Barstow - Plan B: Their New Home

Departing Tulsa, the Albertsons and the Fosters are relaxing into the last two days of their road trip, though they're about to veer off of Route 66. Jackson and Emily are availing themselves of the back seat again, already having removed each other's clothing and are amusing Steve and Cyan with the comforting sounds of their foreplay. Their journey started out this way, and the older couple is wistful in their appreciation of their younger counterparts in that it appears the four of them are building a new life as a "fourple".

Barely out of town, Steve announces, "Look guys! The blue whale!"

Not yet in intercourse, Jax and Em lift up enough in their seats to glance out the window.

The Blue Whale of Catoosa is a famous Route 66 roadside attraction, these days a park built around a cartoonish larger-than-life model of a whale in a pond. It's painted bright blue, and you can't miss it. Built by Hugh Davis in the early 1970s as a tribute to his wife, it has weathered the years in various states of repair, accompanied off and on by other exhibits. Currently it's just a small park with the recently renovated whale as its centerpiece, and derelict remnants of old displays.

"Wanna stop?" Cyan proposes.

"Can we play there?" Em grins.

"Nope," Steve advises. "It's a Saturday. I can see a few cars there and there are folks using a couple of the picnic tables. On a quiet weekday we might be able to hide in the whale."

"Another time, I guess. We have friends in Tulsa now, anyway."

"We do. Don't forget Albuquerque, too. We'll be through here again."

"Oh, yeah! Didn't Pete and Sal offer to let us stay with them?"

"They did indeed. They also casually mentioned that most of their friends in the complex would jump at the chance to share their beds with us. We have a place to crash in Albuquerque, for sure."

"You know, Steve..."

"What's that, sweetie?"

"I sure am getting into this being naked all the time thing. What's it like where you and Cyan live?"

Cyan chuckles; Steve smiles at her.

"High fence," Steve answers. "Like Uppen Arms. You'll see. Cyan didn't get that tan in a booth, I'll tell you that much."

"Goody!"

Cyan, Steve and Jackson laugh.

Cyan tells, "We had the fence done when we put in the hot tub. There was no way we were going to have a tub like that and have to wear anything."

"And, sweetheart?..." Steve grins.

"Well, yeah. Seats about ten."

Emily laughs, "Okay. It was all about the fuck parties, wasn't it?"

Steve and Cyan are responding with huge, shit-eatin' grins.

Emily leans forward to slap at Steve, and laughs. Jax is sitting there quietly, smiling and shaking his head at everybody's nonsense.

Steve, sort of serious, "I think you figured out pretty quickly we were experienced maybe a bit more than you were accustomed to with your friends back in L.A."

"No shit," Jackson mumbles.

"Is that bad?" Steve queries.

"Not at all. It's a little overwhelming, though."

"I'm not overwhelmed, sweetie," as Emily hugs her husband. "I'm eating it up. These guys are the most wonderful lovers who know what -- and who -- they're doing. And they're ours."

"We certainly are," Cyan responds. "Don't get us wrong. We enjoy our NSA playfriends, but you guys? What do you think about settling in at our main house instead of the guest cottage? Just go straight to living together, maybe? We have the room."

"Jax?" Emily poses.

"I'd like that. It's a big thing, but all this week has been big things. Yes."

"Good," Steve softly responds. "I wasn't going to bring it up, but I felt that's the way it was going. Now we have a bigger issue."

"What's that, Steve?" Emily asks.

"Finding a preacher who will marry us."

"STEVEN!!!" Emily guffaws as she and Cyan slap at him. Jax is cracking up.

Steve deeply inhales in appreciation of the moment, and says, "Sort of serious question, guys. Do we want to print announcements? For our lifestyle friends?"

"I dunno about that, Steve," Em cautions. "Let me think about it."

"Why's that?"

"The two couples we hung with might have their feelings hurt. One was hinting around at sort of the same thing."

"But they'll find out sooner or later. It's like an old steady boyfriend hearing secondhand about your engagement to someone else. Like my asking Judy yesterday not to tell Lane and Jen, though I know she will."

"You're right, but, still, let me ponder that."

"Okay."

Em sighs, "On the other hand, sweetie, we weren't in love with them like we are with you guys. Don't get me wrong, they were good friends and we spent a lot of time together, but it wasn't the same. Not at all."

"It wasn't," Jax confirms. "I liked Jennifer a lot, but he was just okay. And Emily? Seriously? You mostly liked Tim for his big penis, the socializing part was you and Jen. He wasn't somebody I would hang with outside of our foursome. Steve, I'm serious. I love you. You're the man. I love Cyan, and understand why you love her, too. I love my Emily, and am appreciative of the love you and Em share."

"Thank you, Jackson. Gosh."

If only they could pull over and just cuddle, all four of them. But there is more road ahead, and more progress towards home to make. They will have to ponder these emotions in relative silence. However, Jax and Em do resume their intimacy into a cuddling coitus, reflecting the moment.

=====

"Guys?" Steve announces. "We're coming into Venita. This is where things get a little nuts trying to keep on Route 66. We veer away from following the turnpike and drive a few miles in Kansas, then cross into Missouri into the heart of Joplin. We lose 66 altogether east of Joplin."

"Okay," Em acknowledges. "When are we stopping for gas?"

"About three hours away, in Lebanon. We'll grab lunch there, too."

"Can't wait."

"Oh. Okay. How urgent?"

"About fifteen minutes ago. After Jax came in me. Sorry, Cy."

Cyan smiles and chuckles.

"Gotcha. There's a McD's where 66 turns the corner in downtown. Can you hold it another five minutes?"

"Yes. That works."

Both girls took advantage of the relaxed potty stop, and thank goodness there was a strip of grass along the west side of the parking lot for Steven and Jax to walk Solomon for his relief. After the ladies returned, the guys handed off the puppy and went inside, coming back with a large coffee for themselves and Emily. Cyan drinks tea, and just shook her head at the others. The ladies have swapped seats and Emily has shotgun for this part of the trip.

Back on the road with few points of interest on this leg seemed like a good time to talk about what Jax and Em are going to need when they get to their new home.

"Technology," Steve says. "Considering how light you were traveling when we picked you up, I assume that all you guys have are the phones, right?"

"Sore subject, Steve," Jackson answers. "We had to hock the laptops."

"Certainly understandable. So those are gone. I have a couple of Linux desktops I'm playing with in my office that are mostly unused. One doesn't have its own monitor at the moment, but we can fix that. They should be okay for surfing and word processing if you need to. I'm not fond of LibreOffice for spreadsheets, but it's on both if you want to use it, too."

"Sounds okay. WiFi?"

"Yeah. Just upgraded to dot eleven BE. One gig wired in most of the rooms. Managed switch is in my office."

"That's a lot of horsepower for a personal network, Steve," Em interrupts.

"What can I say? I was a sysadmin in my last real job. Those kinds of habits are tough to break. Besides, they just dropped fiber to the house about three months ago so we have 500 down and up, and I wasn't going to let the intranet be the bottleneck."

Cyan protests with a smirk, "Leave me out of this one, guys."

Steve laughs, "You guys will figure out soon enough that she's our resident Luddite. Anyway, you won't be suffering on the connection to the outside world."

"Em?"

"Jax?"

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Yeah. Remote work."

"Uh huh."

"Oo! I could be naked all the time!"

Steve laughs, "Oh, yeah! Especially with Zoom meetings! You can borrow a shirt for those. Or not."

Em and Jax crack up, Cyan is going, "Huh?"

"Nice try, but we will have to leave the house every so often. We eat out a lot, and I suspect you guys did, too. Okay. Next. Transportation. Thoughts?"

"Well," Jax responds, "we will need something, especially if we've found something in the area and they want in-person interviews."

"We have three cars, this and the van we told you about, and a 20-year-old Honda Element Cyan uses as her errand runner. That's a stick shift, which will be a shock to your systems, but it's fully in keeping with Cyan's cred as a Luddite."

Jax and Em laugh, Cyan's going, "What? You're picking on me again."

"We love you, honey. We really do. Now go back to sleep."

Cyan fakes a pout, the kids laugh again, and Solomon is giving Em that endearing cocked head confused expression, "Mom, what's so funny?"

"Anyway... I'm inclined to loan you this as your car for the time being. Sorta big and thirsty, but better all around for longer drives if you have to go any distance. If we need three vehicles to be out, I'll drive the van."

Jax confirms, "That'll work. Thank you, Steven. Really. Thank you."

"My pleasure, Jax. I... Cyan and I... want you guys back on your feet ASAP. And we don't want you wanting for anything even in the interim. If you need it, you got it. Okay?"

Em requests, "We need to talk about clothes shopping, Steve. We surprised ourselves with what we could carry in the backpack and that one suitcase in terms of casual wear, but office attire was left in the car in Barstow."

"Okay, I was wondering about that. Clothing first. The closest decent clothes shopping to us is in Springfield. There's the WalMart in town, but that's not going to do for professional wear. We'll plan a shopping day once we get you guys settled in. And Target has a good selection of swimwear for the hot tub."

"Steven!" she laughs and reaches over to slap him.

"Oh, I'd appreciate a nice bikini where I could pull on the strings to strip you in front of friends."

Steve gets another giddy slap.

"Just kidding, sweetheart," he chuckles. "Naked is good. But it'll be your job to answer the door when we have people over."

"Steven! You are so awful!" she giggles.

He gives her a cheesy grin. "If we need to make additional shopping trips, that's fine, too. We go into the city maybe once every two or three weeks. We even have to do some grocery shopping there. Now about the car you left in Barstow."

"Okay..." Em replies. "What about it? Aside that it was a piece of crap?"

"What other personal effects did you leave in it? I hope you have your important papers with you. Things like your birth certificates. Marriage license. Diplomas. Stuff like that."

"We have that covered, Steve," Jackson answers. "We gathered that stuff up and left it with friends we trusted. All we have to do is tell them where we landed and it's all in a box ready for a FedEx label."

"I knew you guys were smart. So... what else was left in the car? Anything irreplaceable?"

Em responds, "Trinkets and mementos for me. Nothing I'm going to miss, to be honest. You know my childhood was pretty Spartan, Steve. Jax?"

"Sort of the same thing. Mementos, a couple of trophies from when I played high school baseball. Oh. My high school yearbooks."

Steve muses, "You're going to miss those in twenty years, Jax. I'm speaking from experience. Do you want me to contact that car lot to see if we can pay them to get your stuff back? I know your experience there was awful, but I think coming from me, or, frankly, our lawyer, might grease the skids."

"You can do that?"

"Yes, we can. In fact, I'll call the lot during lunch. If they did what I think they did with it, then I'll call the junkyard. Money talks with all of that, so if they think they can make a few bucks by being nice to me, maybe we can get some of it back. Worth trying."

"Steve? I hope I'm as smart as you about this kind of stuff when I get to be your age."

"Jax? Age is how I got to be smart in the first place. Experience is an exacting teacher, that's for sure. Do me a favor."

"Okay. Anything."

"Cyan needs comforting after all of our teasing. You know what to do."

Emily reaches over to hold Steven's hand.

Softly, "Yes he does. And I do, too. I love you, Steven. You're so wonderful to us."

"Likewise, sweetheart."

=====

The foursome has run out of Route 66 and Steve just merged the SUV into traffic on I-44 east of Joplin. Jax and Cyan have at least put shirts on now that they're in heavier traffic, and are sitting up noting the change in scenery.

"Oh, gag. PULL!" Cyan hollers from the back seat.

Steve starts laughing rather loudly. Em looks at him like he's crazy and she glances back to Jackson who has an equally startled expression.

"Seriously," Cyan repeats. "Gag!"

"'Gag', what?'" Emily insists.

Steve's big laughs have reduced to chuckles, and he finally comes up with the answer.

"Precious Moments. Specifically, the 'Precious Moments Chapel' near the next exit for Carthage. See this billboard coming up?"

"Oh, yeah. Over-the-top big-eyed cartoon characters. So? What is it?"

"The 'chapel' is the centerpiece of a quasi-religious theme park. The 'gift shop' sells a contrived line of ceramic figurines marketed primarily to the recent grandmother demographic as 'collectibles'. They're beyond saccharine cute, like those cartoon characters. They actually cost a lot of money to buy new, but are in the end worthless."

"Why? Uh... do they do cute naked ones?"

"Emily! I said 'religious', didn't I?"

She grins and sticks her tongue out at him.

"Anyway... worthless because they grace garage sale tables everywhere when great-grandma has to move into a senior care home and the kids or grandkids are forced to deal with the mountains of said 'collectibles' all over the house. One in a thousand might be something rare and worth something to somebody, but are the kids going to know that?"

"Are you saying it's a scam?" Jax asks.

"Mmmmm... maybe. It was the 1970s answer to an artist making a buck given the uptick in Hummel figurines becoming collectible. It's a big business now. Supposedly a non-profit, but somebody or several somebodies are getting paid to run the place, for sure."

"Hummel figurines? Never heard of 'em," Emily puzzles.

Cyan tells, "Hummels are painted ceramic figurines that started in Germany before World War II. They are based on a particular artist's sketches of cherub-like children in cutesy outfits. American soldiers stationed in Germany right after the war started bringing them home as souvenirs, and the collector market was born."

"Still don't understand, guys," Em huffs. "And what's with 'PULL!', Cyan?"

"It's an old joke with Steve and me. Aside from the 'gooey' portrayals, the fact that especially the mass-produced Precious Moments figures turn worthless like Steve said gave us a goofy idea. Since they are so gooey and saccharine, and likely a constant annoyance to Grandpa and the kids, we thought about opening a skeet shooting range using the figurines instead of clay pigeons. 'Grandpa's Revenge' we were thinking of calling it."

"'Skeet shooting'?"

"Oh, gawd," Jax responds. "I think I saw skeet shooting on one of the sports programs on cable. It's an Olympics event. Shotguns, right? 'PULL!' is the request to launch the target into the air if I recall. A direct hit vaporizes the target."

"You got it!" Steve grins.

"You guys are sick!" Em laughs. "How can I love you more than I already do?!"

Steve chuckles, "We love you too, Em. We love you, too."

=====

The gas stop in Lebanon is quick since they're figuring on lunch close by and nobody needs to get out for anything. However, Cyan offers to clean the windshield while Steve manages the pump, so she jumps out to handle the chore. She really has to reach across the hood of the big SUV to get it all with the squeegee. On her tip-toes reach.

Steve and Cyan get back in to a laughing Jax and Emily.

"What's so funny?" Steve asks.

"Cyan," Em admits.

"Oh?"

"Cy, did you forget you're wearing just a tee?" Em accuses.

Cyan grins a Cheshire cat grin, "Nope."

The two break into even harder laughter.

"Oh, gawd, Cyan! You knew you were flashing everybody! If you could have seen the looks on some of their faces."

Steve rolls his eyes and grumbles, "It's not the first time. Nor will it be the last."

Cyan responds, "Yeah, I caught a couple of guys out of the corner of my eye looking. You see the one sticking out his tongue and smacking his lips?"

"We did!" Jax replies. "You know, girl, your ass was fully out there when you were reaching all the way. Judging from that guy's reaction, you were showin' pussy, too."

"I know," she grins real big again. "It's nice to have independent confirmation every once in a while that I still got it."

"Was it ever in doubt? Not by me," Jackson notes. "You're a babe, Cyan."

"Thanks, Jax."

"Now get some shorts on before we get to the restaurant!" Steve scolds as he pulls away from the pump island. "Em?"

"Got it covered. So to speak."

Another eye-roll and smirk from Steve.

"What's for lunch?" Jackson justifiably inquires. "Looks like lots of choices!"

"Bandanas!" Steve answers, maybe a little excitedly. "I saw the sign as we were pulling off the Interstate."

"What's a 'Bandanas'?" Emily asks.

"Barbeque! Really good barbeque! Closest one to home is in Bloomington, so running into this one by chance is a real treat."

"Barbeque? Not something we encountered in L.A., Steve," Jax comments.

"It's mostly a Southern thing. You probably had barbeque places out there, though, just not a popular format I'd guess. You'll enjoy it. Oh. Guys? No monkey business. Unlike the gas stop, Cyan! This is just lunch, okay? Save that stuff for after we get to the hotel."

"Awwwww," they all moan. And then laugh.

=====

The two-hour drive from Lebanon to Columbia is mostly a snoozefest. Cyan and Jax complained about the traffic on 54, that they didn't feel like they could peel-off and have sex in the back seat given all the trucks Steve had to pass. It was rolling hill after rolling hill, although everyone was astonished by how built-up the area around Lake of the Ozarks had become.

"Look at all the boat slips!" Jax exclaimed as they drove over the Grand Glaize Bridge.

"I've read that holiday weekends in the summer are an absolute zoo," Steve replies. "It's all about getting out on the water and getting drunk."

"And of course..." Cyan leads.

"You're right. Read about that, too. Being drunk while wearing very little seems to be a short path to nudity for a few. Mostly young women, though, and then just topless. The unwashed masses don't want to see any weenies floppin' about. Or pussies."

"Drunk and a few titties. Meh. Pikers," Em chuckles.

"Pirate's Cove, however," Cyan notes.

"Sounds fun," Jax suggests.

Steve sighs, "There has been some buzz from lifestyle friends of friends that this particular backwater cove draws a gathering of swingers playing in the open. Hard to find unless you know exactly where it is. Not on holiday weekends, however. Too much risk of cruisers trying to avoid the big crowds stumbling into something they might not want their kids to see. And the highway patrol is starting to catch on."

"Highway patrol, Steve?" Em laughs.