Above Your Raisin'

I hope you like this entry in the Summer Lovin' Story Contest 2023. Thank you for reading and please vote for it if you like it.

The big difference between the sweltering summer heat in Las Vegas and the Florida Panhandle is the brutal humidity on the Gulf Coast and the fierce afternoon storms. Katie told everyone she would die of suffocation if she ever had to go back home. Her makeup would melt and run in the swampy thick air. At least Las Vegas had air-conditioning.

Katie left the small shrimping town when she was seventeen to find out what the real world she saw on television and movies was all about. She wanted to find a man who didn't smell like a fish monger with the breath of stale beer. She headed to the glamor world of Hollywood, hoping to find success and wealth in the dream world that she would find was an illusion.

At first, she thought she could make it on her looks, a southern beauty with a body that turned men's heads. Long strawberry blonde hair, sexy eyes, large natural breasts and slinky long legs were her calling card. She found out soon enough, after too many advances from squirrelly married men and swallowing mouthfuls of cum, that rejections came as fast as the men she sucked in hopes of getting a break.

Two years of going nowhere and living in dressed up poverty, led her to try making money in Las Vegas, working in the casinos where the cash flowed like the mighty Mississippi River. Katie made great tips as a cocktail waitress off her vivacious and suggestive manner. She wouldn't, however, turn tricks, which was the men with the most cash wanted.

"You could easily make a thousand bucks an hour," one of Katie's co-workers declared. But Katie said she wasn't raised that way and was saving her vagina for love.

"As the song goes, love doesn't have anything to do with it," she was chided for what was seen as prudish behavior.

"You mean, you ain't never had a dick in you?" asked another disbelieving co-worker.

"Just once with a boy, when I was just a girl, but it didn't mean nothin', we were just kids playing around," Katie lied. What she didn't tell was how she was sexually abused as a child by her uncle, who had raped her repeatedly. Katie wasn't sure she could ever love anyone or even allow anyone to touch her pussy.

Damaged .in body and spirit, Katie tried to cope and hoped one day she would outgrow the shame and pain in her soul. She knew all men were not cruel and heartlessly evil like her uncle. She prayed for forgiveness the day he died, drunk and out of his mind, fighting with one of the local fishermen who had a long-lasting grudge against him. She prayed, not for God to forgive him; he deserved it. When her uncle pulled out his handgun, he was too drunk to handle it and shot himself fatally.

"One of these days, some guy is going to offer you lots of money to have a piece of your hot ass," Katie's co-worker told her as if it were a certainty that every woman had her threshold for wealth.

Katie had a rented room in a run-down motel outside of the glitzy Strip. She worked every shift she could to stash away for her dream. She wanted to find a small house, a cabin, somewhere in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, surrounded by tall pine trees and optimally by a small stream. She figured hard work would get her there.

That summer was unusually hot. June and July set a record for the most three-digit temperature days in a row. And it was dry. Nights didn't cool down for some relief. The wall air-conditioning unit in her room worked when it wanted, leaving Katie to suffer through until she could get inside the cool, smoke-filled floor at the casino.

Katie brought a customer his drink at the slot table, where he appeared frustrated as he shoved tokens into the machine without success. He took his drink and gave Katie a tip, sliding a five-dollar bill down her skimpy top, copping a feel of her bouncy large breast.

When she went to turn around to get an order from another customer, she felt a calloused hand reach up her short skirt and into her panties. Katie turned around and slapped the man hard across his face. "Don't ever fucking try that again," she screamed at him.

Katie's manager saw the incident and pulled Katie aside to rebuke her. He didn't quite understand her attitude.

"So, touching your tits is alright but when he tried to feel you up your skirt, it's suddenly an assault?" the floor manager tried to ascertain.

"Yes. That's how it is for me," Katie told him without a bit of remorse for hitting the customer.

"I can't have you slapping customers on the floor," he told her. "You're fired."

Katie didn't cry. She went to the back and collected her belongings from her locker and changed into her street clothes. One of the other cocktail waitresses who observed the scene approached her.

"You know, this is going to get around and you'll be black-balled," she told Katie.

"Yea, I guess so. Time to move on," Kate responded.

Katie didn't look back as she got on the bus to take her back to her sometimes cool, but most times sweltering room. Walking a few blocks from the bus stop into the parking lot of the motel, she noticed a man buried under the hood of his older model pick-up truck. It reminded her of back home where everyone milked whatever miles they could out of their older vehicles, not being able to afford a newer one.

Katie knew about motors. She had fixed a few broken-down shrimp boats and trucks as a teenager. She figured she should be neighborly and offer some help to the older man trying to get his old pick-up going.

"What seems to be the problem?" she asked as she approached.

"Can't seem to get the motor running," the man told her.

Taking the flashlight from him, Katie looked around the motor looking for something that might be an obvious cause of the breakdown.

'Looks like you have a busted timing belt," Katie told him pointing the flashlight behind the other belts so he could see the problem.

"Shit. That's going to cost a fortune," he sighed. "Money, I don't have."

Katie didn't know what to say. She threw out a quick remark," At least it's an older model so it wouldn't screw up your motor."

"You seem to know a lot about motors," the man said. "My name is Carl," he said, introducing himself.

"I'm Katie," she responded shaking his hand. "And I've worked on a few back home," she explained.

There was an awkward moment when Carl and Katie weren't sure what to say next. Katie felt some empathy, having been in tough situations like that before.

"I know getting your truck towed to a garage and getting it fixed is going to cost you a fortune," she said. "I can help you take the front off and replace the belt. We'll need to rent a couple tools, like a torque wrench, but we can probably do the job for a couple of hundred instead of a thousand it would cost to get it done."

"Thanks for offering, but I don't have a couple of hundred right now," Carl told her. "I needed to get to California to work. I have a job waiting for me," he explained.

"What kind of work?" Katie asked curiously.

"I'm a chef. I was offered a position at an upscale restaurant in Napa," he responded. "I guess I'll have to figure out another way to get there."

"Care for a beer?" Carl offered after a few moments of silence. He grabbed a couple from a cooler in the back of the truck.

They sat on the tailgate and talked over beer. Carl talked about the places he worked in Europe, where he learned his craft. He had just left a swanky restaurant in New York for this opportunity in Napa.

"So, how did you wind up here?" Katie asked suspiciously. "Broke in a run-down motel?"

"My wife. Or, should I say, ex-wife," Carl admitted. "She wiped out our bank account and took off back to Greece, where she's from," he explained. "I had just enough to buy this old truck and make my way across the country."

"Wow. That sucks," Katie said. He had such an aura of authenticity, Katie believed him. She decided to lighten up the mood. "So, what were you trying to accomplish looking under the hood? Motors are not like fixing Filet Mignon." She laughed.

Carl laughed too, realizing how silly it would have been, knowing he couldn't fix the truck. "I thought that there was maybe a loose wire I just needed to connect and there," he said jokingly, throwing his hands in the air like he just accomplished something amazing.

"I've got a few bucks," Katie said. "I'll help you get this bucket of bolts going if you give me a ride."

"Where are you headed?" Carl asked innocently.

"Napa sounds good," Katie replied. "We'll get to work early tomorrow morning before it gets too hot to do anything." She downed the rest of her beer. "Good night," she said.

Katie borrowed some tools from the motel owner, socket wrenches and screw drivers and began pulling off the radiator and front belts. She gave Carl a list of parts and tools to get at the auto parts store a mile up the road. It wasn't far so he decided to walk instead of waiting for a bus. By the time he returned, Katie had half the motor pulled apart.

"Got all the ingredients?" Katie asked. Carl told her yes. Everything on the list.

"Good. Let's get this recipe cookin'," she said with some friendly authority.

The truck was put back together around two in the afternoon, just as the temperature surpassed the century mark and then some. Carl looked at Katie with hope and apprehension.

"You have the key. What are you waiting for?" Katie chided Carl. He sat down in the driver's seat and turned the key. The truck started right up. Both their faces lit up with smiles.

"Well, I'll be damned," Katie exclaimed in relief.

"You weren't sure you did it right?" Carl asked.

"It's been a while since I got dirty under a hood," Katie told him. "Guess it's like riding a bicycle," she said evoking a common metaphor.

After a celebratory beer, they made plans to get on the road. Katie suggested they get some sleep and take off after dark. It would be cooler once they were out from the concrete and asphalt of the city, considering the old truck didn't have air-conditioning.

Katie took a cold shower after cleaning up with a hot one and packed her bags. Since she paid in advance by the week, she simply informed the owner she would be leaving that night. He wished her luck, saying he was rooting for her to find some happiness in life. Katie was grateful and thanked him.

Carl was ready as the sun was going down, too anxious to sleep much. He threw his one bag in the truck bed, leaving room for Katie's two to go behind the seats. She had thrown away a trash bag full of sexy, revealing clothes in the dumpster before they started off to California.

"We can make it in one day if we drive straight through," Katie suggested. "We'll take turns at the wheel."

Carl had celebrated his fiftieth birthday two months before. He had a successful rise in the culinary world, only to be set back by an unloving wife. Now, he was on his way to start a new position in a highly respected restaurant, taking over the kitchen from the owner, who needed to relinquish daily responsibilities to pursue her fame promoting the cookbook she had written and appear on television shows as the latest celebrity chef.

Carl wondered about the insanely beautiful young girl who was just as comfortable tearing apart a motor as she was serving cocktails in casinos, catching the eye of all the men she brought drinks to. Along the way they had some casual and personal conversations.

"Tell me about your wife," Katie asked and then caught herself figuring out how painful it must have been for Carl. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking," she immediately apologized.

"No. That's alright," he replied respectively. "I was infatuated with her exotic beauty. She had hot Mediterranean blood mixed with Middle Eastern allusiveness. I couldn't get enough of her at first."

"Then it fizzled out?" Katie attempted to finish the story.

"Not really. My desire for her never waned. I just was so wrapped up in my work. I guess I started neglecting her."

"Was she high maintenance?" Katie probed.

"Yes, very demanding and I suppose she deserved to be," Carl concluded.

As they drove higher in elevation, the cool summer air of the Sierra Nevada felt like a relief. Their hot sweaty bodies had a chance to cool off without stopping for the night to refresh themselves.

"I always dreamed of having a cabin out here in the pine forests in these mountains," Katie shared as they switched driving duties, Katie taking the wheel.

"Tell me about it," Carl encouraged her.

"Well, I saw pictures of a cabin, in a meadow surrounded by pine forests. There was a stream running through it. I could only imagine how peaceful it must be," she told him dreamily. "That's what I was saving my money for. I figured if I had enough to buy the land and build a cabin, I could plant vegetables and hunt and fish."

"Sort of escape from everything?" Carl asked.

"Yes. Live on my own with no one to bother me," Katie told him.

Carl had already sensed that Katie was a very private person, holding something inside she would never want to get let out. He didn't pursue the conversation any longer. And he was exhausted and tried to get a little shut eye.

Carl woke up, a bit startled, not realizing at first where he was. Once he came around, he asked Katie, "Where are we?"

"Coming up on Sacramento according to the GPS," she told him glancing down at the phone in her lap.

"I'm ready to find a spot to pull off," she added. "I need to pee, badly," she told him.

"Me too," Carl said.

Katie turned off into a truck stop a couple of miles down the road. She grabbed a change of clothes out her bag and trotted off to the ladies room. Carl changed his shirt. They bought a cold soda for a little caffein and got back on the road.

They arrived at the restaurant later in the evening. Katie was in the truck when Carl went in to speak to the owner. A half-hour later, he returned to the truck with Jacqueline, the woman chef who was becoming famous and hired Carl. She had a look of eloquence to Katie, despite being dressed in chef's garb.

"This is Katie," Carl introduced her to Jacqueline. "Hello, ma'am," Katie said extending her hand.

"Please call me Jackie," she told Katie. "I have an extra guest room for you to stay,"

"I'll be alright if Carl can drop me off at a cheap motel," Katie responded. "I don't mean to impose."

"Don't be silly. First, there are no cheap motels in Napa, and Carl tells me how you rescued him from a tough situation, getting him here safely," Jackie said.

Jackie hired Katie despite Katie's own reservations about working in such an upscale environment. It didn't take her long to learn the menu and the routine, especially since Carl took her under his wing to help her become accustomed to the work. Katie stayed at Jackie's house and insisted on paying rent which Jackie adamantly refused to take. Katie felt comfortable and grateful for the opportunity.

The end of August was approaching, the end of the summer tourist season culminating in the long Labor Day weekend. It was very busy for both Carl and Katie the past month; they didn't have time to talk despite living under Jackie's roof.

The Thursday evening before summer's final hooray, Katie and Carl found themselves sipping glasses of wine sitting on Jackie's front porch.

"Are you doing alright?" Carl asked sincerely, just to be sure Katie's façade was real, not contrived to hide some inner desperation like he noticed when they first met.

"Oh yes. I don't think I've ever been this happy with life," Katie replied.

"Good. I was hoping I was seeing the real you," Carl said.

"You didn't have to do all this for me," Katie blurted out feeling a bit light-headed from the wine. "Fixing that old clunker truck wasn't that big of a deal that you felt it necessary to give me this opportunity."

"Well," Carl said and paused. "You looked like you could use a friend, even if you didn't need one."

"You're the first guy who took an interest in me," Katie told him, "And not just interested in my body, or sex."

"What makes you think I'm not interested in your body? You are very beautiful, even if you think that's a hindrance," Carl said.

"You certainly don't act like you are," Katie responded. "You're always a gentleman, like a father around me."

"That's because, I respect you," Carl told her.

Katie slept well that night dreaming about Carl. No man had ever respected her before. And he was old enough to be her father, which is what she thought their relationship was going to be like. A feeling of strong sexual desire overcame her. She had never felt that before, having been sexually abused. Katie started to imagine herself in love and loving Carl, if he would even have her.

Labor Day weekend was a whirlwind of work at the restaurant. Carl started early in the mornings obtaining fresh produce from local farmers, putting together exquisite specials for the guests. Jackie was going to be the subject of a special on the Food Network, the film crew setting up everywhere to stage a variety of scenes. Katie took it upon herself to help clean the dining room with attention to fine detail. Everything went smoothly that weekend to end the summer.

It was a summer that changed Katie, introduced her to a world she couldn't have dreamed of. She worked hard, willingly and pleasurably having a sense of belonging to something wonderful. After closing the restaurant on Monday night, the staff celebrated and Jackie recognized the two new stars of the operation, Katie and Carl, retelling the story of how Katie and Carl came to be there with them.

"Ever hear that country song, 'Don't get above your raisin'?" Katie asked Carl and Jackie as the night was winding up. They both shook their heads no. "It means, don't try to be something you weren't raised to be," Katie explained.

"It's bullshit, pardon the bad language," Katie went on. "You guys taught me I could."

Katie and Carl slept in Tuesday morning; Jackie left early for San Francisco to begin her book signing tour. Carl took it on himself to make them breakfast, when it was ready, he went to rouse Katie, who was already getting dressed after showering.

Carl poured them a cup of coffee and placed plates of omelets on the table. "What did you mean about that song about raisins last night?" he asked Katie.

"It wasn't about raisins, silly. It's about being raised. You know us southerners always forget to pronounce the 'g' at the end of the word," Katie laughed.

"Was it about something the way you were raised?" Carl asked more seriously.

"Yes. Where I was raised there wasn't the friendliness and compassion and respect. That's my secret," Kate said. "I was treated like a piece of trash," she said quietly hanging her head.

Carl wasn't sure how he should respond. He wanted to hold her and comfort her, but he wasn't sure how she would take his physical closeness. He had already fallen in love with Katie and admonished himself that it wasn't appropriate.

"I got used," Katie said demurely. "I never had anyone make love to me." She looked up at Carl, their eyes met. "Would you make love to me?" she asked sheepishly hoping he would. She was already wet with desire, an uncontrollable urge that was foreign to her and she didn't know what to do about it but to be bold and ask.

Carl stood up and took her hand, leading her back to her room. Her warmth was arousing, her body incredibly desirous. Carl kissed her lips gently. Katie responded aggressively, with uncontrolled passion. They ripped their clothes off each other.

"Please," Katie moaned as they rolled around the bed, their bodies pressing against each other. Intuitively, Katie spread her legs. Carl's stiff throbbing cock slid into her wet vagina. Katies large breasts rocked as Carl rhythmically pounded her to multiple climaxes.