Looking For Hope
by: Dawn DeWinter

Chapter Six – A Smoking Caterpillar

 

As usual, it was her coffee addiction that got Dawn into trouble. She didn’t have a bladder large enough to handle eight cups. So, about twenty miles north of Cincinnati, she flashed her lights to signal that she and Mortimer were getting off at the next exit; the white Rabbit would follow.

"I’m heading for Maud South," she told Mortimer. "Any place with a name like that is succor to a lady in distress."

"You mean they’ll have a toilet?" Mortimer asked.

"Precisely," Dawn replied. "And if it’s a town run by and for women it will have a heated seat."

Perhaps they missed the town entirely. Perhaps the town didn’t really exist. In any case, all that either car could find was an outhouse in an immaculately kept park. It looked out onto a small pond around which several willows wept. After relieving herself, Dawn wandered over to the water’s edge where she espied some tasty-looking mushrooms. Or were they poisonous toadstools? Dawn didn’t know. She had no idea what toadstools looked like, but she was famished – she had been so anxious to fill up on coffee that she’d quite forgotten to eat anything for breakfast. These "mushrooms" definitely looked like a tasty morsel even though she’d never seen anything like them in the supermarkets.

"Munch, munch," Dawn said as she gobbled down several "mushrooms." Almost immediately she felt woozy. She clutched at hear head: "Oh, oh, they’re having a magical effect on me! My head is inflating like a balloon! Oh my, it’s now as big as a blimp."

Normally, Dawn would be upset to be a blimp, but somehow it didn’t matter that her head had caught the breeze and that she was soaring over the pond. Or that’s what Dawn thought was happening. Her traveling companions were appalled to see her dive into the pond and then breaststroke to the far side. They watched her moving along at hyper-speed once her feet found solid earth. With her arms flapping like wings, she ran into a black forest.

Frodo threw himself into the pond in frustration, but Bill made sure he didn’t drown. Mouth-to-mouth reminded them of how much they craved each other’s body. By the time Mortimer reminded them that Dawn was missing, she truly was. Her friends had no idea of where she’d gone.

After an hour of staggering through the woods, Dawn finally found a clearing and a gravel road, on which she saw a Caterpillar tractor, a giant earth-moving machine. It seemed to be saying something to Dawn. What was it? Could it be, "Help, I need help! I’m on fire!" It did appear to be on fire, for smoke was billowing from its engine. Dawn gawked in amazement: She’d never seen a Caterpillar smoke before. And she’d definitely never heard a Caterpillar talk.

But was it actually the Caterpillar that was talking? Or was it the Caterpillar operator, the man who was rolling around in the dirt to extinguish the flames that engulfed him? As the man got back on his feet, he seemed very angry. Maybe he was burned? Did that explain the color of his skin? No, Dawn decided, the man was an African American. An angry black man, he was alternately punching and kicking the Caterpillar.

"You useless piece of junk," the Caterpillar operator was shouting. "That’s it. I’m through with you. You can stay here forever and rust, for all I care. You’ve busted me. I’m flat broke. You’re not worth fixing. You haven’t been for years."

Dawn was non-plussed: she couldn’t decide whether the Caterpillar operator was angry with the machine or with her. After all, Dawn had been rusting for years. Maybe she wasn’t worth fixing. Even plastic surgeons said she was beyond rehabilitation. No, the man couldn’t be criticizing Dawn. Even to imagine that he would accuse her of terminal rust without first poking a finger into her undercarriage meant that the magic mushrooms must be making Dawn paranoid. There was no way the man could be knocking Dawn, for everyone loved her. At least, they should.

"This guy will love me once he gets to know me," thought Dawn.

But did Dawn want to get to know the Caterpillar operator? She observed him more closely: He was dressed in a hard hat, work boots, a thick belt, an unbuttoned red flannel shirt, stained blue jeans with an inviting rip near the crotch. And there, hanging down the left leg, was one of the largest penises Dawn had ever seen!

Dawn longed to worship the phallus at close quarters. It so mesmerized her that her eyes never moved north of the man’s equator. Had she done so she would have noticed that the "man" had two perfectly shaped breasts. They could be seen through "his" sweat-soaked white T-shirt as clearly as if he’d entered a "wet T-shirt" contest.

Dawn began to appreciate her error, however, when the caterpillar operator took the "penis" out of his jeans pocket. It turned out to be a giant cigar, and by the forceful way the caterpillar operator bit off its end (Dawn almost said "ouch"), there was no possible way that this "guy" could ever be trusted to give oral sex.

"Hey, you’re no guy," Dawn finally realized, as cigar smoke obscured the head of the caterpillar operator, forcing Dawn’s gaze downward. Yep, the "guy" had breasts – pear-shaped ones that Dawn would have given back her first-published story to acquire. Was Dawn looking at a woman? Possibly. Or maybe the Caterpillar operator was transitioning from one sex to the other. But which one had "he" started off with? Dawn couldn’t tell.

Whatever his true sex, the Caterpillar operator was definitely a hunk. Built like a champion body-builder, with muscles on his muscles, he resembled Arnold Schwarzenegger a lot more than he did Bill. Bill looked like a drag queen by comparison. If this wasn’t a guy, "she" had to be Miss Universe, the world’s butchest woman. Dawn made a quiet decision: "I don’t care what sex she – or he – actually is. I want to make wild passionate love with her, him, it. Look out world, Dawn is loaded for bear."

Dawn wasn’t ready, however, for the operator’s rudeness. "What in the hell are you?" the operator asked before spitting a piece of burning tobacco leaf onto Dawn’s right shoe.

"What do you mean?" Dawn asked as her left foot scuffed dirt onto her right shoe.

"I’m asking whether you are male or female or something in between? Explain yourself!"

"I’m not sure I can explain myself. I am really quite confusing. I tried for several years to explain my inner self to my psychotherapist, but she finally gave up on me. I heard that she joined a Trappist order – you know, they’re the monks who take a vow of silence. I suppose she never wanted to hear another word. I guess some people must find you a bit queer yourself," Dawn suggested timidly.

"Queer? Me? No way! I’m a woman. That’s obvious to everyone but you. Possibly you need glasses. People your age usually do."

"I am not old! I’m in my prime," Dawn objected. "You’re looking at a sex machine in peak condition. My name is Dawn. What’s yours?"

"I only have sex with males," the Caterpillar operator replied. "So once again, I’m asking you: What sex are you? Before you answer, you should know that I have a thing for older men. You’re definitely an older something; but tell me, little Miss Alice, are you a male? Your Adam’s apple tells me that you’re no Eve, but I want to hear the truth from your own lips before I decide what to do you with you."

That sounded like a threat. Dawn now feared for her safety. Here she was lost in the woods, her mind racing through one hallucination after another thanks to the mushrooms and coffee, and the most muscular woman she’d ever met was apparently threatening her. Dawn had to say "apparently" because she wasn’t entirely sure that the woman was real. Maybe she was an apparition. Did the woman really exist? Probably she did. As she wasn’t swirling around Dawn’s head like the liveried fish, the talking mice, the horseshoe crabs, the dildos, and the cuckoo clocks were doing, the woman was probably real.

Yet Dawn didn’t know what to say. While it was conceivable that the Caterpillar operator wanted Dawn to admit she was a male so that they could say that she was in truth a male as a prelude to sex and intimacy, it was also conceivable that Dawn’s admission would be the prelude to mayhem and murder.

Dawn searched her mind for any information she had filed about Ohio. First, did it harbor any serial killers? Second, were its women likely to be TG-positive?

Its nickname was the first thing that came into her mind. Ohio was the buckeye state. That had to be clue of some sort. But what was a buckeye? Dawn had no idea, but it did sound like something you might use in a shotgun wedding. She shuddered at the thought.

Ohio had produced a lot of presidents. "Let me see," she deliberated, "Garfield and McKinley were from Ohio. Oh my gosh, they were both murdered!" She shivered at the memory. "There must be something else I know about Ohio. Yes, I remember now: it’s famous for its giant, city-sized mounds." Her mind stopped what little thinking it was doing when she realized that these might be burial mounds. "Giant burial mounds! Oh my, oh my. I am definitely in the wrong state." Her mind then went as blank as her stare.

"I’m getting tired of waiting for your answer. What sex are you? One answer is right; the other is wrong." The Caterpillar operator stamped her feet angrily.

"I’m a little girl," Dawn replied. She had heard that the big lie worked best – at least for tyrants, terrorists and boxing promoters.

The Caterpillar operator guffawed. "Look, honey, you may be dressed like Alice in Wonderland, but you’re older than my Aunt Trixie; and she was a cheerleader for the Cleveland Browns football team."

"Okay, okay. You’ve got me. I am indeed a middle-aged man. I know I look a lot younger, but I’m actually… thirty-nine years old. I’m a member of the generation that followed the baby boomers. You know – Generation Xstacy."

Dawn had given the right answer: Yes, she was old, but she was also a male. The Caterpillar operator grinned broadly. She gave the finger to Dawn. No, that wasn’t it; she was beckoning to Dawn. "Move your little skinny white ass over here, little Alice, because mama wants to show you how to make love like a black man."

Dawn panicked. "With a black man," she’d heard. "Are you really a m…m…man?" she stammered. "If you are, w…w…we c…c...can’t have s…s…s…s…"

"What? Spit it out, little sissy dude. What can’t we have?"

"S…s…sex! I…much too…virginal to have sex with…black man. You’ll s…s…split me open." It was an odd thing for Dawn to say, never mind think, considering that she owned the largest dildo ever sold in Jersey City. The mushrooms must have been fogging her mind. Maybe Dawn actually fancied herself a virgin. If so, she was dangerously delusional. The Caterpillar operator should be on her guard.

Instead, the Caterpillar operator laughed and laughed until her belly ached. "Dawn, you’ve brightened a gloomy day. I was really feeling down. My tractor had just crapped out. But aren’t you the joker! You a virgin? And you think all African Americans are hung like horses – even the women! Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I have no plans for that skinny little ass of yours, except maybe to spank it. You the man, and I the woman. You got that?"

"Yep," Dawn gulped.

"But I hope, honey, that you’ve got a talented tongue ‘cause I ‘spect you’ve not got much yourself between your legs if you think that all black men are built like King Kong."

"Well, I wouldn’t mind being a little bigger. Three inches is a wretched length to be."

"Three inches!" The Caterpillar operator looked angry. Or at least disappointed. She finished off her cigar with three vigorous bites.

Fortunately, Dawn got the math wrong, as she almost always did. In fact, she was – depending on how you counted up her sums – off by a factor of two or three. How could she be so wrong? It’s difficult to know for sure, but possibly it had something to do with her short attention span. It seems that every time she tried to measure her cock, sexual thoughts distracted her, and she was never able to count past three.

The Caterpillar operator was pleasantly surprised to discover that Dawn had an impressive "snake" that she knew how to wriggle. To her own amazement, Dawn never fell asleep once. Not once did she remind her sex partner of the living dead. Indeed, she almost performed like the sex machine she claimed to be. Granted, the machine was a drip coffeemaker (her favorite appliance), but at least her body was moving with some predictability and rhythm for a change.

This was Dawn’s first time with a woman, as Bill didn’t count as one, at Bill’s own insistence. Dawn’s first sex with a woman was the best sex she’d had in years. It wasn’t just the novelty of being on the mound pitching, but it was also the way that the Caterpillar operated. She took complete command of their lovemaking. When she saw that Dawn had difficulty rising beyond the perpendicular, she lay prone on the ground and then bench-pressed Dawn, up and down, in and out, until Dawn came inside her. For cunnilingus, she moved Dawn’s entire body vertically up and down like a piston.

Afterwards, as the Caterpillar operator smoked a gigantic cigar, Dawn thought to herself, "I’ve been a dumbbell all my life. I had no idea women made love that way! No wonder there are so many straight men in the world! Wow! Double wow! I’ve finally found the perfect lover. I’ll never stray again."

Did that mean that Dawn no longer wanted to dress like a woman? Was she going to throw her Alice outfit down a rabbit hole and dress like a man 24-7? No way! What made the Caterpillar operator the perfect lover for Dawn is that she wanted Dawn to look like a woman, yet make love like a man – or at least, to have the right equipment for a sexual workout.

"Please, I’ve got to know your name" were Dawn’s first words since she’d regained the horizontal. "I know it’s going to be the perfect name for the perfect woman."

"It’s Jim." That’s what the Caterpillar operator seemed to be saying. But she blew a huge cloud of smoke Dawn’s way as she said it.

"I must have heard you wrong. Your name isn’t Jim, is it? That’s a man’s name, and you’re definitely a woman."

"Look sugar, I’ve got a woman’s body and I’m proud of it. I pity all you men. You’re so incomplete. But construction is a man’s world. I started dressing like a man just to fit in. But soon I dressed that way because denim and flannel turn me on. My body tingles all day when I’m wearing men ‘s briefs. I love the world of men. I love making love to men. But my lovers have to understand: I’m the one who wears the pants in this relationship. You’ll stay in the dress if you want to keep me happy. I like your name, so I hope you’ll keep using it. As for me, you either call me Jim or you call me from a distance."

"I want to stay as close as possible to you, Jim. I want to share your bed every night. That’s why I’m asking you to come away with me."

"Now, why would I do that? This is my hood. I’ve got a trailer home beyond that thicket that you can see off to the right."

"But Jim, you’ve just lost your Caterpillar. You’ve just lost your means of making a living here. Come along with me and my friends. We’re on a quest. We’re looking for Hope. She is my best friend on the Internet, and she’s been missing since the eleventh. I got to find her. I need to know she’s all right."

Jim thought over her options: "I’ve got no hope here," Jim decided. "Earth-moving work has been standing still in this county since the economy went south. I’ll have to move on anyway. I might as well go off with Dawn. She’s so damn foolish that she must be incredibly lucky to be still alive. That girl might have enough luck for the both of us."

And so it was agreed: Jim would join Dawn’s expedition. She’d even transform it into a caravan of Hope by contributing a Jeep Cherokee and an Airstream trailer to the cause. It was only after they’d sealed their deal with an embrace that Dawn suddenly realized that she was lost – that she had no idea of where Frodo, Mortimer and Bill were to be found.

"Stop worrying," said Jim. "I’ve been living in this area for years. I know exactly where your park and pond are, and I bet your friends will be waiting there for you. It won’t take me long to hitch up the Airstream; we can be with your friends in less than an hour."

As they walked along, Jim had her hands all over Dawn. She wanted to be reassured before she pulled up stakes that Dawn had more than three inches to offer. Dawn, turned-on, became quite shameless: She took off her tights and little-girl panties and then used the tights to cinch her dress at the waist, leaving her "snake" dangling free for all the woodland creatures to see.

The pigeons didn’t like what they saw. Somehow they thought Dawn’s snake was a threat to their nests. At least, that’s the only rational explanation for what followed. It was like a horror movie – like a scene out of Alfred Hitchcock’s "The Birds". The pigeons started arriving, first singly, next in pairs, then in flocks. Nervously Dawn could count at least a hundred of them, and all of them were giving her that evil pigeon eye, as they murmured angrily. Dawn had long dreaded this moment. It had haunted her nightmares for years.

She began to run. The pigeons ran after her, speedily leaving Jim behind. Dawn could see the Airstream. She picked up her pace. Never had she run faster. Safety beckoned. Shelter was so close.

And then they struck! The pigeons had caught up to her! It was horrible! The horror! The horror!

One hundred pigeons started taking turns defecating on Dawn’s Mary Janes. Her favorite shoes in the entire world were soon covered with white…. There is only one word powerful enough to describe the evil. Her Mary Janes were covered with shit! And did the pigeons care? Their red beady eyes told Dawn everything she needed to know. They had done it on purpose!

Dawn was almost hysterical when Jim caught up to her: "There, there, Dawn. Don’t carry on so. They’re just shoes. I’ll buy you some new ones, and a little girl’s dress to go with ‘em. Come on! Stop crying. You’ve got Jim to protect you now."

They went into Jim’s egg-shaped, little trailer to make love. From a distance, it seemed to be moving up and down like a piston. The pigeons, frightened by the ruckus, flew away.

 

Continued in Chapter 7 – Kermesse the Frog

 

 

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© 2001 by Dawn DeWinter. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.