by Peter Prasad
“Van-ness-ah?” No response. He placed his hand on her thigh.
“Van-ness-ah?” He caressed her thigh, sliding his hand between her legs. His kewpie doll breathed serenely. She was out of this world.
He lifted her in his arms. She rested her head against his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his neck. He guided her through the doorway and tenderly laid her across his bed. She nestled her head into the feather pillow and sighed.
He adjusted her legs for his pleasure. She arched her back, unconsciously accommodating him. He rolled up her T-shirt and watched her eyes flicker. He leaned forward, breathing her scent deeply into his nose. A slew of adjectives presented themselves, but he had no need of them now.
He sat beside her on the edge of the bed and anticipated what he might do next. He idly teased one of her nipples. He pinched it. He wanted to taste her.
He unbuttoned his vest, loosened his necktie, and leaned forward. He bent his face down to her belly and began kissing and licking. He rimmed round and round her belly button with his tongue.
He imagined how wet she was becoming. He decided to have a look-see. He rolled her panties down to her ankles. After several minutes of teasing her with the tip of his tongue, he rolled her over. He lubricated his finger and began slowly penetrating and opening her tight little butt hole.
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jake crept through the cottage door at the dairy in stealth mode. He didn’t want to disturb Wally’s sleep. He could hear snores emerging from Wally’s room. He guessed his bro had put in another late night. Jake saw the FedEx package sitting on the table, taped together with a box that held the two bottles of Fransec. The package was ready to go to the wine board in Sacramento. Jake wondered if that would be the end of Koch Semper. He doubted it. Semper was a cat with more than nine lives.
Jake had followed Tanya home from the tavern in his truck. She shared a cozy cottage of cedar, redwood and glass with Sonya up on Sonoma Mountain. The view was stunning, even in the moonlight. The all mod-con kitchen was decorated with a collection of hand-painted tiles in a vineyard motif. “I did the tile installation myself,” Tanya said with a proud smile.
The sunken living room had a marble fire place that burned gas. Sonya showed Jake how to light the fire to take the chill off the night air. The walls were decorated with tapestries and carpets, all gifts from Hap’s collection. The view looked south all the way to the rosy night glow of San Francisco.
You could just see the tops of the Golden Gate Bridge on a clear day, Tanya had said, probably thirty miles away. Best of all, Jake was welcome back anytime. Sonya was ‘living in sin’ over at Hap’s place now. All Jake needed to move in was his own toothbrush and a pound of Kenya coffee beans. “No pressure though. Just letting you know.” Tanya had whispered in his ear after they woke up together in the middle of the night to make love again.
Jake was falling fast. This was new territory for him. They had soaked in the hot tub on the deck with a panoramic view of constellations and watched the moon rise. Then they snuggled under a quilt on the deck and made love under the light of the rising moon.
Wally had left Jake a note on the package for the wine board. It said: Please take to UPS. I emailed my guys in Sac’to last night. Jake picked up the package and tiptoed out the door.
He was back from the 24-7 UPS drop-off in forty minutes. Wally was up and drinking coffee. Jake poured himself a cup and they sat, talking. “Now, we wait,” he said. “And for me, that’s not easy.”
Wally grunted. He was not a morning person.
Jake walked up to the barn, whistling. He opened the barn door and big paddock gate. He let Thor chase the sheep out to pasture. Three ewes tail-waggled toward the rams. The bellwether ignored the commotion of kicks, grunts and head banging. Thor barked.
Jake set his shovel aside to watch the cow milk come in and the whey go out. Marco stopped by to suggest they work together to test the rams with a few of the ewes the next day. Jake said he thought three of the ewes were getting close.
Jake preferred to stay busy. He wondered if he had it in him to run five miles. He was more giddy-elated than worn out, though Tanya had tried. He slept so deeply beside her. He decided: lover-boy, yes; live-in-boy, not yet.
He walked toward the cottage and planned his first long run. Would he hit the wall at three, five or ten miles? He had no idea. His thigh wound no longer hurt. The bullet hole had healed into a shiny white oval the size of a quail’s egg. It was time to get back into shakin’-shape.
He passed Wally on his way up to the lab. They bumped bro-fist. Jake looked at him and said, “Ship shape. Shoveled the shit.” Wally laughed. The waiting had begun and that made for tension. Jake decided to run it off.
He dressed in a worn green Army t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts that ended below the white scar on his thigh. He deserved a new pair of running shoes, but slipped his bare feet into an already worn pair.
It was approaching the high heat of noon. He stretched his legs, swiveled his hips in circles and completed a series of back stretches. He had extra long arms. He bent over with straight legs and placed his palms flat on the deck.
He heard the pop of an imaginary starter’s pistol in his head. He hopped up, leaped the two steps down the veranda and began at three-quarter speed. His rubber-soled shoes slapped the asphalt in a rhythm he hadn’t heard for too long. He felt stronger, far from the days as a wounded vet. At four miles, he rounded the turn at the end of the county road, tapped the fuel pump at the station run by Ramirez and started home.
As he ran, Jake felt for weakness in his body, letting his mind ride on each inhale and exhale. He remembered running the Bay-to-Breakers, a city streets race in San Francisco. The “B-to-B” was a hundred-year tradition from 1912 to lift spirits after the Great Earthquake. Now it was a rite of spring for 60,000 runners, some naked.
Further back in the pack, the race became a carnival costume party with beer kegs hauled in red wagons and ten-runner teams tied together in a centipede.
He laughed at the memory; it had been an eye-opener for a Sonoma kid in the heyday of gay pride. He’d had his ass pinched a few times. Two memories lifted him to run like the wind.
As a junior, he led a bunch of bozos—wigs, red noses, white body paint—in a Sonoma Pride centipede that placed in the top ten. It was the heart of the team that won the football championship the next year. Two of his teammates hadn’t come home from Afghanistan.
As a senior, he’d run as an individual, step for step with the lead Kenyans. He kicked into a gear he’d never found again. The lead runner was a professional runner; the prize was a new BMW. Jake ran as an amateur. Stride for stride, Jake stayed at his side. At the Dutch windmill, with the finish line in sight, the African lifted his sunglasses and grinned.
Jake saw himself in the other man’s eyes, free of space and time. Jake called it a person’s ‘soul face’. He’d seen it several times more in Afghanistan on a soldier’s face when he prepared to die. It was the look the departed showed at the exit gate, the face that they hoped would earn them God’s smile.
The Kenyan zipped ahead to win. Later, they hugged like drunken monkeys, high on life and endorphins. Jake ran hard to condition back to that.
He ran west, the sun in his face. He sweated through his T-shirt, his face dripping.
Oxygen in; carbon dioxide out. Feed the muscles; feed the brain. Heat waves danced on the asphalt ahead. It did not bother him.
He passed the gate to the spring. He allowed himself to slow. He was on the home stretch. He had this one. No problemo. No sniper’s bullet. Nothing ahead but good cheese and even better Tanya.
He made the left turn toward his cottage, his imagined finish line. He guessed about eight miles in less than an hour. He’d have to work on that. He slowed to a walk, to cool off, shaking sweat from his hands. He was wrung out, like he had wanted, in the time-honored tradition of the sweat lodge. Sweat was cleansing.
***
Jake repeated the same run the next morning, the same pace and distance. No traffic interfered on the country roads at dawn. He remembered a July trip to the 49ers professional football training camp. He had tossed a ball around with Steve Young and met Joe Montana, though he and the team were there to observe.
On the bus headed north, coach announced a surprise. The bus stopped at Candlestick Park and coach led them onto the verdant lawn of the professional field. They ran a series of forty-yard wind sprints. Chalk marked the yardage lines and made little puffs of dust when stepped on. At break time, the cameras clicked as his team-mates made memories.
Coach blew his whistle and indicated they form a single line. He pointed to the top of the stadium, and row after row of stairs in three tiers to get there. He blew his whistle. “Go.”
Jake ‘high-stepped’ to the top seats for a fantastic view of the bay. It was a gut-buster. Half the team collapsed along the way. Not Jake. He doubted he could do it now. His high-stepping days were behind him, though he had some shake-n-bake left inside. He’d settle for an eight-mile run and reward himself with all the beers he wanted, though three bottles was all he cared for. He had reason to save room for Tanya’s kisses.
Was alcoholism inherited? He didn’t know. He’d seen the slow downhill in Jerry, but had missed the worst of it. Wally had absorbed a double dose of that misery. Jake figured it was an indulgence of self-pity mind wrapped in an angry blanket.
Jake preferred to stay in control of his wits. A few beers, a little Scotch sipped neat, with someone like Hap Hazard; that was all part of building a relationship. Jake had not been shit-faced drunk since winning his final football game in high school, the county championship. He decided to keep it at that.
The cool of the early morning made his run more relaxing. As he ran east, he watched the pink fingers of dawn scratch at the gray sky. It was going to be another hot one.
On the return leg, he ran west into swirling fog in from the ocean. Free air conditioning, Jake thought. The fog caressed his skin. The air tasted fresh, full of vitality. He looked forward to a cup of French-press Kenyan coffee beans. Perhaps he’d add a shot of vanilla, the way Tanya had shown him.
This time, he didn’t slow down until he crossed the last mile mark by the gate to the back meadow. Then he stepped it down to three-quarter speed. He’d negotiated that with himself ahead of time, despite his throbbing legs that begged for leniency.
Nope, sorry, body part, he argued with himself. We’re in this together, all for our own good. Remember, pain, the distance is for aerobic exercise; the pace is for you, your strength and speed.
After breakfast, he headed up to the feed barn. Today was to be his first day of fertility ritual in the cheese business. Marco and Wally had tested blood samples, monitored the rams, calculated the sniffs and tail-waggles. Jake knew cow breeding. He was curious to see how sheep did it.
After watching a vet go up to his elbow with a syringe of bull semen into a cow’s uterus, Jake had tried it, under Jerry’s watchful eye, his arm smeared with Vaseline. Perhaps it was too much information for a high school kid, but not for a dairy man. Jerry had laughed and encouraged him to learn it all. His efforts had been rewarded with a healthy heifer.
He’d assisted at several births. Perhaps those bloody memories helped him build resistance to panic when blood pooled in Afghanistan. He’d seen several ugly bullet wounds, a few lost limbs, and some so badly shattered nothing could put them back together again. War was hell, even if you used clubs and spears. No matter how right you were, it stained your soul.
The rams were ready. Thor and Marco and Wally were ready. The ewes staged a sit-down and negotiated for another day. Marco made the decision. His rams had a 24-hour window and he didn’t want to waste a drop. After lunch, the birth fathers called it a day. The ewes smiled. The rams bumped the boards. Wally had lab notes to catch up on. Jake took a long, lazy nap.
***
Jake heard Wally snoring when he emerged from the shower the next morning. Wrapped in a towel, he went to the kitchen to heat the kettle. He ground fresh Kenyan coffee beans, loaded the French press, and doused the makings with boiling water. Jake stirred and waited the full five minutes for the coffee to brew before he pressed. Breakfast done, let the ramming begin.
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Jake and Marco separated the ewes into two herds and put each group in separate paddocks outside the barn. The sheep milled about, excited and alert. Thor barked and sniffed the air. The only forlorn creature was the bellwether ram.
He and Marco tied halters to each ram and guided them to their respective pens. Both rams banged heads into the fencing, snorted and raised dust with their cloven hooves. They kicked and pulled toward the outside paddocks, sniffing the air for the mating signal.
Jake led his ram to one of the outside paddocks, released his halter and let him slip through the open gate into the enclosed area. The frisky ram was ready for duty. The ewes eyed him carefully as he entered. Most moved away from him and showed little interest. He scurried around and sniffed at their tails for trigger hormones.
Jake watched the mating ritual. Ennie-meanie-minnie-mo, on which ewe shall I have a go? He was relieved that no artificial insemination was required. The ram named Jerry Ding was up and pumping. Houston, we have a go.
Inside, Marco’s ram, Jerry Dong, caught the scent of a ewe, ready and willing. He pulled Marco across the wooden barn floor as though he was water-skiing on a tow rope. Jake moved to the other paddock and unlocked the gate, swinging it open for Marco’s ram. He unhooked the tow rope from its collar and closed the gate. He and Marco shared a laugh.
Both rams began their mating ritual by sniffing the tails of several of the ewes. When they found one ripe and ready, they quickly mounted her and demonstrated urgent hip action, thrusting blindly. Their slim pink baby-makers dripped with new life.
***
The fireworks for the day were over by noon. Marco said he might try again late in the day. Meanwhile Jerry Ding and Jerry Dong rested, ate and drank. The ewes focused on their food too. Jake decided to run off the excitement.
At the County road, he turned left and ran toward the road that paralleled the freeway. He intended to pass by Fransec for another look. He hadn’t seen the pistol-packing van driver around town since their run-in. He ran at an easy pace, shaking out the images of rutting rams and bellowing ewes.
There was no point in facing down a man with a pistol. If he saw the black delivery van, he’d turn around and run the other way.
He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He needed more proof that Fransec was cooking their wine. As Wally had said, he’d have proof if he could find a storeroom of ingredients: grain alcohol, fructose and flavoring agents. He ran with his cell phone; he might need a camera. He’d save his cell phone battery by skipping the Sky.FM channel he liked to run with.
What did he know about wine adulteration? The scandals tended to come out of Eastern Europe, Romania or some such place. It was only after the wine made a splash in the London market that anyone paid attention. The EU had strict farm controls. And there was the famous case of a bottle supposedly once owned by Thomas Jefferson auctioned off to a billionaire. It turned out to be bogus.
Jake hadn’t seen Fransec behind the winery gate. As he approached the Fransec sign, he saw a billow of black smoke rising from behind trees. That was all the excuse he needed. Hell, maybe the place was on fire.
He doubted he’d get shot if he acted like a concerned citizen. Jake was coming to their rescue. Without a second thought, he changed direction and darted down the access road. He avoided the camera at the gate, slid behind it, and ran up the hill.
‘My ass’ was his thought when he saw t
he Keep Out sign. Tendrils of black smoke hung in the air in bands that had settled between the trees. There was no wind to push it away. The thick, oily smell told him it was a gasoline fire, hardly a barbecue. He jogged up the gravel track and crested the ridge.
The wine estate looked back-roads authentic, a vestige of Sonoma’s wine-making history. Two wooden storage barns threatened to collapse. The parking area looked newly graveled and a cement-block administration building was a recent construction. It had walls of glass windows. The new building was not landscaped.
Near the edge of a forest on the north side, Jake saw two men standing beside a billowing fire pit. He stepped back and squatted down.
A gust of wind swirled black smoke skyward from the pit, two hundred yards to his right. One man tilted the contents of a fuel can onto the fire. The other man, in a grey suit, walked back to the block building and went inside. Jake crept forward until he could duck behind a tree and watch.
Black smoke suggested they were burning diesel fuel; white smoke would indicate gasoline. Jake assumed they had a generator on site. The fire needed tending as the dark-haired man kept poking it with a stick. It looked like the crazy van driver.
Eventually, he gave up, closed the fuel can and carried it back inside the block building. Ten minutes later, Jake heard the crunch of tires on the gravel drive.
The familiar black delivery van with darkened windows crawled out from behind the buildings and turned toward the gate. He could see that the driver was the pistol-packing whack-job. The van was followed by a silver Jaguar with tinted windows. He couldn’t see the driver but assumed it was Semper.
Jake swung around behind a tree, fast. He waited another five minutes then began to work his way through the woods, giving himself as much cover as possible, as he approached the pit.
From his new angle, Jake could see an empty parking area between the winery buildings. He hoped the winery was empty now. He heard birds chirping in the trees and saw the red tail of a fox scurry behind a vine. The fox thought it was safe. Jake decided to venture further.
