Ginger Blue

Angel pushed away from Al and looked up into his face. He was surprised at the adoration he saw in her eyes. How had he missed this before? Was this what he wanted? Did he want to be tied to just one pussy for the rest of his life? Could he do it? Shit! Angel said, "No Al after he slapped me Daddy stormed off to the church and I packed everything I own into the church van. It's outside. If you'll help me unload it I need to take the van back. Daddy was yelling his head off when I drove out of the lot in the van. I wouldn't put it past him to turn it in as stolen. Can you hurry so we can get it back quickly? Then will you come pick me up please?"

Al smiled and said, "No problem, Angel. Come on, let's get busy," as he guided Angel outside and toward the van. They unloaded the van, placing her possessions just inside the front door. They had the van back to the parsonage before ten a.m. Neither of them saw Angel's father when they returned the van. After returning to Al's home they spent the rest of the morning arranging Angel's room then went to the lodge for lunch. They spent the afternoon working on their separate tasks. They met at six in the evening at the dining room where they had supper together before returning home.

It was only two nights before Angel began sleeping in Al's bed. The sex was outstanding and surprisingly Al and Angel both slept better than they had in years. They spent the days moving around with silly expressions on their faces. They took every opportunity possible to just happen to pass through the area the other was working in. Of course when they were within a short distance of one another they managed to touch and kiss. To his surprise Al didn't feel the need to publicly fondle Angel as he did when they were younger. If he did fondle her he was very discrete, only doing it when they were in private or at least hidden from others.

After three weeks Al and Angel were settled in their new arrangement. It was now midsummer and the resort was as busy as it ever got. Angel, Pru and Al all put in ten or twelve hour days just to keep up. Many days Al put in sixteen or eighteen hours because he had to work at the resort and on the farm.

One evening Al was at the resort earlier than normal and he watched a group of young people run their canoes aground on the gravel bar across from the lodge. They took a quick swim then pitched their tents for the night. After their camp was set up they came across the river and hit the bar. They were typical young adults. They were loud and obnoxious as they screamed and laughed during their rough housing. Of course the men were worse than the women and did what normal young men do; they teased the women and bragged loudly.

One of the young women caught Al's eye for some reason. She was extremely beautiful and she gave off the vibes Al picked up on. He was drawn to her like a magnet to metal. Within ten minutes he was in full hunt mode. He worked her like he had so many young and not so young women before. She laughed at all his jokes and gently touched his forearm from time to time. Her eyes glistened and his cock was steel hard. She would step toward him and gently brush her breasts against him.

Al pulled out all the stops. He used all his moves on the beautiful young woman. She responded as they all seemed to but there was something missing. To his surprise Al began withdrawing from her. He knew he could fuck her any time he wanted. He could smell her essence. The crotch of her little bikini bottoms was dark and wet from her secretions. It was time to move in for the kill but still Al held off. Normally by this point in the seduction they would be off somewhere screwing like bunnies, but this time he didn't take that final step. There was something missing. Al felt a disconnect. The woman was beautiful, desirable, and above all willing, but suddenly Al wasn't!

Al stood talking with the young woman and noticed he was almost three feet from her. Normally he would be well within her space by this time. Al glanced around the outside seating area they called the beer garden. He saw Angel standing in the shadows at the edge of the area beside the resort. There were tears running down her cheeks. She looked as if she had lost her best friend. Something went 'thunk' in Al's brain. His cock lost all the remainder of its stiffness. He didn't let on he saw Angel. Al continued to distance himself from the woman, watching Angel out of the corner of his eye as he did so. By now the woman looked upset. She wasn't coming on to Al as she did before. She could tell Al was no longer interested and became worried, wondering what she did to turn him off. She was hurt and insulted. Never before had a man so deeply in her trap pulled away as Al did.

The farther from the young woman Al got the happier Angel looked. Finally Al moved off and into the night club area of the resort. He was just outside her office when Angel came down the hallway from the rest rooms. That was the same hallway that ended at the doorway she had been standing beside while she watched him.

Angel tried to avoid Al when they met but Al stepped in front of her and pulled her into his arms. She was stiff and pressed her arms against his chest in a half hearted attempt to get away. Al tightened his hold and kissed the top of her head. He looked down at her and his cock became hard almost instantly. He said, "Angel, I've been a damn selfish unseeing fool for years haven't I? I've been searching for something that has been right in front of me since Junior High School. I thought pussy was the Holy Grail and would make everything right with the world. All I needed was more pussy but when I got it there was something missing and I moved on to the next one. Oh, sure, I went back for more from some of the same women but it was just pussy. Angel, you are the only woman I keep coming back to. I can't get you out of my mind or heart. I understand now, honey. I almost fell back into my old ways again tonight. There was a beautiful woman in the beer garden and she let me know right off I could have her. I began flirting with her and putting the moves on her but you know what? After the first couple of minutes I was only half hard and it just wasn't fun. I kept thinking about you, Honey, and I came to find you.

"Angel, I've been looking for something my whole life and didn't realize it was right in front of me. I am only completely happy when we are a couple. Even when we are a couple, if you aren't nearby I feel lost and I hunt for something. I've been an ass and thought I could fill the empty space with strange pussy but that only partly filled the void in my life. I've been happier, slept better, and felt better since you moved into my house than I have since before we got out of high school. When I was talking to that skank in the beer garden a few minutes ago I finally came to my senses. I wasn't even completely hard during the conversation. She was doing it all, rubbing her tits on me, giving me peeks, touching me and all I could think of was that something was wrong, something was missing. I just walked off and left her standing there.

"When I saw you here in the hallway I relaxed and felt complete again, like what I was missing outside was with me now. I can't explain it, Angel, but I need you to be whole. That's all I can say."

Angel smiled and hugged Al when he finished talking. He said all the right words but did he mean them? Had he maybe just seen her watching and was doing damage control now? All her life she heard the saying "A leopard doesn't change its spots". Knowing Al, the saying sure could fit. She remembered several times while they were in college when she overheard the boys congratulating Al on being "the man". She watched him many times talking hard to get women into his bed. One time she heard some of his friends ask him how he got so many women to sleep with him and he explained. Al said it was easy. He used what he learned in psychology and marketing classes to push the right buttons and "sell" himself to the women. All you had to do, he said, was figure out what to say and women were putty in your hands. All you have to do, he said, is tell them what they want to hear. He laughed then and said, "If you do it right they are a puddle in your bed!" Now she wondered if that was what he was doing to her. The love for Al was there but the trust was somewhat lacking. If she admitted it to herself the trust had always been lacking but she always went back to him. She was drawn to him even though she knew she couldn't trust him to keep his dick in his pants.

The next day at work Angel and Prudence were sitting alone in the beer garden drinking coffee during their morning break. Angel had just finished telling Pru about seeing Al putting the moves on the young woman the night before and their conversation afterwards. She said, "I just don't know what to think here, Pru. You know I love him to death but I'm so sick of being hurt by the asshole. Did he mean what he said or did he see me watching and come in to do damage control?"

"I don't know, Angel. We both know how Al is. I would like to believe he is changing; that he has changed. Hell, I think he might be but I'm like you. The trust really isn't there. I do know that what you said you saw last night is the first time either of us has seen Al doing anything like that since he took over here and you said he did walk away. Maybe the boy is growing up. I don't know what to think here. Sorry."

The next week Al spent almost no time at the resort. It was time to harvest his wheat and put in the fall crop of Soy Beans so the women saw very little of him. He ate all his meals with his grandparents so he could maximize his time in the fields. A few nights he even slept in his old apartment to save the driving time to and from his home even though it was only about four miles. After two weeks of work things slowed down on the farm again and Al began spending more time at the resort once more.

Al's family always ground their own flour and cornmeal from grain raised on the farm. Not only did they think it tasted better but it saved them several dollars a year in food costs. They ate meat they grew and had a large garden for produce also. This year was no exception. Part of the time Al spent on the farm after harvest was spent grinding some of the wheat into flour and cracked wheat. Later in the year when he picked the dry corn he would grind corn meal. They always made homemade whole wheat bread from the flour. After eating baked goods made from home ground flour products made commercially tasted like unflavored air. Many years they also ground soy beans to add to ground beef and added whole ones to soups and pots of dry beans.

Al and his family had one complete deep freeze they used just to store home ground meal and flour. They did that so the weevils didn't get into it as they didn't fumigate the grain to kill insects and their eggs before grinding it like commercial mills did. They had another two freezers to store home grown meat and garden produce in.

For years much of the corn produced on the farm went into their beef herd. They normally fed and fattened most of their calves to be sold as fattened butcher calves. Their profit per animal was greater selling them as finished beef than it was taking them to the auction and selling them as feeders for some larger company to fatten. Normally they sold the animals to neighbors and hauled the individual animal to a local butcher for processing. This worked well for both parties because the average cost per pound of meat was less for the purchaser than if he or she purchased it in a store and Al and his family got more per pound when they sold fattened beef. They also fed and sold chickens and pork in this manner. Only about half of the meat produced on their farm went to market unfinished.

His first day back to work at the resort after harvesting the wheat, Al carried a large sack of flour into the kitchen and asked Pru to make up some homemade bread and rolls out of it. He handed her a recipe that his family just loved and he requested she use it for the bread. Soon the smell of fresh bread was wafting through the air. Pru decided since she was making the bread and rolls for Al she would make up some for the restaurant also and serve them instead of her normal offering of commercially baked rolls.

The customers went ape shit over the fresh homemade rolls and sandwiches made with fresh homemade bread. She even had three customers ask if she would sell a whole loaf of bread to them. She made the sale but then had to make more bread for Al and his grandparents.

That evening when Al came into the kitchen to pick up the bread Pru told him that she had sold some of the bread and served it exclusively during the lunch meal. He said, "You're kidding. They actually wanted to buy the bread? I knew it was good but I'm surprised at that. What did you charge them for it?"

"I wasn't sure what to charge so I said $2.50 a loaf. They didn't even blink. One of the women wanted to know the recipe but I wouldn't give it to her. I just said it was your old family recipe and I couldn't let her have it. Then she asked if we could tell her where to get the cracked wheat and flour we used for the bread. When I told her you ground it personally from your crop she asked if you would sell her some."

Al laughed and said, "You're kidding! Bread at Wal-Mart is only $1.38 per loaf if you buy their store brand. It's just over $2.00 if you get a name brand loaf.

By the time Pru finished the story Angel was sitting with her and Al. Angel looked serious for a moment then smiled and said, "Why don't we stock some of your flour, cracked wheat and cornmeal in the gift shop? We can even put in a cabinet and stock fresh bread, rolls and maybe even some cakes and donuts made from the freshly ground flour. If it doesn't sell we can just quit and if it does sell we can make some extra money here."

Al leaned back in his chair and thought for a couple of minutes. Finally he leaned forward again and rested his arms on the table. He said, "I don't have a problem with that if you have the time to mess with it. I'm not sure how much grain I can grind though. We only have a small home grinding mill and it takes quite a while to grind much grain. It's fine for household use and I think I could even do enough for here if we want to use fresh flour and meal for the restaurant. I'm not sure I can keep up if we sell flour and meal or if we sell many loaves of bread and other baked goods. Also if we sell the ground meal and flour I will need to fumigate the grain before I grind it to kill the insects and their eggs. I'm not sure if we would need a license to do that or not. If this thing takes off I'll have to check."

Thus began a sideline for the farming and resort business. Prudence made bread, cinnamon rolls and even cakes and donuts from the home ground flour. Soon the baked goods sales were rivaling the restaurant for top spot in profits. The restaurant ovens were stressed with the baking and Al could no longer keep up with demand for milled grain. Prudence had to get to the restaurant two hours earlier to get the donuts and fresh bread out timely.

Once again the three friends were discussing the business during a slow time of the day. Al told them they would have to curtail the baking and flour sales. Angel exclaimed, "NO, Honey, you can't do that. I've been tracking our profits on spreadsheets since we began operating the business. At first I just broke them down between the restaurant, bar, and lodge but two months ago when we started selling baked goods and milled grain I made another category for the baked goods and grain.

"Our profit on the grain and baked goods is almost equal to that made by the restaurant and is more than we clear on rooms. Sales of baked goods and grain are increasing weekly by about ten per cent. Sales and profits for the restaurant and lodge are stagnant. Of course, the bar sales are large and continue to grow. That is partly because of the season, partly because of our longer hours and partly because our reputation is growing. The bar will always be our best profit center, but the bakery I think will be second if we can continue to expand it."

Al was shocked. This went right back to what he learned in one of his classes in college several years ago. Look for alternate ways to market your farm products to increase profitability. He looked at the two women and smiled. He said, "Damn. Vertical Integration. I hate to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Do we have room to add an oven or two in the kitchen? If we do, what would it cost? Would we have to hire more help? I can check and see if I can find a larger mill or figure out some way to grind more grain. Let's work on this and see if we can find an inexpensive way to increase production."

Al sat looking out the window for a moment then turned to the women once again. He said, "I've been thinking about the whole vertical integration thing. I think we're missing another boat here also. We raise pork, chicken, and beef on the farm too. We sell the meat then go to the distribution company and buy meat to cook here. I bet we could serve better meat and increase profits here if I provide the meat from the farm instead of us purchasing it. Would you two look at our costs for meat served here and list it out by cut? While you're doing that I will check on costs at the farm and see if it would be better for us to continue purchasing meat or if I should provide it from the farm."

Angel looked over at Al and said, "Ok, we can do that. Neither Prudence nor I have been too pleased with the meat we're getting off the truck. We've been talking about going to Sam's Wholesale Club and purchasing our meat when we buy the other bulk items we get there for the resort. I know they have good quality meat, but I bet yours would be better. Also, thinking back to the flour and meal problem what about the old water powered mill on your place Al? Could we use it to grind the grain?"

"Heck, I had completely forgotten it. I don't think it's been operated since before I was born. I know we used to play in it years ago and it was in pretty poor shape then. I'd be surprised if it would work now but I can go see."

"Honey, if you could get the mill back in production that would solve a lot of problems for us. Also, operating grist mills are a real tourist attraction. If we advertised an operating antique grist mill we might be able to pull in more tourists or at least more local visitors and increase our sales to them. This really might be beneficial to the bar and restaurant as well as to the farm product sales, Honey."

Al stood and started to leave the table but stopped. He smiled and said, "You want to go with me, Angel? Since it was your idea why don't you come with me and we will see what the mill looks like."

The two lovers walked downstream almost half a mile and came to the old mill. The millrace was rotten and the gate to it was closed so the flow from the river bypassed it. The old building was sagging and many boards were rotten. They gingerly moved into the building and looked at the hoppers for the grain, the grinding wheels and metal parts. The old water wheel was rotten and would have to be replaced. The metal parts were rusty and seized up. At least Al could not move them with muscle power. Surprisingly the interior floor, while weak feeling was still in decent repair as were the wooden hoppers and shelves. Most of the windows were broken and the main door was torn loose.

Al said, "I don't know about this, honey. It looks pretty far gone to me."

"Oh, Al. We can at least try can't we? I'll help. Come on, let's see if we can make it work. I don't think it's that far gone, is it? I think this would be a really great way to solve the milling problem even if it would be more expensive than buying a larger electric grinder."