Memories of Alane

It was the morning of the second day, setting up for the puppetry convention at the hotel. Others were assembling the staging, but I had to get the lighting rig installed. Not too difficult in theory. We had a group of 24 packaged dimmers, and all I had to do was plug them into house power. But this place was old. There was no house power receptacle, or disconnect switch, or anything else.

What there was was a resistance lighting board from no later than the 1920s. The board was in a room just outside the main ballroom on the second floor. But we didn't know where the main disconnect was for the board, and neither did the hotel staff. We spent about an hour in the basement and other service areas of the hotel, and never found it. So I was going to have to hot-patch the mult into the main bus. And the floor under and in front of the board was concrete, which is mildly conductive to electricity. The board itself was steel, and grounded.

At least it was a dead front board, though making unexpected connections to the main bus would have been a little easier on a live front board. And a heck of a lot more dangerous; live front boards were death traps. So, that meant I had to pull the front covers off and look around for where the main 220V came into the board. I found it pretty quickly in the center bottom of the board, right behind the front panel. Good, at least I wasn't going to be reaching through two feet of grounded metal support rods to get to the live 220V buses.

The three buses were flat copper strips about an inch wide each, and only separated by about an inch of dusty airspace. Putting clamp taps on the two outside buses wouldn't be hard, but getting one into that center bus was going to be a bit of a challenge. I sure didn't need to get a copper lug shorted between two live 250A buses. Especially if it was in my fingers at the time!

I hunted around and found an old piece of cardboard I could put on the floor as an insulation layer, then I sat down on it with my legs crossed and dragged the 4-ought pigtails over to the buses, one at a time. Each pigtail terminated in a small copper "C" clamp, with a square-head bolt to tighten down on a busbar. And I had a handy 6-inch Crescent wrench to tighten that bolt. (And yes, it really was a Crescent brand adjustable wrench, not just a generic adjustable wrench.)

So, I began attaching the lugs to the outside buses. This meant I was holding a bare copper lug in one hand, against the live 220V bus, while I used a metal wrench in the other hand to tighten the bolt, also connected to that live 220V bus. The general rule for not getting killed around electricity is to keep your left hand in your pocket and only touch hot stuff with your right hand. But I needed both hands, so that rule had to go into abeyance.

I'd gotten one of the lugs connected and was starting on the second one when Alane popped into the control booth. "Oh, goodie, here you are. I was wondering where you went." She dropped down beside me, kneeling on the concrete floor. I'd found out the night before that Alane was affectionate and impulsive, and I had visions of her reaching out and touching me or kissing me while I was connected to one of the buses. That would have been a whole lot more exciting than either of us would have really liked.

I smiled at her. "I'm glad you're here, but please don't touch me until I get these pigtails connected, or we will both get a really nasty shock." So she restrained her natural urges, and frankly, I was having a hard time restraining my own natural urges. But there was work that needed doing, so we would have to wait, at least for a few minutes. I was able to get all three legs connected without incident, then get the board buttoned back up to keep curious fingers and toes from getting a big surprise. Once I had the board buttoned up I opened my arms and smiled at her, and we celebrated the fact that she had found me. Or maybe we just celebrated being together. Then it was time to get back to work, we had a whole lot of setup left to do, and not much time.

We had been working all day, setting things up. We were tired and sweaty, and it was time for the catered group meal in about half an hour. We came back to the room, stripped off our work clothes and jumped in the shower together for a quick cleanup. We didn't play (much), dinner was waiting, and there was all night after that. We dried off, came back to the bedroom, and got dressed. Alane put on thigh-high nylons, a pair of 3 inch high heels, and stepped into a toast colored wrap dress. Nothing else, just the dress and the nylons. She tied the sash to hold it closed. She had cleavage down to her waist, and a pair of very proud (and jiggly) breasts on either side of that convenient opening. She walked three or four steps in front of me, strutting like she was on a runway. That demonstrated that the bottom of the wrap dress would pull apart in the breeze, up to - almost, but not quite - where it would get very interesting. I have no idea how long she had practiced that, but she knew the exactly correct pace to walk for maximum effect.

She came into my arms, we kissed for a while, and then broke apart. We went down to dinner, her dress blowing back as we walked, and two jiggly breasts with very obvious nipples up above to distract anyone that thought they knew where to look. She attracted quite a lot of attention at dinner. After she had noticed and was sure someone was staring and drooling from across the room, she would grab my upper arm, lean very firmly into me, and give me a kiss. Then go back to eating as though she didn't have a care in the world. I felt mildly sad for all the other guys. No, actually I didn't. I was too happy it was me that she was kissing.

Walking along arm in arm in public with a gorgeous blonde who stands an inch taller than you in her heels is a very interesting experience. Walking along in public with my arms around two gorgeous tall blondes (Alane and her sister Lynn) was even more interesting. I got a lot of envious stares.

It was evening and the sun was just starting to set across the ocean. We decided to go out and walk along the beach. Maybe it was the same day as dinner, but I think it was another day. Alane was wearing the same wrap dress and heels, but wasn't wearing nylons, as best I can now recall. When we got to the sand she stopped and pulled her heels off, carrying them by their straps. I was wearing sandals, so I took those off and carried them. There was almost nobody on the beach. We had the waterline to ourselves far as we could see, just a few people walking along the strand.

Our shoes off, we walked across the soft dry sand, down to the wet sand licked by the waves. It was a calm day, the waves just slurped quietly in and out. We passed a very large sand castle, somewhat crumbling and now about a third washed away by the waves. Someone must have had a lot of fun building it earlier in the day.

We walked hand in hand along the edge of the surf, the water sometimes rushing over our feet as a wave came in and went back out. We were grinning like fools as we looked ahead down the beach. Sometimes we swung our arms very high as we walked, because it was silly and felt good to do. We would look sideways at each other and laugh. Occasionally I would look Alane up and down, just admiring the view. She may have done the same to me. The onshore breeze was fairly strong, and her dress was blowing to the side. Far to the side. Anyone that might have been looking would see her bare legs up to her hips. We both knew that, and shared a grin about it. Every now and then we casually glanced around, to see if anyone else was appreciating the show.

We stopped walking as the sun was almost setting. She turned into my arms, and we enjoyed a very slow, very long kiss, and the feel of our bodies against each other. It was glorious. The waves were lapping at our feet. We pulled back to arm's length, just looking at each other and smiling. Her long blonde hair was blowing in the wind, her dress was blowing in the wind, baring her legs. We fell back into each other's embrace and resumed our passionate kisses as the sun set behind the waves.

Yes, it was the scene from any random Hollywood movie, as the two lovers kiss in the sunset. Fade out. But - that was exactly why we did it! The beach was there, the waves were there, we were there, and the sun was setting. Can you say that you have played out that scene? I can.

We were all up on the show floor, working on setting up the stage and lighting. Pat and Alane, as women do, went off to the bathroom together. Ten or fifteen minutes later they came back, with amazing expressions on their faces. As they got back to us, they both started laughing hysterically. It was a few minutes before they could calm down enough to tell us what was so funny. While they were in there, a third woman walked in, ignored them, and went back to one of the stalls. There was a little shuffling and rustling, and then this monstrous fart blasted out of the stall! They said that it went on for seconds. Pat and Alane looked at each other, and ran out of the bathroom so that they didn't burst out laughing where the other woman could hear.

That woman, the day before, within an hour or two had managed to get on everyone's nerves. She had a Holier-than-thou attitude that could smash down castles. She pointedly told everyone how well she could do things, and how bad everyone else was at it. Perhaps unfortunately when she demonstrated how well she could do something, she made a very poor showing of it. But apparently there was one thing that she could do better than everyone else. Fart.

I was lying on my back on the floor in our room, Alane was sitting beside me. We were both naked, which was pretty much how we spent all of our personal time together. She had been playing with me, and I was rock hard. Then I remembered we were at a puppetry convention. In a squeaky high voice I said "Hi! I'm Tiny Tim. Would you like to play with me?" As I said that I was playing with my muscles, and my dick was waving around to match the dialog. She slapped my chest and said quite firmly "Don't do that! I hate guys that give their dicks names!" I laughed and pointed out that we were at a puppetry convention, and we had been watching stick puppets a few hours before. After a few moments she laughed, slapped lightly at my chest, and said "I'd love to play with you!" in a high voice, looking somewhat like a puppet herself, then she devoured me.

The hotel was old, and it was going to go down for renovations right after the convention closed. Not everything worked as well as it should. There were four elevators, two on each side of a central waiting area. The elevator on the southwest had a big "out of order" sign on it. The one on the northwest was a manually-operated elevator, the kind that required an elevator boy to operate it.

They didn't have an elevator boy, so it was usually out of service too, though sometimes the hotel manager ran it. He wasn't very good at stopping the car at the right level for a floor, so often you might have to duck a bit to avoid hitting your head and jump a foot down from the elevator to the floor. Other times you might have to step up six or eight inches to get to the floor.

The two elevators on the east side were automatic, with a common call button. Sometimes you would push the button and, after a few minutes, no elevator would show up, and you ended up walking upstairs to your room. The grand stairway was right behind the elevators, so this wasn't that much of a problem, unless you had a lot of heavy stuff with you. Other times the elevator would show up, but it missed the right stopping height too, by a few inches. Sometimes the doors would jam when they were opening, and take a second or third try. Often one of the elevators wasn't working at all, but it wasn't always the same one.

One night we all came back from a midnight dinner at a place across the street from the hotel. We pushed the elevator call button and waited. We continued chattering among ourselves as we waited for the elevator, which we were sure would take a while to show up. I was the only one facing the elevators. After a bit I noticed that the elevator had shown up. Actually, both of them had shown up. The doors were open wide on the one on the left, but the elevator car had the heebie-jeebies, and was somewhat randomly bouncing up and down a few inches. On the one on the right, the doors kept opening about halfway and then closing, over and over. I pointed at the elevators. We all took a good look. Then we went up the stairway. That was the last time any of us used those elevators.

Back when I was transferring Alane's things into my car for the trip to San Diego, I was amazed when she pulled her wardrobe bag out of the trunk of her car. It had to be a foot thick, and was heavy. I was used to traveling light, so I had a small duffel bag with a few changes of work clothes, a couple pairs of pants, and a handful of shirts. I compared the 5 pounds I had to the 30 or so pounds she had, and almost shook my head in amazement. Fortunately I caught myself in time, and didn't make any wisecracks.

As we were clearing out the room to check out and put everything in the car, I made a comment about the number of clothes she had brought. She looked at me, and told me that she had worn every one of them. I thought back, she had found occasions to wear everything in the wardrobe bag. This time I was amazed not by the amount of clothes she brought, but that she had planned things out so she could wear everything she had with her.

Alane and I had checked out, we were all packed, and sitting in the car ready to go. Alane asked me something, and I made a very wrong reply without realizing it. I can't recall anything of the conversation now. I think I expected a reply back, but it never came. I turned on the seat, facing Alane. She stared straight ahead out the windshield. She didn't say anything, she wouldn't look at me, she just stared straight ahead. I knew I'd said something wrong, but with my social ineptness I had no idea what. I have no idea what, to this day. I tried talking to her a few times, but she just stared straight ahead, saying nothing. Eventually, to get her attention, I reached out, put one finger on her chin, and slowly pulled her head around so that she was staring at me. I smiled at her. She didn't smile back. I tried a second grin to see if it worked any better. No response. I shrugged, reached out to her chin, and again with one finger slowly turned her head back to stare straight ahead.

After about five seconds of staring, she turned to me and said "Dammit, I just can't stay mad at you!", followed by her almost jumping across the seat into my arms for a big kiss. The car had a bench seat, which made intimacy a lot easier than in modern cars with bucket seats. It also made the ride back home a whole lot more enjoyable for both of us. I looked ahead and drove. She lay on the seat with her head in my lap, alternately giving me a hand job or blow job for the entire two hours it took to drive home. She got several tasty treats in those two hours.

We had been together for maybe six months. I walked into the shop office as I got there from the drive home from work. Pat and Alane were sitting on the couch. Alane was all bubbly, and told me that tomorrow was her twenty-first birthday. She was planning on going out with Pat and a bunch of her girlfriends to have one heck of a celebration. I congratulated her, and naturally I offered to go with her, but she said no, this was just a girl's party, no men invited. She was planning on getting roaring drunk, because tomorrow she legally could. I smiled and chuckled at that, but pretty soon left them in the office, since I had other things to do around the shop.

The next evening, when I got there from work, I walked over to the office and again found Pat and Alane chatting. I figured that if they had had the celebration she was telling me about, she just might be royally hung over. Being a wiseass, I very loudly said "HI! HOW ARE YOU DOING!" Pat looked at me like I was nuts for a couple of seconds, then she dissolved into giggles. Alane had a slightly pained expression on her face, which I assumed might have been the hangover. Then she quietly told me that they had decided not to get drunk. So I had wasted my moment of being a wiseass. She didn't hold it against me, we still went home later for two or three hours of very noisy "quiet time" together, as we did most days.

Gary knew many people in the local theater community. It was October, and a director he knew was presenting a haunted house a few towns over. This was being held in an ancient two story farmhouse that was scheduled for demolition. Gary had helped with some of the technical effects, so knew the layout of the place.

A few nights after opening night he needed to check on some of the effects, and the two of us went out there. We walked around the outside of the house looking at the effects. There was the usual graveyard scene, which was on the exit route of the house. But I thought the old building itself was the good part. It was old, dilapidated, and just looked like it should be haunted. Gary walked up to the corner of the building, grabbed the side of the house, and shook it a good six inches back and forth. The foundation had subsided there, and there was absolutely nothing holding up that corner of the house. I was impressed that it hadn't fallen down yet.

A good haunted house, like a good play, has sets, effects, and actors. This was no different. Gary led the way through the house, checking on the effects as we went, making sure they were working, or taking mental note of what needed repair. As we went through each room, the actors there did their business, even though most of them recognized Gary. This was, I think, the first time I saw Alane. I had no idea who she was at that time. We came around a corner into a bedroom, and there was Alane, in nice green and red makeup, a blood-spattered wedding gown, and lying back on the bed where she had been murdered, only to rise again. She recognized Gary, but then she saw me, and she ran through her act. I smiled and mentally gave her high marks, as we moved on to the next scene. Perhaps we said a few words to each other, I don't recall. Months later, after the puppetry convention, that haunted house came up in conversation, and we realized that it had been the first time we had met. It was a good laugh.

One time Alane, Lynn, and I were out and about, and decided to drive through Jack in the Box for lunch. We pulled up to the squawkbox and ordered, then followed three cars to the pickup window. Lynn was in the back seat, in her usual jeans and flannel shirt. Alane was sitting in the passenger seat, wearing a pair of jeans and the tightest, whitest, thinnest vee-neck t-shirt I'd even seen. And no bra.

When we pulled up to the window, the guy grabbed the order ticket and started to recite what was in the order when he finally turned and looked at us. He stopped mid-word, and almost fell out of the window as his foot slipped under him. Or maybe his legs turned to mush. He turned around to look at the cook staff and shouted "Holy crap! Get a look at this!" Pretty soon there were about four pairs of eyes to be seen jostling around and looking out the window, and a lot of muffled exclamations. Lynn completely lost it and was rolling in hysterics in the back seat. I just sat there as though nothing unusual was going on, and Alane just sat there sideways, looking past me at the antics, and every now and then 'unconsciously' shaking her shoulders, just a little.