Alive! Not Dead! (21 page)

“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 p
reach 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 har
d 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 kne
es 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 In
dians.  “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.