Oregon Trails

by Olivia Gaines

  “I know I want an exclusive trail mix and some form of loose or bagged tea,” she said aloud as she milled about the office. “First things first,” she said with a wry smile.

  Picking up her cell phone, she dialed George, Paul’s photog-want-to-be cousin from the wedding. He answered on the third ring.

  “Hey, Honey!” he said in the line.

  “Hello, George. I was wondering if I could convince you to come out for a day to take some shots of Paul and me here at the office and on some of the trails,” She inquired of him.

  “Will my photos get a byline on your website?” he wanted to know.

  “Of course, they will. You will be paid as well,” she told him.

  “Well if that’s the case, when do you want me?”

  “Tomorrow would be ideal if you can,” she said.

  “Text me directions,” he told her.

  Kalinda clicked on the website’s About Us page and sent the directions straight to his cell phone. “Done! See you mid-morning tomorrow. Please wear loose cotton breathable pants, comfortable walking shoes, and a breathable cotton shirt,” she added.

  “Am I taking pictures or hiking your trails?” he asked very loudly through the phone.

  “I just want to make sure you are comfortable. The altitude is a bit higher here, the air is thinner, and you are going to sweat,” she told him.

  “I could use some of that,” he said before hanging up the line.

  Next on her list was making tea, cookies, and trail mix. The trail mix was the easiest, so she started there. In her kitchen, Kalinda pulled down a large mixing bowl. First, she added the candy-coated chocolates, followed by dried cranberries, peanuts and...she needed more nuts.

  “Uggghhh!” she moaned as she covered the bowl with a drying towel and grabbing her wallet and keys, she set out for town.

  To her surprise, there were no goats in the middle of the road today, which took her aback. She parked in front of the general store, almost girding herself to deal with the million questions she knew she was going to get from QT, but she needed more nuts. Almonds. Unshelled pistachios. Maybe pretzels sticks ? Coconut Slivers ?

  On her way into the store, the distinct sound of kittens crying made her stop for a moment. The sound emitting from under the stairs, sounded almost like distress. Bending down, she looked under the stairs to see the two little babies, huddled in the corner, crying. The mother was in front of them hissing and swatting at something. Kalinda shifted her body to get a better look when she saw the huge rattle snake.

  “Aaaaaaahhh!” she screamed, stomping on the stairs. Her movement frightened the snake, which struck out at the mother. The cries of the babies grew louder as their mother twitched in front of them, succumbing slowly to the venom from her attacker.

  Curley Joe ran out of the store, followed by QT and one other man.

  “Kalinda, what’s wrong?”

  “Rattlesnake! Kittens! Kill it!” she screamed, dancing around in a circle, clutching her belly, squirming, and acting as if she just stepped in a bed a fire ants. The man, wearing a Colt .45, pulled his gun, leaned down between the slats of the stairs, and fired twice. Kalinda held her ears against the sound of the ringing shots. The burly man pulled the snake by its rattle from under the stairs only to find that the snake wasn’t dead. Its triangular shaped head rose up and the man with gun screamed like a girl as he danced about, dropping the slinky body of the snake, and Curly Joe used the handle of the broom he was holding to come down hard on the snake’s head.

  “Shoot it again, Buster,” he yelled.

  The man shot once more, this time actually killing the snake. The kittens cried louder as the mother’s body went limp, her eyes glassy and a mottle of blood staining the white fur where the fangs had sunk deep into her flesh.

  “Those poor kittens,” Kalinda moaned. “Get them out of there, please.”

  Instead of reaching under the stairs, Curly Joe pried loose two of the planks so he could see inside the cavity, just in case there were more surprises. He lifted the two kittens up by the nape of their necks. They were adorable little munchkins, one black, and the other beige in color.

  “What do you want to do with them Mrs. Darton?” he asked Kalinda.

  “Put them in a box for me to take home. Is there a local vet that I can take them to be seen?”

  “Yeah, Buster here is the vet,” Curly Joe said.

  Kalinda’s eyes went to the big man. “Well Doc Buster, I am bringing you two new clients,” she told him.

  “Mrs. Darton I will take good care of them,” Buster said with a gap-toothed smile. “It is nice to meet you. I have heard great things about you and that cooking of yours. What say I get these little guys taken care of and bring them by the house in a day or so and maybe join you and Paul for dinner?”

  “Now that is a very clever way of wrangling a dinner invite,” she said with a half-smile.

  “I just hope it works,” he said to her.

  “It does. Can you bring my new little babies to me tomorrow? I think it may be a good thing to go ahead and spay and neuter, whichever, they may need,” she said.

  “Will do,” Buster said. “Do you want to name them?”

  “Yes,” she said with a smile. The beige one was a sweet little kitty, who loved it when she stroked his head. “This one is named LS, and the other is DS.”

  “Okay, I will have the new additions to the Darton family home to you by supper time tomorrow,” Buster said.

  “Thank you,” she said with a sigh, looking back at the snake. I have to make a digital catalog on the site of poisonous snakes and plants in the area.

  Curly Joe was watching her face. “We have an annual rattlesnake round up where we cook the meat, and roast other kinds of fowl and stuff,” he said to her.

  “Does QT have any of those items on her menu?”

  “Well, no,” he said with a furrowed brow.

  “Maybe she should,” Kalinda said, making her way up the stairs to the store. I still need those damned nuts.

  N uts was the exact reaction her husband had at the news of an additional dinner and a potential house guest.

  “Hell, we haven’t even been married a week and I have had more guests in the past three days than I have had in the past three years. How the fudgesicle did you meet that gap-toothed Ace Ventura wanna be Doc Buster?”

  Kalinda’s amazing mood had only intensified when her big, strapping husband stepped his foot on the ground, to spot her on the front porch giving her a smile that sent shivers down her spine. The shivers were mild in comparison to the butterflies she felt in her stomach, knowing that tonight, he would make love to her in his tender, but not so gentle way. It wasn’t as if there were scores of men in her past to compare him to – the four she had been intimate with didn’t hold a candle to Paul. If he wanted to skip the dinner and romance and get right to it, she would be okay with that. If she were to be honest, she’d be pretty much okay to do anything that man wanted at this point.

  A lazy smile settled on her lips. “Your cousin George may stay the whole weekend. I was thinking of putting him in a tiny house and have him do a pictorial, 360 photo exploration of Wide Open Spaces,” she said with a coy look centered at his wide chest.

  “Looking at me all sexy and stuff isn’t going to change my disposition,” he grumbled. “Why do all these people want to come to my house? I think they are just trying to get through that door to sit and stare at my wife!”

  Kalinda stepped forward, her legs slowly carrying her over to him. “It doesn’t matter how many men come through that door, Paul. You are the only one who stays and the only one I truly care if he enters or not,” she said with her hand on his chest. “George will only stay for a day or so.”

  “But what did I ever do to you? I mean really? George? George? You know I used to beat him up when we were kids,” Paul said with a frown.

  “Please tell me you weren’t a bully because he was different,” she asked, stepping back to look u
p at him.

  “No, I would beat him up because he was always trying to kiss me. He would say stupid stuff like you have nice lips,” Paul said. “Then of course I would be forced to sock him in his!”

  He shuddered at the thought.

  “You know he used to wear, like, this hot pink lip gloss. George would layer it on extra thick and chase me around the back yard, yelling kissy time!”

  Paul was scowling. “He didn’t do that crap to Luke, just me, and he did it when no one was around to see him coming at me. Yet everyone would show up just as I was beating the shit out of his weird round smiley face.”

  Kalinda was holding her laughter in. His facial expression was like a kid caught in the act of playing with himself and having to explain it to his grandmother.

  “You know what else!” He said snapping his fingers. “My mother would stand there with her plastic face, looking at me, kind of judgmental like, as if she could make an expression, like all of it was my fault. She reacted as if George wanting to kiss me was something I was doing. I got sick of all of the shenanigans. One day I did tell my Dad he was always trying to make out with me. Dad said something to his brother and that was the end of kissy time.”

  He sat at the table, staring into his plate. Clearly, the trip down memory lane was more down a scar ridden rabbit hole as his expression turned serious. He looked up suddenly, staring at her with a fierceness that caught her off guard.

  “Our children will have a wonderful childhood. They will have friends, the great outdoors, plenty of room to play and be normal,” he said as his fist slammed into the table.

  “Normal is a relative term, Paul. What becomes normal is what we teach them, what we bestow in them, and the values that we believe are important to their development into good people,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said almost with a pout. “I still don’t understand why Buster is coming over for dinner or why George is coming to take pictures. You have a great eye, why don’t you take the photos?”

  A sudden thought hit her. “Oh, my goodness, I hope you are not allergic to cats!” She exclaimed.

  “Well if George starts acting like a pussy, then it’s probably going to make me break out in hives” he said with a frown.

  “No, Sillyhead. I was in town today to pick up some nuts from the store when I heard two kittens crying. They were trapped under the stairs at the store by a giant rattler who bit and killed their mother. Doc Buster was there when it all happened. Curley Joe killed the snake with the broom he was holding. Luckily, Doc Buster is spaying the kittens and bringing them here for me tomorrow. So now we have two kittens,” she said. “Oh, I need to call him right now and have them declawed. I don’t want them coming in here and ripping my furniture to shreds.”

  “And why is the other pussy coming?”

  “Stop calling him that, Paul. It’s not nice,” she said.

  “Well you didn’t grow up with your male cousin trying to play the kissy face game with you. That shit wasn’t nice either,” he said frowning.

  “You are going to get wrinkles if you keep that up,” she said rubbing his forehead with her two fingers.

  “Kalinda you keep rubbing me and you are going to get more than you bargained for,” he told her as his hands went to her waist.

  “I’m not scared of anything you got, Mr. Mailman,” she said with a wink. “Besides, I thought it would be a great idea to actually get some live video of potential danger spots for the website of where these deadly creatures may be lurking. Also, some video on plants, the good and bad kind...what are you doing?” she asked as his hands began sliding lower to her hips, coming back up easily to the front of her blouse.

  Paul’s eyes brown eyes had gained a new intensity as he reached for the cotton button down blouse she wore. It had little pink flowers embroidered into the shirt that matched the large pink embroidered flower at the cuff of the pants.

  “I am undressing you, that’s what I am doing,” he said softly. “You are so absolutely beautiful to me Kalinda. The feel of your body under mine...the way you move with me when I am inside of you...,” he muttered as his lips took possession of her mouth.

  His passion sparked her own as she reached for his belt buckle, tugging at it, trying to get to the prize underneath.

  “I am sweaty and dirty,” he told her, kissing her, reaching for her pants.

  “I don’t care. I have been cleaning, making trail mix...I probable smell like nuts,” she said.

  “As long as you can’t smell mine,” he said standing, working his pants down to his knees.

  Kalinda didn’t care if they smelled like two funky hogs on the way to the slaughter house. She wanted him. She needed Paul.

  One pants leg still on, her underwear hanging whop-sided, she pushed him back into the chair, straddling his lap. Anxious fingers went between their bodies, reaching for him, aiming, grinding into him trying to make him fit.

  “Slow down, Baby,” he said into her mouth.

  “I can’t. I am so ready for you,” she mumbled, holding him close. She inched her body forward, loving the feel of the thickness of him spreading her, stretching, filling her up. His calloused fingertips touched her hips, pulling her forward. Kalinda wasn’t going to be embarrassed ever again about being an extremely passionate woman who intimidated most men. Unladylike or not, he was her husband, and she should be able to express herself as freely as she wanted.

  “Tell me how good I feel,” she encouraged him as she moved incrementally, taking all of him inside of her. “Talk to me...whisper in my ear how much you love this,” she told him.

  Paul wasn’t able to tell her anything. All of his efforts were concentrated on not giving in to the desire to explode. “Kalinda...,” he whispered in her ear as desire took over him. Thick fingers dug into her flesh as he gripped her thighs and began to pump furiously. His eagerness to love her were met by Kalinda’s own desires as she braced her leg on one side of the chair, raising her hips to meet his every thrust.

  “Oh my God,” he cried out. “Don’t stop doing whatever in the hell that is you are doing!”

  His throat felt raw from holding back the scream of passion that clawed at the insides of his esophagus. The more he thrust, the harder she brought her hips forward to match his movements. He didn’t care anymore. He had to let something go, if not he was going to explode one way or another.

  “This. Feels. So. Fucking. Good. I. Almost...Can’t. Fucking. Stand...it...More. Give me some more, Baby, don’t hold back,” he told her.

  Kalinda didn’t. The sound of him encouraging her to give him her all fueled her. She gripped the back of the chair, braced her feet on both sides of the seat, and squatted over him, bouncing up and down on him until Paul’s legs starting shaking.

  “Jesus! Mary! Joseph! Shem! Ham & Japheth!” He yelled out as his orgasm soared through him like a match to a gasoline trail.

  “Paul!” she cried out as she humped him like he was a stuffed love toy. She rocked against him so hard the chair tilted backwards, but she held on, bringing her feet to the floor as she lowered the chair. Still attached to him, she discovered the new angle to be even more pleasurable as she found her release. Her body clamped down on him as Paul clung to her, wincing in sheer delight as she finished big.

  “Wow,” he said holding her tight. “Yeah, twice a week is good. Anything more and truly don’t think I would ever leave this house.”

  “Well, I am just getting warmed up, if you are game to go another,” she told him looking down with a bawdy smile covering her face.

  “Feed me first, please. I am going to need the protein,” he said smiling. “Then you can use me any way you see fit.”

  “Don’t give me any ideas, Paul Darton,” she said detaching herself from him.

  “Shit, I am going to give you all kinds of ideas, especially after I shower, find some chocolate, and drizzle it all over my favorite spot on your body,” he said to her.

  “Whoa! You are not dripping chocolat
e into my...,” she said.

  “No, your back,” he said, allowing his fingers to trail down her spine. “I love your back. It’s sexy and strong, and it tells me exactly who you are.”

  “How so?” she wanted to know, slightly rolling to her side, trying to get up from the floor.

  “You will bend, but you won’t break easily. It’s strong enough to support me, yet powerful enough to sit me down easy and yet you didn’t even break a sweat. Kalinda, I am so in love that I am feeling stupid...worrying about people coming for dinner...this isn’t me,” he said to her. “I don’t want you to think you married some insecure man.”

  “Don’t you ever feel stupid for loving me and making me feel for the first time in my life that I belong somewhere. I belong with you. I belong to you and if all you want is a meat and potatoes on Wednesday and sex twice a week, it will be the best damned sex you will ever get in your life,” she said, looking down at him.

  His eyes were misting.

  Paul asked her, “This is real, isn’t it?”

  “I am as real as it gets,” Kalinda responded.

  “I am not going to wake one day and you find you gone, am I? I am not going to learn from a police report something weird about dead kittens located in an out building at your Georgia home and all of this will fall apart,” he wanted to know.

  “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder,” she said wiping away the lone tear that trickled down his cheek.

  “In sickness and in health, for richer, quite possibly poorer,” he added.

  “Never poorer, but until death do us part,” she told him.

  Paul’s fingers went to her hair, tugging at a loose tendril, pulling at it until she lowered her face. He kissed her deeply, holding her close afterwards.

  “If this is what happiness feels like, I want more of it,” he whispered into her neck.

  Kalinda understood the sentiment. Kalinda loved having Paul in her life as well. Happy was good place to be. No one was going to take this away from her.

  No one.

  Chapter 22