Cousin Bobby

The rain just would not stop. I wasn’t surprised, since it was October in Southeast Alaska. Actually, it was odd that I even noticed it. I guess it was because I was on a mission not my own that made it stand out in my mind. For those who don’t realize it, Southeast Alaska is home to the largest rain forest outside the Amazon. Tourists always ask, “Where are the monkeys and parrots?”, or “Where are all the palm trees?” Shows what they know about the planet. It’s a rain forest, all right, but it’s a temperate rain forest, not a tropical one.

Anyway, what it means for those of us who live here is a whole butt load of rain every fall, spring, and sometimes all summer long. I was hunkering under the broad sheltering branches of a Sitka spruce tree. The branches over my head managed to catch and rechannel most of the water, but I still received the occasional massive cold drip down my collar or into my eye. Occasionally, I had to go and lift up the curtain of evergreen boughs to scan the cabin and its surrounding area. Each time I did, the blocked rain fell on down on me. Each time it did, I cursed my stupid fucking cousin for dragging me into this fiasco.

My cousin, Bobby, and I are almost the same age. He got to celebrate his 21st birthday a month before I did, but I think I’ve caught up to him in hangovers in the twenty-five years between then and now. We have always been more like brothers than cousins. We told each other everything. I suppose that was why he asked me to stand watch instead of somebody else. I could have been home and warm, snuggled up with my dog, Barber, by the fire instead of here in the rain and the cold watching Bobby’s cabin. I had asked a favor of him when my last wife and I were getting divorced, so he asked this one of me and I had to consent to it.

Bobby was suspicious of his wife. He thought she was getting it on with a guy that worked at the cannery. They worked four ten’s at the cannery, which meant that everybody had three day weekends all season. The season for the canneries ran from May through October, or until the weather on the gulf got so bad that the boats couldn’t go out. So far, in spite of the rain, they were still going out and returning with the holds full of cod and halibut. So this guy that Bobby was worried about was still around.

I duck-walked to the edge of my shelter and lifted the branch. So far there was no sign of anything amiss at the cabin. It was only about thirty feet away from the edge of the forest and the tree I was under. Bobby’s wife, Gina, had driven in around 7:00 and gone inside, carrying two bags from the grocery store. The sun had hit the horizon three hours earlier, so she turned on the lights when she went inside. Nothing had changed since.

Bobby brought Gina back from a trip outside (that’s the rest of the US to those of you who don’t live in Alaska, otherwise known as the ‘Lower Forty-Eight’) three years ago. He had bought a cruise down Mexico way and enjoyed the shit out of it. He had enjoyed it so damn much that he had fallen victim to a “Margarita Marriage”. Gina had been a two time loser in the marriage lottery, but he married her anyway. That didn’t necessarily make her a loser, per se, as I well know. I have three separate divorce files in my cabinet at home, and don’t consider myself a loser, just a bad judge of character. But in Gina’s case, one of her husbands wasn’t absent because of a divorce, but because he was no longer with us, as in deceased. This wasn’t necessarily an odd thing, since he was also several decades older then she was, but there were extenuating circumstances.

He had died from an overdose of a prescription drug he was taking for some condition or other. According to Bobby, which was third hand from Gina, the guy had gotten drunk – he shouldn’t have been drinking with the medication in the first place – and then took a double dose of the stuff, apparently too drunk to remember that he had already taken it. It was a pretty hazy situation, but the bottom line was that Gina could well afford the cruise she had taken after the funeral. That was the one where she met Bobby.

Bobby was a forty-four year old bachelor when he hit it big. Alaska doesn’t have a lottery like other states, even though it should. Anyway, thanks to the internet, Alaskans can buy tickets for any state lottery, as well as for the multi-state games like Powerball and the Big Game. It was Powerball that Bobby hit. He had to split the prize, but only with seven other people. When the prize is 115 million dollars, even a seven way split makes Jack – or Bobby -- a rich boy. It meant that Bobby got a check for over a half million each year (after taxes) for the next twenty years. Even I wouldn’t mind splitting that one.

If he’d brought her back before the wedding, everybody would have tried to dissuade him from marrying Gina, at least at the time. But the cruise was a Mexican one, and we all know that it’s easy to marry and divorce south of the border. By the time they hit the tarmac in Juneau to transfer to the puddle jumper for home, the deed was done, for better or worse, as they say.

Okay, nobody except Gina knows what’s in her mind. Only she knows whether she is only after Bobby’s money or if she really likes him. She acts like it. I would have said “loves him”, but I’m not going there. I probably know less than most people about that subject, and I’m certainly in no position to judge Gina’s temperament. Bobby, on the other hand clearly loves his little Italian bombshell.

She’s attractive, I’ll give her that. It isn’t so much a physical thing as it is in the way she acts and looks at you. She has black, black hair. She even has a little bit of a mustache – a subject that Bobby has to get over, since he has beaten the shit out of two guys so far for even making fun of it. She’s short, maybe 5’ 6”. Apparently her mother liked her children to eat well, because she is pretty round in a lot of places. Her tits are round; her ass is round, and protruding. Her cheeks are round. Her smile is contagious. Okay, she’s probably overweight for her height, but she carries it well. To watch her, she has no self-consciousness about her weight. On her it’s attractive.

Minutes after Bobby and Gina got off the plane from Juneau, they were ensconced in a booth at the Iditarod Lounge. She was painting everybody with her grin and passing along a thank you handshake (and sometimes a kiss!) for the congratulations she and Bobby were receiving. Most of those folks still thought Bobby had gotten a good deal and were in the dark about Gina’s past.

This town is like most other Southeast Alaska towns. These days, the economy is based on tourism, instead of the original trinity: gold, trees, and fish. The environmentalists have choked off most of the first two, and the Japanese and Russians have cut a big hole in the last one. Anyway, we have to depend on the cruise ships more every year to support the town. Maybe it was for show, or maybe not, but Gina got a job as a clerk in one of the shops almost the day after she and Bobby got home. Herk Bledsoe hired her without any sort of application crap, the way things used to be done here. She was Bobby Landsdowne’s wife, and that was good enough for him. Herk is one of the few old-timers here who have held on to their stores. Most of the rest of them have sold or leased their spots to outside corporations.

So, the public view seemed good. Gina and Bobby were all smiles, strokes and kisses whenever they were out to eat or to drink and dance. When Gina lasted through her first winter and neither she, nor the marriage seemed any worse for the wear, everybody just sort of accepted her into the local fold, though on probation. The winter hadn’t been all that cold or harsh, so really anybody could have weathered it. Still, Gina was welcomed and invited to sit at the coffee shops when she walked in every morning. The two of them had friends they got together with for dinner and cards frequently.

In other words, Gina had found a way to fit in. I don’t know about the previous seasons, but this year she apparently had gotten into a friendship with this guy from Seattle who worked for the cannery. He had made some sizeable purchases from her at Herk’s shop and he was charming as hell. Herk was the one who first mentioned him to Bobby.

“Bobby, I’ll tell ya, the guy must have a dozen girlfriends outside. He comes in almost every payday and drops a couple hundred on jewelry and gifts. Gina always talks him up to some more expensive stuff. This is a good one you got here.” Bobby was picking Gina up from work when that conversation took place. Bobby repeated again what had become his Gina litany.

“Yeah, I know, Herk. She’s a keeper!” The happy couple bundled themselves into Bobby’s 4x4 and drove off. That particular scene was a standard for the three of them. It first occurred the first summer Gina was here, and happened fairly frequently over the next few years. Like I said, it was like a litany.

Bobby called me last Wednesday from the Iditarod. It was really hard to understand what he was saying since he was way too far gone to be even standing, let alone talking on the phone. I managed to get him to understand that if he would just sit down, I would be sitting next to him in about two minutes. Then I was there. Fortunately, he hadn’t begun to sing his woes to the general public. He was trashed. I moved him to a table that was far enough from the juke box and the pool table so that we could talk in relative privacy.

“So, what’s up, Bob?” I asked. He looked at me, and then let his head swivel around the bar. I don’t know what he saw; his eyes were like little pissholes in the snow. When his gaze fell back onto me, I watched his mouth pucker up and he spat out, “That bitch!”

Okay. I know there was only one woman he could have been talking about, but I had to play my part in this scenario.

“What bitch, Bob?”

“Well, Gina, of course! Who the fuck else do you think I’d be mad about?”

“Okay. What’s Gina done now?” I’d gone through the furniture thing, the car thing, and the boat thing between these two. I was curious to hear what might have been left.

It’s that fuckhead Larry!” I knew two guys in town named Larry. I didn’t know which of them was the fuckhead Bobby was talking about until he continued.

“The little cocksucker has every Friday off! I work Fridays! I know he’s over there fucking her when I’m at work!” Bobby worked for the INS at the border station. Since he was the junior guy, he worked nights.

“Hold on here,” I said, “start over. What the fuck are you saying?” I wanted to set things in order and Bobby’s emotional state was such that I needed to say it out. “Do you think Gina’s fucking that little shit from the cannery?”

“Hell, yeah! It’s got to be him! I don’t know why I ever married her, Tommy. She just got to me, I guess. That ass of hers is incredible.” I had heard about Gina’s ass, and all the other parts of her that had an effect on my cousin many times. I almost felt like I had already fucked her.

Now, let me say here that my philosophy about sex vs. relationships is probably different than most. I feel that whatever works for anybody is great. I have pretty much discarded the ideas of monogamy and strict heterosexuality, and have assumed the attitude that most people are open physically to members of either sex, under the right circumstances. But Bobby was still a straight arrow when it came to marriage. So I tried to concentrate on what he was saying.

It seems that he had heard some gossip about this Larry guy having been seen leaving his cabin one night. He asked Gina about it and she didn’t lie. She told him that Larry had dropped by to ask her to set aside some stuff at the store for him. Well, that’s about as far fetched as any explanation I’d ever heard, but it was so wacky it might even have been true. Bobby just took it in and asked her to tell the guy to stick to coming into the store if he had requests like that.

That was about a month before the night I was sitting under the tree. Bobby had heard the same story another time or two, so he asked me to stand sentry on some Friday night. So there I was.

I lifted the branch again and looked at the windows of the cabin. As I was watching, I saw Gina walk out of the darkness that was the hallway and through the lighted living room. Then she appeared in the small kitchen window. She was wearing something red. I knew the layout of the cabin since I had helped Bobby build it. After doing something at the sink in the kitchen, Gina turned away from the window. Than I saw her walk back through the living room carrying two glasses, one in each hand. I frowned at that. I didn’t have to be a Sherlock to figure that two glasses meant two mouths.

When she had disappeared again into the hall, I pushed my way out from under the tree. The rain had slacked off for a nit, but it was still coming down. I was already wet to the skin, though, so it didn’t really bother me. I crossed the driveway and went around the end of the cabin to the back. The light was on in the bedroom and the curtains were closed. I edged up to the glass and cupped a hand around my ear to listen.

I could hear music and, in the background, two voices. I couldn’t hear the words, but the sounds were clear otherwise. Gina had a man in her bedroom all right. I backed up and looked at the window. The curtains were closed, as I said, but there was a small gap up high on the right side. Looking around, I saw the sawhorses Bobby used when he cut wood. It wasn’t perfect, but it would work. I moved one close to the side of the house and managed to climb up on it without making too much noise. It was a good thing they had the music on, or I’d have been busted.

I put my eye close to the gap in the top of the curtain. I could see a lot of the room, the closet doors and the floor mostly. I also had a view of the foot of the bed. On the bed I saw two pairs of legs, one hairy and (I assumed) male, the other smooth and partly covered by a red nightie. Damn! Bobby was right. Gina was fucking around. I couldn’t see who the guy was, but I assumed it was Larry from the cannery. As I watched, Gina stood up. She moved into my view.

She was smiling toward the bed as she opened and slipped out of her nightie. She was naked. The thought passed through my mind that Bobby probably hadn’t thought I’d get to see his wife naked when he gave me this job. She was definitely a keeper! Her tits were firm and proud on her chest. Glancing down, I noted that she shaved her pubic hair. She did a little turn for her audience and I saw her ass was as pretty and round as I’d always thought it would be. Her nipples were standing up hard.

She got on her knees on the foot of the bed. With a hand on each of the guy’s legs, she lowered herself between them. From the movement, I decided she was sucking his cock. Bobby hadn’t given me any instructions as far as what he wanted me to do, other than watch to see if she was having company. I leaned to the said to try and get a wider view. It didn’t help much. I was able to increase my view of Gina’s body up to her shoulders, but no more. I watched her ass a while. Strictly for Bobby’s sake, you understand. It was so nice and round I just wanted to grab it and squeeze. In fact, that’s what the guy did right then. I saw his hands move down into view and take a cheek in each one. I heard Gina squeal as he squeezed them. It was then that I realized my cock was hard in my pants.

It bothered me that I hadn’t seen the guy arrive at the house. I guessed I had just gotten there too late. I pulled my sleeve back and looked at my watch. It was ten-fifteen. Bobby got off work at midnight and it only took a few minutes to get home. A lot can happen in an hour and forty-five minutes. I looked into the room again. Gina had moved up and was straddling the legs now. She was rocking back and forth, so I guessed they were fucking. I reached down to rearrange my cock so it was more comfortable. I was beginning to understand the attraction of being a voyeur. The guy still had his hands full of Gina’s ass. His knees rose up and I could see his balls.

Then they changed positions. When they rolled over, I saw the guy’s ass and the back of his head. I was shocked! Instead of the sandy blond of Larry’s hair, this guy was gray-headed! I was looking at Herk Bledsoe’s naked ass! He was fucking his star salesgirl! I tottered on the sawhorse and my jacket scraped against the side of the house. The pair in the bedroom stopped and their heads snapped toward the window. It was time for me to boogie.

I jumped off the sawhorse and trotted back around the house. I ran across the driveway toward the road and my rig, which I’d parked in the brush about a half block down the road. It occurred to me that I probably didn’t have to run. It was highly unlikely that either of the cheating pair would get to the door before I was well out of sight, even if I walked. By then, however, I was at my truck and the point was moot.

I drove home, the wipers slapping the rain away. The storm had returned in force and they had a hard time keeping up with it. I turned off the road and pulled up under my carport. I opened the back door and Barber greeted me with his usual whines and grins. I bent to pet him and then took off my soaked coat, hanging it in the back hall. Instead of tracking the rain and mud through the house, I just stripped right there. The washing machine and dryer were there, so I just dropped everything on top of the washer. Scuffing my feet dry on the throw rug, I went on into the kitchen. I got a beer from the refrigerator and continued into the living room.

I spend most of my time at home naked, so there was already a towel on the couch. I sat on it and Barber jumped up to curl up beside me. I stroked his head as I sipped my beer and thought about what I’d learned. Herk had known our family as long as I could remember. It was incredible to me that he would be the one to turn Bobby into a cuckold. Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was just the latest one. It was still possible that Gina was fucking Larry, too. The thought that she might be that much of a slut was depressing. I clicked on the TV and absently surfed through the channels.

At midnight I went and put my robe on. I knew Bobby would be by when he got off work. I was still unsure what I would say to him. At five after twelve, the phone rang. I was surprised to hear Gina’s voice.

“I know it was you, Tommy. Outside the house. It was you, wasn’t it?” I hesitated. If I was going to be faithful to Bobby, it was all going to come out anyway, so it didn’t matter if Gina knew.

“Yeah, it was me. I wasn’t just after cheap thrills, though, Gina. Bobby knows you’re fucking around. I was just surprised it was with Herk.”

“Listen, Tommy, please don’t tell Bobby yet. Wait until I can talk to you. Please!” I don’t know what made me say I’d wait. The image of Gina spinning in a circle naked passed through my mind. I don’t want to think it was that picture that made me promise her. It might have been, though. It might have been the sight of her on elbows and knees sucking Herk’s cock. It might have been a reluctance to hurt my cousin. At any rate, I told her I wouldn’t say anything to Bobby. We hung up and I went back to the couch.

Ten minutes later, Bobby came in the front door. We don’t bother with things like knocking. At least I didn’t until he married Gina. Now I do, but he still doesn’t. He was dripping rain water on the carpet. “Hey! Kick off those boots, shithead, and hang up your coat.” He backed into the entry and did as I’d asked. He used the towel I keep there to dry his face and hair before coming back into the living room. In the interim, I’d gone to the fridge and gotten him a beer. I handed it to him and we both sat down.