by Pace, Pepper
“Okay.” What the hell was a wildcat? Was it like a cougar? She didn’t ask, she would just stay out of the woods.
She decided to go inside and lay down. The long drive, her pregnancy, meeting new people and good food all worked to exhaust her. Uncle Ray had given them the den and someone had blown up a huge air mattress for their use. She supposed that they had to have a huge one due to Christopher’s size. She placed the sheets on it and then kicked off her shoes and lay down fully dressed, just planning to doze for a bit.
She felt the mattress dip down and her eyes popped open. Christopher sat propped up on his side, watching her with a smile. “Sorry I woke you. I checked on you a few times. You were sound asleep.”
“What time is it?”
“Two am.”
“Wow, sorry I left you for so long. I was just exhausted.”
“It’s okay. But if you want to shower now is a great time.”
“Great idea and I need to brush my teeth.” Christopher quickly gathered their towels, toiletries and things to sleep in then led them to one of the bathrooms. He turned on the shower and got the temperature correct as she undressed. He slipped off his clothes with a sigh.
“What?” She asked as she stepped into the shower.
“I’m horny.”
“Oh.” Not that she was surprised but just that there was no way she was going to have sex with a house full of in-laws that she’d just met only feet away. That was just not going to happen. He stepped into the shower.
“How quietly can we have sex?” He was actually asking her how quietly SHE could be. He didn’t have to yell in scream the way she did.
She shook her head with a wry smile. “You are just too good for me to be quiet. I’ll either forget or won’t care. Then I won’t be able to face anyone in the morning.” He grabbed their soap and sponge and quickly created a sudsy lather. He gently washed her front, taking special care with her nipples that had grown bigger since pregnancy. He swallowed past the lump in his throat.
Ashleigh glanced down to where he was rapidly becoming erect.
“You are such a glutton for punishment. Now what are you going to do with that thing?”
“Well…I was planning to place it in one of your orifices but…I guess that’s a no go.”
“I’m afraid not.” He continued to wash her body, watching the suds flow down her curvy brown legs.
“I hadn’t really considered this part of the deal. I guess I just thought we’d do it…” He had knelt down on his knees and was now concentrating on her V and the way the dark peach fuzz was just now growing out. He urged her to spread her legs so that he could wash her there. He ‘accidentally’ allowed his finger to graze her clit and her response was a quick jolt.
“Christopher!” She hissed and grabbed the sponge. He came to his feet with a mischievous grin. “I’m going to wash you and I’m going to do it right!”
She rinsed the sponge and got it soapy again and then concentrated on washing his muscled body. He playfully flexed them for her and she hid her smile, trying to be serious. Since he’d returned, there hadn’t been one day in which they had not made love, and most times it was more than once.
His erection had deflated some. She gave him a warning look and he smiled innocently while she lifted him carefully in her hand and gently applied the sponge.
“Oh my god.” He moaned. “If you just do that a couple more times…”
“Christopher you are not getting off…unless I get off too.”
He smirked. “I was hoping you’d say that. I have an idea.” They finished washing quickly, brushed their teeth and got dressed. After depositing their items back to their designated room, Christopher led her out the back door where they wouldn’t disturb the girls that had set up sleeping bags in the living room.
The yard was dotted with many tents. Several families had opted to set up tents or had driven RVs. A few had stayed as guests in neighboring homes. No one had been forced to get a hotel and Ray took a lot of pride that he’d been able to accommodate everyone. Ashleigh followed Christopher. He was wearing athletic shorts and the bulge between his legs had her mouth watering.
They headed toward the parked cars and she wondered if they were going to do it in the truck. Not the most comfortable place to do it; they’d already done that back before he’d gone. Christopher led her past the cars and into the woods.
“Uh…” She said anxiously. “You want to have sex in the woods? With the bugs and wildcats?”
He chuckled. “I know the woods and wildcats aren’t going to bother us if we don’t bother them. As far as bugs…your pretty little body will never touch the ground. I promise.”
“Okay…” She said.
He was breathing hard when he finally turned to her, having found a location deep enough into the woods but not too deep. He pulled Ashleigh into his arms and kissed her insistently, as if he’d gone days instead of hours without her. He quickly pushed his hands down into her shorts. She had gone panty-less and his fingers found her wet core. He wiggled them back and forth against her and she bucked.
“Christopher!” She tilted her pelvis against his hand and then sought his erect penis through his pants. How could he get so hard? Christopher groaned and quickly pushed her shorts down. She kicked one leg out; too afraid of taking them off completely less a bug find its way into them. Christopher scooped her up and Ashleigh’s legs went around his waist, shorts dangling off one ankle.
He planted his hands against her ample bottom and Ashleigh knew just what to do. She gripped him by his swollen base and guided him into her slick opening.
“Oh god!” He cried as he thrust upwards and buried himself deep into her. She was so wet. Ha! So she had wanted it just as badly as he had. He pumped rapidly in and out of her listening for the familiar mewling sound that she made that told him he was hitting it just right.
Ashleigh clung to Christopher, her arms going around his neck. It felt so good that her groans sounded like she was in pain. She buried her head into his neck and sucked on it, desperate not to scream and yell. His long dick hit her spot and dragged repeatedly over it as he pumped in and out of her. She clenched him tight when she felt that he was too controlled. His legs buckled and he almost went down to his knees.
“Ash…you’re going to make me cum!” He began thrusting harder and faster. It was too good, she lost the last of her control and cried out loudly, clutching and digging her fingers into his back. Christopher grunted and then showered her insides with cum. His fingers buried into the flesh of her buttocks and held her flush against him as the last spurt of semen dribbled from the head of the penis that was deeply buried against her cervix.
He waited until his dick was soft enough to slip out of her on its own before lowering her down to her feet. Ashleigh grimaced as she stepped back into her shorts and dragged them up over her dripping wet inner thighs.
“Ugh, Christopher that was a lot.”
“Sorry, I should have thought to bring something.”
She smirked. “Well, just remember tomorrow night.”
His brow quirked up happily.
~***~
The next morning Ashleigh was up well before Christopher, her grumbling belly sending her into the kitchen for something to snack on before breakfast.
Several ladies were already awake, including Mrs. Jameson. They were slicing potatoes and onions for home fries. Uncle Ray gave her a quick good morning before heading out to supervise the whole pig that was going into the ground to roast. Yum, a pig roast.
“What can I help with?”
“Good morning dear.” Mrs. Jameson gave her a broad smile. “Here have a danish.” She said while passing her a fresh baked danish still warm from the oven. She accepted it gratefully. Aww, why couldn’t Mrs. Jameson be her Mom? Well…then Christopher would have been her brother. She decided that having her as a mother-in-law was the next best thing.
“Thank you Mrs. Jameson.”
“Honey, you are go
ing to have to call me Edith if you don’t want to call me Mom.”
She blushed and bit into her delicious pastry. “This is good Mom. Did you bake it?”
“No Barbara Annette did.” Barbara Annette inclined her head in Ashleigh’s direction. “Barbara Annette has her own bakery shop and is a real pastry chef.”
Another woman scowled playfully. “I still make the best berry cobbler.”
Barbara Annette bristled. “That is not an authentic cobbler.” The women bickered back and forth while Ashleigh watched and ate her pastry. She drank a glass of milk and then helped to crack about a hundred eggs.
Christopher woke a while later, his hair an unruly mess of curls. His eyes searched the room until they rested on Ashleigh and then he visibly relaxed. He came over and kissed her neck before giving his Mom a kiss on the cheek. Edith shooed him away and told him to return in an hour.
Uncle Ray rang the breakfast bell and everyone came running to the outdoor picnic area. There was biscuits, toast, fresh butter, homemade jam, thick cuts of bacon, homemade sausage and goetta, eggs and home fried potatoes.
She whispered to Christopher that you couldn’t pay for a breakfast more perfect. Mr. Jameson concentrated on buttering a biscuit with shaky hands.
“Damned wildcats kept me up half the night with all that loud screaming. They sound like women, I tell you!”
Ashleigh’s eyes got big and she felt her cheeks redden. She glanced at Christopher who pretended that he hadn’t heard him.
“Wildcats are around humans too much. Almost sound like they’re screaming oh my god…” Ashleigh damn near choked on her eggs. She noted that the ladies were grinning and Edith nudged her husband.
“You hush now Pawpaw, you were young once, too.” Ashleigh was alarmed when she saw Mr. Jameson chuckling. This time when she looked at Christopher his face was flaming, but he kept eating his eggs without once looking up. When she looked around the table there were several couples with embarrassed, red faces.
Mr. Jameson was a hoot. She decided that she more than liked him.
“When are we going to the furnace?” He asked once breakfast was finished.
Ahh the furnace. She had forgotten to ask about that.
“It’s too hot to go to the furnace until later in the evening.” Butch replied to his father.
Ashleigh turned to Christopher. “What is the furnace?” And are there goats in it? And are they cooked goats. And more importantly…is there a reason to want to get into one?
Christopher gave her hand a brief squeeze. “It’s…something you should just see.”
“O…kay.” Now she was excited to see this damned furnace.
They made a beer run a while later and Ashleigh finally had a chance to see the beauty of Cobb Hill. She decided that it was not technically a mountain but it was steep but beautiful. Butch had come along to help load the liquor and it was he that pointed out the blind bend in the road where Walt had met his death.
Christopher drove them around to where their old house was located. Someone else lived there now and it seemed such a small place to try to raise five kids. Next they pointed out an old shack where their grandmother lived up until the day she died. It looked like a slave cabin and she wasn’t surprised to find that it had been handmade.
Once they got back the men unloaded the truck and Ashleigh saw Uncle Ray sitting on the porch with some of the kids so she made her way over there. She saw Alma’s daughter Rachel who climbed into her lap happily.
“I hope you’re having a good time. I know you don’t know the people here but we’re enjoying your company.”
“I am having a good time.” She said honestly. “You have a beautiful home and a friendly family.” She talked with him for a while and then saw Christopher searching for her so she went to meet him.
“Hey, I was going to ask you if you wanted to walk down to the spring.” He said. “It’s a pretty good hike but the payoff is some of the sweetest, coldest water you’ve ever had.
“Sure,” She said while nibbling on a wedge of apple.
He frowned. “Were you just talking to Uncle Ray?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he…cut that apple with his pocket knife?”
Ashleigh stopped chewing. “Yeah…why?”
He grabbed the apple piece from her and threw it to the ground. “Baby, spit that apple out!”
She did quickly and even wiped her tongue. “What?!”
He was grimacing. “Baby, don’t EVER eat anything that Uncle Ray has cut with that knife. That’s the same damned knife that he uses for everything, from cleaning his nails to scraping dog shit off the bottom of his boots.”
Ashleigh began to gag. “Oh, I’m going to be sick…”
~***~
The trip to the furnace happened after Ashleigh lay down to get rid of her nausea. They loaded up in Butch’s van and included all of the Jameson siblings and their kids.
Christopher wouldn’t tell her exactly what the furnace was until they got there. “Is it a real furnace?”
“It’s a real furnace.” He replied.
“And there are goats in it?”
“Sometimes.” Christopher answered vaguely.
After parking, Christopher took his father’s arm and led him up to a strange large building with a crumbling, whitewashed stone front. There was a signpost and Ashleigh took a moment to read it. The Fitchburg Furnace. Well hells bells, it was a real furnace.
Built in 1868 it was the only double steam-stack coal burning furnace in the entire world. Christopher returned to her and they read the signposts together.
“This is where they produced iron ore? Did your Dad work here?”
Christopher put an arm around her and led her into the strangely shaped building. The walkway crumbled in places and he was afraid that she might lose her footing.
“No,” He chuckled. Fitchburg was only operational for 4 years.” He explained. They couldn’t get the iron ore back down for distribution. And it was a pain bringing up the coal. As magnificent as this place is, it only operated four years.”
“Damn.” She looked around. “It’s impressive. Why does your Dad like it so much?”
He thought about it for a while. “I guess because here in Estill County we didn’t have that much. This place is a part of the National Historical Registry and it’s the only one of its kind in the world. I guess it’s just something for us to be proud of.”
Mr. Jameson was sitting on a big boulder while the young kids checked out all of the nooks and crannies for a stray piece of coal or iron. Ashleigh sat down next to him.
“Where are the goats?” He asked.
She looked around. It looked to her as if they had been refurbishing the place. They may have run the goats and stray animals away.
“It must be too hot.” She decided to answer.
He nodded. “Yeah.” He sighed in contentment. “This is home. Covington was never home. I remember my pappi bringing us here to picnic. Back then it was a mess of broken stones and stray bits of coal. We used to hunt for pieces and come up with some ore. Once we even found some machinery but it was too rusted and big to do anything with. The goats had set up inside away from the heat. They tolerated us in their home and we were respectful that we were just visitors. I never seen anything like it. Daddy goats, mommy goats, baby goats just relaxing in the same area that humans came traipsing through.”
Ashleigh listened to him intently. It was the longest that she’d ever heard him talk. This trip was really doing him good. “I always thought…I kinda thought I’d live here and die here.”
“Do you want to move back?”
“It’d be hard. Make more work for Edith.” He said softly. “I didn’t think it would be like this.” He watched the kids running about with a forlorn look on his face. “I thought I’d be bringing my grandkids here…” Ashleigh gave him a serious look.
“You just did.”
He turned to her and smiled. “I guess I did.”
“Play that song, Christopher.” Mr. Jameson said in a tired voice. He had forced himself to stay up just to listen to the jam session.
Christopher sat on the stairs at his father’s feet. Most seemed to know which song Christopher was going to sing or else they were curious. Even the kids grew quiet.