The Traveling Vampire Show

Chapter Thirty-six

Slim picked up the two fresh bottles of beer and we went into the living room. On the foyer floor was Rusty’s shirt and the bag containing my dad’s two empty beer bottles—just where I’d left them before hurrying upstairs to stand guard on Slim while she brushed her teeth.

At the time, I’d figured we would be out of the house in about five minutes.

Funny how one thing leads to another.

Or not so funny.

Watching Slim squat by the bag to take out the empty bottles and put in the full ones, I could hardly believe what had happened after I’d followed her upstairs. There was a dream-like quality to it. As if several of my fantasies—and dreads—had come to life. But I knew I hadn’t dreamed any of it; there squatted Slim in nothing but her blouse and here stood I in nothing but a towel. Our clothes were in the drier. All of it had actually happened.

And we were still dealing with the consequences.

Not to mention the consequences of drinking my dad’s beer.

Drinking those two bottles of beer (and trying to conceal the deed) had led us back to Slim’s house… where she’d gone upstairs to brush her teeth and change into a dark blouse… and all the rest had happened.

Consequences within consequences.

But good consequences. Mostly.

Standing up, Slim said, “You be in charge of the beer.” Then she walked over to the sofa. Her back was toward me, so I watched the tail of her blouse slide up as she bent over and pulled the sofa away from the wall.

She crouched and took out the weapons: her bow, her quiver of arrows, and the two knives Rusty and I had carried while helping her search the house for prowlers.

“What’ll we do with those?” I asked.

“Take ’em with us.” She raised her arm to lift the strap of the quiver over her head. When she did that, her blouse glided up a couple of inches. I kept my eyes on her face until the quiver was on her back and her blouse was down where it belonged.

“Let’s go see if the clothes are dry,” she said.

I picked up the bag, the two empty bottles, and the shirt I’d borrowed from Rusty.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Slim asked.

I must’ve looked puzzled.

A smile spread across Slim’s face. “I only washed your jeans.”

“Oh!”

She laughed.

I set everything down again, said, “Right back,” and headed for the stairway feeling a little stupid.

I was about halfway up when Slim said, “Dwight?”

I stopped and looked around. “You’d better leave my towel up there,” she said. “Put it back where you got it, okay?”

Leave her towel?

“Okay,” I said.

“And check around the bathroom. We don’t want to leave any evidence behind.”

“Okay.”

“And could you check my bedroom, too? I think I left the light on.”

“I’ll check,” I said and continued up the stairs. At the top, I looked back down at her and said, “Stay put, okay?”

“I will.”

“And yell if anything happens.”

“I will.”

On my way down the hall to her bedroom, the towel started to slip. I held it by the tuck… and wondered why I bothered. After all, she wanted me to leave the towel in the bathroom. What would I do then?

Stepping into her bedroom, I was about to flick the wall switch when I saw that the closet light was also on. I walked toward it, striding over the place where Slim and I had been standing when she’d put my hands on her breasts. Then I was in the closet, standing where she’d stood when she took off her T-shirt. I looked down. The powder blue top of her bikini lay on the floor, just where she’d dropped it.

Maybe she didn’t want it left on the floor.

As I thought about picking it up, however, I remembered Rusty fooling with Slim’s mother’s bra. What if I picked up the bikini top and got an urge to bury my face in it… and Slim suddenly showed up and caught me?

So I let it stay on the floor.

I yanked the string to shut the light off, then rushed back across Slim’s room, hit the switch on my way out, and hurried through the hallway toward the glow from the bathroom.

At the top of the stairs, I paused and saw Slim looking up at me.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“No problem. Your closet light was on.”

“You get it?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ll be right down,” I said, and entered the bathroom. I started to shut the door, then changed my mind and left it open a few inches so I would be able to hear her… in case.

The first thing I did was take off the towel. Naked, I went to the bar where I’d found it. I folded it neatly and hung it up.

Then I crouched over the bathtub. I turned on the water and rinsed the tub, then used toilet paper to wipe some hairs that had collected over the drain. I tossed the paper into the toilet and flushed.

The counter and sink looked fine.

So I put on my shirt, then my socks and shoes.

And stood there, staring down at myself. The tails of my shirt hung down pretty much the same distance on me as Slim’s blouse did on her. But there was a difference. Slim had nothing down there capable of sticking out.

I did, and it was.

Slim had already caught a look at it in the laundry room when I lost my towel. Still, I wasn’t about to go downstairs this way.

She said to leave the towel up here, I reminded myself.

If she can go around in just her blouse, I can go around in this.

What if her mom comes home?

Never mind her mom coming home; in my condition I wouldn’t be able to stand in front of Slim for ten seconds without having another accident.

To solve the problem, I took off my shirt. Obviously, I couldn’t tie it around my waist by its short sleeves. When I turned my shirt upside-down, however, the corners of the front tails were able to reach around my waist. I tied them together with a half knot over my left hip. The arrangement looked ridiculous and didn’t cover any of my left leg, but it concealed what needed to be hidden. I looked at myself in the mirror and shook my head.

Then I swung open the bathroom door, flicked its light off, and stepped into the hallway.

From the foot of the stairs, Slim grinned up at me. “Good grief,” she said.

“I had to put your towel back.”

As I trotted down the stairs, she stared at me and kept grinning. “You could’ve just worn the shirt, you know.”

“I am.”

“Up where it belongs.”

“No, I couldn’t.”

“I am,” she said.

“I know, but….” I shrugged. “It’s different.”

“Chicken.” Though the grin remained on her face, I caught a hint of disappointment in her eyes.

My God, I thought.

Turning away, Slim said, “We’d better get a move on. I put the knives in the bag with the beers, by the way.”

“Good idea.” I picked up the bag, the two empty beer bottles and Rusty’s shirt. Then I followed Slim into the kitchen. She grabbed her purse off the counter and swung its strap over her other shoulder. Then we went outside.

The wind was stronger than before, but warm. It felt good blowing against me. I watched how it flapped and lifted Slim’s blouse.

Was she angry with me?

Did she feel cheated because I’d worn the shirt around my waist? Had she hoped to catch glimpses of me underneath its tails?

Even as I wondered about it, the rear of her blouse was flipped up by the wind and I saw her pale buttocks.

Then she opened a door and entered the laundry room. I stepped in behind her, pulled the door shut, and followed her through the other door to the main area of the garage.

She stopped at the rear of the Pontiac. With one hand, she reached into her purse. Her hand come out holding a key case. She fumbled with it, found the key she wanted, then bent over and slid it into the key hole of the trunk.

When the trunk was open, she set her bow inside. She took the quiver off her back and put it into the trunk, too. Then she took the bag from me, set it down near her quiver and bow, and shut the lid.

Next, she opened the driver’s door and tossed her purse onto the seat. After closing the door, she said, “Over here.”

I followed her to a comer of the garage. We stopped at a collection of cardboard cartons containing empty beer and soda bottles. Slim took our two empties from me, knelt down, studied the situation for a while, then found a carton with four vacant openings. She slipped Dad’s bottles into two of them.

Grinning up at me, she said, “That’s half the trick.”

I felt half-relieved.

We went into the laundry room. The drier was still going, but it stopped when Slim opened its door. Squatting, she reached inside the machine and pulled out my jeans. She felt them here and there. “I think they’re dry. It’s hard to tell when they’re hot like this. They might still be a little damp.”

“It’s okay.”

She handed the jeans up to me. While she reached into the machine to take out her cut-offs and bikini bottoms, I draped my jeans over the top of the washer.

I tugged the half-knot at my hip.

My shirt pulled free.

Slim turned her head and stared up at me.

Even as I felt myself growing and rising, I swung the shirt behind my back, put my arms into its sleeves, pulled it up, drew it together in front and began to fasten its buttons.

A gentle smile spread over Slim’s face.

My heart pounded like crazy.

I’ve lost my mind, I thought.

“Oh, dear,” Slim said. “Look at you.”

“Sorry.” I snatched my jeans off the washer.

“No. Don’t put them on yet.”

“But…”

“Just wait.”

While I waited, Slim stood up. She put her bikini pants and cut-off jeans on top of the drier. Then she leaned over the machine and twisted a knob—to shut it off, I guess.

Coming toward me, she said, “I know a way to get rid of that.”

“Get rid of what?”

“That.” Her eyes went to it.

“You do?”

There was mischief in her smile. “I know many things.” “Jeez.”

She squatted in front of me.

Oh, my God! She’s gonna blow me!

My heart hammered.

“I don’t know, Slim.”

She tilted back her head and smiled up at me. “It’ll be all right. We don’t want you messing up your clean jeans, do we?”

“No, but…”

She raised her hand toward me.

Okay. Not the same as her mouth, but still…

Her middle finger curled down. She caught it under her thumb and let fly, thumping the tip of my erection.

“OW!!!” I cried out.