This set of stories are meant to be read as chapters in a book. If you haven't read the previous chapters of the Great Loop, I recommend you do to better understand the characters.
All characters are fictional. Obviously, many of the place locations are real.
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Morning found BJ and Jill both curled up to me. Last night had been a fun experience for me, but Jill had a hard time with BJ and I having sex with strangers, even though she had a good time. Before going to sleep, we had talked about swinging and Jill asked us to simply remain a three some and we agreed.
We thanked Bill and the others for a great time, took pictures of them for my computer, said we hoped to see them again, and left.
I figured it would take us a week or maybe more to get to Louisville given the current and lock traffic. I also needed fuel so we slowly made our way up river. We stopped at small towns along the way, found a marina that had diesel and I filled the tanks, pumped the waste tanks and took on fresh water. The girls had a ball going thru shops and exploring all the small towns along the way. We met more loopers and non-loopers, found interesting places to eat, and places to visit. Sometimes people seemed put off by our arrangement, but most of the time, we were just part of the looper family.
Jill, BJ and I seemed to grow closer together. We frequently had sex and most days we started off with the girls getting a creamy delight and I getting their love juice. We knew that once we got to Louisville, BJ would be leaving us, but we didn't talk about it very much. It was one of those things that was in the back of our minds and we wanted it to stay there.
The day we had been dreading finally arrived. We arrived in Louisville. We spent a whole day on the boat, mostly naked and in bed with each other. BJ was leaving the next day and none of us were happy about it. We tried to talk BJ into resigning and staying with us, but her circumstances wouldn't allow it. We spent the day and night loving her and holding her. It was not the best night of my life by any means. The next morning, I made arrangements for a car and when the time came we took her to the airport so she could return to Chicago. All three of us had tears in our eyes when she went down the concourse.
Back at the boat, Jill and I fucked like rabbits trying to get over BJ leaving, it helped some, but we both knew we were going to miss her. Also in the back of my mind was the fact that at some point, Jill was going to have to return to Chicago too. We didn't talk about that at all.
As I had planned, I wanted to visit the bourbon country in Kentucky. There is what is called the Bourbon Trail which is a bourbon tasting party, but that was later in the year so Jill and I were going to tour the region on our own. We were going to visit as many distilleries as possible, sample as many bourbons as we could and enjoy the region. We started by visiting bourbon bars in the Louisville area as well as a few distilleries. On more than one night, we were lucky to find our way back to the boat, and when we did, we were usually naked before we got below deck. I'm sure some of the neighbors were ether appalled or turned on by our antics. Either way, Jill and I enjoyed each other immensely.
A few days later, we closed up the boat, and headed for bourbon country. Jim Beam, Makers Mark, Haven Hill, Buffalo Trace and all the others. I found a hotel that was centrally located, and arranged for a room. The next ten days were a blur of tasting rooms, two lane highways, tours of cask storage barns, small restaurants, and some of the most passionate sex Jill and I had enjoyed. I got better and better at driving her to new orgasmic heights and one night she passed out. Every day started with her sucking my dick and I eating her pussy. What a great way to start a day. Some mornings we even fucked. Life was good. The car started to fill up with various bourbons and we also had tee shirts and other gifts.
After notching a visit to the last distillery on our list, we headed back to the boat, loaded all the bottles on board, turned the car in and got ready to head back down river. We were one day down river when the call came. We were tied up at a marina, enjoying a drink before going to dinner when Jill's phone rang. We had guest for happy hour, so Jill went forward to take the call. When she returned she was crying. We excused ourselves and went below.
"Jim, Mom has cancer. They found it relatively early as its at stage 2. She's going to be going through chemo and radiation and is going to need someone to help her. I'm all she has. I've got to go back to Chicago."
I didn't know what to say. I could be selfish and tell her to stay or I could be a nice guy, say I understand, and urge her to go take care of her mom.
"They say it could be a year or more for the treatment program, that means unless you come to Chicago, we won't see each other for a year, or maybe never. Fuck."
Her tears flowed and she clung to me. I held her close. I still didn't know what to say. Finally I said, "I'll check flights to Chicago and we'll go back to Louisville tomorrow. I don't think we have a choice. Every thing else will work out somehow, but now you need to be with your Mom."
We continued to cling to each other. I went back topside and explained that Jill was having a family emergency and our guest graciously left.
That night we tried to make love, but Jill's head just wasn't in it. She apologized over and over before finally falling asleep. Both of us were restless and didn't sleep well.
We left early the next morning to motor back up river to Louisville. I had booked Jill on a flight the following afternoon and she had arranged for BJ to meet her at the airport. All during the trip she took pictures of me, videos and stills. She said it was to keep me fresh in her mind. I smiled and stayed focused on the river. We got to the marina late, grabbed a light dinner and headed for bed. Knowing that this would be our last night together made the loving very intense. We took our time, did a lot of kissing, caressing, and a lot of fore play. Neither of us were in any hurry to have it come to an end. When I finally entered her, the bed had a huge wet spot in it. We ignored it. That night, she had multiple orgasms and finally we boarded the orgasmic express together and went looking at the stars. After coming back to earth, I spooned in behind her, she pulled my cock in between her thighs, I put a hand on her tit, buried my nose in her hair and we drifted off to sleep.
The next morning we had our usual morning oral sex. When we finished, she looked at me with a beautiful smile and said, "Even on a bad day, that's a great way to start the day." We needed to leave for the airport around noon, so we spent the morning getting her packed, hugging and kissing, and holding each other. She had several bouts of tears. A cab arrived and it was time. The scene at the airport was a lot of tears and hugging.
Back at the boat, I opened a bottle of bourbon. The next morning the bottle was half empty and I couldn't have told you anything about my evening. It was a complete blank. Picking up my phone, there was a text from Jill: "Made it. BJ days Hi. I miss you. I love you. Kisses." There it was, the phrase I had been dreading. I returned the text with: "Good, hi to BJ, I miss you immensely. Kisses." I wondered if that made me an asshole. I had been repressing my own similar thoughts and couldn't bring my self to express them.
I spent the day on the boat. People that Jill and I had met stopped by to ask about Jill and made vague offers to help if they could. I thanked them and they would move on. That night, I had some more bourbon, but did a better job of controlling how much I drank.
Sun rise the next morning found me pulling away from the dock headed down river. It was my second day of not having my favorite juice for breakfast. I tried not to let that sour my mood. Locking thru those big locks alone was another real challenge for me. Fortunately, people on other boats were very helpful and no one suffered any damage to their boat. In a couple of days, I was going to have to decide whether I was going to take a side trip to Nashville or just open the throttle and try to get this whole loop over with.
As I sat thinking it all over, I decided that even though Jill wasn't with me, I should still enjoy the cruise. I doubted that I would ever get to do it again. If I didn't, I would probably regret it the rest of my days. So the Cumberland River was it. I figured I would reach it the next day. The next day, I turned up the Cumberland River. I was running low on fuel and wanted to get to Green Turtle Bay Marina. When I finally got there, I think I may have had two or three gallons of fuel left. It was close. I filled up, pumped down, tied up, kicked back and thought about Jill. I pulled my computer out and pulled up her own file of photos and worked thru them. It brought a smile to my face and I sent her a text telling her what I was doing and then took a selfie to send to her. She sent back a smilie face.
I spent some time the next day studying the chart for Barkley Lake. That is the large man-made lake that I would be crossing on my way to Nashville. I also went on line to see if I could get tickets to the Grand Ole Opry. As I was sitting there, I was looking around at the scenery and noticed that the leaves were starting to change colors. I checked my phone and was shocked at the date. I had no idea that I had left Chicago almost five months ago. It was definite now, I wasn't going to make the Gulf of Mexico by the end of the year!
I took almost a week to make the trip to Nashville. I stopped at several marinas along the way and enjoyed what each little town had to offer. Some were having fall festivals with arts and craft shows, pie baking contest (fresh apple pie with a scoop of ice cream, damn that is good), and one had an Oktoberfest going. America's heartland was on full display.
