This is a work of fiction and any resemblance by any character or situation to any actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

It will be expanded as part of an extended, ongoing but irregular series that follows the lives of Holly and Corey.

All characters presented in this narrative are over the age of 18.

Our Private Eden

By Royce F. Houton

Sometimes, all a fella needs after one hellhole of a week is just a place to drink a few beers and the business of a lady who’s just as happy as I am ending a Friday night on her back with my boner well planted inside her.

To say it had been a rough week doesn’t start to cover it. I work for a major national highway construction business. We scoop up and move dirt the size of home in equipment that would dwarf a city bus and deposit it on what will eventually become the bed for freeways. We mobilize cement mixers that run non-stop for weeks on end to pour concrete onto forms with tons of steel reinforcement already tied in place. We work crews three shifts a day, twenty-four/seven, as long as a project is in the field.

The week started with us more than a week behind schedule thanks to bad weather that forced us to shut down for several days. What’s more, tornado toppled a couple of site work trailers on the job site and scattered blueprints, computers, surveying equipment and everything else to hell and gone. Some of it turned up two counties away.

To catch up (rather than pay a penalty as the contract with the state stipulated for missing delivery deadlines), we worked each shift 12 hours rather than eight, effectively doubling the manpower. As one of the supervisors, I am pretty sure we didn’t get twice the productivity out of it, but that’s what corporate ordered.

By Friday, we had not only caught up with our timeline but found ourselves a little ahead of it. For that reason, the job supervisor told us we could have Saturday off. Well, that was part of the reason. The other part of it was that we had completely run out of the quicklime that was necessary to make and pour concrete, and it would take at least two days — til late Sunday — to get it to us from Nashville.

After a 60-plus-hour workweek, I was dog tired but intent on blowing off a little steam — or at least as much steam as a guy could blow off in a place like Van Buren, Missouri.

Van Buren isn’t the edge of the earth, but you could get there with a nine iron. I live in Kansas City, but a five-hour drive each way just to spend a night in my own bed wasn’t something I had the energy for, much as it appealed to me. No, I’d have to make do with a Hot Shower at the Big Springs Motel and head over to Conway’s, which serves up the best steak in the region and has a decent array of draft beers for this part of Missouri.

There were a few guys from my business — mostly management folk like me — there, and most didn’t bother to Shower the sweat-caked dust off before hitting the bar. I settled for a quieter outpost in a booth. I told the waitress a white lie that I was expecting someone to join me to persuade her to let me sit somewhere other than the bar around these mud people. She obliged, even though I could see her yeah, right! smirk.

“Start me off with a Coors draft and a water please…,” I said, straining conspicuously to read the name tag pinned to her vest on the northern slope of her left breast.

“Holly,” she said. “You need some more time with the menu?”

I nodded. “Probably be ready by the time the beer gets here, Holly,” I said.

She nodded politely and was off quickly to the next table.

Conway’s was delightfully cool — almost cold — and welcomed after a day spent under a Hot, bright sun with highs around 98, ordinary June weather for southern Missouri. It had seen better days: the oak paneling, the bar and furniture hadn’t been updated in probably 20 years or more, giving the place a dingy darkness any time of day. An entire room — what had once been a dance floor — was now filled with pinball machines, pool tables and an ancient air hockey game that had to be at least 40 years old yet was the most trendy diversion in the joint.

The owners had decided to ditch the dancing and bands because of the number of fights that tended to break out when the wrong guy tried to cut in with the wrong lady as the nights grew late and the alcohol fueled false bravado. It didn’t hurt that the game machines grossed a lot more revenue in one weekend than cover charges on live-band nights would make in a month.

“Your Coors…,” Holly said, putting the frosted mug on the cardboard coaster she had just placed on the table “… and an ice water.”

“So, have we made our minds up about dinner…,” she said, making a show of scanning my chest. “I don’t see your name tag Mr….”

I smiled. Saucy. I like that. Not afraid to give me a little of my own medicine.

“Corey,” I said. “Corey Vaught. I work on the new bypass.”

“As if I couldn’t tell,” Holly said. “Y’all have been about 50 percent of our business for the past year or so. Don’t know what Darnell’s gonna do when it’s finished and y’all go home. Darnell’s the owner, by the way.”

I nodded. “Good point. Maybe the new highway will bring more patrons to this place? I hope so, anyway. I’ve grown fond of it.”

“As for what we’re having for dinner, I’ll have the New York strip, medium rare with a smashed potato and a spinach salad with balsamic vinaigrette dressing,” I said handing Holly the menu, “… and presuming you were serious about the we part of it, I’d be delighted to have you join me with whatever you’re having.”

She looked at me amused, then glanced at my left hand, clutching my icy mug of Coors.

“OK, you don’t have a ring on, but I expect a better pick-up line than that from a guy who’s really single,” Holly said.

I feigned an indignant innocence. “Pickup line? Moi?”

“It was you who used the first-person plural pronoun ‘we’ when inquiring about my dinner plans, dear lady. I was only responding affirmatively,” I replied with a smart-Ass smile. “Offer still stands, by the way.”

“OK, that was suitably slick, so I suppose you’re on the up-and-up, but you know the rules on employees fraternizing with the guests. Darnell would fire me in a heartbeat,” she said, then smirked good-naturedly. “Besides, I’d hate to take the place of whoever’s joining you… in this booth.”

Busted.

“Well, keep checking back. My companion will be here directly.”

Holly shook her head and walked away.

●●●

“Another Coors, Corey?” Holly asked as she retrieved the empty plate which bore my steak and potato half an hour earlier.

“Please,” I said.

“Seems I missed your guest for the evening,” she said.

“Mmmm hmmm,” I said, frowning as I looked down at my watch. “Appears my date has stood me up. Tragic. Know where I can find another one?”

Holly stopped what she was doing and fixed me with a what-kind-of-girl-do-you-think-I-am? stare. “Really? Do I look like a pimp to you? Or a girl of the night?”

I cringed. “I’m sorry, Holly. That was not cool. I crossed the line…”

“Mmmm hmmm,” she said, mocking me. “You care to try that again?”

“Would it do any good or is this a trick question?”

She put the plate down, looked around and sat across from me in the booth.

“You know there is a respectful way to express interest in a lady and ask if you can see her sometime. I get drunk come-ons from some of these filthy slobs who work with or for you all the time, but I had a little higher hopes for you.”

“I would like to try it again. You are genuinely lovely, you are enchanting, I’d very much like to get to know you better. If you are amenable. And I mean that, Holly” I said.

She glanced around again and nodded. “I’ll let you know.”

Holly rose quickly with my empty plate in one hand and my empty mug in the other strode purposely to the rear of the restaurant. She returned about two minutes later with my second Coors. She put down a fresh cardboard coaster and placed my new, cold mug on top of it.

“Call the number on the other side of the coaster at 10. That’s when I’m off. We can talk then. Darnell’s watching me like a hawk so I can’t linger.”

And with that she was gone to another table to take another round of beer orders and fend off hands that kept reaching toward a tight, shapely bottom beneath the jeans that were part of the Conway’s server staff uniform.

I finished the beer watching a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game on the TV playing just above the bar. When Holly saw the empty on the table, she brought me my check rather than asking me if I wanted a refill.

On the check, she had written “Enjoyed serving you. Come again soon. — Holly.”

I slipped enough cash into the leather folder to pay for the meal plus give Holly a 50 percent tip.

“Pleasure was mine, Holly. This is all yours,” I said. “Hope to see you again.”

It was just after 8:30 when I left, so I drove the half mile to my motel room and flipped on the television to catch the last four innings of the Cardinals game I began watching at Conway’s. Being a Royals fan meant you couldn’t — absolutely could not under any circumstances — root for our National League cross-state rival in St. Louis. Never mind that it is one of baseball’s most storied franchises. The only good purpose to watching a Cards game was to root for the other team. I was getting drowsy by the time the game ended so I got up to stretch. It was 9:47 — thirteen minutes to kill. Behind the motel was a trail that wound its way about a quarter of a mile through some trees to the Current River. It was fully dark now and I didn’t want to risk trespassing on a copperhead or a rattler so I walked just a short way down the path, enough to clear my head, and stood there inhaling the fresh, evening air. I didn’t know how this night would end, but I had a chance to spend some quality time with a very attractive lady and all I had to do was avoid the sort of boorish brain-fart I had made earlier with my clumsy come-on.

I got back to the room at 9:58, picked up the phone and dialed the number on the beer-soaked cardboard coaster Holly had given me.

“Conway’s,” a familiar voice on the other end of the line said.

“Hi. Holly?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Corey. Corey Vaught.”

“Oh hi. Thanks for calling. Yes, my car’s in the shop. Could you meet me out in front of Conway’s in about 10 minutes?”

She sounded a bit impersonal, as if she were speaking to a cabbie except there wasn’t, from my observation, a taxi to be summoned within at least a 100-mile radius of Van Buren. But she was using the company phone, no doubt within earshot of co-workers and perhaps Darnell, so I understood.

“On my way,” I said.

“Thanks so much. Bye.”

I was driving a brand new 1977 Mustang convertible I bought with cash and driven off the showroom floor at a Ford dealer in Independence, Missouri, five Saturdays ago. I dropped the top in the motel parking lot to let the balmy night air ripple through my curly, brown hair on the three-minute drive to Conway’s. I parked the car to one side near the front door so I could watch for Holly to emerge. Turned out, she spotted me first.

She appeared from the side of the restaurant, the jeans, white Oxford button-down shirt and red vest gone. She had changed in the employee locker room into a plain powder blue dress and sandals. Her reddish blonde hair, pushed into a bun at work, now cascaded in curls down to her shoulders. A soft leather bag with a long strap was slung over her left shoulder. She was just 10 feet from my car before I spotted her. I sprang out of it and opened the passenger door for her.

“Well aren’t you attentive. What, you study up on manners in the past ninety minutes?” she said as she took the passenger seat.

“I guess it’s been so long since I’ve been around a real lady that I needed my Ass kicked and you were kind enough to do it for me and give me a do-over,” I said. “I appreciate it. Now, where to?”

“Home.”

“Sure. Lead the way,” I said as my Ford V-8 roared to life.

Holly directed me down U.S. 60, then to the right along a state highway and across a narrow bridge spanning the Current River, then up a winding incline to a lodge halfway up a sharp Ozark Mountain promontory that, even in the moonlight, commanded a breathtaking view of the river a couple of hundred feet below.

“Pull around back and keep your lights on for a second if you can. I don’t want to step on a copperhead,” she said. So I guided the Mustang into a gravel driveway and around the back of the handsome two-story log-frame cabin and put it in park with the engine running as she got out, found her key and walked gingerly in the area my headlights illuminated to unlock the door. She opened it, turned on floodlights that illuminated her back yard and motioned for me to turn off the car and come in.

Its rustic construction notwithstanding, the cabin was extremely comfortable and stylishly appointed. Central air. A modern kitchen with an impressive bar. A gigantic stone fireplace in a living area with a vaulted ceiling from which two ceiling fans hung. A front porch that was really an expansive, covered veranda with several rocking chairs, a cushioned porch swing large enough to sleep on and accent tables hewn out of the gigantic trunks of native poplar trees, all of it affording a striking vista of the river below and the Ozark highlands beyond it.

A hallway off the main living area led to a master bedroom and stairs led to a loft with large windows that opened onto an even better view than from the porch.

“My God, Holly this is…” I said I walked around the house gawking.

“Yeah, so how do I afford this waitressing? That’s your next question.”

“Maybe not my next, but the question does occur to me.”

“It’s OK,” she said. “This was my dad’s. He and two other guys built it themselves. All the logs? They came from his land. He had a lot of it around here and I still own a lot of it. The land where Conway’s is? That was his. Big Spring Motel? That, too. So was pretty much everything along U.S. 60 and back toward the river for about a mile. When tourism got big here in the 1950s, he sold it off piece by piece.”

“That would do it,” I said.

“Dad was a 51 percent owner of Conway’s. That’s where it got it’s name. People think it’s a tribute to Conway Twitty, the country singer, and he did perform there one time in the ’60s, but it’s really Conway Raymer. I grew up in there bussing and waiting tables, changing out kegs, counting the money from the juke boxes and game machines, breaking up fights, taking deposits to the bank, just about whatever needed doing.”

“Can I make you a drink? Got pretty much what you want in the liquor cabinet and a whole case of Michelob in the fridge,” she said.

“Michelob’s fine.”

She poured herself a Kahlua and cream on the rocks and cracked open a Michelob and poured it into a Pilsener glass for me. I had wandered onto the veranda eyeing the view when she joined me there, handing me my beer and clinking her glass to mine. “Cheers.”

“So, since I haven’t learned your last name yet, would I be correct in deducing that you are Holly Raymer… or were Holly Raymer…”

“Smooth way of asking, but no, I am not married. Never have been. That’s why all this property is still mine. I was daddy’s only child. When he died a few years ago, I was his sole heir and I’ve been careful not to let any parasite of a man try to stake any claim to it by walking me down the aisle.”

“I inherited his controlling interest in Conway’s and sold it to Darnell a couple of years ago. In the sale covenant, I stipulated that he could not change the name or sell it to anyone else who would for 20 years,” Holly said, taking a seat on the porch swing.

“Then why in the world are you waitressing there for Darnell now and worried about him looking over your shoulder?”

“I do it two of three nights a week, Thursday through Saturday, mostly to help on the weekends. I still feel an attachment to the place. It also keeps the wrong type of guy away. Much as I detest a lot of those crude horn-dogs who come in there to blow off steam and looking to get laid, including some of those filthy ogres from your crew, I hate gold-diggers more. It’s aggravating being thought of as an easy piece of Ass because I’m waiting tables dressed like some oversexed farm girl, but that’s a lot easier than fighting off some guy who sees me as a ticket to Easy Street.

“Well, I came on to you like one of those horn-dogs tonight — and I’m ashamed of it — but you gave me a second chance and let me see all… this. Why?”

“Not sure. I guess I saw something in you. I gambled that you were better than the business you kept, that you had a little better raising or education or something.” She took a sip of her drink. “Besides, my car really is in the shop, and I really did need a ride and you looked less like a serial rapist than anybody else in there.”

“Darnell wouldn’t give you a ride?” I said.

She rolled her eyes.

“He’s exactly the worst of both worlds: he’d give his right nut to get into my panties, but even more than that, he would Love to get into my bank user account. Never mind that the son of a bitch is married and I work with one of his daughters. That’s why the creep watches me always at work,” she said.

I nodded my head and just stood there, letting the cool Ozark highland breeze wash over me as I drank in the almost ethereal beauty of the valley and the gurgling river below in various silvery shades under a full moon.

“Well,” I muttered in wonderment. “This is… you are… it’s all amazing. This blows me away.”

“Thank you… I think?

“Oh no, thank you. I will never forget this.”

“What won’t you forget?”

“Being surrounded by more beauty than I can ever remember, and not just… this,” I said, gesturing at the scene from the porch. “It’s you. You are every bit as beautiful as… this. I could see it even in your work outfit, but now… seeing the real you.”

“There I go with another cheesy come-on line, but, Lord strike me dead if I don’t mean every damn word.”

She rose from the porch swing, left her glass there, and walked toward me.

“Now that’s the right way to tell a girl you’re interested in her,” she said.

She put my half-empty Pilsener glass on a table, faced me and pressed her lips into mine. I wrapped my arms around her and our mouths parted. As our tongues introduced themselves, I tasted the coffee flavor of her drink as she looped her arms around my neck.

Holly took my hand, led me across the porch to the cushioned swing and pushed me backward to sit in it. She stared at me hungrily for a moment, unzipped the back of her dress, shrugged her shoulders and the garment fell off her, pooling at her feet. She stepped out of her sandals, leaving her in her matching white bikini-style bra and bottom. She curled herself into my lap and kissed me again.

My hands trailed along the smooth skin of her back as our tongues dueled. My fingers slipped below the thin, elastic waistband of her cotton panties, kneading the globes of her Ass that were as tight and flawless as I had imagined before finding her crevice and running my right fingertips up it and tracing her spine all the way to her strawberry blonde curls at the base of her neck.

After a few more circuits on the same tour of her back, my left hand paused at the clasp to her bra. One thing four years of fraternity life at the University of Kansas had taught me was how to quickly and efficiently unhook a bra using only one hand — at all times the left. In less than two seconds (one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi…), it was undone, no tugging, no fuss, no tearing.