After the harsh words in the kitchen, I was very quiet on the drive to meet DR at the mine, having been put firmly in my place. Kim sensed that something was out of kilter, but Susan kept the conversation going and drew Clara in with frequent questions.
DR's truck was by the side of the road when we arrived and I walked over to say hello. "Morning. You want to just follow me, or would you like one of the women as a passenger?"
"You've got three of them in there?"
"Yes. My mother insisted, and Susan asked the woman who is going to be responsible for the gallery part of the gold program to come along as well."
"Don't need to talk to sis, what about your mother? Her name is Kim?"
"Yes, I'll tell her."
Kim looked doubtful. "Turn on the charm," I said, "we need his help."
Susan got in the back with Clara and the two of them were whispering about something. I was paying attention to the rough road when they started licking the back of my neck.
"What have I done wrong now?"
"Don't be nasty. We want to apologize for jumping on you at breakfast. Clara whispered to me that if your great cock went away, we would be very unhappy."
"Wait a minute. An hour ago, my cock doesn't count, and now it does?"
More licks and kisses. Clara said in a very soft voice, "That was a bad performance I put on last night. This morning I feel like a new woman. You know how sometimes when you throw up, your body gets a lot better? That's how my brain feels this morning. Like I puked up all my girl sex garbage and got rid of it."
Susan had Clara down on the back seat, wrestling. "Wait a minute! What about sex with me? Is that all over?"
Clara sat on Susan and said in her best Dom voice, "All right Kristoph, I'm stringing you up and flogging until you scream for my pussy!"
They were still laughing and wrestling when we pulled up at the mine. I looked around at two flushed smiling faces. "Are we anywhere back close to normal?"
"Theo, how could any woman be normal around you?"
Kim and DR were smiling, so things couldn't have been too bad in the other car. I said, "I want to take DR to the boulder first. Why don't the three of you hike slowly up the wash beyond where we got the other day, looking for dark rocks with shiny spots."
DR got his tools, and I took a brush to clean off the dust and gravel we had covered the boulder with. It was a nice day, not too hot. As the women walked upstream, I led DR up the narrow ravine to the camouflaged boulder and brushed an area clean. He went to work on one side while I moved to the opposite side to begin cleaning. Soon I heard a series of oaths that sounded like, "Damn fool, why didn't you see it in the samples? Oh shit, look at that." More unhappy grunts in between whacks at the rock with his hammer. "I'll be goddamned. Holy shit."
He looked up and said, "Theo, we are not uncovering this rock today. Start putting stuff back and then come over here."
"Gimme your hand." He dropped three small pieces of crystal rock into my palm. "Guess what that is."
"You are kidding!"
He shook his head. "This rock looks like it is from a diamond pipe. I'll bet those are diamonds in your hand. Three or four carets, maybe. But I don't understand why there is gold too. Could be some crazy subduction event did this."
We looked at each other, baffled but excited. "Theo, we need to get that boulder to my place so I can run more tests. We'll get a dump truck and a loader out here and pretend we are just mining some gravel for a garden project. Think you can drive a dump truck with that in it?"
I'm sure I looked scared because he laughed at me. "Yeah, I'd be worried too if I was driving a rock around might be worth a few million."
He added, "Let's join the women and just say the boulder has to be tested some more."
Two hours later, we had a fifty pound sack of heavy rocks, but nothing to compare to the boulder. The rough diamonds were burning a hole in my pocket. DR said to take them to a diamond guy in town tomorrow and see what he said. It might take a day or two to get the moving equipment ready for the boulder, but I was on call for a twilight move.
The women brought the lunch under some trees and DR described the situation as he saw it. "The good news is I can see more gold in these dark rocks. The bad news is I haven't figured out what kind of formation that boulder and the smaller pieces came from, and we don't need folks out here messing around until I do. So Theo and I are going into the boulder moving business to get it to my place for more testing."
He went on, "I'd like to take a raincheck on the dinner invite. Let's put it off until we know more and can set some plans. In the meantime, we can take care of paperwork."
There was a relaxed silence on the way back to town. Kim finally said, "So, we have some nice nuggets but don't know where we stand at all, do we?"
"Nope. Kind of nervous making, isn't it, not knowing whether you're worth a million or a hundred million?"
I smiled at everyone and got nervous giggles back. I stopped the car and asked Kim to drive, then climbed in back with Clara. I pulled her roughly into my lap and kissed her hard. She kissed back hard. I whispered in her ear, "Promise me no more crazy stuff."
She buried her head in my chest and quietly shuddered against me. She looked up with more tears. "I'll try. I really will."
I held her as tight as I could until she relaxed against me.
I pulled out my phone and called Karen, "Hey, any chance you can join us for simple dinner at Keeler? I need some advice."
"No black sheath dress?" I put the phone on speaker and said, "I missed what you said."
"I said, 'No black sheath dress?' "
Clara had her hand between my legs, squeezing.
"I just consulted with the women here. They have on tees and shorts with nothing under."
"I might have known. How soon?"
"About half an hour."
"I'll be there. Fix me a drink."
I explained to the others in the car, "Have to do something about my school disaster. She's only got a few days left but maybe I can work something out."
Susan said, "You need a body double, but I'm not sure the rest of us are ready for that."
Clara was lying on me having a giggling fit. I messed with her hair and rubbed her front. Susan saw what was going on and climbed over the seat. I pulled her in tight and whispered, "She wants to let a guy in bed with us!"
Susan jerked in mock outrage and reached for a Clara boob. "And I thought you were my girlfriend!"
Kim looked back and asked, "What's going on?"
Susan's outrage was good. "Clara wants to let a guy in bed with her two girlfriends and herself! Can you imagine?"
I tried out a feminine voice, "Clara, how can you treat your roommates like this? I thought we agreed girl sex was all we needed?"
Her hand was squeezing the very devil out of me. Kim was having the giggles in front. Clara was giggling. Susan and I were kissing.
We were getting close to Keeler. I shifted over to my macho male voice and said, "Mom, did you know Clara has won an award?"