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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
Chapter 5
Over the next few days things fell into a routine. I finished cleaning the motel rooms and the carpet shampooing, then started in on doing some painting around the place. I didn’t get as much done in the next few days as I would have liked to, since there were things that got in the way, among them a spell of rainy, cold weather, and then Barb having to go out crewing for Nate on several occasions. On those days I just did my best to help Debby out in the snack bar and kept an eye on the fuel dock, which fortunately was not very busy.
Working in the kitchen with Debby was fun, and I learned quite a bit – there was more to being a short-order cook than it seemed on the surface, mostly in planning and working efficiently. I started by helping cut up stuff and doing dishes, but as time went on I began to learn more about the job.
That wasn’t all I was learning from Debby, of course, and I have to admit to learning a lot more in the evenings, and it was most evenings. We didn’t just get it on when we got together; sometimes we watched some of the crappy TV made worse by the poor reception and the tiny black and white box, and sometimes we just sat around and talked. Sometimes.
To be honest, we went at it in bed more nights than not, sometimes for a relative quickie, but more often for a long session, whatever it seemed like Debby was up for. As she had said, she was willing to teach me if I was willing to learn, and I was, because I could see considerable room for improvement in a lot of areas, both technique and stamina. She loved sex, and a lot of it; I learned to give her what she wanted. If we really got into it we could wear each other out and love every minute of it. She rarely spent the whole night with me but at the end of a long and exhausting session it was often more convenient for us to spend the night together. Just knowing she was sleeping next to me had an intimacy all its own, something wonderful to share, and something I’d never been allowed to even dream about doing with Brittany.
Yes, I still had some issues about Brittany. After all, she’d been in the forefront of my mind and my hopes for years, and, even with the way she’d treated me, her lingering presence in my mind wasn’t going to go away easily. But, Debby and I were working on it, and we were making progress.
It must have been about the second weekend that Nate came into the Channel Stop at just about the time we opened – it happened about every other day, sometimes more often than that. This time he had a large group with him, several men and a couple women, and Rachel. This was the first time I’d met her. She was taller than Debby, but not a lot, skinny in the way young teenage girls often are, obviously still with some growing to do but maybe not a lot. She was typically teenage cute, with long almost blonde light brown hair in a pony tail thrust through the adjustment hole of a baseball cap. She wore jeans, a flannel shirt, and a quilted vest. When she smiled in Debby’s and my direction I could see braces on her teeth, and she had that fuzzy voice young teenage girls often have. “Hi, Debby,” I heard her say. “Long time, no see.”
“It’s been a while. How’s school going?”
“Same thing as always,” Rachel said. “At least it’s not long before we’ll be out for the summer.”
“Enjoy it while you can. It gets worse after you get out, not better. Are you going to spend the summer on the boat again?”
“As much as I can,” the teenager replied. “You know I’d rather do that than anything else. So who’s your new guy?”
“Oh, this is Jake. He’s going to be the dock hand this summer. You’ll probably be seeing a lot of him. Jake, this is Rachel, Nate’s daughter. Don’t be getting any bright ideas about her; she’s jail bait with a capital J.”
Apparently Rachel was used to Debby’s way of speaking and brushed off the comment apparently not paying any attention to it. “Cool,” she said, then swung her head toward me and added, “Pleased to meet you, Jake.”
“Good to meet you, too,” I replied. She sort of put me in mind of Brittany at that age; she was cute now, but given a little time and a little more filling out, she was going to be something else.
We didn’t talk any more than that, just being courteous. She and Debby exchanged a few more words, and then she took a handful of menus and headed back over to the fishing party, where two tables had been shoved together. Just about that time several more people came in, some of the regulars and a couple guys from a smaller boat, so all of a sudden we were busy. Debby and I got back to work in the kitchen since it was clear we were going to be having a lot of orders. “Cute kid,” I said to Debby in a low voice.
“Yeah, she is, isn’t she, lover? That kid is something else, and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
For a while there it was about as busy around the snack bar as I’d ever seen it to that point. It was neat to watch just how organized Debby was, how she could get the orders out and keep everything straight. I didn’t think I could do it in a million years. I was having trouble just keeping up with helping her.
Things thinned out eventually, and the big fishing party finally finished up and headed for Nate’s boat, carrying the lunches that Debby had somehow made for them. We were still a bit busy, but after a couple minutes Debby hauled me over to the kitchen door, where we could see out through the glass of the front room to the dock. Sure enough, Barb had been right; Rachel was up on the flying bridge by herself, while her father was down on the dock picking up the lines. Once he had them aboard, we could see Rachel doing something at the wheel while Nate turned to do something else with the fishing gear. In seconds, the teenager was steering the big boat away from the dock and down the channel toward the big lake. “It looks like she knows what she’s doing,” I commented.
“Yeah, and what’s more, she’s done it for years. She must have been all of eleven or twelve the first time I saw her doing that by herself. What’s more, they’re going to get some fish today. I think she can smell them or something.”
“Impressive. Her dad must really trust her to let her do something like that without supervision. Shit, my dad was real reluctant to let me take the car out by myself when I was older than that!”
“Yeah, fifteen,” Debby agreed. “Like I said, she’s some kid. We better get back to work.”
I went back to whatever it was I was doing, peeling spuds or something like that, and remembered one of the books I’d read out on the Morton when there hadn’t been anything else to do. It had mentioned how a hundred years before there were sailing vessels hauling cargo across the ocean under masters who hadn’t yet hit twenty. Rachel could have been one of those kids, except that they probably didn’t even think about letting girls do something like that back then. Their loss, I thought.
It turned out to be a busy day, the busiest we’d had since I’d been there. I don’t want to say we had people lined up waiting to get to the pumps, but the business was steady, partly from people heading out to go fishing, and occasionally someone who just stopped in to fuel up, then wanted to get back on the lake. Barb had explained to me that people often wintered over their boats downstate, where the marina facilities were better, then brought them north in the summer so they could drive up and use the boat for the weekend. Along in the fall, there’d be another parade of boats heading back downstate for the winter.
In between pumping fuel, I had several motel rooms that had to have the linen changed and get a light cleaning, and I wound up doing a couple loads of laundry along with everything else. This was just a warm-up, Barb told me; in a couple of months we’d consider this to be a slow day.
Several days later, along toward the middle of the week, I was working on mowing what little grass there was about the place when I saw a rather beat-up red Camaro pull in, just absolutely stacked to the roofline with stuff. It stopped next to Barb’s house and two girls got out – I don’t know where they’d found a place to sit with all that stuff. It turned out that they were Susie and Annette DeRuyter, Barb’s daughters, home from college. There was some serious hugging and talking going on for a few minutes before I got introduced and then pressed into service to haul stuff inside.
Susie and Annette were rather different. Susie, the older one, was taller than I was by two or three inches, but she was very thin. If she weighed over a hundred pounds I would have been very surprised. I don’t want to say anorexic – I was to learn she had a voracious appetite – but stayed very thin, with a lanky bone structure, and almost no visible breasts or hips. She even had a long face with a long, thin nose, and long, straight black hair and bangs down to her eyebrows, and looked a little, well, strange. Not ugly, quite pretty, but in a different kind of way.
Annette was about as different as a sister could be – she was hardly taller than Debby, nearly a foot shorter than her sister, and was what I’d have to say was seriously overweight, maybe fifty or sixty pounds or so, though I never asked. Where Debby was round and shapely, Annette was just solid. Annette did have visible breasts, though they’d never hold a candle to Debby’s chest full. She had slightly wavy light brown hair, down just past her shoulders, and was sort of plain in the face.
There was a lot of hauling to do, though the girls helped out quite a bit. I’ll have to admit, I was still pretty much used to living for months on end out of a seabag and a small barrel bag, so it seemed to me these two had more or less taken the kitchen sink with them. After we got done, the women all headed into the snack bar for a serious catching up session, while I got back to mowing after dealing with a fuel customer.
I got to know the girls a little better over dinner, though they were still a little polite and reserved. I mostly tried to stay in the background and let them talk. It turned out that Susie was a history major, though from what I could pick up she had no idea what she was going to do with the degree when she got it, presumably a year away. I actually got the impression that she was more looking for a “Mrs.” degree, and she had a fairly serious boyfriend, though nothing that looked to be permanent. Annette was working on a degree in English, and had hopes of being an English teacher, though she had some other interests and, unlike her sister, didn’t seem quite as hooked on finding a guy.
In any case, the plan was that the two were going to take a few days to rest up from finals, then pitch in on the work that needed to get done around the place as business picked up. That was clearly going to be welcome. While we weren’t exactly overwhelmed, we could get pretty busy on the weekends, and once the schools were out we could expect to be a lot busier. In fact, the next weekend it got busy, and the two were helping out a lot, mostly in the kitchen, waiting tables and making up the rooms, while I dealt with a steady line of fuel customers and managed to work in a few other odd jobs.
Along about the first part of the week, Debby mentioned to me that we were going to have to take a few days off since it was getting to be her time of the month. She explained that we could still do some things if we wanted to, but the choices were going to be a little limited compared to what we were used to.
“No problem, at least as far as I’m concerned,” I told her. “After all, it’s your call, not mine.” To tell the truth, I was to the point where I could stand a little break. We’d been going at it pretty heavily the last few days, even over the weekend, and I figured I could use a little extra sleep.
As I recall it was a fairly warm evening, and I spent much of it reading a book out on the balcony in front of my room, just taking in the peace of the evening. There were a couple fuel customers, and just as it was getting too dark to read it was time to shut off the signs and call it a night. Once I got back to my room the book wasn’t holding my interest anymore – it was a murder mystery I’d read before. Since it was now dark, I decided to get a shower and call it a night; the alarm clock was going to go off early, and like I said, sleep sounded good.
I took a shower and hit the sack. I guess I must have fallen asleep, or at least was pretty close to it, when I was aware that someone was folding back the covers and getting into bed with me. That woke me up in a hurry, and in my confusion over what was going on, I was aware that it wasn’t Debby, who had been known to do that to me. In the dim light, I realized that I had been joined by someone tall, thin, and naked. I managed to put two and two together pretty quickly. “Susie,” I said, “what the hell?”
“Slide over,” she replied. “I may be thin, but I’m not that thin.”
“But what the hell are you doing?”
“Debby said you were pretty good, and told Annette and me that we ought to give you a try. We tossed a coin, and I won. Annette is just going to have to wait for tomorrow night.”
“Yeah, but what is your mother going to think about this?”
“She said to go for it. She tossed the coin for us. Annette called it, so I won fair and square.”
“What am I, the resident stud or something?”
“Pretty much,” she said with a giggle. “Debby said you might be a little reluctant, but to tell you that you can probably learn something from doing someone different than her.” She didn’t give me much more chance to argue, but rolled over and stuck her mouth on mine while she reached for my tool.
Looking back on it, Debby was right. Making it with Susie was considerably different than making it with Debby. It was less vigorous, more loving and caressing, and it went on for a while. Debby and I could probably have done it twice in the time that it took Susie and me to do it once, and I enjoyed every second of it. It wasn’t that it was better; it was just that it was different. It was probably an hour or more before we just lay there cuddling together after a very enjoyable ride.
After a while, Susie rolled over enough to get my cigarettes and lighter from the bedside stand; she lit one, and we shared it all the way down. There’s no more enjoyable way to smoke a cigarette. “That was very nice,” she said as we lay there smoking. “Debby was right. You are a lot better than the college boys I’ve been getting. There’s entirely too much slam-bam-thank you ma’am with them, and too often I don’t even get the thank you. They think they did me a favor or something.”
I’d been getting praise from Debby about the way I was picking up stuff, but to hear it from another girl really made me feel like I was learning something. “Just trying to be of service,” I told her.
“You took your time and made me enjoy it, kind of like Annette does when she does me. I don’t find that in a guy very often. In fact, never.”
“You and Annette get it on with each other?”
“Since we were little girls.” I heard her giggle. “Well, young teens, anyway. We wanted to find out what a kiss felt like and things sort of took off from there. I guess you could say we’re bi, but only with each other. We still prefer men, but each other will do in a pinch if there’s no one else available. I guess it comes from growing up around here. There weren’t many guys in our age group, and the ones who weren’t assholes were pretty well all taken. You don’t seem to act like an asshole, and you’re good for a woman. I like that.”
We just lay there talking gently for a while. I gave her the short summary version of the trouble I’d had with Brittany, and she told me a little of some of the troubles she’d had in college in finding a guy who would take her seriously. “It wasn’t till a couple months ago that I got going with Brad, and he might be the one,” she explained. “And while we’ve been in bed, we’re not to the point where we’re exclusive yet. If he’s still interested next fall, I might have something there. It’s still too early to tell, though.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s a tech freak, computers and stuff,” she explained. “Tall and lanky with a scraggly beard, and I don’t think he knew what a girl was until I tripped him. He’s not bad in bed, but there’s room for improvement. You’re a lot better. I was thinking this was going to be a pretty lonely summer, but right now it’s looking like I’m going to be having some good times after all.”
“Yep, resident stud, that’s me,” I said with a laugh.
“For sure. Hey, while I’m thinking about it, I might as well tell you that Annette likes it a little different than I do. She likes it more forceful, more active. Kind of like Debby, but even more. You’ll find out tomorrow night. She also has some kinks I don’t have. You’ll see what I mean.”
“You’re saying she likes to be ridden hard and put away wet.”
“Right,” she said after a laugh. “That’s a good way of putting it. I don’t mind it once in a while, but she digs it more than I do.” She rolled over and cuddled up next to me, then added, “If you’re up for it we’ve got time to do it again, but that alarm goes off pretty damn early.”
So, we did it again, the long and slow way; it was pretty late when we finished up. By then we were both getting tired, and we just fell asleep together. The alarm went off before we were really ready for it, but we had to get up. Susie gave me a good morning kiss, then headed back to the house, still nude. It was starting to get a little light outside, but she didn’t seem to mind. Me, I took a shower, got dressed, and went over to the kitchen.
Debby was already there, getting started on breakfast. “So, how was it?” she asked.
By now I knew better than to be anything less than straight with her. Hell, she’d been the one who’d set it up the night before, after all. “Not bad,” I reported. “Different. Kind of fun in its way.”
“Did she have a good time?”
“I think so,” I replied. “I tried to make it good for her, anyway, and she seemed to like it, said she did.”
“Good,” she said. “I guess that guy she has down at college really wasn’t doing that much for her, and she really needed some loving. I thought you were just the guy to give it to her.”
“She sort of gave me that impression,” I agreed. “Anyway, I also sort of understood that you’ve set me up with Annette, too.”
“Most likely,” she grinned. “With Annette, you’re never quite sure. She’s goofy in several ways. Don’t get me wrong, a good goofy, but goofy. You’ll find out what I mean.”
Later in the morning I was out on the fuel dock, just finishing up with a customer and picking things up a little, when I looked up and saw Annette standing on the dock. “I guess Susie told you about our flipping a coin last night.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “But don’t let her or Debby push you into it. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“Oh, I want to,” she grinned. “I was having some second thoughts, but after talking to Susie this morning, I changed my mind again. You want to get together after the sign gets shut off for the night?”
