Deep Down Inside Ch. 17-20

"Lucky you!"

"And if you get a hall pass, Camille, you better run straight to that." She pivoted slowly towards the climbing wall where Kaden was under Jane helping to keep her feet aligned with the climbing pegs on her descent. Coming down was proving tricky for her and she hugged her body tightly to the wall.

"Kaden?" Camille asked, her nose squinching in disgust. She then painfully acknowledged, "Nice to look at—yeah! But a complete A-hole!"

"When has that ever stopped you? Just look at that back! Yowzers, I'd love to take a piggyback ride on that V."

"I never slept with assholes, that was you."

"Whaddya call Steve?"

"Hunky Steve the bartender?" I asked, trying my best to come off unphased at the mention of my wife's former lover.

"Steve wasn't an asshole. Not like the rest anyway."

"Not with you. But he was just so old. I totally thought you were a father-fucker at first."

"He wasn't that old."

"I guess he really wasn't. We were just so young. So much younger than it seemed." She then waved her hands, instructing us to clear our minds. "OK, Camille, you are locked in a room with Kaden and Boo-boo... Err, Faron. Jesus I can't believe he wants us to stop calling him Bo-boo, I'll never be able to. So you're locked in a room with them and the only way out is to fuck, so which one do you drop to the floor with."

"Come on, that's an easy one."

"Really?" Abi responded curiously.

"Boo-boo?" I asked, feeling a bit out of the loop.

"You have to understand," Camille began, slipping an arm around me and gazing upwards, "Faron is surprisingly intuitive and just a really good talker. But, he's always down to... You know. And he's unpossessive to a fault. He's just the all around perfect friend with benefits."

Abi interjected, "What she means is he's hung like a horse and knows how to make a girl tap out."

I looked down at a quiet Camille, seeking some indication of denial, but instead she guiltily clenched her teeth and closely pinched a thumb and finger together, indicating there was an inkling of truth to Abi's assessment.

My wife, having just had her horniness outed, turned the question on her friend. "And who would you choose if you were locked in the same room?"

"Me? Both, duh!"

"OK, right, total duh!"

Kaden and Jane walked up to find the three of us laughing and had no idea about what. Kaden pointed to Camille and commanded, "You're turn. Time to put up or shut up."

He beamed confidence, his horizontal features a stack of cinder blocks. His and Camille's ongoing rendition of "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better" would soon be settled in his favor. He was in his element, a man's game, and Camille would have no choice but to take the beating and concede to his masculine prowess.

She gave me a kiss goodbye, and headed to the wall with Kaden crushing a path behind her. She reached into the Metolius bag, her hands coming out white with chalk and listened to Kaden's breakdown of the climbing holds and how she should look for jugs and slopes until she gained the experience and strength to stick to the smoother, friction-demanding holds and crimps that could snap a newbies phalanges. Abi and Jane were comparing experiences, pointing to the overhang that gave them both problems. Jane tapped at her chest as she described how fast her heart was beating when she looked down to see no wall, just air between her and the floor. They were so engaged in conversation they didn't catch Camille taking to the side of the building and bolting five feet up before Kaden could even get in behind her.

"Pick a path. Plan it out. The holds will get trickier off to the left."

She kept going, seemingly heeding Kaden's advice but still moving at a diagonal toward the more technical areas. Her rapid ascent came to an end when she reached a long span in between holds. Her hands had a few grip spots, but her legs would have to form the splits to get a foot on the only viable peg.

Kaden caught up, comfortably situated just under her with a fantastic view of her ass in a skimpy pair of lycra shorts. "Alright, are you going for it? Remember, you're up twelve feet."

"Would you attempt it?"

"I've done it."

She began to stretch her leg over and Kaden cautioned her.

"Wait, wait, wait. Get your hands situated first. Move your left leg off the ledge and see how secure you feel.

Camille did as instructed, letting the foot dangle as she shifted her weight around. Kaden started to say she was looking good when her soft, rock climbing shoe came down and tapped the crown of his head.

"Did you just touch my head with your shoe? Do not touch my head-"

Before he could say it, she'd tapped his head a second time. Kaden made a wild grab for her ankle, but Camille's foot shot out as her legs went into the splits and she reached the distant hold, and continued sideways toward the overhang.

Kaden, looking furious, took off after her. Camille managed to keep a lead, going through the overhang like it was nothing. She scaled upwards another five feet, which was higher than I'd go in a free climb. By the time she reached the corner and transitioned to the north wall, Abi and Jane had taken notice, shouting for her to, "Go! Go! Go!!" and to be, "Careful, Camille, careful!"

Her muscles looked relaxed, a smoothness and grace to their surface even while clinging on at a dangerous height. She reached a section where the handholds became smooth bumps and ridges so thin only fingertips or a toe would fit. Kaden, whose muscles looked as if they'd been chiseled with a sword, used her hesitation to get within a few feet of her before she made a scary leap and landed her feet on two-inch wide holds. Both hands caught a single spool sized peg, her left hand wrapping over her right. She stopped there and looked towards the ground, finally realizing she was a good seventeen feet in the air. The only viable holds were under her, so she'd have to start her descent. But she'd made it twice as far as Abi and Jane and did it in half the time.

As she began to bend her knees and prepare to lower herself, Kaden leapt to a narrow ledge beside her. I'd never seen a smile like that on his face, like a child's. He was shouting he'd warned her, but really he was having the time of his life. He used his larger body to climb over Camille, grabbing handholds to either side of her. Camille suddenly found herself sandwiched between Kaden's beefy body and the wall.

"Where are you going to run to now," he said with a cruel chuckle. "I warned you not to tap my head, and what did you do?"

"Tapped your head?" Her big fashion model eyes grew even bigger, as they pleaded for sympathy.

"That's right! And so what am I going to do now?"

"Let me go?"

"That's wrong! Seems to me your disobedient butt needs to be taught a lesson first."

Kaden let go of the left handhold, leaned to the right of her, and brought his hand firm down on her ass, spanking her tight buns under the tight lycra with a sharp, reverberating sound that woke up the entire gym. It wasn't just a spank, either—when his hand landed he finished by giving her juicy ass cheek a quick rubbing. It was the kind of spank a guy lays on his woman during rough doggystyle, just shy of a full on grab.

Camille yipped and complained, "No,no,no,no!" finally feeling nervous about the height and whether or not Kaden was done having his fun with her.

"K, be nice, she could fall."

Luckily for Camille, Kaden didn't want to upset his girlfriend and he began to climb down off the wall. Camille followed, but was much slower through the north wall's technically challenging descent. Kaden laughed like an idiot as he walked up on me and the girls.

"K, you did Camille wrong. She doesn't want your hands placed on... will anywhere! OK, K?"

"She knew I was only kidding around. You think I'd seriously grab a chick in front of my girlfriend and her husband?"

He laid an arm across Jane's shoulders, and forced her to his side, and together we all watched Camille set foot on the mat. She walked towards us to a round of applause and rubbed her ass where Kaden had spanked.

"I can't lie," Kaden said in what might've been a humble tone, "That section is not easy and you blew through it. Alex couldn't have scaled that run."

"Fuck you," I said, and then realized I'd just committed myself to a challenge.

Jane straightened, getting some of the weight from Kaden's heavy arm off her shoulders, and said to Camille, "Sorry, my boyfriend has all the manners of a morning deejay."

"It's fine," Camille assured, as she tightened up her ponytail. "I've pretty much come to accept it in the rampantly insecure."

Kaden then started tapping Jane's upper chest, like a great idea was incoming. "You know what, Camille and Alex love that wine I get." He turned to us, "We're taking a trip up north next weekend. Come with us."

"Napa?" I asked.

"Thereabouts. The Kettleman's vineyards are a little further north."

"I don't think we're doing anything, right Alex?" Camille said, looking up at me with eyebrows tilting in such a way I couldn't have said no if I wanted to.

It sounded to me like Kaden was inviting us along on his and Jane's romantic getaway, and I was the only one who saw her momentarily glare at her boyfriend as Kaden's eyes climbed my wife like a gorgeous cliff face full of shapely, yummy handholds.

Chapter 19: Wine Country

White spray shot up like timed fountains over a rocky coastline and a vicious gust carried the mist far enough to blacken the road. I flipped on the windshield wiper as I watched another wave form out in the distance, the near black swells coated in frothy, white seafoam rose over a hump the height of a semi truck. It gathered speed near the shore, cresting but not breaking, and then disappeared from my view behind the rocks that dropped steeply into the water. The road veered closer to the coast, the wind turning scenic route 1 into an adventure.

I breathed in, preparing for another impact. This time the spray shot up some fifty feet, but it was disappointingly quiet, like an action movie without sound. Inside my BMW was Wet Leg, Drake and Doja Cat, filling out the end of Camille's playlist. I'd have rolled down my window to hear the crashing waves but it would've just been deafening air at our near freeway speed. I'd steadied the car at fifty, the winds pulling at my BMW's tail and making the drive take way longer than expected. We'd heard my massive playlist from Huntington to Pismo, and I thought for sure our two playlist would've lasted the whole drive, but we still had another forty minutes to Carmel and then who knows how long the drive inland would be.

Clouds had rolled in, but somehow I knew it wouldn't rain. They were grey in the sky, but reflected white on the water and all broken up like the ocean was a shattered mirror. After thirty miles of this excitement, Camille had returned to her phone, trying to hunt down an R Kelly song so we could laugh at the lyrics.

Kaden called to say he was running late. It wasn't the wind slowing him down, he'd left real late and was trying to make up an hour on the 101. I asked about meeting up in Carmel for dinner given the time, but he was anxious to get checked in.

Jane wasn't coming. When he said that Camille and I looked at each other. A good two seconds went by where I hadn't watched the road. I imagined Kaden in his car alone, all that time to think about why Jane wasn't beside him. Camille expressed crisis hotline levels of sympathy, easing her seat back before asking if everything was OK.

Kaden assured us everything was fine. Jane's father had whisked her off to Australia last minute to meet up with her grandma. Her close friend Miranda was invited as well, which of course meant bars, beaches and very little family time. Camille put her bare feet on the dash, I resisted freaking out about her feet since we were seven and a half hours on the road, and insteaf pointed out Jane's father had been whisking her off a lot lately. Kaden had noticed it too. My bassy stereo system artificially deepened Kaden's voice so much I felt it in my seat back. Most importantly, Kaden had already brought it up with her. It was nothing against him, Jane's father just preferred her dating around like some high school girl, because that girl will always need her daddy.

"Hey," I interrupted, directing my voice toward the iPhone mounted on the dash, "You gotta have something in common with your girlfriend other than being the two biggest Blow Flakes I know.

"You and Jimmy gotta do better than Blow Flake. I haven't done coke in years, dude." He didn't try to fire back, and then I knew he was somewhat bummed about the situation.

A little ways up the 1 the music was back and Camille was singing, having finally found the R. Kelly track she was looking for. The lyrics did not disappoint, as he boasted about making girls wetter than a rainforest, and then jumped to Jurassic Park to drop the ridiculous "sexasoaurous".

We reached Carmel and found an airy Italian restaurant with the nicest Walgreens I'd ever seen across the street. The food was light, pasta in a butter sauce, roasted vegetables and a single piece of chicken. We couldn't resist a glass of wine and deliberated with the waiter, forcing him to give us a history lesson in Napa Valley wineries. I snapped a picture of Camille from across the table, holding up the first glass of wine on our trip. She swayed with exhaustion and happiness, eyebrows at ease, cinnamony eyelids heavy, a naked lip smile that only made it halfway, and it captured both her beauty and the mood of the moment. It was definitely getting posted on her instagram page.

The stores were on quaint tiny streets and painted white. Carmel had the warmth of a tourist town with the dignity of an art gallery. We finished eating at dusk, the street lamps sputtered on and the younger tourists now wore slacks and tight dresses and poured out of the numerous tiny inns. We agreed to see the beaches on our way home, but of course that would mean taking the 1 again and so I had my doubts.

Darkness came as we weaved our way up a mountain, the road turning into a single lane halfway to the top. We weren't going to Napa, instead we planned to drive to an assortment of vineyards in the hills south of San Francisco. By the time we reached the Dandelion Inn it was pitch black outside.

It wasn't a quaint inn but rather a hotel in a small historic district. It had a steeply pitched, wood shingle roof with windows poking out of it. Red awnings stuck out from its white brick walls to shade thick wood framed windows and doors. Inside is where it became truly impressive. The lobby was about a hundred feet wide and two hundred deep, with walnut paneled walls and two spiral staircases. Elegant furniture and oil paintings gave it a homely feel, albeit a very rich home. A large chandelier and lamps against the walls leaked a soft warm light, and I imagined it didn't get much brighter during the day. The atmosphere was heavy and lofty, suited for old money, cigar smoking bankers and financiers, and far from the light offering the name Dandelion Inn implied.

Kaden leaned over a railing one story up with a scotch in hand. There was a bar and a dining area that overlooked the lobby, and he called down to us in a voice that I expected to unseat dust from the moulding tops.

"Leave your bags next to mine. Top of the line shit up here, man."

We sat at a round table and sipped scotch. Camille immediately commented how she couldn't believe Jane didn't make it and I nudged her with my knee. Kaden's family had been coming to the inn since before Kaden was born. When he was six he hid behind the long drapes in the lobby because his parents wouldn't take him to an amusement park in San Jose and the small hotel staff went on a search for him. As much as I sympathized with the little boy in his story, it dug into my fiber like a thorn. While I considered it a virtue not having everything handed to me and was largely considered successful despite it, I also felt shorted hearing about all the worldwide resort hopping Kaden's family had done. A spot at the Dandelion's bar had been reserved for him since birth.

Only the third floor had rooms, so maybe there were ten rooms tops in the entire inn. The lavish walnut paneling and moulding continued into our room and appeared freshly polished. Upon entering, Camille remarked, "Very Dogue De Bordeaux." I had to agree. We fell asleep quickly, both of us exhausted from the drive.

The next day we climbed into Kaden's Camaro and he drove us further north into a valley, and then through an arch built out of found black oak logs with grape vines knotted around it. A hanging wrought iron sign read, "Kettleman Vineyards".

The Kettleman's had a son in San Francisco a few years older than Kaden. The two of them used to play in the barn where the wine was stored in stacks of oak barrels. I mistook the destemming and crushing machines along the front of the barn for barbeques and Kaden and Camille laughed, even though I suspected they'd thought the very same thing. It was cool inside the metal barn and so dark you couldn't see ten feet in front of you. Patrick Kettlemen used an electric lamp to show us around. "I'm superstitious about light. Wine behaves differently when it thinks it's still in the sun." I imagined it was plenty dark inside the stacked oak barrels no matter what, but then I'd just mistook a crusher for a barbecue.

There were wine stains on the concrete floor that looked like blood in the lamp light, and I thought of Kaden wandering through the room as a child and getting totally creeped out. It really sucked Jane couldn't make it, the insight into Kaden's childhood, and just having access to a family like the Kettleman's, rounded off my understanding of Kaden. He'd grown up spoiled, yet was very much a kid through it all, and a kid I could totally relate to.

Patrick Kettleman had a slight limp that became super pronounced as he hurried us towards a shed alongside his house. He was a Mustang guy and inside was parked a restored '66. He and Kaden's father had restored a Thunderbird together in high school and they almost opened a shop after college. "Take a picture for your dad. Tell him to bring his best and we'll drive out to the old track."

We had lunch on a deck overlooking the vineyards. Camille asked Kaden, "How did you grow up around this and still know squat about wine?" That got a laugh, and Mr. Kettleman said his son was more of a beer guy too. Camille went on chatting up the old couple, getting them to dredge up stories from Kaden's youth. She had a way with people and I could see the Kettleman's weathered faces creasing up in all the right spots. He wore a fedora, and he kept tipping it forwards at her, which I had no idea how to interpret. I thought about pitching my studio to do some revised labels but that would've been a classless move. Especially after my wife had been so perfectly gracious they offered to send an annual care package of wine.

"So where's this Jane?" Patrick Kettleman asked, with a dramatically raised brow. Kaden explained and Kettleman laughed, "I'll be honest, Mary and I weren't entirely sure you were gonna make it." I took that to mean he'd experienced Kaden's Blow Flake nature in the past.

Mrs. Kettleman told us how she'd give the boys extra time on the Nintendo for picking up after their dogs, and said Kaden had called it bagging trophies. Camille found it adorable, and Kaden said not to believe her and that he was a total booger.

The actual vineyard wasn't as large as I'd imagined. Maybe about ten residential lots. He walked us to a nest of vines growing in dirt he'd imported from Italy. These were the grapes that made up the wine Kaden had given to Camille. Kettleman asked what she thought of it and she confessed to being reluctant to open such an expensive bottle. He said, "Nonsense," and tipped his fedora. "I'll send you home with another."