Mysterywriter's Final Spring

I felt her weight on the sofa beside me, it was the only thing that woke me I am afraid. If she hadn't decided to seat herself there, I probably would have slept sitting up until Monday.

"You look as though you need sleep more than that coffee." The remark hit home but I tried to fake it.

"I'm fine, the coffee will wake me up." I was groggy and my speech was slurred.

"Honey, that coffee is not gonna do you a bit of good. Why don't you just stay here, get a good night's sleep, and we will continue this in the morning."

"Well one thing is for sure, I am harmless as hell on most occasions. Right now I am totally useless." I grinned to show her that it was all it fun.

For no reason I could think of she turned to me pressed her body which was wrapped in a lightweight tee shirt to me. She kissed me sweetly at first then slipped her tongue into my mouth. The kiss passed the time that a gentle kiss would have broken and continued on into a heated passionate kiss. Somewhere along the way she dropped a hand from my shoulder to my crotch. As you would expect things came alive down there. The embrace lasted only a few more seconds then she sat back with a smile on her face.

"You said safe and useless twice tonight, I just wanted to find out for myself." She giggled like a school girl as punctuation for the statement. Of course I was wide awake and embarrassed for a few minutes. "Do you really want that coffee?" She asked it as she replaced her hand on my shoulder.

"Do you have a microwave?"

"Sure why?"

"The coffee will be fine tomorrow put it in the fridge."

"What coffee?" she giggled again. She had obviously not bothered to make the coffee. Unlike me, she knew what would happen. It struck me then, how much a man is at the mercy of a woman when it comes to sex Weaker sex my ass, I thought.

The kissing continued in her queen sized bed. How I managed to stay awake long enough to make love to her is a mystery even to me. I don't even remember much of it. I do remember she was absolutely the thinnest woman I had ever slept with. She was enthusiastic with a touch of down right wanton in her. It was a very short but intense lovemaking session. I passed out cold after what seemed like hours but could have been no more than a few minutes.

I woke up in the middle of the night to a dark room. My plan was to slip out of bed and go to the bathroom then return to the bed unnoticed. Of course it didn't work that way. First I fell into a wall, then I just sat down on the floor at the foot of her bed. On the way down I grabbed onto the bed as a reflex motion. Her foot was in the spot that I tried to use as a handrail.

"What the Hell," she said sleepily. Deke?"

"Yeah, I should have warned you, I cant walk in the dark."

Within seconds the bedside light came on. "You should have told me honey." I could tell she wanted to ask questions but was holding back.

With the light on I was able to leaver myself up and shakily move to the bathroom. "I'm fine now hon, I could be in the circus with all the experience I have at falling." I did what I had to do then returned to the bedroom.

"Should I leave the light on?" She asked.

"No, I wont be doing that again." She slipped onto my arm. She weighed nothing so it was comfortable enough.

"Are you really okay?" What she was really asking was what the hell is with you.

"Sure, just peachy keen." The anger was easy to detect in my voice. I pulled her even closer then kissed her. The few hours sleep had more or less restored my energy. She was just sleepy enough to be compliant. It was a very different kind of sex from that the night before. It was almost sweet and gentle before her libido kicked in. Once it did there was pain and scratches on my back. She was a demanding lover and something every man should have at least once.

When that ended in a gut wrenching orgasm, I again drifted off to sleep. That time I slept until Wendy woke me with two cups of coffee in her hand. I sat up with my back to the wall, while she sat cross legged facing me. I also noticed a small glass of orange juice on the night stand.

"My god you are the perfect hostess," I suggested.

"Or the perfect whore," she laughed. I made no comment. "Now Deke, where are your pills?"

"What pills are you talking about?" I tried to play innocent.

"The ones you are taking for that midnight episode." She didn't even try to soften the blow to my ego.

"Out in the van, I will have to find them." I made no gesture that would indicate a planned to move toward them.

"Finish your coffee, get decent then go get them. I want you to take them then I want to read the labels."

"You're a nurse?" I asked it knowing that she was something of the sort.

"ER Room for the last five years."

"Just my luck." I grinned at her.

"Well hell Deke, you aren't staying anyway."

Since it was Sunday, the festival didn't start till noon. Wendy and I had time for a leisurely breakfast, complete with a handful of pills. She looked at the bottles while I worked on a second cup of coffee before we headed to a Waffle House for breakfast.

"Damn Deke what a mixed bag of drugs. Everything from aspirin, to a heavy duty anti seizure drug. You want to explain or let me guess the worst?"

"Neither, you should have enough information to settle your questions from last night. I am not a junkie and the cane is not for effect."

"Those aren't my only questions, but yeah I had those concerns."

"Didn't say I blamed you at all. I would have the same ones."

"So what is it Deke? There are too many mixed signals for me to figure."

"Lets just have breakfast and let this go. No sense letting it spoil our meal."

"That bad?" she had been looking into my eyes when I suggested we not discuss it.

"Couldn't be any worse," I replied. "Now that is enough." She could tell it wasn't a demand but a request for privacy. Unfortunately that kind of conversation takes the fun out of an encounter. Even in the waffle house, on a Sunday morning, we looked out of place. The restaurant was filled with couples with at least one partner dressed in clothes from the night before. They were for the most part easy to spot. A woman dressed for a club at 9am was a dead give away. The men were less obvious unless he was in a suit with no tie escorting a lady who wore jeans and a sweat shirt like the couple at a window booth. I found it all rather amusing since Wendy and I were both dressed for a day at the festival. .

We arrived at the festival over an hour early which was mostly my doing. Wendy would have arrived five minutes before show time. As I unloaded the boxes then I assessed my stock. It appeared that I had sold the most audio novels for the ones with posters. It was an interesting thought, so I switched the posters for different novels to check it out.

Of course as my ex said, "All your posters are alike, they all have half naked women on them." It was indeed a fact of life. Those posters were almost exactly like the book covers on pulp books of the fifties. Which was what I mostly wrote anyway.

During that day I actually sold a few novels. Since I figured that one festival would be pretty much like another, I gave thought to how I could improve my sales. I noticed one thing right away. The sales were directly related to; how many people passed by, how many stopped to talk, and what sex they were. The books were loaded with testosterone but women were overwhelmingly the largest buyers. Most seemed to be buying for husband or boyfriends but some admitted to buying for themselves. Price seemed to be the major factor. That and a chance to ask me about the story line.

What all that meant was that I sold a few books at the festival. Actually a hell of a lot more than I had anywhere else. It meant that I would have to spend a couple of nights in a campground with electric hookup. I had the small tower computer, used as a CD maker, packed away in a trunk. A laptop would have been nice but I couldn't really justify one just to use a few months.

Lunch came before Wendy spoke to me. I had a feeling she was having a case of buyer's remorse about the night before but I didn't really know what to say to her. I definitely wasn't going to hang around the small town for the next few months. She surely must have known that before she hopped into bed with me.

"Deke I am going for a sandwich can I bring you one?" She asked it pretty much as though she had not spent the night before in my arms.

"Sure, but I insist on buying if you are making the trip."

"I never turn down free food. So what would you like, since you are buying?"

"You pick, I am easy to please."

"I noticed," she said with a grin. I smiled back but didn't answer. When she brought the food back it was some kind of steak sub thing with more cheese than steak. We sat in the space between our booths and talked. It was fun since both of us seemed to have walled off the night before in a different corner of our minds.

Even during lunch I got interrupted a time or two by customers who were interested in the CDs, but not as often as Wendy for jewelry. The show just kind of ended a few hours later. It wasn't so much the time expired as the customer pool dried up.

At six I pulled the van around and began loading it. Wendy had her car full long before me. I had hoped she would say goodbye and leave, but she kind of hung on waiting for god only knew what. The loading should have taken about half as long but I kept dragging it out. Yes, I was doing the man thing trying to avoid the goodbye. Hoping that Wendy would be gone before I finished. She wasn't so I had to face her.

Before I could find something lame to say, she came into my arms crying. "Will you ever be back this way?"

"Honestly Wendy, I won't. I would like to say when the season is over I will come back to you, but we both know it isn't going to happen. You probably think it is because I don't care enough, but that isn't it at all."

"Actually, I have a pretty good Idea. I have been watching you all day. If what you say is true?" She noticed my look. "That it couldn't be any worse, then I don't expect you will be back."

For some reason known only to god, if there is one, I teared up. I nodded, kissed her, then turned to the van. It would have been a grand exit if the damn van had started. Instead it seemed to take forever for the thing to start. It hadn't started on the first try, then like an idiot I flooded the damn thing. The best I could do was to grin foolishly in her direction as I tried in vain to force started the van.

I finally had to get out to open the fuel pump. It was simply a matter of rocking the car for five minutes. I promised myself yet again that I would get the tank drained and cleaned. It must have gotten trash in the tank while sitting in the salvage lot.. Eddie had also warned me that the radiator hose clamps wouldn't hold that gas lines. I had refused to wait for him to find the correct lines, so I was paying the price.

With the lines bled, the van finally started. I drove off into the sunset looking like a complete idiot. I made it to the state campground in a larger town fifty miles away with the sun still lighting the sky, so it hadn't really a drive into the sunset after all. I had time to pitch the tent, then unpack everything before nightfall.

Since it was my first time camping, I had to make some basic decisions. It was either sleep in the 8x10 cabin tent and leave the junk for my shows in the van, or move all the junk into the tent and sleep in the van. Since I could lock the van, I went with sleeping in the tent that first night.

The decision had been made even before I checked in with the park ranger. I opted that night for a site with water and electricity. The plan was to spend the next day replacing my CDs. I would need about all day, since I had done a lot better than expected. Hell, I did even better than I had hoped. Since making CDs is a truly boring job, I didn't look forward to it at all.

Once the tent was erected, I put the two halves of the egg crate foam mattress pad together. The two halves, one on top of the other, mad a six inch thick foam pad with air spaces on each side. I sleep cold so I had a light weight flannel sleeping bag and a down comforter for the top. With the tent pitched, I quickly found the heavy duty outdoor rated extension cord. I ran it from the outlet to the tent so that I could play my radio. I had opted to sell all the TVs I owned at a garage sale before I left home. I was about to settle in when I realized I had no Cokes or cookies. Part of the appeal of the last road trip had been to throw my diet out the window before I left home. Hey, I literally threw it out the window. I suppose one of my neighbors might have found the, no cholesterol, no real food scrape of paper. He or she would have laughed before tossing it into the trash.

It was a short trip to the over priced convenience store within site of the park gates. It seemed as though I wasn't the only one who forgot things. I took a look at the price of canned coke, then almost walked out. I made it to the door when I actually chuckled at my foolishness. I went back and bought two six packs of coke, and a box of chocolate covered Oreos. I gave the clerk my visa card. The visa had never had an outstanding balance until the month before.

I drove the van back to the park. I had my butt parked on the folding chair, the one I had used for the show, while I drank my coke and ate the cookies, . The clock radio from my other life blared country music. It blared because the hearing had gone in my right ear. I had placed the radio on my right side for some reason. Probably because I wasn't used to thinking of my hearing as being less than perfect.

The songs were sad, which fit my mood perfectly. After an hour of sad country songs ending with 'I Remember the Year that Clayton Delany Died' I was considering skipping the rest of the shows and just ending it at that moment. I shook my head to clear it, then laughed at myself. I had just had what I considered a good show, I had even slept with a woman young enough to be my kid, and I felt sorry for myself. "This just wont do," I said aloud.

I bent to switch to an oldies station. I wasn't familiar with the area so it took some searching but there is one of those in every listening area. With 1960s rock music blaring I settled back with my second coke and my second handful of cookies. It was as good a supper as any, I decided. I waited a full two hours before I had a drink and a cigar before bedtime.

The next morning I realized that I had slept with a boulder under my six inch mattress. Since the damn tent was right over it, I decided to make the tent a storage area at least by dark. I didn't much care for the idea of doing it at that moment, so I went to breakfast. Miracle of miracles the van started on the first try.

The convenience store where I had bought the cokes and the ice had a small food counter. I found the menu small but I had no desire for eggs Benedict anyway. The sausage and egg biscuit was just fine with me. They let me use my own oversized Delta coffee cup, so I was content to sit at their Formica booth for almost a half hour. I had promised myself a day at the ocean. I decided that the best time to make the trip before I unloaded any of the really expensive equipment. The drive was less than half and hour anyway so I left from the convenience store for the ocean..

Not long after I found myself on the long straight stretch of highway running parallel to the ocean. It didn't matter which beach they all had a road like it. On that morning in early May the beach wasn't crowded especially since it was a Monday morning. Not to many tourists about and all the residents were doing residential things.

Finding a fishing pier was easy. I simply had to follow the signs since there were two competing piers. I had no desire to fish, and I figured the coffee would be about as good at one as another so I stopped at the first one I encountered. I am sure a lot of other people did the same. That morning must have been the exception because the pier had only three fishermen.

"What can I get you?" The nymph asked with a bored expression. I expect a younger man might have gotten a little more enthusiasm.

"Would you fill this with coffee?" I asked it placing the delta cup on the green Formica counter. The whole place appeared to be from the fifties, that counter was for sure I decided.

"How you want it?" She was all business. Like I said, not much enthusiasm for grandpa. The heavy brown stained cup was surely also a turn off for her.

"Black like my soul," I couldn't help it, I am just a born wise ass. It did get a smile from her.

"You not fishin?" she asked as she poured the coffee. She was beginning to warm to me a little. Hey who can resist grandpa in red suspenders. Yes, I wear those. I had begun wearing them several years before, since I heard the giggles of my step daughter. The object of her amusement was my butt crack.

"No I haven't fished in years. Just one more of the things I seemed to have run out of time for."

"Well, I can rent you a rod," she suggested. I skipped the obvious comeback since she was much younger than my step daughter.

"Maybe another time," I replied instead. I took the plastic delta cup onto the pier for a walk. It was what I did at the ocean. I found a bench well past the shoreline. I sat down to enjoy the ocean's hypnotic effect. Somehow that morning it's size, smell and movement did not provoke the usual melancholy in me, nor did it give me any peace. Quite the opposite, all the smells and sounds of life and death made me angry. As a gesture of contempt, I tossed the dregs of my coffee into it. It was something I would never have done before.

I passed through the snack bar on my way out. I was upset because I didn't find the peace I had sought in the ocean. All I found was anger and I didn't know why. Like a lot of emotions they just happen, you never so find out what triggered them. I expected even then that I hadn't been in the right mood to find peace.

I pondered that during the drive back to the campground. When I arrived, I carried the mini tower PC along with its monitor to the picnic table. Making all the connections took a while, but I finally had it ready to burn by lunch time. I spent the complete afternoon making CD audio novels and labels. I never left home without my label maker. The miniature printer spit out labels that were perfect for the CD. I couldn't afford the time it took to do the round complete labels so I used the small rectangular ones. I know it looked less classy, but it worked just fine thank you very much. I kept the blanks for the box labels with me. Any copy shop worthy of its name could run me larger color labels for the outside of the generic cardboard boxes.

Replacing the CDs took another day of sitting around listening to music, while the CDs burned three copies at a time. The convenience store near the park took even more of Visa's money. I still felt a little guilty knowing they would never be able to collect on their bill. I rationalized it by thinking of all those people who made that minimum payment every month and the huge interest payments that filled the credit card company's coffers. I felt a little less guilty when I looked at it from that direction. Since the ex and I had a perfectly legal separation, our family lawyer assured me that visa could not go after her. So long as I made the minimum payment the company would keep extending me credit. Extending it right up to the ridiculous 20 grand limit they had forced on me years before.

By Wednesday the copy work was complete. Since the campground was empty during the week I grew bored, I gave some thought to driving back to the festival town to see Wendy. I didn't only because I decided a clean break was better for us both. Still it was a great temptation, especially during the long nights.