Silver City Blues

They left the tub, dried themselves, and slung damp towels around their bare shoulders. Lyra carried the tray of debris inside. They dressed lightly and returned to the great room. Katya found the TV remote. Lyra built sandwiches and found bottles of screwtop wine. They ate quietly while watching bad weather news on the big LED screen.

"Shit," Juanita said, "the forecast is for an extended blizzard. We're definitely stuck here till Christmas at least. Maybe we can get home by New Years if I can get the car fixed."

Katya shook her head, yawning. "Well fuck, nothing we can do now. Let's sort things out in the morning. I'm heading to bed now. Keep it down out here."

She stood and toddled off. Lyra cleared away the snack debris while Juanita flicked through news channels. The usual ugly tragedies were reported. They quickly trotted off to their own beds.

===== 22 December =====

Lyra woke first in the morning. She guessed that Ken had been up in the wee hours to feed more wood to the fire — the house was quite warm. She walked naked to the washroom, lazily showered, dressed in lemon shorts and halter top, and decided to work the kitchen. Thin-sliced beef sautéed with spiced veggies and fresh wide noodles sent alluring scents through the hacienda. Brewing coffee added a deeper note.

Ken emerged in denim shorts, barefoot, his taut torso gleaming. "What's this? Doesn't look or smell like breakfast burritos or chile verde." He sniffed ostentatiously.

Lyra poured a little boiling broth into the deep skillet.

"You expected border cooking? That's so common! My friend Trinh turned me on to phô, the national Vietnamese breakfast. Helped the Cong beat the Yanks, her grandfather said." She stirred condiments into the mix and sipped from the big spoon. "Almost ready."

Her friends had decided on similar shorts-and-halters when they rose and dressed, Juanita in shades of rose, Katya in mottled pale blue.

"Ooh, more great phô!" Katya cried, hugging the cook.

Juanita joined them for a three-way embrace. "That's one of her specialties," she told Ken. They kissed cheeks.

He stood back. He still was not ready for closeness. But he was definitely ready for coffee, with a good splash of tequila.

"Whether you're ready or not, it's on it's way!" Lyra said. "Somebody put napkins and utensils on the table, and the coffee pot and your cups, and prepare to be fed." She ladeled phở into four good-sized bowls and carried them, two at a time, to the prepped table.

Ken sat on one side near the middle; Lyra sat opposite him, with Katya and Juanita beside her. "Let's say grace," Katya said.

The table was long but not too wide — close enough that Katya and Juanita could both reach over to take Ken's nervous hands in one of theirs while Lyra took their others. "Okay, ready? One, two, three..." — a pause — "GRACE!" the girls shouted together, laughing.

Even Ken smiled. Then they all tucked into spicy food and spiked coffee. Done eating after refilled bowls, they quickly cleaned up and returned to the table with their coffees.

=====

"What's up for today?" Juanita asked. Sleet and snow still blasted past the outside windows. "We're not going anywhere. And we called our families, told them not to worry or wait up."

"No matter how tempting the prospect, we can't be in the hot tub all the time," Katya observed. She had loved it there. "We'd go total prune."

"I have to do some office work," Ken said. "You ladies can entertain yourselves however you desire, as long as you don't make too much noise. Tub or tube if you want, or read, write, or draw. You're all into graphics?"

"We brought our Android tablets," Juanita said. "They're kind of small for our graphics work but we could get ahead on other schoolwork. I'm in game graphics but I also study disinformation theory — those tie together. By the way, my heritage isn't Mexican. I'm Spanish! My family's been here over 400 years. These newcomer gals' families only moved north to New Mexico just before the States took it over. I just wanted to get that out of the way."

"You always were a snob," Katya pouted. "So what if I'm not a Castilian blue-blood? Anyway, I'm in architectural graphics and I minor in meso-American history and folklore, so I'm interested in pre-Columbian constructions. I can study the lore from online documents and assignments."

"But our families were all farmers then. Nothing to obsess over," Juanita drawled, "As for me, I'm focused on graphics for advertising and I also study mathematical game theory, that's about possibilities and outcomes in competitions. Again, those tie together. What's your work, Ken? How does it pay for this splendid hacienda?"

Ken sipped more coffee. "Tedious stuff. I fix databases, mostly for architects and conventions. Those folks may be good at their applications but they really abuse the backing software. They pay me well to fix their fuckups. I can almost always work remotely but if I have to go on-site, I get real expensive, so they try to minimize that. 'Cost-effective' still fattens my bank account."

He looked around sadly. "So I have it all, except it's nothing. I guess I run on habit now."

Katya and Juanita nodded to each other. They pushed their cups across the table and walked around to sit at his sides. They moved their chairs close to his. Each held an arm. He did not try to pull away — not too hard, anyway.

Juanita squeezed a little. "Ken, you're our lifesaver, our hero, and you can't just drown yourself in loneliness. You sound almost like you're sleepwalking through life. Time to wake up and live."

Katya petted a little. "But let's not go heavy now. How did you get into this work?"

Ken shrugged, splashed more tequila into his coffee, and sipped.

"It's all about Kerri. We met at San Francisco City College, that's a JC and we're both from The City. After a year we said Fuck It, nothing happening here, so we both joined the Army, enlisted for electronics training. We did our four years in Europe, outside any war zones, whew." He sipped again.

"We mustered out but stayed in Germany, at the university in Heidelberg, where she was into architecture and I crammed on software. We graduated, came back to the States, and decided this little corner of New Mexico suited us — we could set-up a remote consultancy in this beautiful place. Now it's just me. So here I am, running on empty. I'll figure things out eventually."

Juanita's eyes were wet. "Can you tell us about Kerri? What was she like?"

Another sip. "Tall and slender, with a stretched hourglass figure, like you, Katya." His eyes appraised her, then looked away. "Long red hair till the Army cut it short. Green eyes going gold at times. Smart as a whip. Loyal as a..." — he could not say 'hound' — "...just so loyal. Inventive. Creative. She designed some radical stuff that never got built. We have acreage here and we were going to put up some show-off projects."

Yet another sip. "So she linked into some building and convention sites and got design work. Their software integration was always fucked so I followed those contacts to fix their goofs. Then she died. Just twenty-six, a ghost now. Future swept away, whoosh." His eyes were wet, too.

Lyra reached across the table and took his hands. Katya and Juanita still rubbed his bare arms. The skin on his forehead and chest shone with a thin layer of sweat.

"Your heart has been torturing you for a year now," Lyra said, "Can you stop mourning?"

"I think a switch has to flick-over in my head," he said. "It's not time for that yet. And fuck it, fixing the latest database goof can wait till later today. Somebody make more Margaritas. I'm for the hot tub. Got towels in a cabinet there. Join me if you want, ladies."

He finished his coffee, stood, slipped his shorts off, and walked naked to the glass door. The girls looked at each other, and stood and stripped. Dressed only in skin, Katya and Juanita followed him, as did Lyra after she mixed another strong pitcher and collected tumblers.

Ken sat with the water just above his navel. Lyra and Juanita sat next to him, close, their breasts pressed against his arms. Katya knelt in the water before him and hugged his knees. He did not resist too vigorously. He reached for his drink.

"You gonna get drunk so you can forget her?" Katya asked.

"No, so I can forget myself."

"Has that worked so far?"

He looked away. Lyra took his head in her hands and forced him to look at Katya. Their eyes locked. He blinked but did not turn away.

"No. I still remember," he said.

"Are you still afraid of closeness?"

"I don't... aw fuck, what am I doing here?" He sobbed softly.

Katya pushed his legs apart and moved close to hug his body. Lyra and Juanita hugged him close from each side. Katya moved up and kissed his lips, a soft, full kiss, but no intruding tongue. She felt his cock stiffen against her belly. Yes, they were breaking through his shell!

Juanita felt heat as his skin flushed. She took his face from Katya and kissed his mouth, harder. She licked his lips. Lyra took his face and kissed him even harder. His tongue licked her lips. They all moaned.

"Let's get out of the water and take this somewhere drier," Katya said. She stood and pulled Ken up with her. Lyra and Juanita stood too. They all embraced, dripping.

They stepped from the tub, Lyra gently tugging Ken's hand. They grabbed towels and dried each other, the girls taking special care with Ken, and encouraging him to dry them thoroughly, especially from knees to necks. Each thoroughly kissed Ken again. His hands stroked their naked bodies. He felt their breasts. All nipples were rock-hard.

Ken felt their hands in his as he led them down the hallway to the wide door opening onto his room — the master suite. The girls saw more ethnic art on the walls, overlooking a big bed across from a wide window giving a vast view of desert and mountains.

"Stay cool, Ken," Juanita said. "You saved us. Let us save you."

She pushed him to the center of the bed, opened his legs, and kissed his thighs. Lyra moved next to her and kissed his leg from his foot up to his groin. She licked the side of his long, stiff cock. Juanita kissed the other side, then took his dickhead into her mouth. His groans were muffled as Katya pressed a fine, soft breast to his lips.

The thick veins on Ken's cock stood out like highways. "Let me," Katya said, tapping Lyra's shoulder. They swapped places, setting Ken's tongue to kiss Lyra's nipple while Katya swallowed his cock and Juanita mouthed each testicle. His muffled groans grew louder.

"Im gonna cum..." he gasped around Lyra's aroused areola.

Juanita recaptured his cock and filled her mouth with his massive eruption of sperm. Katya moved her lips to Juanita's to share his spew. His body shook as Katya licked at his sensitive underside, enticing every last drop from him.

His cock softened but stayed thickly half-erect. He stiffened again when Juanita pushed her friends aside and laid on him with her mouth on his cock and her pussy on his face. He must have succumbed to instinct — his tongue automatically brushed across and into her flushed fat labia, then veered to her clitoris. She gasped. He grunted softly. The other girls stroked their bodies. More assaults on her clit and she was shaking with orgasm, sucking hard on his cock to avoid screaming.

Damn, he thought. Her body feels so much like Kerri's but she tastes different... His consciousness twisted when Juanita pushed Katya off him and took her place, worshiping his cock, giving him a new feel and flavor of body and twat.

"Wait," he heard Lyra say. His ears were not totally blocked by Juanita's lovely thighs. "Let's do this right," Lyra said. She pushed Juanita upright on his head, straddled his hips, and guided his cock into her depths. "Don't worry, Ken, I'm clean and on the Pill," she said between groans.

Ken loved this juicy, tangy pussy on his face — fuck, they were all great! — and he loved the feel of the hot, juicy pussy sliding up and down his cock. He boosted his hips to match her rhythm. He reached up to hold Juanita's sweet breasts and felt her leaning forward, kissing Lyra, so he held the shorter girl's breasts, too. Their hands wandered over each other while Katya stroked his legs and their bodies.

Lyra rode herself and him to hot orgasms. That took a while. He eventually spewed ropes of pain and pleasure into Lyra; she shuddered with joy.

They fell apart and hugged together like a gerbil pile. "Hot damn!" Juanita said. "We've got to do this again. Think you're ready for more closeness now, Ken?" she smirked. His replying groan seemed to mean 'yes'.

"I want more now, you lifesaver you," Katya said. She resumed her 69 atop him. He did not object too vigorously. He did not cum again soon but he stayed stiff more than long enough for Juanita to push Katya upright and merrily ride his cock for a great deal of satisfaction.

They fell apart and cuddled together again.

"That's enough for now, ladies," Ken said. "Try me again later. And thanks for waking me with all this nice fucking and sucking. But now I think I'll de-stress in the hot tub. Join me."

They untangled and walked naked, hands in hands, back to the geodesic paradise. Ken tossed more wood on the fire. Keep the house hot and there's no need to bother with clothes.

They emerged dripping and hungry for food. Fucking and sucking sure burns-off lots of calories! Juanita went traditional and made chile verde served with brown rice and not too many beans. Beer from a pony keg washed down the naked lunch.

"Hey, this is good stuff!" Katya proclaimed. "Bisbee Electric? Really?"

"I try to get it shipped in," Ken said. "Sometimes it shows up, sometimes not. This keg's almost gone." He sipped at his frosted mug. "And now I think I need something more than sex. Not that I'm complaining," he laughed, "but my dick is about worn out. I'll try to use what's left of my brain at my computer. So I'm off to the office."

"Got room there for us to work, too?" Lyra asked. "We'll be quiet. And as naked as you want."

Ken laughed softly. "Yeah, it's set up for conferences, too. Sometimes it's cheaper, I mean more cost-effective, if clients come here rather than me going to them. Different budget lines, sure." He grinned and stood. "So stay naked, grab towels to put under your butts, and follow me."

=====

The girls stopped in the washroom linen closet for towels and entered his office. They saw on one side a long desk with two keyboards, three big video screens, and a very comfy-looking executive chair. The front wall and the other side were lined with overstuffed book shelves. Under the far wall's wide window, two long sofas with straight backs closely faced a tall table, giving great views of desert landscape, distant mountains, and swirling blizzard.

"Lay out towels and set your pretty asses around the table," Ken said. "Power, UCB, and Ethernet outlets are under there. Get more refreshments if you want. But let me work now."

He threw a towel in his chair, plopped down, and powered up his system. Two of the three screens flashed on. Text and a prompt appeared on one screen and a Linux GUI's graphic map filled the other. His fingers danced on a keyboard and trackball. Text flowed under commands; interconnected boxes assembled. Ken scowled.

"Fucking dweebs," he growled. "Call themselves architects but can't even build data right."

The girls had spread towels on the sofas and plugged-in their tablets to recharge batteries.

"What's going wrong?" Katya asked. She had spun from staring out the window to watch Ken.

"All these guys and gals use pretty much the same design software and link to pretty much the same database modules for tracking component needs. But then they load stuff without doing context edits and the linkage goes FUBAR. They don't want in-house specialists to fix things — not cost-effective enough, I mean cheap — so I'm the repair guy. It's all stupid shit but hey, I won't turn down the money."

Katya was curious. "At school we use MacroCAD and I think it ties in with OmniBase. Are those troublesome? Have you ever consulted at UCLA?"

Ken laughed. "Those are pretty entry-level and bombproof. Most schools use them since they're hard for sloppy students to break. Commercial shops want bells-and-whistles, bleeding-edge, I mean cutting-edge, I mean failure-prone, costly fancy warez. Cheap and safe are beyond their comprehension. So they break stuff and I patch it back together. Tedious but remunerative."

Ken worked on his clients' sloppy mistakes. The girls fingered their tablets, occasionally glancing at the window's view of the blizzard. Ken swore occasionally. The afternoon passed.

"When are you guys ready for dinner?" Lyra asked. "I can make a killer lasagna fast, with layers of corn-flour dough instead of slow pasta — I saw all the ingredients in the kitchen and pantry. Give me an hour's head start and it'll be fabulous, if I do say so."

"Yeah, your fake Italian crud is pretty good," Katya agreed. "Need help now or just for the cleanup?"

"I can handle it. Just let me know when your appetites — I mean for food, not more sex, not right now — when you get peckish. Well, I wouldn't mind sex, either."

Ken had rotated his chair to face them. Lyra went to sit in his lap. She pushed her naked breasts into his bare chest and kissed his ear. He grinned in her face.

"I'm still pretty worn out, babe." What, he called her 'babe' now? "I'm not yet thirty but I still take a little while to recover. So let's try after dinner, and I'm not starving yet, so a longer refractory period will give better results, right?" He kissed her mouth. She replied, with tongue. They were in no rush.

She bit his lower lip, and stood. "Okay, I'll take a little extra time. It'll be good for awhile." She strolled out the door and back to the kitchen on the hacienda's far wing.

Lovely odors emptied the office a bit more than an hour later. Boxed red wine washed down a naked dinner. A pitcher of Margaritas followed them to the hot tub. They soaked and splashed. Ken nursed at every breast, and again. They rose, and dried, and retired to the master suite's big bed, and sucked and fucked into the blizzardy night.

The girls did not return to their separate beds that night.

===== 22-24 December =====

The tone was set for the following days, a mix of sex, hot-tubbing, eating, cyber-working, and more sex. The girls joined Ken in the exercise room, trading off the weights, treadmill, staffs, tenpins, and other bodywork. Everyone wiped away any sweat or other body fluids they had deposited. Then more hot-tubbing and sex. All could gather in his en-suite's big shower.

===== 25 December: Christmas Day =====

After morning sex, all dressed to phone or Zoom their relatives and friends for holiday greetings. Juanita prepared a festive mid-day dinner of turkey burritos, Guatemalan style. The fire had cooled a bit so all remained dressed for decency and festivity.

The blizzard had weakened a bit. But surprise, surprise! They heard a truck motor laboring toward the house, then a pounding on the front door. Ken frowned, looked at his porch-cam display, and frowned again. A big 4x4 with a vee-shaped snow plow showed behind two bulky men in heavy coats, each adorned with an embroidered badge. He switched-on the intercom.

"What brings you gentlemen here this fine Christmas afternoon?" he asked.

They flashed metal badges at the camera. "Federal immigration agents, ICE. Open up, We have information that you're harboring three illegals. Open up."

"You have a warrant, I suppose?"

"We're in hot pursuit; we don't need any fucking warrant. Open up or we'll kick the door down!"