As usual, no money has exchanged hands, drat it all, and I don't have permission to have this much fun with all of my clothes on.
No Merry Men or Boy Scouts were harmed in the creation of this chapter. Stephanie, on the other hand, could really use a trip to a spa right about now.
Thanks to Jaime, Kate M and Melody for all their insight and inspiration – you ladies have made this a relatively pain free experience.
Things were getting seriously out of hand, if I didn't find some chocolate soon there would be an incident. I was going to take someone, anyone, behind a hill and have my way with him, at this point it didn't matter to me which 'him' it was as long as 'he' was anatomically correct and capable. Thank God it was snowing or one of them would be in some serious trouble, audience and reputation be damned.
I left the tent looking for support of some kind any kind or even a distraction. Thankfully I found Tank.
Stephanie's Gamble
By Alfonsina
Chapter 12 ♣ May The Trip Part 3
I knew from past experience that Tank was a man who was prepared for anything and not just in a 'guns and ammo' kind of a way. Probably he had been a Boy Scout when he was little. Wait, this was Tank. I was pretty sure Tank had never been 'little' in his life.
Lula told me that he always made an effort to keep chocolate on hand for her 'use'. Lula's use varied on what her whims and needs were at any given time. Most of her uses I didn't want to know about; probably I would have died of embarrassment if I thought about what some of her uses for chocolate were.
For me, I only wanted to use chocolate as medicine. I crossed my fingers that Tank would have brought some with him and not just the vending machine size.
"Tank, do you have an emergency ration of chocolate you would be willing to share with a desperate woman?" I asked in all seriousness. I was trying to stay calm and centered. I was breathing slowly and deeply because if he had no chocolate 'an incident' behind a hill might just occur and I wasn't ready for the scandal of that.
"Depends on the woman. I always keep extra chocolate handy for Lula, but she's not here. Do you know any other women who might be desperate around here?" he asked trying to be cute.
"Tank, I'm a woman on edge who needs chocolate now! Are you willing and able to help me or do I need to go somewhere else for my fix? I'm sure someone has some chocolate around this place," I said. I was trying to keep the growl out of my voice, but not doing a very good job of it.
He looked at me and said in a teasing tone, "You are serious, aren't you? Since it's you and since I like you, kind of, I'll let you have some of it."
I followed Tank like a puppy back to his tent and gasped when I saw heaven in a bag. The man had two of the one pound chocolate bars and he was willing to share! I always knew he was a god in his own right.
Wait! He was breaking one of them up into small pieces? That can't be right! What??? NO!!
I was wrong. Tank was no longer a god. Nope. He was the devil himself.
"Tank, what gives?" I was trying to keep the panic out of my voice and I didn't think it was working.
"Steph, I hate to say this, but I am going to have to ration you. Looks like a storm, and this," he nodded to indicate the chocolate, "might need to make it beyond one afternoon or evening. I am rationing it for your own good and my safety."
Jerk.
I took a small piece of the piece of chocolate Tank had given me and put it into my mouth. I let the brown sweet goodness just melt on my tongue. As it flowed into my bloodstream, a sense of calm and peace began to come over me. Bliss, well OK, as much bliss as I was ever going to get from a small piece of chocolate.
We walked out of the tent together. My eyes were shining, this was going to be almost as good as the Advil, for my mood anyway.
"Thank you, Tank, you're the best," I said as I kissed him on the cheek. It seemed like a good idea at the time and the man had what I needed. I would gladly have done it again.
"So are you going to be kissing everyone this weekend, Steph?" Lester asked.
Why hadn't I seen it coming? Why? Because I was crazed for chocolate and overloaded on hormones, that's why. I walked over to Lester and gave him his kiss on the cheek and asked, "Does that make you feel all better?"
"I have other places I'd rather have you kiss more, Bomber, but it'll do for now. I didn't want to miss my opportunity. Besides we're gonna be leaving soon," he said as he walked away to attend to something or another.
I had to remind myself that I actually did like Lester, some. After all I was seeing him outside of his natural habitat, the nightclub, so he really wasn't himself. His behavior toward me was excused this weekend, for the most part.
Bobby had been standing nearby and was still looking a little afraid of me. Good something I could use to my advantage. I invaded his personal space and kissed his cheek, too.
"Thanks for letting me come this weekend, Bobby. It has been an adventure," I said and then I walked away leaving Bobby to wonder what the hell was going on.
"Lester since you have been so worried about whether or not I would be kissing all of the men at camp this weekend, now you know that I indeed have," I called over my shoulder.
I didn't see either Hector or Ranger. I swear.
I was thinking, 'At least I didn't tell Lester, "now you know that I've slept with all of the men in camp".'
Shit! I said that out loud.
"Babe, something you want to tell me?" Ranger asked.
I immediately turned around. Both he and Hector were in the same pose, arms crossed over chests looking at me as though they'd like to see me melt into the ground.
I was beyond busted for thinking without remembering to check whether or not my mouth was engaged first. I wished that I could just disappear.
Lester called out to Bobby, "Hey Bobby, you need to get back here. Steph's going to tell Ranger a story that you're gonna wanna to hear!"
Crappity crap, crap.
Why hadn't I just stayed home in Trenton, or stayed with Ranger this weekend? Ah, well looked like that offer was never going to be made again. Too late to think about what could have or might have been.
All of the 'adults' stood around me in a tight circle. I was in the middle alone. It kind of reminded me of earlier this morning, minus the coffee. No coffee and no one who might possibly come to my aid this time. Fudge.
"Ranger, guys, it isn't how Lester made it sound," I knew I was the one who said it, but I was hoping a little distraction would work.
"Babe, you were the one who said, 'now that I've slept with all of the men in camp'. Explain."
"It has all been the sleeping kind of slept with, not the other kind. Jeez, who do you think I am?" I was rambling and I knew it, but felt it was what I needed to do for my self preservation. "Anyway, you remember when Lester was teaching me the relaxation techniques? I fell asleep on his apartment floor, twice. Once it was just Lester and the second time Tank was there with Lester." He looked at me and nodded very slightly.
"Ok, then there was last night and I was in the tent with Canelo, and you know nothing happened. We all know nothing happened."
Another nod, OK, this was going to be OK, I might be allowed to live at least a little longer.
"What about Bobby?" he asked.
"Seems that the afternoon he gave me my Boy Scout manual, I just couldn't keep my eyes open once I got cozy on his bed," I said.
"Elaborate," the man of few words said.
'Here goes nothing,' I thought.
"Bobby gave me the manual and since he had clients recovering in all of the available rooms, he took me to his bedroom and we started to read the manual on the bed. Did you know he doesn't have any chairs in his bedroom?" I asked praying my mother would be told where my body had been left or at the least that it wouldn't be shipped COD to the funeral home. "I don't remember much about reading the manual, but I do remember waking up on top of the covers to voices in the other room. Lester and Bobby were determined they didn't want you to know I had fallen asleep there. Besides, every time I tried to read the manual when I was alone I fell asleep then too so I gave up on it."
"Bobby. Is this true?" Ranger asked.
"Yeah," he said not making eye contact with Ranger, "I had heard that she had slept with Lester and Tank and they both lived to tell the tale. I thought it'd be funny to see if I could get her to do it too."
"So, this was some sort of a gag, or a joke, to you, Brown?" Ranger asked.
"Not really a joke, more like a challenge. But I didn't mean a thing by it. I am sorry Steph. I didn't mean to make you the butt of a joke," Bobby said, still not making any eye contact with anyone.
Ranger immediately looked at Hector and started talking to him in Spanish. There was no heat in the conversation, but there was no smiling either. Seemed that Ranger wanted to know if I had slept with Hector before last night. All I knew for sure was I heard a word that sounded a lot like 'respect' being thrown around. Ranger's fears were apparently squashed, I hadn't slept with Hector before last night and now everybody seemed to understand that.
"Bossman, now that you know how we've all ended up with the Bombshell sleeping with us, now it's your turn to tell us a story," said Lester.
Sheez. It seemed like Lester had some kind of a death wish. It was looking like it was one wish that might come true.
"Santos, are you really wanting to walk all the way back to Trenton on two broken legs?" Ranger asked.
"Well, you can't blame a guy for asking. I am sure when you did it was all perfectly innocent," he said with a huge smile and a wink. Evidently Lester thought if he pulled this tiger's tail he could outrun the tiger.
"Are we done here?" I asked. "Rumor had it that we're going to need to hit the road before much longer."
The little group disbanded and Ranger took me aside. He said, "I believe it was all innocent, Babe. I just don't like the idea of you sleeping with any other man, even if nothing is going on. I have no right to be jealous, but I am." He gave me a quick kiss and slapped me on the butt.
Ranger went back to Bobby to pow-wow about something and I went to the facilities. I had no idea how long it was going to be before we left and I needed a little bit of alone time. Thankfully no one attempted to follow me, I was grateful that they chose to respect my privacy, for once.
I was so far into my own world this weekend that I wasn't noticing half of what was going on around me. The kids had gone to work on their knot tying skills leaving the adults to make plans to get back to Trenton. Looked like Bobby was taking the weather report pretty seriously. We had been prepared for some cold, but evidently the mother of all storms was brewing and we were at the epicenter of the thing.
Bobby had four hand-held walkie talkie things, one for each vehicle. The drivers were supposed to keep them on and synced to the same frequency. They were good for about a five mile radius. Bobby wanted to make sure we could all hear each other in case the snow got worse. If we needed to pull over, we would all pull over. He didn't want any part of the group separated at any time.
The kids got their backpacks and/or duffels loaded and sleeping bags rolled. The adults all helped break the tents back down. Lester who was in charge of the fire was letting it burn out, he hadn't fed it in quite a while. He was going to douse it with water before we broke camp completely.
Bobby arranged for an assembly line of sorts to reload the vehicles in the most efficient way possible and before I knew it we were ready to hit the road. How they got so much stuff in the back of each vehicle was beyond me. Maybe Bobby also had a part time job as a professional organizer. Maybe I should take lessons. Probably that would count toward expanding my horizons or a merit badge, then again, maybe not.
Evidently it is part of the Boy Scout creed, or something, that you are supposed to leave things so that no one really knew you had been there. It seemed that Boy Scouts must be good training ground for Merry Men.
Each vehicle had kids in it this time. There was no way Batman was getting out of having bored kids in his vehicle. If it was good enough for me, it was good enough for him.
Since this had been Bobby's gig, he got to lead the caravan. Hector and Tank rode together. Ranger's vehicle followed, leaving me to bring up the rear with Lester.
It seemed that the kids were all going to do the iPod thing again so we would have relative peace and quiet in the car. Ok, so peace and quiet was a relative term. I had Lester and he could be the mouth that roared.
"So Steph," he started with that stupid grin of his, "what's the deal with you and Canelo?"
"What in the world are you talking about, Lester?" I asked. This was coming completely out of left field.
Shit, he had the walkie talkie in his hand and he had the broadcast button pushed. God damn that man. Now what was I going to do?
"I saw the way he was watching you last night. I noticed the way he's the only one who can get near you when you snap. He was the one who initiated last night's serenade of you. AND," he emphasized, "I saw the two of you this morning. I'd say it looked pretty darned cozy, but that's just me. Besides I saw the look in your eye right before you got the chocolate from Tank; it looked like you were going to have your wicked way with someone."
It took me a while to get myself under control. I mean, I wasn't the one driving and I was going to be in the car with Lester for at just under two hours, weather permitting. I had been crossing my fingers that we would be ahead of the storm.
Evidently Lester wanted to stir up some serious trouble for me. All I wanted to continue to live in a free country for the rest of my life. Shit. Now what?
"Canelo and I are just friends. You should know that. Nothing is going on, period," I hissed. "Besides, whenever I have my period my body needs chocolate or sugar of some kind. I was just lucky that Tank was as well prepared as he was."
How was I going to get through this without killing Lester? I mean I had a gun. But, where was I going to hide the corpse? Would any of the boys in the back help me dig a grave big enough to hide Lester's body?
Options. I had to weigh my options and I didn't have many. I felt that I was going to be in the middle of a big pile of it no matter what I did or said when we got back to Trenton.
I was quiet for a while; I was thinking. I reached my decision on how to best distract Lester. I decided to handle Lester and pray that there would be no car accident as a result.
I leaned next to Lester made sure he could see my face; I began to stroke up and down his thigh while I was licking my lips. Lester made an audible gulp and said, "Steph, what are you doing? Not that I am not enjoying it, but the roads are going to need full attention with the snow."
"I'm just talking to little old you," I purred. I just kept stroking up and down his thigh until I felt him relax. It eventually appeared that his whole body relaxed, OK most of his body relaxed and his breathing was getting rough. When he appeared to be sufficiently unaware of his immediate surroundings, I made a successful grab for the walkie talkie.
"Give it back Steph," Lester said.
"Nope, not doing it. You are putting me in a bad position, again, with everyone and I don't appreciate it. I am friends with all of you. I won't have you creating another pile of shit for me to wade through. You might be stronger than I am and have more skills as you like to say, but I am sure I can talk to Ranger. You remember about the blindfolds and you binding my hands? Anyway, I can present it to him in such a way that your skills won't save you from gym time alone with him and I don't care how I sound in that story because we both know the truth of it."
Lester looked a little chastened, but not much, as he said, "Steph, I really am sorry about shooting my mouth off. Sometimes I just don't know what gets into me. I was just messing with you. I just pushed too hard."
"Lester, thanks for saying that, please say it again so I can broadcast it to the other cars," I said sweetly. Eventually he did. I crossed my fingers that it was enough to keep the peace when we all got home and I wouldn't have anything else to 'Explain'.
We were about one hour into the drive when the snow picked up to an almost whiteout condition. I couldn't see a damned thing and was glad that it was Lester driving. The walkie talkie crackled and I could hear Bobby's voice.
Bobby said, "There won't be any hotels for another ten miles and I don't want to take the risk of having an accident with all the kids. The next exit has a small bed and breakfast. We need to see if they are going to have some rooms. According to the radio this storm isn't going to let up and it is getting worse closer to Trenton."
The convoy all got off at the exit and followed Bobby's lead. There was a small private road off to the right and we followed it to the only house. It was large, old and had a sign that said, "Briscoe-Larkin Boarding House. Closed until spring."
How many more things could go wrong?
Bobby had us all stay in our vehicles while he went to the door. When he came back he sounded like a joke, "we have good news and we have bad news." Seemed that spring had already been declared. That was the good news. The bad news was that there weren't enough rooms with beds for everybody. More bad news they hadn't expected people to come this early in the season. Even more bad news, the owners didn't think they had enough food on hand to feed everyone. The good news was that we had more than enough food for two more days for everyone. Evidently Ella had planned ahead. All we really needed was some place to cook it. More good news, the kids had sleeping bags and nobody cared if someone, or several someones, slept on the floor.
Bobby and Ranger decided that this was the best possible port in the storm and we would find a way to make it work.
Ranger talked to the owners and came up with some kind of a deal. The owners would pretty much stay out of our way and we would be good stewards of the property for as long as we needed. I was pretty sure that a significant wad of cash changed hands which would guarantee us whatever we needed. How much was the annual Boy Scout budget anyway?
We headed to the cars to start to unload when Ranger took me gently by the elbow and walked me behind the house so we could talk. Ducky, it wasn't like I was wanting to have another 'talk'. Great.
"Babe, why did Lester broadcast an apology to you?" he asked.
"Didn't you hear what he had been saying before that?" I asked. I had seen Lester holding down the broadcast button and I was sure he had been making his smart ass comments so that Ranger could hear it and start some kind of a fight.
"No. What was Lester saying?" he persisted.
"Evidently nothing important. Lester was just baiting me and I fell for it," I said. "Nothing for you to worry about. It will all be fine. What do you want me to do to help out?" I asked.
"As long as you are sure, Steph. I'll let it go, for now," Ranger said.
I walked back to the vehicles to help with the unloading process. The guys were all doing the assembly line thing again. The next time I moved I was going to have to ask Bobby if we could make it a troop project. I wonder if the Boy Scouts have a merit badge for moving people's apartments?
When the backpacks and duffels had been loaded into the living room, there was another conversation with the 'adults' except it didn't seem like either Hector nor I were invited to this one. Seemed they were having the "who sleeps with whom" conversation, again.
The owners didn't want the boys unsupervised. Merry Men would have to bunk in each of the rooms that had kids, each room had three or four kids. I was just sure they were all pleased at that idea. Yeah and pigs fly, too. Well it was almost all of the Merry Men, no one wanted Hector or me alone with the kids. I thought that the gang tattoos on Hector's neck and arms had something to do with it until I moseyed over.
Bobby whispered to Ranger, "Because she's out of control and unpredictable this weekend. I don't want to subject the kids to more of that; it might scar them for life. Some of them might never date or get married based on Madam Moody. Hell, I might never get married based on her.
"Hector's apparently been like valium for her right now. You've seen it for yourself. He's the only one who is capable of even getting near her when she is about to blow. He seems to be able to bring her to some kind of 'normal', well normal for her. I know you have a thing for her, but Rangeman, this is not the time and place to get your nose out of joint.
"There is one bedroom that is still open and only has one bed, I think we should put them in there together. We need her calm, cool and collected; you off balance her. We don't know how long we are going to be here and until her hormones get back to 'normal', I think it should be safety first."
Guessed they thought that my period made me deaf as well as cranky. I had heard the entire soliloquy and was trying to heed my inner Jiminy Cricket, for once. Jiminy was telling me that, "All men are stupid. Men have no idea what women go through. Men are all pigs. You can forgive them because they don't know better. Since they don't know better, you can't expect them to do better." OK, so Jiminy had a point and I was actually going to listen to him this time.
I decided to interrupt the conversation at that juncture. I just couldn't hold it in. So I said, "Bobby, I'm not that bad. My head hasn't spun all the way around my body yet this month. All of you still have your 'wedding tackle', or whatever else you want to call the 'family jewels', intact. And I haven't lit anything on fire other than the designated timber. If you think it is best for me to sleep with Hector tonight, I'm good with it if he is. I'll keep him safe and will return him to the fold unharmed. Promise."
"Babe," was all Ranger could say.
Yep, Ranger was the man with the one word answer or comeback to everything. I didn't even want to know what he meant by 'Babe' this time.
I called out, "Canelo, can you find our stuff? We are together again tonight."
All men really are stupid, they must be born that way. Why? Because he had a Lester style grin on his face and I didn't really want to know what put it there. He started going through the duffle bags and backpacks until he found our stuff. Damn, he seemed a little too pleased with himself and a little too anxious. This had the hallmarks of a very long afternoon and evening, at least for me.
Bobby had collected keys for each of the rooms and gave them to Ranger. Ranger unlocked each of the rooms and opened them. After he opened the room I was to share with Hector, he walked in and looked stunned. He didn't move and he didn't hear me when I came in behind him.
"Babe."
What? It was a nice room. Queen sized bed with lots of pillows, fireplace, a couple of overstuffed, wingback chairs. More glorious was that the room had the only private bathroom on the floor, complete with an oversized bathtub. It looked good to me and I wanted to test it to see if it felt as good as it looked.
"Ranger," I said not really knowing what he was going to say.
"Why can't I be your valium this weekend? Why does it have to be Hector? I'm going to have a hard time letting you sleep in here with him. I think I should sleep on the floor in here and make sure you don't hurt him," he whispered, his eyes were closed.
"Batman, I won't hurt him and he won't make any moves on me. It will be fine. There are little boys who need to be supervised who probably sleep walk and who will miss their own beds," I said as I came closer to him. I pulled his head down to mine until we were forehead to forehead. "The storm will be over tonight and then we will all return to our regularly scheduled lives, promise."
Tank chose that time to walk in and let his presence be known.
"Bomber, it is time for your chocolate break. Do I need to get you some Advil from the first aid kit?" Tank asked.
I moved away from Ranger, the moment was over, not that it had really gotten started.
"Tank, you are a god in your own right. Yes, please on the Advil. Since I am going to be in a room, can you ask Bobby if I can have the whole bottle? As to the chocolate, probably a good thing right about now," I said.
"Ranger, I know that you are going to leave all of the bedrooms that the kids are in open and unlocked, but I really want the key to this room for myself. I am planning on closing and locking the door. Not that anything is going to happen, but I have been really cranky and I don't want any unexpected visitors. Considering all things, I kind of want my privacy. You going to be OK with that?" I asked him, knowing that not having a key wasn't going to stop Ranger or even slow him down if he wanted in that room.
"If it's what you want, Babe," he said with enormous disappointment in his voice.
At some point during the exchange, Hector walked in with the bags. He was looking pleased at Ranger's obvious disappointment and shot Ranger a smug look. Great, looked like we were going to start the pompous, pretentious, alpha-male, posturing bullshit again and it wasn't even Wednesday night. Terrific, I could hardly wait to see how this round was going to turn out. Not.
It looked like a good time for me to make my own exit. Safety first and all that. I turned on my heel and said over my shoulder, "I'm going to see what is taking Tank so long with the Advil." It was a statement that neither man could argue with and so, of course, they didn't.
I was actually just fine at that moment, but they didn't need to know that. I was going to need to remember to pull the cramp and period thing the next time I didn't want to do surveillance.