22. Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Kate
I don’t know whether to murder my brother or die of embarrassment. Charles looks both annoyed and amused.
“We were looking at your new house,” Charles explains. “I didn’t realize you had made this much progress.”
“Oh, yeah,” James says. “Straw bales go up quickly. When I talked to Greg Jones about it, he said he wanted one, too, so I’m thinking about a whole row of them. Can you imagine, New England Arks in Kansas? Anyway, I have yours well in hand, too. We should be able to celebrate Thanksgiving in one or the other.”
“Won’t the rain be a problem?” I ask. “I know these work well in Arizona, but once those bales get soaked . . .”
“Well, I have to give Greg credit for this one,” James says. “If we surround the main house with sloped roof walls on the windward side, and greenhouse on the front, none of the straw bale walls will be exposed to weather. Anyway, we’ll stucco all of them, and the plaster will help keep out the damp. ”
“The fireplace looks inviting,” Charles says. “What do you plan to burn in it?”
“Waste wood from the furniture factory,” James replies promptly, “and imports from Missouri where they are always going around clearing trees.”
“Good to know that we won’t be making hay sticks,” Kate comments sardonically. “I don’t know if there are enough sloughs in all of Kansas to accommodate that opening.”
“It’s not that big,” James protests. “I thought about installing an electrical display, but it just isn’t the same.”
“Aren’t you worried about fire?” Charles asks.
“Not at all,” James replies. “First off, we’ve put up all this nice brickwork to house the fire as well as heating ducts. There’s a space…come around here and let me show you…for a wood cooking range. We’re going for the Swedish ceramic stoves — super design, very safe.”
Charles and I follow James around the chimney stack into a room where the walls are already partially plastered. “You could host an army in here,” I say.
“That’s the idea,” James explains. “We aren’t going to be stuck with social distancing forever. Eventually, people are going to want to share meals again. The dining area in Charles’ place will be even bigger.”
There is nothing for it but to trail after James through the entire house. I have to admit, it looks like it will be comfortable and warm. Plus, I really like the idea of the attached greenhouse and self-contained water and waste systems. But couldn’t he have waited an hour or two before tracking us down?
“This wasn’t quite what I had in mind,” Charles says, when we finally get away.
“No,” I agree, my head spinning with RV values, recycling concepts, sanitation codes, and electrical generation. “It is ingenious. But at the moment, I’d settle for a tent as long as it was just the two of us.”
“Tent!” Charles exclaims. “How do you feel about glamping?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “What did you have in mind?”
“I was going to suggest this if we couldn’t find a suitable house quickly enough. Since we didn’t need it, I’ve been using it for a field office.”
For a horrible moment, I have visions of “doing it” on a desk. But then I relax. Charles wouldn’t do that to me. Would he?
He hurries down the path, back to the parking lot, and holds the door open for me. “Let’s get out of here before James finds another excuse to hold us up. He can be …uh… persistent when he has something in mind.”
As Charles gets in, I comment, “You are just now noticing that James can be super annoying without even trying?”
“Oh, I found that out a long time ago,” Charles chuckles. “But he’s a good man to have in your corner when things get tough. Just look at those two houses he’s building for himself and for us.”
“Does he know there’s an us?” I ask, silently wondering if there really is an “us” or if I am a momentary diversion.
“Not unless you’ve told him,” Charles says.
“No,” I reply, a little of the light going out of the moment. Still, if I am a momentary diversion, I mean to get the most out of it that I can manage.
We ride in silence for a few minutes, then Charles says, “I made a mixtape for you.”
“Tape?” I put a world of meaning into the word.
“Well, CD.” He taps a button on the steering wheel and says, “Sydney, play Kate mix from CD.”
“Playing Kate Mix from CD,” the mechanical voice says, “Volume singalong. ”
An old Beatles song about holding hands drifts out of the speakers. This is followed up by “Black is the color of my true love’s hair,” the traditional song rendered in a mellow tenor by an artist I don’t recognize. Then the mood is broken by a silly song about a toasted chicken sandwich and sweet ice tea.
By the time we reach the Spindizzy Municipal Center parking lot, I feel well and truly wooed, even though Charles hasn’t said a word or taken his hands off the wheel.
He parks behind the camper we had towed out from the City, then pulls me around to the other side. I can only stop and stare. An army green canvas tent, big enough to house a cooking team or an old M.A.S.H. operating theater stands there.
“Welcome to my home away from home,” Charles says. “I crash here when it gets too late to come back home and disturb you, Cece and Grace.”
He opens the front flap, and I step in. The front area contains a huge metal desk, several large filing cabinets, an array of stacked batteries, and what looks like a ham radio set. I must have looked as gobsmacked as I felt because Charles shrugs and looks a little sheepish. “Gotta stay in touch with everyone. Besides, it was fun getting out the old rig.”
Impulsively I ask, “Will you teach me to use it? Not right now, but sometime, I mean.”
“Sure,” he says. “I’d be glad to. I’ll even help you get your license, if you want and we can set one up at the house.”
“I’d like that,” I say.
“Now,” Charles grins at me a little wickedly, “Let’s see if we can keep from being interrupted again.”
He picks up a sign from his desk that reads “In conference, do not disturb” and slides it into a holder on the outside of the door flap .
He turns to me, runs his hand down my braid to the end of my hair, and removes the hair tie. Then he begins to sing softly to me, “Black, black, black is the color . . .
His arms encircle me, and he waltzes — yes, really, waltzes — me through a curtained doorway into . . .
I had sort of expected maybe an army cot. What I see is a huge four-poster bed draped with gauzy mosquito netting, with beams across the top and a couple of ropes hanging down the sides. A free-standing air-conditioning unit whirrs in one corner; a little camp stove stands in the other. A small table holds a litter of grooming tools and a slim document folder.
“I love the ground on which she stands . . .” Charles sings and dips me onto the bed. Then he loops my hair around his fist and kisses it.
I start to scoot over for him, but the bed sloshes!
“Easy,” he says softly. “Just roll. It’s a waterbed.”
I obediently roll. “A waterbed? I thought they went out in the eighties.” The bed sloshes some more.
“There’s still a few around,” Charles says. “I like them, although it can be inconvenient if they spring a leak. I didn’t try to install one in the penthouse because of the weight. But the parking lot holds this one up just fine.”
“What are the ropes for?” I ask.
“One of the bad things about waterbeds is they can be difficult to get out of, especially with a bum hip. The rope is so I can pull myself upright if I need to.”
“Oh. Oh, good, you have no idea what was going through my mind.” I giggle a little from nervous relief.
“I can guess,” he says, his eyes crinkling up at the corners. “But no. I like plain, old vanilla lovemaking with maybe a little coconut and lemon to spice it up.”
“Coconut and lemon?” I ask. Then I get it. “My shampoo!”
“Is that what it is?” Charles asks, stretching out beside me. The bed sloshes, a mini tsunami. I bounce up and down on the waves and beach against his side. He begins tenderly undoing my buttons, one by one, taking his own sweet time about it.
I shiver as the cool air from the air conditioner hits my skin. Then I shiver from excitement as Charles begins kissing down the front of me, starting with my forehead, my lips, my chest, my belly button, and then breathes his hot breath through my slacks, setting every nerve a-tingle with desire.
I try to reach for him, try to get out of my pants, but the water bed sloshes under me, its motion defeating coordination.
“Easy,” Charles says. “You’ve got to work with it. It’s like swimming, only with a skin over the water. Just rock a little . . .”
I try that and manage to skin out of my slacks. Then I go to work on Charles’ buttons. “You’re overdressed for the ocean,” I tell him.
He obligingly peels out of his shirt, then his trousers and boxers. I roll against him, reveling in the feel of his hot skin against mine. His erection throbs against my hip, and I reach down to cup him in my hand. Then I reach up toward his shoulder, stretching as far across his chest as I can manage.
As if guessing my wish, Charles pulls me up on top of him, but keeps me tantalizingly away from my target. He cups my buttocks in both his hands.
“Two good handfuls,” he murmurs into my hair. “Muscular, not flabby.”
“No time to go flabby,” I murmur. Then I think that probably isn’t the sexiest thing I could have said. But Charles either ignores the comment, or has his mind on other things, because he has shifted one hand under me and is gently caressing me in all sorts of interesting ways and places .
I kiss his neck, then breathe in his ear. He slips two fingers inside me, massaging my clitoris gently with the palm of his hand. It feels good. Really, really good. But I want more.
I want more, and I want it now! I try to move his hand out of the way so I can reach the object of my desire.
“You want it that much?” he asks softly, moving so his penis brushes against my inner thigh.
“Yes,” I say.
“All right,” he says, moving his hand aside.
I lift myself on my knees as best I can on the sloshing, unsteady surface of the bed. It does that tsunami thing again. I nearly lose my balance, but Charles catches me, deftly slipping inside.
It is amazing. I feel whole, completed, as if we are made to fit perfectly together. Charles cups my knees in his hands, and we begin rocking together.
The bed rocks with us, like some primeval part of the ocean. I lose myself in the feel of him, sliding in and out, building to a rhythm that is as old as time itself.
Inside me, the energy builds — a tsunami of a different kind. Charles is inside me, his strong hands bracing my knees, helping me flow with the tides. I feel as if I am flowing into the universe, becoming one with everything.
“I wish I could see the stars,” I whisper.
“I see a star,” Charles whispers back.
Then the tides are too strong for talk. I need him. I need all of him! His rhythm shifts becoming strong and hard. The waves of the waterbed become a storm at sea. We crest together, then rock slowly, cradled in the residual rhythms of the waterbed. Lost in each other, we cuddle together.
I kiss the side of Charles’ neck. He tastes salty and somehow warm and wholesome. He is everything I need, but I don’t know if he is mine to keep.