Page 53 of Road Refugees

Chapter Eighteen

Town

“So…how are those nipple clamps holding up?”

Heaven looked shyly at me over her shoulder. We were in the fruiting chamber setting up a new batch of shrooms. I was drilling holes into the bottom of a plastic file box, and she was rinsing perlite in a strainer under the cold tap.

She said, “Oh, they’re still on, all right.”

To my surprise she turned to me, shimmying her shoulders so her large boobs shook from side to side. I instantly felt myself harden.

But I had to maintain that semblance of control. Raising one eyebrow, I nodded with approval. “Good. Does it stimulate your pussy?”

She blushed at the word “pussy.” Hell, she was still trying not to say “fanny” for “ass.” “Yes,” she said casually, setting the colander on the edge of the sink. “It’s very strange, though, waiting in line at the post office, or buying seeds, or staining a floor while being excited and fixated on you.”

“Good,” I said gruffly, setting the plastic box upright onto four posts. Heaven shook the colander to hasten the draining of water. “I want you fixated on me, Heaven. No one else is going to lay a finger on you.”

Again, she gave me that loving look over her shoulder. She moved onto unscrewing jars, tapping out first the vermiculite onto a clean board, then the shroom “cakes.” I joined her in this task. “You know, you don’t really need to roast us a turkey tonight. We could shower together, and . . . “

“But you shot the turkey, and I plucked and cleaned it. If I don’t make the turkey,” she declared, “it’ll be something I’ll do when I enter university.”

I knew by this she meant a long time, but she had been talking to the club lawyer Slushy about becoming an attorney by the way of online universities. Tuzigoot, the family construction company president since Ford had stepped down, assured her a position at their airplane hangar on Mescal Mesa. She was just waiting for classes to start while Tobiah upgraded the cabin’s wireless. Bare Bones brother Fox Isherwood had formerly been a lawyer in New Mexico in a past lifetime. He was helping her, too. Meanwhile, I’d convinced her to finally start painting her landscapes. She was having a blast at the easel set up where the sun flooded Wolf Glaser’s old room, inspired by the lake view.

As for me, VA doctors were deciding whether to perform a vertebroplasty or a kyphoplasty on my fractured discs. I would be a helpless moron for a couple of months—the part I loathed about this plan—but eventually I’d be standing tall and wouldn’t need the odious cane to zip around. That was the part I liked. It was worth the tradeoff. It was something I should’ve done a long time ago. First, if I wasn’t such a workaholic. Second, if I wasn’t such a drunkard.

Speaking of, it looked as though Heaven was successfully moderating her intake. She no longer used the crutch of the flask and would go days without drinking if it didn’t fit in with her plans. She told me she no longer needed to blot out disgust and fear of anyone—in fact, she wanted to see me with even more clarity, if such a thing was possible. I was damned proud of her.

“We’re doing the shower,” I said decisively. “Only this time, no switching it up on me.” I still smoldered about the time the dogs had interrupted our sojourn. I couldn’t blame them for being so rambunctious, so I of course blamed myself for allowing Heaven to put me in such an undignified position. I was clay in her hands when she yanked down my jeans and took me into her mouth. I didn’t protest one inch. I knew what the hell was wrong with me—I was in love and couldn’t wait to jizz inside her hot mouth.

But I could’ve been more in control about it. That’s when I realized Heaven was truly a switch, a person who enjoyed “switching it up” and changing Dom/sub roles. I was shocked that I somewhat enjoyed it. That day the dogs had interrupted us, my mind was in a whirlpool the rest of the day and probably the next. I found myself manhandling her in the kitchen, playing touchie-feelie under the dining table, accidentally busting in on her while she took a shower. She kept teasing me, though. I guess she finally discovered the power there was in denying satisfaction. I sure knew it. And Heaven was switching it up on me.

She’d kept me at arm’s length. She insisted we sit on the back porch while she told me why she couldn’t get pregnant. It seemed she really wanted me to know this, I guess in case having children was important to me. Then it struck me—she really was serious about me. She told me how her parents had taken her to some “abortion guy” after finding out she was “that way.” The guy had some “plain old-fashioned buttonhook” and had cleaned her out, only permanently.

I had some rearranging to do in my head. Was Heaven my future wife?

You bet your fucking nutsack she is.

We could always adopt children. The Bare Bones, via Lytton who visited us often, were attempting to convince me to prospect for them. “We like your style,” said Lytton. “We need more former military in our org. Think about it.” I knew prospecting would involve a lot of sitting around while the brothers held their sit-down church meetings, sitting outside the room I should add, being too junior to know their real dealings. I’d change toilet paper, make drinks, check the oil or wash their rides, really, any task beneath them. . . In other words, being a submissive which I was most defiantly not trained to do.

Still, I was mulling it over. The Bare Bones was a great club. I loved all of the brothers deeply—yes, even Russ Gollywow with all the twirling, matching suits, and harmonizing he did in a Philly soul group in his spare time. Even Baron Funkhauser with his swallowtail beard and enormous beer gut, back from doing Buck Rogers time on a RICO beef just in time to help save our asses in Flagstaff. They were all real family to each other, something I had seriously longed for since retiring from the army. This was a true brotherhood, and the old ladies formed a union probably very similar to Heaven’s old Cornucopia.

The phone in my holster rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but it could always have been a former Joe needing help, or someone from Puppies Behind Bars. There were all sorts of possibilities, so I usually answered.

“Yeah,” was all I said, drifting away from the spore table.

“Is this Town?” an odd, wavering voice said.

“Yes,” I said skeptically.

“Walk away from whoever you’re with right now.”

“Who is this?” I demanded, even as I complied by walking toward the fruiting chamber door.

“Are you alone?”

I brimmed with irritation, yet I stepped outside the greenhouse. “Yes.”

“All right. This is Darcy Bard. Do you remember meeting me at the Lovely Dogs kennel?”