Buffaloed

Anybody doing anything below the belt is over eighteen, so we should be good there. And this main character is an Arkansas good ole boy from his head to his shoes, so he's gonna talk that way to some degree.

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If a magician told you his secret, it wouldn't be magic, now would it?

That's how us Arkansawyers feel about our best fishing spots. If we told too many people where they are and how good the fishing is, they'd believe us when we say those spots are that good, and then they'd wanna try 'em out. Pretty soon, everybody'd come that way, and they'd overrun us so bad the fishing would go to crap, and that'd happen real quick. That's why, until I told you here today, only four people knew our best spot -- high on the Buffalo National River. We're pretty proud of that here in Arkansas, being as we were the first state with a National River.

Now down to brass tacks, down to where I'm coming from -- my name's Kristopher Jordan. I don't actually live up on the river; I live about a hundred miles south of there, in the countryside of Warwick County. That's about two hours east of Fort Smith, and an hour or so northwest of Little Rock. Like most everybody in the county, I went to Warwick High School -- and, like most everybody in the county, I wasn't a super jock or a super brain, so college wasn't gonna happen for me. This means that after I graduated, I worked wherever I could around Warwick and other places close by -- construction, painting houses, quite a lotta farm work. You name it, I've done it -- and I was between some of these jobs in the summer I'm fixing to tell you about.

I'd been doing what I'd been doing for about five years at this point, which would make me -- yeah, twenty-three, I think. I spent all my weekdays, and most of my weekends, puttering around Warwick doing these jobs, but every now and again, I'd go fishing up on the Buffalo with my best friend -- Jeffrey Wayne Jordan.. Yeah, he's my cousin, and nine years older than me, but we've gotten pretty close over the years. Then again, that's what comes from him having three younger sisters and me having one older one -- sometimes guys just need to get together and do Guy things, like going fishing or working on cars. Sometimes my daddy'd come along fishing closer to Warwick, or Uncle Doug -- that's Jeffrey Wayne's daddy -- would, or maybe they both would, being as Daddy and Uncle are brothers and all. But the Buffalo belonged to me and Jeffrey Wayne.

That was back when we were younger, though; about five years before this story happened, Jeffrey Wayne got married, and so he didn't have as much time to come with anybody. I'd go around Warwick County with Daddy and Uncle Doug, and don't get me wrong, that was fun -- but it just wasn't the same as road tripping up to the Buffalo. That's how it went for a while, till the first Wednesday of June one year.

I was still doing these odd jobs here and there, and paying Mama and Daddy what I could for my upkeep, when I got a phone call from Jeffrey Wayne's wife, Karla Jean. She told me that her and Jeffrey Wayne was going fishing up on the Buffalo that weekend, and did I wanna come along with the two of them. What with this being the first time since Jeffrey Wayne got married, she was wondering if me and him wanted to go up to the Buffalo? You bet your ass I jumped at that chance; I told her I'd be over as close to right after supper on Friday, and she said they'd be waiting on me.

Lemme get this off my chest right now: if it had been just the two of them wanting some real alone time like married couples take (especially now that they had two little ones under the age of three), Karla Jean wouldn't've asked me to come -- and hell yeah she's pretty, but not pretty enough for me to come on to. She's another man's wife to begin with, and my cousin's wife on top of that -- so yeah, I can look till the cows come home, but touching her ain't happenin'. Besides, I didn't care so much about getting any as much as I cared about being back up there.

Work couldn't go by fast enough those next two days. When I got home on Thursday, I started packing my weekend bag: right clothes, ball cap, rod and reel, bug spray, sunblock (I'm Scotch-Irish, so I burn, and burn bad), and fish knife. On top of that, I also made sure I had my tent ready and in my truck; it could sleep two, but never did -- I was the only one ever in there.

At supper on Friday, Mama had to tell me not to eat too fast or I might choke; I slowed down to make her happy, but I didn't dawdle, just the same. As soon as I was done, I put my plate in the sink, hugged Mama, shook Daddy's hand, promised them I'd be safe, and took off in a flash for Jeffrey Wayne's place.

Soon as I got there, I noticed that Karla Jean's mama had come over to take care of the kids, so I minded my manners and passed the time of day with her while helping Jeffrey Wayne and Karla Jean get ready. We just about had his truck packed up and ready, when I heard tires on their gravel and saw this little blue Ford Escort pulling up; once it parked, the driver got out and yelled, "Somebody gimme a hand here?"

My heart -- and another part of me, too -- started beating a little faster when I saw who'd pulled up. It was Jacinda Trimble -- four years younger than me, and the prettiest girl in five counties. She was five-seven, with brown curly chestnut hair down to her bra strap, and the deepest, darkest brown eyes you ever did see. I swear to God, Jacinda's eyes could make a freight train stop on a dime. (Not that it matters, but I'm five-ten, with brown and blue.)

She was also one of the smartest kids to graduate from Warwick High in about the last thirty years; fact is, being nineteen (with her birthday in May), she'd just finished her freshman year up in Fayetteville. Now in case you're wondering what some college girl would be doing, coming fishing with two good ole boys and a good ole girl... you see, the four of us are all related in some way.

Now before you start getting any wrong ideas -- I mean, come on, there's some lines we don't cross, even in Arkansas -- lemme break this down for you.

Me and Jeffrey Wayne are first cousins because our daddies are brothers.

Jacinda and Jeffrey Wayne are first cousins because his mama and Jacinda's daddy are sister and brother.

Jacinda and Karla Jean are second cousins because their mamas are first cousins.

Me and Jacinda aren't any kin at all -- unless you go back to Adam and Eve, or maybe the Flood. Nothing any closer than that, though.

Clear enough for you?

And it's because of her family's connections that the Trimbles wound up in Warwick County. Her mama and daddy met in graduate school out West, but once they finished, they had doctors degrees, the two of 'em, and they were looking for teaching jobs at some of the colleges close by -- there's one just up the road in Russellville, and three just down the road in Conway. Being as both Mr and Mrs Trimble had relatives in and around Warwick County, they thought it might be nice coming back home, so to speak; both applied for jobs, and each one got one. These days, they could afford to buy Jacinda a car for a graduation present -- yeah, it was seven years old at the time, but it didn't have to be worked on every weekend, with parts being sent for all the time. Having a car like that might be middle class someplace else, but in Warwick, we thought that was rich.

Now where was I?... oh yeah, Jacinda pulled up and asked for help. See, once she got her invite to come, she volunteered for grocery detail for a trip like this -- cornbread mix, bacon, eggs, salt, pepper, and bottled water. (We wouldn't be buying ice or -- ahem -- other drinks, till we got to this little town about fifteen miles or thereabouts, out from where we'd be camping.) Jacinda had packed a nice-size cardboard box full of these groceries, but needed somebody to help lift it out of her back seat while she got her own tent and fishing gear out of her trunk. I offered to put that box in the camper shell of Jeffrey Wayne's truck, and it wasn't lost on me to see her smile to me and tell me "thanks!" as she grabbed her purse and keys, then locked her car. Once we had our tents ready and our gear loaded (that's counting two ice chests), we said our goodbyes and got on the road, about seven o'clock.

On the way up there, we kept Jeffrey Wayne's rule: no talking on tricky parts of the road -- and it's just about a hundred miles of nothing but that, a lotta switchbacks and hairpin turns on two-lane roads. Dark was falling, on top of that, so Jeffrey Wayne needed to keep extra sharp till we got there. After all, nothing would spoil an Arkansas landscape faster than wrapping us and the truck around a tree. But we got there safe, around nine; me and Jacinda set up our tents, while Jeffrey Wayne and Karla Jean got set up with sleeping bags in the camper shell. We went to sleep on the spot, so as we'd be ready bright and early. To top it off, we slept in our clothes, so as we could roll out faster and get to fishing.

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Five in the morning always comes way too damn early, but especially in the summer when the sunlight's starting up. That didn't stop Jeffrey Wayne's battery-powered alarm from going off, and it didn't stop him from yelling out to me to wake up; Karla Jean did the same thing for Jacinda. Each one of us did the "bug spray and sunblock" thing, then got dressed up. Blue jeans, and light flannel shirts used as windbreakers, would be too hot by eight o'clock, much less noon, but they were totally worth it, doing more to keep the sun and the mosquitoes off of us. Within ten minutes, we were out casting for trout and catfish; come seven-thirty, we had enough for a good breakfast for everybody. I wasn't having as much luck as the rest of them, but we didn't care. We just kept fishing, catching, and having a good time. Part of that good time was everybody ribbing me about bringing up the rear in catching, but I didn't care. I was just that happy to be back on the Buffalo -- and when you're that happy, you give back as good as you get, and I don't even remember what all we talked about and joked about. But I did my giving.

When evening started falling, we made a pan of cornbread on the fire, to go with the fish we'd been catching all day. It wasn't as big as Sunday dinner, and we weren't catching a whole big school of fish or anything, but wasn't any of us going hungry, that's for sure. That's also when Karla Jean and us two Jordan boys started cracking open some beers. We wanted to drink some earlier, but beer and Arkansas afternoon heat don't always mix; that's why we waited till evening. Jacinda, being nineteen, brought along pop, iced tea, and other things to drink, seeing as she didn't wanna get in any trouble for swiping our beer -- at least, that's what she said.

While we were sitting there talking, I asked Jacinda how Fayetteville was going for her; everybody in town knew why she was going, so I didn't need to ask that. You see, every so often in Warwick, we get a girl who thinks she's got the singing talent to make it big, in Nashville or someplace like that. Jacinda had her sights set higher -- the lights of Broadway, and she figured the best thing for that was not to just run off on a Greyhound the day after she graduated from high school, but to take her time, go to Fayetteville, major in music -- but she calls it some fancy name... oh yeah. Vocal Music Performance, I think it's called. And she was so good at it that she had all of Warwick rooting for her; from the time she was in the sixth grade until she graduated, the marching band quit playing the national anthem at football games, and just let her sing it -- and could she ever belt it out, brother!

We talked about all these things, and others too, till I finally told her, "We've missed having you home."

She smiled back at me like she had when I helped her with that heavy box. "Well, I've missed being here." I wanted to reach over and touch her hand right then and there, but I didn't want to come on too strong, in spite of me being harder than a drill bit for the better part of the day. The four of us sat around and shot the shit till it started to get dark; about that time, Jeffrey Wayne said we oughta be turning in for the night, to get the jump on the next morning's fishing. By way of getting clean, each of us wiped off with some wet wipes Karla Jean had brought, and after that, we tried to get to sleep. Notice I said "tried," because I was too busy thinking what I wouldn't mind getting to do with Jacinda if I had the chance; not that I thought I would get any kind of chance like that, but still. For a.minute or two, I thought about turning on my side, unzipping, and rubbing one out, but I figured that'd be too obvious in case somebody might wake up and see me, so I didn't.

I carried on tossing and turning like this for what must have been an hour, hour and a half... till I heard a woman's voice outside my tent. "Pssst... Kris? You awake?"

I looked up -- this woman wasn't blonde, so that ruled out Karla Jean. I called back. "Jacinda?"

"Yeah, it's me... I can't sleep either... wanna... sit and talk?"

"Either?" I was curious now.

"Yeah, I've been trying to fall asleep, but I...

I just can't..."

"You don't have to sit outside, you know," I offered.

"Okay, sure!" she said; she then smiled and I let her in, where she sat cross-legged near my knees. She was dressed just about the same as she had been the rest of the day, but one thing was different: she didn't have on the white tank top she'd worn under her flannel shirt. That, and her flannel was unbuttoned about halfway down -- there are some lovely views throughout Arkansas, and I was sure seeing one of them. Make that two -- Jacinda was swaying left to right, making sure I got a great look at the inner curves of both of her breasts.

I sat up, and she reached over her left hand and threaded it with my right; her right hand began to unbutton the rest of her shirt while she spoke. "You know, I've been watching you today."

"Is that right."

"You've got the talent to be quite the fisherman."

"Why, thanks --"

"And you could be, too... if you'd spent half as much time today concentrating on fishing as you did staring at these." Next thing I knew, she had her shirt off her shoulders and left herself naked from the waist up. "Hell, I could feel you staring like that... so here they are. Get you a good look." She shook her shoulders up and down a couple times, to make her tits jiggle.

I didn't want to be a gentleman right then, but I figured I better be one, anyway -- it's just not right to go grabbing a woman's breasts right off, no matter how fine they are. That's why I thought to ask: "M-may I?"

She reached for my hands and leaned forward, so that I had each one as a handful and then some. "Oh, for God's sake, Kris." She was sounding exasperated. "I... trust you've... been with a woman before? I hope so, anyway."

'Well, yeah, I have -"

"So act like it. You got hands, you got thumbs... use them." And so I did -- flicking at her nipples, tracing all around them with my index fingers, weighing them in my hands, and praying I wouldn't blow a load too soon. Oh, you can bet I wanted to -- but not in my pants like that, and not right then. As soft as round as Jacinda's tits felt, though, could you blame me if I had? And her nipples, too -- the way I was working them, they were plumping up to about the size of the top joint of my thumbs.

"Okay, at least you know how to do that... and yeah... mmm, keep doing it." She didn't have to tell me twice, and you can bet your last nickel on that. "And I know you're gonna ask... everybody else does, so here's the truth, straight out. They're 36D."

"Just right," I said, and started kissing between them.

"Oh, you like us girls with bigger figures, do ya?" She rolled to one side, so that I was starting to lick right on her nipple, and also rolling my tongue around it. I could hear her clenching her teeth; if she hadn't, she was probably afraid she'd wake Jeffrey Wayne and Karla Jean up from yelling. Truth is, the two of them were sleeping like the dead, what with their kids being back in Warwick and not there to wake them up half the night -- so Jacinda didn't need to worry about that.

"I don't really care how big they are," I said.

"Then why'd you say they were just right?" She looked all worried and hurt.

"Because..."

"Well?" She pulled away and sat up, looking away kinda sad-like.

I touched her bare shoulder. "Because they're yours."

"Why, you big sweet scamp!" She threw her arms around me and kissed me like I was her real boyfriend. "Now you get your shirt off too, right --" I had taken my flannel off earlier and had had a T-shirt on, but I had it off too, before she could say the word "now." She went to hug me again, but instead just let me hold her close and be bare-chested together. It also wasn't helping my cock any that she started kissing down the center of my chest, and making sure I could look right in those lovely brown eyes of hers.

We didn't say anything at first -- not out loud, anyway. That didn't stop Jacinda from leaning forward and starting to undo her blue jeans... and looking at my face, trying to study it. "Something wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing wrong... not really," I said as I leaned in to kiss her.

"Then why've you got that look on your face?"

"What look?"

"You're looking like a kid who shoplifted a piece of candy and is afraid he'll get caught."

"You just... you got me ready to go off like a bottle rocket any second."

She pulled up from my chest. "I thought you said you'd been with a woman before."

"Yeah, twice."

"Oh yeah, who?" And then I told her what I'm fixing to tell you -- I told her about the two girls I'd been with.

My first time was at my high school graduation party, four years before this fishing trip, and it was with a girl I'd just graduated with. Neither one of us meant to go that far, but that's what we ended up doing. It was all over in about a minute, though, and we went back to the party like nothing had happened -- but she did have the courtesy to come to me a month after, and tell me that I hadn't gotten her pregnant after all. That was a miracle, seeing as we didn't use anything.

My second time had been about a year before this trip. A long time buddy of mine had done some work on my truck when I really needed it, and only charged me the cost of a pizza and a case of beer, saving me a crapload of money that the dealer would've charged. I told him that he should call me, and I'd do for him if he ever needed a favor -- turns out, he did. He had a sister who was thinking to "go doe" -- what girls do instead of "going stag" -- to her prom, at a school in the next county over from Warwick. My buddy had a different idea, though; he thought I should be his sister's date, and he called in that favor. That's the kind of favor a guy likes to pay back, especially in my case. What I wasn't expecting was how she wanted to bail after about two hours -- but I sure came to like it well enough, because once we got a good way off, she came on to me hard and fast. Her daddy had told me to have her home by midnight, and I did -- but let's just say, we didn't do a hell of a lot of dancing. She even brought condoms for me -- and because prom was in April, and she'd turned eighteen a few months earlier, in November, that all worked out right. But my buddy didn't know, see, because I didn't wanna lose him, and I'm afraid I would've if he knew I'd done that with his sister.

I didn't tell Jacinda all the details I just told you -- only the high points, the who and the where. She smiled back at me and said, "That's good, 'cause if this was your first, I'd know." While she was saying this, she had her blue jeans off and was on her knees, with nothing on but her pale blue bikini-cut panties.