Saturday November 6, 1992
Ned and Irene had picked up the Eversoles in the wagon around 6:30 this morning, then Nick was over there as soon as he could after the alarm went of at 7:30 and could scarf down some breakfast. He rings the doorbell and after half a minute Miss April opens the door; last night had been a girlie thing for the three of them. She’s still in whatever she slept in and steps toward him with eyes locked, reaches behind his head, pulls him head down toward hers and she kisses him softly and starts to wiggle her tongue before Nick pulls away,
“Alright alright.”
April buries her head in his chest and laughs quietly while squeezing around his arms. Nick tries not to notice the lack of brassiere and the expected perkiness. Damn.
“Did she put you up to this?”
She tightens her squeeze momentarily before turning into the house and he follows, seeing no one else, obviously April occupied the couch overnight.
“She’s in the bathroom.”
“Good morning, by the way.”
“I’ve had better,” she taunts..
“I’ve done worse.”
This was the right response and she lights up as he heads back to knock on the bathroom door,
“Plumbing inspector.”
A startled half-scream emanates from within, then a flush.
“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”
The door swings open as she stands at the sink, hair tied back as he’d expect, nondescript tee shirt, thin, slate-blue sweats, fuzzy slippers that best resemble Tribbles, she even appears all business just washing her hands but he grabs hold of her for a smooch.
She resists, as expected, “Don’t, morning breath.”
“I brushed mine, gimme gimme gimme.”
He manages to kiss her cheek in what morphs into a once-over then she interrupts, “Let’s let another customer in here, hang on.”
She takes a half capful of Scope, swishes, gargles, spits, yells down the hall, “All yours, Apeshit.”
From the living room, “Is it safe?”
“He’ll be cowering in my room,” then she drags him into it and locks the door, and promptly resumes the once-over.
After a crazy week Nick remembers how good she feels and it’s been a while since they sustained a liplock for this long, finally he pauses it but holds close,
“Morning.”
“Morning.”
They peck and Nick fesses, “Your maid tried to slip me the tongue.”
Deej squeezes him and laughs heartily, “Hey no matter where you get your appetite just make sure to get your dinner at home,” then melts into a giggle fit.
“It hasn’t been like this for a while.”
“Mmmm, we get an oasis.”
“And we don’t have to drive to Indiana with another couple.”
“That’s right,” she pecks his nose and squeezes his buns, “OK go flirt with the help and let me get ready, kay?”
“Is she taking Sam?”
“Yeah they’re gonna screw around before she goes to grandparents’.”
“Deal.” He pecks her lips and slips out to the living room where the brunette has tidied up the couch so Nick scoops her up and sets her legs across his lap.
“Hi.”
“What do you want?”
“How’s it going?”
She looks at him for a second, “Better.”
“Good answer. What do you think of Stockton?”
April holds her gaze, gets moderately red and starts to giggle.
“OK sorry I asked.”
She laughs and leans on his shoulder.
“Is he gonna work for you guys?”
“Yeah some, he’ll be on call.”
“Excellent. That cat used to start chants in study hall and we’d join in, surprised no one got suspended, at least that I knew of.”
“Mature.”
“You got a better way to deal with study hall?”
“True.”
“So what’s Brenda like?”
“She thinks you’re a dork.”
“Sounds right. Has she been at the branch?”
“Got a certificate I think, she runs an office in town.”
“Gotcha.”
She pauses a second, “I’m gonna see if Sam’s alive yet,” then pecks him on the cheek and hops up.
“Good call.”
Nick thinks about turning on the TV but, nah, he goes over to Deej’s door,
“Hon I’m gonna take a stroll around back.”
She giggles.
Nick hears the other girls talking in Sam’s room and yells morning to Sam, gets an appropriately smartass response then heads around the non-garage side of the house, past the bare, winterized flower beds and toward the shed for a look inside.
Today really is an oasis. Yesterday he had spent entirely in Fred’s back office getting that server stood up, it’s pretty much a two-man job to carry it very far and he already has a workstation set up there to stage the network. On days like that it’s cool enough to be on-call from the school since show-stoppers are pretty rare at this point. Nick hadn’t really been comfortable keeping the equipment at his house anyway and Fred never runs out of banter; it’s just like his other office at the campus but with a different type of clientele in the next room.
The shed is obviously original-issue and would be right at place in his Grandma Joyce’s back yard, but it’s sturdy and gets the job done. There’s a hasp with no lock, he opens it up, half expecting Sam to somehow jump out and scream a surprise, but he just finds the hallowed Farmall mower he’d seen his gal astride on that dreamy bike trip. This shed is definitely homebrew, framed with 2x4s and chip board painted earth brown to match the house, gabled roof with some things resting in the rafters. Floor appears to be concrete blocks on gravel, classic.
From behind him, “Find a good a makeout spot in there finally?”
Nick casually turns around to find his tall strawberry donned in the long denim skirt, flats, classic white blouse and her good coat, and one of those plastic headbands that keeps it behind her ears.
“You look great.”
“Thank you, dear.”
Nick had gone a little extra himself today with a decent sweater and jeans and the brown leather shoes, the stuff he only wears to work when they expect suited visitors in the building.
He closes up the shed and takes her hand and leads her toward the crawlspace door he’d helped her with.
After a pause, “Hon I can’t say it enough, sorry for making you do that, with the pickle jar.”
She sighs, “Sweetie…my phone has a dialer too you know. I wasn’t ready.”
“Same here.”
She pulls him in for a squeeze, which they hold in silence for a bit then head around front.
Sam is ready for the day, she and the brunette in cute hoodies and pigtails and standing at attention as Deej grabs her purse and bag.
“You gonna lock up?” She asks her sister, “And leave that lamp on?”
“M’AAM yes M’AAM.” Then she turns to Nick, “Be sure to put a helmet on that soldier, soldier!”
April remains at attention but flushes and fights a laugh with everything she has.
Deej fires back, “I’ll deal with your kind later, punk.”
As she and Nick turn to the door Sam goes on, “She leaves a girl to return a woman. Amen.”
They both salute, Sam begins whistling When Johnny Comes Marching Home as April echoes as a Southern Belle,
“Ayyye-meyeennn, sister.”
While pulling the door shut Deej rumbles, “Get me outta here before I knock their damn heads together.”
“We gowwne,” Nick assures as he heads to open her door then the hatch for her things.
Once on the road, he inquires, “Just what do they think we’re doing today?”
“Doesn’t matter, they’re two losers without dates, so…well, at least the younger one, the freak.”
Nick thinks a second. “Payback will be a bitch, won’t it?”
“I’m already on it.”
“Just suremakin’.”
She smiles and looks over, “I love it when you do that.”
They clasp hands until he needs both to get them to the grocery, where into the cart goes a pound of hamburger, four potatoes, two cans of green beans, an onion, two cans of tomato soup, and so on. There’s bread at the house that Nick can’t wait to put in the meat grinder for crumbs. Although, Deej asks if they can try it with rice and so they’ll go with that since there should be some.
After the grocery they hit a drive through for a 32-oz Budweiser, to which she remarks,
“Next time we’ll try wine.”
Nick agrees, drives on but sees a truck blocking his normal turn so cuts through a neighborhood, where a few houses in they see an oder woman bending over to scoop up some leaves. He honks at the very instant they are directly passing her. Deej covers her mouth, turns toward the window and laughs to herself.
He speaks up, “You smell nice, too.” She’s wearing the recently exhumed perfume he’d given her all those years ago.
She keeps her head toward the window but reaches back to clasp his hand.
Back at the empty, corner-lot Swanson Cape Cod on a cool, sunny morning our heroes get to work. Nick washes and cuts up the taters (Deej points out the nutrition in the skins so they avoid peeling). Deej puts on the rice and gets a crock pot ready for taters and beans then tracks down a pan to grease up for the meatloaf. Once the taters are peeled and the quick rice is done (she would have preferred the traditional kind but no one keeps that on hand) Nick is once again pressed into service to stir up the meat, rice, onions and fixins and get every last bit of it onto the wax paper so she can form it into the pan to set in the fridge, for now, next to said 32-oz Budweiser.
After they wash their hands and flick each other with rinse water Deej ends up on the couch first, props her feet on the hassock and yawns.
“Serves you right for partying all night.”
“Yeah Sam was smart and went to bed after dozing off - OH, I got a treat, grab my purse.”
Nick complies then takes the seat next to her after she pats on the space to her left. She places the purse to her right then digs through it some, fusses with something then,
“Okay, long story short, after Sambutt turned in…um, we had a Polaroid.”
“Oh God.”
She laughs maniacally, “Got your eyes peeled yet?”
Nick takes a breath and beholds a shot of Deej, from the rear, lounging on her side without a stitch on.
She looks at him expectantly as he raises his eyebrow.
“Damn.”
Next shot is sitting up and giving a seductive look while angled at the side. He thinks he can see a bit of bush but doesn’t feel it’s polite to look. She pauses, then, taunts,
“Need your glasses?”
“They’d just steam up.”
She nudges his elbow then flips to the next, on her side facing with an innocent smile.
“I’m afraid to see what’s next.”
She flips to one on her knees, from behind but with her shoulders turned toward the camera.
“Giving you any ideas yet?”
“Hmmmm.”
She feels his groin, “Mmmm hmm,” then flips to the next shot, in which she’s full facing, on her knees but covering her own groin with her hands, bosoms are visible but the expression is priceless.
“Honey your expressive eyes are what kill.”
She flips to the final while watching his face, this time it’s April.
“Oh my….”
Deej laughs quietly. She’s completely nude, body facing away but head turned at the camera with a whatcha-gonna-do expression and shielding her bosoms.
“She wanted you to have this. Anything more will cost ya though.”
“Oh I bet it would.”
Deej pecks him on the cheek and hands him the collection of six.
Nick quickly puts the bonus pic on the bottom, “That one will go in the Trotters box.”
“Mmmm hmm, and what about the others?”
“There’s room beneath the mattress.”
Deej bursts in to a release of maniacal laughter as he sets them carefully on a stand, then he asks,
“So what’s your read on the other night?”
“Oh Lombos? Yeah I’m pretty sure Brenda wasn’t terribly impressed either way but she got an eyeful of Curt, girls will be girls.”
“Yeah she seems like more of a party-er.”
“Could be, but has her head on, we’ll see. Curt may have gotten her number.”
“I’d kinda bet on it. He’d be a bit…advanced…for our April.”
“True true. She’s really…I mean, you can tell, she can get pretty…lonely.”
“Best I know to do is put in some laundry and set her on the washer.”
“WHAT?” Deej must have been waiting for a cue. She grabs him around the arms and throws him onto the couch then maintains a warrior expression while, despite his half-hearted struggling, pins his elbows down and digs her chin into his sternum.
She goes into a line he’d related from some wrestlers at school…
“Bowahh…I…have…had…enough…of…yoww…SHIYAAAT…knowwatayemeeeen?”
All this time he’s able to try for the boobs and gets in a fingertip swipe now and then. Pride starts to set in a bit but he can’t think of a way to get free, so he goes psych,
“You look like that dude in the Shining.”
Deej grunts, then starts working her way down his front, unpins his elbows then quickly lifts up his sweater then blows on his belly, over and over with a lot of slobber as he squirms, but squeaks out,
“I’m gonna do something like that to you latter.”
“Mmmm.” She relents and slides back up to lie on his shoulder. After a few seconds, “Did I ever tell you that I sucked my thumb till about sixth grade?
“No way.”
“Just in my room. It helped me get to sleep.”
“And led to braces?”
“Bite my ass.”
“Later.”
She giggles, then, “Sometimes when we’re like this I almost suck my thumb.”
“But other times you end up - nevermind.”
This earns him a front wedge, but after he readjusts she stays quiet and they relax a while, then eventually he asks,
“When do we put that meat loaf in?”
“Mmm, you do mean lunch right? (giggles) Oh it takes about an hour, then, a few to cool down.”
Nick peeks at the VCR, “Wanna slide it in and play some rummy?”
“Oooh, yeah, used to play that with grandpa. Tried to get him to teach me euchre but (in a mock male voice) gotta have four players.”
“Yeah I never got the hang of those games with the tricks.”
“Alright little britches, find some cards and I’ll get the stove hot (giggles) - hey, can we have some tunes?”
Nick finds a well-worn pack of Bicycle poker cards in a drawer and grabs a tape from upstairs, the earlier Great White Once Bitten taped from library vinyl, lo these many years ago.
Nick deals first and they agree to 500 points to win (or whenever the meat loaf is done), number cards five, royals ten a piece, aces fifteen regardless of how used. Play anything off each other, straights, sets, and grab as far back in the discard pile as long as you use the furthest one back and keep the rest. It’s what some would call dirty rummy but hey they ain’t here so who gives a fat hairy flip.
The first hand lasts three tracks into the tape and Nick has to pause a bit when Rock Me starts, the bass, harp, bluesy elegance.
“Always loved this song.”
“Play it for me.”
“I know the key, would like to.”
It turns out Deej knows just how to play footsie while completely focused on the game and sipping 7-Up. They don’t converse much, she just bobs her head from side to side in tune to whatever tempo comes along, but at the last track he prefaces,
“Ever heard this one?”
“Maybe, sounds familiar.”
“Once I heard it on shortwave, out of New Orleans and it was mesmerizing.”
“Mmmm, it’s pretty.”
“I really need to learn it.”
“Yes you do.”
“Sam could figure out most of it.”
Deej points at him in agreement then lays down all her cards. At this point she’s still fifteen points behind. But who’s counting.
His deal again, and he finds his old Heart tape from ‘85 that he bought with mowing money. Not surprisingly, she now sings along while playing footsie and squeezing every point possible from her cards.
The meatloaf comes out in the middle of the hand so they make it the last even though Nick is up by 90 but hints he’ll make it up to her in other ways.
“Oh well,” she grins and stares at her cards.
Final tally before lunch has him up by 75, she goes out first but Nick had more on the table, as usual. By now lunch has the house smelling wonderful, as a grandma would always say (probably a lot of our grandmas would say), nothing does that like a meat loaf.
Taters are tender and they joke about going in to catering.
Nick observes, “This would be great with a little kraut.”
“God, you should have been there when they boiled all that cabbage, Sam and I stayed with grandparents that one night, even with the windows open it was unbearable.”
“Did you think they’d lost their minds?”
She shakes her head and pauses, “Let’s just say we’re in better days now.”
Nick leaves it at that.
“Although I see that jar is down a bit, do you make that many reubens?”
“It’s a go-to on leftover nights, sometimes weekends.”
“Do you keep the corned beef and everything?”
“Any lunch meat will do.”
“I’m almost hoping your folks can get a whiff of this meatloaf, they might have hope in you yet.”
“Science can only -”
“I know, I know.”
The table is cleaned, leftovers stashed away and they decide on Princess Bride, which he’d grabbed from the ol’ liberry to aid while digesting. Nick lets her doze off and probably does as well, but just after Wesley ‘dies’ he offers coffee, she declines and he makes himself an instant and brings the oreos over. During the wedding scene, Nick insists that if they ever get hitched they have to get this guy to do the ceremony.
Deej says she’ll pray about it.
Once the movie wraps up she looks at him expectantly, which brings to mind the photographs lying on the end table.
Nick scoops them up, “I better get these to a safe place.”
She follows him up the stairs and stretches out on the bed as he retrieves the Trotters box. He thinks to ask,
“Did you ever finish all these old letters?”
“Mmmmmm hmmmm.”
He glances over and she’s watching her finger as it makes little figure eights on his bed. Since they have time stretching into the evening he might as well play some guitar, so he flips on the amp and takes a stab at some Great White, starting by a stum and arpeggio of E minor. This sounds close to Save Your Love at least. By fidgeting around some he remembers a variant in his old book and tries it, ahh, that ninth, kinda sounds like the M*A*S*H theme (although it isn’t).
Nick gradually picks up on the fact that she has been undoing the snaps of her long skirt, trying to sneak it when he’s concentrating on the frets, and after the fourth one the tension is just right,
“Need some help there?”
She just smiles expectantly.
Nick puts down the ax, flips off the amp and takes the space on the twin bed facing her and takes her hand,
“You wore that for a reason.”
She kisses him, he joins for a long while before reaching for the remaining snaps, he adds a caress in between each snap, she starts to undo her blouse at about the same pace. His mind thinks back, and he blurts out,
“How did you get so good at softball?”
“Later.”
He keeps munching, unsnapping, then it’s time for a changeup, he moves his mouth along her neck for just a bit, down through the center of the chest, and to her abdomen, stays there and resumes the last few snaps.
“You’re getting close to some classified areas,” she admonishes.
“I’m a special agent.”
She blurts out a laugh that he can’t discern is a scoff or not, either way, the skirt comes across and he moves on top of her and by some unknown force her freshly-shaven legs take their place over his shoulders. He removes his sweater then takes her hands as he munches her inner thighs, then she speaks up, trepidly,
“Can we soak now?”
“You Okay?”
“I just want to savor this.”
“Good call.”
Deej hops up in her bikini-ish state and Nick looks her over.
“What?”
“God, you’re sculpted, can tell you been running, girl.”
She demurs with a smile, then glances away, clears her throat, “You start the water then I’ll pee.”
“Howbout save it and make me a fountain?”
Her eyes rage. “Nicholas!”
“It was your idea…kinda….”
“But…in the water?”
“It’s just salts.”
She winces and exhales, “true.”
“Besides it’s best to be in the tub as you fill it so you get it the right temp.”
She lets that rattle, “Good point, alright, you get it started and I’ll get a candle going.”
“You’re the best, babe.”
She proceeds down the stairs and he has to ogle a bit before starting the bath, which he starts with some shea butter bubble bath that he slips onto the grocery list so he doesn’t have to make a special trip, although, yes it’s better to let a female get that stuff. Nick whips off his remaining garments into his room and meets her in the buff as she ascends the stairs with that expectant look of hers. He takes his seat opposite the faucet and she draws the curtain, and pretty soon he sees a light flickering and the door closes. It’s mighty hard not to tingle at a time like this. Within a few seconds the opposite end of the curtain moves his way and she peeks at his face, then his naughty bits, then takes a careful step into the water.
“Ooooh, just right. You’ll get a big tip.”
Nick just watches as she gracefully gets both feet in and stands there with hands on hips, and, oh, pony tail on top, then,
“Care to join me?”
She gracefully seats herself on the wall, “Ooh cold”, then braces herself on both sides to lower her bum first, splashes her legs a bit then leans back.
“Hmm, I can tell your junior partner is glad to see me.”
Nick just takes a deep breath, then, “cut that off whenever you want hon.”
She uses her foot to easily swipe the shower handle off then leans back against him with a knee on each side.
“Watch the phone start ringing off the hook,” he muses.
“Armageddon wouldn’t get me out of here, wow.”
He takes her hands, then,
“So just how did you get so good at softball?”
“Why that, of all things?”
“You were a different person out there, a star, then you’d come up and talk to lil ‘ol me.”
“Well I had this really cute fan that made me tapes.”
“Crap, a competitor.”
“Not really,” then reaches for a peck.
“Mmmm, that camping trip.”
“Oh yeah, you guys came out for a night in the tents.”
She draws a deep breath. “Nicky…that night was...absolutely...perfect.”
“What, running around the playground?”
She tears up a bit and sniffs.
“Sweetie-”
“I kept wondering if you were gonna take us into the big concrete - tile?”
“Oh yeah, bad memories.”
“We could have made good ones.”
“Well, I was kinda led in there the year before and she got nasty, then apologized, OH and then ended up at the branch off and on, still see her once in a while.”
“So I could have drug your ass in there?”
“I wasn’t ready to make moves. Did we even do any real kissing, was just like, almost kissing.”
She sighs. “It counts, and you have your ways, Nick Swanson, you make more moves than you realize…far more.”
“It felt like we were headed somewhere, I didn’t know where.”
“Here.”
She slowly turns around for a more substantial liplock then melts out of it. “I’m shaking.”
“I feel like a slug wondering if that fountain is ready.”
She giggles, “Mmm, okay, you get the honors,” then lifts her legs back.
Nick hesitates then gently reaches down, down there, and eases the groomed, glistening lips back, then whispers, “OK?”
She gently sighs then it starts, shimmering in the candlelight, rising 6 or 8 inches and cascading onto his fingers.
“Oh my,” is all he can muster out. The tingles are back.
She seems to be pushing for a good show, and it starts to wane after a few seconds, then suddenly: a quack.
“Dammit!” She drives her head back into her shoulder. “You should probably ignore that.”
“Worse has happened in here.”
This sends her into gales of laughter.
Nick enjoys her laughter and takes her hands again. “Speaking of the tape…”
“I would love to.”
Nick starts exploring her, the arms, elbows, tummy, says hi to the girls,
“Is there any extra charge for this?”
This earns a splash in the face for which he has to blow out his nose, hnnnnn hnnnnnnshpch.
“There’s extra charge for snot in the water.”
Once he can breathe again he resumes, she lets him caress her thighs and return to the downtown area, which he explores in earnest to give her some good vibes. She gets into it for a bit then takes his hands,
“Let’s heat up the water one more time, then…”
“Deal.”
So she foots some hot water and gets comfortable leaning against him, and before long he admits.
“I almost wrote you a letter this week.”
“Mmmm?”
“Sometimes I wish we could just have a space for just us, no bodies, no family, no work, no school, just…us. This is the closest I’ve ever known to that.”
She pulls his hand to her face and holds it there.
They keep still for a bit longer, till the water grows cool and after they each probably doze off, just momentarily, a time or two. Nick lets her make the call, when finally,
“Okay sport, my bum is numb.”
“Hopefully there’s two towels in here.”
It turns out there are, and pretty soon they are dry enough to stretch out on the bed where he arranges a touche massage. Then a tongue massage. At one point he takes a swipe at her backdoor and she gasps.
“Nick!”
After this he cups her buns, caresses her hips and signals her to roll over so he can start face to face again, pretty soon working down the coast to spend time with the twins, and he notices for the first time how they twitch a little, when suckled. Then, for whatever reason her tummy is fascinating. Gradually he works further southward, which draws an admonishment,
“I’m not responsible for any gushing.”
For this he licks the very tip of her hood and she emits a muffled shriek.
Gradually he starts in, she tastes of ambrosia, dark, spicy, like the time he tried a bite of rum cake up at Pap’s but wasn’t allowed a whole piece. But now he’s got the full piece, and times like this he has to remember not to be in a hurry, and remember lessons learned, but at times, throw out the book. He caresses her thighs, wow, this feels like worship, and if so, guess that makes him a heretic.
It doesn’t take long to lock into a rhythm, biting the lips now and then, probe into the tart darkness, she’s getting closer and he plays it safe by staying toward the top, sounds like a sneeze is about here, sure enough, the squirt is a few milliseconds before the
PUFF
She exhales and he knows to quit, so he pecks her hood then discreetly wipes his chin with one hand, then grabs a blanket to cover them both up. Naturally she’s in the center and he has to wake her momentarily but she warily turns over onto his shoulder and sleeps about 20 minutes, such a wonderful sound against a gentle autumn breeze outside. Once again he expects the phone to ring, but it doesn’t.
Nick has probably dozed off himself when she stirs,
“Mmm,” and plants one on his chest, then reaches for his business. “What do you want?”
“Just…don’t stop.”
And so she doesn’t stop, she scoots down to place her girls over it a bit while teasing the tip with her tongue, then generously returns the favor, which at this point doesn’t take long, and she seems to purposefully collect the product as he melts into the earth, then she rises up, swallows, then burps. Nick can only grin during the ensuing fit of giggles she has caused herself.