Alive! Not Dead!

by R. M. Smith

  “Yeah…fine,” I smiled. “Sorry, I thought you were done.”

  “Two more days,” she said putting up two fingers with a sly grin. “Then we’re back in business.”

  “Great.”

  She started reading her book again with the light back in the tent.

  Where is Rachel? I thought to myself. Was that her? Oh God, I hope it wasn’t Vera! No! It wasn’t Vera!

  I lay down on our sleeping bag, my hands on my chest.

  That was Rachel? Damn! She knows we’re married! Why would she do that? She knows me and Mindy are very happy together. Why would she do that to me? Ok, she’s lonely. But I’m married! Happily married! Fuck!

  “What’s on your mind, hon?” Mindy asked.

  I came out of my stupor. “Oh nothing; just trying to think where we can get some more kerosene.”

  “Did the light go off while you were in the bathroom?” she asked innocently.

  Yeah and Rachel sucked my cock! I thought. “No,” I lied. “But you were having trouble with it earlier.”

  “I think it’s getting low on kerosene. Mason has some more, doesn’t he?”

  “You’re right, he does.”

  I reached over to the stack of books. I paged through it like I was going to the last place I read. Instead of reading, I thought about what Rachel had done to me.

  She was in Mason and Vera’s tent now. She had moved over there shortly after Mindy and I started getting too friendly with one another while she was in the tent with us. Rachel said she felt like she was imposing. We apologized, but she said we should have a tent of our own since we were newlyweds.

  She must have followed me into the restroom. She must have been watching the tent the whole time. Maybe she likes to sit in one of the booths and watch our shadows while we fuck and she plays with herself.

  “Having trouble with one of the words?” Mindy asked.

  “What?”

  “You’ve been on the same page for the last five minutes.”

  “I guess I must have dozed off.”

  She set her book down and lay next to me. She put her hand on my chest. “You sleepy?”

  “Yeah.”

  She picked something off my chest. It was a long curly red hair. “Oh you have one of Rachel’s hairs on your shirt.”

  “Hmm,” I said, showing not a world of care about it.

  She tossed it onto the floor next to the sleeping bag.

  She’s not concerned about it, I thought. We do stuff together all the time. Why should she be worried? There’s nothing weird about having her hair on my shirt! Quit over-reacting!

  Mindy didn’t say anything about it. “Goodnight, baby,” she said to me.

  “Goodnight,” I said. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Mindy went to sleep on my chest. She was wearing a heavy wind-breaker jacket with two flannel shirts. She didn’t have a t-shirt under them.

  In the restroom, I remembered feeling nipples through a t-shirt on my back.

  I reached over turning off the kerosene lamp.

  God I hope it wasn’t Vera…

  I didn’t sleep for a long time.

  The next morning, Mason threw together a light breakfast of thawed frozen orange juice with cold bacon for all of us. He said he had a plan, but wanted to wait until after breakfast to share it with us.

  As we ate, I casually looked at Vera. She was still wearing her Harley leather jacket. Under it she had a flannel shirt and a button up shirt.

  Rachel had a heavy wind-breaker like Mindy’s, two flannel shirts and a t-shirt.

  Mason wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  I asked him “Mason, why don’t you ever wear a shirt?”

  “I’m not cold, son,” he said.

  “Oh I know, I just wondered why you never wore a shirt. Just curious is all.”

  He smiled and sat down with us. We had gotten into a habit of sitting together in one of the longer booths in the buffet. It was in the corner of the room. He said “It was a promise I made to the Lord.”

  Vera rolled her eyes. She had heard this story a million times.

  Mindy asked “What promise did you make, Mason?” She picked up a piece of bacon to eat.

  “It was back when the Lord and I decided to take separate paths – well, right after I decided to not preach in my church any longer. Remember the reason I told you why I stopped preaching?”

  “Because of the corruption in the churches.” I said

  “That’s right. I promised the Lord that I would give him the shirt off my back if, in turn, He would end the corruption in the churches. As soon as the corruption ends, I would put my shirt back on.”

  “Well I think everything has pretty much ended, Mace,” Mindy said.

  “Yeah, the corruption is over, Mace. Put a shirt on.”

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t think it works that way. I’m going to stick with my promise to the Lord. I know the world has ended, but, I have hopes that one day things will return to the way they used to be. When that happens, I pray that the corruption that was in the dead world doesn’t come back to life in the new world.”

  “That’s a good prayer,” Vera said.

  Mason nodded, chewing on a piece of bacon. He added “Until then, I remain shirtless.”

  While Mason was talking, I looked across the table at Rachel. She was sitting next to Vera. Mindy and I were on the other side. Rachel had a small grin on her face. She would discreetly look at me every now and then.

  “It’s got to be cold on your skin, though,” Mindy said.

  “My skin has thickened up,” Mason said.

  “It’s like leather,” Vera added.

  Rachel reached in front of Vera and softly touched Mason’s left shoulder. She said “Wow it does feel like leather.”

  Vera didn’t like Rachel touching her man, but she didn’t say anything.

  Mason didn’t say anything about Rachel touching him. Instead he said “What do you guys think about lighting a fire in the kitchen?”

  “A fire in the kitchen?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that be too dangerous?”

  “There are vent hoods leading up and out above the stoves. We could make a small fire right on top of the stoves.”

  “Let’s try a small one,” I said. “Nothing huge. Just a cardboard box or something to see if the hoods are even open.”

  Rachel smiled at me again. She winked at me.

  “Hopefully they are,” Mason said. “If they were open when the electricity went off, then we’re in luck.”

  “You would think there would be a draft. Let’s see if there is one,” I said.

  We all slid out of the booth. Mason grabbed his kerosene lamp. We all went into the kitchen. It was colder in here. Snow had piled up on top of the stoves.

  Mason said “Ah, you were right, Vera. There is a draft coming from in here. It’s coming from the hood. It must be open!”

  Vera pulled her lighter from her jacket pocket. She flicked it. The flame was strong. It wiggled in a breeze from above the stove.

  In the corner there were some empty boxes. Lighting one on fire, Vera set it on the stove. In a few minutes, it was fully burning. The smoke rose up into the hood.

  Mason clapped. “Ha-ha! Now we have some heat!”

  We spent the next few hours burning all of the empty boxes in the kitchen. All of the snow melted off the stove. Mason pulled one of the cooking racks out of one of the stoves. He rigged up a make-shift stove on top of it. There were some cinder blocks under a table in the back of the room. He used those as supports as he put the rack on top of them.

  The fire wouldn’t stay burning long enough to cook something. He needed something that would stay lit.

  “We need to break up some furniture. We need wood to burn,” he said.

  Mason and Mindy stayed in the kitchen to work on the fire while the rest of us went out into the buffet area. We tried to break apart some of the tables and chairs, but they wouldn’t come apart.
Out of breath Rachel said “You know, I think I saw a fireplace someplace else in the casino.” She had her hands on her hips. “If I remember right, it was a lobby where I found Mindy’s wedding bouquet.”

  “I’ve never been to the lobby,” Vera said. “We always just went from our room to here.”

  “We could go check it out.” Rachel said, looking at me.

  Vera said “I’m going to go check on Mason.”

  “Tell Mindy we went to look for a fireplace,” I told Vera. “Tell them we’ll be back after we find something.”

  She nodded as she went through the swinging doors into the kitchen.

  I looked at Rachel. “You ready.”

  She was smiling. “Yes. Let’s go.”

  I ducked into me and Mindy’s tent, grabbed our kerosene lamp, and off we went.

  We walked into the casino. Signs above us in the darkness pointed to different areas of the casino. We followed signs that led us to the main lobby. There was a door adorned by two wooden Indian statues that led into a large circular room decorated with all kinds of Indian rugs and more wooden statues. In the center of the room was a large unlit fireplace.

  “You think we could light a fire in there?” I asked Rachel.

  “My fire’s already burning” she said, turning to face me.

  “Rachel, I’m married,” I said. “I love Mindy.”

  “I know you do. I love her, too. She’s a great friend.”

  “Yeah, but she’s my wife,” I said.

  “That’s ok,” she said. She reached out, touched my cock through my pants. “She’s not here right now, though, is she?”

  “We shouldn’t do this, Rachel. You need to stop.”

  “Didn’t you like what happened last night?”

  “I’m not going to lie to you,” I said. “It was very nice.”

  “I liked it, too,” she smiled.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You don’t have to tell her, you know. It can be our secret.”

  “I really don’t want to keep secrets from Mindy.”

  “But she doesn’t need to know,” Rachel said. She was rubbing my cock from balls to tip really slowly. I could feel myself getting harder. “She doesn’t need to know anything at all. We can keep this real quiet.”

  “Rachel please, I…”

  She stepped back. “I wanted to thank you for taking me to get my books.” She unzipped her wind-breaker, letting it fall to the ground. She unbuttoned her top flannel shirt, took it off, as well as the other one. “There was a story I was reading about a man who was having an affair during a blizzard.” She stood there with just her t-shirt and jeans on. Her nipples were rock hard. “In the book the woman said ‘It’s cold. But I’m burning up inside’.” She slid her t-shirt up over her head. She unbuttoned her pants, letting them slide off. She wasn’t wearing panties. “I’m cold, too,” Rachel said. “I need warmed up.”

  I was rock hard. She stood there, her long curly red hair bouncing. Her breasts were large, rounded with big hard nipples. Her skin was soft. I could see goose bumps on her arms.

  She had a big smile. “Come on, Dan, let’s warm, up.”

  There were large couches with Indian mosaic textures on them surrounding the dark fireplace. I set the kerosene lamp down on one of the end tables and quickly got undressed.

  Rachel lay down on one of the couches. She spread her legs, even held them apart for me. I got down on my knees and started to eat her out.

  “No! Fuck me,” she whispered.

  I stood up and mounted her. I slammed into her over and over. She was moaning loudly as I fucked her. I watched my cock slip in and out of her wetness. I was long stroking her. We fucked hard. She dug her fingernails into my back as she came. Then I came on top of it and spilled out of her onto the couch.

  We laid there for a few minutes, then the cold reminded us about itself.

  We didn’t say anything as we got dressed. We were shivering.

  She kissed me when we were ready to go. She said “Our little secret, ok?”

  I nodded, still out of breath.

  I grabbed the kerosene lamp.

  As we approached the door by the two Indians, Vera came through the door. She had her arms crossed. “Shame on you two,” she said, looking at us.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Don’t ‘what’ me. I saw you two.”

  Rachel approached Vera. She roughly pointed her finger into Vera’s chest. She poked her hard. “Vera, you say one word of this to anyone and I will fucking kill you.”

  “Get off me missy,” Vera said as she pushed Rachel’s hand away.

  Rachel grabbed Vera by the neck. She shoved her back against one of the wooden Indians. “No! You listen to me you little bitch! I fucking mean it! I will fucking kill you!”

  Vera pushed her away again. She stared at Rachel for a second, shot me a mean look, turned, and hurriedly walked back toward the buffet.

  I stopped Rachel for a second by grabbing her hand. “She won’t say anything.”

  “The bitch better not. I will kill her.”

  “No you won’t…”

  “Yes Dan, I will. I will kill her. I don’t need her nosing around in our goddamn business!”

  “Ok relax. Let’s calm down and act like nothing even happened – but let’s hurry, she’s gaining ground on us.”

  We ran up behind her. We followed her into the kitchen. As soon as the doors swung open going into the kitchen Vera called out loudly “Mason!”

  Mason was still at the stove. He and Mindy were still trying to figure out how to keep the fire burning on the stovetop.

  “Yes dear?” he asked without looking up.

  “Rachel and Dan...”

  He looked up from his work. Mindy did too, a look of fear on her face.

  “Rachel and Dan…”

  “We found a fireplace in the lobby,” Rachel interrupted as she stepped in front of Vera. “It’s a big one. It looks like they burned real wood in it. It’s a nice one.”

  “Yea,” I agreed. “We could probably cook on it, too. We didn’t do a lot of exploring because it was so dark, but we could probably move our tents to that side.”

  “Well let’s go check it out,” Mason said. He blew out the small flame on the stove.

  Mindy came over to me. She hugged me. “I thought you guys got into trouble the way Vera was talking. She looked confused.”

  “I think we might have spooked her by accident in the dark,” I said. “She kind of came up on us unexpected; didn’t she Rachel?”

  “She sure did,” Rachel said. She wasn’t looking in our direction. I think she was trying to hide the fact that she was smiling.

  Mindy kissed me. “I’m glad you guys are ok. I missed you, Dan.”

  “I missed you too, baby.”

  All of us walked back through the casino to the lobby. Mason let out a quiet “Wow!” as we came into the room with our three kerosene lamps lit. The whole room lit up. We could see intricate details of the Indian artwork through-out the room. There were rows of plastic flowers on the walls. In one spot, some of the flowers were missing. Huge blank television screens were hung high on the walls. In one corner there was a large hand-carved horse rearing up. In another corner a large Indian chief had his hand up as if saying “How!”

  The floor was covered in an Indian mosaic, much like the couches. The couches had a dark red trim which made them stand out. The rest of the room had a dark red trim, too.

  We all sat down on the couches. Mindy and I sat on the couch that Rachel and I had just fucked on. Mindy was sitting where Rachel’s’ head had rested and bumped against the couch’s armrest as I fucked her.

  I was starting to feel very guilty. Here I had my new wife next to me; a gorgeous woman, someone who I loved dearly, someone who I would protect and die for. But now, I ruined it. I went behind her back. I lied to her. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to tell her that I had cheated on her.

  We snooped around
the lobby. Behind the main desk there was a door that had been jimmied open. Inside there were locked safes, stacks of money and in one corner a stack of about fifty Dura flame logs. Mason hooted when he saw the logs. Quickly he took three of them, ran out into the lobby area and lit the paper edges of the logs. They quickly burst into flames. The room lit up even more.

  “Oh this is nice,” Mason said. “We gots us a campfire!” he said hillbilly-like. “We can make us a big fire in here!”

  There was a large flume above the circular fire place. The smoke from the Dura flame logs rose up out into the snowy sky.

  We transferred all of our tents to the lobby. Mason and I moved all of the couches except three of them along the wall with the fake flowers to make more space. We decided to leave all of the food that we had carved and bagged in the kitchen walk-in. It wasn’t that far. We all decided that whoever had to use the restroom would bring back a sealed bag of food on their way back.

  The logs burned for about four hours each. They put off a nice bit of heat, too. All of us took off our jackets but still wore one or two flannel shirts; except for Mason, of course.

  Mindy and I were sitting together on the same couch. She had her back against an armrest with a pillow behind her. Her legs were stretched out with her feet on my legs. I was sitting up reading an old newspaper that had been on the lobby’s main desk.

  Mason was sitting with Vera on another couch. Mason watched the fire while Vera sat next to him, smoking one cigarette after the other.

  Rachel sat on a couch next to us. She, too, was sitting with her back against an armrest. She was facing Mindy and I. She had her boots off. They were sitting on the floor right below her. She was thumbing through a magazine, looking at me but quickly looked back to the magazine any time Mindy stirred.

  We were all quiet. The fire quietly popped every now and then.

  Mindy sat up. She whispered to me, “I gotta go.”

  “Ok,” I whispered back.

  “Don’t forget to pick up a bag of food on the way back, Mind,” Mason said.

  “Um ok,” she said, slightly embarrassed. “Tell the whole world why don’t ya, Mace?” she said, laughing. She leaned down and kissed me on the head. “Be right back.”

  I smiled up at her.