"I should have known better," Ceecee Noble Sweet told herself for about the fortieth time. She trudged down the shady lane between rows of pecan trees on one side and a scrubby-looking woodland on the other. Her wedding dress finery had gotten a bit bedraggled in her flight from the church and now she began to suspect that she must be lost.

Occasional bright patches of sun did little to warm up the late morning in early May. Partly just to keep herself from freezing, she considered her new husband and his family out loud in colorful terms.

Her new mother-in-law, "Blood-sucking harpy with an alligator heart." Her sisters-in-law; "Tripe for brains." Her brother-in-law, "A sump chump libido running on alcohol."

Her new husband, Hamilton Edward Sweet IV got the full treatment. "Fucking redneck aristocrat, probably inbred to boot," she said. "What could you expect out of a family with a fortune based on pumping out septic tanks?"

A chattering squirrel on a pecan limb drew a cold, blue-eyed stare and a snarl. "What the hell do you know about it?" she demanded of the rodent. Jaybirds made derisive comments and somewhere a crow complained about the cost of corn.

Ceecee pushed back her mane of red-gold hair and paused for a moment, listening for pursuit. Faint voices reached her through the woods but they didn't seem to be getting any closer.

When she had dashed back into the church just after taking her vows, no one expected her to sneak out through the parson's entrance and hide in the forest. Least of all herself. And certainly not her bridegroom and husband for all of fourteen minutes, Neddie Sweet.

While the hunt for her began among the wedding party with halloos and calls of "Ceecee? Ceecee!", she had threaded her way through the woods around the little country church, found the lane, picked a direction and headed what she hoped was away from the chase.

She must have still been doing things they didn't expect because she had lost them, and now herself. They sounded further away than before but she had no idea just how to get back to town without running into the wedding party.

But she wasn't in any mood to take backtalk from a tree rat with a pompadour. "And you can tell Neddie all that for me!" she charged the squirrel before setting off down the lane again.

Fifty yards further, she kicked at a harmless, inoffensive rock and broke the heel off her delicate shoe, stepped backward onto her train and sat down hard in the dust. Crying and cursing in a strangled voice, she tossed her corsage, both shoes and her veil into the bushes beside the lane.

"Let go of me!" she yelped to no one.

She was trying to tear the train off her wedding dress while still sitting on it when she heard the sound of a car.

Ricky Peters still didn't know what to do with his new wealth and freedom. The shock of his aunt's sudden death had barely worn off before he found out about the will. Who could have imagined that Aunt Sharon had more than half a million in the bank, owned shares in real estate syndicates scattered around the midwest or had taken out a three million dollar life insurance policy on her own life -- with him, her nephew and only blood relative as sole heir and beneficiary.

He'd quit his job keeping books for a furniture store, quit school where he'd been taking business courses, sold his old beater and bought a sportscar. He hated the new car because it was a stick shift standard "four-on-the-floor" and he'd always driven automatics. The salesman assured him that he would soon get used to shifting -- but he hadn't.

Besides, the car cramped his six-foot-plus American body into a seat obviously designed for a more Euro-proportioned driver. James Bond never had problems banging his knee with the shift knob, Ricky thought.

He did a lot of driving in third gear, reluctant to go up to fourth for fear of having to downshift on turns or hills. If his knee swelled up anymore, he wouldn't even be able to get it into the car.

And he couldn't seem to get the timing of when to put in the clutch or let it out. He feared that the constant grinding noises when he shifted meant the car would suddenly give out on him, leaving him stranded on some back road where people played banjos just for fun.

He spent several thousands on new clothes from the skin out, to go with the car. Apparently born with impeccable taste, he bought name-brand new and vintage clothing that at least made him look like someone with millions in the bank.

He still hadn't made much of a dent in his inheritance and left most of it in the charge of his aunt's financial advisers. They assured him that her, now his, income properties had not suffered too much from the economic downturn and that it was a good time to expand his holdings by buying up "distressed" properties at bargain prices.

Financially, they convinced him, morally he wasn't so sure but what else could he do? He didn't want to try to manage even a small real estate empire himself but he had no real experience in being one of the idle rich, either.

Six months after his aunt's death and still two months short of his 25th birthday, Ricky left Rock Island early one April morning with some cockamamie idea of finding himself, whatever that meant.

First he'd headed to Chicago but the big city intimidated him. Three days in a State Street hotel convinced him that the Windy City would not be his new home. He repacked his cashmere slacks and suede coats into his Armani luggage and stowed them in the back of the Aston Martin.

He drifted south along back roads and byways, staying in cheap motels and eating either fast food or the greasy sort of stuff they served in places called "Mom's Diner." He had a perpetual headache and sour stomach after almost two weeks of driving.

And he had to admit it, he'd gotten himself thoroughly lost. His idea of visiting Graceland had evaporated when he'd found out that Memphis traffic sucked every bit as bad as Chicago. Or at least it seemed so to him. Rock Island, his hometown, wasn't some hick burg but part of the Quad Cities, an urban oasis on the Mississippi in the middle of Iowa and Illinois cornfields.

Memphis, however, spread out for miles wider than he expected. The Interstate seemed to be under construction, and detours kept taking him along state and county byways that last saw repair crews when Grant commanded the Army of the West.

He had to admit it. He'd gotten lost, again. Even back home, he had a knack for getting turned around. Now, on a country road east of Memphis, he had driven for some miles without seeing any road signs that gave him the slightest clue as to which way he should turn. He had the vague feeling that he had gone completely around the city and might now be cruising through Mississippi toward New Orleans.

But without a reason to get off the road onto another more or less identical road, he stuck with the one he'd started with. It had to go somewhere, sooner or later, didn't it?

Where did all the hills come from, he wondered. Wasn't Memphis a relatively flat area? Changeable clouds hid the sun and he continued driving east while thinking he was going south.

The barefoot girl came running out of the woods on some little half-wide lane he hadn't even know was there. She wore what looked like a torn, dirty, white prom gown or maybe a wedding dress. Her long brownish hair caught the sunlight and turned a brilliant red-gold just as she reached the pavement.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" she screamed at him, waving her hands over her head.

Ricky began to stop, concerned that the young woman might run in front of the car. The encounter seemed very bizarre, there had to be some sort of story behind the girl's presence on a quiet country road in what looked to be the remains of a bridal gown.

He had just got the window on the right hand side down electrically before he brought the vehicle to a complete stop when the excited redhead reached through the window, unlocked the door, opened it and slipped inside before the wheels stopped rolling.

"Drive!" she said, pointing down the road.

Ricky pushed his prescription sunglasses to a secure position on the bridge of his nose and turned to examine his new passenger.

She leaned toward him, showing a generous and distracting amount of cleavage. "Drive, I said!" she screamed right in his face.

Ricky banged his knee twice getting the little car back into the right gear. "Step on it," she ordered.

Ricky left forty dollars worth of rubber on the asphalt.

Ceecee didn't begin to relax until her getaway car had put a mile or two between her and the remains of her wedding party. When they emerged from the little country road onto a state highway, she turned to look at the driver.

"Got a size on you, don't you?" she commented. Lord, he was big. He reminded her of Chris Reeve, the actor in those old Superman movies, the one who had died after being paralyzed in a riding accident. Except his hair was dishwater blond and he wore sunglasses instead of hornrims.

"Pardon?" he said. "I didn't get your name. I'm Ricky Peters." He glanced at her but turned his attention back to the road, making a right hand turn onto the highway.

"I'm Ceecee," she said. "Are we going to Decatur?"

"Uh," he admitted. "I don't know. Originally, I was trying to get to Memphis."

"Memphis?" she said, startled. "We're in Alabama and you're heading east, ain't no where near Memphis."

"Alabama?" He looked puzzled, dismayed even.

"You have to be in Memphis by some certain time?" she asked.

"Uh, no. I'm just sightseeing." He glanced at her again, taking in the pale skin, freckles and wide blue eyes.

She chuckled. "Well, you're taking the scenic route for sure. Where are you from?" Privately, she guessed Omaha or Milwaukee, some place with flat Midwestern vowels but not the urgent tempo of Chicago.

"Rock Island," he said. "That's in Illinois, on the Mississippi."

"Uh-huh," she said. "You should have been able to find Memphis, just follow the river south." She grinned at him, showing her dimples on purpose.

He blushed. My God, thought Ceecee, he's cute. Down, girl, she reminded herself. You married the last cute guy you saw and that's how you got in this fix.

The current cute guy, the one driving the cute car, looked around as if he would be only mildly surprised to find okapis or llamas grazing in the fields instead of Holsteins. "Well, I made a few side trips and got lost." He looked back at her. "Are we really in Alabama?"

"Uh-huh," she said again. "You bet your banjo. Say, if you're not going anywhere in particular, can you take me home?"

"I guess so. But you'll have to give me directions." He smiled at her. "Obviously, I'm already lost. Where do you live?"

"Bakersfield," she said.

He blinked and looked back at the highway for a moment before glancing at her again. "Bakersfield, Alabama? Where's that?"

"Bakersfield, California," she said. "It's about a hundred miles north of Los Angeles."

Ricky followed Ceecee's directions and got headed west on a road that she assured him would take them to Memphis. "A nice car like this, you should have GPS."

He knew GPS stood for Global Positioning System but getting it put into his car had not occurred to him. "Huh," he said. A lot of his conversations with Ceecee seemed to consist of inflected grunts; she did a lot of talking.

"I'm surprised the salesman didn't stick you for it," she said, looking at him sideways from under her long, dark lashes.

Ricky cleared his throat. "I paid cash for a model on the lot," he said. "Last year's model," he added to be as honest as he could.

"Cash!" she looked startled, the first thing he had said that seemed to surprise her.

"Well, a check, but the check was good."

She blinked. "This car costs what? Over 100 grand? Right?"

He nodded. "Something like that," he said, trying to sound casual about it. One hundred thirty thousand, and change.

"Gah-dammit to Trona," she muttered. "Another rich asshole with more money than brains."

"I - what?" He had hoped to impress her, not inspire another round of creative cursing.

"Look," she said, turning as far as she could sideways with the seatbelt in the way. "I really need to get to Bakersfield and I'm broke, I have like, no cash at all."

"I said I'd take you," he protested.

"Yeah, yeah, but that was before I really thought it through." She paused to nibble her lower lip a moment. "How about this deal? You take me to Bakersfield, pay expenses on the way, buy me some clothes and stuff, and I'll suck your dick every night," she said. A delicate pink-tipped finger went up. "But no fucking!"

Following her directions, Ricky got them back on a road toward Memphis. They made a stop in the next town, at a Wal-Mart where Ceecee picked up some tight jeans, cheap high heels, a couple of tank-style tops, a bright magenta purse and "stuff girls need". He didn't ask.

In the early evening, they cruised past the entrance to Graceland in a drizzling rain. "We could get a motel and come back tomorrow," Ricky suggested. A glimpse of the pillars of the big house through the rain didn't seem enough reward for all the trouble he'd gone to getting there.

Ceecee made noise with the ice in a fast food cup. "It's a dump," she assured him. "Memphis is a dump. In an hour, we could be in Arkansas on I-40 which is practically a straight shot to West Tulsa."

"Huh?" he said. "Oklahoma?"

"Well, yeah, it's in the way. But West Tulsa is what they call Bakersfield, for a joke. Almost everyone there either came from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, Kansas or Missouri or their folks did." She thought about it. "Like in the Dust Bowl?"

"I wondered about your accent," he said. "You don't sound like California."

"I don't have a fucking accent," she said. "But my mom does. She's from Texas, says 'y'all' and like that. You've got an accent. You do that shovel-faced upper Midwest thing with your vowels."

"Shovel-faced?" he repeated.

"Like you had your nose broke with a shovel," she explained. "You say Mee-em-fuss, all tight like your face hurts."

"I do?" He shook his head, finding it hard to believe. Ceecee's voice sounded nasal to him, with a twang he associated with cowboy movies and a fast sing-song rhythm like nothing he'd ever heard. "Shovel-faced?" he said again.

Ceecee did rattle-and-suck thing with the ice again. "That bother you?"

Ricky felt of his nose. "No," he said.

"I didn't say you looked like you'd been hit with a shovel, I said you sounded like that. Everybody north of St. Louis does."

He didn't say anything, keeping his attention on the road.

"Actually," Ceecee said, "I think you're kind of cute. And you're big, jeez, you got out of the car at the Wal-Mart, I thought you must be a football player. You play football in college?"

He shook his head. "No, I never went out for sports."

"Why not? You're big, you look strong. I mean, you've got muscles, I can see them." She reached toward his arm.

He quivered instead of flinching. "I used to be fat."

She stopped before touching him. "How fat?"

"Really fat." He didn't tell her about being orphaned at fourteen or about living in his aunt's carriage house watching TV all alone and eating junkfood and microwave pasta until he went away to college weighing over three hundred pounds.

She dropped her hand and looked at him with her head tilted to one side, smiling. "How'd you lose the weight?"

He sighed, remembering. "Got mono. Had to drop out of school. Just started back last year, then my aunt died." He didn't mention the gym where he'd done bookkeeping in exchange for access to the weight room until his aunt had found out and gave him a paid-up three year membership for Christmas.

"The one who left you all the money you said?"

She pointed ahead before he could answer. "There's the freeway ramp, take us north to the bridge then I-40 all the way to Barstow. Hang a right there and in an hour you're in my hometown."

Ricky let the sportscar find the exit.

When they started climbing above the flat river plain Ricky asked if these were the Ozarks.

"No," she snorted. "This is Crowley's Ridge. The Ozarks are the other side of Little Rock. This is just some little ol' hills made of left over dinosaur shit."

She did so have an accent, he reflected. And she had a dirty mouth; that bothered him.

"It's pretty," he said aloud.

"It's pretty fucken dark," she said.

He winced. Dark green forests punctuated by small fields and orchards covered the quiet hills alongside Interstate 40. He liked how it looked, even if he could not see much. A fat moon had broken through the clouds behind them and cast a silvery magic over the scenery.

"It's near to late thirty," Ceecee commented, covering a yawn. "Maybe you better find us a motel." She pulled her legs up into the seat, turned sideways, folded her arms over her chest and leaned her head back against the window glass. "It's been a long day."

"I'll find us a motel, there's a big town up ahead, just off the Interstate. I saw the signs."

"Uh-huh," she murmured. "Forrest."

Ricky thought she said, "Farthest," which made very little sense but he let it go because she had obviously fallen asleep.

Twenty minutes later, he took the first exit for Forrest, Arkansas. "So that was it," he chuckled. He'd seen a sign on the freeway that said there was a Motel 70 at the intersection with US 70 and he looked forward to -- well, he didn't actually want to think about that yet.

Unfortunately, with his navigator asleep, Ricky took a wrong turn and headed north toward Jonesboro instead of south toward Forrest. The Motel 70 which had been only half a mile away when he got off I-40 got further and further away until at a quiet little crossroads deep in the forest half an hour later, Ricky finally pulled into a parking space at a dilapidated antique motor lodge.

A semi-circle of rundown cabins, seven of them, surrounded an irregular patch of potholed pavement. Each cabin had its own tiny attached garage, a small covered porch and a brightly painted door, either white, red or blue.

The sign said Sortie Motel, or it had when all the letters worked. Half of the neon tubes no longer functioned and it currently read, "Sort e Mot" which Ricky's tired brain tried to process as half-remembered high school French. It made no sense.

But the white "Vacancy" sign was lit and the red "No" was not. So he pulled the Aston-Martin into the bumpy parking lot, stopping beside the slightly larger cabin with the office sign on the white-painted door. He took care to avoid the worst of the potholes and eased the car to a stop, not wanting to awaken his passenger.

Getting out of the sports car always presented a challenge to his size and doing so quietly, even more so, but he managed. Ceecee did not move, only sighing once in her sleep.

Through the window in the office door, Ricky saw an elderly man standing at a counter. The man motioned for him to come on in so Ricky did not knock before entering. Once in with the door closed behind him, he filled the narrow office space and loomed over the counter without intending to.

The old man wore the typical rural Arkansas costume of denim overalls and a feed store ball cap and seemed to be engaged in a task that involved arranging piles of small paper slips in some pattern. "Evening. Need a room?" he asked as Ricky entered.

Ricky considered. He had not yet internalized the local accents and what he heard sounded more to his midwestern ear like, "Ayvnin, nayduh ryuhm," without a question mark. "Yes," said Ricky.

"Sign the book," said the old man, pointing at one end of the counter. "It's $44 dollars a night or $264 a week, pay the first night now."

Ricky put his name in the logbook, filling in his license plate number and "2" in the column for number of occupants. "It'll just be the one night." He took out his wallet and began to extract a credit card.

"We don't take those," said the old man. "Cash only." He moved another stack of papers from one pile to another and added one to the total from his reserve pile.

Surprised, Ricky pulled bills from his wallet and presented them.

"You need ice, I can give you a bucket now," said the old man, handing over Ricky's change. "There's pop in the machine outside, cola, orange, root beer, lemon and diet. Fifty cents. Machine only takes quarters."

Ricky nodded. The old man looked at the logbook and handed over a key attached to a length of broom handle. The key and the handle both had a blue number five painted on them. "I'm Mr. Handshaw, Fay Handshaw, Mr. Peters. The key works both the front door and the padlock on your garage. You and the missus have a nice stay here in Sarty."

"Sarty?" Rick asked.

The old man smiled a small smile. "It's spelled French but it's pronounced Arkansas."

Ricky blinked. "Did you say your name was Fay?" he asked.

"Short for Fayreuth. My brother's name is Jersalam, we call him Jerry."

Ricky nodded, satisfied that the odd names probably had some family history attached to them. "Thank you, Mr. Handshaw." They nodded at each other.

Jersalam Handshaw entered from the cabin behind the office desk. He looked very much like his brother, Fayreuth, except he wore his coveralls with one strap hanging off his shoulder, his work shirt was blue instead of khaki and he had a strawhat on his head instead of a ball cap. Those differences and the twinkle in his eye made him look years younger than Fay.

"Did you put them into number five?" he asked his brother.

"Yep," said Fay, still sorting his papers.

Jerry watched for a moment. "Red jack on the black queen," he commented.

Fay snorted. "Mr. Smarty Pants."

Jerry grinned. His brother had never been noted for his sense of humor. Jerry on the other hand, loved a good joke. He reached over Fay's shoulder and moved a top slip of paper from one stack to another. Fay promptly covered it with another paper from the stack in his hand.

"You put them into number five," Jerry said, not asking.

"I said so." Fay paused to look at his brother out of the corner of his eye.

Jerry smiled. "That ought to sort them out."

Fay allowed himself a small smile, too. He wasn't noted for his sense of humor but he had one.

 
Ricky lay on the bed wearing nothing but his boxer undershorts, waiting for Ceecee to finish in the bathroom. He had pulled the covers up to his waist but no further.

He wanted to dissuade her from paying for her ride in her chosen manner but then again, he'd never had a blow job and he had heard they were excellent.

He wasn't a virgin. One trip to a brothel and a few drunken college parties had relieved him of that burden. Still, for a good-looking man in his early twenties, he was peculiarly under-experienced. And he knew it, though he suspected that a lot of the experiences he had heard other men brag about were exaggerated far beyond reality.

He knew for a fact that you couldn't get all nine members of the Swedish bikini team into a hotel room in Dubuque because there was no such thing as a Swedish bikini team, despite the existence of pictures that seemed to prove the contrary. Beer commercials had to be the lowest form of journalistic accuracy.

What the heck was she doing in the bathroom, anyway, he wondered. Wouldn't she want to brush her teeth afterward? He blushed.

Maybe when she came out he should just pretend to be asleep and avoid the whole subject?

What did it taste like? He imagined that a penis must taste the way urine smelled. Why would anyone willingly put it in their mouth? And the sticky white stuff that came out during sex looked, smelled and even felt unpleasant. He'd watched a porno movie once and the guy had cum all over the girl's face. Why would she let him do that?

Well, besides getting paid to make a movie.

It just looked disgusting. And evidently guys were supposed to get turned on by that. Was something wrong with him?

He sighed. Well, yes. Something was wrong with him. He could never tell what girls wanted and he didn't have the confidence to just assume that they wanted what he wanted. Like other guys seemed to assume.

He wished Ceecee had never made the offer to provide oral sex in exchange for a ride. He couldn't feel right about accepting and turning her down felt wrong too. It meant he couldn't really hope that they would just get to know each other and learn to like one another and just naturally go to bed for the usual reasons.

Huh?

Something else occurred to him. She'd been wearing the remains of a wedding gown when he found her, or she found him -- he'd been the one who was lost. That meant, and she confirmed, that she had just gotten married and had a husband somewhere.

Everything in Ricky's upbringing told him that it would just be wrong to take advantage of her, her willingness to pay for a ride with sexual services not withstanding. And in fact, that made it worse.

He reached down and pulled the covers up to his chest, having determined that pretending to be asleep was the best choice of action, just as Ceecee opened the bathroom door.

She had on the cheap, orange, polyester nightie she had picked out at WalMart. While she wasn't a tall woman, it seemed awfully short on her, barely covering her -- crotch area. It had ruffles and lace in a tawdry salmon color and with the light from the bathroom behind her, he could see her shape through the fabric.

She looked at him and grinned. "Isn't this place great? It's so creepy. There are daddy longlegs spiders under the sink. I named them."

"Uh--what? You--what? Uh? What did you name them?" He hated spiders.

She reached back into the bathroom to tug the light pull off. Moving like that silhouetted her breasts in the light. She must be naked under the nightie, he thought. She's sort of top heavy for a slender girl. I think I like that, he decided. At least, part of him seemed to like it a lot.

The light went out and Ricky examined the negative afterimage of her breasts while hearing Ceecee run across the room and throw herself into the bed. The springs protested and she rolled against him, the covers between them.

"Can't see a thing," she commented directly into his ear.

Shivery sex signals raced up and down his spine.

"I've changed my mind," she breathed.

"About..."

"Sex. Let's fuck."

He caught his breath. "B-but, you're married."

"Don't let that worry you, I'm going to have it annulled when I get to California." She licked his ear lobe.

He wanted to think about it. And something else bothered him.

"W-what did you name the spiders?" he asked.

Later, Ricky dreamed of a happier day back before a drunk driver had taken his parents and older brother away from him. Back when he was small enough to fit in his father's lap, years before tragedy marred his life, back before he even knew he had an Aunt Helena.

"I'm in first grade again," he said to himself. The halls of Potowatomie Elementary School in Clark's Lea, Iowa surrounded him with paper murals painted by the bigger kids to celebrate some holiday. Most of the children towered over him. He hadn't hit his growth spurt until eighth grade and had been only average-sized for his age before that.

He felt happy. His parents would be alive and he wouldn't feel the crushing pressure of not knowing what to do -- Momma and Daddy would fix everything. He was working through the second chorus of the Oscar Mayer song, when someone reached out of a closet, or a room, or maybe a locker and pulled him inside.

A little red-haired girl with the bluest eyes he had ever seen held his wrist with both hands. "Something weird is going on," she said.

He tried to escape but her grip was like some octopus or snake. There didn't seem to be any bones he could pry against to get loose.

"I never went to this school," she said. "I went to school in California. Look around, no Mexicans, nothing written in Spanish. And you know, you're five or six years older than me -- if you're in the first grade, I should still be a baby."

"Huh," he said.

She rolled her eyes and let go of him all by herself but now he couldn't move because he wanted to know what what she had said meant.

"What's your name?" she asked. "Frank? Chisolm? Bluto?"

"No," he said. "I'm Ricky. And you're that girl...." What girl? he wondered.

"I'm Ceecee," she said. "I think we're dreaming."

"Suits me," said Ricky. "Wanna come over to my house and have lemonade and cookies?"

"I guess," said Ceecee. "But is this your dream or mine?"

They went home the long way and stopped in the park to ride the swings, the merry wheel, and the teeter-totter and to climb on the old airplane buried in the sand box.

Later, they went to Ricky's house and he cried when he saw his mother. "For goodness sake," Mrs. Peters said, patting him on the back. "Is this your little friend?" She smiled at Ceecee who looked uncomfortable.

Ricky wiped his eyes. "This is Ceecee, she goes to school in California."

Ricky's mom kept smiling. "Has he asked you to marry him yet? Ricky asks all the little girls he likes to marry him."

"I'm already married," said Ceecee.

"Well, that's one answer I don't think anyone else has given him." Mrs. Peters laughed.

Ricky looked confused. "That's right," he said. "You ran away because he was a... redneck aristocrat. Only you used a bad word there."

"Oh, my," Mrs. Peters said. "Do you use bad words, Ceecee?"

"Sometimes, when I need them," Ceecee admitted. "When a good word is too good for the job and only a bad word will do."

"A proper young lady should never use bad words," said Mrs. Peters.

"This is some fucked up dream," said Ceecee.

#####

After lemonade and cookies, they went up the outside staircase to the room on top of the house. Ricky didn't remember such a room built onto his home growing up but Ceecee said it had to be there and sure enough it was.

"Is it locked?" he asked as Ceecee tried the door.

"Pff. No," said Ceecee.

Inside, the room looked vaguely like an old-fashioned motel room, a familiar motel room. There were two other doors, one to a closet and one to a bathroom. Light came in from windows on all sides and Ricky knew that somehow, that just wasn't right.

Two grown-ups were sleeping in the bed, a large man and a much smaller woman. They didn't move, they didn't even seem to be breathing as Ricky and Ceecee's six-year-old selves crept into the room.

"It's us," said Ricky, mastering the obvious.

"Is it? Look." Ceecee pointed.

Ricky didn't notice at first. "What? Don't they look like us?"

"Look at their hair, doofus," said Ceecee.

Now Ricky saw that the woman was blonde and the man had dark red hair. Somehow he knew that the woman had hazel eyes with flecks of green, gold and silver and the man had blue eyes that were the same blue as those road signs that tell you where the rest stops are on the Interstate.

"Huh?" said Ricky.

"They're us all right, but they're us if we were each other instead of being ourselves."

"That makes no sense."

Ceecee glared at him. "This is a dream, isn't it? Why should it make any sense at all?"

"My dreams usually make sense," said Ricky.

"What do you dream about? Adding up columns of numbers?"

"Sometimes," Ricky admitted. "Sometimes I dream about my aunt or my parents."

Ceecee didn't say anything for a bit. She just stood there pulling on her lower lip and making that noise with your tongue that you use to call a cat, only real slow.

"Did you ever dream about being someone else?" she finally asked.

Ricky shook his head. "I don't think so. You mean like dreaming I was someone in a book or a movie? I had a dream I was in a Spiderman movie once but I wasn't Spiderman, I was just me and the Green Goblin threw me off a bridge."

"That," said Ceecee, "is a really shitty dream."

"I didn't like it much, no."

Ceecee walked around the bed and looked into the bathroom and the closet. "Who did you rent this place from, Norman Bates?"

"Who? No, it was Fayreuth Handshaw. He has a brother named Jersalam."

"You're making those names up. No wait, you couldn't make up names like that."

"Huh?"

Ceecee looked at him. "They're too funny to be something you made up."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You ever notice people laughing and you don't know what they're laughing at?"

"Uh. Yeah, I guess so."

Ceecee shook her head. "I guess it must be like being colorblind, you never know what you're missing."

"That's not funny," said Ricky. "You're just trying to hurt my feelings."

Ceecee stopped looking at the decrepit chest of drawers and turned back to Ricky. "You're cute when you get all fucking sensitive, you know?"

#####

They played some sort of game in which little Ricky became Ricki and Ceecee became Ceece, and they played at being each other for a bit.

They ran down the stairs and Ricki felt her ponytail bounce and her skirt flash around her knees. Ceece jumped the last several steps, all at once, and landed on his corduroy butt and Ricki had to laugh at him, he was so funny.

Ceece laughed too and got up and dusted himself off then ran part way back up the stairs to jump off again from even a step higher and this time he landed without falling down.

Ricki clapped her hands, enjoying the game.

"Wanna see me do it again?" Ceece asked, swaggering a bit.

"No, that's okay," Ricki said. "I'm sure you could do it all day if you wanted to." And she laughed and Ceece laughed.

"This is fun," said the red-headed boy and the little blonde girl nodded.

"You want me to go back up to the room and bring down the spiders and introduce you to them?" he offered.

Ricki shook her head. "No, thank you."

"I named them," said Ceece. "Kermit for the skinny one, Miss Piggy for the big one, and," here he put his hand in his pocket and pulled it back out quickly, "Fozzie for the funny-looking one I put in my pocket!"

Ricki shrieked before she saw it was only a piece of lint.

Ceece laughed. "You are such a girl," he said.

#####

They were at school.

"I think you're older than me now," said Ricki. She had on a blue and yellow flower print dress with wide white collars and big yellow buttons. She knew she looked very cute and rather thought she liked that. She had more shape than most eleven-year-old girls but Ceece was taller, he looked about thirteen.

"I think we're in middle school," he said. "Let me carry your books."

She smiled at him and let him carry the books.

The dreamscape changed as they walked from a generic mid-western middle school toward a more California high school. Ricki's shape changed even more and Ceece bulked out, growing taller.

"I'm a senior," said Ceece. "You're frosh."

Ricki glanced down. She wore a short, navy, pleated skirt with a silky gold blouse and her shoes had miniature pompoms on the laces. "You were a cheerleader?"

He snorted. "My grades weren't good enough."

"You look different than I did at this age. I had a weight problem, after--after," she didn't want to say it. "This is a dream, isn't it? Are you on the football team?"

"Yup, defensive captain."

"You need good grades for football, too."

He shrugged. "It's easier for some reason."

She nodded. "It is a dream, after all?"

"Is it?"

"Well, I think so."

"I'm not so sure."

Neither said anything for a moment. The season progressed as they walked, fall, winter then spring. Flowers bloomed in an improving economy, birds tweeted the minutiae of their lives, bees buzzed with investment news about honey futures.

Ceece cleared his throat. "Going to the dance?" he asked.

Ricki nodded. "Neddie asked me."

"Ned Sweet?" asked Ceece, his deep voice cracking. "That's the asshole I married! What's he doing in this dream?"

#####

Hamilton Edward Sweet IV, called Ned by friends and family, paused before getting into his white Dodge Ram doolie five-quarter. His cousins, Tater, Luther and Bo waited to hear what he had to say. They were all big men, though Tater was not tall, and they all had the Sweet family look; heavy blond eyebrows, meaty shoulders and big knobby hands.

"Boys, the last time the kidnapper was seen was in Memphis, so I want you to go there and see can you pick up his trail." They nodded. "I'm going out to the airfield to get my plane and fly to Okay City." They nodded again. "I'll head east on the road from there and we'll meet in Little Rock if one or t'other of us hasn't caught the sumbitch."

"Don't worry, Ned," said Tater. "We'll ketch'im and get your bride back." Tater was Hamilton Edward Sweet III, son of Ned's uncle, Hamilton Patrick Sweet, known as Salty. All of the Sweet men for four generations were named Hamilton (something) Sweet, differing only by middle name or Roman numeral suffix.

Ned nodded, tight-lipped. He got into the doolie and closed the door and his father, Hamilton Edward Sweet II, pulled away from the wedding party headed toward the private family airfield outside of Huntsville, Alabama.

Luther, Hamilton Luther Sweet, spit on the ground. "Kidnapped my Sweet ass. She runned off and he knows it."

Bo, Hamilton William Sweet II, grinned at his cousins. "That redhead had more sense than his first wife, she run off before the wedding night."

They all laughed, climbed into another Dodge doolie, this one black, and headed toward Memphis where a service station attendant had reported to a Tennessee State trooper in the Sweet family employ having spotted an Aston-Martin with Illinois dealer plates.

Luther drove and Tater, as oldest, took shotgun leaving Bo alone in the big back seat -- alone except for three shotguns, six pistols, two rifles and a machine gun.

Tater puzzled on something for a minute or two. When they hit the highway and the truck stopped bouncing like rodeo Brahma, he turned and asked Bo a question. "Redhead? Wasn't that little lady...."

"Cecelia," put in Luther.

"Yeah, Ceecee, wasn't she a blonde?"

"Hell, no," said Bo. "She had dark red hair."

Tater shook his big ol' head and looked puzzled. "Could'a sworn she was a yaller-haired temptress." He looked at Luther.

Always a conciliator and a compromiser, Luther suggested, "Strawberry blonde?"

"Bullshit," said Bo. They argued about it all the way to Memphis.

 
He woke up slowly, the room still dark. A grayish rectangle of one high-up window provided the only light, what little filtered through from the old-style incandescent atop the parking lot light pole outside.

He heard rain pattering against the roof and walls of the cabin. Something about the sound made the room and the bed feel cozy and comfortable, inside, out of the storm.

They lay in a tangle of limbs in the very middle of the motel bed, blankets and duvet piled atop them. He wondered if he could get out of bed without waking her.

Her?

He turned his head and looked at her face. Even in the dim room he could make out the snub nose, the cupid's bow mouth with the teeth just showing in a tiny overbite, the dusting of freckles across the cheeks and nose--a face he knew so well. It did look different, now, especially with blonde hair.

He assumed her hair was blonde, difficult to tell in the dark but he knew that red hair looks black in dimness.

"I'm still dreaming," he decided and tried to go back to sleep.

#####

In the early morning hours before dawn, the entire Mid-South region, from Huntsville to Topeka, from Amarillo to Louisville, fell under a cloud, a bunchy, gray, rain cloud. In the Upper Delta, it drizzled. In the Tennessee Valley, it stormed. In Oklahoma, late spring hail and tornado watches closed the Okay City airport.

Somewhere west of Fort Smith, Ned Sweet's single engine high-wing Cessna trundled into the variable wind, bound for a near dawn landing at Okay City.

"Sumbitch," said Ned. He keyed the mike back on, "Say again, Tower?"

"Will Rogers Airport is closed. Repeat, OKC is closed due to thunder and hail. Small craft are directed to land in Goldsby, 1K4, David Jay Perry Airport. That's south of Norman, east of I-35. Do you need navigational aids?"

"Nah, I copy." Ned released the key and cursed again. He regretted not having waited for his father's corporate jet instead of taking his private four-seater puddle-jumper. "Damnitohell." He turned to his cousin and co-pilot, Hamilton Henry Sweet. "Hank, get the boys on the cell and tell them to meet us at the airport in Norman."

Fifteen minutes later the regional tower redirected Ned's plane again, this time to Paul's Valley Municipal, then to Crazy Horse before Ned had finished logging the second change.

"This is crazy," muttered Ned. The lights of Oklahoma City had disappeared behind them, wet blurs in the night. Ahead lay only the ribbon of light made by the Interstate and the scattered small towns along the Dallas corridor through southern Oklahoma. Visibility had improved but remained inconsistent. Off to the southwest, another storm seemed ready to cycle towards him.

In twenty more minutes, he'd been redirected again, to Ardmore, then passed out of Okay City's airspace to Dallas sectional who directed him to land at the McGehee Catfish Restaurant Airstrip.

"Tower, say again?" he asked.

"That's the McGehee Catfish Restaurant Airstrip, T40, south of Ardmore, west of I-35, on the Red River. Do you need navigational aid?" the Dallas tower drawled.

"Nah, I know where it is," Ned keyed. "Sumbitch," he said to Hank. "Did you know Catfish Sue had an airstrip behind her place? It's a tiny ol' thing with a grass runway and fucken pee-can trees along both sides, a pure joy to land at in a storm."

"Wal, I swan," said Hank. "You want me to tell the boys to meet us there?"

"Yeah," agreed Ned. He thought a moment. "Leastways, we'll eat good, if we stay till Sue opens. She don't usually serve breakfast."

After Hank took care of the cellphone call to the Sweet corporate cars chasing them through the night, he commented. "Seems like this storm's a-chasin' us, don't it?"

#####

She woke up, the weight of his leg had shifted and a sudden pressure penetrated her drowsy consciousness with a primitive urgency. She pushed at his arm where it lay, trapping her head in his armpit. She couldn't move it at all.

"Gotta pee," she whimpered. "Lemme up!"

He moved just enough that she could scramble out from under and stagger toward the bathroom. The small rectangle of the high window gave very little light but enough that she could find the right door.

Sleepy-eyed he watched her. "You awake?" he asked.

"I think so," she replied. Then, "No, I'm still dreaming." Tinkling sounds came from the bathroom. "I'm still dreaming I'm you."

He lifted his head and cradled it in his palm, looking down his own long muscular body toward her blonde head he could just see in the dimness through the open bathroom door.

The light went on and he smiled at the flash of thigh he saw before she pushed the door more fully closed.

"This paper has wood in it," she complained. A small yelp, then a long pause before the flushing but still she didn't emerge.

"What if you're not dreaming?" he asked. "What if this is real?"

"Poo," she said. "It can't be real."

"Tell me," he said, "do you ever remember before, actually going to the bathroom in a dream and hearing the noise of the piss hitting the toilet?"

"Uh," she said.

#####

Jersalam Handshaw woke on the daybed in the motel office cabin. He liked the sound of rain against the wall behind his head, that hadn't awakened him. He always woke up at about five a.m. It wouldn't be light for another two hours, with the storm, maybe even longer.

He'd had the midnight shift so his brother, Fayreuth, had slept in the bedroom of the manager's cabin they shared, number one. They had tried sleeping in the same bed, but that hadn't worked since they were kids--Fay talked in his sleep and Jerry snored.

Yawning, he got up and put the pot on the little hot plate to make water for tea. He used the bathroom for its usual purposes and came out wearing fresh underclothes, socks and shirt and the same overalls he had worn yesterday. He had three pair which he washed on Sunday afternoons while wearing his one suit.

Fay wandered out of the bathroom, mumbled a good morning, then took his turn in the bathroom while Jerry put out cups and poured cereal into bowls. Shredded wheat this morning, he decided, with cut up bananas on top.

Meddina, the Handshaw sister, had a room above the general store across the highway and always picked up a few things on her way over. She would be arriving soon with milk and three morning papers; the Jonesboro Sun, the Memphis Press, and the local East Arkansas News-Leader.

They would each take turns reading interesting articles aloud over breakfast while passing the papers back and forth among them so that they all got to read every one of the funnies. Jerry looked forward to the morning ritual inaugurated by old Cenatcherub Handshaw when the twins were still in diapers and Meddina had just learned to read.

The names and sources of the papers sometimes changed, and on Fridays the weekly Sortie Forth got added to the pile, but the stability of the tradition pleased all of them.

Meddina entered the front door with a pink-and-gray umbrella held above her head and the milk and newspapers in her mail carrier satchel just as Fay came out of the bedroom dressed in his overalls and tying a bowtie. Fay took the umbrella, shook the water out of it onto the mat and hung it on a hook by the door with two others, Jerry's olive-and-teal, and Fay's own black.

They murmured good mornings at each other and Meddina stood on the mat a moment longer, letting her wool serge uniform drip. A handsome woman in her sixties, she made the most of the Handshaw family features. The round but somehow bony faces of her brothers translated to an elegant oval on her. Their lank, no-color hair became a rich ash brown touched with white at the temples and their pale gray eyes turned to jade with silver flecks.

Fay and Jerry looked tall because they were skinny but they actually stood several inches less than six foot. Meddina's slender form also gave the impression of height, but on her it lent dignity rather than rustic clownishness.

Maybe the mail carrier's uniform helped.

Meddina walked around the guest counter into the cabin proper, swung the heavy leather satchel onto the tiny dinette table and began taking out the bottles of milk and rolled up newspapers she had fetched from Hosie's Sortie General Store and Post Office.

The store opened at five a.m. in the spring and fall to sell worms to fishermen, even earlier in the summer and winter when hunters made the woods around Sortie dangerous to anyone who looked anything like a bird, deer or varmint.

Fay pulled the chair out for his sister and she sat down. "You've got someone in number five," she said, not asking.

Jerry nodded, flashing his grin. "Couple of city folk traveling from Memphis."

"How do you know they's from Memphis?"

"Fay said."

Fay nodded and the brothers sat down, too. They passed a bottle of milk around, which they each in turn poured into big bowls of cereal and added to their cups of tea. Jerry reached behind him to put the two full and one nearly empty milk bottles into the small refrigerator while Meddina distributed the newspapers.

Being the family intellectual, Jerry took the college town Jonesboro Sun first; Meddina liked to keep up on local affairs and kept the News-Leader for herself leaving the Memphis Press for Fay which he sniffed of before opening.

"How do you know they came from Memphis?" Meddina asked.

"Smelled it on them, or him," said Fay. He rattled the paper. "He smelled just like this here newspaper. They had Memphis mud on their car, too. Fancy car."

"It's going to rain all day," Meddina mentioned.

The twin brothers nodded.

"Going to rain like Noah's raising daisies," said Jerry.

"Why did you put them in number five?" Meddina asked.

"They needed sorting out," said Fay.

Jerry smiled. "Are you certain?"

The other two winced because in the Crowley's Ridge dialect "sorting" and "certain" are both pronounced "sartin", more or less.

#####

In the bathroom, she stared at her reflection in the three-quarter-length mirror on the back of the door, a small, slender woman, almost a girl, with lots of blonde hair. She put a hand under one breast and lifted it; they did seem a bit large.

Outside, the rain whipped and beat against the cabin walls. A late spring chill rolled off the tiny frosted glass window in the bathroom but she felt safe, warm, and calm despite what seemed to have happened and a fluttery, excited kind of wobble in her very middle.

"I am still dreaming," she whispered. She rubbed her hands down her sides to the swell of her hips, across her rounded little tummy, then up to her breasts, her face and through her hair. "It feels real, but I know I'm still dreaming," she said.

His voice came through the door, "If you're in there feeling yourself up, I get to fucken watch," he said. "It's my body, you know."

She rolled her eyes and smiled. "I'm so pretty," she said. She seized a sudden impulse, opened the bathroom door and strutted toward the bed with the light behind her.

He lay still, watching her, his eyes and mouth smiling. She wondered if he had a hard-on, if he were dreaming that he had a hard-on. Or was it that she was dreaming he had a hard-on?

Or was it that he was dreaming that he was she, dreaming that she was he and getting a hard-on dreaming he was watching her? She felt a bit dizzy and very, very sexy. She stopped in front of the bed and smiled back at him.

"Wow," he said.

#####

"T40 traffic, this is the blue Cessna over the Red River. I want to land on Runway Three Five," said Ned after keying the mike.

The radio squawked back. "This is T40 ground. Not a good idea, Cessna. You'd be landing on a downhill slope, about four degrees, partner. Plus which you'd hit a gravelated crossroad just about the time you got her wheels on the grass. Better take One Seven."

"Negative, ground," said Ned. "We'd have a tailwind landing One Seven."

Hank peered out the side window toward the little runway between the dirt road and the river. The restaurant sat just off centerline at one end and a grove of pecan trees lined both sides of the other end. Landing One Seven would be heading toward the trees.

"...crosswind...," squawked the radio.

"T40, say again," said Ned.

"I said, you're gonna have a crosswind no matter which way you fly. This storm is whipping 'round the compass like they got a sale on windsocks at Nordstorm's."

"Maybe we should go on toward Denton," suggested Hank. "They got a real tower there and more than one runway."

"Fuck Denton," said Ned, forgetting that he had keyed the mike open again.

"Cessna, say again?" said the voice on the radio.

"I said," Ned hesitated then continued. "I said, I'm going to land Runway Three Five."

"Getting between them trees coming down in this weather would scare the tits off me," said T40 ground. "You got an overwing and visibility, I reckon you know whether you can do it."

"T40, is that you, Sue?" asked Ned.

"Ah-huh."

"I get this down and tie her to them trees, she don't blow away to Texas, you can rustle us up some breakfast?"

"Kitchen don't open till noon, Cessna. It ain't six a.m. yet."

"I got five guys coming in two cars, plus me and Hank here. That's seven. I'll pay five hundred dollars for breakfast for all of us. Cash money."

"Eggs, taters, hush puppies and catfish, with coffee, okay?"

"Yup," said Ned, satisfied. "Landing Three Five, approach beginning."

"Keep your nosewheel down, Cessna," warned Sue. "You hit that gravelated hardpan five seconds after touchdown, you're going to wish you had shocks instead of springs on that monkey."

"Copy," said Ned, beginning his approach checklist.

#####

"We have to be dreaming," she insisted. "I mean, we...." She trailed off realizing that shared dreams weren't much less odd than what seemed to have happened. "I mean, I must be dreaming."

She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the comforter around her, for warmth and maybe modesty since she realized she was naked. What had happened to the orangey nightgown? Had she been wearing it? What had happened to her confidence?

She'd left the light in the bathroom on and he watched her through his eyelashes, his eyes half-closed. "You often dream of being a cute little blonde with a button nose and big tits?" he asked.

She shook her head and blushed, though she wasn't sure why.

He laughed. "You looked in the mirror?"

She didn't answer but pulled the quilted bedcover higher up on her shoulders.

"This isn't a dream," he repeated. "Listen, hear the rain?" Outside, it seemed as if some moronic giant had emptied a bootful of water on the little cabin while trying to read the instructions on the heel. "Listen carefully, there's the roar that sounds like it ain't going to stop and then under it you can hear a little dribble, like we've got a leak somewhere."

Her expression went blank while she tried to concentrate on the sound.

He pointed. Near the window, on the ceiling, drops gathered and fell to splash on the top of the highboy chest of drawers, one big fat juicy drop every ten or twelve seconds.

"I could dream something like that," she said.

He pushed himself up to a sitting position beside her. She glanced at his lap, he was naked and obviously male and more than semi-aroused.

"Take a deep breath," he urged. "Smell the mildew in this old place? And something like old cleaner, piney and sharp."

She closed her eyes and sniffed. "Uh-huh?"

"Why dream about something like that? It's too real. This isn't like when we were dreaming about going to school and playing on the swing set. Colors kept changing then, we even grew and changed. Nothing's changing now. Those drops still are hitting five or six a minute, not one or two or ten or twenty. It still smells like mildew and Pine-Sol, not chocolate frosted cupcakes and Beernuts."

"Beernuts," she said.

He grinned and put an arm around her. "I'm you and you're me. We're not dreaming." He shook his head. "It's weird but we're not dreaming."

"I feel sick," she said, not sure if she liked having his arm around her just then.

"Sick-sick, or just kind of blehh?"

"Both."

"That's interesting," he said.

"Not so much from over here. Don't get in my way if I run for the toilet, I think I may throw up."

"Hmm."

They didn't say anything for a while. She didn't know what he might be thinking but for her part she felt both queasy and hungry and struggled not to think of food. Especially not greasy breakfast food, like eggs and sausage and gravy. Just the thought made her want to urp.

"I do have to piss," he said. "Sorry." He stood and walked into the dim light of the bathroom, naked, tall, muscular, very male, his red hair suddenly gleaming as the light hit it. His dick stood out in front of him, leading the way.

She forgot about food for a moment, then discovered a need to distract herself from watching him.

"Hey," he said. "Getting it to point down is sort of...oh, wait, let me lift the lid." He did so then stood there, casually pissing into the bowl. "This is kind of fun."

She looked away toward the drip in the corner but that didn't really help her forget what he was doing. "How come I'm a blonde then if we're not dreaming, and you're a redhead?" She asked. "Did we swap bodies or did we keep our bodies and morph into each other?"

""That's a really interesting question," he said.

#####

 

 

 

Sue McGehee, the gravel-voiced eponymous owner of McGehee's Catfish Restaurant and Airstrip stood waiting by the live oaks that framed the rear entrance of her place of business. She held an enormous green umbrella but did not venture out to meet Ned and Hank Sweet. On the eastern horizon, false dawn tried to break through the cloud cover but it remained dark, cold, windy and wet.

The cousins threaded their way between puddles and rivulets from where they had tied the little blue Cessna between two tall pecan trees. Warm, mellow light from the catfish restaurant windows and the sodium vapor runway lamps behind them contrasted with the weather.

Rain still fissed and blooed about the Sweets, sometimes directly in their faces, occasionally seeming to come upward under their yellow slickers. It wasn't a hard rain, more of a playful one, but it sent shivers down their backs -- cold as ice cubes, sly as a street child, sharp as a new axe. The scent of the river gusted on the wind, alternating with the aroma of hot Southern fat in a deep fryer.

Sue held the umbrella out for Ned to take which he accepted and promptly passed on to Hank. His hands free, he grabbed tall, bony Sue in an Alabama bear hug and kissed her on the cheek. Her hair smelled of lavender and corn fritters and his stomach rumbled, anticipating.

"What you boys doin' out this way in such weather?" she asked after trading pleasantries. "I ain't had no more trouble with the state about run-off into the river since you'uns fixed me up."

"We just come for the catfish," said Hank, grinning.

"Sure 'nuff," agreed Ned. "Nah, if'n we came just for cat, crawdads and hushpuppies we'd've come when you're open, don't you know?" He grinned at her, making her sweet as they say in Alabama. And the Sweet men knew how to do that.

She grinned, knowing his brand of Southern malarkey for what it was but enjoying the process. "I woke Albert up, he's fixing something special. But let's go aroun' t'front, he's got a cleaver he keeps special for them what tracks mud into his kitchen."

"Yes'm," both Sweets said. An artist like Albert January deserved consideration. They followed Sue thinking about the many blessings of southern cookery they were about to enjoy.

Hank had to swallow several times on the way around the deliberately rustic clapboard building -- his mouth was already watering. A gust of wind from the storm tried to snatch the big green umbrella from him but he managed to hold onto it by taking a running step, unfortunately right onto the heel of one of Ned's Italian loafers.

Ned's foot popped out of the trapped shoe and landed in a mud puddle before he could react. "G-goldangit!" he yelped, remembering just in time that he was in the presence of a flower of southern womanhood.

Said flower paused to observe the misadventure and commented, "You put your muddy foot back in that 'spensive shoe, you gonna fuck it up pretty bad."

"Sorry, Neddie," said Hank. "The wind caught this here bumbershoot and pulled me off balance." A bucketful of hailstones the size of pea gravel rattled against the roof and the big umbrella.

Sue smiled. Ned frowned but said nothing, hobbling on around the side of the restaurant, carrying one shoe. Despite the umbrella and the slickers, they were all soaked and Ned could feel ice water trickling into his underpants because of his peculiar, hunched-over gait.

Just before they reached the door, Sue said, "I almost forgot. The quarest thing happened while you was a-landing. You got a message on the telephone."

"My boys from Okay City delayed?" asked Ned, almost shouting over the roar of the storm.

"No, this was from some fellow in Arkansas," said Sue. "I wrote it down by the phone."

Ned and Hank exchanged glances while Hank held the door for Sue. "Maybe the crew coming through Memphis by car caught up with her?" suggested Hank.

"Sumbitch," agreed Ned.

#####

Meddina looked at Fay. "Who did you call?"

Fay put the old-style phone back on the hook and reached to replace it on the office counter behind him. Since he'd taken over desk duty, officially, as soon as he'd gotten up, he had the nearest chair to the office; half in the office add-on and half in the cabin itself.

"Left a message for someone," he said.

Meddina frowned. "Yes, I heard you. Who did you leave a message for, and who with?"

"Catfish Sue," said Jerry.

"Catfish?" said Meddina.

"This rain, they'll be biting at anything," said Fay.

Meddina rattled her paper at him. "Don't keep trying to pull frog wool over my eyes. You two have been up to something. Messing with the weather, I shouldn't wonder."

Fay hid a smile behind a spoonful of shredded wheat and banana but Jerry grinned right at their older sister.

"Imps," said Meddina. "The both of you. You'll get the others riled up, that old Indian that sleeps under the mountain, the shopkeeper, the smith. And Hermot. Hermot's bench isn't fifty miles from Catfish Sue's place and you know it. Want him after you for playing tricks on people?"

Jerry kept grinning and Fay chewed, solemn as a judge.

"Putting those poor people into cabin five." She glanced at a window. Cabin one being the only one without an attached garage, it had considerable more wall space for windows.

Jerry hid behind his paper. Fay munched cereal and did not look at his sister.

Meddina held her hands up, palms out. First toward the east facing window, then, swiveling like radar dish, toward cabin five. "The sun is up," she announced, "and they're going at it like weasels with their first licorice stick."

Jerry's paper shook. Fay choked on a bit of wheat and banana.

#####

"C'mere," he said, sitting down beside her. The bed sagged still more and emitted that mild stink of old, well-used mattresses rented by the night -- one part mildew, one part dust, one part the detritus of human occupation.

"How can this be real?" she asked. Looking up at him, realizing that even sitting down, he was much taller than she. She could feel switches being flipped inside her, fluids being sent thither and yon, systems getting ready for -- what? She thought she knew and more switches flipped, tripped and knobs turned and sliders slid and all the lights and circuits in her body and mind hummed.

His strength, or rather, her knowledge of his strength did things to her. He looked and smelled so very, very male and when he made a male noise, a chuckle that might have been a growl, she realized that he could easily dominate her. And that one part of her wanted him to do so.

Astonished, she opened her mouth and left it that way, looking up at him.

So he kissed her. His tongue went into her mouth and they did the tonsil dance. She put her arms around his neck and kissed back.

"We can't," she said when they had to stop to breathe. What, she wondered, what was it they couldn't do? Sex seemed not only possible but inevitable.

"Why not?" he asked. "We did it last night?"

"Uh..." she tried to frame a protest but couldn't seem to get her thoughts in order. They kissed again and this time she let the covers she had wrapped around herself fall away. Her breasts got squished against his hard, male chest and it felt wonderful.

She tried again to protest but he kissed her on the ear lobe, the shoulder, the breast, her eyelids and her mouth again. He could so easily have used his strength to dominate her--but he didn't. Instead, he used gentleness to fire the passion inside her, cloaking his power with sweet attentions, inviting her to be the aggressor.

So she bit him. First gently on the lip, then more strongly on his shoulder as he moved her effortlessly higher on the bed. She co-operated feverishly, squirming against him, searching with her hands and her mouth for those places that would make him answer passion with passion. Doing it was much easier than believing in what she was doing.

She felt weightless, filled with light, burning up with purpose she understood in a way she had never comprehended anything before.

"Who knew," he whispered as he arranged her to his convenience and their mutual pleasure.

"Who knew what," she gasped as she spread her legs and hooked her heels over his shoulders.

"Who knew what dreams may come?" he asked just before he plunged his new manhood deep inside her.

She gasped, a long inhalation that would have to be released with a scream.

#####

"Emmaline, you moughtn't want to follow on the boys so close, they could spot us," suggested Molly Jo Sweet to her sister-in-law for about the ninth time since they crossed the bridge at Memphis.

"I gotta be close enough to spot them if they take one of these here exits," Emmaline protested -- again. "It's night and it's rainin', you know, hard to see too far ahead." As if to demonstrate, she leaned against the steering wheel to peer even more intently into the gloom.

"I'm just sayin'," said Molly.

The three women in the back seat of big sedan sniggered. Emmaline ground her teeth together. Molly Jo crossed her arms under her substantial bosom and smiled.

"I don't know why the menfolk all took out after her, anyway," said Sueretta from the middle of the backseat. "If she wants to run away from her own wedding, let her."

"Ned told them to," explained Dottie Mack from behind the driver. "He thinks he's in lurve with the little blonde trollop."

"Well, she don't love him," said Naomi from the right rear corner seat. She fumbled in her purse to pull out a package of homemade candied popcorn and pecans. "Anyone else want some snicker-snack? I'm hungry."

No one answered. Snicker-snack got in your teeth and was pure aitch to remove in a delicate and ladylike manner, especially in a moving car but Naomi was addicted to the rich, buttery concoction made for her by Bella, her New York born, Jamaican cook. As a consequence, perhaps, Naomi was the only Sweet present who wore larger than a size eight.

For a while, Emmaline and Molly Jo left off their bickering and the only sound in the car was Naomi's contented munching, alternating with a sucking sound when she had to prise her jaws open to insert more snicker-snack.

Suretta swallowed saliva a second time, the smell of popcorn, pecan and butter brickle caramel made her mouth water. "Blonde?" she said, looking at Dottie Mack. Every woman in the car unconsciously touched her own blond hair.

"Thass right," Naomi slurred around a mouthful. "I mean, that's wrong, that gold-digger Ceecee is a redhead."

"Blonde," said Emmaline, shaking her head.

"Redhead," said Suretta.

"I'm gone snatch her bald we catch up to the slut," said Molly Jo. "Run off from my brother's wedding. She's trash and I told him so."

#####

Ned read the slip of paper written in Sue McGehee's impromptu scrawl again. "What's this word?" he asked pointing.

Sue frowned. "I think it's Dallas. I think he said Dallas."

The Sweet employees from the Okay City office had arrived and helped Hank push two tables together in the middle of the wide part of the front dining room. Everyone had sat down and Sue had poured coffee into heavy white mugs. Fresh cream in little white pitchers sat in the middle of the table alongside ceramic boats of sugar and sweetener packets and little shakers of vanilla powder and Sue's own special blend of chicory, cocoa and cinnamon.

The men helped themselves from dishtowel-covered withy baskets to crisp, corn-and-potato-and-pepper hush puppies which they dipped in the saucers full of sorghum molasses beside every plate. Tall pitchers of apple cider sat at each end of the combined table assembly with stacks of heavy glass tumblers at the ready.

A platter of thin slices of fried country ham arrived, edges crispy with fat. Baskets of fresh buttermilk biscuits replaced the empty hushpuppy ones. A crock of pale, sweet, home-churned butter appeared. A deep bowl of scrambled eggs with parsley and minced onions and another bowl full of country potatoes moved around the table and every man took a helping to his plate.

"Where's the catfish?" asked Hank around a mouthful of ham biscuit.

"January is cutting some special filets, the morning catch just arrived from the river," said Sue, pouring more coffee. Her announcement was greeted with murmurs and moans of anticipation all around.

Sitting at the head of the table, Ned fidgeted against the comfort. He worried about his plane outside in the wind and rain. This was tornado country, though the radio hadn't mentioned any twisters in the area.

He worried even more about his bride who had apparently run off with some fella from Illinois who she must have had waiting for her on that little country lane behind the church. Why would she marry him if she planned to run away? He couldn't figure it out except as some sort of plot to extort money from his family.

He still had the note in his hand, having folded and refolded and unfolded it several times.

"Lemme see," said Hank. Ned handed him the paper.

Hank frowned, his lips barely moving as he puzzled out Sue's chicken scratches. "What's this say?" he asked, pointing. "Gorilla?"

"Galleria," said Ned. "I'm supposed to meet her at the Dallas Galleria, tonight."

"Sumbitch," said Ned, handing the paper back just as the platters of hot, savory catfish and baskets of more hushpuppies arrived.

Sue had fed the boys ham and biscuits and hushpuppies first, otherwise a hungry man might have drowned in his own saliva, just from the smell.

Ned took the note back, refolding it and putting it into his shirt pocket, putting away his worries, too, for a bit, to enjoy the wonderful meal in the magical setting. Time enough to make decisions later.

"There's early peach cobbler and fresh whipped cream, too," warned Sue, "so save some room."

Outside the storm still spat and complained against the windows, like a passel of contrary cats. Inside it was warm and comfortable with legendary hospitality and food fit for angels and gods.

#####

 

 

 

"What should I call you?" she asked. She liked leaning against his solid middle while he lay on his side. That and playing with his chest hair.

He made a noise. "Not Ricky," he said. "That's a wimp name. A grown man called Ricky? Please." He played with the long curls hanging down her back, tickling the nape of her neck with her own hair.

She giggled. "Well, it was a nickname. My real first name was Roderick. How about if I call you Rod?"

He laughed, the vibration in his chest giving her goosebumps. "Rod Peters?" he said. "That makes me sound like an old-fashioned porno stud."

"Why do you think I didn't use it?" She giggled again.

"I like it. Rod it is. And I'm going to call you Cissy, instead of CeeCee." He grinned. "You're a hell of a lot more girly than I ever was."

She blushed. "Am I really?"

"Mm-hmm." He bent a little to rub his whiskery chin against her shoulder. "Ouch," he said when she tugged on his chest fuzz in retaliation.

With her other hand, she investigated. "I think you're ready again. Rod." Fire and ice played tag in her tummy and she sighed without knowing she had done so.

"I think you're right, Cissy," he said. "This time, you get on top."

#####

At a big, smooth, table in the largest room in the Sweet mansion sat the family executive council, their hands and elbows resting on the pecan wood with cups of coffee and glasses of juice near at hand. The room would easily hold forty people with as many as sixteen sitting at the big table and two dozen more scattered around in comfortable chairs and sofas. Dom, the family butler, had made sure that everyone had refreshment and then lead the other servants out, closing the door behind him.

Outside, the southeastern edge of the storm punishing the middle of the country tormented Florence, Alabama with rain, hail and tornado sirens. That tame beast, the Tennessee River was unlikely to flood but the water coming down did what damage it could. Sweet family pumper trucks might be needed to empty basements as well as septic tanks after this gale.

Hamilton Edward Sweet, Pappy, the ruling patriarch of the Sweet clan, pushed a fist into his stomach and belched into his other hand. Damn acid reflux would be the death of him yet, he decided, if cancer didn't get him first.

Pappy glanced around the room, taking in the attitudes of his brothers, daughters, nieces and grandchildren, as well as a few assorted in-laws. Borden Pruitt and Lucas Boyle would cover things at the offices today while the true Sweets dealt with disaster.

He ignored his parents, Josiah and Susie Mack, both in their nineties. Josiah was deaf, almost blind and rested in his high tech wheelchair gumming nothing and whining when he became aware of anyone near him. His wife, Pappy's mother, dozed nearby, sitting upright in a straight chair, her once blazing red hair now an ironic white halo. Susie Mack had been a bomb-throwing anarchist, party girl and authentic hell-raiser in her day.

Her third son, Hamilton Parker Sweet, evidence of Susie Mack's once evil ways because he was only legally and not biologically a Sweet, sat at Pappy's right hand. Sunny, as he was known to all, still ran the finances of the family answering only to Pappy in many decisions involving money. Sunny was a metaphorical as well as an actual bastard and took a perverse pride in both.

The middle son, Hamilton Joseph, Old Joe, had suffered a stroke years ago and his once hulking presence at the table seemed ghostly somehow. Old Joe had been Battlin' Joe in his football years with the Crimson Tide, and Colonel Joe Sweet, USMC, during World War II. Now the ruined half of his face looked as if he had died in that old war and been poorly preserved all these years. A patch covered the dead right eye. The corner of his mouth on that side had actually been stitched up to keep him from drooling. The left side still had life, though, and a wary malice gleamed in his cyclopean gaze.

Old Joe hated all things living and Sweet and imagined that this fact was only known to himself. He sat across the table from his brothers and never looked them directly in the face in order to keep himself from sneering. Millie, his wife, sat on his blind side, the one person he trusted there. She always came to family executive sessions because Old Joe's voice sometimes broke down into frustrated stammers and cursing and only Millie could always understand him.

At one end of the table sat Hamilton Edward Sweet II, Ed, Ned's father, Pappy's eldest son, and presumptive heir to leadership of the family when the older generation consented to die. At the other end sat his brother and rival, Hamilton Patrick, Salty.

Old Joe's son, Hamilton Montrose, Li'l Joe, sat in a nearby easy chair with a square glass of bourbon in his big left hand and an unlit Cuban stogie in his right. He would not sit at the same table with his father but he was the family enforcer now and needed to learn of executive decisions soonest.

The wives and most of the daughters of the men of the executive council sat on couches and chairs nearby. The boys and some of the girls of the fourth generation had all gone to help Ned look for his bride but they didn't all attend these meetings, anyway.

All of the men except Sunny were either bald or had thinning blond hair. Sunny's hair took after his mother's and had gone an odd shade of orange-pink, like a mixture of sugar, cinnamon and khaki-colored dust. Millie shaved Old Joe's head everyday, working carefully around the scars where the doctors in Atlanta had taken out the blood clot.

Salty cleared his throat, looking from Pappy to Ed and back again. Sunny chewed on a pencil and spat eraser crumbs into his hand. Li'l Joe grunted, and old Ham in his electronic chair whined that he needed prunes but no one ever listened to him. He was right, they didn't.

"Cho we kyiww hewh," said Old Joe.

"So we kill her," repeated Millicent.

Pappy frowned. "That's a little extreme and a lot premature," he cautioned.

Susie Mack stirred in her sleep, one leg drawing back to kick a strike-busting goon where it would do the most good. The daughters and wives sitting or standing on the sidelines twittered and nattered.

Sunny cleared his throat. "I think it would be unwise."

"Uncle Joe didn't mean it," said Salty.

"Chess I did," grunted Joe. "Fuggin paster." Millie left that untranslated.

"Since she runned off right after the wedding, we could probably get it annulled," suggested Ed. He had a law degree so he ought to know.

"That won't he'p," said Li'l Joe. "She can still rip us all a new hole to shit with, eventually." He sipped his bourbon and chewed his stogie. It wasn't 8 a.m. yet but damned if he were going to drink coffee or fruit juice while they talked about killing someone.

"Cho we kyiww hewh," said Old Joe again. "Witches got it cumpin."

"The bitch has got it coming," Millie clarified.

#####

The car carrying the younger male Hamilton Sweets, besides Ned and Hank, had missed the turn off to Jonesboro, assuming that their quarry had driven straight through. By swapping off drivers they had continued on through to Little Rock and negotiated the poorly marked roads around the Arkansas metropolis. Even going directly through the city on I-40 all the way, it was possible to get lost if you didn't know that doing the simple thing was always correct because the signs were half-hidden, defaced, missing or even just wrong.

Emerging at the northwestern corner of the city, they were headed for Fort Smith when they got the call from Hank to meet up in Dallas.

Bo closed up his cellphone and asked the obvious question. "Why Dallas?" The other two cousins shrugged. Nobody knew or wanted to even guess.

The simplest thing to do, Bo decided, would be turn around, take I-430 around the western edge of the city and pick up I-30 heading straight to Plano. By the time they got there, someone should know better where they should meet up. All he had to do now was tell Tater.

Driving with the seat almost all the way forward to account for his short legs, Tater hunched over, elbows out instead of down. He peered through the rain, his jaw muscles knotted. Sitting, he was as tall as any of his cousins but standing up he looked like that cartoon character on King of the Hill who had his feet attached to his knees. At the moment, he also looked the very picture of stubborn intensity, and pictures don't lie.

Besides being the shortest male Sweet, Tater was also the oldest of his generation and had the least amount of hair. A pitiful combover decorated his big square skull and he purely hated for anyone to tell him anything while he was driving. He'd probably already figured out what was going on and didn't seem inclined to look for an exit to turn around on.

Bo sighed and glanced over the seat back at his brother, Luther, sprawled out across the wide back bench. Luther grinned at him, knowing what the problem had to be.

Tater spoke, confirming Bo's worry. "I'm driving as far as Russelville," he said. Halfway to Fort Smith, in the wind and storm, driving like a bat out of hell with Beelzebub on his tail; Tater didn't do anything at less than maximum effort, except drinking and fishing. No, wait, he was a serious drinker, too.

"That's right, Tater, that's what we said. I'll take over there," said Luther from the back. "Just let me get some shuteye now and then you can sleep all the way to Dallas."

Bo shook his head but he didn't argue. You could argue with Tater and even win with logic and persuasion but you might get a rabbit punch in the kidney a week from next Tuesday. He's nothing like his brother Hank or his dad Salty; he's more like my granddad, Old Joe, except he has two eyes.

The big black doolie lurched on the wet pavement as Tater's heavy foot mashed the accelerator. Christmas, thought Bo, now we're doing eighty-five! Damn good thing we didn't bring Borden or Lucas, neither of them would put up with this but Luther and I are blood and we understand Tater.

He smiled. It's kind of like understanding a tornado, just stay out of its way and you'll be fine. Oh, well. He pulled out his cellphone again to call his wife, Dottie Mack, and tell the car full of sisters and wives about the change in destinations.

#####

Dottie McGill Sweet closed her phone after the call from Bo. The great grandniece of old Susie Mack, Pappy's mother, Dottie had married her third cousin Bo knowing full well what it meant to be a Sweet. She loved it. She'd even dyed her chestnut hair blonde to fit in.

"Ladies," she announced. "We're going to Shoppin'opolis! Neiman-Marcus, here we come."

"How do we get to Dallas from Rock City?" asked Emmaline who was now navigating while Molly Jo drove. She peered at the screen of the GPS mounted on the dashboard.

"We got to come out of that maze going south," suggested Suretta, still in the middle of the back seat. Being the smallest of the ladies, she naturally fit in between the tall, bony Dottie Mack and the plump, soft Naomi.

"Southwest," corrected Molly Jo behind the wheel. She didn't like driving in the rain but she only trusted Emmaline and Dottie Mack to not drive them off in a bar ditch so her turn kept coming up.

"Dallas is south of Little Rock," said Naomi. "I think." She'd put the snicker-snack away and had been dozing until the cellphone buzz had woke her up. She stifled a yawn and covered up licking caramel off her teeth by holding a hand in front of her face.

"South but more west," said Dottie Mack. All the girls agreed. Normally they flew into Dallas for their twice annual shopping trips and long distance driving was usually left to their husbands.

So, maybe it wasn't too surprising that they wound up circling Pine Bluff in south-central Arkansas, two and a half hours later. They eventually blamed it on the storm, the confusing freeway signs and the GPS but they wouldn't reach Dallas for another ten hours.

#####

Cissy negotiated the walkway from Cabin 5 to the office in her high heels, wishing she'd thought to buy some plain flats when they'd stopped earlier. The howling wind grabbed her and tried to throw her off the path and into a mud puddle and she let out a yelp of fright before catching her balance.

Rod's jacket almost swallowed her up entirely but it had been the only thing in the cabin that could be used to keep her dry. Rod himself lay sleeping in the lop-sided bed which was probably even more lumpy and decrepit after the workout they had given it.

She gurgled deep in her throat. A newly married lady ought to enjoy her honeymoon, she thought. Only thing wrong was Rod wasn't her husband. "Ah, Neddy," she said aloud. "I hope you get over me quick. I'll get this marriage annulled soon and we can forget we ever knew each other."

That bothered her a little. In one way, she didn't know Ned Sweet and never had, and in another way she remembered quite well their lovemaking of the last few months, Neddy's proposal, their wedding and the desperate panic that had seized her as soon as their vows had been said. She'd run away and found Rod or he had found her and now she had the happiness she knew Ned could never give her.

She reached the office door and had raised a hand to knock when the door flew open and a skinny old woman grabbed her and pulled her inside.

"Get in here, child," Meddina Handshaw scolded. "You'll ketch your death of the grippe out in this weather!"

Jerry and Fay nodded identically. "Pure fact," said Fay. "Getting soaked to the skin in a summer storm has carried off more folk than falling off barns or drowning in the crick."

"If you fell into the crick, you'd probably get soaked, too," pointed out Jerry.

"'Tain't the same thing," said Fay.

"Hush up," Meddina snapped. "Get a body a hot cup of tea, why don't you? Pore thing's teeth are going to start chattering."

Cissy wrinkled her nose and laughed. "I'm all right," she said. She stopped grinning with a bit of effort. "But I'm – different. Different than what I was?"

Jerry nodded. Meddina glared at both of her brothers and Fay smiled a tight, satisfied smile. "You needed sorting out," he said.

"Huh?" She shook her head and licked her lips. "No, I mean – I don't think I'm the same person I was. I used to have red hair – no, I mean, he used to have red hair – no, see, he's got red hair, now but I used to be a blond. Uh...." She trailed off, unsure of what she had said, what she had actually meant and even more unsure of why she might be telling the odd trio what surely must be fantasy.

But the three of them were all nodding. "You needed sorting out," Fay repeated.

The original for this is Romantic Marriage comics #23. When I came upon it, I had just finished reading Chapter three of "Getting Sorted", and it seemed a perfect fit; I just changed the hair color. Thanks for what's shaping up to be a great and most unusual story with fun quirky characters. Vaingirls Comics covers 001 - 780 can be found at http://tgcaps.com/caps/modcovers/jezzi/

Hugs, Jezzi