Wyoming Nights

by Gaines, Olivia

  “Is that what killed your marriage?”

  “No, she wanted children and I didn’t. Her best years were getting away from her and she allowed herself to get pregnant by one of the men in our group,” he said.

  A sadness appeared behind the beautiful blue eyes.

  “We don’t have to discuss this if it is still too painful for you,” she lied. She wanted to know what happened.

  “I let her go without animosity to live the life she wanted. A life with children,” he said.

  She had to know, “Did it destroy the other marriage as well as her own?”

  “Yes. It also nearly destroyed me that she would have unprotected sex and then come home to me,” he said.

  “But you were also having intimate interactions with other women, as you said, while she watched,” Darlene said to him.

  “Yes, but always with her consent and always wearing protection,” he said.

  The subject needed to change. He was becoming defensive. “What brought you back home?”

  He welcomed the change in topic. “My family wanted to sell some of the things they were making so a new barn could be built and a new smokehouse added to our farm. I opened the store to deal with the public. Those quilts are made by my mother and aunts. The preserves and jams are made by my cousins, there are some metal work pieces by my cousins and the furniture is made by me and my Da,” he said.

  It was a pleasant meal and a nice discussion. Dinner over, he walked her back to the bed and breakfast where she was staying the night. It had been a cool and peaceful evening until sexy buggy boy heated things up- quickly. “I would like to come up Darlene, or take you home with me this evening,” he said as he pulled her into his arms. The evening went from cool to steamy in two battings of her eyelashes.

  The man felt wonderful.

  Her heart was racing, her hands were sweaty and her mouth was getting juicy. Everything else seemed to want to join the party as well.

  “I don’t think I am ready, Cornell,” she said.

  “May I kiss you goodnight?”

  She saw no harm in it until he actually kissed her. The man had a magical tongue that sent her mind into overdrive, her ovaries into production mode and her nipples into fighting position. He was too good.

  “Dayummmmmm,” she said as she clawed her body away from him.

  The front of his pants told her he wanted more than just to kiss her with his mouth. She wasn’t ready to deal with anything that man wanted to poke around with, this night or any night. I need to get out of here.

  “Darlene, please don’t leave me in this state,” he said as he pulled her back into his arms.

  He planted kisses along her neck and the weirdest sensation came over her as she looked across the street into his storefront window. The quilt on display caught her eye. “Cornell, how much is that quilt?”

  “What?” he said, astonished that he was so turned on but she was interested in a quilt.

  “That one is $795,” he said. He was still attempting to draw her attention back to what he needed – her.

  “I want it. I want it right now,” she told him as she pulled away from him.

  “Can you wait and purchase it in the morning,” he asked as he pulled her against him pressing his desire against her belly.

  “I want the quilt more than I want to get intimate with you,” she said. It was worded so flatly, that the same feeling happened to the front of his pants. His interest suddenly waned.

  “Oh, it’s like that?” he asked.

  “Yes it is,” she said. “I will come get the quilt in the morning.” She walked by him, allowing her fingers to grazed his midsection.

  “Good night Cornell,” she said as she opened the door to the B & B and went up the stairs to join her friend.

  Chapter Four - Nighttime

  Darlene and George Patterson married when she was a mere 22 years old and fresh out of college. An acceptance letter to Princeton School of Law in hand, she embarked on a passionate cause that set a course for her life. George and Darlene. Darlene and George. Throughout the 25 year marriage, she had never been unfaithful to him. As far as she knew, he had never been unfaithful to her. The men in her office did not flirt with her because she wasn’t that type of woman. She was all about the business. The work she did mattered for the preservation of the land, oceans, lakes, and rights of animals.

  Flirting was not in her repertoire. Men being sexually aggressive with her was not in her comfort window. Making out in public like teenagers was not something that a lady would do. Neither was Cornell.

  Cornell Woodmore was a 58 year old horn dog. All day Saturday, every free minute he got, he was all over her.

  The man was handsy.

  The man used his tongue like a weapon of mass defluxion.

  That man pulled up every technique in his arsenal to try and get her into his bed. Finally, feeling defeated he whispered in her ear, “I understand if you would want to wait until your friend is not with you. You are only four hours away, I can come to you.”

  “Really, is it only 4 hours away?”

  “Yes. When would you like me to come for a visit? Stay the night and make love to you like you deserve?” He huskily asked her.

  Her eyebrows arched at his words while his finger lazily stroked her arm as she stood at the register. She paid for the things she wanted out of his store and loaded them into the rental car. Darlene also loaded in Krysten and the stacks of soap, candles, and jars of preserves into the vehicle.

  “I will call you Cornell,” she told him as she pried herself away from his magical lips.

  Two toots of her horn, she pulled away from the curb. They drove in silence to Philadelphia. Instead of going to the airport, Darlene continued to drive all the way up the corridor into Fredericksburg.

  “Gurl, don’t you have anything to say about that sexy ass man?”

  “No,” she said as she signaled and changed lanes.

  “He was all over you. Did you give him a little something something last night?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Gurl, the way he was acting with you, did you smear some Darlene sauce on a cracker and got that man hooked?”

  Darlene’s eyes left the road and looked at her friend. “That is just nasty,” she said. “I never realized how filthy your mind is...you should consider some counseling!”

  “Gurl, I should consider counseling you on how to get some on the sly. That man was hot for you!”

  “It was too much. He was too practiced, too used to getting what he wanted,” she said.

  “And he wanted some of you real bad,” Krysten said with laughter.

  “He likes the chase, not the woman. I am certain no one has probably told him no,” she responded.

  They rode awhile longer in silence. As they crossed the Virginia state line, Krysten turned in the seat to face her gal pal. “Had I not been with you, would you have slept with him?”

  Darlene’s answer was quick, “No. I would not have.”

  “Why? Didn’t he turn you on? He turned me on and I don’t even like men! I would have rode his ass like a broke back pony,” she said as she massaged her large breasts and rolled her shoulders.

  The frown that covered Darlene’s face was nearly audible. “Why am I friends with you?”

  “Because I keep you sane,” she said as she reached into the back seat and grabbed a bag of peanut brittle. “Plus I’m really cute and smart.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said softly. It did not take long to make it home. “Krys, can you go get your car and meet me at the rental car office so I can take this vehicle back. I need to gas it up first. See you then okay?”

  Her thoughts were about to drown her as she swam through a sea of unlabeled emotions. Sexually, Cornell woke her body up. Mentally, he left her flat.

  Richard, mentally, would have given her a run for the money, but physically there was nothing there.

  This was never an issue with George. The two of them s
imply clicked. The slimness of her dating history didn’t really give her a reference point to compare men. Cornell turned her on and off in the same breath. He did make her think. Not so much about sex, but something else which niggled in the back of her head. A puzzle was being unfolded before her as the purpose for her new life was coming into view.

  It is right there within my reach.

  I need to get a clearer view of where I am going.

  Darryl Mackman knew exactly where he was going. On Sunday afternoons, Monday mornings, and Wednesday evenings, he walked the beaches of Orlando with his metal detector and a small hobo bag. In the bag he collected sea shells, driftwood, and other items that seemed to be of some value to him.

  It was with some arrogance that he confessed to Krysten and Darlene over a late lunch in Orlando on that Friday afternoon that he had turned his hobby into a business. “I started out with a bag of seashells. I made a mobile, then a mixed media art piece on the beach one afternoon and somebody paid me $50. That’s how I got started,” he told them with pride.

  Darryl was a good looking man. He was the same height as Darlene, which put him at a whopping five feet eight, he was rather thin, but muscled, his bald head was shiny, he had deep complexioned skin and his brown eyes were thoughtful. He was a widower who lost his wife to cancer.

  “It’s funny really, that no one seems to understand how a black man grieves. Women believe you should get re-married right away, your kids want you to spend all of your time with their kids, and no one understands the sadness of things unsaid,” Darryl told them.

  “I understand it all too well. It has taken me 4 years to get back up and try to forgive myself for not telling any of them often enough how much I loved them,” she told him.

  Krysten said nothing as the two talked. The conversation between Darry and Darlene took on a tone that was not her expertise and she excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. She did not return to the table.

  As night time eased in, Darlene and Darryl walked along the beach, not hand in hand, but thought in thought as they communicated about how to move forward in life.

  “Come over here, let me show you my shanty,” he said to her. It wasn’t a crude little building, but more of a beachside store front that he could close up in the evenings.

  “I am closed this evening because you are here, but on the weekends, I do pretty well selling my art,” he said. “I couldn’t work anymore after Lois died. There were too many memories for me. You know what I mean? I knew what time each day she would call, so I would set my schedule to make sure I was free...we would have lunch every Thursday... I couldn’t go back in that building....back to that life...I had to find a new purpose.”

  “So your purpose is now collecting seashells to make art?”

  Darryl punched her playfully in the arm. “No, I am going to open an art gallery kind of thing. Right now, I am building up my inventory. I am making friends with some of the other local artists and I am going to rent them booth space or do commission pieces... a place on the beach.” He stared out at the water. “It is going to be nice,” he said with a smile.

  Darlene asked, “May I inquire as to how long Lois has been gone?”

  Without looking at her he said, “Two years, four months, 16 days, and twelve hours.”

  “Does your family worry about you, wandering the beaches, being alone all the time?”

  “My family worried about me when my wife was alive, because I worked all the time, or I was always in meetings, never spending enough time with my children, and barely saw my grandkids,” he said as he looked over at her. “The funny thing is Darlene, I am more accessible now than I have ever been, but they no longer want to be around me.”

  A tug came at Darlene’s heart so strong that she reached out and touched his arm. “I am sorry,” she whispered.

  “No need. I have recently stopped feeling sorry for myself and focused on what I wanted to do with the next 25 years of my life. My kids know me through my wife, because I worked all the damned time to make money to buy braces, and pay for lessons and team sporting events that I rarely got to see. Irony is mean and spiteful. I worked hard to give them a great life filled with opportunity and for it, they don’t know me. The man my children see now, they think is some crazy person who is suffering a mental breakdown.”

  Her hand was still on his arm. “Are you suffering a breakdown?”

  His smile was bright enough to cast a new light in her world. “I have never felt better. I always wanted to be an artist. My kids don’t know that. I always wanted to have a gallery. They don’t know that either. I had to go back to who I was before Lois in order to find Darryl again. When I found him, I found peace.”

  After last week with Cornell, she had a personal question for candidate number three. “Darryl, have you found a way to be intimate again with another person?” she asked.

  “Why? Are you offering?”

  She laughed. “No...I was curious, that’s all.”

  He turned to face her. It was possibly the most alive she had felt in many years as he placed his hands on the tops of her shoulders and stared deeply into her eyes, “Darlene, sex is sex. Intimacy is intimacy. One does not preclude the other,” he said to her.

  A spark shot up her leg as she gazed back into his eyes, “and if you had a preference...”

  He pulled her into his arms and held her tight against his svelte body. “I am a grown ass man. Intimacy is far more important at my age than sex. I enjoy sex as well, but it is not as important as going to bed at night and sleeping all night, whether I am alone or with someone.”

  “Thank you,” she told him as she held onto a man she had just met, but felt as if he had been sent to deliver her a message. She was paying close attention.

  Saturday morning she visited his beach shanty and even purchased a small painting adorned with broken shells that fit nicely into her purse. She sat on the beach with him for nearly two hours, listening to the soft missive of the waves upon the sand, hearing everything, understanding only a portion, and thankful for the opportunity to be where she was.

  I am getting clear of my grief.

  Darryl wasn’t the right man for her nor was the way he lived his life, but he had taught her something important during her time with him; she needed to go back to who she always wanted to be.

  That was the thing Darlene she needed to find again.

  That is the Darlene who needs to live.

  Chapter Five - Midnight

  Daniel Wilstrom had always loved the outdoors and loved the land that he worked diligently to protect. Everything from the trees, to the streams and the animals that called the parks of Wyoming home he worked persistently to safeguard. He took pride in caring for the top portion of Medicine Bow National Forest. In his mind, it had to be some of the most beautiful acreage and countryside in the world with its vast valleys, canyons and steep snowy ranges. He loved the area so much, he bought a small five acre spread right outside of Saratoga, Wyoming, knowing that once he turned 55, he was going to retire in the area.

  He purchased the land which had the North Platte River running through his backyard. Any morning that he was in the mood for some fish and grits, Daniel would grab his pole and head out the back door. In less than 15 minutes, fresh fish was on the table. This morning, however, he had to take a minute to check on his house guest, Sophia, a baby fawn. He rescued the little lady when she injured her foot and was unable to keep up with her mother. He was aided in her care by Sheila D., his Border Collie.

  On a normal workday, Sheila D usually rode shotgun with him as he made his rounds, but since the arrival of the fawn, her mothering instincts kicked in and all she wanted to do was fawn over the fawn. She was a good dog. It was difficult to believe that some family had abandoned her a few years ago at a camp site.

  Since her arrival, Daniel had worked hard to pull the house together. It was more of a very large cabin that felt more like a home. Much of the wood he used to make the furniture in
side as well as shelving, braces and structures, came from loose wood he located in the forest on his rounds. Loose and fallen branches in the forest were great for homes for woodland creatures, but during the dry seasons, those same pieces of wood became kindling. Log by log he built the cabin. All in all, he loved the structure. He loved Wyoming and he truly loved his life.

  It had taken longer than he expected to get the buildings up on the property. Between the barn, the workshop and the covering for the carport, he hadn’t had much time to put in the garden. The first attempts at creating one resulted in a feeding bed for rabbits and groundhogs. This sat well for Sheila D who took pride in catching a rabbit each day which Daniel would use to make a hearty rabbit stew.

  This month, he was working on the smokehouse. It only took one elk, one good sized deer buck and a couple of rabbits to stock the storehouse with meat for a year. As soon as he secured himself a wife, he planned to get a couple of hens for some fresh eggs and life would be grand. He had a vision. He had a plan. He only needed the wife to go along with it.

  He was starting to give up hope. He joined AHusband4u.org nearly three years ago, but none of the women took to kindly to being out in the middle of nowhere Wyoming without any shopping malls. They sure as hell didn’t appreciate getting up in the morning to either go get eggs from the backyard or fish for some protein.

  Thus far, in the past three years, he had sent a plane ticket for two potential spouses to come out for a visit. Chatting with them online had been a different experience for him, but it worked. The first one was a brawny woman with sparkling brown eyes. He found it very disappointing when she showed up and was sitting on the left side of crazy. Each conversation they had, she was either referring to sexing him in an unusual manner or the government was trying to scan her brain.

  He happily took her back to the airport. The second was a milder spirited woman that looked like she just stepped out of a store on Rodeo Drive. Everything was dusty to her. Everything was dirty.