Antifreeze…Part 3.

It’s so warm when I wake up. I can hear the phone playing my audio-coffee. I like *Don’t Worry Be Happy* it’s just one of those songs that makes me smile or steers me that way even on bad days.

I’ve got these big strong arms around me and this really nice furnace of Chris’s body pressed to me and I can feel him semi hard pressed against me. I’m relieved that I’m not doing the morning hokey-pokey with my own bit. It’s not that I hate that part of me I kind of don’t. But this soon it might be a problem where Chris isn’t chasing me because I’m like this.

And the fact he’s not chasing me is really different and it’s really nice. I close my eyes again and inhale and enjoy the smell. I like the way that he smells. Not all men remotely smell like that and honestly I do compare them to cigars. Yeah, yeah smoking’s bad and I agree but every once in awhile I’ll get a whiff in the club of a good cigar compared to other smells and I don’t mind it. It’s like a completely different animal. Guys are like that too.

I know its hormones and pheromones and girl brained reactions but still it’s a sexually nummy smell. Earth tones and soap, clean skin and yes sex…Chris has this sort of clean sexual smell about him.

If it wouldn’t be awkward I might have just rolled over and put my face in his chest.
Oh…

Dammit that thought’s waking me up in places I’m not ready for.

I need to get up anyway.

I carefully slide out of his arms with a pang. I don’t want to…I want to stay here and leaving his bed is just about as hard as driving away the last night. I get up and turn to look at him.

Something in me does this little clench.

He looks so good like this, relaxed and there’s that thing inside him that he’s got clenched up inside well he’s not doing that right now and he looks. I think I get how a guy can be beautiful in a strictly masculine way. And that’s almost contrasted with all those scars too.

I kind of get art right about now. Not that I have any artistic ability whatsoever but while I can’t draw or paint I do have a camera in my purse and I can’t help it but to take a few pictures of him sleeping. I want to keep these, their special.

I quietly get my purse and head to the bathroom and I stop in the doorway just…I just looked back and his arm sort of sleep slid where I was and then he slips over himself to where I was sleeping feeling, searching for me and still in that sleep zone too he…moved his head to my pillow and inhaled…I see this smile there before his eyes do the slow waking opening.

Best goddamn compliment in my life.

And it kind of rocks me hard when it mixes with the feelings of him waking up. I get almost teary when his eyes open and focus in on me and he’s so got with the scruff and the hair this whole sleepy cat thing going on.

And he smiles. “Hey.”

Oh the good butterflies just woke up. “Hey, morning.” I get out after swallowing the lump in my throat.

“You sleep okay?”

“Too good, I didn’t want to get up.”

“Yeah, same here.”

“Chris you’re sill in bed.”

“No, I didn’t want you to get out of bed.”

“I have to go to work; Harlequin books hasn’t offer to re-write my life yet.”

He smiles and nods. “I’ll get the coffee on, you want breakfast?”

“Please, and that you Chris food always seems to taste better when someone else makes it.”

“What if they’re a bad cook?”

“I’ve had your food you’re a great cook.”

“I took classes.”

“Really?”

He slips to the side of the bed and nods as he massages his bad leg wincing a bit. “I don’t sleep good Shayne, it’s better and stuff but for awhile it was hard to deal so a guy I was in the service with told me about taking night classes. It’s actually how I got into the glass blowing and the pottery.”

Oh….so that’s how.

“I’ve thought about doing that. I really want to get my GED maybe go to vocational school or a community college.”

“You should.”

“Thanks, can I use your shower?”

“Sure go ahead I’ll be down stairs.” He gets up and limps out of the room but he stops and her turns the thermostat up for me. I hear the furnace kick in and smile and go take a shower.

I’m like a lot of girls, well like the everyday ones and not the ones that walk around with one of those clutch purses. I have a real girl’s purse. It’s a mess but there’s stuff in here for just in case. Toothpaste and a toothbrush, a little bottle of mouth wash and some other odds and ends from those little travel sized bottles and cans you get at the drugstore.

I even have a spare pair of panties. Rolled up in a zip-lock baggy and a dryer sheet with an elastic I have three pairs of cheap no frills comfy cotton panties just in case. As a girl just in case happens more than you think.

I shower and use the little bottle of Pert and borrow his hair dryer and then scrunchie it back and use some deodorant spray and get dressed in my clothes. It’s really odd putting the same clothes back on without the whole walk of shame.

I can smell the coffee from up here and it pulls me down to the kitchen. He looks good wearing a bandana on his head. I can smell bacon cooking and he’s making pancakes and I know where the cups are and look for the coffee maker. I spot the French press there on the table and I make myself a small sip first. Black just to know what I want and how much to put into he coffee.

I actually just go with a little cream because he’s making pancakes and I like darker stronger coffee when I have something sweet. Good black coffee and a small slice of pecan pie is just heaven. And I tend to black coffee with chocolate too.

But spotting the little tin of real maple syrup on the table having a bit of cream in my coffee would go with it great. “This is great Chris. I haven’t had real maple syrup in ages.”

He nods. “I grew up on it, I don’t like the fake stuff.” He gestures at the tin and I see Brentwood Farms, Bridgetown, Maine. As part of the labeling.

“Is this where you’re from?”

“No, but it’s like ten minutes away by car my dad and grand dad used to take us over there.”

“They send this out to you?”

He nods. “Yeah…I don’t get home that much….” Oh…that was quiet.

“What happened?”

“I came back, and I was hurt and I got hooked on pain pills which pushed my PTSD over the edge and I was drinking a lot then…I took it out on people, I hurt friends and family and when It came to ahead I went a little John-J. on people.”

“John J….?”

“Rambo…”

“Oh…” I don’t get it. It must’ve showed too. He leans on the counter after flipping things.

“I hit the wall hard. I couldn’t work then because my leg was a lot worse then and I wasn’t sleeping unless pain pills and booze knocked me out and then there was the way people treated me. It was either pity for being wounded or scared of what I was through and awkward and then there’s some that were all anti war about it and didn’t get when you swear that oath that you don’t run away…then it got worse and worse and the nightmares wouldn’t stop and I got into speed…and that pushed me to the point of after a week without sleeping I locked myself in dad’s hunting camp with my guns.”

“You tried to kill yourself?”

“Yeah, no…me and others I was just this still throbbing wound then. I got talked down and did some time in psyche and when I got out…home wasn’t really home anymore and I packed my duffle and started hitching.”

“Out here?”

He nods smiling. “Yeah, best therapy ever actually and the best physio too.”

“You know you just pull the whole thing from the move The Lucky One right?”

He grins. “Yeah and not really that uncommon. There’s a lot of us out there just…just looking for something.”

“You found that here?”

“Maybe…” He looks at me smiling that. I blush a bit.

“No seriously, I want to know?”

“It just happened…I was crashing at a friends and they were good people and they were trying to get a contracting company up and going and by the time he got it going I been long since tired on sleeping in tents or on couches and bought this place. Somewhere in all of that it became home out here.”

I look at him and nod at the refill of my coffee. “Aside from how we left and stuff we’ve got a lot in common. Hitchhiking isn’t fun stuff when you’re a runaway.” I look at him. “Or a refugee from your old life.”

He gives me that sweet look again as he sets down the pancakes and the bacon. He’s got real butter and I load it on with five pancakes. He does them thick but saucer sized some five’s just right and some bacon and oh…oh…it’s really, really good.

Foodgasmy good.

“Women must love you’re cooking for them like this.”

He nods. “It’s the stuff in the bad nights that kills it though.”

He’s looking at me pretty seriously and I look back.

“I’ve nightmares too…not so much anymore but getting raped messes you up for life…for life. You never get over it just through it and I still have nightmare of that night when dad found everything out. And on really, really bad nights…sometimes it all jumbles together. I’m still pretty screwed up if you ask me.”

And we’re looking at each other like, well like he dared to tell me about stuff that honestly I think people have walked away from something really great because of…and me…I’m warning him too….I might not be screwed up from being in war but I’m no saint and I’m no prize either.

But maybe because of that I both of us we just sort of go from staring to sipping coffee and staring at each other over our cups to smiling again.

It’s really, really nice to have a guy tell you stuff…it’s like Chris is saying…I like you, and I’m broken here and here and here and I wanted you to know before we both get hurt, because I like you.

And it’s nice too to be with someone and actually tell them…see I’m broke here and here and here and I want you to know so we both don’t get hurt and you’ll get why I’m a crazy emotional bitch at times.

It’s so odd too, to have just opened up with someone like this.

I’ve really hit something completely uncharted here. Scary, and wonderful and straightforward…and amazing. And…my phone gives me a warning chime of *Highway to hell’s* opening. It’s my reminder so when I’m busy that I have to…

Okay Chris has this amusing look on his face. “It’s my work alarm.”

“Work alarm?”

“Yeah sometimes I get busy doing stuff and this goes off after my waking me up alarm to let me know that I better get motoring and take off to work.”

He laughs.

“What?”

“One that’s all kinds of cool and two you really are a mid-west girl because I haven’t heard “Motoring” used as a verb since I knew guys from there in the army.”

I blush again but it’s a kind of happy blush. It’s been….actually I’m not sure that any guy has thought that something that I do is cool. Usually all my other relationships are/were kind of settling for someone that was a douche instead of being alone then getting hurt when it falls to shit.

I really didn’t want to be the not be alone type of girl but sometimes the lonely times just get bad enough that you do settle.

Did settle, thankfully I’ve wised up and it’s been over a year almost two since I’ve been with anyone….okay last new years I went out with the girls from work and we had a drunken thing in the bathroom at a club but I’m pretty sure that a drunken BJ doesn’t count.

Being called or something that I did getting called cool is a really nice lift. God he’s really good at making me feel good about being me while just being himself.

Chris smiles at me. “I have to get a start early too, I want to finish up an order I have for a client’s pub. I’ll walk you to the car?”

“Sure.” I smile and he walks me to my car only stopping to get me another cup of coffee to take with me in one of his thermos mugs. “Thanks, I’ll bring it back.”

“No rush I have a lot of them from doing that whole contracting thing.”

“Oh, okay…”

I get the car started and get the heater going and was going to turn around and tell him to have a good day and to thank him for coming with me but when I turn around he’s right there. Like not just right there but I could almost grave my breasts across his chest close to me.

“Thanks for staying Shayne.”

“Uhm…yeah thanks for having me…”

“I mean it…I’ve…it’s been a long time since I slept like that.”

“Me too actually. Honestly Chris I’m not even sure if I’ve ever slept like that.”

“Good.”

“Yeah me too, it was good.”

“Shayne…”

“Yeah…?”

“I want to kiss you now.”

“Uhm…ok…”

Again it’s all I can get out and Chris kisses me and it’s this duck in head tilted enough direct kiss on my lips and it’s warm and it’s soft but at the same time it’s got this demanding warmth there like…and he does it again and again and softer sometimes and slower others and deeper on a few of them and he’s not just kissing me because kissing me is something that you do when you like someone this, this is I like you and I’m kissing you because I like kissing you kissing.

So totally different.

There’s just something in being kissed like that that spreads so much warmth through me because honestly the guys I’ve been with didn’t know the difference or didn’t care.

Chris is not a guy…he’s a man.

So totally different.

A guy can make you ache for him because he’s hot.

A man can make you ache for him because he’s him.

Chris is both.

I’m aching, my nipples are so hard the feel like they’re drilling holes through my bra and my top and I swear my breasts are swelled and heavy with want and I feel that empty ache of wanting a man…Yeah, some people might be all grossed out by that and stuff but it’s me…I’m pre-op and likely always will be…I’m just me and I’m not gay, or I don’t see myself as gay…maybe bi since I have been with a few girls but I like guys and I like me…I mean usually…it’s just sexually who I am.

And I’m really feeling that need and attraction right now.

I break the kiss because I really need to go to work and I…dammit I always have to leave him when I really don’t want to.

Though if I was really falling and really deeply in love with a guy like Chris having the surgery might be totally worth it.

I’m actually panting a little well breathing fast at least and he hugs me again nice and tight. “Have a good day at work.” I love the soft gentle caring way he says it into my ear.

“You too… I…I’m not working tomorrow though I’m getting ready and stuff so call me? We need to figure things out if you still feel like getting away from everything for the long weekend.”

“I still feel like it. What vehicle are we taking?”

“Would it be bad it we took your truck? I have things to take, my sister Stacy’s in a bad way.”

“Sure, I’ll put the truck liner in and get the box out too.”

“Really? You don’t mind?”

Chris opens my door for me and I get in and he leans down and gives me this really sweet kiss. “No I don’t mind at all.” We share another little sweet kiss and he smiles that smile-porn smile at me and says softly as he’s pulling from my lips. “Drive safe.”

Oh god that man could make a mannequin wet.

And once again I’m all stirred up driving away from Chris seeing him watch me go in my rearview mirror.

Is this really happening to me? Am I actually falling for this guy?

I drive to work instead of home and I get into the spare work clothes I have there. It’s always a good idea when you work at a grocery store to keep spares or at least one set there because you never know what’s going to spill on you or whatever. I actually keep two sets after getting blasted by soda when a pallet of cans fell off a forklift and a whole lot of the cans busted and sprayed a bunch of us out back and had a baby puke on me all on one shift.

And it still wasn’t as gross and dirty as doing lap-dances.

It’s a pretty good day and aside from being really aroused at the start and pretty much whenever I think of Chris things go pretty smoothly and I go to see Gary at lunch knocking at the office door.

“Hey, you busy?”

He shakes his head mouth full of pastrami on rye. He mumbles around the mouthful. “What’s up?”

“Is there any chance that I can get some deals on some stuff?”

“Like?”

“Anything…I was talking to one of my sisters yesterday and she’s really hurting. He husband took off on her and the kids because she was sick and the bastard couldn’t handle her being sick.”

“Sounds like a complete asshat. If I can ask what’s wrong with her?”

“Fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis, and she has two kids.”

Gary winces. “Fibro sucks really bad.”

“Yeah, from what she said yeah. The fucker left the impression that he was “fed-up” because apparently she doesn’t look sick and he went all super dick about it.”

“Sure, there some stuff in the back bin from some of the damaged palates and you see anything you think she’ll need from the store room you get it and I’ll sell that to you at cost.”

“Cost…really?”

“Sure, this way we don’t lose any cash not really and it won’t even hit the floor.”

“Thanks Gary.”

“No, no need she sounds like she’s in a bad way and things got to be tight since she likely can’t work. This is just a little thing really; you’re the one spending the money.”

“She’s my sister and she’s giving me a chance again, she knows about me and to her it’s not a big deal.”

“But to you it’s a really big deal.”

“Yeah it is, thanks.” I give him a big hug and he blushes nice and red.

I head out to start looking at the stuff that she’s likely going to need. The stuff in the back bin isn’t expired or even dented but if the box it’s in is damaged we usually have to send it back to the company if it’s like a whole pallet or to the shipping office. But… if it’s not worth shipping back because one box out of the shipment was damaged we’ll take it home since it just gets marked off as damaged and is covered.

It’s a good thing that we’ll be taking Chris’s truck then.

I do ask some of the others if I mind getting this or that and it’s stuff like canned goods, soup and canned tomatoes, beans, and canned pasta…which is ick by the way but I’m sure that the kids will like it and I’m hoping no one had peanut allergies since I have five good sized jars that were misprints and didn’t have the labels on them. Smuckers jam with the wrong lids on them glitches really in shipping and even in packaging stuff happens a lot actually.

I fill the trunk and the backseat of the car. Yeah there’s a lot of stuff there mostly because it pretty much happens in every shipment with some thing and we’re actually a pretty big store. Mind you there’s not a lot of room in my car either when you’re putting in lots of stuff like that. The toilet paper took up a lot of room. The packages we have here came in the other day and they didn’t wrap right. So they’re seamed with packing tape. I don’t take all of them but I take three packs of sixteen rolls.

Hey women use twice as much TP as guys and she has kids.

I’ll stop in and get the rest of the stuff tomorrow with Chris. I drive home and unload it all before getting some supper and then getting changed for my shift tonight at the club. Its Thursday day night so some of the guys will be getting paid as Thursday day and Friday are popular paydays for people maybe the tips will be a little better.

If I didn’t need the money and stuff I’d really like to quit dancing and try a normal life.

………………………………............It’s off to the club again and again I head in really early so I can get some more time and some more dances in and some time down in the boxes. I pop a little blue helper at home from my stash and some chewable vitamins and make a quick milkshake with some instant breakfast powder I drink it on my way to the club and stop at the drive through at Dunkin’s for a coffee.

Yeah, I kind of live on coffee but the rest of the stuff’s for dancing, like I said it really burns off a lot of calories and you can get pretty dehydrated under those lights as easily as bad as any rave.

I chat with Michelle whose back in the back stairs having a cigar. Yeah a cigar or that’s what I call them they’re cigarette slim and long but dark black and have this heady sweet odor that I associate with cigars.

She might be the boss but as women go she’s still red hot for being close to fifty. Dark red hair and a nice face but without Botox of plastics just really taken care of and proud of her age. Nice lady on her good side….she’s connected and dangerous herself….but safe for us t-girls…word was she had a kid like us that was living a second life afraid of coming out and she was killed by a John…so the club she built up as a safe haven.

She says I can get the stages and the basement boxes like yesterday after I sit with her and explain things…she really doesn’t like my sister’s ex either. You don’t just leave someone that you’ve married or been with that long and had kids with.

Well people do but they’re not effing supposed to.

I head inside and I get my outfits together I’m going for slutty, leather bitch and dominatrix stuff or sweet and smutty with pig tails, plaid skirted school girl, cheerleader and the ever popular nurse get up and well of course my cowgirl stuff.

I start in the basement first and make my way through the dances grinding and dancing and touching myself and stroking and slipping off to my imaginary sexy time with men that are my movie star, rock star fantasies harmless fantasies. I really try and not to think about what they’re doing in the dark and the lewd shit their thinking.

But…there’s some that make noises…and more than one of them jerks his slime onto the window. Yeah….bile in my throat I’ll lick the clean side of the glass just across from their dripping goo….for forty bucks in the sliding draw of course.

Bastards…every one that gave it the Windex-spunk formula paid for that.

I need the money…I need the money…and Thank god I’m not touching them.

I’m down there a good two hours before heading upstairs close to seven o’clock to start my dances up on the stage. A Thursday night and some guys are paid tonight and it’s busy as there’s a deal on beers and wings too and actually that brings in a few others.

I hit the stage and do my things and I’ve kind of going a bit more out there tonight, some more hip and some more shimmy and way more boob action going and pole action too. And some whip both in my Dom outfit and my usual Shayne Starr deal and the cowgirl thing I do with a little tying my self up as I’m getting tipped….that’s taking my whip while I’m on my knees and hooking my spurs and sort of pulling my heels up.

That get’s some attention.

Ally helps out too after a break we come up with this Dom and slave thing and feel up lez scene stuff and sucking face and breasts and fondle and stroke while we’re dancing and even this other black hat and white hat thing where we’re both dancing and I’m trying to catch her and pin her to the pole…tie her up with the whips sort of and she’s dance wriggling to escape and I’m seducing her to give up and it’s the first time anyone’s ever done an “act” thing with two girls on the stage before here and it’s not really cabaret or anything like that but we get some attention.

Michelle stayed even to watch the entire deal and she even applauded which was oddly nice because some of the others were doing it too and we pretty much never get applause really.

The tips from those two parts were wicked good too even with splitting them with Ally they really are excellent. I guess I should mention Ally is likely my closest friend here at work and she’s like me but she’s actually twenty two in real life and she’s part Russian and part Cuban meaning she got the legs and that tall almost Nordic genes and she got those Hispanic curves especially since she when on her hormones, she’s had work done too and stuff like the rest of us but I’ve seen pictures of her before and even her as a boy.

She really never was a boy, you can see her there as Andre just there waiting to grow up and put her big girl panties on. Ally is sexy and smoky and sultry with these generous curves and really big breasts and stunning smile and long jet black cascading hair.

And like me this is not her day job this is her making money for her SRS and she’s not bad as me either in being inhibited but she hadn’t been through the things I have. She’s from Miami originally and while like me she burned bridges getting here to who she really is she had a lot less trauma.

But she’s also still in my opinion working her way through grief too. When she came out here she had a girlfriend a girl she had loved all of her life and when she had started to transition she never batted an eye about Andre becoming Ally and loved her anyway. That she died from cervical cancer two years ago.

There’s times that I’m sure Ally’s at the club not just for the money but so she doesn’t have to be home too much on those nights when the empty house and the empty bed are too much.

We’re all fighting something right?

Me right now I’m fighting for…myself and to be me. To get out from my debts and to help my sister at the very least and to maybe, maybe be able to claim part of my family and my own life back. Some of that life that I could’ve had maybe?

Not likely but everytime I see T-girl story in the news or online I can’t help but to think what if? What if that was me?

It kind of hurts too.

But sometimes getting hurt makes you want to fight harder.

Oh…

I get Ally to tape my hands up for one of my last dances and I get in a halter top and satin boxers and come out and do a sort of fake dance and shadow boxing routine all to *Fighter* by Christina Aguilera…I like that music for dancing to…Dirty is another good tune and Britney’s Slave is great for my Dom act. I work up a sweat and lean on the pole and sweat…and pant and breathe and pull off the halter like it’s too hot…feel my boobs like their aching fake gasp…squeeze them. Roll them in my hands…reach down into the boxers…stroke…moan…then snap my eyes open and spin around the pole sexy thrash like I’m hurting and letting shit out and it’s not a far stretch for that really and then walk back at the end of the song.

I blush when some of the girls applaud back stage and stuff.

It’s a really hard night and getting more intense sort of kind of brought out some of the artistic side in me? It was weird just not going out with a simple act and dance and wriggle and shake but actually doing something else.

I’m actually having a dish of wings they’re actually really good for a she-male strip bar Annie who’s another T-girl but not a dancer is the cook and she flours them then deep fries then but they’re like a buffalo wing and tossed in roasted garlic that is blended with melted butter that she roasted the garlic in and some agave nectar and Franks Red-Hot sauce. It’s really hot and garlicky and just a bit of sweet but not brown sugar or honey so it’s just really different and at eleven at night it really hits the spot. Add in some carrot and celery sticks and a serious dip made of blue cheese and chives and sour cream and it really kicks ass.

Michelle comes back drink in hand and smiles at me. “You were on fire tonight.”

“Uhm thanks honestly I was trying anything and everything for the tips.”

“Well not everything but I can’t blame you there, it’s why the lap dancing’s by choice but seriously good hustle out there.”

“Thanks, I need the cash I got my sister to think of and family and honestly I have no idea if I’ll ever get back there. It might turn out that I’m seriously not welcome despite what I’m being told.”

“You have a place here Shayne and friends as bad as it gets don’t forget that.”

I hug her. “I won’t, I’ve been out there Michelle and trust me I’m really, really grateful for everything that you’ve done for me.”

“Good, maybe I’m not too late to help some of you girls.”

“You’re both looking after us.”

“Both?”

“Your club right? But you named it after your daughter?”

“Yeah, most people thing of the song.”

“Well both of you look after us, and we really appreciate it.”

She smiles and wipes at her eyes with her baby finger all too cool to cry and stuff. I smile and hug her anyways some more. “Drive safe Shayne okay? I want you back.”

“Okay, I promise.”

“Good.”

She kisses my cheek and goes off looking for Ally and I get changed and get back to dancing and it’s more of the regular stuff as the night wears down and it’s only the serious regulars that are here until last call at two in the morning.

The tips were worth it but I’m hurting. I danced on stage for close to forty five times and that’s about five minutes each time per song plus the boxes below and getting changed, and being in I got here at seven and I’m done at two tonight. It’s all broken up sure but its hours on my feet all the time in four inch heels or boots and shaking it.

Yeah shaking it. My legs hurt but really the inside of my thighs the most because of the hip swaying side to side moves, my hips hurt from those too…my breasts hurt from the shimmy shaking…yeah bra’s we wear to keep them from hurting…from bouncing and all of that. Doing it as a job? Even my neck from doing hair whip tosses is sore. Add in the blisters from those damned shoes and the fact I did a shift at my day job. I’m beat. I stop only long enough to deposit the cash in my banks ATM in the safe place I use and I drive the rest of the way home with my windows down.

I’m a tired little girl hauling my ass up the steps to my place.

I beeline it for some instant coffee. No, as coffee addicted as I am it won’t keep me up. But it’s got just enough power in it to let me have a long hot soak in the tub and its like close to four in the morning by the time I’m falling asleep.

Thank god I’m not working at all tomorrow…I don’t set my phone. I just get into a pair of sweats and a hoody and crawl into my bed with almost a whimpery sigh and pull the blankets over me.

……………………………….......My alarm goes off. Waaaay too early. I wake with a serious case of the pasties. No not the nipple covers but that dry mouth you’ve been snoring thing. Ugh…complete with mouth crud and eye gunk. I’m not as sore but it’s gone down to that stropy ache thing.

I get up and wince at death feet. You know when you’ve been on your feet so much that even after you’ve rested your feet hurt at first when you get up. I grab a pair of big fluffy socks and roll them on. It softens the floor. I’d have carpet if it wasn’t so much work to clean. That’s why rich people have great carpets because they don’t clean them.

I use the bathroom and stumble to the kitchen and get my coffee pot on the stove and then drink the rest of my orange juice out of the fridge right from the jug and then do and wash my face and brush my teeth and use some mouthwash and rinse with hot water. I’m so hate trying to have coffee with mint mouth.

I start packing or going through things to take with me and I do have a couple of funeral outfits. You go to a few of these in my community, violence…overdoses…suicide…and AIDS…just to name the most common things I’ve go to funerals for. I pack actually most of those. I have a nice dress that’s black with a bit of lace and white flowers that I had made myself when living with the girls and needed a dress for a funeral of one of their grandmothers. I pack the black yarn knit shawl to go with that and I need a separate bag for my shoes and boots.

I go and coffee up and I’m not going to be here for awhile so I go through my fridge and cook my eggs boiling them and taking out stuff that might go bad. The eggs I soft boil two and hard boil the other three. I take the rest of my scallions and really finely chop them and some dill pickle chopped and a couple of gherkins and some sweet chili sauce and some salt just a pinch and just a bit of mayo and make egg salad sandwiches. I wrap then in paper towel then waxed paper and put then in some Tupperware when my phone rings. I check it and its Chris.

“Ola, good morning.”

“Morning how was work?”

“Rough, I pulled seven hours.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, I’m still feeling it.”

“Advil?”

“No, I’m good it’s just exercise ows.”

“Ah…so when should I come over?”

“I’ve some running around to do and stuff before we head out.”

“I can handle that I ca drive you around to do it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I want to spend time with you.”

“Really?”

“Yes really, it felt weird not talking to you or seeing you after the last two days.”

I smile. “Well, we have been sleeping together.”

“Yeah, I really missed that.”

“Chris…”

“One hotel room?”

“I’d like that honestly Shayne.”

I bite down on asking for what I really want…it’s…that’s too much too soon. “Okay but bring my jammies with you.”

“I’d rather see you in something you’ve chosen.”

“Okay…”

“Shayne?”

“Yeah…?”

“God this is crazy but….”

I finish for him. “It is, dammit it is Chris but I want more.”

“Tell me how to get to you.”

I give him my address and he says. “I be there soon…”

He hangs up and I’m holding the phone to my chest and I swear I can feel my heart thumping against my fingers and…oh god, what did I do!? Why? This is too fast…I…I wanted this to be different, slower some how be real.

But…dammit, dammit…

He’s…He’s Chris and already he’s…

I hear his truck pull in… That was fast….I head to my door and glance at my phone. Shit I’ve been standing there freaked out for the last half hour…I see him out of the truck and come up the walk just jeans, and a muscle shirt on and that bandana there from him being in the shop and I open the door for him.

And he sweeps me right into his arms and right off my feet!

I wrap my legs around him and he…one arms holds me while he slams shut my door…still kissing me and I’m kissing him and the strength and the power that raw male sensuality hitting my blood like a virus…god I’m burning up.

And the kissing is fantastic. He manages to get out “Bedroom?” between kisses.

“Down…last left…” I wave down the hall before my fingers are pushing the bandanna off and running my fingers through his hair. And we keep kissing down the hallway up against the walls. Hard fast desperate…up against my doorway…slow, slow sweet deep and desperate still…kissing never’s been like this, my body aches, not just my breasts or my deep sweet place but everything, I’m on fire and I want him to touch me…touch me everywhere.

I can’ help it and pull of my hoody and I’m not wearing a bra, underwear either for that matter just from the bath to these and right to bed. I cry out a silent Oh! As Chris’s hands cup my big breasts and I feel so dainty...small as… as big as my breasts are he’s able to totally cup me in his big strong hands.

Never…and their so hot and it’s like they’re scarred from everything but buffed smooth from his potters wheel at the same time and I swear his touch has some of that heat, that he’s got some of the heat from the kiln in him.

We hit the bed and the luggage gets pushed off to the floor and just the kissing, and his touch, the way he’s touching my breasts, tracing his fingers over the skin, and my nipples and when he takes them into his mouth.

Breasts are so sensitive, mine are…with the nerves woken up by the hormones they’re way more sensitive where I’m aroused than my Janey ever is….Nipples that feel so good that my eyes roll back… “Chris…Chris…”

He looks at me…no…he stops what he’s doing and looks really at me with those eyes and takes that time…be’s that man and connects with me. Touches my face with that hand that touch that say… “God you’re beautiful Shayne…”

The thumb that delicately brushes away these tears that have never been shed for anyone, that have been waiting just for him.

Then he kisses me… and kisses me and I’m falling into just that, that way he makes me feel like I’m real, that I’m Shayne first, he’s lover and his friend and more…more inside to him than just the rest.

I hit a boiling point and I can’t get his jeans undone fast enough.

I use my feet to pull them and his boxers off hip hips and off of him. Multi-talented I reach to my night stand for the condoms and the lube. Chris is making that hard with his mouth making me arc my chest up into his mouth and cry out in pleasure as there’s this grazing suck of teeth soothed instantly by lips.

Fumble, and swoon, gasp and roll into him and he kisses down.

Then he sucks my Janey my achy little hard usually and purposely ignored Janey into his hot wet mouth. I’m really not much of a mouthful.

“Ugnh! Chris!…God…you…You don’t have to.”

He pulls off and kisses my pelvis. “I want to Shayne.”

“But…”

“That too you have a nice butt.”

“Chris!” I shout-laugh.

“No, Shayne…I want you…just you…the, this doesn’t matter…you do…”

More tears spill out happy ones and I nod sniffling and I pass him the condoms. “Safe…please…”

“Okay…but we’re getting tested.”

I nod.

He tears one open with his teeth and slips it over me…It’s…His hot mouth returns to making love to me and I hunch my hips up and shiver as he lubes me up… “Iip!…cold!” He laughs taking his mouth away and tears off another condom for his fingers.

“Gawd…Chris…I’m sorry I wasn’t ready…It might be messy I didn’t know this was going to happen….Oh!”

He sinks a condomed pair of fingers inside me slowly. I actually don’t own a sex toy…so it’s been awhile…a long while….he’s really gentle…slow…just...just to his second knuckles and I can’t help but to wriggle…as his fingers sink in, and warm me and stretch me…I squeal… “Oh god, oh god fff…Chriiiis…” As he suckles the longest sweetest burst of my girlmone altered juices through me.

I pant; I see spots….holy god.

“I’ve been in Iraq…this isn’t messy…This is me making love to you…” Chris slips up my body and he kisses me deeply and over and over as he uses his fingers to work my open.

The kisses are as good as his touch…I’ve never been touch like this.

I feel him against me and he’s perfect…big but not too big eight inches I’d say and straight and thick too but not too thick and very, very hot. I can feel the heat of it pressed into my hip.

“Now, Chris please now…”

“Are you sure…are you okay, like ready…”

I shiver as his fingers hit my inside B or I guess G-spot and I hump his hand… “Yesss” I hiss getting these little inside tremors through me as he seems to understand what he’s touched and to tips of his fingers are making sweet slow circles inside of me over that and very gently.

He pulls out of me just as I was heading to someplace wonderful. I whimper a little bit with want and he discards the “safe” on his fingers for one on his more prominent appendage. Actually two.

“Two..?” I gasp.

“I want to last longer…it’s been too long Shayne...”

He kisses me as soon as he’s finished and both of his hands slide up my body like I’m some delicate vase and holds me with his thumbs tracing along the very neglected underside of my breasts…right along that spot closest to the inside of my arms. Mmmm that so sensitive there…

Chris pushes into me and it hurts…god it hurts some good and I let out a gaspy squeal. Hot and thick and he’s opening me up and I can feel him slowly siding over these nerves inside of me so untouched and so needy and heat, heat and that soft flesh coating that iron rod sinking into me until he hits bottom.

I’m gasping for air in between fevered kisses and he’s treating me to these caresses that I’ve never had from any man before. Slowly letting my insides adjust and the muscles to stop fluttering wildly and for awhile he’s just with me more than he’s inside of me.

I mean again those kisses and the way he’s so close and so right there face to face when he’s not suckling and making oral love to my breasts…but he always comes back and after such a beautiful time of just this I nod at him and move my hips.

And he makes love to me.

Here’s one of the huge, huge differences between a guy that what’s to have sex and a man that’s making love to you and this is true for girls like me as well as any other person. A guy that wants to fuck you likes, loves even to watch his cock sinking into you he’s right into the fucking and all of that. Chris isn’t looking at that he’s not watching him sinking into me deeply over and over. Instead he’s watching me.

He looks me in the eyes.

Smiles back when I smile.

Kisses me when I need it.

Never stops the foreplay, the kisses on my lips, my breasts, touching me and not just those places but my skin, my side, hips…Me.

All these things that I’ve never had with someone before and…and to be honest he’s fucking my brains out. I come twice more just little burst of girl fluids but the feelings…oh the feelings and the pulsing goes on…and the way he fills me like nothing else as my insides clench doing that and seizing around him.

That last orgasm was way more girl than boy ever could be and I cry and shake almost bouncing myself up and down him like I was stroking him off with the firmness of my body.

Chris cries out. “Shayne…!” and followed by thins sexy as hell grunt…that powerful male ugh…that comes with hard work…or just intensity…like this…and as I feel almost his whole body clench up in those shooting off male orgasm spasms…I’m sure I feel it inside even with the condom on…I feel it swelling but filling with Chris’s hot seed.

And he doesn’t bite my collar bone but he almost did…he did gnaw on it a little.

He collapses ontop of my shaking and breathy and sweating and his weight feels good…he feels so real like this and his arms sink under me and slowly wrap around me and he hugs me…he hugs me and I’ve never been hugged in sex before…never.

And he buried his face in my shoulder and he cries.

I wrap my legs around his waist not for sex but to hold him too and pull the comforter over us. (Good thing I never made the bed.) and I hold him…I don’t really say anything but hold him with my body, inside my body and wrap my arms to hold him tight to me and let him just let this out.

I slide one of my arms under his and up to his head and run my fingers through his hair and just stay like that, only kissing the top of his head.

No prying, no questions…all that stuff can wait…if Chris has been as messed up and alone as I can imagine he’s fighting his way through the shock of being with someone.

It’s actually a timeless thing…a man finding something with a woman, a woman finding the strength she needs with that man…Killer and a Whore by most standards. And even that’s part of the whole thing too….because there’s another story as old as time too.

He wipes his eyes on me and looks at me and he’s a wreck, it’s so oddly good to see really that he’s this red eyed, scruffy long hard wreck. Chris isn’t just a man like I’ve been saying but he’s actually likely the most human being I’ve ever been with really.

I push him up from me just enough so I have room to kiss him this time, long and slow and sweetly too. “Yeah…see Chris…you’re still human.”

He looks at me and his eyes went wide a bit and he closes them and he has some fresh tears running down his face and I roll us over to our sides and yeah this was unbelievable but sex wise it’s done. Did I like it?

Hell yes but right now I want Chris more than the sex.

So I spend the next hour just cuddled and touching him and kissing him and looking him in his eyes and just connecting. He does the same for me…touching me, kissing me his fingertips sliding over parts of my like they’re fascinating…I mean like my shoulder even…and me his scars…touching them…slowly…and kissing them not…not to be all like one of those girls that is into scars because they make the guy a guy and hot…no…I’m kissing his scars and those battle wounds and slowly sucking on them.

“Shayne? What are you doing?”

“Kissing you.”

“Yeah…but…”

“They’re part of you Chris…I just want to love that part of you as much and suck out the pain.”

“They don’t hurt…most of them.”

“You got then in war Chris…they’re soul deep…I just want to get some of that out finally…”

“Shayne…”

“Mmmmm?” I mumble smile suck kiss looking at him from one of the gunshot wounds.

“Thank you…just…just thank you…you get it.”

“No…no I don’t Chris but pain, being hurt and fucked up I do get.”

“She…she didn’t…”

Oh…yeah…That, that actually I figured on…and it’s not an uncommon story at all either. He had someone and she got back someone that wasn’t the same guy that left. She wouldn’t or couldn’t deal…when he needed her the most.

It’s shitty for her to do but not just her fault too…people with S.O.’s in this stuff should be taken aside and really sat down and told, even if you have to shake the shit out of them. This, this is what might happen; this is what you might have coming home to.

But…still he’s hurting so much now…what was he like when he first got home? And how can you just up and leave someone that way?

I don’t fucking get it and I never will.

I look at Chris and I kiss him again giving him all the soft and gentle love that I can offer up. Honestly I can say as lonely and wanting just someone in my life for real that I know I have a lot of it to give.

I kiss until we’re both doing that thing and smiling at each other looking deep into each others eyes and really not needing words right now.

He slowly blinks. “We should…”

I nod. “Yeah we should, there’s a lot I still need to do.”

We get up sand we shower and I put the garbage from my room in the other garbage and he takes it out while I wash my sheets. I’m not leaving that mess there…god I’m actually smiling and I feel well I feel awesome…there’s really nothing like the way that you feel after you make love.

Well I’d have said after good sex because really I think that Chris is the first time for me that I’ve had someone make love to me.

We clean the place up together before we go. All the perishables are packed as lunch or tossed out and I scrub and freshen things up and even out a new box of baking soda in my fridge. It’s just a really good idea if you can to get all the housework done so when you come home all you have to do is unpack.

Chris carries my things out to his truck and sets my fiver big suitcases with his one and a garment bag for like a suit or something. Yes, hey I need clothes for like four days and I need funeral clothes and after funeral clothes plus street clothes and shoes and well then here’s my make up and toiletries and my hair dryer…I actually need these things really.

From there we head to my bank and I get some money out and buy a pre-paid Visa card there because hotels and stuff require credit cards and a pre-paid Visa doesn’t get looked at ID wise past the stuff the teller asks me for. Then it’s off to work and we go out back once Gary has few minutes and I start getting stuff from him at cost. Several big bags of potatoes, and a case of frozen pizzas along with a couple of coolers that he lets me have from the summer leftovers and I fill those with meat. I get stuff kids will eat like hamburger and hot dogs and a whole roll of bologna and chicken breasts, I get a couple of frozen hams that Gary is willing to part with and two frozen turkey’s and a few roasts.

We pack it all up and get it all under ice and Chris…smart sexy guy that he is he gets some packing tape and once we have each styrofoam cooler paced and full of ice he takes the tape and uses a lot of it but he seals it all air tight. He loads everything up actually I help and the last thing/good idea we do is open the little vent windows for the truck cap.

From there we head out and I head to a Mexican market that I go to and since we are in California I hit the produce stand outside and I buy a lot of stuff there. Three big boxes of oranges and one of lemons and several bags of other stuff that she and the kids might like and I get a three pound box of real Mexican chocolate. It’s really different stuff than most people think, but I’ve learned to like it a lot. There’s a lot of people around that still use it in the mornings instead of coffee.

For me I get Chris and I a few bags of nice dark figs just right too and some in market fresh roasted almonds and a small bag of cherries to have up in the front with us.

Our last stop is purely for Stacy…well I’m Buying for the house too and some for Sarah even though I have no idea the reception I’ll get from her and we stop at L’artisan du Chocolat out in Silver lake and I get a big sampler for the house but I get some really good ones too like Aztec Chili, Bacon, Matcha green tea… (Which is nummy)…Passion Fruit, Pomegranate, Sea Salt Caramel… (My fave of all of them) Some classic truffles and Lavender and lastly some Earl grey ones.

I get the 144 piece one for the house and the 36 piece one’s in the lacquered boxes for my sisters and Chris gets us a box too for the trip. I smile at him and he smiles back. “With what might be going on with your family you’re going to need your own stash.”

I kiss him sweetly right there in the store in front of people and I blush afterwards. “Thank you.”

He smiles that smile-porn smile of his and licks his lips… “Oh pure self interest…kissing a beautiful woman that tastes like good chocolate and bacon…” he kisses me back and he’s got the bag in one hand and holding mine in the other and I’m getting some looks from the women behind the cash like wistful jealousy.

Yeah…I’d been right there with them a couple of days ago.

We leave and head out of town on the highway eventually getting on the I-70 E and settle into the flow of traffic I put in some music from his CD’s and I slide next to him on the seat of the truck and just relax against him and we drive.

I of course fall asleep and wake up somewhere in the middle of Utah and we make a pit stop for lunch and for me to use the little girls room at the rest stop we end up at. It’s very sort of surreal being here with the whole different scenery than I’m used to seeing and being here with Chris and while the rest stops are usually pretty safe places I’m remembering them from my time on the road and seeing some of the people that are sort of wandering around the rigs and the truckers.

It’s really just…

I get us two coffees and an outside picnic table and Chris brings the truck over and parks it to block the wind after getting some gas. He looks at me tilting his head.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, just memories.”

“Been here before?”

“No, not here…but southern Utah when I came out here.”

“Oh…so…?”

“Rest stops and truck stops were sort of the places to catch a ride…”

“Okay…”

“Nobody rides for free Chris.” I nod toward this teenaged girl slipping into the cab of some guy’s truck.

“He’s going to make her…?”

“No she just had a small purse she’s a working girl.”

“Oh…you?”

I nod taking out the sandwiches I made and the mixed leftover salad and some of the stuff from the truck. “A few times.”

I give him the look like I’m just being honest, but maybe I’m pushing him too. Hell I’m definitely girl enough to pick at my old wounds in hopes of scaring him off or seeing that he’s not going to be like the others. I’m not playing games either…part of this is really just yeah being a girl and we just do shit like that and part of me is testing him because I have been hurt.

But it’s not a game.

Chris just nods, he just looks me in the eyes and there’s no judging there just…he gets it as much as he can. He’ll likely never get the really horrible side of getting used like I have or that girl is but I’ll never get what the war was like but again it’s that bearing our ugly sides to maybe see who might blink first and neither one of us is.

We eat and just relax despite the stuff going on here.

Help? No…you learn pretty quickly that most of these girls are here for their own reasons and while my heart goes out to them they could keep moving on. I did…besides I can see a meth head from a mile away and there’s a shit ton of that stuff at these places too. Most whitebread everyday folks never even see this stuff going on under their noses or they just turn a blind eye to it. The locals…more than likely they let some of this slide because the cops could bust someone or several someone’s for hooking and drugs everyday here and they don’t because of they just don’t have the space in the jails and they do show up, take dope, cockblock Johns but they really only take the worst ones away.

Yeah the world can really suck…

I look though at Chris…and sometimes it’s not a half bad place.

We eat and head out back on the road and we talk about our times on the road. It’s a totally different experience for him as a guy. Me I was used and abused and treated like a whore and there were times that I was made totally aware that me being found in a ditch could happen pretty easily.

Chris…a vet in army stuff you got those who were really decent and friendly and then you have those that still see another victim. He hitched his way from one side of the country to the other and he was shot at twice once was just a hillbilly drive by just because he was there and they thought they were all big and bad.

He’d been denied services or being allowed in diners or gas stations just as much as he was treated well for being a vet. As a guy he’d been fooled and robbed by more than one girl on the streets, help up three or four times and while vet’s were respected by some people others saw a homeless guy.

It wasn’t easy for him either.

But the times he talks about just out here in the wilderness and camping going all Jeremiah Johnson? I have no idea who that is. It’s not that Chris is that much older than me he’s just a man…and I really don’t get or really know a whole lot of guy-culture stuff. That sounded like guy culture stuff.

It’s really easy to talk to him and it’s really easy to listen to him too and we talk actually through the rest of Utah and into Colorado and…okay we slow down at a few place to look at stuff. My God Colorado is a pretty state and even if I’ve lived in California I’m an L.A. girl and I know the beaches and the street I’ve never really been in the mountains. I’ve seen them while I worked the farms and been up in the foothills different times doing that but…

This is being in the mountains.

I’m still a city girl really and likely always will be but at the same time it’s just…We stop for gas and coffee at one place just this small diner and gas station and we get some pretty decent homemade fried chicken and some of the best onion rings that I ever had and we sat out of the lights on the tailgate of the truck with that scratchy blanket from The Avocado around us and we stared out at the night sky and likely took an hour to eat our supper and just.

It was such a beautiful sight really and to have someone to share it with, and have that warm blanket and body to lean against and just be with.

I think he was feeling it too that awake, wide awake with love for a few more hours at least as we hit the road again and we drive all the way until morning where we finally stop for a place to sleep at a decent hotel with parking security well they said online they have a company that does rounds and close to a pharmacy….there was a few things that I desperately need to have.

Halfway there or a little more about ten or twelve hours Chris says to get home…well not home really but Apple Valley Minnesota…I’m really trying not to think about it right now. We take time showering and I asked the front desk girl to get use some fresh sheets.

No…no way am I sleeping on what’s on there no knowing what’s on them or when they’ve been changed last. I use several of the Wet wipes that Chris has in this canister in his truck and just to be sure I wiped down the mattress before putting on the clean sheets.

He’s watching towel around himself and drying his hair and laughing at me a little.

“What?”

“I’ve never seen anyone do that.”

“Who knows when this really was last cleaned? At least the plastic’s still on the mattress.”

“It should be okay Shayne.”

“Uh-huh now it is.”

He comes over and he passes me something. I take it and he takes over making the bed with the fresh sheets.

It’s his Pajamas.

I hug them to me and I tippy toe kiss him.

“Better?”

“Much, thank you.”

We kiss for awhile and he watches me get into his Pj’s and he has this smile on the whole time. Oh yeah definitely one of those boyfriend looking wistfully at you kind of smiles.

Definitely smile-porn.

I walk over to him once I’m dressed and the legs are rolled up and bobby pinned and kiss him and he kisses me and we slip into bed together and I snuggle into him and slip my arms around him and he does the same for me and the best part of it really was when Chris tightens his arms around me with him being the one that gives me this happy sigh.

I lay my head over his chest smiling and happy…just really happy for a change and safe and warm and…yeah I totally agree…

Happy sigh.

I fall asleep and maybe in love with the sound of his heartbeat.