This is a true story.
It was a dark and stormy night. OK, not really, but it may as well have been. It was the first day of the return leg of an awful bi-directional cross-country move in our box truck. The driving itself was only mildly unpleasant; it was the unrelated circumstances forcing the moves behind the misery.
The trip west originated in Tampa, where we met my late father's partner at their former home, to pack and move her belongings to her son's house in central California. Dad had passed just two weeks previous, so the mourning was somewhat raw. Once packed, Gloria started her drive ahead of us since we were going to be much slower due to the truck's speed governor. Though plodding, our journey was uneventful; five days later we met her at her son's house, quickly unloaded, then headed north to San José.
Truck empty, we arrived at my mother-in-law's house that evening to retrieve our furniture and other belongings that were remaining from an abortive attempt to move into her downstairs apartment. Cindy's mother was a real piece of work whose life purpose seemed to be making everyone around her miserable. I didn't know that when agreeing to make the move in the first place, in a misconception that the frequent rancor between Cindy and her mother was the usual mother-mature daughter dynamic. I had moved there six months earlier to setup our household and move the trappings of my consulting business. While mother-in-law's attempts to make me a personal slave didn't help matters, there were other, more serious business considerations that forced the decision to return to Springfield.
After three uncomfortable -- "Gee thanks, Mom" -- days packing and loading, we head back south towards I-10. The shortest way home was a tossup between I-40 and I-80, but it's December and we were in no mood to wrestle a loaded truck through winter weather in the mountains. The I-10 routing was a reasonable choice, although it added an extra day of travel.
It was a
really
good choice, as it happened.
I-10 passes by a southern desert resort we enjoyed previous to this trip. Even in mid-December, daytime high temps are in the 70s or 80s, so time off relaxing in the warm-but-not-too-warm sunshine would be welcome relief from a stressful journey and its circumstances. It was the middle of the week and this particular resort was usually quiet on weekdays, so in the return trip planning I made reservations for two nights at
La Casa de Jodienda
.
For those of you about to run to a Spanish-English dictionary, I'll save you the time since you're unlikely to find the meaning in a proper academic reference. The literal translation is "The House of Fucking". You see, this was a swinger resort.
Cindy and I are nudists. In fact, our first date was at a nudist resort. But to be sure, that doesn't automatically imply "open to any and all sex," it means we enjoy outdoor activities in the buff, frequently in social settings. However, occasionally we add spice to our relationship with a little swinging, and as much as we had just been through, this was as good an opportunity as there could possibly be to exorcise our demons with some serious adult playtime.
Like I said, weekdays were slow at
La Casa
. With good reason, even mid-week and off-season the cost of an overnight stay was in the "exclusive" price range. We knew that, obviously, but on the other hand it dramatically increased the relative safety by discouraging the seedy, seamy clientele we had to defend ourselves against at the lesser venues frequented early in our relationship. It felt great to be free to explore the limits of our sexual expression without having to constantly look back over our shoulders.
So we had the place to ourselves when we arrived, which was great. While we do like to "party" sometimes in the carnal sense, we are very, very selective and prefer more intimate... uh... intimacy. This over-selectivity and preference for at least a little interpersonal chemistry usually culminates in no swapping of sweat, saliva or other important body fluids. Big gatherings of writhing naked bodies characteristic of weekends at swinger venues are not our cup o' tea.