In each of our lives, certain events color our decisions from then on. My name is Donald Thornton and I’d like to share some of mine that led me to spend five months during the Covid-19 quarantine of 2020 in the cab and the bed of an 18-wheeler with my niece, Layla.
I’m going to define “workspace” broadly and liberally. Legally, my home office is a small building and shop on five acres outside of Ithaca, New York, where I can park my rig, and one or two trailers and work on them. I’m there less than six times a year. My sister acts as my agent while I’m on the road.
However, my daily office is in the cab of a tractor I called “Big Red,” a red cabbed Freightliner with yellow fire streams on the side. Except for a full-sized shower, I can and do live in an extended cab as I travel the United States, Mexico, and Canada. I even had the rig outfitted with a transceiver that picks up cell signals so I can use a computer anywhere there is a signal.
To test it out, I had a friend drive while I used a portable desk to hold my laptop and operated it at 70 MPH. Sometimes, the signal would drop out, but that was okay. I didn’t want to use it while driving.
The first event occurred less than a month past my 18th birthday. My sister, Ivy, turned 16 in April. We lived near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, at the time and my aunt Linda lived near Ithaca, New York, about a five-hour drive. Our parents did some sort of top-secret work for the U.S. government. So did our aunt and her husband who had died by this time.
We always stayed there when our parents were gone. Linda’s three kids stayed with her former husband’s parents when she was gone.
In early August, we were at our aunt’s place for the annual county fair where my sister and I were helping herd our three cousins around, ages 8, 10, and 12. My dad was the oldest of five children and Linda was the youngest. My portable radio buzzed.
“Code Red. Get everyone and head for your aunt’s farm,” Dad said. The weather was hot as hell, the kids were being ornery, and Linda’s house was air-conditioned. We had learned that whatever our parents did, there was danger involved. When they used Code Red, we needed to do what they said. Pronto. Our nephews and nieces did too.
After some worried extremely private telephone sessions, Aunt Linda announced she was taking her three children to stay with some priests and nuns at a nearby monastery. We never saw them alive again.
Later, I asked my dad, “Does Aunt Linda not trust us?” Her statement hurt both our feelings because all of them knew we were reliable. Some of my classmates were already married.
“Monastery means safe house,” he said. That was the only time he or our mom talked about the job. To this day, I don’t know what they did or who they worked for. I heard some hints later in life, but nothing to confirm them.
Before the school opened that year, we moved into Aunt Linda’s house and rented out our old home. I had already intended to attend Cornell, but Ivy needed to change schools. She didn’t mind as long as we lived together. She already knew teachers and fellow students here from when we stayed with Aunt Linda.
About a year later, they told us to stay at Aunt Linda’s house and continue our education. They would sell the Pittsburg area home and we could use that to pay for our schooling. They left on an unexplained mission. We never saw them alive again either.
Both of us still worked. Linda’s former father-in-law, James Reynolds, operated an automotive repair shop in Ithaca. I changed the oil, detailed cars, fetched parts, and did all the odd jobs that were required.
Ivy worked at fast food drive-ins, restaurants, and for a time, at a nursing home. Whatever paid the best.
History always had been my interest, but my first year at Cornell I spent getting the basics out of the way. During my sophomore year, from time to time, cryptic messages landed in our emails from our parents that said, “All is well.” As long as those arrived, we didn’t worry despite this being a much longer absence than before.
The second event happened in the spring of my sophomore year. We receive messages from our parents at least once a week. In early May, they stopped. We thought of calling the emergency number, but that was only if we had an emergency. What with graduation and senior events for Ivy, we kept putting it off.
In the evening three days after Ivy graduated from high school, an official-looking SUV pulled into our place, and three “suits” got out. A woman in a business suit with a briefcase seemed to be in charge. One of the men carried a heavy bag that looked something like a salesman’s sample case.
The driveway from the main road into our farm property is graveled. I was outside working, saw the dust, and headed toward the house.
Ivy heard the vehicle also. We met on the porch. It was clear to us what we would hear.
“Perhaps we can go inside where we can sit. We have some news about your parents.” Once we all Demetevler Escort got seated, the woman perched on the front of a chair and spoke. Completely deadpan and emotionless, she gave us the news.
“My name is Naomi. I work for a government agency that I cannot name. It is with sadness I must inform you that your parents will not be returning. Nor will your aunt and her three children. In this case, individual urns contain their remains.
“I cannot tell you how or when, but they died in service to our country. You should be proud. We have determined the threat was to your aunt and your parents died trying to rescue her. There is no threat to you. However, if you ever think you are being followed or threatened in some way, you may still call that emergency number.”
She opened the briefcase. “I have here two wills. Each of them gives this property and some money to the last surviving members of your family. Since you two are the only survivors, this property now belongs to you. “
After waiting for a few minutes to gauge our reaction, she continued. “Is there someone you can call to stay with you?
“None of our parents’ relatives live around here. Some of Linda’s in-laws live here and we can call them.” I’m sure she knew that, but she had to follow the form. We never called because we’d been exposed to this when our uncle died.
“Good. Here is my card. If you have any needs, don’t hesitate to call.” After they left, Ivy and I agreed that was the last call we ever wanted to make. Whatever our parents and aunt did, reaped nothing but death. I searched for her in the government databases later and never found that name or anything like it.
We poured the ashes over the land as the will mandated. To this day, we aren’t sure if the powdery gray stuff contained the remnants of our relatives. How did they obtain the remains? In the absence of an explanation, we did what our parents’ requested.
Attached to the wills was a receipt for $50,000 for each of my parents deposited in an account in a local bank. That was more than 20 years ago. Today’s figure would exceed $100,000. Her ex-husband’s parents received the same amount for each of them. I moved the money into our accounts right away.
After they left that night, Ivy collapsed against me as we sat on the couch. “I love you, brother, please don’t leave me.”
“I love you too, Ivy. I won’t leave you until someone tears us apart.”
She looked at me in such need, I kissed her nose. Like a demon, she shifted and kissed me back. I liked it. I hadn’t felt a woman kiss like this in a long time, maybe never.
Suddenly, she pulled away and ran up the stairs to her bedroom and locked the door. I could hear her crying as she fled.
I tapped on the door. “Are you okay, Ivy?” I heard the buzzing of her vibrator. I left her, grabbed my lube, and stroked myself to orgasm thinking about her full, red lips on my cock.
The next morning, she tried to avoid me, but I sought her out. “Ivy. Don’t be ashamed of how you feel. I feel the same way. Except for Linda’s side of the family, we’re all we have around here. “
Again, she leaned into me in her robe. I felt her breasts against my t-shirt. “I’m sorry, Don. I know I shouldn’t, but you are right.”
Every night, we took one step closer. She left her door open when she used her sex toys and made sure she didn’t start until I walked by her door so I could watch. I seldom masturbated unless she watched.
Gradually, we kept moving closer each night. A tiny touch here, a drop of the towel to show each other our asses there. A nip slip here, a tented pair of boxers there. The night of the Fourth of July, each of us had dates for the fireworks, but we ended up coming home earlier than expected about the same time.
“Don. Would you shower with me tonight? I think it’s time. I had the chance to lose my virginity to someone else tonight, but I couldn’t because that belongs to you.”
“I’m not a virgin, but I feel the same way. There is no other woman I want right now but you.”
All Linda had was a single-tub shower upstairs and a half-bath downstairs. We lathered each other and rinsed off as best we could, hurrying to my bedroom because it was the closest, and fell on the bed still damp. We didn’t care because there were four other beds nearby.
“Please, Don, fuck me now.” I saw the need in her eyes,
“No, I want to taste you first.” I lay down between her legs and spread them, looking at her already inflamed labia. She had shaved everything but a small landing patch.
“What a beautiful pussy,” I purred. Using a few techniques, a girlfriend had shown me on her girlfriend, I kissed and stroked the insides of her thighs until she was whining in need. My fingernails raked down her belly until right where her lips and her clit met.
I could smell her sweet pussy and a few seconds later, I buried my face between her legs. “Sweetheart, you taste so good. Like fresh peaches. “
One Demetevler Escort Bayan stroke of her clit and her hips rose, her legs clamped hard against my ears, and she wailed in orgasm.
“More,” she said. “Again. I need more.”
I buried my face in her sex again, this time thrusting two fingers inside her, and worked her pussy with my tongue again until her hips rose again and she screamed before she wet my face with her dew.
“Shit, I peed on you,” she screamed. I crawled up next to her and we kissed, sharing her taste. “No honey, that’s female ejaculation.”
After we rested, we fucked hard and fast until we both came again. From then on until we started dating other people, we slept in the master bedroom. We didn’t make love every night, but before we ended our time together, I had fucked every hole she had and allowed her to peg me a few times.
Over those two years, we remodeled the entire upstairs adding an ensuite bathroom to the master suite and added a tiled shower room capable of holding four people. We lost one bedroom, but that didn’t matter. Three bedrooms remained.
Sis was smart. She understood money disappears faster than one expects, so she took a two-year certified medical assistant class and joined a local clinic. A CMA is the one who shows you into the doctor’s office, asks the first questions, takes your blood pressure, temperature, and oxygen levels, and sometimes later assists the physician. She later obtained her four-year R.N. Degree.
As the school year drew to a close, she started dating Nathaniel Reynolds, the son of one of three men who owned and operated the automotive repair shop where I worked. He was taking a two-year automotive program at the same time.
We slept together until I met Lilly Schwartz in late September. She was a transfer student from a community college, not because she wasn’t smart or needed money, but because her mother had medical issues and she needed to stay home. Her mother had died, which freed her to go to Cornell and finish her work to become an English teacher.
From the moment we met in the school library, it was like destiny. I was head-over-heels in love with her from the start. She said she was with me too. We kissed within minutes of the first meeting.
I took her to my house that night and we made wild passionate love all night. I thought I was knowledgeable, but she taught me all kinds of things.
She made no bones that she was bisexual, but not in an outgoing or pushy way. There was nothing where she said “no” when I suggested it. We got kinky; I can tell you.
Lilly guessed within three days that Ivy and I were lovers. “I think that is so cool. I slept with one of my sisters and one of my male cousins over the past two years. But we’re together now, and she has a boyfriend, so it’s time to stop.”
Our small joint wedding was held in July at the farm, which at that time was about 100 acres, and became the third item in this pattern of events. Sis stayed there and eventually leased out all but five acres.
Nate, his two brothers, and his brother-in-law, eventually took over the shop and expanded it to ten bays for smaller vehicles, two bays for full-size trucks, and a drive-through bay for trailer repair.
Their shops occupied an entire block with their storage yard on another block on one side. Each was them specialized in something different: American vehicles, foreign vehicles, larger types of diesel, and body and trailer repair.
He also built a drive-through shop and a small office on the property that I use now. Not all at once, but over time.
Lilly and I graduated and set out to change the world, one class at a time. We’d teach for a few years, get ourselves settled, and decide if teaching was really what we wanted before we had children.
We headed for her home area of Boston to teach in a junior high school in Belmont where her family lived. Her father was still alive and taught Modern History at Harvard. We held many lively discussions that broadened my horizons and gave me unique worldviews.
In early December of the second year, Ivy called me one night. “Don. Would you and Lilly get tested to see if you can have children? We’ve been practicing frequently and haven’t had much luck. We’re about to go to a specialist and see what the problem is.”
Lilly and I did. We talked it over and she agreed to be a surrogate if Nate was fertile enough. During Christmas vacation, we met and shared results.
Nate was the problem. Lilly and Ivy both looked at me and I shrugged. I was willing, genetics was the problem. Nate never knew.
“We’ve been talking to adoption agencies,” Ivy said. “We have a line on two children, a boy and a girl who are about the same age. The agency said they have about 20 percent Vietnamese blood in them, which affects their faces and their size.”
Because they were in Vietnam and were not born to American parents, there was lots of paperwork and waiting. Lilly Escort Demetevler and I decided we would start our family as soon as summer school was out. Since neither of us coached, we derived extra income from summer schools as we worked on our master’s degrees at the same time.
Now the fourth event in this sequence happened just before I turned 24 on July 10. Returning from summer school, Lilly was riding home with a fellow teacher who lived near us. They had the green light at a busy, blind intersection. A man talking on his cell phone blew the red light and T-boned the car on the passenger side. Lilly died instantly. The other woman died three days later. He died instantly as well.
That was it for me for marriage. We loved each other so completely and thoroughly that I never wanted another wife. Sex, yes. But never another wife.
I used the insurance payment from the accident and from her life insurance policy to pay off our few remaining school debts and put the rest in savings for the future. I intended to help Nate and Ivy pay for their children’s college.
I went to pieces and tried to hide my sorrows in a bottle before I sobered up and took inventory of my life. I was all alone. Nate and Ivy were happy, and I didn’t want to disrupt them. None of my other relatives on Mom’s or Dad’s side were that close to me anymore. I think one lived in California, another in North Carolina, and others in Texas, Virginia, or the northern plains states.
Over the 14 years I drove, I looked up several of my cousins. My favorite was Tina who was almost as tall as me and her husband Andre. He wasn’t as big as Andre the Giant, the wrestler, and actor, but he was taller and heftier than me. I remember the summer I turned 12 and she was 16, she visited Linda with her family, and we shared a few kisses in the hay loft.
She was a buxom blonde, but her body was hard as a rock. She didn’t hesitate to hug me hard and kiss me heartedly until I got hard. Andre didn’t mind. I learned later they were swingers once their three children started high school. Sure, made a nice break during those California trips.
Even writing this much about my darling Lily brings tears to my eyes 20 years later. To cherish her memory when I later started driving a big rig, all my equipment contained a drawing of a multi-colored bouquet of dwarf lilies. I named my company Schwartz and Thornton Transportation. Ivy painted the original and did the same on my truck and two trailers.
Since I was interested in history, I decided to get my commercial driver’s license and eventually go on the open road. That would give me the chance to visit firsthand the places I’d only read about.
One of the things that pulled me out of my funk was the arrival of Nate and Ivy’s two children. The three of us had talked about what to name them. After my wife died, Ivy wanted to name the girl Lily. “Please don’t. I don’t think I can stand hearing her being called Lilly.”
Our father’s name was Bertram and our mother’s name was Lydia. Mom used her maiden name Gill for her middle name. She was a Welsh and British Gill, as compared to the Germanic gills from North and South Dakota. Ivy used her creativity to name the boy Gilbert. He was three months older. She merged Mom’s name and Lilly’s name and turned that into Layla. They both were two and already cute.
My father was six feet-one inches, and I ended up at two inches over six feet. Both of our parents came from British and Scandinavian stock and had blondish hair, which both Ivy and I did. Ivy was five feet eight inches and was thin with B-cup breasts. I weighed 195 pounds, and I never asked my sister about her weight. Lilly was tall and thin as well but had brunette hair.
Even though I tried my hardest not to spoil Layla, I’m afraid I did. I didn’t neglect Gil either. All it took was one look at one of them and to hear that child say, “Unnca Dawn, up plea.” I had them in my arms in an instant.
The contrast between parents and children was striking not only in height but in complexion and appearance. Gil ended up at five- and one-half feet. Layla barely made five feet until later in life.
One personality trait developed early on. Both children were precocious and musically talented, just as my family was, at least when it came to music. Every time I visited, we brought out guitars, someone played the piano, and we sang songs most of the evenings. Folk songs, modern songs, classical songs, and country songs. I think both Gil and Layla have a perfect pitch.
I spent a year working for a local cartage and moving company around Ithaca where I already knew the roads. All I needed was a Class B license because the box trucks I drove weighed less than 24,000 pounds loaded. After I became comfortable with driving and learned all the rules and customs, I went to a three-month school and moved up to local deliveries and eventually to line haul, which required a move to Buffalo to another branch of the same company. I got all the endorsements offered, including hazmat and food handling.
One day, I would drive from Buffalo to Worchester, Massachusetts, with stops in Syracuse and Albany. With the trailer exchanges involved, I often used up my 11 hours of driving time. After 10 hours off duty, I made the return trip.