Write of Passage

Write of Passage - Chapter 3 (

The Passage, Part 2)

© 2024 by the authors using the pen names

UpperNorthLeft

and

Jalibar62

.

This is Part Three (and the conclusion) of the second story in the ongoing adventures of Harry and Portia; the first being

"

Write 'em, Cowboy

."

This will make a lot more sense if you read that one first.

This picks up right where Chapter Two left off.

Any frisky frolicking, hot monkey lovin', or other sexy shenanigans are between consenting adults 18 years of age or older.

===

Roanoke to Nashville

FLISS

We were headed down I-81 and were a little ways past Bristol -- a town that straddles the Virginia-Tennessee line -- when I saw the sign: Pigeon Forge - Gatlinburg. I mean, we'd seen some strange names on our journey, but what the hell was a Pigeon Forge? I must have said it out loud because Harry perked up.

"Oh! I almost forgot! That's where Dollywood is. We should stop!"

Slowly, I said, "What... the ever-loving fuck... is

Dollywood

?"

"It's a theme park that Dolly Parton opened a while back. It's got rides like a regular amusement park, but of course there's country music, lots of Southern food, and Appalachian crafts. Stuff like that. Come on, it'll be fun!"

"Harry... I have two words for you. Fuck and No." And I held onto the steering wheel like grim death until we were past Knoxville and safely headed west.

===

HARRY

I chuckled to myself at Fliss's vehemence, and Portia kicked me under the table. I grinned at her and got back to coding.

A couple of hours or so later, Fliss swung into the Nashville Marriott. Betty had agreed that we could splurge on a hotel from time to time. It would be a nice break from glamping in the RV. And it was walking distance to the Vanderbilt University Bookstore, where our next reading slash signing was set up.

We got adjoining rooms and Fliss immediately opened the interior door, before falling backward onto her bed. She giggled --

still a work in progress

-- and began making snow angels --

sheet angels?

-- on her bed.

Propping herself up on her elbows, she grinned at Portia, who was watching her with mild amusement and leaning on the door jamb.

"Don't get me wrong; I love my little cubbyhole on the RV, but this? This, I could get used to." She flopped back, wriggled again, and sighed happily.

Portia laughed, then pulling the door part way closed, she came over to me. "What about you, cowboy? Could you get used to this?"

I pulled her close and dropped my voice half an octave. "I reckon I could get used to anything as long as you're with me." Portia's face went all squidgy, but the gagging sounds from the other room ruined the moment.

Undeterred, I continued, "That's a pretty big bed!" I waggled my eyebrows at my honey. "Give you any ideas?"

The slamming door had us both laughing.

===

Somehow, Betty had once again worked her magic, and had gotten us tickets to the Grand Ole Opry that evening. Fliss had to be dragged kicking and screaming, but once there, she grudgingly admitted that Chase Rice was "kinda cute."

Once back at the hotel, she made a point of putting in her ear buds as she gave us a knowing smirk. We took full advantage. Three times!

===

Once again, the reading went well. There were more younger women than I anticipated, but I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. We were at the university, after all.

Fliss got a few looks, but she bore them with equanimity. She even kept from rolling her eyes when a blonde with a Southern drawl thicker than molasses asked us, "What made y'all decide to have both your characters wearin' their boots during their first time in bed? That seems kinda... difficult? Wouldn't they hafta take their boots off, you know, so they could get their britches off, and then why would they put their boots back on?"

With a teasing grin, she added, "I know

I

wouldn't have bothered at that point!"

I overheard the girl next to her whisper, "Savannah, you're so bad!"

I noticed that the blonde was looking directly at me with a challenging grin when she asked her question. I looked at Portia to see if she wanted to field it. However, she merely quirked an amused eyebrow and extended her hand palm up to me. I glanced at Fliss, whose facial expression was neutral, but whose eyes expressed deep merriment at my dilemma.

Okay -- here goes.

"That's a great question. I'll answer it with a peek inside our heads while we were writing it. We also spotted that tiny inconsistency in our plot, but were so taken with the double meaning of 'bumping boots', that we decided to leave it in. After some brainstorming, we finally decided to sell it as a state of sexual urgency between our main characters so extreme that they couldn't wait long enough to completely undress."

The blonde gave me a dubious look, so I pressed on. "Remember, our hero was the only one wearing pants in that scene, and if you recall, they were yanked down rather abruptly by the heroine. He returned the favor by ripping off her skirt and panties."

The blonde now looked a bit less skeptical. Saucily, she said, "Hmm. I guess I was in such a hurry to get to the good part that I missed the panty-rippin'!" With a salacious smirk, she continued, "And I do love me a good panty-rippin'..."

"Savannah!" hissed her mortified friend.

After the laughter died down, I continued, "So, we doubled down on that euphemism for sex and added a bit of added alliteration to get the final title of our book --

Bumping Boots at the Circle Seven

. As you can tell, we never met a metaphor we didn't like!"

Dead silence reigned for several seconds, and then was finally broken by Fliss of all people, who snorted and then started laughing her ass off. The sight of our gloomy goth girl losing her shit triggered other laughter, as my terrible pun finally sank in.

I added a clincher to my argument, "Besides, that whole scene has been experimentally tested and verified by our research team."

Savannah's mouth fell open. Portia turned bright red and put her hand over her face as a fresh round of laughter broke out. When that finally died down, I added, "One of us -- who shall remain nameless -- wrote an initial draft in which our hero also wore his spurs to bed, but this was quickly vetoed by the other member of our research team."

Portia spluttered when she heard this, which triggered a final spate of laughter.

===

After the reading, we decided to head down into town, along lower Broadway. I had been wanting to see the Johnny Cash Museum and thought I would have to drag Fliss along, but she acquiesced pretty easily. Surprisingly, it was Portia who took a pass, saying she'd rather check out the Goo Goo candy store across 3rd Avenue from the museum. Well, she did have a bit of a sweet tooth. If you didn't grow up south of the Muffin-Biscuit Line, Goo Goo Clusters are yet another fine Southern tradition; similar to what other folks might call "turtles."

Anyway, once inside, Fliss joked and made a few off-color remarks as we wandered through the rooms filled with various memorabilia. Joked, that is, until we got to the end, where we watched a video loop of The Man in Black. Holy Mother Mary, talk about getting right up in your feels!

If you've never heard Johnny Cash's cover of the Nine-Inch Nails song, "Hurt," prepare yourself. Tissues and a glass of whiskey are recommended.

Fliss just stared, tears streaming, and when I touched her gently on the shoulder, she turned and buried her face in my chest. We stood there for a few moments while I held her and stroked her hair.

Outside, Portia gave me a worried look, and I mouthed, "

Later,

" as I transferred the emotional girl to her care.

After she'd calmed a bit, and explained what had happened, we went and bought her a pair of cowboy boots. Because why not! Retail therapy! They were black, of course.

Now that we were all properly attired, we moseyed next door to Ole Red -- Blake Shelton's bar. We managed to find seats up on the rooftop, enjoyed a few drinks, and watched the crowds wander up and down Broadway.

===

Nashville to Fort Wayne

PORTIA

We had such a great time in Nashville that it was surprisingly difficult to leave. Fliss was becoming more and more like a little sister to Harry and me. But with the long drive to Indiana looming in the Wondrous WOW's ginormous windshield, it was time to buckle down to writing once more.

Harry had finally caught up on his coding, or decoding, or whatever, so we were back to cowriting. We sat facing each other across the table, laptops linked through the magic of Google Docs, and began to type.

I loved working with him like this -- bouncing ideas off each other, hashing out plot points, and keeping each other in check from some of our more outrageous ideas.

Bumping Boots

had been our first collaboration together, and most of that time, we were winging it. It was a lot of fun, but perhaps a bit more chaotic than necessary. This time, we tried to write more deliberately, using the working title:

Spur of the Moment

.

Harry widened his eyes as I pulled out a large piece of butcher paper, covered with my chicken-scratched lists of characters, story arcs, and a much-erased and often-edited timeline. "What's that?"

I spread my hands in a 'Ta dah!' gesture, and said, "This is the 'bible' I've been building for our story. This is how we keep things organized and avoid plot holes as we're writing."

"Hmm. Why didn't we use one for

Bumping Boots

?"

I laughed. "That book started out as just a pleasant exercise to see if we could actually collaborate together. We just had fun pulling stuff out of our ass and sharing crazy ideas."

Harry nodded. "Yeah, that was pretty wonderful. That was the first time I got a glimpse inside the brain of another writer. It turned out to be pretty damn beautiful. It was also when I started to fall in love with you."

I leaned across the table to give him a lengthy and smoldering kiss. "Whew! Now where was I?"

Looking a tad dazed, he said, "Uhh... I forgot. Oh! Something about organizing our writing...?"

"Oh, yeah. Anyway, that was a great example of what some writing teachers call "pantsing" -- writing by the seat of your pants, and just seeing what happens."

Harry smirked. "Yep, it was great -- especially when it got me into the seat of

your

pants."

"Yeah, I enjoyed that part too."

We smirked at each other for a moment, and then I pulled myself together. "Ahem! So that's the pantsers, as opposed to the 'plotters', who plot out the entire story in an outline before they write it."

"Is that how you want to write our new book?"

"Actually, I'd prefer to do it a third way and be a 'plantser' -- a mix of both styles."

"Ah, so we plot out the list of scenes into your bible as a framework, and then become rogue pantsers to flesh out each of the scenes?"

"That's pretty much it."

Harry thought for a moment, and said, "Okay. Got it. I've got an idea..."

He clicked away on his laptop for about 20 minutes and then asked to borrow my bible. He then typed away for another hour, entering in data from the bible, with occasional queries for clarification. At last, he stood up, and ran a cable from his laptop to the giant LED TV in the WOW.

He sat back down and said, "

Voilà

! Behold, our new digital bible!"

He had entered every character, scene, date, time, plot point, and many other details into his new timeline software. He flipped through various different views of the data, showing a spreadsheet view and a master timeline view. My favorite view was the "subway" view, in which each scene was a subway station, and connecting lines showed the flow of characters among the different stops. Wow! Writing tips are definitely a two-way street!

I liked his digital bible so much that we hooked it to his iPad and kept the timeline up on the big screen. We referred to it frequently while we were writing on our own laptops.

===

Fort Wayne to Davenport

PORTIA

I felt bad for the fine folks of Fort Wayne. Between the amazing time we had in Nashville, and the impending uncertainty of our next stop, those poor Fort Wayners didn't get our best effort. Well, one Hoosier Honey did get to enjoy the excitement of what had become a regular feature of our tour stops - Harry's wedding ring loop. We had Fliss point out whoever was first in line at the event, and she became the lucky recipient of some ropin' romance.

She giggled and blushed, but still managed to rub herself all over my embarrassed hubby, who took it like a trooper. How he suffered for our art.

Hah.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that you know you're starting to get tour fatigue when all of the book signings start to blur together. This is not meant to diss any of the folks we met at the Fort Wayne bookstore -- they were all perfectly lovely. It was probably just a sign that it was time for us to stop and smell the roses again. That's why I both looked forward to and dreaded our stop in the Quad City of Davenport. If you haven't been there before, it lies just across the Mississippi River from Rock Island, Illinois. Home of the Fleeglemans and their hardware store.

I love the Fleeglemans dearly. Barney is like the shy, older, hardware-obsessed brother that I never had. The only thing he loves more than hardware is Doris, who is a Force of Nature hidden inside a midwestern, middle-aged mom body. She is shorter than me, but somehow, I feel like I'm always looking up at her. I've never met anyone with the sexual intensity or libido that she possesses. Fortunately for the rest of our species, she is monomaniacally monogamous, and visits her appetites solely upon Barney, the center of her universe. Barney is too shy to say it out loud, but it's pretty clear that he considers himself one lucky bastard as well.

Barney loves hardware so much that he is happy to share this love with anyone who pushes the right button. We learned quickly that it's a pretty big button and lies very close to the surface. Any incautious bump will initiate a core dump on the topic.

Having said that, there

is

one part of their store that Barney is too shy to say much about -- the part that his wife has turned into

The Love Forest by Doris

. Doris had brought a few select items from there to my bachelorette party. Based on that small sample, I feared what a whole goddamn forest of FuckerWare would look like.

Be afraid, Portia! Be very afraid!

I decided to share my concerns with Harry. "Hey, babe?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you nervous about seeing Barney and Doris again?"

"Um, yeah -- a little. It occurs to me that we're doing a reverse Macbeth with them."

"What the heck does

that

mean?"

"Well... in the play, Macbeth has a vision that he '

shall never vanquish'd be, until Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come against him

.'"

"Okaaay..." Sometimes my boo can be a bit obscure.

I mean, what the hell? Where does he come up with this stuff? I was the English major, right?

"So it's like we're Macbeth, and we're heading toward the Love Forest to meet our doom in Rock Island."

"Golly, you really know how to cheer a girl up."

===

FLISS

Harry and Portia often did things that puzzle me, but they were mostly cheerful and upbeat. However, they seemed just a bit on edge during the drive to Davenport. I tried to eavesdrop on their conversation, but it didn't make much sense. All I could make out were words like "doom", and "Dunsinane", and "Doris".

What the fuck was that about?

I was starting to really care for them, and that scared me. But sometimes they were just fucking

weird.

The closer we got to Davenport, the weirder they got. Harry was mostly outwardly calm, but by the time we pulled into the parking lot of the bookstore, Portia was twitching occasionally. Harry was very sweet. He took her in his arms, and held her, rubbing her shoulders and kissing her head now and then. He didn't say a word, but I could feel the comfort he radiated from across the room.

Gosh, I'd like to have someone comfort me like that some day.

After a few minutes, Portia sighed and her whole body relaxed. She looked up into Harry's eyes, gave him a slow nod, and then gave him a soft kiss. I would normally gag at such a PDA, but it was too genuine and too touching. I was slightly alarmed to feel a part of me yearning to have that same kind of affection aimed my way.

Fuck! I'm starting to act like a character in one of their goddamn romances.

I shuddered and went into the bookstore.

===

HARRY

Doris and Barney Fleegleman came to the bookstore early. We hugged both of them and introduced them to Fliss, who was polite, but reverted to her default 'stranger danger' mode. We told them a few tales of life on the road, and Doris reminisced about our time at the dude ranch.

The Fleeglemans sat in the front row for our performance. I did a few simple rope tricks, and then asked for a volunteer for my wedding ring rope trick. Doris teleported herself to my side before anyone else could raise their hand.

Unlike previous audience members along the tour, she did not try to hump my leg. However, as I twirled the loop, she rotated her hips in synchrony with it, as if it were a large Hula-Hoop. She also aimed a very subtle pelvic thrust toward Barney on each revolution of the rope. Barney couldn't take his eyes off her.

I ended the trick by letting the loop drop at our feet. Without missing a beat, I took Doris's right hand in my left, twirled her around one turn as if she were my lariat, and then pulled her down into a deep, tango dip. She hammed it up and kicked her front leg high into the air. I winked at her, and then set her back on her feet.

The crowd gave Doris a big hand, but before she walked back to her seat, she pulled my head down and gave me a big smackeroo on my cheek. The audience cheered heartily at this -- especially Barney.

The reading went well, but was a bit less boisterous. We signed books until our hands started to cramp. Then Doris and Barney led us across the river to park our rig at their house in Rock Island.

After showing us around their home, the girls clustered in the kitchen while I joined Barney out back, where he fired up the grill.

A few steaks later, and after some delicious sides and a surprisingly good rhubarb pie that Doris prepared, we were all rubbing our bloated bellies with satisfaction.

I couldn't resist teasing my honey. "I hope you took notes, babe. Did Doris share any recipes?" Then I leaned out of the way as she tried to smack me. Fortunately, she was in the early stages of a food coma, and couldn't give it her best effort.

After a bit more conversation, we said goodnight to the Fleeglemans, and went into the rig to get ready for bed. Fliss gave us a quizzical look, and asked, "They seem nice! A little weird, but nice. Why were you guys dreading this stop so much?"

Portia sighed. "After breakfast, they're taking us to their hardware store."

Fliss quirked her lips. "So?"

Portia looked to me for help. I said, "Doris and Barney are each obsessed by hardware in their own way, and it's hard to explain. Do you mind if we wait and just show you tomorrow?"