"I guess so. Just where are you taking me? or am I allowed to know?"
"To my little cabin in the wood. To tack down the roof."
"Oh." So she had a satellite estate, as it were. Well, why not? She could evidently afford it.
Susan hummed a tune as she chewed on onion rings that I dipped in catsup for her. Surely an abomination to her fastidious cook! The melody sounded half familiar, but I couldn't place it. Probably it dated from my prior life, wherever that had been. Then suddenly it came: "To the Woodland!" I exclaimed.
She glanced my way, raising an eyebrow in the way she had. "You remember it?"
I pieced it out. "To the woodland—far away—longs my heart forever. To the woodland longs my heart—This no man can sever. In the woodland far away—there lives my darling loved one."
"Why Caesar, I didn't know you cared!"
I felt the heat of embarrassment coming to my face. "You were humming it, not me."
"You don't care? I could have sworn otherwise when we did o goshi in the dojo."
The bitch. She had been aware of my predicament, and now in perfect judo style had brought me down by pushing in one direction until I resisted, then abruptly reversing. "What is your interest in me?" I demanded, partly to cover my shame. The truth was, I would have liked to do with her as I had dreamed I did with a jungle harem, but such thoughts could never see light. She was playing with me.
"Oh, you remind me of someone I once knew."
Or was it possible that she had known me before? Then why tease me instead of telling me? "Who?"
"All in good time."
I gave it up. She had me pretty much dancing on a string, and knew it. I had to let her play her little game, because she might have at least two things I desperately wanted. The second thing was knowledge of my past.
In due course we entered Citrus County, Florida. The almost-level ground had given way to gentle hills, and now these hills became more pronounced, and I liked that better. I must have lived in hilly county, when I was myself.
At last we turned onto a gravel road, that gave way to sand, then dirt, then grass, and finally to forest leaves. We bumped uphill to a wooden cabin, about twelve feet by twenty four feet, set on concrete blocks. Sure enough, its roof was blank knotty plywood, with only the lower portions shingled.
"I don't think we can finish that today," I said dubiously.
"There are sleeping bags inside."
So I was to spend the night with her. Yet how much did I dare presume?
"Here are the shingles," Susan said, indicating a pile on the north side. "There are hammer and nails inside. Why don't you start in on the roof, and I'll see what I can do about supper." There was so much domestic suggestion in this setup that I dared not let my imagination roam. I donned the workman's apron she gave me, filled its pocket with roofing nails, took a hammer, set the ladder and climbed up.
"You'll need more than that," she cautioned me. "Better take up the box, and some shingles." So I ferried up the shingles, perching them near the edge of the upper slope, just within reach from the top of the ladder.
The Cabin was fourteen feet tall at the roof-ridge, and it stood from one to two feet above the ground, depending on which side of the hill I looked. That may not sound like much, but I discovered when I reached the upper rungs that I was nervous about heights. The roof had two slopes, like an old fashioned barn; the outer one was steep, so that the ladder leaned against it, and the inner one was only about thirty degrees off the level. But the ladder did not reach quite up to the bend. So I had to go to the very top rung and scramble up over the ridge, onto the slanting upper surface, and it felt precarious as hell. Suppose the ladder slipped out from under? Suppose I lost my balance?
Well, Susan was watching, so I grasped what courage I had and scrambled up.
I made it, but I wasn't sure how I'd get down again. The slant had looked almost level from below, but now it seemed dangerously steep. I could not see beyond the bend in the roof; it looked like a sheer drop-off. Wherever I set my feet and hands—and I dared not get off all fours—that slant seemed to be shoving them and me toward the dread edge.
"Start with the felt," she called from somewhere far below. "Felt what?" I yelled back. For there wasn't anything to feel up here, except nervous.
"The felt. The roll-roofing material."
Oh. Not felt as in feel, but felt as in hat. The tar paper. I had a pre-cut segment up here with my pile of shingles. It was supposed to go down first, under the shingles. Cushioning them, maybe. I was learning to be a roofer.
I crawled to the end of the cabin with the roll. This was worse yet: fifteen feet straight down. It was a horrifying, dizzy height. If I fell—
Then a little gust of wind passed.
I hugged the roof, sprawled on my belly, my feet straddling the peak. Oh, that wind tugging at me! It seemed like a hurricane blowing me to doom. Oh, sure, I knew it was just a baby wind, a zephyr, nothing to take seriously. But my feeling didn't believe that.
So how did I move about now? Well, I did push-ups. Up, drag knees along, down; up, knees, down. Suddenly my judo exercise program had relevance to real life.
I flattened an end of the felt and tacked it down with a nail. Ouch! Naturally I hit a finger.
Then I hooked one leg over the roof-ridge to counterbalance the upper part of my body, lest I slide head-first off the roof. I knew there really wasn't that much danger of sliding; had the roof been one foot off the ground, I'd have walked upright readily. But my fear did not abate. I scraped elbows, belly, ad knees doing it the hard way. The only way for me.
If I had ever thought to impress Susan, I had certainly managed to torpedo that. But the fact was, if she had been up there with me, naked, I would still have had more concern for the dropoff than for her. This exposed roof really had my number.
At last I got the felt tacked down. Now I started on the shingles. They might look small from a distance, but up close they were yard-long sections impregnated with ground stone on one side, half green, half brown. And they were stuck together. They had dabs of tar in the centers, so as to glue down the roof when the heat of the sun struck them. Oh, yes, there was heat; I felt it now, wafting up from the roof, bathing me, making me sweat.
I wrenched off the first shingle in the pile. It gave way suddenly, giving me one hell of a fall-scare. After that I pried them loose, carefully. As with judo, these seemingly simple things had to be done just right, or there were consequences. I went to work laying and hammering, placing each row so that it was staggered, the edges of the shingles lining up horizontally but not vertically. That was so rain could not find a crevice straight past the layers. The job would have been tedious if I hadn't been so scared. I might get this job done, somehow, but I'd never make a professional roofer.
For an hour I laid down shingles, and I got about a quarter of the job done. My right forearm was numbing with fatigue, because I wasn't used to hammering, but I was no good with my left.
I made a mental note: practice hammering left handed, just in case I ever needed to do this again, so that one hand could spell the other. I had some scrapes on my knuckles from the sharp bits of rock in the shingles. But I dragged on.
I finished another row, crawled back for the next shingle and a reload of nails—and saw something skitter inside the nail box. A bug of some kind, probably a roach. Something gave me a feeling of deja vu; I remembered a roach from somewhere—crawling up a divinely shaped leg? I was peering up under a skirt, seeing that roach, and hearing the weird beat of fantastic music.
Ridiculous! What would I be doing on the floor, looking up some dancing girl's leg? Male erotic fantasy of the kind I already had too much of. I needed reality, not fantasy.
Well, I didn't like roaches. I wanted this one out of my nails. I picked up the box and shook it. Out tumbled a scorpion. It was only a little one, not much over an inch long. But the sight of it gave me an ugly shock. Suppose I had put my hand on it, grabbing blindly for na
ils? The sting of a scorpion, I knew from somewhere, could kill. Maybe this little one wouldn't be fatal, but the pain might send me toppling off the roof.
The scorpion hid behind the box. That was no good; I didn't want to share the roof with it at all, and I certainly didn't want it back in the nails. I twisted about awkwardly and shoved the box with one foot.
The scorpion was gone.
Where was it? I hadn't seen it go inside the box, but it wasn't outside either. Had it fallen off the roof? I didn't wish that fate on it, though it probably could survive the fall better than I could. Maybe slid under a shingle? Poor thing; I bore it no malice, I just didn't want its company. Now how could I put my hand in the box, not being sure?
"Something the matter?" Susan called. "You stopped hammering."
"Uh, nothing," I called back, ashamed to admit my timidity. "Just tired." That was at least a half truth.
"You sure? You sound shaken."
Maybe the truth would do. "There's a scorpion."
"Ignore it; the local ones are harmless."
That information helped somewhat. "Thanks."
"Better get the felt up over the ridge before it rains," she advised. "Get the crack covered over."
Rain? I looked at the sky. Huge gray/black clouds loomed to the south. A storm, certainly.
I scrambled to unroll the felt. I still had a few nails in my apron; they would do to tack it down. I bent the felt lengthwise across the ridge and banged in several nails, then began unrolling. There was an ominous swishing through the trees, as of a gale approaching. A light spattering of raindrops fell. God, those southern storms blew up fast!
I unrolled some more and hammered feverishly. I had to get it down before the real rain hit.
But as I neared the far end, a big gust came. It whipped across the roof, tugging at me, making me cower spread-eagled across the ridge, my fingers scratching for purchase that wasn't there. I had a mental picture of a mountain climber clinging to a near-vertical face of rock a mile above the canyon, his fingers sliding as the hurricane force wind savaged him. Sure my situation wasn't anywhere near that bad, but that was the image. Imagination is marvelous stuff.
The felt I had just tacked ripped out. It sailed past me. My body was weighting down one part of it, but somehow I got off it. I didn't want to be carried along with it. The whole roll rolled off the roof. There was a pause, and then I heard the solid thunk as it hit the ground. There, but for the grace of God—
Now the rain sluiced down in earnest. The entire roof became slick. The wind buffeted me, not satisfied with the roll of felt. I couldn't stay up here, but how could I get down? I couldn't even see the ladder, assuming it remained in place. If I started down to find it, and it wasn't there, I might not be able to halt my slide down the steeper outer roof. I'd got to the ground with or without the ladder.
"Over here!" Susan cried. She stood outside, getting splendidly wet. She was not a large breasted woman, but her soaked blouse clung to what she had, giving it perfect definition. A view to remember. But I was here, and she was there, and I had another concern at the moment: protecting my body.
"I can't get down!" I cried despairingly, knowing I lied; if this storm got any worse I'd come down regardless, maybe headfirst.
"The ladder's here," she yelled, pointing. "Slide your feet down toward it."
"I can't see it!"
"I'll tell you where. Trust me."
Shivering with more than cold, I twisted around and let my feet slide over the bend. My fingers had no purchase; my whole body began an inexorable slide, exactly as I had feared.
"Go right!" she cried. "Right!"
I pushed over my right foot, and felt nothing. My hands were leaving the ridge, slipping in water. No traction; I could not return. "It's right below you! Another inch!"
I dropped that inch—I had no choice—and my toe felt the top of the ladder. It began to slide sidewise under my thrust. "Hold it in place!" I screamed.
She held it. The ladder firmed. I slid down, my left foot finding the second rung. Now I had support. But not until I got down far enough to put my hand on the rung did I relax, and then not much.
I stepped to the ground at last, and Susan was there, and we fell into each other's arms. She was cold and wet, like me, and her once elegantly coiffured hair straggled in dark rat-tails, but to me she was warm and lovely and wonderful to hold.
"Let's get the hell inside," she said.
That was right: it was still raining. I had forgotten for the moment, secure in her embrace. We disengaged and got inside. Now the rain abated somewhat, having done its damage.
"This will never do," Susan said. "Get your clothes off."
"But—"
"Think I want you dripping all over the furniture?" she demanded. Actually there was no furniture to speak of, just piles of building supplies and boxes of this and that, and drips were descending from the rafters. But it seemed to make sense at the time. A lot of things make sense when you're shivering wet and nervous, that don't add up when you're warm and dry and confident.
Still, I dawdled a bit. Susan gave a little sniff of disgust and unbuttoned my shirt, stripped it off me, and wrung it out over a bucket. I took off my shoes and poured them into the same container. A lot of water had descended from the cloud in those few minutes.
"Now the pants," she insisted.
"You're wet too," I pointed out.
"So I am." And she called my bluff by emerging from her own blouse and skirt. She was slender, but fairly solid around the hips, with firm thighs. The higher grades of judo tend to have strong legs.
I took down my trousers, still feeling awkward as hell, and stood in my underpants. I remembered the o-goshi loading, fearing a similar embarrassment, and of course the very thought made it start to happen.
"Oh, come on," Susan said, unsnapping her wet bra. "Everything's soaking."
Her breasts, like the height of the roof and the force of the wind, were more impressive up close. Some generous-busted women are overly padded elsewhere; Susan was lean enough so that nothing detracted from what she did have. In fact, a slender woman can be the very essence of sex appeal. It was certainly true in this case. Her judo practice and skill gave a her a certain healthy grace even when she was standing still. Despite my discomfort, I found the situation extremely suggestive.
I didn't dare take off my underpants.
She fetched a towel from somewhere and began to dry me off.
"You've certainly lost a lot of weight, Jason," she murmured as she rubbed my shoulders. "What happened to you?"
Actually I had gained weight recently, but I must have had more before my amnesia. "I'm don't know. I'm an amnesiac; my life dates back to only a few days before I started class. I think I had an operation or something. There's a scar on my body, and I was pretty thin."
"You don't remember anything?"
"Well, sometimes I think I remember, but the stuff is so fantastic it makes no sense at all. Once I dreamed I was a black belt in judo."
"Well, it happens." She dried my legs. Her touch in that region did nothing to alleviate my condition.
"Another time I dreamed I was making love to—" I broke off, and not only because of the delicacy of the subject. Susan had just tugged down my underpants, without warning.
She eyed the result, which was impressive at this stage. "It happens," she repeated, seeming pleased rather than shocked. She brought up the towel to dry the remainder, paying special attention to what was most in evidence. If I had thought o goshi was bad...
Abruptly she stopped. "There's sleeping bags in the loft. Come."
I had been about to, but perhaps not the way she meant. Then again, maybe that was what she meant.
She climbed the ladder to the loft, and I followed, getting an excellent view of that comparatively plush posterior of hers. No view in the world like that! Again I had a fleeting memory of looking up such legs. Had it been anticipation instead?
She glanced down at me,
catching me looking. "Let's do it," she said as she cleared the ladder.
There were, indeed, sleeping bags spread out. She lay on top, sunny side up, and I grabbed her, burying my face in those breasts. Then I slid up to get on top of her. Nature took over; I climaxed before I had even completed entry, which subtracted somewhat from the experience.
She squinted at me. "Where'd you practice lovemaking? In the Amazon jungle?
Amazon jungle! Could that have been where? It almost seemed so. But I didn't say that. "Sorry. Did I hurt you?" Yet she was clearly no virgin.
"That's not the point. As with a judo throw, you have to consider your partner too."
I paused, not knowing what she meant. But she showed me.
She talked with me for a little while, explaining that women, too, had sex drives, but that their expressions of them differed from that of the male. More care had to be taken, the preliminary moves done correctly, like turning in, placing the feet and hands, bending the knees, and lifting for an o goshi. Art, rather than force, or it fouled up. It was a good discussion, and I realized I had blundered. Just as I did so often in judo.
But she was not condemning me, merely educating me. She made her points delicately, without affront. Then she showed me how. She stroked me, just so, and I turned on. Then I stroked her similarly, getting it right, and despite the classroom nature of the lesson, I saw that she was turning on too. Do a thing right, and it works, regardless. She turned to her side, her back to me, and guided my body and hand. Oh, that posterior! And so I remembered that there was more than one direction from which to approach a given destination, and that some positions are better than others, when both parties are considered.
Because I had shot my wad the first time, there was less urgency about the rerun. I was able to stimulate her in the way she needed, as long as she required, and when she slowly worked into her own climax I was ready to match it. Had to match it; her pulsing interior would not be denied. And you know, it was much better this time, not only for her but for me. I had learned something valuable.
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