CHAPTER 1
Buddy Baldwin was driving his old red Chevy that had more dents than a tin kettle and knowing he should be holed up writing his next book. But it was late spring with a feeling of hope in the air. He was fascinated driving through this largely undeveloped neck of the woods, although there were few trees about in an area where stones and most small ravines outnumber roaming cattle.
When he came to some woods he stopped, thinking well he could justify this walk between the trees thinking it was essential story-line research with potential for a plot capable of being developed to materialize. Ah yes, he was glad he had entered the woods because through the trees he glimpsed a lake.
Well that was promise of plot. He could reach the lake edge just in time to rescue a princess.
Yeah.
Had he been smoking a reefer?
Oh no not Buddy Baldwin.
Reaching the lakeside clearing, he saw a boatshed, with the doors hanging partly open on rusted hinges. The faded sign nailed to the structure stated:
'Canoes for Hire During Summer. $2:00/hr. Refundable Deposit $50:00 if Craft Returned in Good Order or Even If Craft Returned.'
Buddy grinned. What great rural backwater marketing... practical, simplistic and with a touch of humor.
He sensed a storyline was emerging.
He look across the lake and squinted.
Jesus it couldn't be. Yes it was.
A woman lay on her back in long grass holding up a book and reading.
She was nude.
Yeah the squinting had up-powered his vision by enlarging his pupils. He could see a hairy V and her tits were flopped one to each side.
Excitedly he went through the side entrance of the boatshed and emerged carrying a canoe that he placed in the water, checking that the woman was still in repose. He had second-thoughts about pushing off just then. He hurried back into the boatshed to fetch a paddle.
Minutes later Buddy stood uncertainly on the bank.
"Hi."
He almost fell backwards off the bank when she said mildly, "Fuck off you pervert and leave me in peace."
Buddy waited several seconds for his brain to engage. The sky was blue, the breeze was negligible and the sun was warm on his back.
"Could you spare me a coffee?" he asked, noticing the hamper. "I can pay."
"Of course and I apologize for being disagreeably inhospitable. Come forward if you don't mind me dressed in my birthday suit.
He hee-hawed and that made her laugh.
Buddy approached. She stood and turned and bent over the hamper.
She could be approaching forty and had a stomach roll and her sizeable tits drooped a bit and that sight left him practically panting. She really bent over with her legs apart and he got and eyeful of the inner-pink of her pussy squeezing open amid the hairy thicket.
Buddy's dingle-dangle began stiffening and his breathing adopted a rasp.
She straightened holding a cup and insulated flask and said whimsically, "Is there anything else you would like?"
He looked at her tits and licked his lips.
"Unfortunately I'm married."
Buddy, he cautioned himself. Steady she might be the district's hooker.
"This is meant to happen," he said, almost believing that stupid utterance.
"Oooh," she purred.
Oooh? That meant she was sexually switched on.
Buddy began to panic. Omigod this promising potential storyline was beginning to race away on him.
She expected to be fucked. Here he was in a near-desolate corner of a State in the Midwest he'd never been in before with a woman he'd never seen before and he'd intending only to flirt with her. And yet she was lining him up to give her a gallop around the pasture or whatever they called vigorous sexual coupling out here.
He slipped into reversal mode.
"I'm sorry but I regret to say..."
"Relax, it's okay. You are neatly dressed and look well-shaven and washed and so I won't require you to roll on a condom."
Buddy, despite being thirty-four and living independently for nine years, had a great desire to yell "Mom". He couldn't think of anything else to do.
The woman dropped the mug and the flask and grabbed him and fell to the ground, dragging him down beside her. Somehow she'd managed to unzip him and had his dick in her hand by the time they landed heavily. She was speedy.
"Go on, pick up a tit and suck it," she urged.
She caressed his dick and said, "Oh my goodness, my dad is the only guy I've had whose bigger than this."
Did she really mean her father?
Buddy was horrified but then conceded incest was now commonplace and even prim women bored as stiff as a plank who once wrote about soft sweet kisses in their pulp romance output, these days spiced up their convoluted plots with families having sex instead of strolling through the garden to admire the roses while awaiting the arrival of the hero.
God she was now steering his erection into her er love box. But this was not love. It was... well it was... oh yes, it was bucolic pastoral rapture.
She squealed like a muted foghorn into her climax, trigging him to flood her.
Very nice.
His stalled draft novel now had its opening chapter framed.
Buddy was almost back to the canoe when he turned. She was on her back reading and presumably leaking.
"What's your name lovely lady? I'm Buddy Baldwin."
"Oh Buddy Baldwin the author? I'm Carla... Carla Croft, wife of Deputy Sheriff Wayne Croft."
Oh shit.
Buddy paddled furiously across the lake, threw the canoe into the boatshed, left two bucks on the table and was off. Only when driving away, feeling well fucked and happy, did he register she'd asked was he Buddy Baldwin the author.
Oh shit.
Her incensed husband would hunt him down once she began telling everyone excitedly she'd been practically pulverized on the pasture by Buddy Baldwin.
Oh shit.
Buddy calmed himself by relighting the butt of a cigarette someone had given him at a recent party.
He floored the gas pedal and the old girl wheezed into something close approaching speed. Buddy grinned thinking he would be 120 miles away well inside two hours providing there was enough gas in the tank. The gauge wasn't working.
The old girl sped past a half hidden cop car and the still-flushed author thought a lazy country cop having a sleep. He changed that opinion when hearing the siren and looking in the mirror saw flashing lights.
"Oh shit."
The cop hitched up his belt as Buddy rolled down the window.
"Were you speeding?"
"What in this old heap... are you stupid?"
The cop grinned and yeah, well his wife often made that assertion.
Wife?
Buddy's heart practically seized.
"Well I must be on my way officer... officer...?
"Deputy Sheriff Croft."
A triumphant surge flowed through Buddy, unlocking his heart from imminent seizure. The plot was now coming into place. He'd just met the villain... or was Deputy Sheriff Croft the hero who snuffed out the adulterous author?
"I clocked you on radar doing almost 63 mph close to entering the town limit of Here-Comes. Keep your speed down pal and my jail will remain empty."
"Yes officer. I hear what you say officer. Bye officer."
"Wait!"
Buddy froze.
"That suspicious butt you were smoking when I stopped you is burning a hole in the passenger seat."
"Oh it wasn't mine officer. I picked up a bearded hitchhiker with tats and dropped him off by those woods two miles back. He called himself Black Jake but I reckon that's a pseudonym."
"Jesus thanks pal."
Buddy drove off and in the mirror watched the smoking tires of the deputy's car complete a wheelie as he tore off in futile pursuit of a fictitious gangster or drug courier. He finished off the butt, too happy to be bothered about the new hole in the upholstery.
He couldn't believe the cop had called the town Here-Comes. Lots of assholes had named original European settlements in America stupidly but no one would be that stupid to name a place Here-Comes, not even a Continental immigrant who played a violin and called his wife Hey You.
The town sign he approached clearly stated, 'Here-Comes Pop. 931'.
Jesus.
The place looked a real hole that even the real plagues of today's society, teenagers, Republicans and hookers, wouldn't inhabit such a place.
He stepped on the gas to flee and the motor began coughing.
Oh shit.
Buddy pulled over and a teenage Democrat with her skirt almost waist-high and the scoop in her top almost at waist low drawled, "You're out of gas pal."
"Yeah well long live the republic."
"Asshole," she spat and then laughed, "The gas pumps don't operate at weekends. I can get you a free bed but the extras will cost you."
"Beat it or I'll call a cop alleging you are soliciting."
She grinned and said asshole, the only cop stationed there was Deputy Sheriff Croft and he was her dad.
Buddy sighed and decided he'd not work that juicy detail into the new novel because even in novels assertions had to be believable.
Two motels faced each other across Main Street. He chose the smarter looking one but when about to enter noticed the sign, Proprietor's Jay and Jill Croft.
He turned abruptly and crossing the street checked the sign, Proprietors Peter and Penny Nixon.
Ah good Republican surname.
Buddy signed in and the homely looking woman who looked vaguely familiar to him asked, "Stranger in town?"
He replied, "Oh so you're a recent arrival?"
She laughed and said no silly she meant him.
"Oh yes, I've just arrived. My car is running out of gas and the pumps are closed."
"Oh dear I'll get Peter to give you half a gallon to get your car over into our parking lot and to get to a gas station on Mondays. Mayor Croft decreed, when first elected 15 years ago, all gas stations must remain closed during weekends. He's a Democrat but with fucking Socialist leanings."
"Um is the Deputy Sheriff related to them?"
Being handed the key to his room, Buddy heard her say, "Yes and he's the nicest of the Crofts."
"Yeah I met him at the entrance to the town. He chatted to me about speeding and let me off with warning."
"Yes and Wayne is criticized for his leniency but only to nice people. Local criminals are scared of him. I must tell him you are here and he might have a beer with you. He's married to our daughter Carla."
Buddy had to fight to avoid confessing to Mrs Nixon only an hour ago he had been fucking her daughter.
"Oh Mr Baldwin, will you be in for dinner tonight?"
He said he hadn't decided.
"The alternatives are to eat across the road at our competitors or the Chinese, Hungarian and Irish restaurants or a take-out place that offers only lamb burgers."
"I've decided to eat here thank you Mrs Nixon."
"Oh please call me Penny."
