Chapter 6

Riley lay in the back yard, staring up at the sky. Pikes Peak made its own weather, or at least seemed to. From where she lay she could see the clouds rushing up the slopes, obscuring the top of the mountain. She was quite sure there were tourists up there, disappointed that all those clouds were blocking the view they had anticipated after the arduous drive to get there. Riley had taken Curtis up there not long after they moved to Manitou Springs. She had expected something grand and glorious. What she had found was a big, uneven, flat gravel parking lot, with a cheesy souvenir shop. The view had been amazing, but the whole time she had looked out over what was probably a hundred miles of beautiful green, two teenagers had been bickering behind her. Like so many things in her life, she felt like Pikes Peak had let her down.

She smiled at the clouds. Even with a telescope, nobody up there could see her now. And that was good, because Riley Elaine Franklin was stark naked. She had decided to try that, on impulse, just to see how it felt. Bob wasn't up there, and the clouds ensured that anybody else who was couldn't see her, so she gave in to her urge to be naughty.

She was surprised at how hard it had been to get naked in her back yard, considering the fact that Chuck had gotten her to strip naked in the car on the way to the cabin, the first time she'd seen it. His plan had been to speed by a number of eighteen wheelers, showing her off to the drivers, and then find someplace to pull over and fuck her. It had all been a mind-boggling whirl of fun and adventure back then. She was amazed at how stupid she'd been just a few short years gone past.

So going outside naked hadn't been fun, at first. She'd walked around the outside of the house first, still clothed, looking for anyone who might be lurking in the neighborhood. Nobody was, of course. Other than the mailman and the UPS driver, the only people who came up as far as her house were lost tourists, and they never stopped. They just turned around and went back down the dusty road. She eyed that road critically. There was no haze of dust, meaning nobody had driven by her house in a while. If anybody did drive up the road, she'd hear them anyway.

So she had stripped down to nothing, taken a towel (just in case) and laid down on the chaise lounge to see how that felt.

She knew Bob wasn't watching. He was on his days off. But she was still amazed at how horny it made her to think of him peering down at her and finding her this way. How surprised would he be? She laughed, imagining the look on his face. She had no idea what he looked like, other than that one photo on his Facebook page. And who knew how old that was, or if it was even real? Still, it was all she had to work with. She decided he would have a silly grin on that face if he saw her like this.

He said he'd gotten her a gift. She hoped she liked it, because if she did, she planned on giving him one too ... lying out like this for him.

It was cloudy. Nobody could see her.

Her fingers reached to stroke bald pussy lips with a light, feather touch.

Quite soon a finger split her greasy labia to find and tease her clit.

Five minutes later, as an unusually strong orgasm washed over her body, she knew she'd be tempted to do this for Bob as well.

She lay there for another ten minutes, getting her strength back, but the clouds kept the sun from giving her all that delicious warmth on her naked body, so she got up to go inside.

She saw her phone lying beside the computer keyboard, and was surprised. Normally she didn't let the damned thing get more than five feet away from her.

She'd have heard it ring, though, even outside. Her ringtone was "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked," and it cut through most household noises.

By habit she scanned the screen, and was surprised to see a missed call with a voice mail attached. She peered closer to the screen and saw that, somehow, the phone had been put on 'vibrate.' She looked at the number. It was an area code that wasn't familiar. Nor was the number itself. The caller ID simply said "Private Caller." She had made them wait to leave a message as long as possible, to screen out those who didn't really want to talk to her. Most people, including telemarketers, wouldn't wait past about ten rings. She gave her customers the code that, when keyed or spoken, would send them directly to voice mail. So this wasn't a customer.

She told the phone to give up the mystery, her finger tapping the screen, and she listened as the voice mail delivered the message that had been left.

For the first time, she heard Bob's voice. It was a nice voice.

She couldn't believe her heart was pounding in her chest, and her pussy was getting damp again as her fingers again stroked the face of her phone, this time pushing the "redial" button.

The ringing on the other end made her want to scream. "Pick up!" she whispered instead.

The ringing was cut off mid cycle.

"Hello?"

"Bob?"

"Riley? Is it you? Is it really you?!"

His voice had been deep when he first picked up, but it had gotten into the higher, more tenor range as he expressed, unintentionally, his excitement.

"Hi," she said, her voice high as always. Many people said she sounded like she was twelve or thirteen. "You'll never believe what I just did."

"I can't believe it's really you," he said. "Hi! Wow! This is so cool!"

She laughed. His excitement was infectious. She resisted the urge to reach and stroke her clit. What was happening to her? This was crazy!

"It's really me," she said. She almost said, "And guess what? I'm naked!" but resisted doing that too. She had already decided that she would surprise him by sunbathing fully nude.

"Wow," he said again. "How are you?"

"I'm great," she said. "How are your days off?"

"Fantastic, now," he said. "Why do I feel like I'm sixteen, and talking to a girl for the first time?"

"I don't know," she said. "Probably because when most people call and I answer the phone, they ask if my mother is home. I'm told I sound a bit young."

"That isn't it," he said. "I mean I love how your voice sounds, but that's not what's making me nervous. What's making me nervous is that I don't want to say something stupid, and I'm afraid I will."

She smiled. "What you're saying is that you don't do this much?"

"Yeah," he sighed. "You could say that."

"Don't worry about it," she said. "I've never known a man who didn't say stupid things every once in a while."

"Thanks," he said, and she was amazed to hear in his voice, that he really meant that.

"So..." she said, suddenly wondering what to say. "What does a spy do on his days off?"

"Well, first off, I'm not a spy. I can't tell you what I do, but I can tell you I'm not a spy. Not in the sense you mean."

Riley thought to herself that he couldn't have any idea of the sense she meant, but she let that go.

"Okay. What does someone like you do on his days off?"

"Well, I go out to eat, for one thing. That's always a treat. And today I went to the mall. Did you get my email?"

"I did," she said. "What is this thing that reminded you of me?"

"I can't tell you that," he said. "It's supposed to be a surprise. Besides, I couldn't describe it to you well enough to do it justice."

"Does it involve slinky underwear?" she probed.

There was a pause that was longer than she expected. Then he answered.

"That's a hard question to answer." He was thinking of how the figurine was dressed. It was definitely slinky, but it wasn't technically "underwear."

"How hard could it be?" she asked. "It either does or doesn't."

"You're slick," he said. "But it's a surprise. So I'm not going to give you any more clues."

"You call that a clue?" she said, but without any real unhappiness in her voice. "Fine! Be mysterious. I have a secret too." She was thinking that she was standing there, stark naked, talking to him.

"That's fine," he said. "There should be parity in mysterious secrets between people."

"You don't want to know mine?" she asked

"If you told me, it wouldn't be a secret," he said.

"But you want to know ... right?"

"I'm normal," he said. "Of course I want to know. But I'm patient too. I hope this isn't the only phone call we'll ever have."

"It's probably not," she said. "Though, to be honest, I can't believe I'm talking to a complete stranger who is a peeping Tom."

"Then maybe we should get to know each other so I'm not a complete stranger anymore," he suggested.

And that was what led to a chat that lasted almost two hours.

There are many emotions within the human experience that are incredibly powerful. Anger is one. Sadness is a thing that can overwhelm a person. Despair can drive a human being to take his or her own life. Boredom will cause some people to do things they would never actually plan to become involved in. Passion is the same way. Sudden passion is responsible for at least as many babies as planned parenthood is, and more murders than are pre-meditated as well. Elation and hope are emotions that can drive a person to stay awake for days on end, and perform acts most people would think were impossible for a human being to accomplish.

All of those emotions are well known to mankind. For the negative ones, there are coping mechanisms that have been devised, so that life can be managed when things aren't good. The positive ones, of course, are often sought out. Counselors, either professional or not, often give advice and aid to help someone get through a bout of emotion. And the reason these advisors can help others survive an emotional situation, is because they understand what the person is feeling. They have experienced that emotion themselves.

But there is another emotion that is less well known. It happens so rarely, that some people may not ever experience it. I'm not even sure it has a name. There is a ghostly version of this emotion called 'contentment.' Perhaps it is a mixture of several other emotions. Some people who have been married for sixty or seventy years know this emotion well. A woodcarver who finishes a figurine and finds no fault in the completed project feels this emotion. It involves a kind of contentment that most people feel only rarely because as humans in modern society, we rarely stop long enough to experience real bone-deep contentment.

I'm not talking about having a beer while you relax after a hard day's work. That might be contentment of a sort, but usually the mind is still moving, planning what to do next, or worrying about what remains undone. That married couple has been through everything together. They know each other so well that they no longer need to worry about how the other will react to a given situation. They know the love is real, and unconditional, and that brings a kind of deep, inner contentment that is this emotion of which I speak. The woodcarver knows that the beauty of his art has the potential to endure long after his bones have turned to dust. He is content that he has created something precious and lasting.

Most of us can't even understand that kind of thing, because we haven't been through what that couple married seventy years has experienced. We literally cannot understand how they feel. Nor are most of us capable of creating a work of art that rises to museum quality. That's why there are museums, in fact, to collect these rare and precious objects. So we can't feel what the artist feels as she completes a work of art.