Nerd Gone Wild (36 page)

“Don’t worry about whether I’ll use the cameras right, okay, Kurt? It can’t be that hard. What I’m trying to explain to you is that this isn’t working because she’s totally uncooperative.”

“Like how?”

“She doesn’t want to buy the camera equipment yet!”

“I guess there’s no rush. Once she sees you with yours, she’ll want the same thing.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Vivian popped up and started pacing around, which wasn’t easy in the cramped quarters. She kept bumping into things. “She’s not going along with anything. Not the coffee-table book, not the expensive cameras. She wants success the old-fashioned way. She wants to
earn
it. What a ridiculous attitude that is!”

Kurt decided to steer Vivian onto a different subject. This one was going nowhere, and she was getting more furious by the second. “Did you seduce Mitchell last night?”

“No, I did not! He’s playing footsie with your Little Miss Perfect, and I was stock with my vibrator all night long!” She rounded on him and waggled her finger in his face. “I’m warning you, I’m not doing that again tonight. I can’t be expected to live that way. A vibrator should be reserved for emergencies only!”

“You’re absolutely right, Viv.” He spoke soothingly. “We’ll work that out. Don’t worry.” God, how was he going to keep her on task? She’d come up with the idea in no time, but coaxing her to follow through was turning into a nightmare.

“I have to leave.” She headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” He wasn’t crazy about having her on the loose when she was in this kind of mood. Anything could happen.

“She wants us to go out and take pictures. So that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Out where?”

“Just out, Kurt! Into the wilderness!”

“Wasn’t that what you expected?”

She glared at him. “I expected this to move a whole lot faster, is what I expected.”

They’d been in Porcupine less than twenty-four hours. He decided it wouldn’t be prudent to say that and enrage her even more. “It’ll work out, Viv. Once she sees all the cool equipment you have, she’ll want the same thing, and then we’ll talk her into the coffee table book, and more equipment. I was thinking we could get her to buy into a gallery, and—”

“Peanuts!” Vivian zipped up her coat in one angry movement. “It’s all peanuts!” Then she went out the door, slamming it behind her.

Kurt would have followed, except he was still in his underwear. Vivian hadn’t even noticed. She hadn’t tried any of her usual tricks, like making him eat all his oatmeal by promising him a blow job if he licked the bowl clean. Sometimes he got the blow job and sometimes not. That was the fun of it. He never knew.

Granted, when Vivian was totally focused on sex, she was unpredictable, but at least he was familiar with that behavior. He’d never known her to lose all interest in sex. It made him very uneasy.

* * *

Mitch climbed onto a snowy porch and knocked on the door of Rudy’s egg-yolk-yellow house. When Rudy opened the door, the stench of chicken poop made Mitch back up a step. What a hellacious odor! He didn’t think all the orgasms in the world would make a woman agree to live with that. He smiled weakly. “Hi, Rudy.”

“Hey, glad to see you, Mitch! Come in, come in!”

“Actually, I have a favor to ask.” He tried breathing through his mouth, which helped some. “Ally and Tanya would like to rent one of your snowmobiles.”

“They don’t have to pay me. They can just use it.” The sound of squawking and rustling of feathers came from inside the house. “Hang on a sec, and I’ll get the keys. You sure you don’t want to come in?”

“That’s okay. No point in getting warm and then cold again. Thanks, Rudy.”

“Be right back.” Rudy closed the door.

Mitch hung around on the porch and tried to think how to handle this. Maybe it was the chickens
and
bad sex. Rudy was a sweetheart, but he’d never get a woman with this setup.

The door opened and Rudy came out, zipping his parka. “Be right back, girls!” he called over his shoulder before closing the door. “We have to go around behind the house. I keep them in the shed.”

“Nice place, Rudy.” Or at least it could be, without chickens living in the house.

“I like it.” He led the way down the porch steps and along a shoveled path to the back of the property. “I’m glad to have someone make use of the snowmobiles, to be honest. Will you be needing one?”

“No, but thanks. Just the one for Ally and Tanya.”

“She’s something else, that Tanya. I’m looking for a woman, but I wouldn’t want to get tangled up with one like that. She’s crazy.”

“She’s different, all right. Listen, I have some news. I found out where Lurleen’s living.”

Rudy turned around with surprising speed for a guy of his size. “No kidding? Where?”

“In Fairbanks. Here’s the address.” He pulled out the slip of paper where he’d written it down.

“Wow, thanks, Mitch!” Rudy stared at the address with great eagerness. “I need to go down there and see her, find out if she’s still with that guy.”

“Uh, Rudy, before you do, can I make a suggestion?”

“Sure.” Rudy kept studying the address. “I know right where this is, too. It’s not too far from the airport. We went right by it when I picked you up the other day.”

“Rudy, the chickens… they smell pretty bad.”

“Yeah, they do at first.” He put the piece of paper in his pocket and started toward the shed again. “But you get used to it real fast. Sometimes, if I’ve been out all day I’ll come home and go, Whoa, this place stinks! But after about ten minutes, I don’t notice it.”

Mitch trudged along behind him. “But if Lurleen couldn’t get used to it, would you want to change things, so she’d be happy here?”

“I really don’t think it was the chickens, man. It was the sex problem. But now that I know that’s up to Lurleen, I want to see if she’ll come back. If she just needs to be in the right frame of mind, we could rent us some porno movies.”

Mitch decided he’d better be more direct. “You can rent all the porno movies you want, but I don’t see how she can be in the right frame of mind when she’s up to her ass in chicken shit.”

Rudy reached the shed and turned back to Mitch. “So you think it’s a combination of things? That the chickens keep her from being in the right frame of mind?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. She might even get used to the smell, like you say, but it would still be hanging in the back of her mind.”

“And keeping her from having those multis.” Rudy nodded. “You could be on to something. Well, I didn’t want to go to the trouble and expense, but I might have to heat the henhouse, after all. This other seemed like the perfect solution, but if it ruins the mood, I have to take a look at that aspect.”

“I would.”

“But Mitch, I gotta ask you something, man-to-man.”

“Shoot.” Mitch shifted his weight and hoped the question wouldn’t be too embarrassing.

“Do you ever have trouble… you know… lasting long enough? I mean, to get to the multis, you got to keep going. Sometimes I can’t.”

Mitch put his hand on Rudy’s shoulder. “I have two words for you. Oral sex.”

“Yeah? They like that, too? I thought it was just guys who liked that!”

“Girls like it, too.” Mitch couldn’t believe he was having this conversation, but Ally would be proud.

“Weil, damn, I could do that, ‘specially if Lurleen gave me a few pointers. I mean, they’re built different, but I’m sure I could figure it out. So that’s the secret, huh?”

It was as much of the secret as Mitch was willing to discuss. “It should help.”

“So I’ll go down to Fairbanks and tell Lurleen I’ve put a heater in the henhouse and I’m up on this oral sex business. That should do the trick, huh?”

“If nothing else, it’ll make for an interesting conversation.”

“I think it’ll work. Thanks, man!” Rudy clapped Mitch on the back so hard he nearly tipped him over into the snow. “I’ll let you know how it turns out!”

That was exactly what Mitch was afraid of.

W
hen Tanya came back from talking to Uncle Kurt, Ally was waiting in the lobby with her camera in her backpack. “I’m ready,” she said. “Mitch is getting the snowmobile. He should be here any minute.”

“Fine.” Tanya seemed more excited about the idea than she had earlier. “That’s great. Give me a minute to organize my equipment, and I’ll be right out.”

“How’s Uncle Kurt?”

“You know, it’s a good thing we’re not taking him with us. I think he’s come down with the flu.”

“Really?” Ally reached for her coat hanging on the wall. “Maybe I should go check on him, see if he needs anything.”

“I wouldn’t. He said he wanted to be left alone so he could sleep. But he was happy that you and I were going out today. That was his dream, that I’d be available to give you some instruction.”

“And I do appreciate it.” Ally felt a pang of regret that she wasn’t able to be more enthusiastic about this gesture Uncle Kurt had made. But the poor guy hadn’t known what he was getting into with Tanya the Sexpot, and now for all his troubles he’d ended up getting sick. “When we come back, I’ll go see him.”

“Good plan. I’ll be right out.” Tanya went into the parlor and closed the door.

“What’s this about your uncle?” Betsy came out of the kitchen. “I caught the tail end of the conversation.”

“Tanya says he’s come down with the flu.”

“Well, it happens. He looked a little rundown last night over at the Top Hat. Does he need some soup? I have some ptarmigan soup in the freezer.”

“Maybe later, after Tanya and I get back. She said he just wants to sleep.”

Betsy nodded. “That’s how I am when I get sick. I want to crawl in a cave until I’m fit for human company again.”

Ally lowered her voice. “I hate to say this, but Tanya seems to be acting more normal. Like she wants to take me out and show me the ropes.”

“I hope it works out for you, then,” Betsy said. “When she came, I was so excited for you. Maybe last night was only a passing phase.”

“Maybe.” But Ally would always wonder when that phase might repeat itself. Her respect for Tanya would never be the same.

Mitch came through the door, stomping his feet on the mat by the door. “The snowmobile’s out there.” He glanced hopefully at Ally. “Where’s Tanya? Did you two decide to wait, after all?”

“No, we’re going. She’s doing some last-minute things.”

Mitch gazed at her. “I can get the other snowmobile in no time. I think I should go with you.”

“I don’t.” Ally felt a little weird taking off alone with Tanya, but she couldn’t picture hauling Mitch along for no particular reason.

“I’m sure Ally can handle it,” Betsy said.

Mitch frowned. “I’m sure she can, too. It’s just—”

“Relax,” Ally said. “It’s only a couple of hours.”

“Yeah, I know.” But he didn’t look at all relaxed. He looked extremely tense. “I left the helmets and goggles hanging on the handlebars. As you predicted, Betsy, Rudy wouldn’t take any money.”

“Then I’ll have to think of something nice to do for him,” Ally said.

“You might want to contribute toward a heater for his henhouse.”

“Rudy’s going to heat his henhouse?” Betsy’s eyes widened. “He told me that was never gonna happen, that it was dumb to heat a henhouse when he had plenty of room for the chickens in his kitchen.”

Mitch took off his coat and hung it by the door. “Have you been in his house when the chickens are in residence?”

“Well, no. I haven’t had a reason to go down there. Does it really smell bad?”

“Betsy, you have no idea.” Mitch pulled off his boots. “If he wants anybody to live with him, Lurleen or any other prospect, the chickens need to go.”

Ally was dying to know what had been said. “So you convinced him to move the chickens. That’s a good first step. Anything else?”

“That’s most of it.”

Betsy started to laugh. “And the rest had to do with sex. Am I right? Was he clueless?”

“He, um, had a few misconceptions.” Mitch glanced at Ally. “He’s a little clearer about things now.”

She smiled at him. “Thanks, Mitch.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Betsy chuckled again. “Somebody needed to talk to him. I’m glad it was you. Well, I left a pot simmering on the stove. And there’s coffee left, Mitchell, if you want some.” She paused. “Or is it Mitch now?”