Cross-Country with My Uncle

Conclusion and epilogue.

After Mike and Steve had their shower, and they dressed, this time in tee shirts and shorts, it was at last time to part. Steve drew a big envelope from his backpack, and handed it to Mike. "It's a set of photos of me, and a some of me and Mark together. I have your addresses, and as soon as I have developed and printed the pix I shot back home, I'll mail you copies."

He and Mike embraced very warmly, and shared a deep kiss. He couldn't resist running his right hand down the front of Mike's shorts and grabbing his big fat penis. Squeezing it a little, he said, "Mike, I'll never forget the times we shared together, and I feel that we'll always be friends." Turning to me, he said, "As for you, Mikey, I'll be picking you up on American 2337 next Sunday night at Denver International." Steve would be meeting me, taking me to Cheyenne and then to the family ranch, where I'd meet Mark; and two days later he'd drive me down to the dude ranch at Rand. I know we had great hopes and expectations of a hot, hot summer. How that summer turned out, and what it led to, is a story for another time.

Down in the parking area, Steve removed the towbar, and folded it and stowed it in the Boxster's compact boot, along with his backpack. He had about 740 miles to cover to get back to Cheyenne; and two days later he'd pick up Mark at last, also down in Stapleton. Giving us each another embrace and another kiss, he got into the Porsche and pulled on his baseball cap, and with a final wave, pulled out of the lot and headed for the east-bound ramp of I-80.

I climbed up into the cab of the rental truck, and my uncle took the passenger side. We had about 480 miles to go before Mike's 'joyeuse reunion' with his Allie, and in fact my reunion with Alice was only 8 hours away. Although we covered a lot of territory, going over everything that had happened in the last four days, which so profoundly reshaped my life, the principal topic of conversation was about Alice, and the kind of woman she was, and what to expect.

There was no doubt that Alice had meant everything she had said to Mike about there always being a place in their lives for me; but the exact shape of that place depended upon how the three of us worked out the details, and it would be a complex and subtle matter. Mike said that I shouldn't expect to just jump into their bed, but that that would come in time, provided I proved to her that in reality I had the character and the qualities of manhood that Mike had represented to her that I possessed, that I was one in whom she could vest every confidence and trust; and of course that I respected her and her position in Mike's life.

It was late afternoon by the time we pulled into the driveway of Alice's condo in Portolo Valley, near Palo Alto. What happened in the next four nights and days was truly interesting and absolutely remarkable, but an accounting of these events constitutes another story.

The day after we got there, there was a delivery to Alice from Gumps in San Francisco. It was 12-armed 2,000 piece antique Venetian chandelier. The engraved card said Stephen Rutland Manners, and it was endorsed in hand: "Best wishes to a lovely bride and to a very lucky man." It was incredibly gorgeous, and must have cost $10,000 at least, and maybe twice that. Mike had not too much trouble explaining the story to Alice, she was wonderfully understanding, but it turned out to be somewhat complicated think of how to explain this dramatic gift to the gathering wedding guests. They couldn't quite say it came from some uncle or some old roommate or something of that sort, since there were plenty of real relatives on both sides present at the wedding, and plenty of real old roommates, too. So they just left it in the box, and did not display it with the other gifts; but once they moved into their new house, they installed it in their dining room, and never a day passed in which they didn't see the magnificent object, and in its brilliance think of Steve.

These events took place in the early summer six years ago. For anyone who has read this account this far and who is interested in where Mike and Alice and Steve and Mark and I are, and what we are doing, just drop an email to the link below and I will give you the complete epilogue.

As for Scotty, he copied Mike's address from the motel registry, and every year sends him a Christmas card, updating him. He finished at UNLV with a major in hospitality, and now he manages the hotel where he used to work, and since it's owned by his parents, he has plans for buying it from them. In the course of years, he has had encounters with quite a number of guests, but none of them could ever compare with the greatest hour and a half in his life. Someday one of us will find ourselves in Battle Mountain, again, and we will surely look him up.

If you have read this novella to the end, thank you and if you liked anything about it, I would appreciate your dropping me a note at the link below.