I'm the first to admit it, I was counting down the days to my retirement. I'd spent the last fifteen years in a one horse town working as receptionist for a large pharmaceutical company. I wasn't a big fan of the company, but I loved my job and the people who worked there. My name's Dawn. I'm 66 next birthday and do my best to look forty. Plenty round here will blow smoke up my ass and tell me I'm succeeding. My youthful appearance comes in part from clean living. I haven't touch booze or drugs since before I joined the company. I avoid the sun, and eat a mainly vegetarian diet -- more thanks to the state of my bank balance than any desire to help animals or the planet. I'm a tad over five feet tall, am small chested and wide hipped. My husband drives a truck for the same company I work for. We're aware of having our eggs in the same basket, so don't try to educate me. Small town like this, you take what you can get. Ted's away a lot. And when he's home, a combination of loose morals and heavy drinking mean our love life is pretty much a distant memory. I make do occasionally with my imagination, friend pam, and the odd website of ill repute. I suppose I could enter the 21st century and order something that buzzes online, but Wendy is one hell of a nosey mail carrier and amateur town crier.
When Alison rocked into work that first day, she tore through reception like a tornado. The door burst open on this preppy little thing, long dark hair, ballet dancer straight, perfectly proportioned little bod, and the cutest little fanny she presented me with as her resume scattered everywhere and she had to bend to collect the loose pages. She put me in mind of someone and it took me a long time to place her doppelganger. She was the image of that adult actress, Kristen Scott I occasionally sought out on those aforementioned websites. Look her up if you aren't familiar with her. I know I do about once a month when the itch takes me. Cute as a button, briming with mischief, and still manages to look like butter wouldn't melt.
Somehow, Alison and I hit it off from second one. Maybe it was with me helping her retrieve her papers and her being so grateful. When she finally started working in the factory, we were already fast friends. God knows how she rocked into our little dump of a rustbelt town. I guess the desert wind carried her. You know in like the way some disused lots just attract the desert winds and the flotsam they carry? It's like the trash that floats on the wind has been carried about as far as it can stand, and looks for somewhere to settle down. Well, that empty lot was our town. Though Alison wasn't trash, not by any manner or means. She had a touch of class and an air of enigma about her. All she'd say was she was from a big city out east and never talked about her past. Didn't bother me none. We all have pasts that should be let stay there - in the past.
Well, pretty soon, she was a fixture in our home. I'd offer her dinner and she'd accept before I finished with the invitation. When she lost her place, she took our spare room and contributed rent which, I won't lie, helped us out a lot.
Alison is a ticket. Quick to laughter, full of funny comments and always eager to help out. I referred to her as my sister from another mister (as much as to get her to throw her eyes skyward with mortification at the expression), and more than one local though she was my secret daughter returning from far flung parts. She'd wander round the house, when Ted was away, in a pair of skimpy shorts and a loose t-shirt with cut-off sleeves. When Ted was about, and his roving eye fell on her, she always be covered up in sloppy joggers and boyfriend sweatshirt. I swear I've never had any sexual feelings towards another woman, but Alison would give a nun pause for thought. She wasn't one of them buxom women you see online. No fillers, no augmentation. Just a dainty little princess with a tidy bosom, a slim waist, perfect round ass, and the barest hint of a mound between her legs. Like I say, I wasn't interested in that sort of thing.
When I eventually left work for the last time, Alison held my hair when I had my first chuck-up from my first feed of drink in years to celebrate. She showered me down and put me to bed and stayed with me to make sure I didn't get sick again during the night. I can honestly say, having lived in that town for decades, this blow-in was the closest friend I'd ever had. Closer far than Ted, with whom I was supposed to be sharing my life. Waking up beside her, with her arms around me, her pert breasts stuck to my side with sweat in the heat of the morning made me yearn to be young, free and single once more. Made me yearn to have made different choices than the ones I made with my life.
Anyway, with me in retirement, and my pension kicked in, we just rocked along. Everything was going so well, it didn't come as a surprise when life just turned around and kicked me in the gut. Ted, working every shift the company would let him, fell asleep at the wheel and left the road. Left life too. It was devastating, I won't lie, and I never would have survived if not for Alison. She arranged everything, but more so, she made me cry, made me talk, and made me laugh with all-sorts hanging out of my nose. She was there to hold me sobbing through the long nights in bed that followed the funeral.
The company proved to be uncharacteristically generous and settled with a lump sum that set me up for life if I continued to live frugally enough. Made me wonder what they were feeling guilty about. Or what their lawyers knew. Again, Alison was a wonder. She had great advice on what to do with the money so that it would always grow and give me a small income. I paid of what was left on the mortgage and settled into the life of a widow and a landlady with a passive income.
Time past, and the dark depression receded, in large part thanks to Alison. Out of the blue one day, she proposed a hike. Now, I've never been much of an outdoors person. But she was so enthusiastic about it, I finally relented. She scanned maps and online resources and found a spot where camping was allowed around five hours drive away. It was up in the mountains, beside a lake, and near enough to a town so we'd never be short of provisions.
We set off early one day, picnic packed alongside the new tent and twin sleeping bags she got me to buy. Alison had taken a couple of days off work so we could avoid the crowds for Wednesday and Thursday, and then choose to stay on for Friday and the weekend when it would got busier at the lake, or leave if I didn't take to camping.
We found the most idyllic spot following her instructions. Right near an icy lake, up by the tree line of the only majestic mountain range in our state. She had the tent up before I'd unpacked the truck. And the two of us went down to waggle our feet in the cold water of the dock inside the next hour. That night, I managed to get a fire lit near the tent and we cooked up a sausage stew. Alison laughed that the beans might not be the best idea considering we'd be sharing close quarters, but we enjoyed them immensely all the same.
The sun fell out of the sky around eight. Soon after, the stars were blinding and we both lay out looking up for shooting stars. Out of the blue, Alison took my hand lying there on our sleeping bags by the tent, and I held it tight, feeling like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"You never ask me anything about where I come from." Alison made it a statement, not a question.
"Should I?"
She laughed her silver, childlike laugh.
"You're never curious about why I rocked up in the middle of nowhere?" A question this time.
"None of my business. Just glad you did."
I could feel her smiling beside me in the dark.
"I'm glad you're glad." She whispered. I felt a shiver run through me.
"Why did you bring that up?" I asked. "About me never asking about your past?"
She was silent for a few minutes. I was super conscious of the crickets making out in the undergrowth.
"I have a secret." She whispered so low I could barely make it out.
"We all have secrets, dear." I said back to her, squeezing her hand. "No harm in that."
"Hmmmn." She said.
More time passed and I began to think she'd fallen asleep beside me, when she pipped up again.
"I love you, Dawn. Do you know that?" Well, that took me by surprise.
"Why, I love you too, Alison." I replied. I was about to continue by saying I thought of her as the daughter I never had, when she spoke again.
'And I don't want keep a secret from you."
"What's the matter, girl. Are you ok?" An edge in her voice had me worried. I wondered for a second if she wasn't ill. Forgive me for saying it, but I'd grown accustomed to having her around, and I couldn't bear to think of losing another loved one.
"Oh, I'm fine. Just nervous."