Chapter 15

Sunday, November 25, 2001

There is a trick to getting dressed and undressed while wearing handcuffs. However, in the rather drunken madness of the combination double wedding reception and season wrap party, Nicole either forgot or intentionally didn't tell Crystal what it was.

Thus it was that Crystal and Preach's wedding night was something less than it might have been. Oh, it was interesting and rewarding for all of that, but some of the dynamics were muted by the fact that Crystal didn't get her T-shirt or bra off, and couldn't use her hands in the way that she would have liked. Given that it was Preach's initial experience and she was coming off of a long dry spell, it was relatively unsatisfying and left her in a less than ideal mood the next morning in a motel room on the outskirts of Flagstaff.

"I'm going to wring that little geek's neck when I get my hands on him," were the words she used as she woke up with her bra and T-shirt all in a wad wrapped around the handcuffs. One arm was numb, mostly because she'd spent the night with her arms around her husband, and even though the mattress was soft, he'd laid on it all night. "I'll wring it like a chicken."

"Several things come to mind," Preach said gently. "'Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord' is one of them."

"You would say that," Crystal snorted. "Get off my arm; I think it's dead."

It took them both some wiggling to get free of each other. Pure pain shot through Crystal's arm as the blood started to flow back into it, causing her to let go with a loud groan. For an instant, she almost wished it really was dead. "Oh, shit, that hurts like a son of a bitch!" she moaned, breaking a promise she'd made to herself to not use that kind of language around her husband.

Without a hint of reproach, all he asked was, "Are you going to be all right, Crystal?"

"Yeah, I think so," she said, gritting her teeth as the pain began to subside a little. She sat up on the edge of the bed, naked except for the wad of clothing and stainless steel around her wrists. "I'm sorry, Preach," she managed to say. "I kind of hoped we were going to have a little more, uh, romantic a wedding night than that."

"It was fine as far as I was concerned," he smiled soothingly. "In fact, it was kind of nice knowing you were close to me all night and weren't going to get away."

"Damn it, Preach, this isn't how I wanted to start things out," she said, nearly in tears. "I wanted to make our first time together something really memorable for you."

"And this isn't?" he laughed, pointing at the handcuffs. "It's hard to believe how memorable it's going to be, especially after watching you last night. When Randy locked those handcuffs on you, he really locked them on, didn't he? There's not going to be any picking them with a bobby pin, is there?"

"One of the people Randy and Nicole know in Spearfish Lake wore a pair like this for years," she said, her anger fading with the pain in her arm. "She said they've very secure, and she wasn't fooling. Preach, what are we going to do?"

"What we're going to do is exercise a little patience," he said. "Randy was right, we're facing a long drive, it'll give you something to do."

"That jerk. No, I won't break his neck. I'll bet it was Nicole's idea, anyway, after what happened at her wedding. I'll just break her neck. Darn it, I'd sort of hoped we could do another round before we got going, but I don't know if I'm in the mood now."

"Tell you what," he laughed again. "I'll help you get dressed; we'll have some breakfast and get on the road. You can start working on those keys, and tonight we can make up for lost time. Relax, Crystal, it could have been worse."

"How could it have been worse?"

"It could have been a chastity belt. They really make those things, you know. Now, that would have been frustrating for the both of us."

"You would think of that," she snorted. "What happened, did I marry a kink or something?"

He let out a laugh. "Some wise man once said, 'We always marry strangers.' You know, I think he got it right."

"Good grief," she shook her head, only half in jest. "Now you tell me!" She sat and looked at him for a moment; he was still half-in, half-out of the covers, nude, of course. "You know," she smiled, "Maybe I am in the mood for another round after all, handcuffs or no handcuffs."

"That's the spirit," he smiled. "Isn't it more rewarding to overcome adversity?"

It was still pretty awkward, but nothing like as bad as it had been the night before. In fact, it was a lot more fun. More than an hour later, they lay side by side under the covers, pretty well worn out but satisfied. "You know," Crystal said, "I was a little worried about going into this blind, so to speak. I mean, well, not knowing what was in the package. But that wasn't bad, and I think I might be able to train you up to the point where you're not half bad."

"You're not dissatisfied?"

"No, no way," she grinned. "You know, I half suspected it was true, but all those people are right. It is better with the one you love. That proves it, in my book anyway."

"We'll have plenty of chances," he said, "And without the handcuffs, too. That ought to make things better for the both of us. Maybe we'd better think about getting up and getting moving. We can still get to Oklahoma City or someplace like that if we don't waste the day in bed."

"I can't think of much better ways to waste a day, but perhaps I can get the handcuffs off, too. Maybe we can waste the day in Oklahoma City tomorrow." She let out a sigh and continued, "I need a shower, but I guess I don't get to take one."

"Why not?"

"Until I get these handcuffs off I'm going to be stuck with wearing this bra and T-shirt," she told him. "I really don't think I'd like to get them wet."

"How about if I wrap a garbage bag or something around your wrists and wash you down myself? That ought to do the job," he suggested. "Besides, it might be kind of fun."

"That isn't quite what I had in mind for bathing with a friend, but it ought to work."

It did work, fairly well at that, and both of them figured it would be a lot more fun without the handcuffs. After Preach dried her off, he helped her untangle the mess of bra and T-shirt and get them back over her. She could have dressed her lower half by herself, but it was more fun to have Preach help her.

It was chilly in Flagstaff that morning, too chilly for just a T-shirt, so Preach wrapped a jacket around her shoulders and zipped it up partway to keep it from coming off. "Would you like some breakfast?" he asked as he started hauling stuff out to his car.

"Yeah, I would," she told him. "I'm hungry and I have every reason to be. But somehow, I don't think I want to go into a restaurant with these things on. Let's just do a drive-through someplace and get on the road."

"I think that will serve," he agreed. "I'd just as soon get on the road, too."

A few minutes later golden arches were fading in Preach's rear view mirror. Fortunately the handcuffs didn't impede Crystal's enjoyment of a couple sandwiches and a large cup of coffee. "This is kind of weak compared to what we're used to on the river, but it'll do," she sighed as she took a deep sip of the hot coffee. "I guess I'm just as glad I didn't drink that much last night. As bad as everything was it would have made everything worse, and I don't think I'd be up to dealing with a raging hangover."

"I noticed you were staying away from it pretty good," he agreed. "I had a couple myself, but just in the spirit of sociability. I noticed that Nanci didn't drink a drop. She and Kevin were hauling some of the more notably plastered back to wherever it was they were staying."

"Good kid," Crystal smiled. "I'll tell you what, a few years ago, back when we were both in college, she wasn't happy unless she was drunk out of her mind. I mean, she was either drunk or hung over, no in between. Boy, has she straightened out her act."

A few miles up the road, with coffee and sandwiches consumed, Crystal turned to the white bucket of keys. "They all look alike," she complained. "It's going to take all day to get through all those keys, if I can manage it then."

"Not much you can do but get started," Preach opined. "There's a duffel bag in the back seat. I think you can squirm around and get it when you get the keys. Just dump out what's in it. That'll give you something to put the keys in that you tried already. Otherwise, we're going to be finding useless handcuff keys everywhere around this car for years."

It took some squirming around, but in a few minutes Crystal had the open bucket of keys between her feet, and the duffel bag on the armrest next to her. Most handcuffs are pretty simple, made of stampings riveted or welded together. The internal lock is simple, and with a little bit of time and the right tool – which need not be much more than a correctly bent paper clip – they're easy to pick. The Soliels were anything but easy. They were mostly made of castings and designed for long-term wear, and to be very hard to pick, with a pin-tumbler lock not unlike the one in a front door or the ignition key of a car. Although Crystal suspected there might be another answer, the simplest way to do it seemed to be to just work her way through the huge pot of keys, one key at a time.

"I wonder how many there are," she said absently as she dropped perhaps the twentieth key in the bag. "It looks like there could be thousands."

"I suppose we could figure it out," he said. "Or you could keep count."

"I don't think I'll bother," she snorted. "This is going to be bad enough as it is."

It took a while to get a routine worked out, but soon Crystal was at the point where she could try a key every few seconds, but hours rolled by, and the depth of the pile of keys only seemed to diminish slightly. Preach put a light rock CD in the car's stereo, and soon Crystal was to the point where she could test keys and talk at the same time. For the most part they talked about the near future; the first of their church visits was only a few days off, and there would be one and sometimes two most days for the next month. It looked to be a grueling grind to both of them, and they were going to have to stay upbeat and cheerful as they gave the same presentation over and over again, and then were asked the same questions over and over again.

But they talked of other things, too. The plan was to be back in Flagstaff for Christmas, then in Spearfish Lake for Myleigh's wedding, then to Florida for the surfing trip. Because of the timing and the fact that there would be some more church visits after the holidays, they planned to leave the car in Orlando when they headed back to Flagstaff after finishing this round of church programs. They would fly to Phoenix and ride with Jon and Tanisha to Flag when for what had become the new traditional Christmas dinner at Al and Karin's. After they finished up with Myleigh's wedding, they'd fly to Orlando, pick up the car, and drive to Buddha and Giselle's for a few days, and then get back to the church visits and the outdoor show in Atlanta until it was time to leave for the Bahamas. Only after the sailing trip would they head back to Flag, and by then it would nearly be time to start rigging rafts and gear for another season.

They figured the house would look pretty good to them by then. At this point they had no idea what Jim and Scooter planned to be doing after they returned from Mexico, and they didn't think Jim and Scooter had any idea, either. At some point all of them would be together in "the house" again, but by the time that happened, some of the "new" of the marriages would have worn off and it would be time to be thinking about getting on the river again. In the short term, it was an odd life that they had planned. They didn't think it would last forever, but it seemed pretty good to them right now.

In spite of the traffic moving fast, and Preach mostly keeping up with it, it was still after noon before they pulled into Albuquerque and did a drive-through lunch; by then the depth of the keys was noticeably lower. It was getting pretty small as they rolled through Tucumcari, and New Mexico was coming to an end. Of course, as luck would have it Crystal was down to the last couple handfuls of keys when she hit the jackpot. "Got you, you little bastard!" she cried as the key turned in the lock on her left wrist. In seconds, her hand was free, and very soon the other cuff was, as well. "Oh, that feels good," she said, spreading her arms about as wide as she could get them in the car. "I was starting to think I might have missed the key or maybe Randy had pulled another fast one on me."