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Cabin Cousins: Part 6 Saying Goodbye; for now. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections. Chapter Twenty. On the drive home, I felt good, like really good. I felt like things were actually going to start changing for the better. Reveling in this feeling, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision. I stopped my car in a random parking lot and pulled out my phone. One of the guys that I used to work with, Carl, liked to go to this little bar in Superior to hang out with friends and have a few drinks. There was a whole group of guys from work that would go regularly, but Carl was the only one who never stopped asking. For one reason or another, I never took him up on it, and I haven't seen any of them since I stopped being able to go to work. He answered after a few rings. "Hi, it's Charles, from work." "Charles? Hey buddy! How are you doing?" He sounded happy to hear from me. "Oh, I've been hanging in there. How's the store since I left?" At the time of the accident, I was the yard manager at the same store I had worked at since I moved to Duluth. It didn't pay a lot of money, but it was enough to get by, and I liked the job. I still felt bad about how I left. As the years went on and my depression spiraled downwards, it had become too hard to mask. My job performance was terrible, and people began to ask questions I didn't want to face the answers to. One day I scheduled myself to take all my vacation days, and then with that in the system, I put in my two weeks' notice. I never went back. "They made me assistant store manager if you'll believe that," Carl said. "Still a lot of the same faces around here. All the young kids come and go. You know how it is." "Yeah." I chuckled. In a store like that, you could count on about half of the employees to be lifers. They'd never leave. The other half seemed to be a completely different mix of people every couple of months. "So, what's up?" Carl asked. I could hear the store's advertising jingle blaring over the loudspeakers in the background. "Do you and the guys still go to that bar in Superior?" There it was. I said it. Now if he says yes, I'll have to ask if I can go, and then I'll have to go. "Yeah! But it's usually just me and Matt. Brian got married, and his wife has him on a short leash. Joe goes to AA. The other guys, just kinda stopped going for one reason or another. Tonight is the night we usually go." "Mind if I come with?" I asked. "Of course, man! We're going to leave here at about six." "Cool, I'll see you there." "Looking forward to it. It'll be good to see you again." And now the awkwardness of ending a phone call. I've heard that it's a Midwestern thing, but everyone seems to do it better than I do. "Okay, bye." "Bye." I went home, set out some clean clothes, and got in the shower. Sometimes I forget how good it feels to be clean. But then, I knew exactly why it was often too hard to motivate myself to get into the shower. The shower brought memories of Melissa and the possibility of pain. I stood still, letting the near-scalding water cascade over me. The fruity scent of the same brand of body wash Melissa had during our first shower together was strong, and I remembered. I closed my eyes and started my breathing exercise with a deep slow inhale. Melissa's hands scrubbed my lower back and slid down to squeeze my ass. Breathe out, the pain and hurt waft away like steam in the shower. My fingers follow the lines of her muscles and up her inner thigh, she looks at me with serene contentment. Breathe in. She turns, arches her back, and sighs as I enter her from behind. Breathe out, the pain is gone, and there is only joy. She moans as my soapy hands cup her firm tits, holding her tight against me as we make love. Breathe in. I gasp and hold my breath as we both climax. Breathe out. I catch my breath and look down, my hand was still grasping my quickly softening manhood, and the oozing result of my orgasm was slowly washed into the drain. I finished cleaning up, turned the water off, and stepped out of the shower. I looked at myself in the mirror as I toweled dry. It had been quite a while since I had exercised, or gone to the gym, but I still had a good amount of muscle on me. Granted, a bit more flab than I liked, especially on my belly, but overall I still liked the way I looked. Melissa liked the way I looked too. I patted my belly, and there was a slight jiggle. I really should work out again, I thought. When was the last time I went for a run? I couldn't remember. My eyes strayed from my body to my face. I was still slightly pink from the hot water. I studied the slight age lines beginning to appear around my eyes and noticed that I seemed to have a larger forehead than I used to. When did I start losing my hair? I put my hands on the edge of the sink and leaned close to the mirror. It's a strange thing, looking yourself in the eyes. Despite how good I felt at the moment, all I could see was the pain deep inside. I knew it hadn't always been there, and obviously, I knew when it started. What bothered me was, I couldn't remember what it was like to not have this pain. I could remember every little detail about Melissa, her face, her body, the conversations we had, the things we did together, everything. But if I focus on just me... I can remember being a skinny awkward teenager falling in love and beginning a perfect life, then this, an aging man being crushed by the weight of a tragedy. Every memory between, of what it was to be me, was just gone. Lost to the gray. At the same time, I knew that this person staring back at me in the mirror wasn't me. Once, I was happy. Once I was me, whoever that was. Would I ever get me back, or did I just have to come to grips with the fact that I was now a completely different person? In heavy contemplation, I got dressed. I put on a faded Iron Maiden concert tee, a token from the time Melissa and I had driven to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to see them perform, and some blue jeans that seemed tighter around the waist than I remembered. I checked my bank balance and determined that If I was going to have drinks at the bar with Carl, I had better eat at home beforehand. I had a cup of ramen noodles, and cut slices off of a brick of cheddar cheese, as I wasted time watching random crap on YouTube. Finally, it was five thirty and time to go. Well really, I didn't need to hurry, as it was only a five-minute drive across the bridge to Superior, but there was no way I was going to be late. I parked behind the bar and didn't see any vehicles I recognized. I listened to the radio for a little while, then at ten to six, I got out of the car. The hard part is done. I'm here. I walked in and scanned the place for Carl. I know he had said he was leaving work at six, but I didn't want to miss him by mistake if he was early for some reason. Not seeing him or anyone else I knew, I took a seat at the end of the bar. The place wasn't very busy at all, with maybe a dozen people spread out throughout the whole place. A red-haired waitress came and took my order for a Grainbelt beer, and I watched her go to the cooler to get the bottle. She was cute, if a little thick around the middle, and when she handed me the beer, she flashed me the smile of experienced waitresses everywhere. The kind of smile that says, "I'll be sweet, and yes, maybe even flirt with you a little, but this is my job and you better not take it as more than a professional courtesy". I respected that. Good bartenders were hard to come by, and this one seemed proficient so far. I sipped my beer, and surreptitiously watched the other patrons. There was the same general mix of people you see in bars like this on a Tuesday evening. A few older couples, quietly enjoying dinner and a glass of wine, a fifty-year-old high school prom queen and her steroid-pumped boyfriend, slamming cheap beer, faces wind burned from riding a Harley all day, a table of college frat boy types laughing too loudly at offensive jokes, you know the kind of place. I faced the bar again, and in the mirror, I could see that one person was sitting alone at the table right behind me. She was facing away from me and seemed engrossed in something on her phone. She was wearing a maroon sweatshirt and had bushy dark brown hair that immediately reminded me of a young Hermione Granger. I watched her in the mirror, not being a creep, just out of curiosity and that I had nothing else to do while I waited for Carl. She never turned or sat up straight, just stayed on her phone, occasionally typing furiously. After a while, I looked at the time on my phone. It was twenty after six, Carl should have been here already. I ordered another beer from Cassie, the bartender, and gave him ten more minutes. I called Carl, and it took four or five rings for him to pick up. "Hey dude," Carl said right away. "I am so sorry. I have a big issue I've got to manage here." I could hear people talking loudly in the background and the beep of a forklift. "Hey," I said. "What's up?" "One of the kids knocked over a shelving unit in the garden center, and they all collapsed like dominoes. It's a big fucking mess." There was a scuffing noise as he held his phone aside and yelled at someone. "Don't bother saving that stuff, it's all junk now. Scan it, then throw it in the dumpster!" His voice became clear again. "I don't remember being this stupid when I was that age, do you?" "No, not really. So, are you going to be late or..." I asked, starting to feel a little dumb for getting my hopes up for a fun evening with old friends. "Sorry, man, this is going to be an all-nighter." "Oh, okay," I said, feeling like I just got punched in the gut. "Take a rain check for next week? The first round is on me." "Yeah, that's okay. Next week it is." I couldn't believe it. I got myself so excited to do normal people things with normal people, and this happened. I don't know why I bothered. "Alright man, gotta go." Before Carl ended the call, I could hear him start to yell. "Careful! If you knock that over too, I'm gonna" As I stared at my phone, not knowing what I should think or do, I heard a voice to my right. It was the woman with the brown hair. "You get stood up too?" I glanced at her. She was standing at the bar a few spots down from me, waving her empty glass at the bartender. "Huh? Yeah." "Sorry for eavesdropping. So what was her excuse?" In the corner of my eye, I could see the waitress return with a full glass. The girl took a drink right away. It was something creamy, Bailey's maybe. "Problems at work." I didn't mention that the 'her' was a 'him'. As secure enough in my sexuality as I was, straight guys just didn't say things that could give a woman mixed signals. "Typical." She took another long pull off her drink. "This is the third date in a row that has left me sitting. I take the time to get ready and then sit here waiting. I've got homework I could be doing." She sighed. "I don't know why I bothered." "Right." Her last words had struck a chord with my thoughts, and I turned to face her. Our eyes met, and the world stopped. We stared at each other, each of us with furrowing brows. My heart began to race, and I felt like I just got a shot of adrenaline. Slowly, she set down her drink, and I set down my phone, but our eyes remained locked. Eventually, she whispered. "I know you..." My throat was dry, and I struggled to get enough air to respond. "I don't think we've met..." She was pretty, and younger than I had expected. There was something strikingly familiar about her, but I knew I had never met this person before, and probably hadn't ever seen her. Her maroon sweatshirt had the big yellow UMD (University of Minnesota, Duluth) logo on it. There was something in her eyes, her icy blue eyes, that told me that I knew this person. "Who are you?" She whispered. The confusion on her face gave way to a look of fear. "Charles," I said woodenly, trying to make some sense of what was happening. This wasn't like the times you see someone in a crowd that looks like someone you know. I knew this person, have always known this person, and yet, nothing about her was familiar. "What is going on?" She asked, glancing at the bartender who was eyeing both of us in turn with raised eyebrows. "You're real? You're really real?" Her look of fear gave way to panic. "I've got to get out of here. This can't be happening." She slowly backed away from me, then turned and fled towards the door. I scrambled to put some cash on the bar for my beer, then followed after her. When I got outside, she was standing near a car with her head in her hands. She looked up at my approach. "Don't come any closer." She warned me. "What's going on?" I asked. "How do you know me? How do I know you?" "You know who I am?" She asked, hand on her car door, ready to flee. "When I saw you, I felt like I've known you my entire life, but I've never seen you before." I shook my head, more confused than ever in my forty-two years. "Well, I know you, Charles Larson." "How do you know my last name?" I asked, taken aback. I was pretty sure I hadn't said it at all earlier. "If you're really you, then I know everything about you." Her fear was transforming into anger, and she was almost shouting now. "How?" "Because I dream about you every night! My first memories are dreams about you! I close my eyes, and I see your face! I see your life! Every day, every night!" She was holding her head again and had started pacing side to side next to her car. "Oh my God. All these years, all the therapy, all the drugs to get you out of my head, and I find you sitting in a dive bar. This can't be real." My car was parked next to hers, and she watched me wearily as I slowly walked over and sat on the hood. "If you're really Charles Larson, tell me about yourself." She was looking at me like she was seeing a ghost. "I grew up in Minnetonka..." I was confused to the point of being numb, so I just started talking. I told her about my family, where I went to school, everything up to just before I fell in love with Melissa. Her face was pale, but she had stopped pacing and was just staring at me. "What was her name?" I looked at her sharply, surprised by the question. "Your second cousin, the one you married." Shocked, I replied. "Melissa." She took a tentative step towards me. "The two of you lived in a tiny apartment off of Grand Ave." She stepped closer. "You lived there together for fifteen years until..." She was right next to me now, and she picked up my right hand, turning it over to see the backside. She traced a finger down the scar that ran lengthwise behind my index finger. "Someone at your work dropped a piece of metal gutter, and the end sliced your hand open. It bled and bled, and you had to go get it stitched up." "How do you know these things?" I asked with something I could only describe as awe. "Because I saw it happen. I was there, in my dreams." "I feel that we are connected somehow, but, I don't even know who you are." She shifted her hands and grasped mine in a handshake. She looked at me with a shy smile. "I'm Kate Winters, and I've been waiting to meet you my whole life." Chapter Twenty-one. "You're older than I thought you would be." Kate was eyeing me from across the table. We had gone back into the bar and had taken a booth near the back. The frat boys were gone, and there was no one else nearby. "How old do you think I should be?" I asked, head still spinning. "When I was growing up, every dream was different. The time wasn't the same, the days weren't one-for-one. You were getting older faster than I was. For the last couple of years though, I've had the same dream. It's the same scene every night." She looked at me with empathy, expecting that I wasn't going to like what she was saying. "You were thirty-three, and it was nine years ago." A wave of non-specific dread washed over me. "What scene, What dream are you having over and over?" I already knew what she was going to say, and I didn't want to hear it. Kate closed her eyes. "We are in your truck, we had just been at the movie theater. You were telling me how you never liked Matt Damon, but in this movie, he was pretty good. Then,” "Stop," I said, probably a little too forcibly. "I'm sorry." Her eyes were glistening with tears. We sat in silence for a long time, each wrestling with our thoughts. Finally, I asked. "You said I was speaking to you?" She sniffed and nodded. "When the two of you were apart, it was kind of a third-person view, like watching a movie. But whenever you were with her, I saw you through her eyes. I felt what she felt, I thought what she thought. I think,” She looked at me apprehensively. "When the dreams started, it was the summer she figured out that she loved you. I was five and didn't really understand what I was seeing. I started using bigger words, and acting like I was thirteen because you two were thirteen." My thoughts swirled like a hurricane around that night nine years ago. There was the crash, and my truck crumpled up like a beer can. I was dazed, and there was glass in my eyes. I struggled to reach Melissa. The door had crumpled in and crushed her into the seat, into the tight space between what had been the dashboard and the back of the cab. Her eyes opened as I touched her cheek. She tried to speak, but no noise came out. Her mouth kept moving until suddenly she went still. Her heart stopped, and the spark of life left her eyes. My love, my life, was gone. Tears were streaming down my face, but somehow I had the composure to speak. "If you thought what she thought, did she blame me?" One thing that I had thought I had come to a resolution on, was the thought that the accident was my fault, that; had I not been looking at her at that moment, I might have been able to avoid the other car. Kate was crying too. "Of course not. You know what she was trying to say?" She reached across the table and held my hands tight in hers. "She was saying "I love you" over and over. She knew she was dying, and her only thought was that you would be alone." Still holding Kate's hands, I buried my face into my arm and cried hard, shuddering with every sob. I don't know how long I cried. At some point, I heard the waitress come by, and Kate whispered "We're okay." I felt Kate start running a hand through my hair, massaging my head. Exactly how Melissa used to. It felt good, but it also felt wrong. It wasn't Melissa's hand, It was Kate's. She was some random college girl I had never met, and I was plenty old enough to be her father. At the same time though, some part of me, deep down, was screaming that this was Melissa. I raised my head from my arm and looked at Kate. I felt no apprehension or shame in meeting her eyes, eyes that were so much like Melissa's. I studied them intently. They weren't just similar, they were identical. The patterns of blue were the same, and there was even that tiny green speck in the iris of her right eye. No one but me had ever noticed it. As insane as it sounds, I swear that I could feel Melissa's soul staring back at me through Kate's eyes. "So, what now?" I asked. "Maybe we should go somewhere more private and figure this out," Kate replied, her eyes moving to the people walking into the bar. "I still live in the same place." I couldn't believe that I had just said that. Did I just ask this girl to come home with me? Yes. She may be half my age, but there was something supernatural to the way I was drawn to her. She was not Melissa, I knew that, but in some intangible way, she very much was. Kate led the way, and I followed her back to my apartment. For some inexplicable reason, I thought of the day Melissa sat next to me on the rocks, and tearfully explained her past. The words I had spoken to her came into my mind as clearly as I had just said them. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you. Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time, and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!" Is there such a thing as reincarnation? But no, Kate was in her early twenties, and Melissa died only nine years ago. The words continued to echo in my mind, and I realized that at some point it had stopped being my voice that was speaking. It was Melissa's. I bumped the door shut with my back and watched Kate as she surveyed my apartment. It occurred to me that not a lot had changed about the place in the last nine years, since the last time Kate would have seen it in her dreams. The couch was faded and threadbare, but comfortable, and the decorations were pretty much how Melissa had left them. The biggest difference, I noticed with some shame, was the general disorder of the place. Dirty dishes sat in a pile on the counter near the sink, and empty food containers covered the rest of the flat surfaces in the kitchenette. A pile of dirty clothes partially blocked the narrow hallway. Kate turned slowly, taking it all in. She stopped, facing me. "It looks exactly how I remember." I studied her face. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. She pointed at a picture on the wall beside the door. "I remember when that was taken. We, You went to a big concert in Wisconsin..." I could see at her collar, that she was wearing a tee shirt under her sweatshirt. "Take off your sweatshirt." I should have realized the creepy way in which that could be taken, but I wasn't thinking like that. I wanted to see her, to see if my eyes could help solve the mystery that had so thoroughly confused my heart and mind. A small part of me was surprised ,as Kate complied without hesitation. When she pulled the sweatshirt off, the bottom of her tee shirt was pulled up enough for me to get a glimpse of her flat belly. Her clothes were tight-fitting, and my eyes roamed her body. She was the same height as Melissa, had the same overall shape to her frame, and seemed to be in very good shape. She wasn't as muscular as Melissa had been, but then again, Melissa never had to try as hard as others to build muscle mass. Kate was watching me study her. She didn't look afraid or apprehensive at all. Rather, what came across to me was a sense of absolute trust. Melissa had looked at me like that, like she would put her life in my hands without hesitation, safe in the knowledge that I would never willingly hurt her. Her hair was very different, in color and style, and her skin was pale, like she didn't spend a lot of time outside. I stepped closer and tentatively raised a hand to her face. She didn't flinch or pull away. My hand cupped her cheek, and she closed her eyes, pressing her face into my gentle touch. Her features were softened by youth, but the shape of her face, the structure of her bones, was eerily familiar. "You do look like her," I said softly. "Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see her face looking back at me." I felt her hands on my waist as she stepped close. Our faces were inches apart. "This must be difficult for you," She whispered. "I've lived with this my whole life. I've had time to deal with it." Seemingly of their own accord, my arms wrapped around her in a hug. She pressed herself against me, and I could feel that her heart was beating as rapidly as mine. "Through the years, I began to love being her." My face nestled against her neck, fitting perfectly. I breathed in deep. Her scent, my God, it was her scent! "I began to love you," She whispered into my ear. "I love you the way she loved you." My thoughts were muddled; like I had been drinking all day and her words were hypnotizing. The rational part of my mind, dazzled as it was; still held to the fact that this was not Melissa. The rest of me wanted her to be Melissa, needed her to be. "I'm so alone." My words fell out of my mouth like a sob. "You don't have to be alone," She said soothingly. "You deserve to be loved." I brought my head up and looked into her eyes, Melissa's eyes. Why had she used those specific words, those words that had floated into my mind not ten minutes ago? They were my words, and it seemed as though Melissa was speaking them. "Do I?" I asked. "Everyone deserves to be loved, but you especially." I thought of the stranger I saw when I looked in the mirror. "You haven't seen me since the accident. I'm not the same person I was before. I don't know who I am, but it's not the Charles you knew." She cupped my face in her hands. Her eyes seemed to penetrate my very soul, reading the truth that had been obscured from me for so long. "I see you, Charles. You are kind and gentle, caring and considerate, fiercely loyal and honorable. You are truthful and funny, wise and brave. Most of all, you are loving. You would selflessly give the last of yourself if the one you loved needed it." The way Kate was looking at me, the love and knowing in her eyes, made something click in my mind. Bubbling up from the depths, came feelings I thought were gone forever. I remembered the way my heart fluttered when Melissa smiled at me, even after fifteen years of marriage. I remembered how it felt to fully give myself to her, and how my greatest pleasure was seeing the pleasure I gave to her. I remembered the sense of unity, the self and the other made whole. I remembered love, pure and bright, untainted by the weight of the world. Melissa and I had given ourselves to each other and became something greater, one being in all ways, body, heart, mind, and soul. That is who I was, who I am, and who I will forever be. Now standing here with this woman in my arms, I felt that connection again. I felt the bond we had forged, stronger than the foundations of the Earth, stronger than the very fabric of space and time. Though I hadn't seen it for years, it had not dissolved, had not forsaken me. What were a few years compared to that kind of power? "Are you my Melissa?" A faint sense of doubt passed through her eyes. "I don't know. Yes? No? Neither?" She looked away from my eyes, confusion, and memory clouding her face. "Have you ever read about schizophrenics? My mother thought I was one because when I started writing in diaries, I didn't have just one. I had three, one for me, one for Melissa, and one for you. I wrote down everything, all your conversations, and all your emotions. It was mostly just you at this point, with a few precious dreams of your weekends at the cabin with Melissa. Mom brought me to more doctors than I can remember, and they all said that I wasn't schizophrenic, as I didn't have trouble being myself. Apart from my dreams, I was a normal, healthy little girl. They read my journals, determined that I was suffering from an advanced form of multiple personality disorder, and medicated me accordingly. They were stumped though, how a little girl could write with such detail and realism." She looked down and fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. I watched how her fingers moved and the posture of her body. She moved like Melissa. "The drugs they gave me didn't do anything but make me feel like shit all the time. I didn't know where my dreams were coming from, but I had to believe that nothing was wrong with me because they felt so right. I enjoyed them and saw them as a gift or a blessing. As strange as it may seem, you were my best friend, and I went to sleep happy every night." She stopped fidgeting and looked at me. "When I was thirteen, I had a dream about that most special weekend at the cabin. It was several dreams actually. I experienced every single moment. I felt the bond Melissa made with you, and not just while I was dreaming. The following days, I buzzed with giddy excitement and cried from the sheer joy of it. It was then that I knew without a shred of doubt, that I wasn't ill." She said this last word with derision. "Nothing that felt that right and pure could be sickness. I stopped taking the medication that day. My waking mind cleared, and I knew joy like I hadn't imagined possible." She sighed. "I never knew for sure if what I experienced in my dreams was happening to real people, or if it was all just for me alone, and I didn't want to find out." She placed my hand on her chest and I could feel her heart pounding. "What I do know, is that as time went on and I grew older, I became more like Melissa. Her personality and insecurities, likes and dislikes, her thoughts and dreams, all merged with my own. When I was old enough to start dating, I went out with a lot of guys. It never worked out, and rarely even got close to physical intimacy, because none of them were you." Her chest was heaving as her heart beat even faster. "I couldn't find love, because I was already in love. I don't know if I am Melissa. I wasn't born as her, so maybe I'm not. But in every way that truly matters, I think that I am her." I read her eyes with the ease that I had been able to read Melissa's. Her love for me was evident, as was her passion and desire. No one but Melissa had ever looked at me the way she was now. Like Melissa's had, Kate's eyes also held insecurity, self-consciousness, and hurt. Kate said that she had dreamed about the accident for years now. Seeing it, feeling it play out over and over. The pain of my recollection of it was pushed aside by an immense surge of empathy and compassion. I only had to live through it once. I couldn't imagine having it waiting for me every night, to see and feel it in perfect clarity, untarnished by the fog of memory. My hand slid from her heart, and she shuddered involuntarily as it settled gently on the side of her neck, just below her jawline. At that moment, I didn't see Kate. I saw the girl I had fallen hopelessly in love with so many years ago, and the woman I had married. I saw my warrior queen, fierce and confident, but at the same time so gentle and insecure. I saw her soul, eternally bound to mine. I saw Melissa's inexhaustible sexual desire for me, roaring hot as a blast furnace, as mine did for her. I tilted her face up and kissed her. She moaned softly, as her lips opened and our tongues met. The kissing was slow and gentle, neither of us wanting to scare the other with our need for intimacy. We both gasped as our mouths parted. She held my face, and her touch, despite my three-day-old stubble, was soft and familiar. "Maybe we shouldn't,” She held a finger to my lips. "I need you and you need me," She whispered. Slowly, she pulled her tee shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor. Eyes locked with mine, she unzipped her pants, shimmied, and kicked them away when they fell to her ankles. She wore a matching set of light blue panties and a bra. They were pretty, lacy things that accentuated her toned body in a way that screamed sensuality. Without another word, she took my hand in hers and led me to my bed. Later, I watched Kate sleep peacefully in my arms. I reached to the bedside table, and turned out the light, plunging the room into total darkness. I turned back to Kate, who I could see in my mind's eye with crystal clarity. This girl, this woman, who was at the same time achingly familiar and disturbingly foreign, had arrived in my life at the head of a rampaging horde of swirling thoughts. Was it possible that Melissa's soul had somehow made its way to Kate, and led her to me? Amid our passion, as years of longing and desire burst forth from both of us, it felt like I was with Melissa, in every way I could perceive. She moved and kissed like her, smelled and tasted like her. She felt like her, outside and in, and even moaned and cried out like her. I felt like I could give in and accept it. I could acknowledge that this was, in fact, Melissa. We could continue our life together as if the real Melissa had never died. We could be happy, and grow old hand in hand. It was so tempting to lose myself to the idea. My heart ached for it. But something wasn't right. The whole idea seemed unnatural as if it had been manipulated by a higher power whose intent could not be known. This doubt had the feel of truth, jagged and persistent. I knew that I couldn't ignore it, that it would be an eternal festering mote, no matter how sweet a fantasy my life would seem. There was a riddle here that needed to be solved, that demanded to be solved. Above all the confusion and jumbled emotions, there was an overarching feeling that there was an answer just beyond my grasp. I knew that if I could reach it and see just a glimpse of what was beyond, if only for a split second, I would know the truth. I lay there in the dark, willing with every fiber of my being for the universe to give me an answer. The darkness seemed to acquiesce to my silent pleading. I fell through the dark, free of my bed, free of the Earth and reality, into a cozy warm sleeping bag. I spoke to Melissa as night became morning. "You know me better than anyone. Being with you makes me feel complete, in a way I didn't know was possible. I am yours, in all ways, forever." Bright as a star, the light of love flashed in her eyes, bathing all existence with its brilliance. "Hold on to that moment, use it as a refuge." Sandy blonde hair glowed like golden fire in an autumn sunbeam. "You're real," Melissa said as we embraced outside her apartment. We evaporated into smoke, wafting on a lazy breeze through the pines, and condensed again, lying in Melissa's bed. "Have you been that lonely?" I asked. "For as long as I can remember" Melissa flung herself into my arms. "Am I okay? Charles, this is a dream come true!" A small glass bottle was held out for me to smell. I leaned close and howled as I was sucked into the bottle, down, down, down, into the swirling, bubbling liquid. "We remember scents much better than we think we do. Sometimes all we need is a little hint, and it's brought right to the front. Scents are all connected in our minds, and are rooted deep down at the very foundation of memory." My howl became the biting wind, as cold as the water crashing its way through the rocks. The grayness of the sky seemed to leach all color and emotion from the world. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you." The wind rose, howling becoming screeching, becoming screaming, as tires slid, glass broke, and metal crumpled. "I love you. I love you. I love you..." A sudden silence as the flying glass became a sea of stars. "Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time..." The endless expanse of the cosmos loomed, comforting in its infinite possibility. "...and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!" I stood alone in a bright sunlit clearing, within a cathedral of Red Pines. Above, a billion, billion suns twinkled in the vast dark. My mother hugged me. "Oh, Charles. Love is so precious. It doesn't matter where you find it, but when you do, you hold on with both hands and never let go." Mother became Melissa, whispering my words back to me. "I'll find you in the next and keep loving you." Our sacred pine grove faded as her whisper echoed through infinity. "I'll find you in the next, in the next, in the next..." I floated alone. The self, the other, and the one were all gone. Joy and sadness were words without meaning. Light and dark had no definition. Space had no direction. Time held no sway. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 2 parts, for Literotica.

Cabin Cousins: Part 6 Saying Goodbye; for now. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections. Chapter Twenty. On the drive home, I felt good, like really good. I felt like things were actually going to start changing for the better. Reveling in this feeling, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision. I stopped my car in a random parking lot and pulled out my phone. One of the guys that I used to work with, Carl, liked to go to this little bar in Superior to hang out with friends and have a few drinks. There was a whole group of guys from work that would go regularly, but Carl was the only one who never stopped asking. For one reason or another, I never took him up on it, and I haven't seen any of them since I stopped being able to go to work. He answered after a few rings. "Hi, it's Charles, from work." "Charles? Hey buddy! How are you doing?" He sounded happy to hear from me. "Oh, I've been hanging in there. How's the store since I left?" At the time of the accident, I was the yard manager at the same store I had worked at since I moved to Duluth. It didn't pay a lot of money, but it was enough to get by, and I liked the job. I still felt bad about how I left. As the years went on and my depression spiraled downwards, it had become too hard to mask. My job performance was terrible, and people began to ask questions I didn't want to face the answers to. One day I scheduled myself to take all my vacation days, and then with that in the system, I put in my two weeks' notice. I never went back. "They made me assistant store manager if you'll believe that," Carl said. "Still a lot of the same faces around here. All the young kids come and go. You know how it is." "Yeah." I chuckled. In a store like that, you could count on about half of the employees to be lifers. They'd never leave. The other half seemed to be a completely different mix of people every couple of months. "So, what's up?" Carl asked. I could hear the store's advertising jingle blaring over the loudspeakers in the background. "Do you and the guys still go to that bar in Superior?" There it was. I said it. Now if he says yes, I'll have to ask if I can go, and then I'll have to go. "Yeah! But it's usually just me and Matt. Brian got married, and his wife has him on a short leash. Joe goes to AA. The other guys, just kinda stopped going for one reason or another. Tonight is the night we usually go." "Mind if I come with?" I asked. "Of course, man! We're going to leave here at about six." "Cool, I'll see you there." "Looking forward to it. It'll be good to see you again." And now the awkwardness of ending a phone call. I've heard that it's a Midwestern thing, but everyone seems to do it better than I do. "Okay, bye." "Bye." I went home, set out some clean clothes, and got in the shower. Sometimes I forget how good it feels to be clean. But then, I knew exactly why it was often too hard to motivate myself to get into the shower. The shower brought memories of Melissa and the possibility of pain. I stood still, letting the near-scalding water cascade over me. The fruity scent of the same brand of body wash Melissa had during our first shower together was strong, and I remembered. I closed my eyes and started my breathing exercise with a deep slow inhale. Melissa's hands scrubbed my lower back and slid down to squeeze my ass. Breathe out, the pain and hurt waft away like steam in the shower. My fingers follow the lines of her muscles and up her inner thigh, she looks at me with serene contentment. Breathe in. She turns, arches her back, and sighs as I enter her from behind. Breathe out, the pain is gone, and there is only joy. She moans as my soapy hands cup her firm tits, holding her tight against me as we make love. Breathe in. I gasp and hold my breath as we both climax. Breathe out. I catch my breath and look down, my hand was still grasping my quickly softening manhood, and the oozing result of my orgasm was slowly washed into the drain. I finished cleaning up, turned the water off, and stepped out of the shower. I looked at myself in the mirror as I toweled dry. It had been quite a while since I had exercised, or gone to the gym, but I still had a good amount of muscle on me. Granted, a bit more flab than I liked, especially on my belly, but overall I still liked the way I looked. Melissa liked the way I looked too. I patted my belly, and there was a slight jiggle. I really should work out again, I thought. When was the last time I went for a run? I couldn't remember. My eyes strayed from my body to my face. I was still slightly pink from the hot water. I studied the slight age lines beginning to appear around my eyes and noticed that I seemed to have a larger forehead than I used to. When did I start losing my hair? I put my hands on the edge of the sink and leaned close to the mirror. It's a strange thing, looking yourself in the eyes. Despite how good I felt at the moment, all I could see was the pain deep inside. I knew it hadn't always been there, and obviously, I knew when it started. What bothered me was, I couldn't remember what it was like to not have this pain. I could remember every little detail about Melissa, her face, her body, the conversations we had, the things we did together, everything. But if I focus on just me... I can remember being a skinny awkward teenager falling in love and beginning a perfect life, then this, an aging man being crushed by the weight of a tragedy. Every memory between, of what it was to be me, was just gone. Lost to the gray. At the same time, I knew that this person staring back at me in the mirror wasn't me. Once, I was happy. Once I was me, whoever that was. Would I ever get me back, or did I just have to come to grips with the fact that I was now a completely different person? In heavy contemplation, I got dressed. I put on a faded Iron Maiden concert tee, a token from the time Melissa and I had driven to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to see them perform, and some blue jeans that seemed tighter around the waist than I remembered. I checked my bank balance and determined that If I was going to have drinks at the bar with Carl, I had better eat at home beforehand. I had a cup of ramen noodles, and cut slices off of a brick of cheddar cheese, as I wasted time watching random crap on YouTube. Finally, it was five thirty and time to go. Well really, I didn't need to hurry, as it was only a five-minute drive across the bridge to Superior, but there was no way I was going to be late. I parked behind the bar and didn't see any vehicles I recognized. I listened to the radio for a little while, then at ten to six, I got out of the car. The hard part is done. I'm here. I walked in and scanned the place for Carl. I know he had said he was leaving work at six, but I didn't want to miss him by mistake if he was early for some reason. Not seeing him or anyone else I knew, I took a seat at the end of the bar. The place wasn't very busy at all, with maybe a dozen people spread out throughout the whole place. A red-haired waitress came and took my order for a Grainbelt beer, and I watched her go to the cooler to get the bottle. She was cute, if a little thick around the middle, and when she handed me the beer, she flashed me the smile of experienced waitresses everywhere. The kind of smile that says, "I'll be sweet, and yes, maybe even flirt with you a little, but this is my job and you better not take it as more than a professional courtesy". I respected that. Good bartenders were hard to come by, and this one seemed proficient so far. I sipped my beer, and surreptitiously watched the other patrons. There was the same general mix of people you see in bars like this on a Tuesday evening. A few older couples, quietly enjoying dinner and a glass of wine, a fifty-year-old high school prom queen and her steroid-pumped boyfriend, slamming cheap beer, faces wind burned from riding a Harley all day, a table of college frat boy types laughing too loudly at offensive jokes, you know the kind of place. I faced the bar again, and in the mirror, I could see that one person was sitting alone at the table right behind me. She was facing away from me and seemed engrossed in something on her phone. She was wearing a maroon sweatshirt and had bushy dark brown hair that immediately reminded me of a young Hermione Granger. I watched her in the mirror, not being a creep, just out of curiosity and that I had nothing else to do while I waited for Carl. She never turned or sat up straight, just stayed on her phone, occasionally typing furiously. After a while, I looked at the time on my phone. It was twenty after six, Carl should have been here already. I ordered another beer from Cassie, the bartender, and gave him ten more minutes. I called Carl, and it took four or five rings for him to pick up. "Hey dude," Carl said right away. "I am so sorry. I have a big issue I've got to manage here." I could hear people talking loudly in the background and the beep of a forklift. "Hey," I said. "What's up?" "One of the kids knocked over a shelving unit in the garden center, and they all collapsed like dominoes. It's a big fucking mess." There was a scuffing noise as he held his phone aside and yelled at someone. "Don't bother saving that stuff, it's all junk now. Scan it, then throw it in the dumpster!" His voice became clear again. "I don't remember being this stupid when I was that age, do you?" "No, not really. So, are you going to be late or..." I asked, starting to feel a little dumb for getting my hopes up for a fun evening with old friends. "Sorry, man, this is going to be an all-nighter." "Oh, okay," I said, feeling like I just got punched in the gut. "Take a rain check for next week? The first round is on me." "Yeah, that's okay. Next week it is." I couldn't believe it. I got myself so excited to do normal people things with normal people, and this happened. I don't know why I bothered. "Alright man, gotta go." Before Carl ended the call, I could hear him start to yell. "Careful! If you knock that over too, I'm gonna" As I stared at my phone, not knowing what I should think or do, I heard a voice to my right. It was the woman with the brown hair. "You get stood up too?" I glanced at her. She was standing at the bar a few spots down from me, waving her empty glass at the bartender. "Huh? Yeah." "Sorry for eavesdropping. So what was her excuse?" In the corner of my eye, I could see the waitress return with a full glass. The girl took a drink right away. It was something creamy, Bailey's maybe. "Problems at work." I didn't mention that the 'her' was a 'him'. As secure enough in my sexuality as I was, straight guys just didn't say things that could give a woman mixed signals. "Typical." She took another long pull off her drink. "This is the third date in a row that has left me sitting. I take the time to get ready and then sit here waiting. I've got homework I could be doing." She sighed. "I don't know why I bothered." "Right." Her last words had struck a chord with my thoughts, and I turned to face her. Our eyes met, and the world stopped. We stared at each other, each of us with furrowing brows. My heart began to race, and I felt like I just got a shot of adrenaline. Slowly, she set down her drink, and I set down my phone, but our eyes remained locked. Eventually, she whispered. "I know you..." My throat was dry, and I struggled to get enough air to respond. "I don't think we've met..." She was pretty, and younger than I had expected. There was something strikingly familiar about her, but I knew I had never met this person before, and probably hadn't ever seen her. Her maroon sweatshirt had the big yellow UMD (University of Minnesota, Duluth) logo on it. There was something in her eyes, her icy blue eyes, that told me that I knew this person. "Who are you?" She whispered. The confusion on her face gave way to a look of fear. "Charles," I said woodenly, trying to make some sense of what was happening. This wasn't like the times you see someone in a crowd that looks like someone you know. I knew this person, have always known this person, and yet, nothing about her was familiar. "What is going on?" She asked, glancing at the bartender who was eyeing both of us in turn with raised eyebrows. "You're real? You're really real?" Her look of fear gave way to panic. "I've got to get out of here. This can't be happening." She slowly backed away from me, then turned and fled towards the door. I scrambled to put some cash on the bar for my beer, then followed after her. When I got outside, she was standing near a car with her head in her hands. She looked up at my approach. "Don't come any closer." She warned me. "What's going on?" I asked. "How do you know me? How do I know you?" "You know who I am?" She asked, hand on her car door, ready to flee. "When I saw you, I felt like I've known you my entire life, but I've never seen you before." I shook my head, more confused than ever in my forty-two years. "Well, I know you, Charles Larson." "How do you know my last name?" I asked, taken aback. I was pretty sure I hadn't said it at all earlier. "If you're really you, then I know everything about you." Her fear was transforming into anger, and she was almost shouting now. "How?" "Because I dream about you every night! My first memories are dreams about you! I close my eyes, and I see your face! I see your life! Every day, every night!" She was holding her head again and had started pacing side to side next to her car. "Oh my God. All these years, all the therapy, all the drugs to get you out of my head, and I find you sitting in a dive bar. This can't be real." My car was parked next to hers, and she watched me wearily as I slowly walked over and sat on the hood. "If you're really Charles Larson, tell me about yourself." She was looking at me like she was seeing a ghost. "I grew up in Minnetonka..." I was confused to the point of being numb, so I just started talking. I told her about my family, where I went to school, everything up to just before I fell in love with Melissa. Her face was pale, but she had stopped pacing and was just staring at me. "What was her name?" I looked at her sharply, surprised by the question. "Your second cousin, the one you married." Shocked, I replied. "Melissa." She took a tentative step towards me. "The two of you lived in a tiny apartment off of Grand Ave." She stepped closer. "You lived there together for fifteen years until..." She was right next to me now, and she picked up my right hand, turning it over to see the backside. She traced a finger down the scar that ran lengthwise behind my index finger. "Someone at your work dropped a piece of metal gutter, and the end sliced your hand open. It bled and bled, and you had to go get it stitched up." "How do you know these things?" I asked with something I could only describe as awe. "Because I saw it happen. I was there, in my dreams." "I feel that we are connected somehow, but, I don't even know who you are." She shifted her hands and grasped mine in a handshake. She looked at me with a shy smile. "I'm Kate Winters, and I've been waiting to meet you my whole life." Chapter Twenty-one. "You're older than I thought you would be." Kate was eyeing me from across the table. We had gone back into the bar and had taken a booth near the back. The frat boys were gone, and there was no one else nearby. "How old do you think I should be?" I asked, head still spinning. "When I was growing up, every dream was different. The time wasn't the same, the days weren't one-for-one. You were getting older faster than I was. For the last couple of years though, I've had the same dream. It's the same scene every night." She looked at me with empathy, expecting that I wasn't going to like what she was saying. "You were thirty-three, and it was nine years ago." A wave of non-specific dread washed over me. "What scene, What dream are you having over and over?" I already knew what she was going to say, and I didn't want to hear it. Kate closed her eyes. "We are in your truck, we had just been at the movie theater. You were telling me how you never liked Matt Damon, but in this movie, he was pretty good. Then,” "Stop," I said, probably a little too forcibly. "I'm sorry." Her eyes were glistening with tears. We sat in silence for a long time, each wrestling with our thoughts. Finally, I asked. "You said I was speaking to you?" She sniffed and nodded. "When the two of you were apart, it was kind of a third-person view, like watching a movie. But whenever you were with her, I saw you through her eyes. I felt what she felt, I thought what she thought. I think,” She looked at me apprehensively. "When the dreams started, it was the summer she figured out that she loved you. I was five and didn't really understand what I was seeing. I started using bigger words, and acting like I was thirteen because you two were thirteen." My thoughts swirled like a hurricane around that night nine years ago. There was the crash, and my truck crumpled up like a beer can. I was dazed, and there was glass in my eyes. I struggled to reach Melissa. The door had crumpled in and crushed her into the seat, into the tight space between what had been the dashboard and the back of the cab. Her eyes opened as I touched her cheek. She tried to speak, but no noise came out. Her mouth kept moving until suddenly she went still. Her heart stopped, and the spark of life left her eyes. My love, my life, was gone. Tears were streaming down my face, but somehow I had the composure to speak. "If you thought what she thought, did she blame me?" One thing that I had thought I had come to a resolution on, was the thought that the accident was my fault, that; had I not been looking at her at that moment, I might have been able to avoid the other car. Kate was crying too. "Of course not. You know what she was trying to say?" She reached across the table and held my hands tight in hers. "She was saying "I love you" over and over. She knew she was dying, and her only thought was that you would be alone." Still holding Kate's hands, I buried my face into my arm and cried hard, shuddering with every sob. I don't know how long I cried. At some point, I heard the waitress come by, and Kate whispered "We're okay." I felt Kate start running a hand through my hair, massaging my head. Exactly how Melissa used to. It felt good, but it also felt wrong. It wasn't Melissa's hand, It was Kate's. She was some random college girl I had never met, and I was plenty old enough to be her father. At the same time though, some part of me, deep down, was screaming that this was Melissa. I raised my head from my arm and looked at Kate. I felt no apprehension or shame in meeting her eyes, eyes that were so much like Melissa's. I studied them intently. They weren't just similar, they were identical. The patterns of blue were the same, and there was even that tiny green speck in the iris of her right eye. No one but me had ever noticed it. As insane as it sounds, I swear that I could feel Melissa's soul staring back at me through Kate's eyes. "So, what now?" I asked. "Maybe we should go somewhere more private and figure this out," Kate replied, her eyes moving to the people walking into the bar. "I still live in the same place." I couldn't believe that I had just said that. Did I just ask this girl to come home with me? Yes. She may be half my age, but there was something supernatural to the way I was drawn to her. She was not Melissa, I knew that, but in some intangible way, she very much was. Kate led the way, and I followed her back to my apartment. For some inexplicable reason, I thought of the day Melissa sat next to me on the rocks, and tearfully explained her past. The words I had spoken to her came into my mind as clearly as I had just said them. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you. Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time, and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!" Is there such a thing as reincarnation? But no, Kate was in her early twenties, and Melissa died only nine years ago. The words continued to echo in my mind, and I realized that at some point it had stopped being my voice that was speaking. It was Melissa's. I bumped the door shut with my back and watched Kate as she surveyed my apartment. It occurred to me that not a lot had changed about the place in the last nine years, since the last time Kate would have seen it in her dreams. The couch was faded and threadbare, but comfortable, and the decorations were pretty much how Melissa had left them. The biggest difference, I noticed with some shame, was the general disorder of the place. Dirty dishes sat in a pile on the counter near the sink, and empty food containers covered the rest of the flat surfaces in the kitchenette. A pile of dirty clothes partially blocked the narrow hallway. Kate turned slowly, taking it all in. She stopped, facing me. "It looks exactly how I remember." I studied her face. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing. She pointed at a picture on the wall beside the door. "I remember when that was taken. We, You went to a big concert in Wisconsin..." I could see at her collar, that she was wearing a tee shirt under her sweatshirt. "Take off your sweatshirt." I should have realized the creepy way in which that could be taken, but I wasn't thinking like that. I wanted to see her, to see if my eyes could help solve the mystery that had so thoroughly confused my heart and mind. A small part of me was surprised ,as Kate complied without hesitation. When she pulled the sweatshirt off, the bottom of her tee shirt was pulled up enough for me to get a glimpse of her flat belly. Her clothes were tight-fitting, and my eyes roamed her body. She was the same height as Melissa, had the same overall shape to her frame, and seemed to be in very good shape. She wasn't as muscular as Melissa had been, but then again, Melissa never had to try as hard as others to build muscle mass. Kate was watching me study her. She didn't look afraid or apprehensive at all. Rather, what came across to me was a sense of absolute trust. Melissa had looked at me like that, like she would put her life in my hands without hesitation, safe in the knowledge that I would never willingly hurt her. Her hair was very different, in color and style, and her skin was pale, like she didn't spend a lot of time outside. I stepped closer and tentatively raised a hand to her face. She didn't flinch or pull away. My hand cupped her cheek, and she closed her eyes, pressing her face into my gentle touch. Her features were softened by youth, but the shape of her face, the structure of her bones, was eerily familiar. "You do look like her," I said softly. "Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see her face looking back at me." I felt her hands on my waist as she stepped close. Our faces were inches apart. "This must be difficult for you," She whispered. "I've lived with this my whole life. I've had time to deal with it." Seemingly of their own accord, my arms wrapped around her in a hug. She pressed herself against me, and I could feel that her heart was beating as rapidly as mine. "Through the years, I began to love being her." My face nestled against her neck, fitting perfectly. I breathed in deep. Her scent, my God, it was her scent! "I began to love you," She whispered into my ear. "I love you the way she loved you." My thoughts were muddled; like I had been drinking all day and her words were hypnotizing. The rational part of my mind, dazzled as it was; still held to the fact that this was not Melissa. The rest of me wanted her to be Melissa, needed her to be. "I'm so alone." My words fell out of my mouth like a sob. "You don't have to be alone," She said soothingly. "You deserve to be loved." I brought my head up and looked into her eyes, Melissa's eyes. Why had she used those specific words, those words that had floated into my mind not ten minutes ago? They were my words, and it seemed as though Melissa was speaking them. "Do I?" I asked. "Everyone deserves to be loved, but you especially." I thought of the stranger I saw when I looked in the mirror. "You haven't seen me since the accident. I'm not the same person I was before. I don't know who I am, but it's not the Charles you knew." She cupped my face in her hands. Her eyes seemed to penetrate my very soul, reading the truth that had been obscured from me for so long. "I see you, Charles. You are kind and gentle, caring and considerate, fiercely loyal and honorable. You are truthful and funny, wise and brave. Most of all, you are loving. You would selflessly give the last of yourself if the one you loved needed it." The way Kate was looking at me, the love and knowing in her eyes, made something click in my mind. Bubbling up from the depths, came feelings I thought were gone forever. I remembered the way my heart fluttered when Melissa smiled at me, even after fifteen years of marriage. I remembered how it felt to fully give myself to her, and how my greatest pleasure was seeing the pleasure I gave to her. I remembered the sense of unity, the self and the other made whole. I remembered love, pure and bright, untainted by the weight of the world. Melissa and I had given ourselves to each other and became something greater, one being in all ways, body, heart, mind, and soul. That is who I was, who I am, and who I will forever be. Now standing here with this woman in my arms, I felt that connection again. I felt the bond we had forged, stronger than the foundations of the Earth, stronger than the very fabric of space and time. Though I hadn't seen it for years, it had not dissolved, had not forsaken me. What were a few years compared to that kind of power? "Are you my Melissa?" A faint sense of doubt passed through her eyes. "I don't know. Yes? No? Neither?" She looked away from my eyes, confusion, and memory clouding her face. "Have you ever read about schizophrenics? My mother thought I was one because when I started writing in diaries, I didn't have just one. I had three, one for me, one for Melissa, and one for you. I wrote down everything, all your conversations, and all your emotions. It was mostly just you at this point, with a few precious dreams of your weekends at the cabin with Melissa. Mom brought me to more doctors than I can remember, and they all said that I wasn't schizophrenic, as I didn't have trouble being myself. Apart from my dreams, I was a normal, healthy little girl. They read my journals, determined that I was suffering from an advanced form of multiple personality disorder, and medicated me accordingly. They were stumped though, how a little girl could write with such detail and realism." She looked down and fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. I watched how her fingers moved and the posture of her body. She moved like Melissa. "The drugs they gave me didn't do anything but make me feel like shit all the time. I didn't know where my dreams were coming from, but I had to believe that nothing was wrong with me because they felt so right. I enjoyed them and saw them as a gift or a blessing. As strange as it may seem, you were my best friend, and I went to sleep happy every night." She stopped fidgeting and looked at me. "When I was thirteen, I had a dream about that most special weekend at the cabin. It was several dreams actually. I experienced every single moment. I felt the bond Melissa made with you, and not just while I was dreaming. The following days, I buzzed with giddy excitement and cried from the sheer joy of it. It was then that I knew without a shred of doubt, that I wasn't ill." She said this last word with derision. "Nothing that felt that right and pure could be sickness. I stopped taking the medication that day. My waking mind cleared, and I knew joy like I hadn't imagined possible." She sighed. "I never knew for sure if what I experienced in my dreams was happening to real people, or if it was all just for me alone, and I didn't want to find out." She placed my hand on her chest and I could feel her heart pounding. "What I do know, is that as time went on and I grew older, I became more like Melissa. Her personality and insecurities, likes and dislikes, her thoughts and dreams, all merged with my own. When I was old enough to start dating, I went out with a lot of guys. It never worked out, and rarely even got close to physical intimacy, because none of them were you." Her chest was heaving as her heart beat even faster. "I couldn't find love, because I was already in love. I don't know if I am Melissa. I wasn't born as her, so maybe I'm not. But in every way that truly matters, I think that I am her." I read her eyes with the ease that I had been able to read Melissa's. Her love for me was evident, as was her passion and desire. No one but Melissa had ever looked at me the way she was now. Like Melissa's had, Kate's eyes also held insecurity, self-consciousness, and hurt. Kate said that she had dreamed about the accident for years now. Seeing it, feeling it play out over and over. The pain of my recollection of it was pushed aside by an immense surge of empathy and compassion. I only had to live through it once. I couldn't imagine having it waiting for me every night, to see and feel it in perfect clarity, untarnished by the fog of memory. My hand slid from her heart, and she shuddered involuntarily as it settled gently on the side of her neck, just below her jawline. At that moment, I didn't see Kate. I saw the girl I had fallen hopelessly in love with so many years ago, and the woman I had married. I saw my warrior queen, fierce and confident, but at the same time so gentle and insecure. I saw her soul, eternally bound to mine. I saw Melissa's inexhaustible sexual desire for me, roaring hot as a blast furnace, as mine did for her. I tilted her face up and kissed her. She moaned softly, as her lips opened and our tongues met. The kissing was slow and gentle, neither of us wanting to scare the other with our need for intimacy. We both gasped as our mouths parted. She held my face, and her touch, despite my three-day-old stubble, was soft and familiar. "Maybe we shouldn't,” She held a finger to my lips. "I need you and you need me," She whispered. Slowly, she pulled her tee shirt over her head and dropped it to the floor. Eyes locked with mine, she unzipped her pants, shimmied, and kicked them away when they fell to her ankles. She wore a matching set of light blue panties and a bra. They were pretty, lacy things that accentuated her toned body in a way that screamed sensuality. Without another word, she took my hand in hers and led me to my bed. Later, I watched Kate sleep peacefully in my arms. I reached to the bedside table, and turned out the light, plunging the room into total darkness. I turned back to Kate, who I could see in my mind's eye with crystal clarity. This girl, this woman, who was at the same time achingly familiar and disturbingly foreign, had arrived in my life at the head of a rampaging horde of swirling thoughts. Was it possible that Melissa's soul had somehow made its way to Kate, and led her to me? Amid our passion, as years of longing and desire burst forth from both of us, it felt like I was with Melissa, in every way I could perceive. She moved and kissed like her, smelled and tasted like her. She felt like her, outside and in, and even moaned and cried out like her. I felt like I could give in and accept it. I could acknowledge that this was, in fact, Melissa. We could continue our life together as if the real Melissa had never died. We could be happy, and grow old hand in hand. It was so tempting to lose myself to the idea. My heart ached for it. But something wasn't right. The whole idea seemed unnatural as if it had been manipulated by a higher power whose intent could not be known. This doubt had the feel of truth, jagged and persistent. I knew that I couldn't ignore it, that it would be an eternal festering mote, no matter how sweet a fantasy my life would seem. There was a riddle here that needed to be solved, that demanded to be solved. Above all the confusion and jumbled emotions, there was an overarching feeling that there was an answer just beyond my grasp. I knew that if I could reach it and see just a glimpse of what was beyond, if only for a split second, I would know the truth. I lay there in the dark, willing with every fiber of my being for the universe to give me an answer. The darkness seemed to acquiesce to my silent pleading. I fell through the dark, free of my bed, free of the Earth and reality, into a cozy warm sleeping bag. I spoke to Melissa as night became morning. "You know me better than anyone. Being with you makes me feel complete, in a way I didn't know was possible. I am yours, in all ways, forever." Bright as a star, the light of love flashed in her eyes, bathing all existence with its brilliance. "Hold on to that moment, use it as a refuge." Sandy blonde hair glowed like golden fire in an autumn sunbeam. "You're real," Melissa said as we embraced outside her apartment. We evaporated into smoke, wafting on a lazy breeze through the pines, and condensed again, lying in Melissa's bed. "Have you been that lonely?" I asked. "For as long as I can remember" Melissa flung herself into my arms. "Am I okay? Charles, this is a dream come true!" A small glass bottle was held out for me to smell. I leaned close and howled as I was sucked into the bottle, down, down, down, into the swirling, bubbling liquid. "We remember scents much better than we think we do. Sometimes all we need is a little hint, and it's brought right to the front. Scents are all connected in our minds, and are rooted deep down at the very foundation of memory." My howl became the biting wind, as cold as the water crashing its way through the rocks. The grayness of the sky seemed to leach all color and emotion from the world. "None of what happened was your fault. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be loved. I love you, I will always love you." The wind rose, howling becoming screeching, becoming screaming, as tires slid, glass broke, and metal crumpled. "I love you. I love you. I love you..." A sudden silence as the flying glass became a sea of stars. "Nothing in the past, present, or future will stop me from loving you until the end of time..." The endless expanse of the cosmos loomed, comforting in its infinite possibility. "...and when we're both gone from this world, I'll find you in the next and keep loving you!" I stood alone in a bright sunlit clearing, within a cathedral of Red Pines. Above, a billion, billion suns twinkled in the vast dark. My mother hugged me. "Oh, Charles. Love is so precious. It doesn't matter where you find it, but when you do, you hold on with both hands and never let go." Mother became Melissa, whispering my words back to me. "I'll find you in the next and keep loving you." Our sacred pine grove faded as her whisper echoed through infinity. "I'll find you in the next, in the next, in the next..." I floated alone. The self, the other, and the one were all gone. Joy and sadness were words without meaning. Light and dark had no definition. Space had no direction. Time held no sway. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 2 parts, for Literotica.

Cabin Cousins: Part 3 The love between Charles and Melissa grows. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections. Chapter Eleven I pressed the green 'send' button and put my phone to my ear as it began to ring. It rang only once before the clear voice of an angel excitedly asked, "Hello?". "Hi, Melissa! I made it home safe," I replied with an equal amount of excitement. "I miss you already," Melissa said with a sigh. "I miss you too." Hearing her voice and remembering the events of the last couple of days, made me hard. As we talked, about nothing in particular, I absently rubbed my erection through my jeans. We talked for about an hour, before we were both running out of things to say. "When can we see each other again?" She asked the question I know she had been dying to ask since she first said hello." "I'm already on the schedule to work open to close all of next weekend, and I don't think I could get away with taking two weekends off in a row." "Yeah, I have to work too." She said. "My bosses are going out of town, so there's no way I could get out of it." "What about the weekend after that? I could probably get it off." I asked hopefully. "Me too." Then, excitedly. "That Saturday is Halloween! We could go to a party?" "That sounds like fun. Up there, or down here?" I asked, meaning where she lived in Duluth, or where I did in the Twin Cities. "Up here. There won't be any brothers sneaking around to overhear us." We both laughed, still slightly embarrassed that my older brother Mark had heard us making love in my tent before dawn that very morning. "I'll figure out what party we'll go to. You need to make up a convincing excuse for your parents on why you're going to be in Duluth all weekend." She said, reminding us both of the importance of keeping our relationship a secret. "I can do that." I didn't want to stop talking with Melissa ever, but I knew I had to. Sighing, I said. "I have to work early tomorrow. I should go get something to eat and get to bed." "Yeah, me too," Her reluctance to end the call was evident. "I'll call you at about eight tomorrow night?" "I'll be here," I said, already excited at the prospect of talking with her again. "I love you, Charles." Those simple words made my heart flutter. "I love you, Melissa," I replied, and in an unspoken agreement that we wouldn't say goodbye, we both ended the call. I sat there for a while, my heart still fluttering. In less than two weeks, I'll see her again. This time, I'll be going to her place in Duluth. The idea of spending a weekend with her, without having to worry about being found out, made me almost giddy with excitement. That night, when I jerked off before falling asleep, it was with the thought of what Melissa and I would do alone in her apartment. When she called me the next day, it was with her new cell phone. She said she had to get one because now she had important calls that she couldn't miss. It wasn't a big thing, but it felt good that she would do it just to make sure she could talk to me. We talked every night for the next week and a half and made our plans for the upcoming weekend. I would go up after work Friday night, and then on Saturday, we would go to a party that one of Melissa's friends, Ashley, was already planning on going to. Melissa excitedly explained that we were going to double date with her friend and her friend's boyfriend, James and that they already had a plan for a costume theme. As curious as I was, Melissa playfully refused to tell me what the theme was, saying that she would take care of getting our costumes together. I had gotten in touch with a high school friend of mine who had started classes at the state university. Rob was a year older than me and had been living in a dorm on campus. I asked him straight up if I could use visiting him as an excuse for being in Duluth with a girl I didn't want my parents to know about. (I specifically did not mention who this girl was.) "You'll owe me one." He had said, laughing. "But I got you, bro." The days went by slowly, the growing ache in my heart tempered only by our nightly phone calls. Knowing that I would hear her voice in the evening, was something I looked forward to from the moment the previous call ended. I loved our talks, even when neither of us had anything particularly interesting to say. But I needed more. I needed to hold her, smell her, and taste her on my lips. The most anticipated Friday had finally come. Since I was taking the rest of the weekend off, my boss had convinced me to work a long shift. A twelve-hour shift that started at eight in the morning sucked, but the money was nice. Besides, Melissa had to work until eight to close up the store she worked at anyway. My work was busy most of the day, the store being filled with people buying last-minute Halloween decorations, or supplies to get one more project done while the weather was still decent. In the evening, business trailed off, and by six-thirty, the store was nearly empty. I tracked down the outdoor lumberyard supervisor, Gary, who was my immediate boss. I asked him if since it was so dead in the store, I could leave early. He laughed and asked if I had a hot date. I grinned and said that yeah, I actually did. He made shooing gestures at me with his hands and laughed again, telling me to hurry up and get out of there. On my way out of the store, I went through a checkout line to buy a pack of breath mints. I saw disposable cameras hanging on a hook next to all the other assorted impulse-buy items they had on display there. I realized that I didn't have a single picture of Melissa, so I bought one of those too. Sales strategy: successful. I had packed my bag the night before, so I left work and drove directly onto the freeway to head north. It was a little more than a two-hour drive to Duluth, but it seemed to take twice that long. I couldn't wait to hold Melissa again. My mouth watered at the thought of kissing her, and my pants got tight when I thought of the moans she would make as I made her cum. I had done some "research" in the time we had last seen each other, and I had a few new things I wanted to try. So lost was I in my imagination, that I almost missed my exit. I pulled off the freeway, and onto Grand Ave. I was less than a mile away now, and the closer I got to her apartment, the more my anticipation grew. As I pulled into the parking lot, and stopped my truck next to Melissa's Toyota, my heart was pounding with excitement. I got out of my truck and was about to knock on her door, the one marked (appropriately, I thought) with the number ten. Before I could knock, the door swung inwards, and there she was. Dressed in gray sweatpants and a pale pink tank top, she stood there for a moment, grinning at me like a little kid who had just opened a Christmas present to find the thing she had wanted most in the whole world. Suddenly, she leaped forward and nearly knocked me over as she wrapped her arms around me. She buried her face against my neck, inhaling deeply. "You're real." She said softly. She pulled back a bit and giggled when she saw the slightly confused expression on my face. She kissed me, deeply and passionately. It was sweeter than I had dreamed about, more delicious than, well, words fail to describe it. All I can say is that after nearly two weeks apart, kissing her was pure bliss. She made a soft moan into my mouth when I grabbed her ass and pulled her in tight to me. I could feel through her sweatpants that she wasn't wearing panties, and my cock twitched at the thought. Neither of us wanted to stop the kiss, but I felt her shiver in the crisp night air. She broke off the kiss and took a half step towards the door. "It's cold out here, come inside." "I gotta grab my backpack," I said pointing back to my truck. "Close the door tight when you come in, it kinda sticks." She said, dashing inside and closing the door just enough so it didn't latch. I grabbed my bag, and hurried in, bumping my back hard against the door until the latch clicked. I got my first look at her apartment. In a word, it was small. It was pretty much a converted motel room. There was a small living room in the front, nearly filled with just a couch, a small desk and chair, and a TV stand. Behind the couch was a countertop island, and just enough kitchen space to fit a refrigerator, a stove, and a sink. To the side of that, was a narrow hallway that I assumed led to the bathroom and bedroom. The furnishings were second-hand, but the place was clean, and had a somewhat cozy feel to it. I had taken all this in in a few seconds, but then my eyes noticed something. On the floor in the living room was a pale pink tank top, the one Melissa had been wearing just a moment before. I dropped my backpack next to the door and started towards the hallway. Though the front room was brightly lit, the hall and what lay beyond was dark. I found her sweatpants, then a little farther, a bra. My eyes were slowly becoming adjusted to the dark, and I could see the outline of a bed in the middle of a small room. As I approached, I began to undress, carelessly tossing my work clothes on the floor. Now completely naked, I put my hands down on the edge of the bed and found her perfect bare feet. I caressed her soles for a moment, then slowly ran my hands up her legs. As I climbed onto the bed, my hands slid further up, and I followed them with a trail of light kisses. When my face reached her groin, I could feel her squirm, eager for my touch. I could smell the wonderful scent of her arousal and could feel the heat of her radiating onto my face. Gently, I pushed her knees aside and slid my palms up her inner thighs. I lowered my face, and as softly as I could, I ran the tip of my tongue up the length of her labia. She inhaled sharply and shuddered. I moved my tongue back down, with the gentlest of contact, and she rocked her hips towards me, desperate for me to do more. Slowly, I pushed my tongue against her hole, and licked her fully, her lips spreading as my tongue moved up. When it brushed across her clit, she twitched and groaned in pleasure. I closed my mouth over her, and lapped gently, running my tongue between her lips and across her clit over and over. She put her hands on my head, holding my face to her as her moans grew louder. Every so often, I changed the motion of my tongue, how fast it went, and how hard or softly I licked her, paying close attention to how her body reacted, and making changes accordingly. We fell into a rhythm, where she started rocking her hips in time with my tongue, and with every motion she expelled her rapid breath quick sharp groan. Suddenly, her hands grasped my hair tightly, and she held her breath as her whole body convulsed. She let out a long satisfied moan, her body continuing to twitch periodically. I licked slowly alongside, and below her pussy, lapping up her delicious juices. She continued to moan, becoming quieter as she came down from her explosive orgasm. I felt so much joy that I was able to do this to her. Her pleasure was my pleasure. Finally, when she was able to speak, she gasped out. "Oh my God that was intense!" She pulled on the back of my head urgently. "Come here." As I moved up, I quickly swiped a hand over my soaking wet face and smeared it on my cock. The hands on the back of my head led my lips to hers, and when our mouths met, I guided my cock into her, burying myself as deeply as I could. We both exhaled a grunt of pleasure. Her legs wrapped tightly around me as we kissed furiously, losing ourselves to unbridled desire. I began to pump my cock in and out of her with deep, hard thrusts. We had to stop kissing to breathe, so we just stared into each other's eyes. The connection we had made two weeks ago was somehow made stronger with our separation. As we gave ourselves completely to each other, we became something so much greater than ourselves. We were a single being, as beautiful as it was indestructible, burning brighter than the sun. With every stroke, her legs pulled me into her, and she started gasping out the occasional word in her sharp exhalations, words like 'yes' and 'harder' and 'faster'. As I felt my orgasm building with unstoppable urgency, I could feel Melissa's build. In a positive feedback loop, her pleasure fueled my own, which in turn fueled hers. Again, as if we were a singular creature, we climaxed together. We never once broke eye contact as I filled her with my seed, and she spasmed tightly around my cock. We both exclaimed in exultant joy at the release. I held her face with my hands, and she held mine. We kissed quickly, as we both struggled to catch our breath. I was in a state of utter awe. Before Melissa, I could never have imagined that it was possible to reach such a state of physical and emotional euphoria. Melissa's eyes were like mirrors to my soul. I saw reflected there, all the love I felt for her, all of my wonder, and my sense of ultimate unity. Saying the words 'I love you' and hearing her respond in kind, would be so inadequate a way to express how we felt about each other, but I said them anyway. "I love you, Melissa," I whispered. "I love you, Charles." She whispered back. We nuzzled each other's necks, both still buzzing in the come-down from our glorious lovemaking. Eventually, though, my cock went soft, and she made that adorable disappointed noise when it slipped out of her. I felt a bit of disappointment of my own, as the weariness of my long day began to set in, and I knew that I didn't have it in me to have a second go with Melissa. She reluctantly released me from the vise-like grip of her legs, and I moved onto my side next to her. She turned and lay on her side, facing away from me. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close, and she wiggled her ass until my sex-slick cock rested between her cheeks. She sighed with contentment. "Melissa?" "Hmm?" She responded. "When I got here, what did you mean when you said that I was real?" "It was because of a dream I had last night." She said, somewhat sheepishly. "Oh?" I asked. "Yeah. It's kind of silly now, but it was one of those dreams that seem so real. I dreamed that I was here waiting for you. I waited and waited, and you never showed up. So I called you, and your number was disconnected. I looked in my diary, I don't even have a diary, but for some reason, I did in the dream, and it was all just boring stuff. Not a single mention of you at all, not even from when we were just kids. In the dream, I came to the realization that I had imagined everything, that I had become so lonely that I made up my perfect guy, my perfect best friend, and you didn't actually exist." "I'm here," I said. "All of this really happened." "I know." She moved my hand that was around her chest up to her lips, kissing it. "It's just that it seemed so real, it just stuck with me all day, you know?" "Have you been that lonely?" I asked, feeling a pang of sympathy. She nodded slowly. "For as long as I can remember. I've got friends, but I've never been super close to any of them. I've never had anyone who I felt comfortable enough with to just be myself. No one except you." I gave her a little squeeze, and she held my arm tightly to her chest. She continued speaking. "I lived for those weekends at the cabin with you. It was the only thing I looked forward to, the only time growing up that I can remember being truly happy." "What about your parents?" I asked cautiously, still not knowing the story about what happened, and whether or not it was an uncomfortable subject. "I don't want to think about them right now." "I'm sorry," I said, feeling horrified that I might have upset her. She kissed my hand again. "It's okay, really. We can talk about them tomorrow if you want, just..." She yawned and pulled my arms tight around her. "Not right now." I felt such empathy towards her. Hearing of her loneliness, and imagining what was behind it, hurt my heart, as if I had felt it firsthand. I made another silent vow to myself, that I would never let her feel alone. In making that vow, I knew, as surely as I knew that gravity pulls down, or that fire was hot, that I would be there for her forever. I would happily devote my entire life to her, with zero regrets. It was simply the way it was. I kissed her bare shoulder and nuzzled my face into her hair. We were both silent after that, and very soon, I could tell that she had drifted off to sleep. I closed my eyes and listened to her slow steady breath until it lulled me to sleep. Chapter Twelve. I awoke alone in Melissa's bed. I checked my watch, it was just after nine in the morning. I had arrived at about nine last night, and we were both asleep not all that long after that. I couldn't remember the last time I had slept for that long. It felt good. As I stretched, I discovered a note on the pillow next to me. It read: "I wanted to ravish you this morning, but you were sleeping so soundly, I couldn't bring myself to wake you up. I went for a run, be back soon. Love, Melissa." I was sure that, given the choice, I would always happily sacrifice some sleep to be ravished by Melissa. I smiled to myself. We'll just have to make up for it later. I found my underwear in a corner, pulled them on, and headed to the bathroom to take a leak. I retrieved my bag from where I had dropped it last night, carefully tucked Melissa's note away, and dug out my toiletries pouch. I had brushed my teeth and was rinsing with some mouthwash when I heard a key turn the lock on the front door. Melissa pushed the door closed, and smiled when she saw me walking out of the hallway. She kept it very warm in her apartment, so I had been fine to stay in just my boxer briefs. She eyed me up and down as I approached. She moved quickly into my open arms, and we kissed briefly. "Good morning, sleepy head." "Good morning, beautiful," I replied, giving her another quick kiss. Despite the below-freezing temperature outside, she was hot and sweaty from her exercise. She took off her windbreaker and pulled her sweatshirt over her head. She was wearing a black sports bra, that I thought looked very sexy on her athletic figure. "I need a shower." She said. Her exposed skin glistened with sweat. On impulse, I leaned in and licked her, from the middle of her chest, all the way up the side of her neck. She giggled and squirmed a bit and halfheartedly said. "Uh, gross." With my face still against her neck, I breathed in deep through my nose. "I love the way you smell." I licked the sweaty skin of her neck again. "I love the way you taste." She pulled back slightly so she could see me, and the look on her face told me that I had just taken a huge stride in squashing one of her insecurities. "Come shower with me," She said softly. I followed as she led me by the hand to the bathroom. The tiny space felt cramped with two people in it, but I loved the enforced closeness with Melissa. As sensually as she could in the space, she stripped off the rest of her clothes, then tugged down on the waistband of my underwear, sending them to my ankles. She kept her hands on my waist, and I put a hand to her face, kissing her sweetly. She bit the corner of her lower lip, in a pensive expression. "Will you..." She asked slowly. "Let me shave you?" I brushed a hand across my face. What facial hair I was able to grow was fine, blonde, and didn't grow very fast. My face still felt smooth from when I had shaved the previous morning. With a nervous smile, Melissa pointedly glanced down, and I caught her meaning. I had never shaved down there before, and honestly, the thought had never occurred to me. Seeing the slightly hopeful expression on her face, I was open to the idea. "Okay," I replied. Her face lit up. "Really?" I nodded with a reassuring smile. "Yeah." She gave me a quick kiss and started rummaging in a box under the sink. She found what she was looking for, holding up a professional-looking electric trimmer. "First step." She said, getting down on her knees in front of me. She plugged it in and adjusted the little lever that set the trim length. "Ready?" I nodded, finding myself slightly amazed that I felt no fear or hesitation in what she was about to do. She turned on the clippers, and it made a snapping noise, before buzzing loudly. With care, she began to trim above my cock, and big clumps of my curly blonde hair began falling to the tile floor. She patted the closed toilet lid, and I put a foot there, my legs spreading enough so she could get at the rest of me. Carefully, she trimmed one side, then the other, gently holding my erect cock aside as she worked. Then she moved to my balls, holding them as she trimmed up from my perineum. I shivered involuntarily from the vibrations of the trimmer on my most sensitive and private areas. She looked up at me with a smile. I could tell that she was enjoying herself immensely. "That feels good," I said, smiling down at her. She finished with my balls, taking great care in pulling the skin smooth as she trimmed. Before shutting the trimmer off, she held the side of it flat against my perineum and balls. I made a low moan as the powerful vibrations made my whole groin tingle. I was disappointed when the trimmer clicked off. I could see by her satisfied smile that she had made a mental note of how I had responded to that. My cock twitched at the thought of what she would do with that information. She blew hard and brushed her hands over me to get the loose bits of hair off. It felt significantly more drafty down there, and her hands felt cool on my nearly bare skin. The sensation of her hands on the short remnants of my pubic hair was very different, but not in a bad way. She stood and kissed me, then reached in and turned on the shower. She held her hand under the water until it was hot, then stepped in, pulling me in behind her. She had the temperature set much higher than I usually like it, but I got used to it very quickly. I held her in my arms and we kissed passionately as the water cascaded over us. She reluctantly ended the kiss and handed me a bottle of shower gel. "Wash me." She demanded, with desire in her eyes. I squirted gel into my hands, and knelt, deciding to start with her legs, knowing they must be sore from her run. I scrubbed with my hands, massaging her muscles from her feet to her thighs, first one leg, then the other. I loved the feel of her strong muscles and the firm contours they made. Her sighs of relief, when I devoted extra time to deeply massaging her calves and thighs, told me that I was right to start here. Melissa tended to wear loose-fitting clothes, like baggy jeans or sweatpants. I understood why. Her legs weren't what would be called 'classically feminine', and so she felt insecure about how they looked. I thought they were glorious, particularly in the fact that her thighs didn't touch, leaving a one-inch gap that left nothing unseen. I added this to the list of her insecurities that I intended to squash. I stood and kissed her briefly. Using more of the flowery scented gel, I washed her upper body, starting from her shoulders, and working my way down both arms. Again, I took my time, massaging her toned muscles, and getting more satisfied sighs for my efforts. I scrubbed her chest, getting a moan from her as I briefly swirled my soapy hands around her erect nipples. My hands moved across her flat belly, and though I couldn't see her six-pack, I could feel the definition of her muscles under her smooth skin. In the days after our first weekend as lovers, I had thought about the disparity in physical form between us. I wasn't fat, or even chubby. However, I didn't regularly work out or exercise, apart from what I got while at work, so I wasn't in nearly as good of shape as Melissa was. I had been afraid that I would become intimidated by her. Massaging her muscles like this, and feeling her strength, I freely admit that she was stronger than myself. Instead of being intimidating, I found it to be incredibly sexy, and motivating. She was a goddess, and I worshiped her with all of my being. I felt a drive within me to better myself so that she could feel the same way about me. I moved my hands to her groin, scrubbing her in a way that, while not overtly sexual, was incredibly sensuous. I slid a hand between her legs, cupping her ass from below, then ran my soapy finger through her crack. Feeling bold, and curious as to how she would react, I paid extra attention to her asshole, rubbing it briefly with the tip of my middle finger. I looked up at her when I did this. Her eyes were closed, and her smile got a little wider as she made a small indistinct sound of pleasure at the backdoor contact. I rinsed my hands and got more gel. I moved in close, and she draped her arms around my shoulders as my cock nestled between her legs. I scrubbed her back, massaging as I moved slowly down from her shoulders to her ass. She grabbed a bottle of shampoo and squirted some into my palm. "Don't wash all of my hair, just close to my scalp." She said, turning her back to me, and raising her chin. I did my best and managed to keep the suds from dripping into her eyes. I massaged her scalp with my fingertips, which she seemed to particularly enjoy. After rinsing her hair, I used her conditioner, and under her direction, on only the hair below her shoulders. I've got two older sisters, and plenty of female cousins, aunts, and nieces, so I knew that women have very specific routines that they follow with their hair. What instructions Melissa gave, I followed to the best of my ability. If I did it wrong, she didn't seem to care. When she turned to face me, her face had the same serene contentment that it had when she was asleep in my arms. She kissed me and said. "That was amazing. I want to be washed like that every single day for the rest of my life." "I want that too," I said. A ghost of a plan began to form in my mind, and as she began to return the act, washing me with as much care as I had washed her, it grew. It was an inspiration that seemed so perfect, I knew that it had to be right. As she washed me, a portion of my mind thought about what I needed to do later that day. Feeling her soapy hands on my body was heavenly, and surprising in its feeling of intimacy. I found myself sighing and groaning in pleasure as her hands relaxed all tension from my body. As she scrubbed my hair with her shampoo, she giggled. "What?" I asked, finding her giggling infectious. "I just realized, you're going to smell just like me for the rest of the day." "So I'm going to smell awesome? Sweet." I replied, leaning my head under the water as she rinsed my hair. That done, she reached out beyond the shower curtain and came back with a small bottle of shave gel and a bright pink razor. "You sure you're okay with this?" She asked. "Yes," I said with a reassuring smile. I had told her in my tent two weeks ago, that she could do anything that she wanted to do me and that I would love it because it was her doing it. While that was still true, I did want to know what it was like to be hairless. She had me sit on the little built-in bench in the shower, and spread my legs wide. She sat on the floor, close to me, and applied the shaving gel. My cock, having gone soft during the relaxing experience of having my body washed, returned to rock-hard status at her gentle touch. She giggled. "That will make things easier." She picked up the razor and prepared herself to begin. She took a deep breath, and I could tell that she was nervous. "Hey," I said gently, and she looked up, meeting my eyes. "I trust you." That seemed to be exactly what she needed to hear, and she began. She took her time, methodically shaving every bit of me. I will admit to feeling a small twinge of anxiety at feeling the blades of her pink razor moving across my most sensitive skin, but I really did trust her. I watched her steady hands as she worked, and felt a whole new kind of intimacy with Melissa. Feeling the trust I had for her, to overcome any fears I might have had and let her do this, was wonderful. She finished, and we stood. She used her hands to assist in rinsing me off, and I was amazed at how smooth her touch felt on me. I explored my freshly shaved skin, feeling the smoothness for myself. "What do you think?" She asked, a bit nervously. "I like it," I answered truthfully. "It's so smooth." She smiled, her relief plain to see. "It looks bigger," I said. It was her turn to attack one of my insecurities. I wasn't small, and by American standards, I was a little longer than average. But every single man on Earth is insecure to some degree about the size, shape, and appearance of his cock. Just, some more than others. "It's the perfect size for me. I don't need it to be bigger." She put her hands on me again, one around my cock, and the other cupping my balls, this time in a way that was decidedly more sexual. I put my arms around her and kissed her deeply as she continued to fondle me. I trailed a hand down her body and between her legs, teasing her with my fingers. Breaking off our kiss, I said. "I need to be inside of you." Her eyes told me that the need was mutual. She turned around, leaning against the shower wall. She arched her back, sticking her gorgeous ass out towards me, and giving it a little wiggle. I guided my cock into her pussy, sliding in slowly. She let out a satisfied sigh, and pushed back into me, her desire for me to be fully inside her, as great as my own. I had been hard for nearly the whole time since she had returned from her run, and the anticipation had built enough that I knew that I wouldn't last very long. So when I began to fuck her, I did it very slowly. Sometimes I would move as slowly as I could, taking thirty seconds or more to pull my cock out of her until I was almost fully out, before reversing direction and taking another thirty seconds to bottom out again. I loved watching the way her vagina stretched around me. Though it was not as intense of an experience as when I pounded into her as fast and as hard as I could, like we did last night, she seemed to be enjoying it immensely. She seemed to like it the most when I entered her as slowly as possible, and when I did that again, I could tell that she was getting close to cumming. As I ever so slowly slid into her, she moaned with her impending climax, and I had to use my hands on her hips to keep her from slamming back into me. If she liked this technique enough to cum, I wanted to make her cum with just the one type of motion. As my cock crept ever deeper, her breathing got heavier. When finally I bottomed out and pulled her tightly back onto me, she came. I smiled as her pussy gripped me tightly, and she shuddered uncontrollably. Still twitching from her orgasm, she pulled herself off of me, and spun around, kissing me intensely. I pushed myself against her, and we bumped back into the shower wall. Melissa lifted a leg and wrapped it around my waist, holding me in close. I reached down and guided my cock into her again, and she moaned loudly. Freely losing myself to our shared passion, I began to thrust into her. She had her arms over my shoulders, holding on tightly. Suddenly, she put her full weight down onto my shoulders, then took her other foot off the floor, wrapping it around me. I reached down and grabbed her ass, lifting her so she could get a better hold around my waist with her legs. With her legs around me, my hands under her ass, and her back against the wall, she was able to take her weight off my shoulders. She cradled my face in her hands and we stared into each other's eyes as I began to pound into her. I didn't know if it was the angle of my entry or the novelty of the position, but she was almost immediately on the verge of cumming again. As it was last night, the feedback loop of our ecstasy was built with unstoppable quickness, and we both cried out as we came. She squeezed me tightly, almost painfully tightly, with her legs, as her pulsating pussy milked the cum out of me. My legs were burning with the effort of holding her up, so I let her down onto her own slightly wobbly legs. She held on to me to keep herself steady and gazed into my eyes. "How is it possible that we are so good at that?" She asked. I smiled lovingly, feeling the same wonder. "Seriously, every time is better than the last! If you make me cum any harder, I think I'm going to pass out!" We laughed and kissed joyously. The water in the shower had gone lukewarm at some point during our lovemaking, but neither of us had noticed. We both gasped though, when it suddenly turned cold. I was ready to jump out of the shower, but Melissa had me stay, so we could clean off the remains of our sex. She reached between her legs, and I could tell that she was flexing her pelvic floor muscles as she pushed my seed out of her. She brought her cum covered hand up to her mouth, licking it clean. I surprised her by kissing her, and tasting my cum inside her mouth, and felt her smile as we kissed. She had surprised me with that two weeks ago, and though I still found the idea of tasting my seed on my own slightly repulsive, tasting it inside Melissa's mouth was a completely different story. We kissed until it was gone, and she watched me with a smile as I knelt and washed her quickly with the cold water. Once she was clean, I ushered her out of the cold shower and rinsed myself off. When I stepped out of the shower, she greeted me by wrapping a towel around me. I grabbed a second towel off the rack and began drying her off. The whole time, we smiled at each other, both almost giddy in our shared experience. It was by far the longest, and most enjoyable, shower of my life. From the washing to the shaving to the amazing sex, it almost seemed like a dream. Looking into Melissa's eyes, I could see that she felt what I felt at that moment. That, just as our sex gets better every time, with every experience we share, in every single moment we are together, our bond grows stronger. When we were both dry, and Melissa had a towel wrapped around her hair, I hugged her. "I love you more than I thought was possible," I whispered. She didn't reply. She didn't need to reply. Her eyes said more than words ever could. Chapter Thirteen. We went to her bedroom, and I pulled a clean pair of underwear out of my backpack. I had them halfway on when I had to stop and watch Melissa. She was putting on her underwear, a very skimpy-looking thong. Its red fabric had a sheen to it, like silk or satin. She saw me watching her, and took up a sexy pose, smiling at me demurely. "Like what you see?" "Oh, yes," I said, walking over to her, and putting a hand on the front of the thong. Satin. I ran my fingers along the smooth string that went around from the front and gave her bare ass cheeks a firm squeeze with both hands. "I could take you again right now." She giggled and rested her hands on my chest. "I could let you." I was about to kiss her and was seriously intending to follow through on my statement when my stomach rumbled loudly. "Oh, you poor boy, you're starving!" Melissa said. "Yeah, I'm hungry too." She turned, picking up a fuzzy bathrobe and putting it on. I made a disappointed sound when she closed it, tying the chord. She grabbed my hand and led me out of the bedroom. "I meant to make you breakfast after my run, but we got... distracted." I chuckled. "Darn." She looked back at me and grinned. Entering the kitchen, as much as the tiny space could be called that, I noticed that she had indeed been intending to cook me breakfast. There was a carton of eggs and a frying pan set out next to the gas stove. "I hope you like your eggs scrambled, because that's the only way how to cook them." "I prefer them scrambled," I said honestly. I smiled as I watched her turn on the stove, and put a pad of butter in the pan. She looked over at me. "Go get dressed. Put on the black pants I asked you to bring. You brought black pants, right?" I nodded, still smiling at her. "What?" She asked with a little self-conscious chuckle. I stepped in and gave her a sweet closed-lip kiss. "You're amazing," I said, then turned to go get dressed. I glanced back as she was opening the egg carton, with a huge smile on her face. Returning to the kitchen fully dressed in a white tee shirt and black pants that honestly were a little tight on me, I saw that the eggs were almost ready. She dished out the contents of the pan onto two plates, handing me the one with the slightly larger share of eggs. To be continued in part 4. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts, for Literotica.

Cabin Cousins: Part 3 The love between Charles and Melissa grows. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Connections. Chapter Eleven I pressed the green 'send' button and put my phone to my ear as it began to ring. It rang only once before the clear voice of an angel excitedly asked, "Hello?". "Hi, Melissa! I made it home safe," I replied with an equal amount of excitement. "I miss you already," Melissa said with a sigh. "I miss you too." Hearing her voice and remembering the events of the last couple of days, made me hard. As we talked, about nothing in particular, I absently rubbed my erection through my jeans. We talked for about an hour, before we were both running out of things to say. "When can we see each other again?" She asked the question I know she had been dying to ask since she first said hello." "I'm already on the schedule to work open to close all of next weekend, and I don't think I could get away with taking two weekends off in a row." "Yeah, I have to work too." She said. "My bosses are going out of town, so there's no way I could get out of it." "What about the weekend after that? I could probably get it off." I asked hopefully. "Me too." Then, excitedly. "That Saturday is Halloween! We could go to a party?" "That sounds like fun. Up there, or down here?" I asked, meaning where she lived in Duluth, or where I did in the Twin Cities. "Up here. There won't be any brothers sneaking around to overhear us." We both laughed, still slightly embarrassed that my older brother Mark had heard us making love in my tent before dawn that very morning. "I'll figure out what party we'll go to. You need to make up a convincing excuse for your parents on why you're going to be in Duluth all weekend." She said, reminding us both of the importance of keeping our relationship a secret. "I can do that." I didn't want to stop talking with Melissa ever, but I knew I had to. Sighing, I said. "I have to work early tomorrow. I should go get something to eat and get to bed." "Yeah, me too," Her reluctance to end the call was evident. "I'll call you at about eight tomorrow night?" "I'll be here," I said, already excited at the prospect of talking with her again. "I love you, Charles." Those simple words made my heart flutter. "I love you, Melissa," I replied, and in an unspoken agreement that we wouldn't say goodbye, we both ended the call. I sat there for a while, my heart still fluttering. In less than two weeks, I'll see her again. This time, I'll be going to her place in Duluth. The idea of spending a weekend with her, without having to worry about being found out, made me almost giddy with excitement. That night, when I jerked off before falling asleep, it was with the thought of what Melissa and I would do alone in her apartment. When she called me the next day, it was with her new cell phone. She said she had to get one because now she had important calls that she couldn't miss. It wasn't a big thing, but it felt good that she would do it just to make sure she could talk to me. We talked every night for the next week and a half and made our plans for the upcoming weekend. I would go up after work Friday night, and then on Saturday, we would go to a party that one of Melissa's friends, Ashley, was already planning on going to. Melissa excitedly explained that we were going to double date with her friend and her friend's boyfriend, James and that they already had a plan for a costume theme. As curious as I was, Melissa playfully refused to tell me what the theme was, saying that she would take care of getting our costumes together. I had gotten in touch with a high school friend of mine who had started classes at the state university. Rob was a year older than me and had been living in a dorm on campus. I asked him straight up if I could use visiting him as an excuse for being in Duluth with a girl I didn't want my parents to know about. (I specifically did not mention who this girl was.) "You'll owe me one." He had said, laughing. "But I got you, bro." The days went by slowly, the growing ache in my heart tempered only by our nightly phone calls. Knowing that I would hear her voice in the evening, was something I looked forward to from the moment the previous call ended. I loved our talks, even when neither of us had anything particularly interesting to say. But I needed more. I needed to hold her, smell her, and taste her on my lips. The most anticipated Friday had finally come. Since I was taking the rest of the weekend off, my boss had convinced me to work a long shift. A twelve-hour shift that started at eight in the morning sucked, but the money was nice. Besides, Melissa had to work until eight to close up the store she worked at anyway. My work was busy most of the day, the store being filled with people buying last-minute Halloween decorations, or supplies to get one more project done while the weather was still decent. In the evening, business trailed off, and by six-thirty, the store was nearly empty. I tracked down the outdoor lumberyard supervisor, Gary, who was my immediate boss. I asked him if since it was so dead in the store, I could leave early. He laughed and asked if I had a hot date. I grinned and said that yeah, I actually did. He made shooing gestures at me with his hands and laughed again, telling me to hurry up and get out of there. On my way out of the store, I went through a checkout line to buy a pack of breath mints. I saw disposable cameras hanging on a hook next to all the other assorted impulse-buy items they had on display there. I realized that I didn't have a single picture of Melissa, so I bought one of those too. Sales strategy: successful. I had packed my bag the night before, so I left work and drove directly onto the freeway to head north. It was a little more than a two-hour drive to Duluth, but it seemed to take twice that long. I couldn't wait to hold Melissa again. My mouth watered at the thought of kissing her, and my pants got tight when I thought of the moans she would make as I made her cum. I had done some "research" in the time we had last seen each other, and I had a few new things I wanted to try. So lost was I in my imagination, that I almost missed my exit. I pulled off the freeway, and onto Grand Ave. I was less than a mile away now, and the closer I got to her apartment, the more my anticipation grew. As I pulled into the parking lot, and stopped my truck next to Melissa's Toyota, my heart was pounding with excitement. I got out of my truck and was about to knock on her door, the one marked (appropriately, I thought) with the number ten. Before I could knock, the door swung inwards, and there she was. Dressed in gray sweatpants and a pale pink tank top, she stood there for a moment, grinning at me like a little kid who had just opened a Christmas present to find the thing she had wanted most in the whole world. Suddenly, she leaped forward and nearly knocked me over as she wrapped her arms around me. She buried her face against my neck, inhaling deeply. "You're real." She said softly. She pulled back a bit and giggled when she saw the slightly confused expression on my face. She kissed me, deeply and passionately. It was sweeter than I had dreamed about, more delicious than, well, words fail to describe it. All I can say is that after nearly two weeks apart, kissing her was pure bliss. She made a soft moan into my mouth when I grabbed her ass and pulled her in tight to me. I could feel through her sweatpants that she wasn't wearing panties, and my cock twitched at the thought. Neither of us wanted to stop the kiss, but I felt her shiver in the crisp night air. She broke off the kiss and took a half step towards the door. "It's cold out here, come inside." "I gotta grab my backpack," I said pointing back to my truck. "Close the door tight when you come in, it kinda sticks." She said, dashing inside and closing the door just enough so it didn't latch. I grabbed my bag, and hurried in, bumping my back hard against the door until the latch clicked. I got my first look at her apartment. In a word, it was small. It was pretty much a converted motel room. There was a small living room in the front, nearly filled with just a couch, a small desk and chair, and a TV stand. Behind the couch was a countertop island, and just enough kitchen space to fit a refrigerator, a stove, and a sink. To the side of that, was a narrow hallway that I assumed led to the bathroom and bedroom. The furnishings were second-hand, but the place was clean, and had a somewhat cozy feel to it. I had taken all this in in a few seconds, but then my eyes noticed something. On the floor in the living room was a pale pink tank top, the one Melissa had been wearing just a moment before. I dropped my backpack next to the door and started towards the hallway. Though the front room was brightly lit, the hall and what lay beyond was dark. I found her sweatpants, then a little farther, a bra. My eyes were slowly becoming adjusted to the dark, and I could see the outline of a bed in the middle of a small room. As I approached, I began to undress, carelessly tossing my work clothes on the floor. Now completely naked, I put my hands down on the edge of the bed and found her perfect bare feet. I caressed her soles for a moment, then slowly ran my hands up her legs. As I climbed onto the bed, my hands slid further up, and I followed them with a trail of light kisses. When my face reached her groin, I could feel her squirm, eager for my touch. I could smell the wonderful scent of her arousal and could feel the heat of her radiating onto my face. Gently, I pushed her knees aside and slid my palms up her inner thighs. I lowered my face, and as softly as I could, I ran the tip of my tongue up the length of her labia. She inhaled sharply and shuddered. I moved my tongue back down, with the gentlest of contact, and she rocked her hips towards me, desperate for me to do more. Slowly, I pushed my tongue against her hole, and licked her fully, her lips spreading as my tongue moved up. When it brushed across her clit, she twitched and groaned in pleasure. I closed my mouth over her, and lapped gently, running my tongue between her lips and across her clit over and over. She put her hands on my head, holding my face to her as her moans grew louder. Every so often, I changed the motion of my tongue, how fast it went, and how hard or softly I licked her, paying close attention to how her body reacted, and making changes accordingly. We fell into a rhythm, where she started rocking her hips in time with my tongue, and with every motion she expelled her rapid breath quick sharp groan. Suddenly, her hands grasped my hair tightly, and she held her breath as her whole body convulsed. She let out a long satisfied moan, her body continuing to twitch periodically. I licked slowly alongside, and below her pussy, lapping up her delicious juices. She continued to moan, becoming quieter as she came down from her explosive orgasm. I felt so much joy that I was able to do this to her. Her pleasure was my pleasure. Finally, when she was able to speak, she gasped out. "Oh my God that was intense!" She pulled on the back of my head urgently. "Come here." As I moved up, I quickly swiped a hand over my soaking wet face and smeared it on my cock. The hands on the back of my head led my lips to hers, and when our mouths met, I guided my cock into her, burying myself as deeply as I could. We both exhaled a grunt of pleasure. Her legs wrapped tightly around me as we kissed furiously, losing ourselves to unbridled desire. I began to pump my cock in and out of her with deep, hard thrusts. We had to stop kissing to breathe, so we just stared into each other's eyes. The connection we had made two weeks ago was somehow made stronger with our separation. As we gave ourselves completely to each other, we became something so much greater than ourselves. We were a single being, as beautiful as it was indestructible, burning brighter than the sun. With every stroke, her legs pulled me into her, and she started gasping out the occasional word in her sharp exhalations, words like 'yes' and 'harder' and 'faster'. As I felt my orgasm building with unstoppable urgency, I could feel Melissa's build. In a positive feedback loop, her pleasure fueled my own, which in turn fueled hers. Again, as if we were a singular creature, we climaxed together. We never once broke eye contact as I filled her with my seed, and she spasmed tightly around my cock. We both exclaimed in exultant joy at the release. I held her face with my hands, and she held mine. We kissed quickly, as we both struggled to catch our breath. I was in a state of utter awe. Before Melissa, I could never have imagined that it was possible to reach such a state of physical and emotional euphoria. Melissa's eyes were like mirrors to my soul. I saw reflected there, all the love I felt for her, all of my wonder, and my sense of ultimate unity. Saying the words 'I love you' and hearing her respond in kind, would be so inadequate a way to express how we felt about each other, but I said them anyway. "I love you, Melissa," I whispered. "I love you, Charles." She whispered back. We nuzzled each other's necks, both still buzzing in the come-down from our glorious lovemaking. Eventually, though, my cock went soft, and she made that adorable disappointed noise when it slipped out of her. I felt a bit of disappointment of my own, as the weariness of my long day began to set in, and I knew that I didn't have it in me to have a second go with Melissa. She reluctantly released me from the vise-like grip of her legs, and I moved onto my side next to her. She turned and lay on her side, facing away from me. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close, and she wiggled her ass until my sex-slick cock rested between her cheeks. She sighed with contentment. "Melissa?" "Hmm?" She responded. "When I got here, what did you mean when you said that I was real?" "It was because of a dream I had last night." She said, somewhat sheepishly. "Oh?" I asked. "Yeah. It's kind of silly now, but it was one of those dreams that seem so real. I dreamed that I was here waiting for you. I waited and waited, and you never showed up. So I called you, and your number was disconnected. I looked in my diary, I don't even have a diary, but for some reason, I did in the dream, and it was all just boring stuff. Not a single mention of you at all, not even from when we were just kids. In the dream, I came to the realization that I had imagined everything, that I had become so lonely that I made up my perfect guy, my perfect best friend, and you didn't actually exist." "I'm here," I said. "All of this really happened." "I know." She moved my hand that was around her chest up to her lips, kissing it. "It's just that it seemed so real, it just stuck with me all day, you know?" "Have you been that lonely?" I asked, feeling a pang of sympathy. She nodded slowly. "For as long as I can remember. I've got friends, but I've never been super close to any of them. I've never had anyone who I felt comfortable enough with to just be myself. No one except you." I gave her a little squeeze, and she held my arm tightly to her chest. She continued speaking. "I lived for those weekends at the cabin with you. It was the only thing I looked forward to, the only time growing up that I can remember being truly happy." "What about your parents?" I asked cautiously, still not knowing the story about what happened, and whether or not it was an uncomfortable subject. "I don't want to think about them right now." "I'm sorry," I said, feeling horrified that I might have upset her. She kissed my hand again. "It's okay, really. We can talk about them tomorrow if you want, just..." She yawned and pulled my arms tight around her. "Not right now." I felt such empathy towards her. Hearing of her loneliness, and imagining what was behind it, hurt my heart, as if I had felt it firsthand. I made another silent vow to myself, that I would never let her feel alone. In making that vow, I knew, as surely as I knew that gravity pulls down, or that fire was hot, that I would be there for her forever. I would happily devote my entire life to her, with zero regrets. It was simply the way it was. I kissed her bare shoulder and nuzzled my face into her hair. We were both silent after that, and very soon, I could tell that she had drifted off to sleep. I closed my eyes and listened to her slow steady breath until it lulled me to sleep. Chapter Twelve. I awoke alone in Melissa's bed. I checked my watch, it was just after nine in the morning. I had arrived at about nine last night, and we were both asleep not all that long after that. I couldn't remember the last time I had slept for that long. It felt good. As I stretched, I discovered a note on the pillow next to me. It read: "I wanted to ravish you this morning, but you were sleeping so soundly, I couldn't bring myself to wake you up. I went for a run, be back soon. Love, Melissa." I was sure that, given the choice, I would always happily sacrifice some sleep to be ravished by Melissa. I smiled to myself. We'll just have to make up for it later. I found my underwear in a corner, pulled them on, and headed to the bathroom to take a leak. I retrieved my bag from where I had dropped it last night, carefully tucked Melissa's note away, and dug out my toiletries pouch. I had brushed my teeth and was rinsing with some mouthwash when I heard a key turn the lock on the front door. Melissa pushed the door closed, and smiled when she saw me walking out of the hallway. She kept it very warm in her apartment, so I had been fine to stay in just my boxer briefs. She eyed me up and down as I approached. She moved quickly into my open arms, and we kissed briefly. "Good morning, sleepy head." "Good morning, beautiful," I replied, giving her another quick kiss. Despite the below-freezing temperature outside, she was hot and sweaty from her exercise. She took off her windbreaker and pulled her sweatshirt over her head. She was wearing a black sports bra, that I thought looked very sexy on her athletic figure. "I need a shower." She said. Her exposed skin glistened with sweat. On impulse, I leaned in and licked her, from the middle of her chest, all the way up the side of her neck. She giggled and squirmed a bit and halfheartedly said. "Uh, gross." With my face still against her neck, I breathed in deep through my nose. "I love the way you smell." I licked the sweaty skin of her neck again. "I love the way you taste." She pulled back slightly so she could see me, and the look on her face told me that I had just taken a huge stride in squashing one of her insecurities. "Come shower with me," She said softly. I followed as she led me by the hand to the bathroom. The tiny space felt cramped with two people in it, but I loved the enforced closeness with Melissa. As sensually as she could in the space, she stripped off the rest of her clothes, then tugged down on the waistband of my underwear, sending them to my ankles. She kept her hands on my waist, and I put a hand to her face, kissing her sweetly. She bit the corner of her lower lip, in a pensive expression. "Will you..." She asked slowly. "Let me shave you?" I brushed a hand across my face. What facial hair I was able to grow was fine, blonde, and didn't grow very fast. My face still felt smooth from when I had shaved the previous morning. With a nervous smile, Melissa pointedly glanced down, and I caught her meaning. I had never shaved down there before, and honestly, the thought had never occurred to me. Seeing the slightly hopeful expression on her face, I was open to the idea. "Okay," I replied. Her face lit up. "Really?" I nodded with a reassuring smile. "Yeah." She gave me a quick kiss and started rummaging in a box under the sink. She found what she was looking for, holding up a professional-looking electric trimmer. "First step." She said, getting down on her knees in front of me. She plugged it in and adjusted the little lever that set the trim length. "Ready?" I nodded, finding myself slightly amazed that I felt no fear or hesitation in what she was about to do. She turned on the clippers, and it made a snapping noise, before buzzing loudly. With care, she began to trim above my cock, and big clumps of my curly blonde hair began falling to the tile floor. She patted the closed toilet lid, and I put a foot there, my legs spreading enough so she could get at the rest of me. Carefully, she trimmed one side, then the other, gently holding my erect cock aside as she worked. Then she moved to my balls, holding them as she trimmed up from my perineum. I shivered involuntarily from the vibrations of the trimmer on my most sensitive and private areas. She looked up at me with a smile. I could tell that she was enjoying herself immensely. "That feels good," I said, smiling down at her. She finished with my balls, taking great care in pulling the skin smooth as she trimmed. Before shutting the trimmer off, she held the side of it flat against my perineum and balls. I made a low moan as the powerful vibrations made my whole groin tingle. I was disappointed when the trimmer clicked off. I could see by her satisfied smile that she had made a mental note of how I had responded to that. My cock twitched at the thought of what she would do with that information. She blew hard and brushed her hands over me to get the loose bits of hair off. It felt significantly more drafty down there, and her hands felt cool on my nearly bare skin. The sensation of her hands on the short remnants of my pubic hair was very different, but not in a bad way. She stood and kissed me, then reached in and turned on the shower. She held her hand under the water until it was hot, then stepped in, pulling me in behind her. She had the temperature set much higher than I usually like it, but I got used to it very quickly. I held her in my arms and we kissed passionately as the water cascaded over us. She reluctantly ended the kiss and handed me a bottle of shower gel. "Wash me." She demanded, with desire in her eyes. I squirted gel into my hands, and knelt, deciding to start with her legs, knowing they must be sore from her run. I scrubbed with my hands, massaging her muscles from her feet to her thighs, first one leg, then the other. I loved the feel of her strong muscles and the firm contours they made. Her sighs of relief, when I devoted extra time to deeply massaging her calves and thighs, told me that I was right to start here. Melissa tended to wear loose-fitting clothes, like baggy jeans or sweatpants. I understood why. Her legs weren't what would be called 'classically feminine', and so she felt insecure about how they looked. I thought they were glorious, particularly in the fact that her thighs didn't touch, leaving a one-inch gap that left nothing unseen. I added this to the list of her insecurities that I intended to squash. I stood and kissed her briefly. Using more of the flowery scented gel, I washed her upper body, starting from her shoulders, and working my way down both arms. Again, I took my time, massaging her toned muscles, and getting more satisfied sighs for my efforts. I scrubbed her chest, getting a moan from her as I briefly swirled my soapy hands around her erect nipples. My hands moved across her flat belly, and though I couldn't see her six-pack, I could feel the definition of her muscles under her smooth skin. In the days after our first weekend as lovers, I had thought about the disparity in physical form between us. I wasn't fat, or even chubby. However, I didn't regularly work out or exercise, apart from what I got while at work, so I wasn't in nearly as good of shape as Melissa was. I had been afraid that I would become intimidated by her. Massaging her muscles like this, and feeling her strength, I freely admit that she was stronger than myself. Instead of being intimidating, I found it to be incredibly sexy, and motivating. She was a goddess, and I worshiped her with all of my being. I felt a drive within me to better myself so that she could feel the same way about me. I moved my hands to her groin, scrubbing her in a way that, while not overtly sexual, was incredibly sensuous. I slid a hand between her legs, cupping her ass from below, then ran my soapy finger through her crack. Feeling bold, and curious as to how she would react, I paid extra attention to her asshole, rubbing it briefly with the tip of my middle finger. I looked up at her when I did this. Her eyes were closed, and her smile got a little wider as she made a small indistinct sound of pleasure at the backdoor contact. I rinsed my hands and got more gel. I moved in close, and she draped her arms around my shoulders as my cock nestled between her legs. I scrubbed her back, massaging as I moved slowly down from her shoulders to her ass. She grabbed a bottle of shampoo and squirted some into my palm. "Don't wash all of my hair, just close to my scalp." She said, turning her back to me, and raising her chin. I did my best and managed to keep the suds from dripping into her eyes. I massaged her scalp with my fingertips, which she seemed to particularly enjoy. After rinsing her hair, I used her conditioner, and under her direction, on only the hair below her shoulders. I've got two older sisters, and plenty of female cousins, aunts, and nieces, so I knew that women have very specific routines that they follow with their hair. What instructions Melissa gave, I followed to the best of my ability. If I did it wrong, she didn't seem to care. When she turned to face me, her face had the same serene contentment that it had when she was asleep in my arms. She kissed me and said. "That was amazing. I want to be washed like that every single day for the rest of my life." "I want that too," I said. A ghost of a plan began to form in my mind, and as she began to return the act, washing me with as much care as I had washed her, it grew. It was an inspiration that seemed so perfect, I knew that it had to be right. As she washed me, a portion of my mind thought about what I needed to do later that day. Feeling her soapy hands on my body was heavenly, and surprising in its feeling of intimacy. I found myself sighing and groaning in pleasure as her hands relaxed all tension from my body. As she scrubbed my hair with her shampoo, she giggled. "What?" I asked, finding her giggling infectious. "I just realized, you're going to smell just like me for the rest of the day." "So I'm going to smell awesome? Sweet." I replied, leaning my head under the water as she rinsed my hair. That done, she reached out beyond the shower curtain and came back with a small bottle of shave gel and a bright pink razor. "You sure you're okay with this?" She asked. "Yes," I said with a reassuring smile. I had told her in my tent two weeks ago, that she could do anything that she wanted to do me and that I would love it because it was her doing it. While that was still true, I did want to know what it was like to be hairless. She had me sit on the little built-in bench in the shower, and spread my legs wide. She sat on the floor, close to me, and applied the shaving gel. My cock, having gone soft during the relaxing experience of having my body washed, returned to rock-hard status at her gentle touch. She giggled. "That will make things easier." She picked up the razor and prepared herself to begin. She took a deep breath, and I could tell that she was nervous. "Hey," I said gently, and she looked up, meeting my eyes. "I trust you." That seemed to be exactly what she needed to hear, and she began. She took her time, methodically shaving every bit of me. I will admit to feeling a small twinge of anxiety at feeling the blades of her pink razor moving across my most sensitive skin, but I really did trust her. I watched her steady hands as she worked, and felt a whole new kind of intimacy with Melissa. Feeling the trust I had for her, to overcome any fears I might have had and let her do this, was wonderful. She finished, and we stood. She used her hands to assist in rinsing me off, and I was amazed at how smooth her touch felt on me. I explored my freshly shaved skin, feeling the smoothness for myself. "What do you think?" She asked, a bit nervously. "I like it," I answered truthfully. "It's so smooth." She smiled, her relief plain to see. "It looks bigger," I said. It was her turn to attack one of my insecurities. I wasn't small, and by American standards, I was a little longer than average. But every single man on Earth is insecure to some degree about the size, shape, and appearance of his cock. Just, some more than others. "It's the perfect size for me. I don't need it to be bigger." She put her hands on me again, one around my cock, and the other cupping my balls, this time in a way that was decidedly more sexual. I put my arms around her and kissed her deeply as she continued to fondle me. I trailed a hand down her body and between her legs, teasing her with my fingers. Breaking off our kiss, I said. "I need to be inside of you." Her eyes told me that the need was mutual. She turned around, leaning against the shower wall. She arched her back, sticking her gorgeous ass out towards me, and giving it a little wiggle. I guided my cock into her pussy, sliding in slowly. She let out a satisfied sigh, and pushed back into me, her desire for me to be fully inside her, as great as my own. I had been hard for nearly the whole time since she had returned from her run, and the anticipation had built enough that I knew that I wouldn't last very long. So when I began to fuck her, I did it very slowly. Sometimes I would move as slowly as I could, taking thirty seconds or more to pull my cock out of her until I was almost fully out, before reversing direction and taking another thirty seconds to bottom out again. I loved watching the way her vagina stretched around me. Though it was not as intense of an experience as when I pounded into her as fast and as hard as I could, like we did last night, she seemed to be enjoying it immensely. She seemed to like it the most when I entered her as slowly as possible, and when I did that again, I could tell that she was getting close to cumming. As I ever so slowly slid into her, she moaned with her impending climax, and I had to use my hands on her hips to keep her from slamming back into me. If she liked this technique enough to cum, I wanted to make her cum with just the one type of motion. As my cock crept ever deeper, her breathing got heavier. When finally I bottomed out and pulled her tightly back onto me, she came. I smiled as her pussy gripped me tightly, and she shuddered uncontrollably. Still twitching from her orgasm, she pulled herself off of me, and spun around, kissing me intensely. I pushed myself against her, and we bumped back into the shower wall. Melissa lifted a leg and wrapped it around my waist, holding me in close. I reached down and guided my cock into her again, and she moaned loudly. Freely losing myself to our shared passion, I began to thrust into her. She had her arms over my shoulders, holding on tightly. Suddenly, she put her full weight down onto my shoulders, then took her other foot off the floor, wrapping it around me. I reached down and grabbed her ass, lifting her so she could get a better hold around my waist with her legs. With her legs around me, my hands under her ass, and her back against the wall, she was able to take her weight off my shoulders. She cradled my face in her hands and we stared into each other's eyes as I began to pound into her. I didn't know if it was the angle of my entry or the novelty of the position, but she was almost immediately on the verge of cumming again. As it was last night, the feedback loop of our ecstasy was built with unstoppable quickness, and we both cried out as we came. She squeezed me tightly, almost painfully tightly, with her legs, as her pulsating pussy milked the cum out of me. My legs were burning with the effort of holding her up, so I let her down onto her own slightly wobbly legs. She held on to me to keep herself steady and gazed into my eyes. "How is it possible that we are so good at that?" She asked. I smiled lovingly, feeling the same wonder. "Seriously, every time is better than the last! If you make me cum any harder, I think I'm going to pass out!" We laughed and kissed joyously. The water in the shower had gone lukewarm at some point during our lovemaking, but neither of us had noticed. We both gasped though, when it suddenly turned cold. I was ready to jump out of the shower, but Melissa had me stay, so we could clean off the remains of our sex. She reached between her legs, and I could tell that she was flexing her pelvic floor muscles as she pushed my seed out of her. She brought her cum covered hand up to her mouth, licking it clean. I surprised her by kissing her, and tasting my cum inside her mouth, and felt her smile as we kissed. She had surprised me with that two weeks ago, and though I still found the idea of tasting my seed on my own slightly repulsive, tasting it inside Melissa's mouth was a completely different story. We kissed until it was gone, and she watched me with a smile as I knelt and washed her quickly with the cold water. Once she was clean, I ushered her out of the cold shower and rinsed myself off. When I stepped out of the shower, she greeted me by wrapping a towel around me. I grabbed a second towel off the rack and began drying her off. The whole time, we smiled at each other, both almost giddy in our shared experience. It was by far the longest, and most enjoyable, shower of my life. From the washing to the shaving to the amazing sex, it almost seemed like a dream. Looking into Melissa's eyes, I could see that she felt what I felt at that moment. That, just as our sex gets better every time, with every experience we share, in every single moment we are together, our bond grows stronger. When we were both dry, and Melissa had a towel wrapped around her hair, I hugged her. "I love you more than I thought was possible," I whispered. She didn't reply. She didn't need to reply. Her eyes said more than words ever could. Chapter Thirteen. We went to her bedroom, and I pulled a clean pair of underwear out of my backpack. I had them halfway on when I had to stop and watch Melissa. She was putting on her underwear, a very skimpy-looking thong. Its red fabric had a sheen to it, like silk or satin. She saw me watching her, and took up a sexy pose, smiling at me demurely. "Like what you see?" "Oh, yes," I said, walking over to her, and putting a hand on the front of the thong. Satin. I ran my fingers along the smooth string that went around from the front and gave her bare ass cheeks a firm squeeze with both hands. "I could take you again right now." She giggled and rested her hands on my chest. "I could let you." I was about to kiss her and was seriously intending to follow through on my statement when my stomach rumbled loudly. "Oh, you poor boy, you're starving!" Melissa said. "Yeah, I'm hungry too." She turned, picking up a fuzzy bathrobe and putting it on. I made a disappointed sound when she closed it, tying the chord. She grabbed my hand and led me out of the bedroom. "I meant to make you breakfast after my run, but we got... distracted." I chuckled. "Darn." She looked back at me and grinned. Entering the kitchen, as much as the tiny space could be called that, I noticed that she had indeed been intending to cook me breakfast. There was a carton of eggs and a frying pan set out next to the gas stove. "I hope you like your eggs scrambled, because that's the only way how to cook them." "I prefer them scrambled," I said honestly. I smiled as I watched her turn on the stove, and put a pad of butter in the pan. She looked over at me. "Go get dressed. Put on the black pants I asked you to bring. You brought black pants, right?" I nodded, still smiling at her. "What?" She asked with a little self-conscious chuckle. I stepped in and gave her a sweet closed-lip kiss. "You're amazing," I said, then turned to go get dressed. I glanced back as she was opening the egg carton, with a huge smile on her face. Returning to the kitchen fully dressed in a white tee shirt and black pants that honestly were a little tight on me, I saw that the eggs were almost ready. She dished out the contents of the pan onto two plates, handing me the one with the slightly larger share of eggs. To be continued in part 4. Based on a post by NewMountain80, in 6 parts, for Literotica.

It is the Summer of 2025, a time like no other in Los Angeles, California. There is drama on the streets, especially in Latino neighborhoods, where masked men jump out of unmarked cars and grab people who look like they might not have citizenship papers. It is at this time that the Latino Theatre Company has decided to mount their famous play, AUGUST 29, originally premiered in 1990, about a crisis and a killing in 1970 in East Los Angeles, a mostly Mexican American - Chicano area. Listen to Evelina Fernandez, founding member of the Latino Theatre Company now celebrating their 40th year, who knows the history of abuse toward Latinos in Los Angeles and cities across the USA, and can give first person tales of the back story of the play, AUGUST 29. The theatrical work created long ago inspires us to contemplate where we are as a society in 2025..AUGUST 29's last performances at the Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC) in downtown, Los Angeles are August 22, 23, and 24. Performances will be held in other venues throughout September. It is being produced in partnership with the students of the Los Angeles City College Theatre Academy. CONTACT: LATC Ticket Office for performance information, (213) 489-0994FREE ADMISSIONThe Los Angeles Theatre Center - Theater 1Friday, August 22 - 8:00PMSaturday, August 23 - 8:00PMSunday, August 24 - 4:00PMhttps://www.latinotheaterco.org/august29Box Office: (213) 489-0994, tickets@thelatc.org514 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013Plan Your Visit: DIRECTIONS & PARKING East Los Angeles CollegeAugust 29, 2025 at 8:00 PM (Sold Out)S2 Recital Hallhttps://www.latinotheaterco.org/august29Box Office: (213) 489-0994, tickets@thelatc.org1301 Avenida Cesar ChavezMonterey Park, CA 91754Mt. San Antonio CollegeSeptember 18, 2025 at 7:00 PMSeptember 19, 2025 at 7:00 PMSophia B. Clarke Theaterhttps://www.latinotheaterco.org/august29Box Office: (213) 489-0994, tickets@thelatc.org1100 N. Grand Ave.,Walnut, CA 91789

IWP Ep82 Bradford Taylor - Ordinaire and Diversey Wine. Today I'm talking with Bradford Taylor of Ordinaire and Diversey Wines.  We discuss how Ordinaire came to be, it's early days, some of the challenges that made it double down on natural wine, where the shop fits into the natural wines scene and much more. It's always a vibrant place with it's own personality.  Producers tend to congregate there and events like Brumaire help to spread the word of natural wine even more.  You  can find the shop at https://ordinairewine.com/ or even better in person at  3354 Grand Ave or follow the shop at http://instagram.com/ordinaire_oaklandFollow the podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.instagram.com/indiewinepodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or email indiewinepodcast@gmail.com with questions, comments or feedback. Please rate or subscribe or if you are able consider making a donation to help me keep telling wine stories ad free and available for everyone. -⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.patreon.com/IndieWinePodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/indie-wine-podcast/id1673557547⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/06FsKGiM9mYhhCHEFDOwjb⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/indiewinepodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

05-05-25 - Shooting In West Valley Shuts Down Grand Ave - Stories From A Fun UFest Weekend Including Bret's Dude Soup In The Meat Tube Reference And Meeting Valerie Bertinelli BackstageSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

05-05-25 - Shooting In West Valley Shuts Down Grand Ave - Stories From A Fun UFest Weekend Including Bret's Dude Soup In The Meat Tube Reference And Meeting Valerie Bertinelli BackstageSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Gold Roofing, Inc. (970-593-3080), serving Grand Lake and Northern Colorado, has officially opened its spring roof repair schedule. Booking now means faster service and a better chance of catching minor damage before it escalates. Click https://goldroofing.com/ now. Gold Roofing in Grand Lake, CO City: Grand Lake Address: 916 Grand Ave - 2177 Grand Lake, CO 80447 Website: https://www.goldroofing.com Phone: +1-970-593-3080 Email: goldroofing@gmail.com

Meet Logan McQuaig. He's a down-to-earth, humble kind of guy who calls himself the "maintenance boy" around Redlight Kitchen & Bar, his popular establishment on Grand Ave. Logan grew up in hospitality, from delivering pizza all around Bellingham to serving up pints at Uisce. Today, he's the owner of one of Bellingham's hotspots, known for its extensive drink menu, Asian-fusion dishes, and a warm atmosphere. In this episode, he talks all things restaurant management, the importance of key leaders, and the future of their old space on State Street.   Follow the show: https://www.instagram.com/building.bellingham/

In Episode 22 of The Halloween Podcast, join host Lyle Perez as he explores the haunted history of Michigan, a state known for its stunning Great Lakes and dense forests but also for its restless spirits. From grand hotels to eerie hospitals, Michigan holds some of the most spine-chilling tales in the country. Featured Haunted Locations: The Grand Hotel Address: 286 Grand Ave, Mackinac Island, MI 49757 A historic hotel where ghostly apparitions, including a woman in Victorian dress and a soldier from the War of 1812, roam the halls. Guests have reported mysterious footsteps and the sound of horses' hooves on stormy nights. The Whitney Mansion Address: 4421 Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI 48201 This opulent mansion, now a restaurant, is haunted by its original owners, David and Sara Whitney. Guests often encounter cold drafts in the elevator and the sound of sobbing from empty rooms. Fort Wayne Address: 6325 W Jefferson Ave, Detroit, MI 48209 A historic fort where the ghost of a Civil War soldier patrols the grounds, and the weeping spirit of a soldier's wife has been seen wandering near the barracks. The Traverse City State Hospital Address: 830 Cottageview Dr, Traverse City, MI 49684 Once a mental asylum, this sprawling hospital is haunted by the spirits of former patients. Disembodied voices and ghostly nurses have been spotted walking the halls and tunnels. The Paulding Light Address: Near Robbins Pond Rd, Paulding, MI 49912 A mysterious glowing light that appears at night, believed to be the lantern of a brakeman killed while stopping a runaway train. Witnesses report seeing the light and hearing the faint sound of a train whistle. Henderson Castle Address: 100 Monroe St, Kalamazoo, MI 49006 A grand castle haunted by its original owners, Frank and Mary Henderson, whose spirits have been seen in the tower room and garden. The ghost of a young girl also giggles in the halls. The Michigan Bell Building Address: 50 Louis St NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49503 Built on the site of a mansion where a brutal murder took place, the building is haunted by strange phone calls and the sound of chains dragging in the basement. The Felt Mansion Address: 6597 138th Ave, Holland, MI 49423 This stately home is haunted by the ghost of Agnes Felt, who wanders the halls after her sudden death. Visitors report the scent of roses and the sound of children laughing in the attic. Eloise Asylum Address: 30712 Michigan Ave, Westland, MI 48186 Once a psychiatric hospital, this abandoned asylum is known for its oppressive energy, with visitors hearing distant screams, cries, and seeing a wheelchair moving on its own. The Holly Hotel Address: 110 Battle Alley, Holly, MI 48442 A Victorian hotel haunted by former owner Mr. Hirst and a maid who died in a fire. Guests report seeing apparitions and hearing eerie sounds in the kitchen and dining room. Like Our Facebook page for more Halloween fun: www.Facebook.com/TheHalloweenPodcast ORDER PODCAST MERCH! Website: www.TheHalloweenPodcast.com Email: TheHalloweenPodcast@gmail.com X: @TheHalloweenPod Support the Show: www.patreon.com/TheHalloweenPod Get bonus Halloween content and more! Just for Patreon supporters! Check out my other show! Find it on iTunes - Amazing Advertising http://amazingadvertising.podomatic.com/ Keywords: Haunted Michigan, Michigan Ghost Stories, Haunted Locations, Paranormal Michigan, Haunted America, Grand Hotel, Whitney Mansion, Fort Wayne, Traverse City State Hospital, Paulding Light, Henderson Castle, Michigan Bell Building, Felt Mansion, Eloise Asylum, Holly Hotel Tags: #HauntedAmerica #GhostStories #MichiganHaunts #ParanormalPodcast #HauntedLocations #MackinacIsland #StaySpooky

Jason talks with Peter Kenefick and Executive Chef Noe Frausto from Saji-Ya and  Emmett's Public House about the dining scene in St. Paul and trying to revive Grand Ave. in St. Paul. 

Hour 2: Jason talks about Grand Ave in Saint Paul with Peter Kenefick and Executive Chef Noe Frausto on DeRusha Eats. Then Joe Fowler and John Schafferbilling join him to talk about a job fair for positions in the trades being combined with a ribfest this weekend. 

Concerned about whether your roof will withstand another Grand Lake winter? Call Gold Roofing at (970) 593-3080 to get it fixed today! Learn more at https://goldroofing.com/ Gold Roofing in Grand Lake, CO City: Grand Lake Address: 916 Grand Ave - 2177 Grand Lake, CO 80447 Website: https://www.goldroofing.com Phone: +1-970-593-3080 Email: goldroofing@gmail.com

On looking for, searching for, and making up meaning.

Gold Roofing - Grand Lake is a roofing installation and repair company that provides a variety of roofing services to both residential and commercial customers across Colorado. This company was established in 1996 with the intent to change the damaged reputation of the roofing industry. Gold Roofing in Grand Lake, CO City: Grand Lake Address: 916 Grand Ave - 2177 Grand Lake, CO 80447 Website: https://www.goldroofing.com Phone: +1-970-593-3080 Email: goldroofing@gmail.com

Target dropped another huge collaboration and collection! Self-checkout or no self-checkout? Target limits self-checkout to 10 items. Madeline Nachbar joins the show to discuss the closures on Grand Ave. As Mpls.St.Paul Magazine's Trend & Style editor, Madeline draws on her passion for travel, fashion, and the arts to keep a close pulse on the next big trends. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Target dropped another huge collaboration and collection! Self-checkout or no self-checkout? Target limits self-checkout to 10 items. Madeline Nachbar joins the show to discuss the closures on Grand Ave. As Mpls.St.Paul Magazine's Trend & Style editor, Madeline draws on her passion for travel, fashion, and the arts to keep a close pulse on the next big trends.

We are back for another season of The Phoenix Film Revival Podcast! And what better way to start it off than to hear from various film photographers in the Phoenix community?! On Sunday, January 28th we hosted our first film photography meetup of the year and had over 90 people come out to celebrate. Stacy and I opened up the lab to hang out and connect with the community. Our friend Aaron Markus (@8amfilms) came through to DJ in the back courtyard. Stacy coordinated a photo scavenger hunt along Grand Ave. I put together a slideshow with photos from various photographers and Tonissa helped check everyone in for the giveaway.  We also wanted to hear from the community and let folks hop on the podcast for a few minutes to share what camera they brought, what film they were shooting and what their film goals are for 2024. Special thanks to our guest for joining us! Be sure to follow them on Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/variablevacancy/ https://www.instagram.com/devoncadams/ https://www.instagram.com/kobe.ojeda/ https://www.instagram.com/ascholfield66/ https://www.instagram.com/emile_eich150/ https://www.instagram.com/slimsnapped/ https://www.instagram.com/aidanjeephotography/ https://www.instagram.com/longtimeryan/ https://www.instagram.com/faunivore/ https://www.instagram.com/lucindaguarderas/ If you enjoyed this episode please consider becoming a guest sponsor! Visit our Patreon for more details.  https://www.patreon.com/phxfilmrevival Don't forget to follow us on our socials!

Hour 3: Jason and Laura talked about the troubles on Grand Ave. Then on the DeRush-Hour: a pop-up IKEA? And Dave Schwartz on Mauer, the NFL and trough urinals

The roofing installation and repair company Gold Roofing Grand Lake offers various services to residential and commercial customers using trustworthy, high-quality products installed by friendly, experienced roofing professionals. They are located at 916 Grand Ave - 2177 Grand Lake, CO 80447. Gold Roofing in Grand Lake, CO City: Grand Lake Address: 916 Grand Ave - 2177 Grand Lake, CO 80447 Website https://www.goldroofing.com Phone +1-970-593-3080 Email goldroofing@gmail.com

If your home needs a new roof, get it installed before the fall and winter. Call the experts at Gold Roofing, Inc. (970-593-3080) in Grand Lake, CO. Go to https://goldroofing.com to find out more. Gold Roofing in Grand Lake, CO City: Grand Lake Address: 916 Grand Ave - 2177 Grand Lake, CO 80447 Website https://www.goldroofing.com Phone +1-970-593-3080 Email goldroofing@gmail.com

This company is proud to be known for their dedication to hard work, excellent service, and competitive pricing. They meet the needs of Northern Colorado's finest builders and residential customers alike. Gold Roofing in Grand Lake, CO City: Grand Lake Address: 916 Grand Ave - 2177 Grand Lake, CO 80447 Website https://www.goldroofing.com Phone +1-970-593-3080 Email goldroofing@gmail.com

Gold Roofing, Inc. responds to shingle and structural damage caused by extreme weather conditions - call +1 970-593-3080 to speak to the team and book an inspection!Find out more about its roofing services at https://www.facebook.com/goldroofinginc Gold Roofing in Grand Lake, CO 916 Grand Ave - 2177 Grand Lake, CO 80447, Grand Lake, CO 80447, United States Website https://www.goldroofing.com Phone +1-970-593-3080 Email goldroofing@gmail.com

Today I sit down with Jiu Jitsu black belt Eddie Bravo and dive deep into Rock n Roll, Heavy Metal, UFC and Stand Up Comedy. Eddie is the current owner of the great 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu gym located at 1314 S.Grand Ave in Los Angeles. Do yourself a favor and tune into this episode and hear us talk about our love of Kiss and Metallica, Old School UFC and how he got into Stand Up Comedy. This episodes ending got cut off due to a equipment malfunction. Thanks for tuning in. This episode is brought to you by Migos Dog Food. Hit the link https://migosdog.com

Few record labels have left their stamp on the industry quite like Motown. This assembly line churned out hit song after hit song in the ‘60s and early ‘70s. With a who's-who roster — Marin Gaye, The Jackson 5, Diana Ross, and Stevie Wonder, among others — The Hitsville U.S.A. sign Gordy put on Motown's front door became warranted. This episode is the story of Motown Records — it's formula for success, what led to its decline, and where it stands today under Universal. I'm joined by friend of the pod, Zack O'Malley Greenburg. Here's what we covered in this episode:0:38 Berry Gordy's origin story8:08 Motown museum in Detroit9:20 Cultivating a culture of creativity13:05 Shifting the sound of Black music20:12 Motown's knack for discovering talent 34:29 The beginning of the decline36:12 80's decade of transition39:48 Post-Gordy struggles45:51 Motown's uncertainty today53:59 Best signing?55:16 Best business move?568:45 Dark horse move?1:01:58 Biggest missed opportunity?1:07:13 Motown big-screen picture1:09:22 Berry Gordy won big1:10:41 Who lost the most?1:14:56 Zack's Jay Z indexListen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Overcast | Amazon | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | RSSHost: Dan Runcie, @RuncieDan, trapital.coGuests: Zack O'Malley Greenburg, @zogblogThis episode is sponsored by DICE. Learn more about why artists, venues, and promoters love to partner with DICE for their ticketing needs. Visit dice.fmEnjoy this podcast? Rate and review the podcast here! ratethispodcast.com/trapitalTrapital is home for the business of music, media and culture. Learn more by reading Trapital's free memo.TRANSCRIPT[00:00:00] Zack Greenburg: Berry Gordy created with Motown and sort of the Motown genre, which I think really like more than any label has become synonymous beyond just sort of like the name of label itself, you say Motown music, and a testament to the sound that he created,[00:00:13] Dan Runcie Audio Intro: Hey, welcome to the Trapital Podcast. I'm your host and the founder of Trapital, Dan Runcie. This podcast is your place to gain insights from the executives in music, media, entertainment, and more who are taking hip hop culture to the next level.[00:00:38] Dan Runcie Guest Intro: Today's episode is a deep dive into the one and only legendary Motown records. At its peak, Motown was the most successful black business in the country. It peaked at 30 million dollars of revenue in 1968 and Barry Gordy and his team assembled a sound. a unique genre of music that produced hit after hit after hit and Hitsville USA lived up to its promise.So in this episode, we take you through the origins of how Motown came to be. What are some of the business principles and strategies that worked in its favor? And then what are some of the challenges that Motown faced too? It's now been 50 years since the peak of Motown. And this record label has had plenty of ups and downs and plenty of journeys that we went deep on in this episode. And I'm joined by Zach Greenburg He is a biographer of Jay Z and several others, and he also wrote about Michael Jackson. And in that he talked about Michael Jackson's time with Motown, especially in the Jackson 5. So we had a lot of fun in this one. So come take a trip down memory lane with us. Here's our episode on Motown.[00:01:42] Dan Runcie: All right. Today we're back with another case study style episode, and we're going deep into Hitsville, USA. Motown, baby. Let's do this, Zack, I'm excited for this one.[00:01:53] Zack Greenburg: Thanks for having me as always.[00:01:55] Dan Runcie: Berry Gordy is so fascinating because At one point, this was the most successful black business. They're the most successful black entrepreneur in the country invented a genre.And it's so hard to be able to do that. And that legacy still lives on today. We know so many record labels that have taken inspiration from what Berry Gordy built with Motown records, but let's start from the beginning. What inspired Berry Gordy to even want to get involved with music in the first place?[00:02:23] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. So, you know, Berry Gordy, and his family were in the Detroit area, you know, a bunch of serial entrepreneurs, get a record shop early on, but he was actually like semi professional boxer coming up. And, think one thing led to another and you just kind of saw that, you know, there was a market that was not being served in music.you know, certainly like the business was concentrated, on the coast and particularly in New York at that time, you know, eventually more in LA, but. you know, there was some stuff going on in Chicago. there was some regional acts, regional labels, things like that. But, you know, I think he just basically saw an opportunity, to start something.And, you know, sort of in the way that if you look at, Richard Branson or Puffy or, you know, what are those types of entrepreneurs? It's almost It doesn't really matter what they get into. They find a way to make it work. and they're just always on the lookout for a new sector. That's, kind of, you know, right for some creative destruction, know, and some refreshing or some freshening, some revising, I don't know, whatever you would call it.And, you know, in the case of Berry Gordy. Kind of amazingly, when you think about music over the past half century, he looked around and he thought, well, this is actually, this is a sector that is very promising amongst all the sectors that I could possibly get into. So, that's how Motown came to pass.[00:03:36] Dan Runcie: That point about whether it's Diddy, Branson, Gordy, and I think a lot of the tech CEOs fall in this category as well. You're going to put them in any generation. And I do think that these people would have found a way to make things work. And that's the same point you're making, right? He saw an opportunity to music, but let's say he came 30 years later.It could have been another aspect. Let's say he came today, probably could have been trying to do something in AI or even figure it out, how to make AI, be transformative with his music. And I think a lot of his work, whether you think about how he built derivative work or how he had this process with artists that we'll get into so much of it taps into, okay, here's an opportunity to optimize things.Here's how we can make things work. And music just happened to be the format. He chose it.[00:04:21] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. And even, you know, when you think about it, he got started sort of mid century 30 years later, he was looking into other things, getting involved in film and TV. And You know, moving the business out West, but, you know, we'll get there eventually, but, he certainly did, you know, find other ways to extend the Motown brand as time went on.[00:04:37] Dan Runcie: So he starts off, he has this record business and things go okay with that. specifically talking about the store. And that was a lot of it was connected a bit more from the family perspective, but then he ends up getting the job at Ford specifically working with that Lincoln mercury plant. And that's when he was only there for 2 years, but he then sees how the process works and the whole concept of Ford is, which is that assembly line process that Henry Ford has been famous for.He sees that and then he taps back into his opportunities with music and he's like, okay. Okay, there's an opportunity to do the same with music. So he sees this assembly line, essentially have all these parts go through the inputs. And then the output, you get this car, he wanted to be able to pull some kid off the street, bring them into the Motown and bring them into this record label facility.And then outcomes a star. And he felt like he had the ability to be able to create that type of dynamic. And it took some time to get there, but that's essentially what he did. And a lot of the creations of what we saw from Hitsville USA was that exactly.[00:05:48] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. And, he'll tell you that, I've interviewed him a couple of times. Once for Forbes, once for my book, Michael Jackson Inc, where he talked a lot about that. And, you know, he really has a formula, for making a hit song. And, you know, it's sort of like the song has to have a clear beginning, middle at an end. The chorus has to have a sort of grand arc that summarizes the song every time it happens.And then there's a sort of like grand finale bridge ending thing that, brings it all together, always at the end you hear the artist shout out the song's name almost, you know, invariably one last time and you know, that's like pure marketing, right? And you think about it in those days, this great songs on, you're hearing it, but like, you know, maybe you're in the car, it's on the radio, maybe you're artist and a record player.It's not popping up on your phone. So you know what it's called when you hear Michael Jackson shout out, I want you back at the end and I want you back. what you're going to go out and buy, you know what, you're going to call in, you know, to the radio station and ask them to play. So, it's very calculated, it really works and it's proven and, you know, if it sort of seems like, gosh. You know, this is like a cliche. This is obvious. I think part of it is because he helped create this cliche, obvious thing, right? I mean, things become cliche or obvious because they're smart or necessary most of the time.So, you know, at some point it was novel and, you know, very corny, I think was part of, making that whole song structure novel. And, you know, really. When you look at how he executed it, you know, I think a modern day analog, we talked about this, you know, before on our bad boy episode, but so, you know, his role was very much like the Puffy role, or at least the early Puffy role in production. So, you know, he had a hand in songwriting and production, but, you know, mostly he figured out who he wanted to have producing his labels, songs and sort of who he wanted to be in charge of authoring that certain type of sound.So for Berry Gordy, it was a handful of, producers called the corporation, just like Puffy had the Hitmen. And, you know, then he would kind of come in and do his own little thing on top when he thought it was necessary. But, you know, in a way it kind of adds that whole assembly line aspect, right? Where, you know, that there's going to be a certain level of quality, there's going to be like a distinctive sound, whether it's a bad boy or Motown, or, you know, even going back to, you know, what a Ford car was, you know, in those days you had kind of an ideology to get.And I think that's one of the things that really set Motown apart.[00:08:08] Dan Runcie: Exactly. And I think with that too, you have him going through the process of starting this. So this record label started with an 800 with 800. That's what he had initially. And he uses that to then start Hitsville USA. So that's the location on Grand Ave in Detroit.Have you been to this museum by the way?[00:08:30] Zack Greenburg: I did. We did a special event there. One time we had the Forbes 30 under 30, Summit and we did this like, special, like one off private interview where I went there with Quavo and we sat in Motown studios, you know, where Michael Jackson and all them had recorded. and we did a little like video discussion on the state of the music business, I think it's floating around the internet somewhere, but, it's a really cool building. I mean, I think what strikes. Me the most, you know, like the first time I went in is like the fact that just a house.I mean, it really just looks like a house. the rooms are sort of like room size, you know, it's not some sprawling like, you know, I don't know, institutional type place like a lot of modern, recording studios, you know, it's just a converted house but you know, you kind of walk through each room and it's museum and everything now, so you can kind of get a feel for it. It's very different from the modern day glitz and glamour of the record business for sure.[00:09:20] Dan Runcie: Yeah, been there twice. it was really cool because just like you said, you feel like you're actually in a home and that's the vibe that the studio gives you. And I felt like the people that were the tour guides as well, they clearly knew their history in a way where it should sound obvious, but that could obviously be hit or miss with museum sometimes.So I felt like that piece of it was good. And it ties back to a few things that tap into the culture that it is. Gordy wanted to create that. I think make it work. He lived upstairs. Studio is downstairs. So he has everything there and he wanted to make this somewhere that creativity could spawn at any particular moment.So he wanted to create a 24/7. Set up where he had made sure the vending machines were always stocked. So people could stay there year, you know, day in day out. If creativity comes to you at 3 p. m. or 3 a. m. you can go right there and do what you have to do. And you could keep things moving there internally.And this is one of the things that I do think worked really well for them because. Although I think the music industry has gotten away from this, there was this era where the culture and the vibe that you could create from a label and all that continuity really helped things. So when you saw how deliberate he was from an assembly line perspective was essentially keeping his product in place and keeping all the materials in place so that it can produce outputs at any given moments to just increase the likelihood that you could have hits coming time and time again.[00:10:49] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I mean, he certainly spoke a lot about, quality control, which is, it's kind of funny, you know, given the eventual QC relationship, but, you know, I think that's a really big part of it. And when you're that hands on and, you know, in some cases you could say micromanaging, but it does enable you to really have a unified.We can also get into this, fact that at some point it can become a bit of a creative constraint for artists as they mature.[00:11:14] Dan Runcie: Right, because with quality control, there was someone on the team that listened to everything that came through Motown and they essentially picked the best. They brought it to this weekly meeting and most of the Motown artists weren't writing or producing their materials necessarily, but they were going in and you had all these artists that would essentially sing.The same exact song and then they would pick the best version that came out of that to then release the song. Sometimes they had multiple artists that would end up releasing a version. And we saw different versions of this where you had both Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye have their versions of Ain't No Mountain high enough.Granted it was a few years later in different songs, but a lot of that stems from that quality control aspect. And there's this one quote that, was here from One of the books that was written about, Berry Gordy and Motown, where they talked about quality control and they said, quote, the artists were a means to an end in a way, end quote.And that's exactly what we're talking about how the downside is that it could limit creativity, but the upside is that it gives you the opportunity to get the best polished diamond from all of the creations that come from this studio.[00:12:24] Zack Greenburg: Absolutely. And man, there were quite a few, right? I mean, when you look through, I mean, the heydays, Smokey Robinson, the Miracles, Diana Ross, the Supremes, Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, coming into, you know, Michael Jackson, the Jackson 5, you know, think we've talked about in our previous discussions about hip hop, you know, like sort of the staying power, of different labels and, you know, and how you can kind of keep identifying talent and keep it coming. I mean, that's quite a breadth You know, of like musical accomplishment that they've got, that you could say that Berry Gordy identified over the years.So, you know, I would really, obviously I'd put him up against any other, identify any A& R, any, you know, music mogul in the history of the business, for sure.[00:13:05] Dan Runcie: I agree. And I think the other thing that's interesting too, is This taps back into the whole process and quality management things. Berry Gordy really wanted to help shift the sound and direction of this label because at the time, black music and music that was made by black artists was quite segmented where people didn't feel like it could reach beyond a certain audience.And he experienced some of this himself. One of the reasons that his record stores closed was because he was focused primarily on jazz music. At the time, even Black folks weren't really into jazz at that particular moment. So he just didn't have the market to be able to continue this. So I think that helps Chase Motower.He says, okay, I want the music that's able to be listened to by everyone. I want Black people to ride with it. I want white people. I want anyone in America to be able to ride with the same way that people would listen to the Beach Boys. And he had a few more interesting things that were part of this process.One, everyone had an etiquette coach. And these are things that we're teaching them, essentially, how you have black people essentially speak to white people. Granted, I think there's a lot of that that is problematic. That probably wouldn't fly into the same ways today, just given some of the language there.but then additionally, he also had white salesmen that were essentially the ones that were promoting the records in different areas, going to different radio stations. And he would go as far to insert in records that he's promoting to not even show the artist on the cover because he wanted the record to reach.And he didn't want people to necessarily immediately see or relate it to a black artist, which I thought was interesting, but lined up with a lot of these things. So, even though some of the choices clearly were problematic, it probably wouldn't fly at the same way today. That's how he was about process and wanting to essentially be able to sell this talent anywhere in the country.[00:15:01] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, and it's especially remarkable when you sort think of the cultural context of, you know, of when this is all happening in the 60s. You know, I mean, this is a time of great polarization and social change and, you know, really like turmoil, in a lot of ways, disunity, but, what Berry Gordy created with Motown and sort of the Motown genre, which I think really like more than any label has become synonymous like a genre, you know, beyond just sort of like the name of label itself, you say Motown music, and you're talking about like a genre, as much as you're talking about a label, the fact that you'd be able to sort of create that it like in the 60s, even the late 60s, when things were really why we think we're polarized now.I mean, the late sixties, oh my gosh. Like what a testament to the sort of the sound that he created, which, you know, just like bridged all these divides and, you know, you obviously still go to any wedding, black, white, you know, at anything. And, you're gonna hear Motown all over the place.So I think that kind of goes back to what he created, you know, even at the time. being so accessible to so many different audiences and, you know, one of the things he told me, when I interviewed him, he said that, Martin Luther King came to see him, in Detroit, at the peak of the civil rights movement.And apparently, according to Gary Gordy, MLK said, he said, what I'm trying to do politically and intellectually, you're doing with your music. I love the feeling people get when they hear your music. And so maybe we can make a deal. And they made a deal to actually put out some of MLK's greatest speeches.They put out three albums on Motown and Gordy kind of summed it up by saying, if you do the right thing will come to you. So I thought that was such a cool. Little nugget that people don't necessarily realize. and, you know, I think people don't, think of Berry Gordy as like avant garde, you know, civil rights activist or anything, but, he kind of approached it in his own way, which was to make this music that could, you know, that could really bring people together.They could also get black culture, you know, into the mainstream us culture, at the same time. And, you know, I mean, we saw that, you know, decades later with hip hop, but. Berry Gordy, you know, he made that blueprint, you know, very, very, very early on.[00:17:03] Dan Runcie: It's a great story because I think it highlights the complexity and that people just aren't in these corners. And as you mentioned, Berry Gordy wasn't known for his civil rights activism. In many ways, people would often point to things that he may have shied away from, where I remember, especially in the 70s when you started to hear a bit more of a pacifist and things like that, there was a push and people wanted Motown to lead more into this and he necessarily wasn't as eager at the time and I remember even Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, one of the biggest records that was ever made.There was tension leading up to that because Gordy was like, wait, what is this? you want to do this? Like, what are we doing here? And then it eventually gets made. And then you see how I feel like every time that one of these publications has one of the greatest songs ever made, I'm sure it's come up on number one, or at least on several, one of these.So you see that, and you've seen other areas where he clearly has leaned into this, but I do think that his. Place in his role at that time, often highlighted some of that ongoing tension that we've seen from black leaders over the years about people want progress, but what's the best way to agree with this?And you date back to some of the more public debates between folks like Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Dubois about what is the best way for black progress and group economics and things like that. And I feel like Berry Gordy clearly was on a Particular side of that, that not everyone may have agreed with, but he clearly still wanted to be able to help progress things in a particular way.So he's a very fascinating figure as we look at this progression, especially in the 20th century.[00:18:42] Zack Greenburg: Well, that's right. And, you know, I think there's a reason you see him put out MLK speeches. I don't, think he put up Malcolm X's speeches, you know, but that was just sort of his approach, right? He was more Martin than Malcolm.And, you know, obviously you could speak to the merits of either method, but, Berry Gordon definitely, had his preference there.[00:18:59] Dan Runcie: The other thing that I want to talk about, you mentioned it earlier, but the talent and the breadth of talent that was in this place is such a constraint and such a valuable time.It's one of those things where just imagine walking through on a, some day in, let's say 1964, you're just walking through Motown and all of the names that you could just see there making music on a Wednesday afternoon. It's crazy to think of the names and also how he found folks because. Look at Smokey Robinson and Smokey Robinson, the miracles essentially end up releasing shop around, which I do think ends up becoming the first true hit that, or the first, hit single that comes from Motown.He found that he found Smokey on a street corner performing almost, and in many ways, it feels similar to. What we see decades later with Sylvia Robinson driving around the New Jersey tri state area, finding hip hop artists for Sugar Hill Gang. This is how these early entrepreneurs did it. They were the talent development.They saw things and granted it was a much less crowded market. So the people that were pushing music onto folks had a little bit easier time breaking through, but it was still tough, especially at the time. And he was able to make it work in that way, which was, cool.[00:20:13] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, I mean, he actually did. And, you know, of course, like the one group that we haven't talked about too much yet is Jackson and sort of the way that, different groups were signed in those days, you know, they're all the stories about, well, you hear, you see somebody busking and you sign them and this and that.And, sort of some of the stories, though, if you talk to a lot of different people, you get, you talk to 3 people, you get 3 different stories. Right? So, I think for my book on MJ, I talked to. His dad, I talked to Berry Gordy and I talked to the guy who signed them to this little record company called Steel Town in Gary, Indiana.And they all had three different versions of, you know, how it went down, right? And so, there's that old saying, basically that the winners get to write history and, you know, Berry Gordy won. So, you know, whether his version is a hundred percent, accurate or not, that's kind of the version that, you know, we tend to hear I think his version is usually correct, but there's definitely some, you know, embellishment or some showmanship from time to time.So, you know, I think, for example, with the Jackson 5, Berry Gordy decided to put out, I think it was their first album as Diana Ross presents the Jackson 5 and, you know, she had this little thing where she's like, I discovered this group from Gary, Indiana and like blah, blah, blah, and that wasn't really how it happened at all.And it was really, you know, depending on who you ask, but I think what happened is Suzanne DePasse, who was one of Berry Gordy's lieutenants, had discovered them, and I think it was, there's another band who heard them, like sent them along to Suzanne DePasse that like, she kind of did the legwork for Berry Gordy.And it was like many times, many. Kind of connections later that Diana Ross, you know, became connected, to the group. but, you know, it's such a better story, right? Like Diana Ross has found these kids from, from the Midwest and, you know, bringing them out, onto Motown. So. I always think that's, kind of funny how, the stories end up getting presented and, you know, when you hear it from everybody else involved, I mean, and Diana Ross, of course, did become, really instrumental and especially Michael's life, as time went on, moved to LA and I think she, he actually lived with her for a little while while they were, you know, making the move and all this stuff, but, you know, it, didn't exactly start out that way.[00:22:18] Dan Runcie: Right. And the Jackson 5 is interesting because they, in many ways were the last group that came through in the heyday of Motown because the heyday we're really talking about is that 50 to 60s run that we've been talking about with a lot of the groups and the artists that we mentioned, especially young Marvin Gaye, young Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and the Supremes.And then Jackson 5 comes along. But they come along towards the end of the decade. And just for some context setting, in 1968, Motown is doing 30 million in revenue. And they at one point had a 65% hit rate on the songs that they released in terms of actually being able to chart. So the highs were quite high and they were, killing it.The thing is, though, in the early 70s, this is where things start to shift a little bit, because at this point, Berry has his eyes set much bigger, and he wants to move beyond things in Detroit, because of course he was in the Hitsville, U.S.A. house, solely, after the riots that happened and there was some damage there, they ended up expanding things closer.they ended up expanding further in Detroit to just get a bigger size studio there as well. But then, he eventually wants to go to Hollywood so that he could get more into film. He wants to get into production for plays. He wants to bring these artists on the big screen. And it makes sense. We see why this is a huge medium.You saw how much, popular this talent is. And if you can get people to see them and buy into this, visual image that he's clearly curated, no different than we saw someone like Diddy decades later curating things, he wanted to do that. And I think that in many ways, this was one of those big challenges that any leader can have.Do you stay with the thing that's working really well? Or do you try to expand? And when you do expand, how do you find out? How do you make sure that you have the best talent around you? How do you make sure that you're well equipped? And I think that bowtie really started to strain because as things started to grow for the label, a lot of the artists started to feel like they were getting neglected because of these broader ambitions.And that in many ways, now we're dating 50 plus years ago to like 1972 timeframe. That's when a lot of ways was the beginning of the end, at least in terms of the Motown that a lot of people grew up with and knew.[00:24:41] Zack Greenburg: I think so for sure. And, you know, I think as an entrepreneur, you have to seek the next thing, right? I mean, you don't want to stagnate and you kind of have to take the risk and go for the next big thing and maybe you succeed and maybe you don't, and I think that's at least the way we've been conditioned to think. On the other hand, there could be an argument for like, we don't need to have this growth at all costs mindset as a society, you know, what's wrong with having a really awesome business that's just like constantly, you know, successful has happy employees, you know, that kind of thing. But, I guess that's, you know, this is, you know, Trapital not, you know, Trapsocialism, I dunno, we're talking within a certain realm of, you know, of economic, styles and systems.So that's what's gotta happen. And that's what Berry Gordy decided to do, you know, by moving everything to LA but we talked, a while ago about John McClain, and his role in kind of in, in the past few decades as an executive. He's somebody who rarely talks, but somebody interviewed him at some point.He said that he thought that moving to LA was, kind of the beginning of the end for Motown, because it, kind of changed Motown from being a trendsetter to being a trend follower. And, I think I agree with that. And, you know, that's not to say that there wasn't additional success, especially, you know, beyond the recorded music business that occurred. And that moving to LA kind of, you know, like supercharged some of that, but yeah, you know, I mean, I think when Motown was in the Motor City, in its namesake place, like, You know, it was sort of like, I don't say the only game in town cause there were other labels, but I think it was sort of, the main game in town and, being in a place that, you know, wasn't sort of the epicenter of the music business allowed it to have kind of its own unique style and not sort of be influenced as much by what else was going on.And, you know, don't forget in those days, it wasn't like everything was, you know, it wasn't like we were all tuning into the same social media channels. you know, we weren't even like really tuned into cable TV or anything like that, you know, there wasn't the same kind of like national culture that there is today that, you know, where trends just kind of like fly across in a second. And things did kind of take time to move from one place to the other. throughout the country. So, you know, there was like a certain regionalism to it that I think set Motown apart and, you know, maybe you lose a little bit, you know, once you're out in LA, but, you know, certainly around that time, you really start to see some of the artists who wanted more creative freedom, leaving, you know, some others pushing back, you know, I think even within, a few years of moving to LA, the Jackson 5, we're kind of, having some issues with Motown and in terms of, you know, can we make some of our own types of music? You know, do we really have to stick to quite the assembly line? So, yeah, I do think it was a mixed bag for Berry Gordy to head west.[00:27:20] Dan Runcie: And this is where things really started to struggle because a lot of what worked for Berry Gordy was so perfect for. The Hitsville USA West Grand Ave mentality of building everything there and not to say that he was only an early stage founder that couldn't necessarily progress. But I think a lot of the processes he had were more fit for that era. So naturally, you see the growing success of the Jackson 5 and Michael is no longer 9 years old.He is at this point now a full on teenager, but unfortunately, it just didn't quite. Progress in a few things, as you mentioned, you wanted more, they wanted more creative control. They also wanted to have a bit more ownership. There were disputes about royalties. And I remember reading something that said that the Jackson 5 had calculated how much they got.And it was only a 2.3% stake of how much revenue was either coming through or would be coming through in the future. And they see this and they're like, okay, well how can we see our opportunity to get more of that? So then they leave for Epic. And then you also saw a handful of artists at this point were already on their ways out and things were definitely starting to look a little bit more bleak because by the time you get to the end of the seventies, the beginning of 1980s, The music industry was already, granted things are cyclical, but they were starting to sour a bit on black music.This was the end of disco and people wanted nothing to do with that genre. And even though Motown wasn't disco necessarily, there was vibes of the types of artists they were trying to naturally capture in the 70s. So then that had all of black music taking a hit in a lot of ways and there were groups like the barge and others that I think they tried to make work. Obviously, I think Stevie Wonder was a mainstay during all this and that worked out really well for them, but he was really just 1 mainstay. You did have Marvin Gaye, but again, still, it just wasn't necessarily. The same, and I think that they definitely started to struggle even more at that particular moment.And even as early as the 80s, you start to see more of that narrative that honestly, you still hear today about recapturing that Motown magic or recapturing that Motown journey. People have been saying this now for 40 years.[00:29:40] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, for sure. And I think one thing that people forget is that even though the Jackson 5 moved on to Epic, you know, and that's where MJ ended up, you know, Epic and CBS, and, that's where MJ ended up launching a solo career, people forget that Jermaine actually stayed at Motown initially. He had married Berry Gordy's daughter and, you know, they had this whole wedding with like, you know, 150 white doves were released and, you know, they had this, you know, kind of fairytale situation. And apparently, Berry said to Jermaine, like, Hey, you can go with your brothers and stay with me, whatever you want.And, you know, knowing Berry, I think he maybe didn't put it that delicately or, you know, that was kind of a huge break from Motown because you know, he had really taken the Jackson 5 under his wing. They used to have, Gordy versus Jackson family, baseball games. Michael Jackson would play catcher. It was very So, you know, I think Tito was like the big power hitter, is what I heard. but yeah, for, you know, I mean, these were two families that were really intricately linked. And I think ultimately it kind of came down to, you know, there was some creative control issues, but, you know, Joe Jackson was, pretty controlling, Berry Gordy was pretty controlling and at some point, you know, it just, I think it became impossible for them to coexist.And so, Joe kind of guided them over to Epic to get that big deal, but, you know, Jermaine. It wasn't obvious that Michael was going to be, you know, by far the superstar of all the Jacksons. And, you know, Jermaine did seem at the time to be like the one who had the most promising solo career, or at least it was, you know, pretty close.And, you know, he never really found his niche is a solo act and eventually it would go on to get back every night with his brothers and go on tours and that sort of thing.[00:31:22] Dan Runcie: I think that's a good distinction because people will often point to and think about what are the big nine and then he drops off the wall. This isn't what happened. There's a pretty big difference between those few years. No difference than anyone where naturally there's a difference between a 15 year, but there were others that experienced.So many of the artists that ended up leaving at that particular year old artist and a 19 year old artist. You're a completely different person at that point. And that's exactly what we ended up seeing with Michael. So missed opportunity for sure missed opportunities that Motown had, we'll get to miss opportunities in a minute, but you often hear people talk about them not being able to keep Michael, but to your point, the Jackson 5 leaving Motown in 1975, 76, isn't the same as.Them leaving in 1970 time ended up having greater,success once they were able to have a bit of freedom after leaving Motown, which was a bit unfortunate because obviously, I think it would have been great to see them continue that success under Berry Gordy's umbrella and continue to see them grow.But not everyone is going to be Stevie Wonder. Not everyone is there to say, Hey, I'm with you until the end. And I'm going to be riding with you during this entire journey. It just doesn't work that way. People have careers. No different. You see them today where people see a bigger opportunity and the grass is greener.They want to take advantage of that, especially if they don't feel like they are being put in the best position to thrive. So in the 80s, Motown is now officially in its transition recovery mode, trying to recapture what was there and we see a few things happen.So they start leading in on debarge. And a lot of people, DeBarge did have a pretty big hit with Rhythm of the Night, but I do think that they tried to make the DeBarge family replicate some of this Jackson family, where you had El DeBarge, and you had all of these others, but it just didn't quite click, at least in a mainstream way to that perspective, but then you did have Lionel Richie, who did end up having a pretty big career, especially with everything he had done since the, Commodores and, but then you also had Berry Gordy's son that they were also trying to work into the mix, who performed under the name Rockwell, who had had that song, somebody's watching me that Michael had sung the hook on.So you had a few things there, but just didn't exactly click because again, it's stuck in two models. Berry wanted to continue to have complete control over it. And the artists just didn't want that anymore. I think that worked when you were literally giving artists. No giving artists in a region of the country like Detroit a platform and opportunity, but they had no other options.But now they had leverage. Now they could go talk to mca Now they could go talk to CBS Epic and some of these other labels. So Berry's mentality just didn't work as much. And then by 1988 is when we see him transition on from the label, at least as the CEO level. And then we start to see the new blood come in to run the record label.[00:34:30] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. I mean, I think it is important to note that, you know, although you could characterize the 80s as sort of like musical decline era for Motown, you know, in the way that many artists are entrepreneurs, like, seem to be in a period of delays over some decade or whatever, they actually get much richer during that period of malaise, because what they had built before was so good.And there's still kind of like, they're finally cashing in on it, whereas maybe they didn't cash in on it when it first happened. But like, enough of the sort of like older, wealthier decision makers who can pay them more are like, finally getting hip to the fact that, you know, this is a big deal.So, I would definitely think about Motown that context and that, you know, when Berry was able to sell, you know, a huge chunk, of the company kind of like step back from it, that was after like a a period of time when Motown was not as hot as it had been.But you had things going on, like Motown 25 in 1983, that special. Put together, where MJ came back and reunited, with his brothers and the whole Motown crew and he had, you know, all these other artists, but that was actually the first time I think that MJ moonwalked, you know, sort of in public, like you know, he sort of like the popular debut of the moonwalk and it just really kind of, Created, so much buzz around that, that then kind of rubbed off on Motown and didn't really matter whether he wasn't on Motown anymore, but it just kind of gave a little more shine to the label and gave it sort of like, a relevance, I think that helped kind of carry through to the end of the 80s and helped get Berry Gordy, this really big payday.So, I wouldn't discount like You know, I don't know the sort of like delayed reaction that sort of the half life of fame or whatever you want to call it. But, there were still some of these moments that were created, that kept paying dividends as the time went on. I think[00:36:13] Dan Runcie: That's a fair point because he also sold at this smart time when right as we're seeing in this current era that we're recording, it's a very hot time for music asset transactions as were the late 80s and early 90s too. That's when you saw Geffen do many of the deals that he had done and Gordy. Did the same where I believe he made 61 million from the sale, or at least his portion of the sale in 1988, which is huge.You didn't see people, especially black business owners that fully owned everything being able to cash out at that level. So that's a good point. I'm glad that you mentioned that. And with this is when we start to see the transition of leadership. And we start to see a few things that do ring true.Where the first person that takes over is Gerald Busby, who was leading black music at MCA at the time. And even though Motown had had a bit of its malaise in the 1980s, MCA did not, in many ways, it was seen as the leader in black music. And Bubsy was able to. Have quite a good amount of success there with all of the work that he had done.the thing is though, he had started to run into some issues because he was in this weird dynamic where this company, Polygram had owned part of the label, as did Boston Ventures, his private equity group, and Bubsy was at odds with the folks at Boston Ventures about. some creative control. And he had this quote where he says he'd rather quit Motown president than see the label become a cash cow for a huge corporation trafficking off of nostalgia.And that was a quote that was said back in the 90s just thinking about how. Similar, some of those quotes now come to today. And this was someone who was largely credited from helping to say blast black music from that disco era. But unfortunately, I think a lot of those tensions that he had had, at the time just made life a little bit more difficult for him at Motown.So he eventually we Left. And while he was there, he was able to at least get a few things under. Like he was the one that had brought in voice to men. He had Queen Latifah there. He had Johnny Gill, who was another artist at the time that was quite popular, but maybe hadn't necessarily lived on in the way.And his dreams were, he wanted to have Motown cafes, the same way you had hard rock cafes. He wanted to have the young acts going and touring around at different places to recreate that vibe. And this is something that we'll get into. I think we see time and time again, where these leaders have all these dreams and visions for what they see.Motown can be, but because of the powers that be because of other things, they just can't quite get there to make it happen.[00:38:51] Zack Greenburg: Yeah. And I think that one of the things that set Motown apart early on, you know, as sets many startups apart early on, and many record companies are early on is that they were independent and they could do whatever they wanted.And, you know, Berry Gordy was, sort of like the unquestioned leader and, you know, things kind of, in the way that things kind of get done, let's say more efficiently, if not, more equitably in dictatorships, like he could just get shit done, move things around, have it happen immediately. And so when you started to have, you know, these corporate parents, parent companies, you know, you'd have to go through all these layers of approval to do anything.And, kind of like stop being able to be agile. and I think that's especially important in the music business when, you know, you have to. Not be reactive, but proactive, right? You have to be ahead of things. So, you know, if you're getting to a point where you're having to wait on approvals and things like that, you've already lost because you should have been out in front to begin with.[00:39:48] Dan Runcie: And this is something that I think plagued Motown time and time again, because Gordy didn't necessarily operate in this way. He had so many people that wanted to replicate what he did, but they didn't have the same parameters and the same leeway to make those decisions. As you mentioned, they're now working for corporations that now have their own vested interest.And to be frank, one of the tensions that we see often in music is that these brazen, bold leaders want to be able to take big swings and do things that are innovative and off the cuff. And these corporations are hard set pressed on efficiency. They don't want to see overspending. They don't want to see over commitments, or they want to be able to feel like this is being run in a strategic way.This is something that in the Interscope episode that we talked about, Jimmy Iveen struggled with this as well, even as recently as his tenure with Apple music. But this is one of those frequent tensions that happens with music executives. And we saw that continue with the person that replace Busby, which is Andre Harrell.We talked about him a bit in the Bad Boy episode, but Andre, of course, at this time was coming fresh off of Uptown Records where he was working in collaboration with MCA and he was able to build a little bit of his own fiefdom there where granted he still had people he had to answer to, but I think he had a pretty good relationship with the folks at MCA up until the end there.Then he goes to Motown and he sees this opportunity. And there's a few things that stick out about this because. As early as a year ago, he was starting to get rumored as to be the next person to then take over. But then he gets 250k as an initial announcement. He takes out this full page ad, New York Times.And then he has this ad that essentially says from Uptown to Motown, it's on. And it's him sitting in the back of the chair and you see a sweatshirt in the back. And people hated it. People grilled him. The way that they talked about him, the trades and even Russell Simmons and others coming in and giving him shit about it.He had pretty verbal flight fights with Clarence Avon, who was pretty powerful at the time. And Clarence even said he had swung on him at one particular point and was quite critical of him as well. There's this one quote that I think was really funny here, where this was from the Netflix documentary that was, The Black Godfather, which was about Clarence Avon.And, or actually, no, this is before this summer variety interview, but they talked about this as well. The doc, Clarence says, Andre and I didn't get along. And then he pointed to an image of the Motown boy band, 98 degrees. And Avon says, Andre wanted to send these white boys to Harlem to make them sound black.And I was like, you're out of your fucking mind. And it's a funny quote, because I do think that 98 degrees. Maybe didn't exactly have as many hits as they probably would have thought, but in Andre Harrell's defense, and sadly, but true, the mentality wasn't necessarily wrong because of the 90s, the most successful Motown act that you had was Boyz II Men, and we saw at the end of the decade that, what's that guy's name, the con artist that had the boy bands, Lou Pearlman, like, he literally modeled Backstreet Boys and NSYNC after How can I find white boys to men and make them see modern contemporary and make this happen?And that's how he was able to have success there. And that was before, what's his name? That was before Andre Harrell was really getting going. So he saw where things were going. But it just didn't click at the time. It just wasn't right. And obviously 90 degrees ends up having some decent success, but that's well after Andre Harrell had left the label.So he ended up leaving and the press was not kind to him. Literally headlines were. Andre Harrell gets fired from LA Times it's a type of headline that we probably don't see now when record label execs get fired in the same way. I think the industry is much more controlled in its PR sometimes to a fault, but it was very interesting to see that, come through. And another interesting quote from that, Lucian Grange had called the Andre Harrell at Motown relationship, an organ rejection. In terms of the relationship there.[00:43:56] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, no, I mean, and it's kind of interesting if you think about, you know, around that same time. What was going on in the music business, what would have been a great fit at Motown that didn't happen, would have been to sign Eminem, right? I mean, rather than try to do it with 98 degrees, if you really want to go and sort of like figure out what the kids are listening to, and do the thing where you have a white guy making black music, like. Holy shit. There's Eminem from Detroit, you know, doing his thing. But, you know, I think it took different kind of Andre to pull that one off.So, you know, in a way well played, you know, I mean, in a way it was like Andre was maybe Andre Harrell was taking some risks, but he wasn't taking quite enough. Like, he wasn't going far enough. He wasn't going way out enough on a limb. So, if you were really going to try to read that Motown, then that then go all the way at the same time, though, I would argue.I mean, if you look back, it's sort of like what worked with Motown and what did it, I think one of Motown's greatest attributes is also a limiting factor. And that's the thing we talked about before it, it's a label, but it's also a genre. And so if you have Motown making hip hop, it's like, wait a minute this isn't Motown. Like this isn't the genre of Motown. Like this is not the thing that I heard at my aunt's wedding, you know, this is something different. So, I think that they got kind of caught in between and I know that they've done all this stuff in hip hop over the years and, whatever, but it still doesn't feel like quite a fit because Motown, I mean that, you know, Motown was Motown, Motown wasn't hip hop and, you know, maybe if it had started getting into hip hop in the early days of hip hop.you know, it would have felt a little bit different about that, but, you know, hip hop is Def Jam, hip hop is is Roc-A-Fella hip hop is Bad Boy, and I just, you know, for all the efforts that Motown has made to get into hip hop, I think, it, has had a hard time, you know, fully sticking in the way that it would need to for Motown to replicate its, early success.[00:45:51] Dan Runcie: And one of the things that I think that a lot of these post Berry Gordy leaders struggled with was... As you mentioned, yeah, with Andre Harrell or others, there was the desire and opportunity to be able to do more, but the combination of the corporate structures in place that just didn't give them the same freedom that a Berry Gordy himself would have had.And then secondly. The business structure of how Motown itself as a company was set up didn't necessarily allow that because even things like radio or promotion and things like that, they still relied on other labels under the corporate umbrella, even to this day to get some of those things in place.So it really wasn't. Given the same freedom, even though their name, especially in the late 90s early two thousands was used in, especially back then it was the whole universal Republic Motown group or whatever the amalgamation was at the time. It really wasn't given the same freedom as some of those other record labels were.And I think we saw those challenges come in from time with some of the other leaders as well, because. Afterward, after, Harrell left, you had George Jackson who was there, felt like a bit more interim there for a couple of years. And then you had Kedar Mazenberg who was there late 90s early 2000.And that was a bit more than Neo soul vibe. You had India, Ari and a few others, but he has this quote that he gave to the independent, 2000 where he says, but we're not going to dominate the pop charts. Like we used to, how can we, there are too many other companies out there for that. So please don't compare it to the Motown of yesteryear.This is someone that is in the leadership role saying that exact quote. like How do you get past that? And then he talks again. I think they made a comparison to Def Jam where he said, you know, Def Jam, it took 10, 20 years to get to this established guidance, the way that you did with someone like a Lyor Cohen.And you essentially had that with Berry Gordy. But again, Lior was doing this before Def Jam ended up, you know, becoming under the whole Island Def Jam group and everything happened there. After that, you have Sylvia Roan, who was rising up the ranks herself. Still one of the most successful Black women in media and music right now.She's currently at Epic, but she had her time at Motown as well. And I'm going to get into her because I have something I want to say for missed opportunities there. And then you get more recently to the era of Ethiopia Habtamirian, who was there from 2011. Up until 2022, and she's 1 of those that I do feel like was put in a pretty hard spot because on 1 hand, she was able to essentially double the market share.Thanks in part to the partnership that she had made with hip hop through quality control to be able to help. them succeed And this is especially when the Migos are first starting to pop off, and then that transitions into the success of artists like Lil Yachty and Lil Baby and City Girls and others. But I think that also some of the overspending and things like that were quite critiqued.And especially from a PR perspective, the same way I was mentioning earlier when. Andre Harrell's challenges were bright front and center for the entire industry to read. Ethiopia's necessarily weren't in the same way. And even in some of the aspects of her leaving, the media had they called it a bit more reflective of, oh, Ethiopia has chosen to step down.When, yes, that's true, but there was also a pretty large severance package from Lucian and others at UMG. And again, I don't think she was necessarily given as much leadership either, because Motown was kind of, and still is kind of under capital, but now they've essentially moved it back. They had announced that she was solely the CEO back in 2021, but that was a pretty short lived.And to be honest, it felt like. Yeah. 1 of those announcements that the industry made in this, like, post George Floyd era to try to highlight and support black CEOs, which was great to see, but she's someone that's talented. You don't want to see her just become a tokenized person to have this. So, even though, like any CEO, I think there was things you could point out that she probably could have done differently.Still wasn't given the most leeway to begin with it. Now we're back in this point where what is Motown who's leading Motown. It's essentially the subsidiary under capital, but it's now a brand. And who knows where things are going to be. And it's quite unfortunate, but given everything that we've said up into this point, it also, isn't that surprising just given the dynamic.[00:50:21] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think, you know, like you mentioned the the partnership with quality control. I mean, I think. That was a smart way to get more involved in hip hop because that was a brand that did have roots in hip hop more that, kind of resonated. and so when you sort of like, build as a partnership and look at it that way, it seems a little more credible than like,you know, Motown is doing hip hop now. so it's too bad that, you know, things kind of turned out the way they did, but, it's an interesting asset, right? I mean, it's a brand that has a lot of value. But it's not exactly clear, you know, how to sort of monetize it. And I think with Motown right now, it's like, it's probably about more, than the music, right?Like that's maybe where most of the monetization opportunity would be, whether it's, you know, Motown branded, you know, I don't know, films and, you know, I don't know, products, whatever the case may be. It resonates more, I think, than it does, as a record label. And people don't care so much about record labels anymore.Like we've talked about this, you know, in prior episodes, but it's not the same. You're not going to put on your record on a record player and see that big Motown logo on it, you're having something pop up your ear. And there, there's no visual, like, you don't know whether it's on Motown or Def Jam or Universal or Sony or, and you don't probably don't care.Right. I mean, and I think as things have kind of blurred together, genres are blurring together, you know, different, labels are gobbling each other up over the years, you know, people have just kind of like lost track and, you know, sort of like the idea of a label just isn't as important anymore.So, I do think that it's. a valuable piece of IP and, you know, there's things to do with it still. But, you know, I think, Berry Gordy certainly like squeezed, you know, all he could out of it and, did a great job of sort of ultimately profiting off of what it was that he built.[00:52:04] Dan Runcie: Right. Because what you have right now is this brand where they do have Motown the musical, which I do think has been pretty successful, both in the US and in Europe and elsewhere that it's traveled. but that's it. I mean, quality control partnership doesn't exist in the same way since they've been now bought by hive.Hopefully, Ethiopia and those folks were able to at least retain some type of revenue for helping to set the framework to make that deal possible, but we'll see I, where I landed with this is that. The way to quote unquote, I don't want to say save Motown because that can just seems like such a blanket statement, but if you were trying to improve it from its current inevitable state, it would be finding a way to spin off the asset and the catalog from Universal and having it be in the hands of someone else who can make it work.The challenge is Universal isn't going to want to give that asset up. That's one of their most valuable back catalogs that they have. So. I was thinking through it in my mind, the same way that you have someone like a Tyler Perry, who are these modern moguls that have a bit of that Berry Gordy vibe to them.The way that Tyler Perry is, we'll see whether or not he ends up buying BET, but could that same mentality be applied to a record label? And then with that, you're able to then build up your own promotion. You're able to build up your own talent, and then you take things in a slightly different way. I still don't think that guarantees success, but at least you shake things up in a particular way and you still give it that black ownership mentality.You give it a bit more of that independence and the autonomy and you could potentially see what happens because. We all know what the continued fate is as a legacy entity of a catalog holder that it would be under the UMG umbrella.[00:53:50] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, a hundred percent. Totally agree.[00:53:52] Dan Runcie: And with that, I think it would be a good time to dig into some of these categories here. So what do you think is the biggest, this will may be obvious, but what do you think is the biggest signing that they've done or that Motown ever did?[00:54:04] Zack Greenburg: Yeah, I think I'd go with the Jackson 5 I mean, you know, although Motown did not ultimately profit off of MJ's solo career, in the way that it would have if it had retained him for a solo career, Motown did profit off of the association as he became the biggest musical star, but basically entertainer of any kind in the world.and, you know, going back to the Motown 25 moment, you know, other kinds of associations. So I would say like good process. Not really a bad outcome, but like signing the Jackson 5 could have been the path to also signing Michael Jackson as a solo artist. And then, you know, just because that didn't work out in the end, does it mean that that wasn't a huge signing for them?[00:54:47] Dan Runcie: Yeah, I was going to say Jackson 5 or Stevie Wonder, which is the one that I had and I say him because of the longevity because even when times were rough, Stevie Wonder still had arguably his best decade in the 70s But, he had a number of them that were there, especially in the seventies. I think that was his strongest run and he stayed through. And I think that in a lot of ways helped bridge the gap during some of those low moments when other artists did come and went. Did come and go. So that was the one I had there.What do you have as the best business move?[00:55:18] Zack Greenburg: Well, okay. This is something we haven't talked about and maybe we should talk about it but more, but here we are, we'll talk about it more now. I think it was Berry Gordy setting up, his publishing company. So, I mean, maybe that's cheating a little bit because it was outside of, Motown itself but of He set up Joe bet, publishing, you know, pretty early on. And he didn't realize, you know, his big payday for it until later 1997, but he sold it for 132 million for just for half of it. so the EMI, and then he sold another 30% for I think 109 million. And then he sold the rest of it for, something like 80 million in, what was that?It was like 2004. So, you know, we're talking like over a quarter billion dollars and that's not inflation adjusted. you know, for the publishing and that, you know, that dwarfed whatever he got for Motown itself. So, and, you know, think about if he held onto it until, the recent publishing Bonanza, I mean, I mean, it could have been close to a billion dollar catalog, right?I mean, you know, there's nothing, really like it out there. So. He was always very smart about ownership and I think Michael Jackson knew that and, you know, studied him as a kid growing up. And that's kind of what convinced Michael to want to own his own work, and also in the Beatles work, which then became the basis of Sony ATV.And that was another massive catalog. So, yeah, I think the publishing side of it definitely gets overlooked and, you know, was ultimately the most, financially valuable part. But, even though it was sort of a separate. Company, you know, I would argue it, for sure it wouldn't have happened without Motown happening.[00:56:51] Dan Runcie: That's a great one. And I'm glad you mentioned that. Cause definitely could get overlooked and doesn't get talked enough about in this whole business. I think publishing in general is something that people don't understand. And so they just don't, dig into it, but he wrote it. I mean, he owned everything.And obviously when you own the value. When you own something that valuable, it has its assets. And I think why publishing continues to be so valuable in the industry i

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Chef Justin Sutherland is getting set to open a new egg sandwich shop on Grand Ave. and some folks on Twitter are losing... their... minds... over the menu price of his offerings. Jason wants to know why we're so obsessed with "knowing" what something should cost?

This is audio ripped from the Live Service video. Look on our Facebook page for the videos. For more information follow us on Instagram @thetablefmc or find us on Facebook. And join us in our new building at 360 Grand Ave. in Oroville! Text Pastor Jaymes questions or comments on the message at (530) 871-9985. Thank you for Listening!

This is audio ripped from the Live Service video. Look on our Facebook page for the videos. For more information follow us on Instagram @thetablefmc or find us on Facebook. And join us in our new building at 360 Grand Ave. in Oroville! Text Pastor Jaymes questions or comments on the message at (530) 871-9985. Thank you for Listening!

Hello Travelers! Journey with host Jeremy this week for a classic Walkabout stroll through the Hollywood that never was and always will be - Disney's Hollywood Studios. Get a taste of Hollywood Blvd and Sunset Blvd, Echo Lake, and finally Grand Ave. You might even hear some AT-AT blasters and screaming Ewoks. Enjoy!   As always, use good listening devices as we always record in 4 channel surround sound. We hope you enjoy the episode and thanks so much for following along!    Look us up at @WalkaboutWDW on Instagram and drop us a note to say hi! Find our producer Josh also on Instagram at @TheSteele. Say hi to our west coast correspondent Ric at @opticaljedi. Lastly give a shout to our Orlando correspondent Pete at @neverlandlocal.   You can now also drop us at line at contact@walkabouttheworld.com. Say hi, tell us how you found us, and give us some suggestions on things you'd love to hear.   Walkabout The World is a weekly Disney podcast, always recorded on property at Walt Disney World or Disneyland Resort with the simple goal of making you feel like you are in the middle of the magic. 

**Note the sound is terrible on my end as the connection was bad, but we've fixed that for all future episodes moving forward. Mike's sound is fantastic though and should be good to go** From having everything, to losing it all, to now making it back and sharing his knowledge with the rest of us.  Mike Gibson is a retired NFL lineman, and now the Director of Community Outreach at The Mental Health Center of San Diego and Healthy Life Recovery. (mhcsandiego.com )  In our interview, Mike will be chatting with us regarding his football career. The ups and downs. The Junior College to D1 route he took. What he learned through that process, and what the transitions were like from JUCO to D1, and then we will also learn of the transition to the NFL where Mike played for 6 years.  In Mike's third year in the NFL, he suffered an injury that required a big recovery. This is when Mike's story took a turn as he became addicted to pain killers. This addiction continued to get worse and worse, as his body became chemically dependent on some of these substances and he found himself in a downward spiral that continued not only through the remainder of his NFL career, but after he retired from the game as well.  This is a story of addiction, of perserverance, of recovery, and redemption! It also goes to show that it can truly happen to anyone at any moment, so it's wise to become familiar with the situation and with Mike's story as it has the potential to help thousands of listeners out there!  Share this episode with any athlete you know, and anyone you feel could benefit! Thank you for tuning in! Make sure to follow Mike on his social media platforms:  Instagram: @mike.gibson69 You can find out more about what he and his office have to offer for you if you are battling something similar, so make sure to head to: mhcsandiego.com  If you live in Southern California, and want to take part in their services, the address is:  960 Grand Ave. San Diego, CA 92109  __________________ Calling ALL entrepreneurs!! If you are a business owner, and you are interested in utilzing online sales, then you MUST USE this tool to help you with it!  ClickFunnels will allow you to have an enterprise account to do everything you need for your business! (Including: Websites, funnel building, emails, products, etc)  Make sure to get a solid deal by going HERE for your offer!    Ripp'd Nutrition is a locally owned and operated supplement store here in Boise, Idaho.  Hours of Operation:  Mon - Fri  9 - 6 Sat  10 - 5 Sun  10 - 4 Phone # 208-832-8781 If you have any questions just give me a call 208-965-1096 or DM them on Instagram They offer free one on one and group supplement consultations (Like high school sports teams for players and parents) If you wante to try out the Ripp'd Series you won't be dissappointed, but you can also check out the other brands that they offer like Hypd Sups, Insane Labz, Bucked Up, Innova Pharm, Chaotic Labz and many more!! Come check them out if you live in the Boise, Idaho region!  Address is:  1120 N Milwaukee St, Boise, ID 83704  

This is audio ripped from the Live Service video. Look on our Facebook page for the videos. For more information follow us on Instagram @thetablefmc or find us on Facebook. And join us in our new building at 360 Grand Ave. in Oroville! Text Pastor Jaymes with any questions or comments on the message at (530) 871-9985. Thank you for Listening!

This is audio ripped from the Live Service video. Look on our Facebook page for the videos. For more information follow us on Instagram @thetablefmc or find us on Facebook. And join us in our new building at 360 Grand Ave. in Oroville! Text Pastor Jaymes with any questions or comments on the message at (530) 871-9985. Thank you for Listening!

This is audio ripped from the Live Service video. Look on our Facebook page for the videos. For more information follow us on Instagram @thetablefmc or find us on Facebook. And join us in our new building at 360 Grand Ave. in Oroville! Text Pastor Jaymes with any questions or comments on the message at (530) 871-9985. Thank you for Listening!

This is audio ripped from the Live Service video. Look on our Facebook page for the videos. For more information follow us on Instagram @thetablefmc or find us on Facebook. And join us in our new building at 360 Grand Ave. in Oroville! Text Pastor Jaymes with any questions or comments on the message at (530) 871-9985. Thank you for Listening!

This is audio ripped from the Live Service video. Look on our Facebook page for the videos.For more information follow us on Instagram @thetablefmc or find us on Facebook. And join us in our new building at 360 Grand Ave. in Oroville! Text Pastor Jaymes with any questions or comments on the message at (530) 871-9985. Thank you for Listening!

This is audio ripped from the Live Service video. Look on our Facebook page for the videos.For more information follow us on Instagram @thetablefmc or find us on Facebook. And join us in our new building at 360 Grand Ave. in Oroville! Text Pastor Jaymes with any questions or comments on the message at (530) 871-9985. Thank you for Listening!

This is audio ripped from the Live Service video. Look on our Facebook page for the videos.For more information follow us on Instagram @thetablefmc or find us on Facebook. And join us in our new building at 360 Grand Ave. in Oroville! Text Pastor Jaymes with any questions or comments on the message at (530) 871-9985. Thank you for Listening!

#044 - Today we are talking with Nelson German who runs two beautiful establishments here in Oakland - alaMar Kitchen & Bar and Sobre Mesa.  Nelson also starred on Season 18 of Top Chef on Bravo - we even got into what that experience was like.Nelson calls alaMar Kitchen & Bar, located at 100 Grand Ave, his “1st baby”.  It is a family friendly seafood restaurant where the 90s hip hop beats flow.  He saw a niche - there were not many seafood restaurants around here other than big ones and the ones that were here, were closing.  He got the inspiration for seafood and the name while vacationing in Mexico.“It is a place that represents the neighborhood, really represents the community.  When you're there 90s hip hop is in the background, beautiful lighting, really cool diverse crowd, just a place you feel like home.  That was my intention with the place. And the menu really reflects my journey as a chef - from my childhood favorites to things I've learned along the way”.Sobre Mesa, located at 1618 Franklin St., is a beautiful cocktail bar that opened 9 days before the COVID shutdown.  It is an Afro Latin cocktail bar - you have to be 21, so leave the kids at home.  Sobre Mesa is super sexy and serves tapas and great drinks, making it great for a date night.  Nelson wanted a place to bring all of his roots together.“I am Dominican in nationality, so really representing the Afro Latino Diaspora - we are Black people who speak Spanish so really represent that and represent how beautiful the African Diaspora is.”When Nelson first got the call for Top Chef, he thought it was fake.  Good thing he returned the call.  Season 18 had the most Black chefs and was the most diverse season EVER!  They started filming in the fall of 2020 at the height of the pandemic. He describes the experience as amazing, but he was nervous like being a line chef again - it was hard and grueling.“I wanted to win, but what you do after coming out of Top Chef is what is most important.”Be Sure to listen to the whole interview to hear Nelson's story about being on Top Chef during the pandemic.

This is audio ripped from the Live Service video. Look on our Facebook page for the videos.For more information follow us on Instagram @thetablefmc or find us on Facebook. And join us in our new building at 360 Grand Ave. in Oroville! Text Pastor Jaymes with any questions or comments on the message at (530) 871-9985. Thank you for Listening!

This is audio ripped from the Live Service video. Look on our Facebook page for the videos.For more information follow us on Instagram @thetablefmc or find us on Facebook. And join us in our new building at 360 Grand Ave. in Oroville! Text Pastor Jaymes questions or comments on the message at (530) 871-9985. Thank you for Listening!

This is audio ripped from the Live Service video. Look on our Facebook page for the videos.For more information follow us on Instagram @thetablefmc or find us on Facebook. And join us in our new building at 360 Grand Ave. in Oroville! Text Pastor Jaymes questions or comments on the message at (530) 871-9985. Thank you for Listening!

This is audio ripped from the Live Service video. Look on our Facebook page for the videos.For more information follow us on Instagram @thetablefmc or find us on Facebook. And join us in our new building at 360 Grand Ave. in Oroville! Text Pastor Jaymes questions or comments on the message at (530) 871-9985. Thank you for Listening!

Tom McPheeters, a long time fixture in the Albany activist community, will soon to move to Maine. Most recently he has been the convener of the South End Community Collaborative. He has also been involved with FOCUS Churches, the Grand Ave. Arts Center, AVillage, the Spotlight, and much more. He will speak at Westminster Church on Jan. 15. He talks with Mark Dunlea of Hudson Mohawk Magazine about his efforts to promote economic and environmental justice in Albany.

Reviewing Inbound's Fruit of the Loop - West Coast IPA. For more info on Inbound, visit: inboundbrew.co I picked this up at First Grand Avenue Liquors (918 Grand Ave, St Paul, MN 55105). Inbound is their brewery of the month, go check 'em out and save a few bucks! Under $10 for a 4 pack of delicious local craft beer! Checking out Inbound's site, now. They're on the list to visit soon! The best way to support the podcast is a 5 star rating, so please do so if you haven't already! And be sure to subscribe to get notified when I release more content. Endless thanks and cheers to you all. -Jon --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/upbeatbrewreview/message

Nate and Bobby are back at the former downtown Boston Store, this time with an update on its new tenant. Fiserv is moving its corporate headquarters from Brookfield to the former retail space, the company announced last week. Nate and Bobby discuss the move with the backdrop of the Westown neighborhood and its surge of recent developments.Read Bobby's complete story: https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/fiserv-downtown-milwaukeeOriginal Boston Store episode: https://radiomilwaukee.org/story/urban-spelunking/former-downtown-boston-store-reopens-as-business-space-hub-640/

In the 3rd hour of MCMS, Marc discusses issues he ran into in New York before we get a call from Jacqui Heinrich from FOX News, who tells us about how the current failing economy could lead to a red wave this November. It's 2A Tuesday, and Marc is talking with Cam Edwards, editor at BearingArms.com, host of NRA News Cam & Company & 40 Acres, about how Democrats have tried to criminalize the 2nd amendment. Later, Mayor Jones wants to increase police on Grand to make the area safer, but has consistently said she wants to defund the department?