Writer in a Born Free RV

Mel kept me guessing until we locked up for the night. After she locked the back door, she smiled and asked if I'd like another cup of coffee.

We went to the same Denny's and sat in the same booth. After the waitress brought our coffee, Mel frowned at me.

"Did you really write that short story or did you copy it from somewhere?"

I assured her I'd written every word. Mel sounded a little choked up when she answered.

"You made me cry. I haven't cried over a book in months, but you made me cry. Half-way into it I was blubbering away like some teen age girl whose boyfriend just broke up with her."

I said I was sorry it was that bad, but Mel shook her head.

"It wasn't bad. It was good, as good as I've read in some novels. There are a few things that aren't right, but...tell me the truth. You're the teacher and you know that girl, right?"

I had hoped to keep my past a secret from anyone, but Mel had guessed and I didn't want to lie to her.

"Yes, I used to be a math teacher and I had a girl in my class like Meridith. She was a really nice girl but she wasn't very smart and she knew it. I found out the day she dropped out of school that she liked me and that's why I stopped teaching."

Mel sipped her coffee and then frowned again.

"You quit teaching math because some teen-aged girl liked you?"

I nodded.

"Well, there were other reasons, but in the end, it was her. I'd tried so hard to teach her enough math to get by in life. She wasn't smart enough to understand the math, but she was smart enough to recognize and appreciate my efforts. She was also nice enough to tell me how she felt about me. I felt like I'd failed her. If I'd taken more time with her...but I couldn't because of the stupid state law about math in high schools.

"I thought I'd forgotten about her, but I was thinking about something I could write about and she popped back into my head. I started wondering what happened to her, and then I wondered if she liked the teacher, if he'd decide he liked her. After that, the story practically wrote itself."

Mel smiled.

"I thought so. The story wasn't a writer telling me a story. It was a man telling me about how he first felt sorry for a young girl, and then when they met a year later, realizing that he loved her and she loved him. That's what made me cry. I cried harder when he asked her to marry him and she said she would. The final straw was when she gave him a son. It was like I...like most women dream of happening to them.

"There are a few things you got wrong, but then you're a man so I'd expect that. Most romance novels are written by women because they understand how a woman thinks.

"I don't think any eighteen-year old girl is going to come right out and say she loves a guy, especially if he's older than she is. At that age, all girls think they're in love at one time or another, but they also know it probably isn't really love so they wait for the guy to say it first. If she was twenty-five, she might, but not at eighteen.

"Another thing you got wrong is you said the girl was a virgin but she was a great lover. You didn't go into much detail about why, but It doesn't happen that way. Both men and women have to have sex a lot before they understand what each wants, or didn't you know that?"

She stared at me for a few seconds and then grinned.

"You've never had sex before, have you?"

I didn't really want to answer that question, so I played for time.

"You mean like with a woman?"

Mel chuckled.

"Well, you don't seem to be gay to me, so what other kind of sex is there? No, don't tell me about doing yourself. My ex did that so I know all men do. That's not sex. It's self-pleasure. Women do it too."

I couldn't look her in the eyes because it was embarrassing to admit that I was still a virgin.

"Well...actually...no, I haven't. Girls in high school and college weren't interested in guys who were good at math. They always went for the jocks. After I got out of college and started teaching, the women teachers were all married or had steady boyfriends."

Mel smiled.

"You shouldn't be ashamed about that. When I was in high school, the girls were the same. So was I, and look where it got me. I'd have been better off marrying Gary Creiger. He was one of those guys who did great in school, but that was all he did. I wanted excitement in life, some guy who played football and rode a motorcycle, not some guy who wore a suit to work every day. Well, I married that guy, for all the good it did me. Gary's an engineer who works for Ford and his wife probably wears the latest clothes from the best stores. I'm divorced and working in a burger place to have something to do because I don't have any kids.

I had a hard time going to sleep that night. What Mel had said made perfect sense. When I'd gotten to the part where my girl and guy made love, I started to write about it and then realized I didn't have any idea other than the mechanics involved. What I did was read the sexy parts of the two romance novels I'd bought and changed the words a little.

It looked like I could maybe put some romance into my writing, but first, I had to figure out what real romance was like. The only way to do that was to find a woman I liked who also liked me and then let things happen like they would. I couldn't see that happening any time soon. I didn't know any women in Clarksville except Mel and the college girls who worked at Burger King. The college girls were too young, and Mel...well...I liked Mel and I thought she liked me, but she was my boss.

The next night when we were cleaning up, Mel asked me if I'd made any changes to my short story, and I said I hadn't because I didn't know how to change the parts she didn't like.

"I think I understand love at least a little from reading the romance novels I have. It's when a guy thinks he wants to be with a woman all the time. That's what I wrote in my short story, that Boyd decided he couldn't be happy unless he was with Meridith all the time. I didn't know how she'd feel, so I just wrote that basically she felt the same way about him.

"When it came to the wedding night, I guess I wrote a fantasy based on what I'd read in other books. Apparently, I got it wrong, because that's what you said I did. I can change it to another fantasy, but that'll probably be wrong too. It's like I'm trying to cross a river without a bridge. I see what I want on the other side, but I don't know how to get there."

Mel helped me carry the trash out to the dumpster and after she locked the door, she touched me on the shoulder.

"Todd, part of what you got wrong was that your couple met and he immediately realized he loved her. Nobody falls in love at first sight like in the movies. There can be a mutual attraction but love is a gradual process. You need to put in some touching like them holding hands that leads to him holding her and kissing her. Haven't you ever done even that with a girl?"

I lied and said I had, but Mel didn't believe me.

"I think you're lying. Kiss me and prove me wrong."

She was just standing there in the light from the street lamp with her eyes closed. I did kiss her, for maybe a second or two. When I pulled away, Mel laughed.

"If that's how you kissed a girl, it's no wonder you didn't get her in bed. That's how I kiss my mother goodbye after visiting her. You need put your arms around her waist and when you kiss her, you need to open your mouth just a little. Try it again, but this time, do what I just said."

Well, it felt weird as hell to put my arms around Mel's waist because she was my boss. It felt even weirder when she sort of snuggled up to me. I could feel her breasts lightly pressing against my chest. That was something I'd never felt before, and I had the typical reaction.

Mel didn't say anything although I know she had to feel it. She opened her eyes, grinned, and then closed them again and whispered, "Kiss me again like I said you should."

I opened my mouth what I thought was enough and then pressed my lips to Mel's. That gave me the third feeling I'd never had before because Mel opened her mouth a little more and in the process, opened my lips too. I felt a shiver run down my spine that ended up stiffening my cock even more than it was.

The other thing was, I couldn't stop kissing Mel. It was like something had locked our lips together. I kept feeling those same chills, over and over, and my cock kept getting harder and harder.

It was Mel who finally pulled gently away, and she didn't say anything for a while. She just stood there with a weird look on her face and didn't try to push me away. When she did say something, her voice was a little lower than usual and a little breathy.

"That was better. That's how your Boyd should have kissed your Meridith the first time. If he did, she'd feel what I just felt and you could write that into your story."

Mel paused then for a second, then smiled.

"I guess you have no idea what a woman feels when she's kissed, do you? When a woman is kissed, really kissed, she feels...it's pretty complicated but I'll do the best I can. I felt this tingle that ran down my back. Then, I felt warm and tingly all over, but especially in my...let's just say below my waist. That's what a woman feels when she's kissed the right way.

"Now, it doesn't mean that she loves the guy who kissed her. It just means he aroused her a little. You need to put that in your story."

I said I'd try, and then I asked Mel what had to happen for a couple to decide they loved each other. She smiled.

"We'll save that for another day. You work on the kissing stuff and let me read what you come up with. Then we'll talk some more."

One of the things that area of Tennessee is known for is that doesn't snow much in the winter. It rains...and rains...and rains. Sometimes it rains just a little at a time, but it rains all day long. Sometimes it rains a lot but for a short period of time. Some days it does both.

Light rain didn't really bother me on my bike. I had a rain slicker that kept me dry as long as it wasn't pouring down. So far, it hadn't done that when I was going to or coming home from work. I did get a little wet a couple of times, but I dried out pretty fast.

It was a week after Mel had taught me about kissing that the weather report was predicting a heavy rain. The local radio stations usually predicted it would be worse than it actually turned out to be, so I wasn't too worried. I wasn't worried at all when I started for work. The sky was pretty cloudy, but there wasn't really any rain. It was more of just a mist. I rode my bike to work, locked it to the dumpster and then did my shift.

I was mopping up when the first lightning bolt hit with a bang that shook all the windows. A minute later, it started to rain, and I mean really rain. It was coming down in buckets. I'd already taken out the trash, so I figured I'd just wait it out.

Mel walked up to me looking at her cell phone.

"I'm looking at the hourly forecast, and this is supposed to keep up until about five in the morning. If you ride your bike home, you'll be half drowned by the time you get there. How about if I take you home instead?"

I said I could just call a cab, but she insisted.

"Why would you spend money on a cab when I can take you home for free? It's not very far from here, so it'll only take a few minutes and you'll get home dry."

Well, neither of us was really dry when Mel pulled up to the Born Free. We'd both gotten pretty wet just getting my bike into the back of her car. The funny thing was, just like it sometimes happens in Tennessee, by the time we got there, it had stopped raining.

I was taking my bike out of Mel's car when she asked if she could come in and dry off a little.

"I'd like to dry my hair at least a little. I can take wet clothes as long as I'm warm, but I hate the feeling of wet hair around my neck."

Once we were inside, I got Mel a couple of towels and then sat down at my table. She rubbed her hair with the towel for a minute or so, and then looked around.

"I've never been in one of these before. It looks bigger on the inside than on the outside. Is that table where you write?"

I smiled.

"Yes, this is my office. It's also my kitchen table, but if I'm writing, it's my office."

Mel sat down across from me.

"So, did you fix your short story?"

I nodded.

"Yeah, I fixed part of it anyway. I didn't print it, but it's on my laptop if you want to read what I changed."

Mel read what I'd changed, then looked up and smiled.

"That wasn't bad at all. You must have been paying attention that night. Got any ideas for fixing the rest?"

I shook my head.

"No, not really. I've re-read my romance novels so I have the general idea of what you're talking about, but I don't want to just repeat their words."

About then, the metal roof of the Born Free started sounding like someone was dropping rocks on it. Mel looked out the window beside the table and then frowned.

"It's started raining again. If I go out, I'll just get soaked. Maybe I can help you figure out what to write if you don't mind me staying a little longer."

I shrugged.

"I'd just be sitting here trying to think and not coming up with anything. If you can help, it'd be great. I'll make us a pot of coffee."

After I started the coffee pot, I sat back down and Mel smiled.

"OK then. The first thing we have to figure out is what attracts Boyd to Meridith and vice versa. Let's start with Boyd. What does he find attractive about Meridith?"

I said Meridith was pretty, so that was probably it. Mel said there had to be more than that.

"You see pretty girls every day, lots of them. You must have thought about sleeping with one or two of them. Be honest with me. What is it about them that you find uh...stimulating?"

Well, there had been a few women who did make me think about how it might be, one in particular. She'd come in late one night with another bunch of young women. It was obvious they'd been out drinking because they were giggling and acting stupid, all except this woman. She was very calm and I liked that. She was pretty too, not beautiful, but pretty.

What really caught my attention was her top. It was pretty cold outside, but warm inside. A couple minutes after the group came inside, she unzipped the coat she was wearing. Her top fit pretty tight and it was cut low in the front so I could see the swell of her breasts and her cleavage. When she walked up to the counter to order, her breasts jiggled. That jiggle made my cock lurch a little.

"Yes, there have been one or two that I liked. There was this one a couple of days ago. She had pretty nice...well, she had a nice bust."

Mel laughed.

"Well, what a surprise. You like women with big boobs, like all men don't. So, what did you think about doing with her and her big boobs? Oh, I forgot. You've never felt a boob, have you? You wouldn't know what you're supposed to do with boobs."

Well, I did, sort of. Dad told me women like their breasts stroked sometimes. He didn't say how they liked their breasts touched, just that they'd like it and I would too.

"I suppose I thought about how they'd feel if I touched them."

"How do you think they'd feel?"

I shrugged.

"I don't know. Hers looked like they jiggled when she walked, so they'd probably be soft."

Mel frowned.

"You didn't wonder how it would feel to her? Let me tell you something most men don't understand. If what you do with a woman isn't something that makes her feel good too, you aren't going to get anywhere with her.

"Some women like their boobs touched and some don't. Some like their boobs squeezed and some just like little feather touches. Since you made up Meridith, you can make her feel any way you want. How does Meridith feel when Boyd strokes her boobs through her clothes? Does she like it because it makes her feel aroused, or does she not like it because he's too rough? Does she tell him how he makes her feel or does she just let him do what he wants? That's what you need to be writing.

"The other thing you need to tell me in your story is what makes Meridith think Boyd is a man she'd like to have sex with? Since she's a virgin, she'll probably be pretty picky. A woman can only do that once and she wants to make sure it's with the right guy. You need to convince me that she really wants him before you put them in bed together.

"Women like to feel safe when they're with a man, so Boyd's got to be a real man, not some wimpy guy who wouldn't help her if she needed help. He should also be gentle enough he shows her that he cares about how she feels and what she wants. If all a man's interested in is that ten minutes when he's screwing us, we women don't need him. Like I once told you, women do themselves too.

We like men who look good, too. They don't have to look like movie stars, but we want a man who takes care of himself and dresses up once in a while.

"You need to tell me why Meridith wants Boyd to kiss her and why she'd let him make love to her. If you can do that, I'll be able to understand her and when I'm reading, I'll probably feel like I'm feeling what Meridith is feeling."

I didn't say anything because I didn't know what to say. Mel had just told me I needed to write about doing something I had no experience doing. She might as well have asked me to write about how to build a nuclear reactor. She just watched me for a while and then reached over and touched my hand.

"I think you're not saying anything because you don't know how to write either of those things. That's the problem, isn't it?"

I bought a few minutes to think because the coffee maker gurgled that it was done. I got up, poured us two cups of coffee, sat them on the table with a couple spoons, and then got the creamer and sugar from my cabinet.

Mel stirred some creamer into her coffee, then sipped it and smiled.

"You make pretty good coffee. Now, where were we?"

I sipped my coffee to have a little more time, but it didn't help.

"You were saying I didn't know how to write why Boyd loves Meridith and why Meridith loves Boyd. I guess I don't."

Mel smiled a funny little smile, sort of like a smile and a question at the same time.

"We know each other pretty well after all these weeks. If you liked me that way, how would you show me? You don't have to actually like me. This is just play acting so you get some experience. You tell me what you'd do and I'll tell you if it would work or not."

I tried to remember what happened in the romance novels I'd bought. In both of them, the guy found a way to be alone with the girl, and once they were, he took her in his arms and kissed her.

"I suppose I'd kiss you if we were alone."

Mel grinned.

"We seem to be very alone now..."

I knew what she was asking me, but I was hesitant. I did like Mel, but she was still my boss.

"I don't think I should kiss you again. You're my boss."

Mel smiled and slipped out of her seat.

"We're just play acting, remember, so you'll be able to fix your short story. I promise I won't get you into trouble."

The kiss this time was more than I could believe. I mean, I knew what I was supposed to do now, but when I did it, Mel was a lot different than the first time. The first time she didn't put her arms around my neck, she didn't move in close enough her breasts were pressing firmly into my chest, and she didn't use her tongue as much. When I pulled away, she still had her eyes closed and she seemed to be a little flushed.

When she did open her eyes, she still had her arms around my neck and she grinned.

"You're a fast learner, Todd. I felt that kiss a lot more than the first time. Now, what would you do next?"

What happened next in both the books was the guy stroked his hand up the girl's side to her breasts, so that's what I did. I didn't say anything. I just slipped my right hand up until it was touching the side of Mel's left breast.