Cream Of The Crop Ch. 1

Copyright 2000 Manjaro

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"Thank God for air conditioning," she remarked aloud, though she occupied the rental car by herself. Had anyone been within earshot of her comment they surely would have agreed! As she sped along Iowa 180, the temperature inside Carrie's vehicle was bearable only because the cooling equipment managed to keep the confined space of the car interior about thirty-five degrees lower than the hellish temperature outside. Iowa corn country is often subject to hot weather during the high summer season, but even by Iowa standards the last several weeks had been exceptionally severe.

Carrie cast a quick glance at the dashboard clock. Though it showed seven minutes shy of ten a.m., Carrie knew it was already about 110° outside. The temperature had barely dropped below the hundred degree mark overnight.

The decision to drive to her meeting with her next client, rather than to fly, was at this point, still a good one. The time factor was almost a wash when the drive to and from airports, the wait for a flight, and the rental of another car, were factored in. Considering that she also saved almost three hundred dollars by not flying, Carrie figured she'd made the right move. Though her fledgling business was off to a healthy start, cash was still tight, so she had to manage her funds carefully. Besides, Carrie enjoyed driving on the open highway.

As her thoughts touched on open roads, she reflected on the demands made upon her by the hard work it took to make her new business venture a success. Installing financial software tailored to the requirements of farming co-ops, and training personnel in its use, had turned out to be pretty lucrative. The price of her success was constant travel, which meant a lack of time to devote to her personal development. She was sacrificing potential personal relationships, a usually physically active lifestyle, and her sex-life. Sex-life? That was a joke! She hadn't had a sex-life since her ill-fated affair with Dan last October, unless you counted the occasional masturbatory fantasies she engaged in.

Carrie shifted her gaze momentarily from the heat waves rising off the pavement in front of her to glance at her reflection in the mirror. "All the travel hasn't taken too great a toll yet on my looks," she thought. "Hair still looks pretty good ( Yeah, thank God for perms!) I'm retaining my tan too, thanks to a few hours a week at hotel pools. I'm dressed in style and taste, and despite regularly having to eat on the road, I've gained only a couple of pounds." Carrie's self-assessment ended with her grading herself B-, but she'd admit, if pressed, that she was probably her own harshest critic.

"All in all," she mused, "if I wasn't so uptight and tense, I wouldn't look half-bad for a busy, successful , business woman." The thought cheered her.

"Oh hell, what now?" The car, which had been cruising along smoothly at seventy-five miles an hour, had just quit running! As Carrie fought to keep the car under control without benefit of power steering, she was thankful for straight road and a wide shoulder. "I can't believe this! A brand, new Toyota and the damn thing just dies in the middle of the highway! So much for Japanese automobile superiority," she exclaimed as she pulled the car to the side of the road.

Repeated attempts to start the car were unsuccessful despite adjusting the transmission lever and shutting off the other power-draining accessories. She was fuming! Getting a replacement rental car out here in the boonies was going to take precious time, likely causing her to be late for her appointment. Not so good for business, that! Also, who would have expected a brand new car to break down so suddenly? "Noo, it couldn't have happened in town. It had to wait until I'm out in corn country," Carrie muttered.

Oh, oh! The realization hit Carrie that she'd only been stopped for a few minutes, and the car was already turning into an oven. She opened the door. Her previous effort to open the power windows yielded zilch, which convinced her that the problem with the car was electrical. The still, hot air struck Carrie as if from a blast furnace.

"Oh great, on top of everything else I'm going to become a human cinder," she thought, hoping fervently that someone would come along in a very short time.

The sun was high in the sky. There was virtually no shade in sight. Carrie looked around to see fields of brown, dry cornstalks, broken only by the shimmering black ribbon of asphalt. Carefully, to avoid burning herself on the sizzling sheet metal, she climbed to the roof of the car to increase her field of vision. Unfortunately, the only difference turned out to be that the heat seemed to somehow, unbelievably, increase. It was probably from the reflection of the sun off the glass and metal surfaces. She jumped down with the phrase "scalded puppy" popping into her mind.

An hour of waiting by the roadside without a single vehicle passing brought Carrie to the realization that she was in a serious predicament. She was perspiring heavily. Without benefit of shade she was exposed to the full force of the suns intensity. Carrie was beyond merely being bedraggled and uncomfortable, she was beginning to run the risk of dehydration.

In an effort to find some relief in the sparse shade cast by the withered cornstalks, Carrie walked a ways into the cornfield, meanwhile cursing herself for having had caffeinated tea with her breakfast that morning. It didn't take her long to realize that the cornfield offered no relief. There was nothing to rest against, and the sun was so high in the sky that there was no shade to retreat to. Hadn't she read something about equipment sheds, or maybe water pumps, in crop fields? Knowing that she might just be indulging in wishful thinking, she, nevertheless, proceeded a bit further into the field before deciding to give it up as a bad idea.

Just before Carrie turned around to head back to her car, she heard the bull snort behind her! She whirled about in stunned surprise, searching for the massive creature she was sure was about to gore and trample her. It took a moment for it to register that the snort was not only continuous, but getting louder by the second. It finally sunk in that the sound didn't come from a bull at all. What Carrie was hearing was the approach of a big rig blasting down the highway.

Carrie was only about thirty feet from the edge of the field. As soon as recognition of what she was hearing dawned on her, she began scrambling toward the highway.

Though the cornstalks were ineffective as shade producers, they functioned quite well indeed as sound baffles. So well, in fact, that the truck had been only a couple of hundred yards away when Carrie had mistaken it for a bull. She was left with little time to react. There was enough time for a healthy, able-bodied woman to reach the edge of the cornfield before the cab of the tractor passed, and for her to try to attract the driver's attention. There was easily enough time, but none to spare.

Carrie moved quickly. She might have made it. Probably would have, even. Of course, the driver might not have been looking, or he or she might have ignored Carrie’s gestures. The driver's might-have-been reactions became a non-issue because Carrie wasn't wearing Nikes, or Reeboks, or L.L.Bean hiking boots, or any other shoe sensible for traipsing around in cornfields. Carrie was wearing a lovely pair of Précis , green with a moderate heel, and a perfect complement to her matching green and red Limited skirt and blouse combination. The moderate heel of one of Carrie's lovely, green shoes found a depression among the numerous dirt clods, which influenced her progress dramatically. Specifically, she lurched to her left, and went down on one knee. Carrie’s adrenaline was pumping, however, so she was up and moving in less than two full seconds.

Carrie emerged from the corn rows just in time to watch a long, shiny aluminum trailer with the words Navajo Trucking Company, next to an Indian-head logo, flash by.

STUPID! STUPID! STUPID! was what flashed through Carries mind as she began to mentally berate herself for leaving the roadside. Her self-loathing increased when she remembered she hadn't even tried to turn on the emergency flashers .

Minutes later, after she'd tried the flashers, and found them to be as useless as the rest of the electrical system, she felt a little less stupid.

Her minor relief was fleeting. An hour and a half had gone by with only one vehicle passing. Her throat was parched, and her tongue felt like a dusty blanket. Carrie reminded herself that panic was her worst enemy. She had to retain her self-control!

After another hour, Carrie was reflecting on how truly fragile life is. How ironic it would be to die of heatstroke at the edge of a U.S. highway.

The sun had moved enough in the sky so as to make a tiny bit of shade on the passenger side of the car. Carrie had removed her luggage from the trunk, and was sitting on it while leaning on the right door.

She knew vaguely that she looked a mess, but at that point could not have cared less. What she did care about was relief from the incredible thirst that seemed to be spreading from her mouth and throat to affect her entire body.

Carrie lost track of time. She was actually in a swoon when she became aware that a vehicle had pulled onto the shoulder behind her car. She staggered to her feet, shading her eyes against the sun's harsh glare. She could barely make out a well-worn pickup truck with the driver-side door open, and a man in the process of climbing out.

"Oh please, can you help me?" Carrie cried. Truthfully, Carrie had only tried to cry those words the first time. What came out was a cross between a gasp and a hoarse squeak. The second try she managed to croak out the words somewhat intelligibly.

At the sound of her voice the man shifted his attention from her car to her.

"What's the problem here, ma'am?" he asked, looking around to assess the situation.

"My car broke down several hours ago, and nobody has been by to help me. I'm so thirsty. Do you have something to drink?"

"Lady," the man said, squinting at her in the sun, "you don't look so good. Come over to the truck. I happen to have a cooler with some drinks in it." He came around the car to help her. It turned out that she needed it. Carrie could barely walk, even with his arm around her waist for support. The man was returning from his weekly grocery shopping trip, he explained, so he had a pretty good selection of drinks to choose from, an indication to Carrie that maybe her luck was improving.

Fifteen minutes later, after two bottles of what, in Carrie's opinion, was the most heavenly fruit juice she'd ever tasted, she was vastly improved. The good Samaritan had kindly but firmly controlled her intake so she wouldn't make herself sick.

"How come your flashers weren't on?" he asked.

"I think the entire electrical system went out. Thanks for stopping to help me. I was beginning to think no one was ever going to come by."

"The few people who live around here generally don't leave their farms much during the day this time of year, and a lot of traffic has been diverted because of the spur that was put in over near Hollis a couple years back."

"Is there a phone around here that you could bring me to?" Carrie asked. "I'd be glad to pay you for your trouble."

"The nearest town is about forty miles. I'm on my way home, but you're welcome to come along and use my phone."

What else was there to do? "Thank you. Yes, I guess would," Carrie replied.

As Carrie got into the pickup, the man retrieved her luggage and put it into the bed of the truck. Then he got in on the driver's side and began the drive to his place.

A couple of miles down the highway the man turned left onto a paved road that turned to dirt after several hundred yards. Though the road was bumpy, Carrie was so exhausted from her bout with the heat that it wasn't long before she began to doze, slumped over in her seat, leaning against the door. Before losing consciousness, she managed to give her rescuer a brief evaluation through drooping eyelids. What she saw was not unpleasant to look at. He was middle-aged, maybe mid-forties, had salt and pepper, dark, curly hair, with the rough look that men who work outdoors often have. His body appeared fit in careworn, denim jeans and chambray shirt, open just far enough to reveal a chest that was tanned and endowed with gray and black, curly hair of its own. His features were rugged and masculine, but hardly of the movie star variety. They were kind of what you might expect in mid-America, she thought. That was the last of Carrie's waking thoughts until the pickup pulled to a stop in front of a huge, old, but obviously well-maintained farmhouse.

As they came to a halt on a circular crushed stone driveway next to the house, Carrie came awake with a start!

"How long was I out?" she asked, embarrassed. "I hope I wasn't snoring!"

The man laughed, showing white teeth indicative of a non-user of tobacco. Why she thought of that all of a sudden, Carrie hadn't a clue.

"You must be pretty tired. An experience like you've had is very wearing on a person."

As Carrie started to open her door, a large, black dog came bounding toward her side of the truck, followed by a strikingly attractive, young man no older than eighteen. She hesitated.

"Don't worry miss, Lasher won't bother you! He's just curious," the young man told her, seeking to ease her anxiety.

"This is my son, miss. His name is Buddy, and mine is Ben," the man told her as he removed her luggage from the bed of the truck. Carrie had gotten out, and was tentatively patting Lasher on his huge head.

"It's nice to meet you Buddy. Your father was kind enough to help me after my car broke down out on the highway. My name is Carrie." She looked from one to the other to include them both in her introduction.

"Miss Carrie's here..."

"Please, just call me Carrie," she smiled at them.

Ben smiled back. "Carrie is here to use our phone to call for assistance, son."

"Pa, our phone isn't working right now. The phone company called right after you left this morning, and said they'd be working on the lines today, and we wouldn't have service until tomorrow afternoon."

Carrie immediately began wondering what options she had. As if sensing her thoughts, Ben set Carries luggage on the porch and said, "You've had quite an ordeal today. Why don't you spend the night in one of our spare rooms? Tomorrow, as soon as service is restored, you can call whomever you have to."

Carrie felt as if events had overtaken her. She was tired, hungry, still more than a little thirsty, and not up to struggling anymore this day. Tomorrow she could contact her client, the rental car company, and her office. It's not as if people weren't affected by unplanned incidents every day. She'd just have to make the best of it.

"Ben, your offer is most kind. I guess I'll have to take you up on it. I really appreciate your help."

Buddy now piped up with "Grandpa's fixin' supper right now, Pa. Should I tell him to make extra for Carrie?" Ben told him that he should take Carrie and her luggage to the rear corner bedroom, and make sure she had what she needed to freshen herself.

"I'll let Grandpa know what he needs to get done, son."

Buddy led Carrie onto the wide front porch, and into the hallway of the spacious, clean and tidy, old house which was surprisingly, and blessedly, cool. At the end of the hall he turned to the right into a bedroom that was neat, if somewhat plain. He set her bags down next to a dresser that had to be a relic from the twenties, yet retained a rich, deep, natural wood sheen.

"You can use the closet or the drawers, whichever. There's hangers in the closet. Oh yeah, the bathroom's two doors down on the right. The door just this side is the towels and stuff."

As Buddy stepped out of the room, Ben came through the door a foot or so.

"Dinner's in about a half hour. You've got time to freshen up."

Carrie felt grimy and uncomfortable. "Thanks, I guess I'll take a shower now in that case."

Ten minutes of stinging, hot water pelting her skin, and a thorough scrubbing of her head with shampoo, made Carrie feel almost human again. She dressed in clean underwear, shorts, and tanktop, deciding against shoes. After all, this was a farm! Then she made her way about the house until she found the kitchen. A kettle was on an old-fashioned gas range. From it emanated a savory aroma that made Carrie realize how hungry she was. Moving closer she noticed another pot on the stove with ears of corn in hot water. Looking further she saw the table was set with a bowl of fresh greens in the center. A faint scratching noise made her look to its source. Lasher sat in the living room entry way to the kitchen, looking at her in a friendly, curious way. When he saw Carrie look at him, he rose, trotted over to her, and tried to sniff at her crotch. She was pushing at his face when Ben and Buddy entered the kitchen accompanied by an elderly man Carrie assumed was the grandfather.

"It smelled so good I just had to see what was cooking," Carrie flushed as she continued to push a persistent Lasher away.

"Guess you're not the only one who thinks so," the elderly man remarked, nodding toward Lasher.

"Buddy, take the dog outside," Ben directed. "Carrie, this is Seth, Buddy's grandpa."

Carrie nodded to Seth with a little smile, meanwhile recognizing the resemblance between the older man and the other two. He retained a lithe, wiry body, sun-darkened tight skin, and clear eyes. It seemed to Carrie that the hard work demanded of farm life, and the healthy food, and fresh air, combined to help these men flourish physically.

They shared the meal with little conversation. Buddy ate with a voraciousness typical of teenage boys, while the older men shoveled in a couple of portions apiece. As for Carrie, she was starving. She found the simple chicken and vegetable stew delicious. She even found room for two ears of corn. Her appreciation of their fare was not lost on her hosts.

When the meal was over Carrie assisted in the cleanup, then excused herself for the night, citing fatigue. Once she reached her room however, she found that the thought of a hot soak in the bathtub was irresistible, so she got her things together, and brought them to the bathroom. Then she went looking for the men folk to let them know her plan. A noise outside drew her attention to the nearest window. Carrie could see them all outside, the older men conversing, Buddy playing with Lasher.

The hot, soapy water felt marvelous. The sun's harsh punishment earlier in the day was becoming a distant, unpleasant memory. Carrie felt relaxed. She felt languorous. It was as if all of the tension of the day had drained from her body. She felt good. She felt good enough to actually turn her thoughts to a little ember of desire flickering ever so slightly in her belly. "What the hell," Carrie thought. "I've had a tough day, and I haven't had a lover for so long." It was perfectly understandable that she should indulge herself with a little erotic stimulation.

The water slowly drained while Carrie's hands rubbed her water-slickened breasts. She gently pinched her nipples until they were swollen. She immersed herself in her fantasy of "motorcycle slut," letting her fingers trail slowly down her body to where the wetness had little to do with bathwater. Carrie wasn't fully aware of how her body was writhing in abandonment, legs spread, feet resting on the sides of the tub. In Carrie's mind she was astride a Harley-Davidson chopper, engine idling its deep, throaty roar as it rested unmoving and upright next to a crackling campfire. She was naked, with her wrists tied to the ends of the handlebars. There were bikers around the fire, most with women attending to their base sexual desires, but even those in the act had their eyes on her. There was a man on the motorcycle behind her, and even though she couldn't see him from her position on the big bike, her mind's eye saw him as the tough, raunchy, hyper-masculine leader of the gang.