by Stormy Adams
BRIGHT NEW DAY
The bright light of day told her that she had slept late, but it wasn’t important because today was Saturday. She stretched languorously, relishing the slightly decadent pleasure of awakening nude and unfettered. Childishly aware of the impropriety of running around nude in the house (oh my, aren’t we being wicked), she padded to the kitchen and turned on the coffee maker. She looked through the kitchen window and saw her good looking neighbor emptying his trash (maybe he’ll look through the kitchen window and see me naked). Astounded at the thoughts running around in her head, thoughts the like of which she hadn’t experienced since she was a teenager, Gillian decided that a long ride in the country would clear her head. The sweeping curves of the lake road would be perfect.
Still filled with an odd feeling of wildness, Gillian slipped on a fresh pair of ultra low rise jeans she had ordered online. They fit very tightly and comfortably on her slender body, but they were a little more daring than she had intended. Above the fastener sprouted a small forest of auburn curls. On a whim, she decided to wear them anyway and slipped into her bathroom to shave.
Looking in the full length mirror, Gillian was glad she had decided on daring. The jeans looked sexy as hell. Eyeing her small firm breasts, she decided to forego the short sleeved midi shirt she had selected earlier and reached into her closet for the unadorned leather vest that hung near the back. She slipped it on and then tied a bandana around her long hair, letting it fall free in the back. Kicking on a pair of shortie boots, she carried her coffee cup with her to the garage where she kept the spotless purple and white Harley.
Wheeling the big bike out into her driveway, she took her time wiping down the spotless bike with a soft cloth she kept in one saddlebag. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the neighbor staring at her. It pleased her, and she got a perverse kick out of his wife coming out to fuss at him for doing it. The woman was still making disapproving noises as she herded him back indoors.
Giggling, Gillian drained her coffee cup and took it into the garage and set it down. Drawing on her gloves, she started the shiny bike and slowly motored down the driveway and out into the street. Free at last!
All her problems took a back seat when she was riding, especially when she was riding as she was now, along the water. The years with Jason, the altercation at the bar last night, even her gorgeous and dangerous looking rescuer, everything was behind her when she had the wind in her face. The winding, soaring turns of the lake road, perhaps thirty miles from the beach, was one of her favorite rides, though she usually stopped about halfway around the huge impoundment and headed home or to one of the biker gathering spots on the beach. Today she was in the mood to explore. Just a little further than she usually traveled, she saw a gorgeous little hardpan road that fed off the main road. It was overhung with giant water oaks and Spanish moss hung down thickly over it, creating a fairy tunnel that looked like the doorway to a different dimension.
Unable to resist the lure of the fascinating tableau, Gillian throttled down and turned into the green and gray tunnel. As soon as she entered the road she began to catch a whiff of honeysuckle. Motoring along in first gear, she soon burst out the other end of the row of oaks and found the source. Wild honeysuckle grew in profusion along the old wire fences on either side of the road, which stopped abruptly in a clearing occupied by an old and shabby concrete block house. It looked clean, and none of the windows was broken. There were no rusting cars or trash in the yard, which was more wild grass and palmettos than anything else, and there were no blinds or curtains, indicating to her that the place was empty. When she turned off the Harley, she could only hear the buzzing of insects and the twitter of birds. The place was far enough off the road that she didn’t even hear the sound of cars passing by on the road. She could hear the sound of a powerboat, far out on the lake.
Peeling off her gloves, she walked over and peered inside, the front window, seeing nothing inside indicating the presence of people. She turned on the porch, and noticed that the house was located at the end of a long, narrow lagoon that necked down to a narrow channel curving out into the lake. You could swim in the lagoon and no one from the lake would be able to see you. In her weird frame of mind, another freaky idea struck her, and she raced down to the rickety old dock.
Exhilarated, she stood on the dock and stripped off her vest and jeans, kicking off her boots and stepping off the near end of the dock into the cool clear waters of the lagoon. As she swam out into the lagoon, the water was so clear she could see the sand boiling at the bottom and realized that she was in a giant spring that fed into the lake…which explained why the water was so much cooler out here in the deeper water. It was a very weird and kind of exciting feeling, skinny dipping outside in the bright sunshine.
Gillian felt renewed, and the joy that she had been missing in her life had come back. For the very first time since she had gotten rid of Jason she felt as if she was in control of her life. She stood on the rickety old dock and dried herself in the sun, feeling no rush to put her scanty clothing back on until she was fully dry. Her hair was still damp, but she tied the bandana around it, knowing it would be really frizzy by the time she got home…and she could care less.
Before pulling back out on the main road, she stopped at the end of the road to write down the address off the mailbox. The last name on the box was Burns, and it didn’t ring any bells in her memory. A friend of hers, Cindy Tramm, ran a realty company, and could check the property out for her. Gillian shouldn’t have any problems financing the place if it was for sale.
MYSTERY SOLVED
“It just came out of Probate,” Cindy told her, “and it’s owned now by a Staff Sergeant Sawyer Burns. I can give you a local telephone number, I got it from the Court Clerk, but it’s not on any of the local listings. Sorry I couldn’t come up with better news for you.”
“Thanks Cindy, you’ve been a big help,” Gillian said into her cell phone, “It’s really not much of a place, but I felt so comfortable there.” She smiled to herself as she remembered her afternoon there. There was no answer at the number Cindy had given her, and impatient, Gillian had emailed a friend at the Police Department and asked her to check a city criss cross directory. Shortly thereafter, she got a response with the information she had requested. The number came back to an Avery Burns at an address near her home. She put the address in her purse and decided to stop by on her way home from work.
The house was an older one, though it bore a fresh coat of paint, a new roof, and new screens on the windows. There was an old 60’s model pickup truck in the driveway, one that had obviously been well cared for over the years. Parked in front of it was a brand new Harley Davidson Heritage Softail Classic. It was a gorgeous bike, and it looked as if it had just come off a showroom floor. Whoever owned it obviously loved motorcycles. There was a small metal badge on the side of the gas tank, and a matching one in precisely the same spot on the other side.
She was staring at it closely, and wondering what it represented when she heard footsteps behind her. Whirling around rapidly she found herself face to face with the one eyed man who had figured so prominently in her private dreams lately. “It’s…it’s a beautiful bike,” she stuttered.’
Maddeningly, he cocked his head to one side, his eye more appraising than piercing this time. For the first time she heard him speak. “Why are you here?” It was simple speech, but his voice gave her the same thrill his appearance had. It was quiet, barely more than a whisper, but it carried. It was low, confident, and deep, the kind of voice a man who was used to being listened to.
“I…came to see Staff Sergeant Sawyer Burns…or at least talk to him. The house I’m looking at belongs to Sergeant Burns and the number I got from the Probate Court comes back to an Avery Burns at this address.” She felt like a stammering child.
“I’m Sawyer Burns,” he said, “Avery was my father. He passed away a few months ago.” It looked as if he wanted to say more, but his mouth snapped shut
as if he had bitten the words off before they could get out.
“The house I’m talking about…” she started.
He interrupted her. “The lake house, I really hadn’t thought about selling that one. How did you find out about it?” She told him, leaving out the part about skinny dipping. He was fascinated that she was a rider.
“I would have thought you’d know I was a biker after the other night,” Gillian said. It was enough to break the ice, and he began to talk with her; both of them being hooked on Harley Softails was just the connection it took to animate him. They talked for more than an hour, first discussing the merits of their bikes, and progressing through the death of his father and his return home to deal with the estate. She badly wanted to ask him what had happened to his eye, but she instinctively knew that she had already gone further than he had intended. They agreed to ride out to the house together so that he could show her the inside on the following Saturday, and Gillian was ecstatic.
“I did a little checking for you,” Cindy told her, giving her a ballpark figure. “I could get in touch with him for you if you’d like…” she left it hanging, begging silently for information.
“You don’t have to,” Gillian said airily, “I’m going out Saturday with him for a ride and a look at it.” She knew her friend was dying for the details, but she was going to make the little gossip work for them. Gillian giggled to herself, holding her hand tightly over the mouthpiece. It was a game they had played together many times, most often with Gillian as the curious party and Cindy enjoying parceling out the meager facts, hinting and embellishing as she went.
“You be careful out there, you don’t know this guy…”
“I know him well enough to go riding with him Cindy…what the hell, I can leave the key in the Harley in case I need to make a quick getaway.” There was a silence on the line. “Come on Cindy,” Gillian said, “I’ll be fine.”
INTIMATE DISCLOSURE
Saturday was a grand day for a ride. Gillian was dressed a little more conservatively for this ride than she had dressed for the last one. She wore her leather vest again, but this time she wore a tee shirt beneath it. The low rise jeans had been replaced with her regular jeans, and she still wore her low boots. Her hair was braided into a pigtail that hung to the base of her neck.
She had cleaned and polished the Harley after the last ride, but she spent the early hours wiping it down with a soft cloth. Sitting down on her front porch with a strong cup of her favorite coffee blend, she savored the strong liquid while she admired her handiwork. Her handsome neighbor was taking out the trash, and he smiled and waved at her. On his way back to his house, he looked as if he wanted to talk, but as soon as he glanced Gillian’s way the strident voice of his young wife called out to him…she wanted him to stop “dawdling.”
With a cheery grin, Gillian waved and put on her fingerless gloves, striding out to the shiny dark purple over white Harley and starting up. As always, the throbbing vibration of the big V-twin set her hormones on ‘active’, and the warm sun on her face pleased her. In a moment she was cruising down the street towards Sawyer’s house (she rolled the name around on her tongue, liking the feel of it…Sawyer.) She found herself looking forward to seeing him again. He had seemed a little scary at first, because of his silence and that intimidating eye patch…and his total lack of fear when facing that monster in the bar. After talking with him at his home, and getting to know the tiniest bit about him, she had decided that the eye patch gave him kind of a rakish look. As for being scary, all really attractive men needed just a touch of the bad by in him…it was part of the attraction.
Before the Harley was even warmed up, she arrived at the neat, orderly house that had belonged to Sawyer’s dad. She noted approvingly that all the painting equipment had been put away and that his Harley was sitting polished and ready in the driveway. Sawyer came out the door of the house grinning, two steaming mugs of coffee in his hand. “I hope you like the dark blends,” he said, handing her one of the mugs. “I didn’t think to ask,” he said, “do you take cream and sugar?”
“Not unless this climbs out of the cup and slaps my face,” Gillian giggled.
“It’s pretty strong,” Sawyer told her, watching her face as she sipped.
It was wonderful coffee, she had known from the aroma before she sipped from the hot mug…it was the same brand as her own. “Delicious!” she pronounced. They sat on his front steps sipping their coffee, slipping into the easy rapport they had developed earlier, and it seemed as if they had been friends forever. Sawyer began to tell her about his father and the lake house.
“My mother and my sisters never wanted to go there,” he said. “Dad used to take me up there every time he had a free weekend to fish. He loved freshwater fishing and he kept that little john boat in immaculate condition. We even went up for a couple of weeks in the summer and stayed.” Sawyer’s face darkened. “That’s where we were when the Sheriff came out to tell us mom and the girls had been killed in a car wreck. Some asshole in a dump truck ran a red light and took out the station wagon. They never knew what hit them.”
Gillian was speechless. She knew there was nothing she could say to make something so horrible any better. Sawyer seemed to appreciate her silence, and he continued his story. “I was fifteen then, and dad never seemed to want to go back after that. Oh, we’d go up and do the maintenance on it…but as soon as I got my license I did it all. When I enlisted, I guess he hired someone to keep it up.”
“What did you do in the Army?” she asked timidly, her curiosity about his missing eye killing her.
He rubbed the patch self consciously. “You’re wondering about the eye, huh?”
Gillian reddened, but admitted it.
He grinned. “I was attacked by a bird,” he said. “I’ll tell you about it out at the lake house,” he told her, taking the empty coffee cups and carrying them inside.
The two bikes looked and sounded good together on the road, both riders quickly developing the trust in each other it took to ride side by side in traffic. The sweeping curves of the lake road were exhilarating, as was the wind in her face, and the fifty minute ride was over too soon for her. They turned into the honeysuckle smelling Spanish moss hung corridor and drove along slowly in first gear. To Gillian, the place seemed magical. They reached the driveway and pulled in, and Gillian noticed that he had been here. The porch, columns, door, and shutters had all been painted, and he had transplanted some of the honeysuckle into large concrete planters on either side of the porch. “I love the smell,” he said, shrugging. Gillian adored the smell of honeysuckle.
The house was simple, three bedroom one bath floor plan, characterized most by its neatness. The furnishings were old but in good repair, and startlingly clean. Gillian was awed and she said so. “Dad wouldn’t have wanted it any other way,” Sawyer said. He didn’t cry, but his good eye took on a faraway look and Gillian knew he was remembering his father.
They were sitting on the end of the dock, having left their boots on the porch as well as Gillian’s leather vest…the sun was high and there was little wind. The heat was bringing beads of sweat up in the small valley between her breasts, and she noticed that Sawyer’s brow was beading up as well. The cool water looked inviting, but she was afraid to come right out and ask him to go skinny dipping…not that she didn’t want to. She had already decided that she wanted him.
“I was doing a free fall from thirty thousand feet,” he said. “My squad had been inserted into the desert by night. We were on a covert mission, something that required hands on verification before taking it out…and of course, why waste rockets when you have a squad of Rangers with boots on the ground? We turned off the resuscitators at twelve thousand feet, and I had just cleared the fog from my lenses when a large black bird of some kind, (we never found it) caught my in the face mask. When I came to, I was on my back and my buddies were packing the eye with gauze and covering it with a field bandage. The medic slipped me a quarter of a
dose of morphine, and I went along on the mission with them…I just stayed at the last rally point with the medic while the guys completed the mission.” Sawyer’s good eye was again far away as he recited his story. He didn’t bother telling her about the hell of humping a hundred odd pound rucksack across the desert in the miserable heat with broken glass in his eye. It was not a pleasant memory. He stood up quickly and shucked off his jeans and tee shirt, diving into the cool water in his briefs.
He came up spluttering. “Jesus I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t even think…”
Gillian was already standing, her tee shirt and jeans falling to the dock as she dove into the water. She hadn’t been wearing a bra, and Sawyer’s good eye widened as she took off her shirt. Gillian smiled inwardly. When she came up spluttering and laughing, he joined her. “I’ve been sitting there wanting to do that for an hour,” she said.
“Why didn’t you say something?” he said.
“I didn’t know how you’d react,” she said softly, moving closer to stand in front of him in the shallow water.” He was breathing heavily and she could see the front of his white briefs jutting out in front of him. She’d had more than her fill of false modesty, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself closer to him. Her breasts pressed against his chest, her hard nipples crushed deliciously between them. Her lips parted under his, searching and demanding, drawing him into her like a hummingbird in the wild honeysuckle. She could feel the maleness of him, pressed tightly against her hard flat belly, and a ball of heat began to build beneath her navel. His kiss was soft, and he refused to rush. Gillian’s slender legs had lifted of their own volition and her heels had locked around his narrow waist at the small of his back. The thin, wispy panties that she wore might just as well have not been there at all.