Don't Use Jargon

Part 6 - Mickey is Distracted

There was surplus energy from the great loving. After the worker bees had exited, Susan gathered Priya, Emily and me around the table for a second cup of coffee.

"I have been thinking about our housing crunch. When I left Boise to come here, I was still unsure about whether I would fit in with your crazy bunch." She smiled and poked me.

"But as you could tell a few minutes ago, life here suits me very well!" There was an interruption for a round of warm kisses.

"So I am ready to sell the house in Boise that I own. Which means there will be extra money. What would you think about investing it in an RV instead of a tiny house? If I buy a used one of the large variety, it can be my office, my sleeping quarters, and a way to take trips in comfort."

I pulled her into my lap with hands across her chest. "Will there ever be invitations to share your RV bed?" She wiggled and twisted but my fingers pinched and my lips found hers.

"Certainly not for brutes like you, who can't seem to write because they are fooling around!"

Emily had pulled Priya tight to her side. "What do you advise, architect?"

Priya tried to keep her answer quiet, but the rest of us heard. "I advise you to find his cock and ride it!" The smallest of us was showing her claws.

I tickled Susan and said, "Terrible advice. The poor landlady."

It was obvious we thought that was a terrific idea. My hands found their way under Susan's shirt and hung on tight. She twisted to straddle me, pressing to my front. "The novel, Mickey. The novel will finish this week!"

Priya was pulling Emily into the other room, where her drafting equipment was. They rolled and wrestled on the still unmade bed. "Susan's new idea is ruining my work, but I don't care."

Susan and I joined them. There were plenty of laughs and giggles to go around. I felt as though the enthusiasm was floating me on air, and wondered how Tom and Eunice would find their conclusion. Priya bounced on my chest and said, "Is it ok if Susan's office in Emily's house becomes my office? A nice place with morning sun?"

She looked at Susan, "Mickey will build an attractive arbor to make your mechanical monster less of an eyesore when it is here."

I turned and buried my head in a pillow, moaning. With this much energy, we could accomplish almost anything. They sat on my back, hands beating down. "Yes, yes, yes. Mickey will solve all our problems." This was followed by horrible giggles. My arm snaked out and gathered Emily underneath. She smiled and wiggled suggestively. "I'm feeling left out."

"I was just thinking about that. What about a weekend alone, camping alongside a burbling mountain stream?"

The smile dissolved to laughter. "Will never happen. They will come after us. After the fine loving Mickey provides."

Priya and Susan stood. "We are going for a walk."

After the door closed, Emily rolled to my top, still laughing. "I want you. But not until your brute behavior is restored."

I kneaded her delicious, muscular ass and let her hear my lowest register growl. "Do not tease, woman. This behind will be red."

She walked to the door. "No threats. You can have me later. Show me where we should put Susan's monster and build an arbor."

Susan and Priya were standing in the middle of the grassy space between the two houses, surprised to see us. Emily bulldozed into them, explaining, "I told him later, when all his badness is restored. Just now, the four of us need to decide where the RV goes. What will it look like?"

I had a moment of inspiration. "I have an idea. The three of you should take the Tacoma and shop the RV lots in town. Wear your jeans and look tough. See what you like. I will stay here and concentrate on the novel."

Several hours into the writing, with a breakthrough ending in my head, I heard the truck return and went out to greet them. Piling out of the deep green pickup, I got their most fearsome looks.

Susan had a remarkably tough voice. "Mister, we are looking for a good used Class A. No junk."

Big smiles broke out. "We found one!"

Priya said, "Actually, we found a couple that would be good. The market is slow this time of year and they really want our business. We need to do more research online."

There was hot tea and thick pea soup in Emily's kitchen for lunch. I said, "Cait is our champion online researcher. Should we give her a chance at this project? Do you have the patience to wait?"

They beat on me. "Look who is talking about patience!"

Emily and I were nudged in the direction of Emily's bedroom. "You two take a nap. We will make a plot plan for where the RV and its arbor go."

Snuggled together, with the quilt over us, a nap seemed like a fine idea.

"Mickey, I worry that being jack of all trades around my house is undermining your writing."

"Each of you is special in your own way. I am learning from you every day and my writing is the beneficiary!"

Her hand crept between my legs. "What about the several women's bodies? Are you learning from them?"

I was hard and getting harder. I whispered in her ear, "Is it nap time, or sex education time?"

Moments later, we were coupled tightly and she was mumbling, "Mickey, you are educating our cunts. Loving you is the best education I think I have ever had. I am going to come on this big thing. Ahhhh!""

It wasn't frantic. It was close friends having wonderful afternoon sex. She sighed and shook. I closed my eyes and held on tight.

We were dozing when a knock sounded. "Ok to come in?" We turned over to face the door and called out to enter.

Susan said, "Look at this wonderful drawing. I am calling my real estate agent in Boise this minute."

Neither of them paid attention to our nudity, but sat on the edge of the bed, holding Priya's schematic between them. She had a wonderful hand, and the location, beyond the guesthouse and toward the trees, was good. Emily sat up with them and exclaimed how pleased she was. "It's fine. We can get some gravel to provide an informal path. Are you going to be able to connect the waste hoses from there, Mickey?"

Now I was naked in their midst. "I'm sure it will be ok, especially if these naps continue!"

Susan reached to swat my limpness and made a face. "Oh, how dreadful. Take that mess to the shower." I made a rude noise and walked away.

The water was just warmed up when Emily's front pushed into my back. She giggled, "They are so cute. Wanted to know if you were able to perform."

I soaped her not very saggy middle aged tits. "What did you tell them?"

"I shoved my tongue in their mouths and said it was mutually educational!"

"What about a shower encore?" I lifted and she pointed and we were tight again. "You are just a coed at heart, Emily. Exciting young cunt that loves your new boyfriend's cock!"

Three hard strokes later and she was coming. "Oh, Mickey. Yes, like that."

Out of the shower, but still shaking and making aggressive noises, she wrapped us in a tight squeeze. I helped towel her dry and marveled at the emotion she brought out of me with the body that liked my cock so much.

"Your middleaged coed still gets that big thing going, doesn't she?" I closed my eyes and pressed her tight.

Naomi came home with Margo and Cait, saying her folks had already left to visit relatives in Spokane for the holiday. She had pleaded to be allowed to stay behind with her friends at Emily's.

Emily and I had prepared a simmering pot of mulled wine and we all stood around Priya's table marveling at the new drawing. Susan said, "Cait, do you suppose you could help me with some research on the net about RV's? I need to know more about features and prices and things to avoid."

Cait jumped into her arms, smirking at me. "Agent, if you like my work will there be rides? What about secret playtime in the back?"

Dinner was especially nice. It seemed as though the holiday was starting early. Margo and I were going to her parents for Thanksgiving. Cait, Priya and Susan were staying here with Emily, whose cousins from Walla Walla were coming and using the guesthouse. Margo and I wondered whether her mother was going to allow the engaged couple to share one bed.

Being on the Halstrom ranch for Thanksgiving was special. We offered help and were refused. Margo took my hand and we strolled through the orchard among leftover apples rotting quietly on the ground with their distinctive winey smell.

"Mickey, are we going to hang out in Yakima after we are married? You have so much talent and maybe we should go to Portland or San Francisco?"

"I don't like that look you are giving me. This place has a pull on you, doesn't it?"

She leaned me back against a large tree and pressed herself to my front. "Yes, it does. But we still have to make a living. My brother will manage the ranch, which is as it should be. The dutiful wife...?"

"Don't give me that kind of talk. The beautiful wife has a big vote. Maybe the biggest, since she will be nursing babies and making a home. Besides, big cities have gotten very expensive and I'm not sure a novelist does any better there than out here where the air is clean and the skies are blue."

She rocked against me and said, "You are a romantic, Mickey. You've cast a spell on this whole group of women."

"Yes, but you have made it happen as much as I have. A few sharp words and it would have been all over. From that first night when you conspired with Cait to lose her virginity the way she wanted..."

We were walking again. She raised my hand that was interwoven with hers and kissed the finger tips. "She is a better woman for it. Confident in her knowledge of her own body and its needs."

I leaned for a kiss on her cheek. "Yes, needs."

She looked at me sharply. "Be nice, or I'll beat you."

We circled around to the old horse barn that had been repurposed for Olaf's little cider factory. There was a shiny new concrete floor with drains here and there, populated with lots of stainless steel tanks, pipes, and so on. Several large wooden vats stood in the background. The hard cider expert was in residence.

"Hallo, you've come just in time to help with tasting." He introduced me to a young couple, who were apprenticing with Olaf to learn how to open their own cider business. Aimee and Kurt had ready smiles and led us to a table with many glasses on it.

Olaf gave us a little tutorial. "Good hard cider is like craft beer. Of course, there is a two week fermentation, but it is the little things that make a fine cider. Apples at the right stage of ripeness. The choice of varieties. The location of the trees. Controlling the natural bubbles..."

Olaf and his helpers were using the holiday morning to decide on blending. Customers liked their cider to have a name, and to have repeatability from bottle to bottle. This was harder than it seemed. After an hour, they were satisfied they could achieve one of their named blends in a bottling run tomorrow morning. Olaf smiled at us, "This is one of my best. We will have it with the turkey!"

We walked slowly back to the house to watch football. "He is one of the new breed of farmer, Margo. Using technology to make his land more efficient. Using it to make new and better products."

"That's the story line for the next book, Mickey. Adventures of a New Farmer, except it needs a better title than that." She turned into me for a kiss. We were close to the porch and her Mom came out with compliments and a hug. "Margo, I can see why you were impatient about waiting!"

"Mom, he is going to write about Olaf! Says my brother is a new breed of farmer."

I kissed her quickly and inquired, "Does he have a girlfriend? Or do I have to invent a torrid love affair?"

They pounded on me. "You keep quiet about that. Christine is coming to dinner. Her parents are with her sister's inlaws in Portland."

Chapter 20 - Remodeling Emily's House

On Saturday after the holiday, we were lying in our own guesthouse bed in the morning sun, worrying about chores and deadlines. We could hear Priya, Naomi, and Cait talking in bed in the next room. In a moment, Cait's face in our doorway said, "Stay there. Breakfast will be delivered."

Susan and Emily walked in the front door, dressed in football jerseys that minimally covered important parts. Susan said, "Your sister has done a fantastic job on the RV questions. It comes down to a 35 foot Class A. Two beds and a settee that opens up. A decent shower. Fifty thousand for a broken down one. Two hundred fifty for a new one. What should I do?"

We squeezed the agent down between us, with others on top. I said, "There is terrible depreciation on the new ones. What if we go on a hunt for a low mileage used one that has been treated well?"

Cait marched in with a tray. "Yes. That is what I already told her." Her smile was triumphant. The naked body was fabulous.

I stared until she said, "What?"

"I was examining your new uniform. Don't see much dirt."

Emily said, "You don't have to prove you belong in Playboy, Cait. At least put one of these football jerseys on."

Susan ignored the skin exhibition and sipped her steaming coffee. "Lots of financing available. We don't have to wait for my house to sell."

Priya pushed me to the headboard and sat in my lap. "If you are sure about this, I will begin Emily's remodeling plan. With office and bedroom for me. And a new kitchen for her. By the time I finish the plans and get them approved, Mickey will be done with the novel and can begin the work. We should hire a contractor to do the revised foundation. In school, they said messing with concrete yourself is not worth the trouble."

I kissed her ear and whispered, "Good plan, architect." She pulled my arms around her chest and trembled within them. I covered her with blanket and made low threatening noises. Margo looked over from her plate of toast and frowned. "How can she work when you behave like that?"

"Ohhh." The architect swooned and slipped beneath the blanket.

Naomi crawled up to us, sitting on the blanket covering Priya. "Mickey, there was a time when I quivered with every look from you. Now I am a hardened criminal and nothing surprises me. You must allow the architect to get used to your horrible maleness. Is that clear?" She attacked with a searing kiss that had no work quotient in it. None at all.

The room was collapsed with laughter. Even Emily joined in as Priya and I were removed from the bed and swatted.

I suspected group therapy was in progress, spearheaded by Emily and Margo. Susan and Priya were still in shock over dealing with the rest of us. Naomi and Cait were tense with worry over the SAT, which was now only a week away. A morning of chores was ordered, with Emily handing out assignments. Priya was instructed to bring me up to date on the plan for Emily's remodel. Cait, Naomi and Susan were told to look for likely Class A RV's. Margo and Emily said they would be house slaves.

In the front bedroom serving as her temporary office, Priya placed me on the stool in front of her table so that she could sit in my lap. "Hold me please. Margo was wrong. Being near you liberates the part of me that thinks creatively. If you give me one proper kiss, I promise we will pay attention to Emily's plan."

The kiss went on and on. I thought to myself that she was suffering from family alienation, and needed me as a substitute. Before I could finish the thought, she was saying, "Mickey, stay close, please."

The challenge with Emily's remodel was to add several hundred square feet without making the new space look patched on. She had sketched several approaches, none of which quite worked.

I liked some elements and said so, adding, "What if you create a new gable here, running it most of the way to the ridge? On the inside, you could consider a cathedral ceiling, maybe with a stove and vertical stovepipe beneath it?"

"With a new roof for the addition, you can insulate the devil out of it and the room will be snug."

Her hands had reached up behind her and were pulling on my hair. "Keeping talking. I like this."

"Well, if there is going to be an office/workroom with bedroom, there needs to be at least a half bath. Visitors will need that too. Probably a separate outside entrance as well. Will look more professional for when you have your degree and are a regular AIA architect."

She was standing, "You are a miracle worker. Go help Margo and Emily while I turn all that into a drawing. Come back in an hour or so for a critique."

I put on my oldest running shoes and shorts, found the bathroom supplies and went to work in the guesthouse. After that was finished, I marched to the other house to report for duty. As I suspected, that bathroom needed attention and had not received it from the women, who were sipping coffee and chatting in the kitchen while idly wiping.

"Sit and have coffee with us, Mickey." I frowned and growled that the bathrooms were not going to clean themselves. I was allowed to scrub and fill the house with ammonia smell until they dragged me out and insisted on coffee and a pastry.

"Priya says we can critique her drawing of the addition in an hour or so."

"You've made the house smell so bad, we must go soon."

"Go ahead. I will mop the floor in here with the rest of this pailful and join you."

The two of them obviously thought the novelist was acting strangely, but left. I mopped and mulled over the ending I had constructed in my head.

In the spring of 1944, Eunice's younger brother, Allen, barely out of high school, was a gunner in a B-17 that was shot down over Germany, but managed to make it to a rough landing in occupied France. His leg was badly mangled in the wreckage, but the crew got him out and applied a tourniquet on the leg. The location was in dense woods and local farmers showed up before the Germans. It took a couple of days to get him to a doctor who worked with the partisans. By that time, gangrene had set into the leg and the doctor quickly amputated below the knee before it could spread further.

Miraculously, the surviving crew members, including Allen, were successfully shuttled south into Switzerland and flown out to Lisbon and then to Brazil, taking a very long way home. By the time Eunice and Tom learned what happened from her parents, Allen was in a hospital near Washington, DC., but facing a long convalescence and rehabilitation.

Eunice knew her aging parents could not offer Allen a home, and talked to Tom about seeing if Allen could be transferred to a hospital near Seattle, and then to their apartment. "Tom, if we can manage that, he will be so much happier and will recover faster."

The rest of the story only needed details, although I should research the care veterans received at the end of the war. I needed to track down Susan and rehearse the end with her. Whether I liked it or not, authors had to pay attention to what the reading public enjoyed. At least they did if they intended to make a living by writing.

I stood on the deck, sluicing off ammonia water until the smell was bearable. Emily, Margo and Priya were sitting in the sun in back of the guesthouse, chatting and pointing at me. I wished there was a pool to throw them into.

Needing an early beer, I grabbed one and trotted over to them. They rose and showered me with kisses. "Mickey, it is a wonderful design! You and Priya are a great team!" I mumbled that I was not fit for polite company and sat in a chair a few feet away. We enjoyed the welcome sun and teased back and forth about where the money for this remodel was coming from. Margo said profits from sales of the novel would surely be enough. I said she was coming on the book tour to encourage sales. Emily smiled and said perhaps she would need to increase the rent on the guesthouse. We were all mellow and Emily said that work would begin immediately and God would provide funds. Priya looked puzzled and the rest of us had to explain about the saying 'God will provide.'