Chapter 1
The sun-purpled bottle still rested where it had been so carelessly tossed some twenty years before, but now there was a new significance in its position. A bit of dried leaf had come to rest at the very spot where the sun's rays were focused by the bottle's curved bottom. The spot grew warm, and a tiny wisp of smoke drifted upward lazily. An angry red eye of ember appeared, and then a small flame leaped up hungrily at a tinder-dried branch.
Troy Doodford adjusted the rear-view mirror and struck pay dirt as he caught a flash of silky thigh. The thigh belonged to the quiet girl in the aisle seat who had crossed her legs since the last time he had looked. There was just the hint of white nylon in the shadow of her skirt, and he let his imagination run wild with hot conjecture.
He was brought back to the business of driving the old tour bus as the steering wheel jerked under his hands. The winding road to Virgin's Breast Mountain needed maintenance, and it also needed much more of his attention than he wanted to spare right now. He fought the next few chuck holes and glanced in the mirror again. Damn! The girl had moved, and the seductive enticement was gone.
He shifted the mirror back to the girl with the nervous wedding ring but the blatant display of her bottomside lacked the keen excitement he had found in the other girl. Her restless play with her wedding ring was coupled with an obvious disgust for the young man beside her, and Troy guessed that the pair were newly married and already regretting matrimony. The bride's legs were full with a womanly fleshiness, and her gartered stockings had racy net tops. Her pose was carefully calculated, and Troy knew that she offered the view from habit.
The bridegroom beside her seemed bored with the whole thing, and Troy idly wondered if a pass in her direction would be worth the effort. He knew that if the opportunity presented itself, he'd accept her unspoken invitation.
A little part of his mind worried over the heavy smoke haze that hung over the near horizon. He made a mental note to use the Forest Service phone during the rest stop at Casper's Crossing to check the fire hazard. He speculated on his women passengers and guessed at their reactions when they found out that they would have to take turns relieving themselves in Casper's Crossing's one-hole outhouse. Some women in the recent past had refused to use the facility and he remembered the strained faces they had worn for the rest of the trip. The bride, now, wouldn't give a damn one way or the other.
She reminded him of last night and the waitress he had picked up....
"Why me, Buster? There are other girls at the bar. Why did you pick on me? Did you think I'd be easier?"
That's exactly what Troy had thought, but he wouldn't tell the girl so. The girl had a nice way of flicking her ample butt from side to side, and she had altered her waitress uniform so that her hefty cleavage was apparent.
"Easier? Don't be silly. What guy in his right mind wouldn't want you? Do we hold hands and talk or do you want to be kissed?"
She had come into his arms then, and her lips had been wet and loose against his own. She was easy, and they both knew it. He slipped a hand into her neckline, and there was no elastic resistance from her wash-out brassiere. She edged away from the bold fingers that tried to creep under a lace-formed cup, and he let his curiosity about her breasts ride for a while.
When he slid an eager hand along her knee and pushed her skirt upward, he was surprised to find that she wore nothing under the slip and skirt. She opened her thighs at his exploring touch, and he covered the soft mound with (his whole hand. His finger found the damp pulse of her excited heartbeat, and her hips rolled upward.
She let her body relax as he released her from the close embrace, and she was a supple heap of invitation on the couch. She tucked a throw pillow under her buttocks before she found one for her head. Her womanhood was bare, gaping, hungry, and waiting as he dropped his slacks and bent over her.
He had no help from her in finding the union, and he gained a slippery entrance as she muttered incomprehensible noises deep in her throat. He let himself relax against her, and there was no resistance as he found her depth. He strained tighter to her and felt her wince as his deeper penetration stretched certain tissues.
She groaned, moaned, uttered little screams and sighs, and contributed nothing more than sound and her body. He found himself liking her small shrieks of delight when he plunged deep. She was ready for him when he let himself go and beat his body at her groin in culmination.
He knew that she had come simultaneously, but she gave him no physical signs-it was as though she hated to show emotion. She lay passive in a vague enjoyment and her lips moved in an easy appreciative murmur. He kissed her, and her mouth had no response other than permissive surrender. He moved to disrupt their joining, and her arms came to encircle his back and hold him there.
"More? Please? Can you? Maybe I could help...."
She evidently wanted sex badly enough to have to ask, but she kept herself under tight control as though attempting to appear listless and disinterested. She was slave-like in allowing him the complete surrender of her body without once contributing to the physical side of their intercourse. He tested this surrender.
He rearranged her limbs for better access, and it was like moving the arms and legs of a store dummy. He put her knees over his shoulders, then raised her and found her body avid and open. He let his full weight come down in an abrupt lunge, and he had his first reaction from her as she shrank from the extent of his penetration. She'd shy away from his forward thrusts and then let her hips curl upward with his withdrawals. Her eyes were closed tightly, and apart from her rapid breathing, she appeared to be asleep. It was an odd sort of union.
Troy used her in this fashion time and again, and he was feeling a heavy fatigue when she let off a small chain of orgasms that left her faint. He let his own hard-won ejaculation spurt and waited for her to come back to reality. Her eyes fluttered open, and she moaned lightly as her teeth fastened to her bottom lip. He pulled away from her, and her tense bite lessened as she grinned.
"Got a minute, buster? I'd like to go back over that road again. You could have hurt me, you know? All done?"
Troy glanced down at his body and grinned. His chest was still heaving with the effort to regain lost breath, and he was more than content to rest.
The girl got up and shrugged herself out of the uniform and slip. With only the brassiere to cover her nudity, she posed for him and then went into his bathroom without closing the door. He heard her showering, and then she came back into the room to finish toweling. She had put her brassiere back on, and he wondered why she constantly wore it.
She squatted beside him, and he studied her wide-open anatomy with a cool detachment. She smiled at the realization that he was used up for the moment, and she sat beside him to let him run his inquisitive fingers over his body. He undid the brassiere and let it fall and knew why she wore it all the time.
Those great breasts of hers were so much flaccid meat. They hung loosely, and the huge nipples seemed to be pulling them down. He cupped one of them and brought it up while the red skin of the tip swelled in the hollow of his palm. It was play with no real purpose, and both of them knew it. It was an interlude of familiarity with common consent and an evanescent regret that it was all over. It was peaceful aftermath.
The girl finally rose and dressed, and Troy hated to see her cover her hips and long legs. She refused his offer of a cab, took a deep pull at the whiskey bottle, kissed him goodbye and left. He glanced at his watch as he took a quick shower, and he groaned aloud at the time. He would have approximately two hours of sleep to brace him for the coming day, and herding the tour bus was no easy job.
Troy pushed the tour bus across the rickety wooden bridge that spanned the deep ravine at Gasper's Crossing, and there was a strong smell of smoke as he parked it near the deserted buildings of the played-out mining camp. He rose and faced his captive audience with a well-rehearsed spiel that outlined the history of the place. There was a gleam of greed on some of the faces as he told of a recent find of a small bag of nuggets, and he knew that he would have trouble getting his small group together again after the rest stop. They would spread out and look for their own personal bonanzas, and they would be reluctant about letting themselves be rounded up again.
The bride was the last one out, and she stopped to question him on some vague point about mining. He knew that there was no real interest in her queries. She leaned over the handrail on the bus's steps and her breasts rested on the bent pipe. Troy went into a mental debate as to whether or not they were firmer than the ones he had fondled last night.
His morning's imagining had already aroused him to the point where sex looked good again, but he did have a responsibility to the tour. He let her go with enough wistfulness in his attitude to make her know that he regretted not being able to pursue her. He made his call through to the Forestry Service station. The line was heavy with interference, and the conversation was almost unintelligible. The operator had to repeat himself.
"Bad brush fire in your neighborhood, but it's okay if the wind doesn't shift. All available personnel from your vicinity have been pulled from your area to fight the main blaze. Want me to call your boss, Troy, and have him okay a cancel on the rest of your trip?"
"He'd blow his cork. I'll have to leave that decision to the passengers. It'll be up to them. I'll call you back."
"Okay. Tell them. You'll be cut off from any help from us if the wind turns. I'll have the 'copter check on you on their next run. Luck."
Troy had been right about his passengers scattering to search for lost gold. Only the dissatisfied bride was near at hand. She led him back to the bus.
She asked about his phone call, and he knew that she was only making conversation. Her mind was on the itch between her legs, and she was obvious in trying to find some way to get him to scratch it. She leaned against a seat back and made a very attractive picture.
The seat stretched her skirt, and her tapering legs were clearly outlined. She tucked her well-rounded buttocks forward so that Troy was forced to look at the small mound at her groin. It was on a level with his fixed gaze, and her invitation was apparent. She let a hand drift across her flat belly, and it hesitated in the right spot with a gesture that almost seemed modest.
"Will the others be coming back soon?"
Troy grinned. "Just as soon as I honk this horn."
"Then don't. I don't care if they never get back. Can't we go some place where it's not so ... so open?"
"I don't think that your husband would like that."
"Jay? Jay wouldn't care if I never saw him again. He's probably got one of the other girls on her back by now." She turned a bit and sat slowly down on the seat. "My name is Helene, if you're interested."
Troy was interested. His eyes followed the graceful swell of her thigh beyond the mesh tops to sleek white skin that ended abruptly in black lace. There was nothing modest in the way she let one leg slip along the seat until there was a gap between her legs. He leaned far forward, and his fingertips touched the smooth skin of her upper thigh. She shivered.
He was sorely tempted to take her then and there. Only the thought of being caught by the other passengers dissuaded him. Her hand came down beside his and her fingers hooked around the elastic leg band of the black lace panties to lift it. It was impossible for him to refuse touching her, and he was amazed at what the tiny touch did to her. Her lower body arched to his questing fingers like a snake striking at its prey.
He wondered how her husband could show indifference to such an avid display of sexual need. She thrust her hips into his fingers. Her inner heat was searing, and she uttered a low grunt as a quick orgasm shook her.
He stroked her with ungentle massage, and she erupted again in a paroxysm of ecstasy. She shook her whole body and then cuddled herself into his hand for more. His eye caught the dial on his wristwatch, and, with regret, he straightened back into his own seat. Her eyes questioned him, and then she sighed at his concern over time.
He honked the bus horn several times and noticed that she made quick repairs to her clothing. She stood up finally and laughed with good humor.
"We're not done yet, you and I. That was fun, but you've got something coming, and I mean to see that you get it!"
She went back to her seat as the rest of the passengers began straggling in. Troy noticed that Helene's husband, Jay, was closely following one of a quartet of girls and that the girl's face was flushed. Troy made a mental bet with himself that he would have trouble before this trip was over.
The fat, pushy little man with the fat, pushy little wife was making loud, lewd remarks about the outhouse when the last of the tour passengers clambered into the bus.