartenders how you make those. Let's all have a Hurricane and call it a day."

Hurricanes are what I call 'hurry canes' as everyone who orders one thinks Florida bars should keep them made all the time. We sipped our volatile drinks and discussed salary, commission, and tip sharing. He was repeating everything the instructor at the bartending school said. Sonja could hardly wait to tell me that the headwaiter had hired her as a waitress.

We both had to go to a clothing store for some decent black pants and a couple of black skirts for Sonja. We both bought enough good white shirts to last a week and were sitting on the porch of her dad's place enjoying the sunset.

Sonja asked, "Can we look for somewhere or someplace to live tomorrow?"

A little shocked, I asked, "You mean for the two of us to move in with each other?"

Sonja smiled, got up, sat on my lap, and said, "We've already made that choice, now it's just when we will do it. Can we look tomorrow? We don't have to go to work until three, so we would have all morning."

How do you refuse a cute little girl squirming on your lap? You don't.

Tuesday morning, Sonya's dad took us to a real estate property manager he knew. The lady had a dozen properties close by that she could show us, so we chose the least expensive ones first. It didn't take us long to find just the place. The actual house was up on stilts with parking underneath. The price was right, and it was about a hundred yards from the water. From what we had been told at the restaurant, our tips will more than easily cover the cost of the place. If it was tight, I'm sure we could rent out one of the three bedrooms to cover the expense.