Moving On

Angel and I lived in our separate houses, but we spent a lot of time hanging out together, talking, walking, and making sweet love.

Angel adored me because I was cute and sexy. Because I wasn't needy. Because I didn't make demands on him. Because I appreciated him for what he was. Because I didn't try to change him.

I loved Angel because he was smart. Because he was interesting. Because he had great stories. Because he could make me laugh. Because he could read my mind. Because he could make me scream like I had never screamed before.

Angel quickly discovered how much I enjoyed having my nipples squeezed. Our favorite position was him poised above me using his cock to play the violin with my pussy while I squeezed my nipples. When I was done, I played with his nipples until he came, too. The only difference was that he didn't scream. Maybe we were two completely different people who were meant to be together.

When we needed food or stuff, I drove the Ford into town to stock up, not saying much of anything to anybody. They probably thought I had morphed into a crazy hermit, who was growing old alone in the woods

I started reading psychology books to help me understand people better. The thing I learned most about psychology is that no one really knows anything about people. We're just too damn random.

Angel never left the woods. I don't know what he did when he was alone in his house. He often talked about wanting to write a novel about his crazy life, but I don't think he ever got past choosing a title. The best he could come up with was Fuck It.

When I got around to writing about my adventures, I figured that the title would take care of itself once I had written everything that I wanted to write. Okay, I admit it. I've left out a few stories that are too embarrassing to tell. I might spill these when I'm so old that I don't give a damn anymore. Maybe I'll use Angel's title for that book: Fuck It. Or What the Hell.

Angel and I went for long walks in the woods and I taught him to fish. I also got the vegetable garden going again and I helped Angel start one too. I think he was getting used to being a country boy. I even introduced him to country music. He really liked Dwight Yoakum, especially "The Streets of Bakersfield" and "Guitars, Cadillacs, and Hillbilly Music." Bakersfield is one of my favorites, too. It's about respectable people looking down on a drifter just because he doesn't live the same life they do. I could relate to that.

One day I came home from a week of fishing and there's a note under my front door that says, "Bye." I head over to Angel's and I can see from maybe 30 yards away that the front door is busted open, like someone kicked it in. Now this was a major front door, not one of those flimsy doors that people buy to save a few bucks. It was inch-thick, solid oak and it had been knocked clean off its hinges, like somebody had taken a battering ram to it.

I don't make any noise, in case the Mr. Hulk who kicked in the door was still around and might kick my ass. I hung out in the brush for about 20 minutes and didn't hear or see anything.

So, I tiptoed around Angel's house and peeked inside. Nobody's home. Which was actually good news, since I was thinking I might find Angel bloody and dead on the floor.

Nothing's been touched. No open drawers. No tossed bed. Nothing missing. Whoever busted in the door wasn't looking to steal anything. They were looking for Angel. I don't know how those San Francisco goons found him, but they did and that's all that matters.

I'm thinking that Angel must have gotten away okay since he left that goodbye note under my door. Whoever was looking for him wouldn't have been considerate enough to let Angel say goodbye.

I'm guessing that Angel had been in the woods when he heard a car driving towards his house. Once he saw it was trouble, he headed over to my place, scribbled his note, and disappeared. He probably walked through the forest and hitched a ride to wherever in the hell the driver was going. It didn't much matter as long as it was outta here.

From there, he probably kept hitching until he got to another nothing town in Nebraska, Wyoming, or South Dakota. There are an awful lot of nothing towns in this country. He might even have ended up in Mexico, Canada, or Alaska. Pretty much anywhere he could get to without having to fly an airplane and leave a trail.

The bad guys probably hung around for a few days and then gave up, figuring that either they had the wrong address or Angel had cleared out—and wouldn't be coming back.

I was glad Angel was safe and I figured he could take care of himself. I was also glad that I hadn't been around when the shit was happening. But I was real sad that Angel was gone.

I kept hoping he would show up again some day, knocking on my door with a big grin on his face and a big hug for me. But I never saw him again.

Checking out the Locals

Life was lonely without Angel. I missed his funny accent. I missed his smirky smile. I missed his crazy stories. I missed working in the garden with him. I missed fishing with him. I missed laughing with him. I missed the great sex.

After I accepted the reality that Angel was gone, probably forever, I started looking around for a new friend. I wore clothes that showed off my assets and I hung around town, taking my time shopping, going to local events like the Columbine Festival, even wandering into churches. Hey, are you more likely to meet a nice guy at a church or a bar?

The truth is that Bear Creek hadn't changed much since I left, probably never will. Same old small-town shops and small-town people. Some guys were characters, but not the kind of characters that interested me. Guys who lived in trees and believed in UFOs. Guys making preparations to defend a crappy house that no one wanted to take from them. Guys collecting keys and bottle caps. No thanks. I'd rather be a hermit.

One thing that had changed is that people noticed me, almost like I was a celebrity. There had been all sorts of rumors about my adventures in Southern California. People thought I ended up in Hollywood, going to wild parties, doing drugs and shit, and getting passed around by movie stars.

My leaving Bear Creek for SoCal and coming back to Bear Creek made me super exotic. I guess no one had ever done that before.

When I went shopping, the sales guys were real friendly, giving me super service and special deals. I'd buy a pair of hiking boots and they'd throw in free socks. I'd buy five oranges and they would only charge me for four. I'd look at a packet of seeds and they would say I could have it, no charge.

I called it my "boysenberry discount."

My boysenberry discounts were a lot of fun, but I wasn't making much progress in the love department. The sales guys were all too young or too old or too boring. The young ones were too immature and hadn't lived enough to be interesting. As for the old ones, well, I hate to be cruel but somebody who is in his 40s and still working behind a counter probably doesn't have a lot of talent or ambition.

You know how they say that after a while, all the good ones are married, gay, or damaged goods. And when you're trolling in a small town like Bear Creek, there aren't that many good ones to begin with.

I had a couple of married guys hit on me, but I wasn't going to put the ho in homewrecker.

I gotta say right now, I don't know why everyone assumes it's the woman's fault when a married guy strays. Men just seem to be driven by an inner scorecard that doesn't stop when they get married.

One pathetic guy bought me a beer and started telling me how he's single because he's still looking for the right woman, someone who wants to settle down, have kids with him, blah, blah. I ask him about the tan mark on his ring finger and he tells me he's separated. Well, first of all, separated is still married. Second, I'm looking for a guy who will be my best friend, which means no double talking, no BS, no outright lying. I accidentally spill my beer on his lap when I get up to go.

I met another creep shopping at the hardware store. He's got a phony grin on his face and a little girl running up and down the aisles. I try to ignore his staring, but he comes up and stands right next to me and tells me the little girl is his niece.

Why's he telling me this? Why do I care about his niece? Maybe other women like phony grins. I don't.

Anyway, I was still ignoring him when the little girl calls out, "Daddy, can I buy some gum?" His phony grin changes to a shit-eating grin.

I try to accidentally drop a hammer on his toes, but I miss. Better luck next time.

And then there are the chumps who really are divorced. Mainly, they want to whine about how their ex broke their heart, cheated on them, or turned out to be a lesbo. Who wants to hang out with some droopy guy who hasn't gotten over his ex? Leave the damaged goods in the remainder bin.

You also gotta wonder about the over-eager ones, the guys who can't stop talking about how great they are. Really great people don't advertise it. They just are. The big talkers are mostly insecure and desperate. When guys are selling themselves, I'm not buying.

I was ready to think seriously about becoming a hermit when things got interesting.

The Best Days of Our lives

I went back to my soulmate search, looking for someone to share my life with (or at least a few months). Nothing at all turned up until I went to the Bear Creek DQ and guess who was cooking french fries? Mikey Calderwood, one of the five Calderwood boys who planned to play professional football. Plan A evidently didn't work out.

Mikey's real friendly. I guess he heard the stories about me and he wanted to hook up with a wild woman. I didn't tell him the stories were BS. It was fun having someone who had never paid any attention to me thinking I was hot shit now. My pokies probably helped too. He gave me a big boysenberries discount and I agreed to have a beer with him after work.

We met at the Bear Creek Tavern, a not very clever name for a not very special place. Peanuts and spilt beer on the floor. Trout and deer heads on the walls. Trucker hats everywhere: Kenmore, Freightliner, Peterbuilt, Western Star, Mack, John Deere. You name it, they got it. From the looks of it, guys don't come to the Bear Creek Tavern to hook up with women. They come here to get away from women, from wives and girlfriends who have hungry eyes and nagging mouths. A place where guys can talk about football and fishing without being interrupted by a woman who wants the sink fixed and the lawn mowed.

I was the only woman in the place, but the guys hardly noticed when I walked in with Mikey looking pert and sassy. The ones who noticed didn't smile. I was a cat at a dog convention.

Mikey grabbed a couple of beers and we sat at a table in the corner so that we wouldn't bother anyone. He asked me how I'd been and what I'd been doing.

I said, "Nothing much. How about you?"

Mikey told me about football, the DQ, and still being single. It wasn't real hard to figure why he told me that.

He was real sweet, but I wasn't interested in guys who thought working at the DQ was a real job. I mainly wanted to find out what happened to all the Calderwood boys, especially Jimmy.

It turned out, as it so often does, that their high school glory days were the best days of their lives.

It happens every year all over the country. Hundreds of thousands of kids are the best in something at their local high schools. The prettiest girl. The handsomest guy. The best singer. The best football player. They think they are the best anywhere, just because they are better than the kids they see everyday.

Inevitably, they find out that there are thousands of kids just like them, who are the best in their own high schools. They can't all be the best in the whole damn country. Hell, most of them aren't even top 100 in their own state.

It's good to have dreams and ambitions, but you are setting yourself up for disappointment if you think you are going to be the next Michael Jordan or Elvis or President. You gotta have a backup plan.

The Calderwood boys were big shots at Bear Creek High, but they were never going to be professional football players. Johnny and Billy were way too small, too small even to play college ball at any half-decent school. They weren't recruited by anybody, but they didn't get the message. They went to Big Elk juco, hoping that they could attract some second looks from the big schools. No such luck. They ended up working at their dad's construction firm.

Mikey and Will were even less talented, but at least they were smart enough to know it. They gave up after high school and took what jobs they could find—Mikey at the Bear Creek DQ, Will as a car salesman in Big Elk.

Jimmy was the pick of the litter. The best looks and the best athlete in the family. He played quarterback and, at six-foot-four and 220 pounds, he was big enough to play college ball. He got a scholarship to the University of Colorado—"CU"—and he went to Boulder to play for the Buffalos.

Even Jimmy's dream died quickly. He was redshirted his freshman year, which meant he practiced with the team, but didn't suit up for games. The idea is to give 17- and 18-year-old kids some experience and put some more meat on their bones before sending them into battle.

As it turned out, the starting quarterback got injured and the team needed more bodies, so Jimmy suited up. His very first game, CU was getting creamed and the coach didn't want to take a chance with his second-string quarterback getting injured. So, he sent Jimmy in. Wouldn't you know it, some 280-pound beast grabs Jimmy and body slams him to the ground, like a WWF wrestling match, and messes up Jimmy's right shoulder—the one he throws with. Jimmy's football career is over before it got started.

Jimmy came back to Bear Creek and got a job at a nearby dude ranch.

Once Mikey told me that, I decided I'd get me a job there, too.

The Lazy X

The owner of the dude ranch was this Jewish guy from Brooklyn, Abe Gould. Abe said he modeled his ranch on the way Club Med used to be.

Every winter, New Yorkers left the ice and snow behind and headed for Club Meds in Cancun, Turks & Caicos, and other warm places. Club Med billed itself as the "antidote to civilization." It was more commonly known as "sun, sand, and sex."

Guests paid Club Med thousands of dollars to sleep in tiny rooms with no electricity. There were no telephones or newspapers to remind them of the world they had escaped. Instead, they were entertained by the Club Med employees—men and women with hot bodies and exotic accents. During the day, the employees played volleyball and went scuba diving with guests who came to play sports. At night, the employees danced, drank, and made love to guests who came for guilt-free sex. The guests left happy and the employees stayed exhausted.

Abe thought this was a great business model. He bought cheap land in Colorado, built some bare-bones guest rooms, and charged bored people thousands of dollars to party with sexy cowboys and cowgirls—whores really, if you think about it.

Guys are up for guilt-free sex pretty much anywhere, anytime, but women have this thing for vacation sex: what happens in Cancun stays in Cancun. What happens in Colorado stays in Colorado. The guests came to Abe's ranch for guilt-free sex with each other and with the cowboys and cowgirls working the ranch.

Abe called his dude ranch the Lazy X, which is a pretty lazy name for a ranch. Maybe Abe was thinking that X marks the spot, or X-rated, but I still think the name is pretty lame.

The guests flew into Denver Saturday morning, where they were met at the airport by guys and gals in cowboy gear holding up Lazy X signs. When everyone was rounded up, they took a bus stocked with free beer to the Lazy X. The guests left a week later, on Saturday morning, so that they could rest up Sunday before going back to work on Monday.

Abe was the kind of guy who, after you shook his hand, you counted your fingers to make sure he hadn't taken any. Still, he tried real hard to keep his guests happy and coming back for more. The free beer on the bus was an investment in their happiness. The beer wasn't really free, just prepaid as part of the cost of their expensive vacations. But the guests thought it was free and it got them in a party mood.

It's like that saying lawyers have among themselves. It's not whether you win or lose the case, but whether the client is happy to pay the bill. It was the same way with Abe. It's not whether the guests are getting a good deal, but whether they are happy to pay.

I showed up for my job interview wearing a see-through blouse and Abe liked what he saw. He stared at my tits and grinned. He offered me getting a job as a pretend cowgirl who would make sure the male guests had a good time, but I told Abe I wasn't interested. So, he said I could be his personal assistant. I think he liked having me around. I know he was hoping to get his hands inside my shirt. I knew it wasn't going to happen.

Personal assistant meant I was Abe's gofer. If Abe wanted a cup of coffee, I got it. If Abe wanted to be driven somewhere, I drove him. If Abe wanted a blow job, I said no thanks.

Still, it made him happy to have a sexy young thing at his side, doing (almost) anything he asked her to do. I made sure to wear a tight shirt or, if Abe was feeling low, a see-through blouse. It really perked him up to walk around with a girl that everyone could see had perky tits and boysenberry nipples. They assumed that I was his girlfriend and that made Abe real happy.

I didn't care what they thought. It was just my ticket into the dude ranch so that, when I wasn't fetching stuff for Abe, I could check out Jimmy.

A Stud

Jimmy was the most athletic of the Calderwood boys and the best looking, too, which is what got him his job at the dude ranch.

Jimmy was a star football player in high school and, like a lots of small towns, high school football is king in Bear Creek. Kids spend their childhoods dreaming about playing high school ball. Parents spend their time talking to other parents about how Billy Bob or Bubba or Big Muthafucka will turn out to be a terrific quarterback, linebacker, or tight end.

Friday nights during football season, the town closes down because everyone is at the game. After they finish high school, Billy Bob, Bubba, and Big Muthafucka spend the rest of their wretched lives bragging about the time they caught a pass or scored a touchdown or broke some guy's leg.

Girls are brought up to worship football stars. Boys dream about being the star of the team. Girls dream about being the cheerleader who marries the star football player. Both are pretty pathetic.

In addition to the cheerleaders dancing on the sidelines, there are girls called "rally girls" support the team by keeping the players happy. Every starter on the team is assigned a rally girl who makes cookies and brownies for her player, gives him kisses and cuddles, and makes him feel really special. Sort of like a brainless perfect wife. Just practicing, right?

Being the quarterback, Jimmy got the prettiest rally girl, Mary Lou James.

Mary Lou was one of those girls who develops early and keeps on developing. In junior high, they have pretty faces, eye-catching tits, and round butts. In high school, they are getting a little fleshy, but the round face, boobs, and ass are still sexy. If they're lucky, they marry some schlub before they get fat. Then come the babies and the breastfeeding and, before you know it, the pretty young girl has turned into a cow. Round has turned into plump, eye-catching has turned into saggy, and sexy has turned into not really.