Problems in the Ponderosas Ch. 01

"What's it like?"

"You lie on your back, actually sort of rocked over to the side a little. Say you're rocked over a little bit to your right. Then you pick your left leg straight up in the air and hold it up there with your left hand until I get plugged in, and then you can let that leg drape over my right shoulder."

"It sounds like fun. Let's give it a try."

"I think the sofa is too narrow for it. Let's go in on the bed, where we'll have lots more room."

The king size bed was a perfect laboratory for trying out new wrinkles in our favorite indoor sport, and we found that we could start with the new position and then move a little this way or that way and get a whole new slant on things. Literally. Finally we rolled over and finished off in our old favorite, the cowgirl position, which is the way we like to wrap up our workout sessions.

Lying on our backs an hour later, we were spent. "Oh, Ken, I love you so much. We just fit together so perfectly. I could never get serious with any other man, both emotionally and physically. You're the only man in the world for me, always."

"Then why don't you move in with me? I've got this whole house, all mine, not even a mortgage on it. Plenty of room here for both of us. Everything here that we'd ever need. Here we can make love any time we want to, and we won't need to hide from anybody. You compare a king size bed to the back seat of a car, and there's no contest. I've got a nice big kitchen with all the usual stuff, lots of plates and cups and bowls, and all sorts of pots and pans. We could cook anything right here that you could cook anywhere else. There are two bathrooms, so you could take over one of them and spread out all your magic creams and potions, and if you want to wash something by hand you can hang it up on the shower curtain rod to dry and it won't bother me at all. What else could we ask for? It's a shame to waste all this space on just me."

"Oh, Honey, I don't know. It's always seemed to me that our time together is more special somehow if we go back to our separate homes after our dates. Maybe I wouldn't feel that way if I tried living with you for a while. I'd agree in a minute if I could be sure that it's the best thing for us."

"Why not try it for a week or two, and then make up your mind. If you think you've lost anything by it, or that you're just not ready for it, you could move back home and go back to the way things are now. But think about it, when we get married you won't say good night and go home to your mother's house. We'd be living together then, so maybe it's a good idea to try it now and see if you can stand to be around me all the time."

"Oh, are we going to get married? You never mentioned that before."

"Well, of course we're going to get married. What's such a big surprise about that? You're the one who just said a few minutes ago that I'm the only man for you, always. What did you have in mind, that we'd still be going on dates when we're seventy years old?"

"I guess I never thought it through. I want to be with you always, but I never thought of it in terms of marriage. I know that seems pretty dumb. It's just that getting married seems like such a grownup thing to do, and just dating and making out and making love is more like being a fully grown girl but not like being a woman. Girls buy shoes and make out and have sex. Women have checkbooks and grocery lists and imaginary headaches. That may sound strange, but these things aren't the same for women as for men."

"Wait, are you saying that you don't want to marry me? You've got me confused. We're completely involved with each other, don't see anybody else, share our most intimate thoughts together, fuck every chance we get, act like an old married couple when we talk about buying something or saving the money, even stopped seeing some of our friends who are too wild for our tastes. I thought I understood what's going on, but maybe I don't."

"Well, I certainly wouldn't want to marry anybody else, and I'd never want to get involved with anybody else. There's nobody else that I'd be comfortable getting really close to, physically or mentally or emotionally. But when you say that we'll get married some time, it means that we're going to be grownups, like my parents and the people I see at work. That's like entering a different world."

"But eventually we will enter that world, no matter what. We can't be kids forever. People who try to do that wind up being real losers. All that I have to do to become thirty, for example, is live for another six years. I don't have to take an entrance exam or fill out an application or anything. The only difference for you is that it'll take nine years. You can't ignore it. It's there, it's real, and it'll happen no matter what we do."

"Maybe moving in here would be the best thing I could do, to get me used to the idea of adulthood gradually, while I've got you right here like a security blanket. Please be patient with me, Honey. These things need getting used to, that's all. Acceptance isn't just a matter of understanding the facts of life and being able to do the arithmetic. It's emotional, too, and emotions take time. If we start to live like married people, but you're still right here at my side, and you still love me and make me feel special, I'll get over being scared and my emotions will get on board and it'll all be okay. And then I can start to think seriously about marriage and a family and forever, without it making me uncomfortable. Please be patient with me, all right?"

"Of course. Come here to me. Let me hold you. There, that's it. Do you realize that when we're living together we can wear anything around the house that we want to, and if we feel like being in the nude like this, it's all right. And it'll be nobody's business but ours. If we want to make love in the kitchen, or the hallway, it's perfectly all right. Ever think about doing it standing up? Simplest thing in the world. I could make you a step that's just the right height for you to stand on and get our private parts matched up.

"Roll over here to me for a minute. I want to try that leg in the air position for oral sex. I bet I can give you a real good orgasm that way. Let's give it a try."

That little experiment was just what we needed to close the deal. "If we live together, will you still get me off with your mouth?" she asked.

"The only question will be when and where. For example, how would you like me to do that while you're standing at the sink, peeling potatoes? Or if you're rinsing the dishes after supper, how about a rim job?"

The following Saturday morning we loaded up both of our cars and made our first trip to get her moved in. I already had a nice neat little wooden box all made, sanded smooth and varnished, to surprise her with. I asked her to stand on it, and when I stood up against her, she was just the right height for immediate entry. Then I had her step down, and I turned it around so she could see her name on it in shocking pink letters. She shoved the box back against the baseboard, stepped up on it, wrapped her arms around me, and stuck her tongue in my mouth. I said, "Hang on!" and she wrapped her legs around my waist so I could carry her over to the bed like that. From there on, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Afterward, she lay panting and then put her mouth to my ear to whisper, "For the next one, let's try it all the way on my new little step. I've never done it standing up. Maybe if we like it, I can be standing on it naked some day when you come home from work. How'd you like that?"

We had estimated the time for each trip, and calculated that we could have her all moved in by early afternoon. Trouble was, every time we hauled a load in from the cars, I got excited and we lost time while we did other things. For example, she would bend over and leave me looking at her cute round ass, and I'd get such a hardon that I couldn't walk back out to the car for the next load. Instead of an armful of Val's clothes, I'd wind up with my arms full of Val with no clothes. In the end, our early afternoon estimate turned out to be accurate, but it was Sunday afternoon, not Saturday.

By Tuesday night we had everything out of the boxes and carefully put away. We stood in the doorway of the second bedroom, which was to be her dressing room, and it looked perfect. We had our arms loosely draped around each other, and she turned and looked up at me with a smile. "It all went so smoothly, as if we're destined to live together. This must be what it feels like to be a married woman, standing here with my husband, in our home. It's not scary. It feels good, like something that was planned by God since before we were even born. Do you feel it?"

"Yes, and it surprises me. I know just the feeling you're talking about. It feels so good, so satisfying. We've done the right thing."

MORE QUESTIONS, POLITE ONES THIS TIME

One of the smart things I'd done was take Val with me to see my lawyer and have him record our account of what out at the woods that day. Yeah, I know, it would have been smarter to call him before we did anything with the police, but it's hard to think of stuff like that when you're still high on adrenaline. Anyway, the police called me that week after we'd got Val moved in with me, and asked me to come to the station the next day. I told the officer on the phone to call my lawyer and see if it could be arranged.

So that Friday afternoon, Val and I went with George, my lawyer, to the same interview room where the police captain and I had had our little chat. The captain came in with a detective. The detective's attitude seemed to be that this was just another day at the office, but a six year old kid could tell that the captain was pissed off coming into the room, before a single word was spoken. They sat down across from us and the captain said some snippy remark, I don't remember now what it was, and the detective stood up and said, "Please excuse us for a few minutes." Then he took the captain by the arm and practically dragged him out the door. They stood in the hallway and the door was still half open. They were talking softly and I couldn't make out the words, until the detective shouted, "I already told you, and I won't tell you again, if you screw up this case on me you'll be captain of the city dump, and don't think for a minute I can't do that. Now either stop acting like a little kid or go back to your office!"

The detective came back into the room alone, and held out his hand. "I'm Harry Peters, from the detective bureau. You must be Ken, and Val. George, I remember you from a case last year. The reason we asked you to come in is that we need your help. Now let me emphasize that you came here today of your own free will, and you're free to walk out that door if you want to. You aren't accused of doing anything wrong. Is that perfectly clear?"

George looked at us with his eyebrows cocked up, and then back at Harry Peters. "Yes, we understand that. Go on."

"The shooting that day in the woods and out by the railroad track was pretty straightforward, and we understand what happened. What we can't figure out is why it happened. No, wait a minute. Self defense is something we know all about, and we don't question the legitimacy of the shootings. But we don't know how the whole confrontation came about. You two weren't bothering anybody, having your picnic in that little clearing. If I were young again, I'd love to do the same thing. But why were you shot at, and what were the tall thin guy and the short fat guy doing out there in the woods that made them so defensive? We've come up empty. So we think maybe you could help us, if you want to."

"If you've investigated and found nothing, what can my clients do?"

"The only witness we have who was a party to what was going on is the man who had the rifle, Clyde Amery. And he won't talk. I thought maybe your clients could get something out of him. After all, George, the fat man was going to shoot Clyde until Val shot him first. She, or they, saved his life."

"Has Clyde asked for a lawyer?"

"No, and we don't want to get aggressive with him for fear that we'll never get anything out of him. If he tells us what was going on there he may implicate himself, and it could get complicated."

"What about immunity?"

"We're ready to offer that, and if we do he's going to need representation because he won't understand what it's all about unless he has counsel. But if we have your clients involved we hope to be able to tip the scales in our favor. So all that I want right now is a yes or no from you folks."

"We'd like to leave here for a few minutes and have a private conversation in my office. After that, I'll call you and give you our answer. May I have your card?"

And so after a few polite words of parting, we left and went back to George's office. George said, "I don't see any harm in helping with their investigation, but I'm going to get an agreement of immunity from prosecution for both of you as a condition of your cooperation. Does that sound all right to you?"

We both said it sounded all right. As an afterthought, I said, "Please include the condition that the Gestapo captain isn't part of it, or the deal's off. I'm ready to play the public spirited citizen, but not if that asshole is even remotely involved."

A REUNION OF SORTS

"Do you remember us, Clyde?" Clyde blinked, looked at Val and me, then at George, then at his lawyer, a public defender named Charlie Nelson, at detective Harry Peters, and finally back at me.

"I remember you. You shot me in the arm. And I remember you, li'l gal. You shot Riley, my boss. But the rest of you I don't remember. Who are you?"

Charlie Nelson spoke up. "I'm your attorney. We talked in that room at the jail, remember? You agreed to give the police some information and in return they agreed not to prosecute you. Remember that?"

"And I had to sign that paper. But I did all that. What's this all about? What do all these people want now?"

"They need your help. Look, let's do this another way. You and these two young people can sit over here, at this end of the table. If everything goes all right I won't be needed in the conversation so I'll sit over here. If you need any help I'll jump right in. Then everybody else will sit way over there, by the wall. They're interested in what you can tell us, but they won't be asking you any questions. Get up and come over here and sit in this chair. Are you comfortable now?"

"Yeah, this chair's better'n that other'n."

"All right. Now this man's name is Ken. He'll sit right here. And this young lady is Val. Come over here, Val. Now just forget about all those other people and pay attention to Ken and Val. Okay?"

"Okay." There were chairs scraping as we all got rearranged, and then I started again.

"Clyde, when we were in the woods, you shot at us. Why did you do that?"

"Riley said to shoot off a warning shot, so that's what I did. Then I went to say that Riley wanted youall to get out of the woods."

"But Riley yelled for you to kill us, remember?"

"Yeah, but I didn't want to do it. Youall hadn't done nothin' to us. So I had to think what to do. That's when you shot me."

"Yes, but I just nicked you. I didn't want to kill you. Remember when we were out by the railroad track? Riley was going to shoot you and then me. That's what he said, and he was getting ready to do it."

"Yeah, but the li'l gal shot Riley first. Val, is that your name?"

"Yes. I killed Riley to save you and Ken."

"You sure did. One shot, right through the heart. You're a good shot, Val. I had me a gal who could shoot like that once. But she ain't around no more. I miss her."

"So do you want to thank Val for saving your life?"

"Sure do. Thank you, Val. Mebbe I can do sunthin' for you some time."

"Ken and I are planning to get married."

"That's a good idea. I shoulda done that with the gal that used to shoot so good. Only she's gone now."

"Look, Clyde, we never did figure out what was going on in the woods that Riley didn't want us to see. Val and I weren't there to do anything to him. Why was he so hot to kill us?"

"It was all about a hole. We went there an' he had a shovel an' he wanted me to dig a hole. Not jus' anywhere, but in one place. The hole had to be right where he said."

"Was there something buried there? Something he wanted you to dig up?"

"I guess so. He had a little thing with him. Sorta like a remote for a TV. He was tryin' to find where I oughta dig. So I was jus' awaitin' and standin' around while he tried to find the place to dig."

"Why did he tell you to warn us with a shot?"

"He heard youall comin' in the pickup. Then he got his glasses and seen youall layin' down in the woods."

"His glasses? You mean like reading glasses?"

"No. The big kind. Like a scope but two of 'em together."

"Like this?" I held my hands up in front of my eyes like holding binoculars.

"Yeah, that kind. He di'n't want nobody to know we was gonna dig a hole in the woods."

"Think hard, Clyde. Could you take me to the spot where Riley was looking around with the TV remote?"

"I guess so. He had some stuff wrote down, but I think I could find the place. It's like back home, when we'd finish runnin' off a load of shine, we'd bury the parts of the still. Then next season we'd have to go back an' dig 'em up. I'm good at findin' stuff like that. I know about woods. I grew up in the woods. It ain't just a bunch of trees. Ever' tree is differ'nt. You gotta know how to read the trees."

"Okay, that's all for now, Clyde. I hope I can work it out so you can take us to that place in the woods, because I'd like to see what Riley was looking for. I bet you'd like to see that, too, wouldn't you?"

"Sure would. Seemed funny to me, all of it."