Chapter Thirty Seven - Caution - Watch for Wildlife
I found myself pacing back and forth along the rough road, in the shade of the trees. I was perhaps fifty yards away from the opening where the jeep was parked, and wishing I could see the two women, even if I couldn't hear them. Then, I paused for a moment, wondering why I was so worried.
One thing that I'd taught myself was to examine my motives in order to discover my underlying feelings and desires. If ever there was a time when I felt I really should think about my feelings, I decide that it was time. After all, there I was, standing in the nude, waiting for the results of a discussion that I could neither hear, nor influence. To make things seem even weirder, you have to realize that discussion was happening between my present, live-in girlfriend and a girl that I had dated previously, if only for a short while. The strange thing was that my former date was trying to calm my girlfriend and I wasn't even sure if I wanted to be involved with the discussion they were having.
I'd just reached the point where I was going to concentrate on my inner feelings when I heard Sandy call my name. So, I shifted mental gears and trotted back to see what the gals wanted, now I was curious if Sandy had eased Carissa's mind about her body image. As I approached them, they were both staring at me. Carissa looked like she had been crying. Even Sandy looked quite sober. They'd moved the blanket into the dappled shade of a clump of birch trees and were sitting on it, side by side. When I was about twenty feet away from them, Sandy held up one hand, palm forward, as if asking me to stop so I did.
"What's going on?"
"We want you to answer some questions." Carissa sniffled.
"Okay. I'll answer anything I can."
"First, what do you see when you look at us?" Sandy smiled slightly. "In other words, describe your impression of each of us from your point of view."
"Do you mean a physical description?" I frowned.
"No, not really that so much what we look like, but how you see us as people." She smiled slightly more. "Could you give us an overall description of your impression of each of us?"
"Wow. This could take a while." I sighed. "Besides, I feel a bit like I'm stepping into a minefield. My descriptions may not be what either one of you wants to hear."
"We don't want details; we just want a general idea." Sandy said again, obviously trying to control the situation.
"Well, I'll have to cover the physical side too. For instance, you are very pretty, tall, a bit on the thin side, but quite sexy and you use those things to your advantage when you're dealing with people. You're losing your shyness and becoming more independent than you were when we first met, but you're still very friendly and caring. Right now, you seem almost afraid of the future, but you're calling on reserves to meet it head on. Being the oldest child in your family, you've learned to manipulate your Dad to get what you want a lot of the time, but you seem to expect all guys to act like him and we don't all do that."
She stared at me, open mouthed. "You think I want to manipulate you?" She finally managed to ask quietly.
"Oh come on, I'm a guy. You're a gal. All gals manipulate the guys around them, or at least they try to." I caught a bit of a grin on Carissa's face at that comment, so I went on. "Even Carissa manipulates me, but she's craftier than you. Unlike you, she may be more familiar with guys younger than her father because of all the dates she's gone on, so she may use tricks you haven't learned yet."
"Hey." Carissa said shortly, looking at me as if she was a bit upset, but I held up my hand.
"Whoa, don't get upset. I'm not and I'm the guy being manipulated." I grinned and winked, then turned to gaze at Sandy again. "As an example, think about our discussion about a bathroom this morning. Carissa didn't enter into it, but I could see the sneaky smile on her face as we were talking. She wants a bathroom in the cabin even more than you do, but she's already let me know her opinion and she knows all about the discussions my family has had. She's crafty enough to let you argue with me, knowing that it chips away at my resolve to put that project off for a while."
"Well, you know how I feel about that darn outhouse, so you know I wouldn't argue against her." Carissa said quietly. "Do I really try to manipulate you though?"
"Yeah, but I return the favour." I grinned. "I just lose more often than you do, but I expect that. After all, I've watched Mom and Beth run most things at home for years."
"Hmmph. Besides the fact that I manipulate you, what else do you think about me?" She demanded.
"Well, let's see." I grinned and lifted my hand to my chin as if I was thinking. "You're just the right height for me to cuddle and when we cuddle, you're very sexy, sort of voluptuous, smooth, soft and just a great armful of woman. Mmm, you're wonderful in bed too. Besides, you're great at teaching me how to please you, then wonderful about rewarding me if I do it well. Mostly though, I like your ability to learn quickly and adapt."
I think what I said pleased Carissa, at least her eyes were shining and she was smiling at me.
"Wow." Sandy sighed. "You make me feel like a scarecrow in comparison."
"Well, I certainly don't think you're a scarecrow." I chuckled. "Heck, if you were, I'd have never have dated you in the first place."
"Well, since you described me sexually, what do you think she'd be like in bed?" Carissa asked.
"That's impossible to guess." I laughed and shook my head. "From what little I know about Sandy from our date, she's a very warm person and like you, she's extremely sensual. However, I think she's even more impulsive than you are. She's probably going to be a firecracker in bed, very inventive and expressive. She'll drive her boyfriends crazy, but they'll love it."
I think Sandy thought what I said was true, but complimentary as well. At least she was smiling, but blushing at the same time.
"So what would you do if both of us were to end up in bed with you at the same time?" Carissa asked another loaded question.
I thought about it for a minute and decided to treat her question somewhat humourously, so I grinned at her. "Run like hell, otherwise I'd go nuts and probably offend one or the other of you and I don't want to do that to either one of you."
"Hah. I want a serious answer."
"Then ask me a serious question."
"I was being serious."
"Actually, so was I, at least partially. I would be afraid of offending one or the other of you. As well as that, I'm certain that I'm not very good at paying the kind of attention needed to more than one woman at once. My body and mind are only meant to concentrate on one gorgeous woman at a time. So, since there's only one of me and there are two of you, I'd rather not be put in that position."
"Then you wouldn't be interested in having sex with two women at once?" Sandy asked.
"Interested, yes, but realistic enough to know that I'd probably screw up and I'm not tempted to fuck up a wonderful relationship for a possible thrill."
"So what about playing around with two women, but only one at a time?" Carissa asked, but she was smiling.
"I can't see that working either." I sighed. "Can I be brutally honest for a minute?"
"Yeah, but aren't you being honest now?" She frowned.
"I'm being honest, but not to the point of being brutal about it." I tried to explain. "What I want to say might be taken wrong, but I think it's the truth. I'd want to be able to explain my thoughts before either of you got badly offended."
"I can live with that, if you allow us to offer our opinions too." She said, looking at Sandy who nodded in agreement.
"Well, okay, but in a way, it's not complimentary." I sighed. "I might be able to handle a dual relationship, but I doubt if either one of you could do it, not without getting extremely jealous. That's not a fault on your part, it's simply the way men's and women's minds work."
"I think I know what you mean, but could you explain yourself?" Sandy asked.
"Okay. I believe in Darwin's theory of evolution." I smiled at her.
"That's an explanation?"
"Well, yeah. It is, if you really think about it."
"Even I need another explanation on top of that one." Carissa laughed and shook her head.
"Okay, according to Darwin, all animal life has a commonality that goes back to the very first protozoa, right?"
"Yeah, so?" Sandy grumped. "Get on with it."
"Okay, I'll use an example that you can see in real life." I grinned. "If I had a herd of twenty mares and I turned out two stallions amongst them, how many foals could I expect to get from each stud?"
"I guess, fifty percent from each one." She frowned.
"Unh uh, wrong." I shook my head slowly. "You see between the mares and the studs, as well as Darwin's theory of natural selection, I'd end up with at least nine tenths of the foals from one stud. The biggest, strongest and smartest stallion would more than likely service almost all of the mares. We can see the fighting when stallions get together, but really, those fights would be only part of what happens. While the fighting goes on, the mares would be watching and they'd look for the stallion who does best and is most able to dominate the other horse. By doing that, they can pick out the stud whose genes give him the best chance of survival when they chose a mate to sire their offspring. Women do something the same with guys."
I paused and both Sandy and Carissa leaned forward. I could see I had them hooked and waiting, but I wanted one of them to express curiosity.
"Well? Don't leave us hanging." Carissa caught on to what I was doing.
"Okay, women are a hell of a lot more intelligent than dumb old horses. They also want the biggest, strongest and smartest male to sire their offspring, but they want more than that. They want someone who is compatible with them, and on top of that, they want a man who can provide them with the most care and greatest comfort. They want what's best for them and their children, but that's not just selfishness on their part either. In addition, that means that they can give their kids an advantageous start in the world.
"Women look for the best competitor in man's crazy world and set their sights on him, then they do their best to be whatever they feel he wants so they can mate with him. After they've convinced him to be their mate, they know that they can expect that man to give their children a good start in the world. That means that their competitive mate will give their children a head start in their life as well as providing great genes to carry on afterward. What I'm saying is that women take advantage of men's competitive nature."
"Are you saying women aren't competitive?" Sandy asked.
"Oh hell, no." I laughed. "Look at you two for instance. Both of you are actually competing with each and every breath, even if you don't know it, and because of that, I'm gaining the benefit of your competition."
"What?" Sandy squawked.
"We are not!" Carissa said, almost at the same time.
"Oh, but you are, you're just not physically fighting like the females of other species might." I chuckled softly. "Instead each of you is showing me how alluring she is, as well as how open minded and cooperative she is. The way I see it, both of you are trying to seem to be as attractive to me as possible, but you're doing it competitively, even if you don't want to acknowledge that you are."
"You always were a smart ass who had all the answers." Carissa laughed.
"Hell, I don't have all the answers, I don't even know all the questions." I grinned. "But, I do know that until I brought attention to myself at school, I never had a real date. At first I was a laughingstock, because I drove an old Model 'A' Ford, but I didn't like that attention much since I was thought to be a joke of some sort. However, I really showed up on most people's radar when I traded the Model 'A' to Frank Dolens for the car I have now. Of course after the grad party and that stupid picture fiasco, I was suddenly the center of attention. Suddenly I was someone all the girls thought was worth checking out. Up until then I was just another face in the crowd to both of you and to almost everyone else."
"Hey, that's a bit cruel." Carissa protested. "I don't see it that way at all."
"Okay, then tell me what you knew about me before the night of graduation."
"Well, you were always quiet and really smart." She said slowly. "I always thought you were way too shy to do - Oh, migawd, you're right, I really didn't know much about you, but that's as much your fault as mine."
"It probably was partly my fault." I grinned. "I was shy, but then I was always the youngest in the class and everyone always treated me as if I was a little kid, not a regular student. I'd been slapped down for trying to have anything to do with my classmates so often that I'd given up trying to make friends with any of them."
"I knew who you were before all that stuff." Sandy said quietly. "Mostly though it was second hand, through Beth and the twins. When I heard about what you did about those pictures, it really wasn't much of a surprise because it fit right in with what they'd already told me about you. So when you showed up in the hospital after hurting yourself, I just had to meet you. I guess you're right in a way, because you suddenly appeared on my radar then and I wanted to meet you."
"Yeah, you wanted to tease me about bed pans." I laughed.
"Will you get off my case about that damn bed pan thing?" She grouched, but blushed.
"Probably not." I chortled. "When I mention bedpans, you blush and making you blush is something I find enjoyable."
"Why the dickens do guys like to make girls embarrassed enough to blush, anyway?" Carissa asked quietly. "It's stupid."
"No, it's not really all that stupid. I think it's another of those biological tests that come up almost automatically in the mating dance between a guy and gal."
"What? You have to be kidding me." Sandy protested. "How is my blush a biological test in this mating dance of yours?"
"Well, first, it's not my mating dance; it's the mating dance of human society. Secondly, it's a test of the maturity of the female who is being teased. The guy makes a reference to something that's slightly off-colour to the gal. If she misses the point and asks for an explanation, he assumes that she's not mature enough or knowledgeable enough to understand. If she blushes, he can presume that she's knowledgeable, but inexperienced. If it doesn't bother her, or she returns the smart crack, he'll probably gauge what she does or says to mean she's mature. For most guys, it's subconscious of course."
"I don't get the point."
"Well, it lets the guy know more about the physical and mental development of the gal. Each guy has his own preferences about what sort of lover he wants. Some guys are cherry pickers, who like to educate an innocent gal. Other guys like their peaches ripe and ready." I laughed.
"Where do you get all this stuff?" Carissa grinned at me. "I think I had the same sex ed courses you did, and I don't remember any of this."
"Oh, what I've said didn't come from any course." I laughed loudly. "I've done a lot of reading about sex and biology, but a lot of the ideas I have about sex are my own. They come from what I've read, what I've seen and what I've inferred from my own experiences."
"So they're just your opinions?"
"Yeah, but they're opinions based on the observation and supposition of known facts."
"Jeez, what are you trying to become, a damn professor of sexology?" Sandy snapped.
"Nope, I'm just trying to find my way through the world in a way that allows me to judge what's going to happen next from what's happened before. All I'm trying to do is be a good guy who doesn't rock the boat too hard." I sighed. "Now, time is ticking away on us, and I think we should think about heading back in order to do the chores pretty soon."
I don't think either of them were ready to leave, but neither of them argued with me. Inside of ten minutes or so, everyone was dressed and we'd loaded the jeep, ready to leave.
"Say, we've got time to go the long way, don't we?" Carissa asked, looking at her watch. "If we did that, Sandy could get an idea just how big the ranch really is."
"You mean this pool is on the ranch?" Sandy asked.
"Yes, it's only half way down the upper portion, the part that he and Beth care for." Carissa looked back at Sandy with a grin, then turned to me. "Please, Chris, can we go the long way? Then she can look down across the lower valley and see just how much more land there is below the cliff."
I sighed, looked at my watch again, then gave in. While I was driving along the trail, Carissa was explaining about Grampa Bender's lease. Then she was telling Sandy about the latest version of our lease agreement with him and about his latest will. Sandy was fascinated by the idea that Beth and I were literally going to be in control of the whole area we were driving through.
When I drove across the creek at the lower ford, both of them made comments about the small amount of water in the creek. I had to explain to them that since it was midsummer, it was surprising that there was as much as there was. On summers in the past I'd seen the water in the creek reduced to a trickle on the surface, but this year the flow was decent.
Sandy was blown away as we stood at the drop off and looked out across the lower section of the lease toward my family's farm. She couldn't seem to understand that the whole area was under one lease because of the dependence of ranches on water, so I had to explain it to her. Without open water, cattle couldn't range freely over an area, so at the time when Grampa Bender had filed on his original homestead, he had control of the land downstream of his place. Because of that, the government had granted him a ninety-nine-year lease on all the land between it and the first previously filed homestead, which happened to be owned by my family. I pointed out that a second creek joined the one we stood beside at Uncle Tom's farm and a third one came in from the other side of the valley and ran through George's father's farm.
Of course she wanted to know where the water came from in the first place and I explained that it came from the lake at the top end of Grampa's homestead. That lake was spring fed by underground streams that came from the mountains off to the west of us. The only time surface water came down to us from above the lake was during the spring thaw or after heavy rains.
I think it was almost more than Sandy could understand, so she was quite quiet on the drive up the other side of the valley and back to the cabin. When we pulled into the farm yard and stopped in front of the cabin, Carissa pointed past it and toward cliffs above the lake, telling her that was where the lease started. Sandy just shook her head as if she couldn't believe the whole explanation.
I'd just carried the picnic stuff and the blankets inside the cabin when the phone rang.
"Hello" I answered it.
"Hello, Chris? This is Frank Dolens."
"Hi, Frank, what's going on?"
"There's a regular race at Pine Lake on Sunday evening. Tom and George say they can have the car ready, but only Tom will be able to be at the race. Will you be willing to drive?"
"Umm, I guess. I can't think of any reason that I wouldn't be able to go."
"Okay, Time trials start at seven, racing at eight. If you want to drive up early, we have a barbeque planned for five."
"Darn, I've got chores to do sometime that evening." I frowned.
"I talked to your Dad about that. He said that at this time of the year the chores are easy to handle. Beth and George are willing to do those for you, if you want to go."
"Well, I guess I could then. Just a second, I'll ask Carissa what she thinks. Maybe she'll want to come."
"Well, I certainly hope so. Her folks are planning to be there this time." He answered.
I put a hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Carissa. "Frank wants me to race on Sunday evening, but he's planning a barbeque for late in the afternoon. He wants to know if we can be there. Oh, and he said your folks would be there."
"Well, you're his driver." She snorted with a grin. "If Mom and Dad are there, that gives me two good reasons to go."
"Could I go along too?" Sandy asked quickly.
"You're not working?" I asked.
"Not until Tuesday, then I have a double shift." She smiled, and ducked her head. "I was hoping that I could stick around with you guys for the weekend because of the fight I had with Dad."
I just stared at her in surprise for a minute, then Carissa frowned at me and pointed at the phone. "Uncle Frank."
"Oh yeah." I literally jerked as I realised I was still holding the phone. "Frank? Carissa says she'll be there and we might have a guest."
"Great, I'll arrange for gate passes for both you two and your guest. Now, I've got to go talk to a customer, but before I go, is there anything you need for Sunday? The barbeque is on me, by the way, you two don't need to bring anything in the way of food."
"I can't think of anything I need right now." I answered, my mind still wondering what was going on with Sandy.
"Okay, So long for now. See you on Sunday." Frank hung up.
I put down the phone and turned to look at Sandy who moved over to stand beside Carissa, then both of them looked back at me calmly. Carissa even smiled slightly.
"Okay, what's going on?"
"It was Sandy's birthday the other day." Carissa said quietly. "She turned eighteen."
"Okay, and what does that have to do with her spending time here with us?"
"Well, you heard that she had an argument with her Dad."
"Daddy said I wasn't grown up enough to leave home and go to Calgary to take the nursing course."
"Umm, do you have enough education to do the course? I thought you had to have grade twelve." I frowned, almost ignoring her talk about the family fight.
"No, you don't. Actually Grade eleven is enough, unless you want to get a degree and I have a lot of experience too. I've been working some very long hours as a candy striper and filling in as a temp when the nursing staff is short handed. That's not the important part though. I have all the courses I need from school anyway. I was taking several grade twelve courses last year and I passed them all with good grades. Then I challenged the grade twelve English course and passed it. The only thing I was short of having for graduation was enough credits. I'm short about ten."
"So why doesn't your Dad want you to go to Calgary?"
"Because he thinks I'll be vulnerable. First off, he's a control freak. Then, I think that when I made the mistake with you and we broke up, he decided I was too wild or something. I don't know, and really, I don't care." Sandy spoke sharply.
She was upset, but not crying. I think she was more angry than anything else.
"Chris, there is one thing she hasn't said that I think is important." Carissa sighed softly. "She and her mom have already rented the one side of that duplex from her uncle, but they haven't told her Dad yet. On top of that, she's already registered and her course is paid for. The thing is, she's all paid up for now, but unless she gets someone to move in with her, she won't be able to afford to stay for long. So, I want to move in with her, but I also want to be with you."
"Are you suggesting that we both move in with Sandy?" I managed to ask, even though I was astonished that she even suggested it.
"Yeah, I guess I am." She sighed. "I don't think you're exactly thrilled with that idea, are you?"
"No, I can imagine just what my folks will say to that idea." I sat down and stared at the two of them. "Both of you are eighteen, but I'm not. I'm sixteen. I'm legally classed as a child and I need my folk's permission to do lots of things."
"You don't look sixteen or act it either. Besides, your folks back you up on whatever you want to do all the time." She came back instantly.
"But that's because I'm living at home and they can give me guidance any time I need it."
"You are like hell living at home." She snapped. "For the last two months you've been living here and I've been living with you. Besides, who set this deal up, I mean about Sandy being stuck here with us? Your mom and mine, that's who. I'll admit that they went along with Sandy's mom, probably expecting the idea to flop, but they aren't interfering. They're giving us the chance to see if we can make it work. I think we can."
"Shit, even if they went along with this, do you know how hard it will be on all of us? I'd be living with two extremely attractive women and going nuts because I wouldn't dare touch one of them. If I did, you'd go bananas and I couldn't blame you. You'd be worried about leaving us alone together for any time. Then too, Sandy would have to try to sleep with the two of us making love in the next room which would probably drive her nuts. On top of that, everyone is going to think that I'm boffing both of you." I shook my head. "I just can't see it working out at all."
"Look, I know it could be rough, but that's why I want to try things out for a few days here." Sandy said quietly. "This setup wasn't our idea, but it does give us a test. We've already seen each other nude and nothing happened. What could be more sexually charged than that?"
"Huh, wait until Carissa starts making noises at night." I snorted.
"Oh come off it. My bedroom is right next to Mom and Dad's." She laughed sardonically. "I certainly know what two people having sex sounds like."
"Not unless your Mom is darn loud." Carissa giggled and I had to grin.
"I think that's too much information, besides, she's bragging." I chuckled and winked at Sandy. "Right now, I have some chores to do, then I think we should eat. We can talk about this afterward, before we go to bed."
"Chris, could you do the chores on your own tonight? I was thinking that Sandy and I need to talk more while you aren't around. We could do that while making something to eat."
"I guess." I shrugged. "It certainly won't kill me to do some work. Do you want me to feed the dogs when I'm done?"
"No, we'll do that. You don't need them with you, do you?"
"No, but they might follow along. You know Duke will tag along and the pup is starting to follow me too."
"Okay, we'll feed them at the same time as we eat then." Carissa smiled.
So I put on my work jeans and boots, then went out to care for the animals. It really wasn't much of a job now, since all the cows and horses were out on the range at this time of year. All I actually had to do was to feed and water the pigs, then shut the chickens inside. After that I checked on the stallion and the mare that was penned with him. From the way they were acting, I thought she might have been bred that day, but I decided to leave her in the breeding corral with him for at least another day or two.
We'd built the breeding corral earlier in the year and we were over half done with the high pole fence on the new pasture meant for the stallion. In fact, that evening I and old Duke walked along beside the section of fence we'd already built. Beth, Carissa and I had done a darn good job of that fence. It was more than six feet high and sturdy enough to hold a stallion inside. When we were finished, we'd have two acres under grass which would be a lot better for a breeding pen than the smaller corral. When I was at the far end of that little pasture, I turned and looked back at the whole area around the ranch buildings. It certainly looked better than it had earlier in the year. In fact, the yard looked much better than it had a month ago.
Just as I was patting myself on the back over the amount of work we had done, Sandy stepped out on the porch and rang the old wrought iron triangle on the porch, letting me know that supper was ready. I had to chuckle about that, it was something you'd see in a movie, but seldom in real life. Usually we just called each other to meals.
While I was walking back to the cabin, I thought about that and decided that Sandy was a romantic. Then I realised that I was going to have to try to find out in the next few days just how romantic she was and if I was still the center of her feelings of romance. I sighed at that and old Duke snuffled my hand as if he sympathized.
"You're such a lucky old bugger." I looked down at him and rubbed his old muzzle lightly. "You don't have to worry about morals or anything else. For you, if a female is in heat, you screw her. I'd have to worry about the consequences if I did that."
He paused long enough for his sloppy old tongue to take a quick swipe at my hand, then he waltzed over to a fence post and lifted his leg.
"Was that a comment, Duke?" I chuckled. "Are you telling me 'pee on it, just go with the flow' then see what happens?"
As usual, he didn't even deign to look at me, instead he trotted off toward the cabin, knowing it was time for him to be fed.
"You're no fucking help at all." I sighed.
I realized that I was following along the same path as he was and with the same goal in mind, but he could eat, then just follow his instincts. Unfortunately I was a man, not a dog. I had to think about my actions and I knew that I had some major decisions ahead of me.
I was afraid that the decisions I made in the next few days were going to be pivotal to the rest of my life.