Bad Choices (Hypernaturals 8)

Day Two

Our second day on the Andrea stakeout we talked about how variable the Painted Lady restorations are. The house Andrea is in looks like the paint is decades old and is more gray wood than anything. The paint used to be white, which is hardly authentic. A real Victorian Painted lady should be bright. Garish.

We passed several houses done correctly driving here. One particularly rich purple one seems period-appropriate. Some are perhaps not color correct for Victorian painted ladies but went with bright, which stay in the spirit of the thing. Others are painted really dark, which to me is silly in a hot place like Galveston. My physic-geek mind says if you are going to paint a house dark brown or black, live up North. Not in a sauna-like Galveston.

"You ever paint a house like one of these?" Morgan asked me, looking around from where we are parked.

"No. I hate painting. I pay contractors to paint our house when it needs it."

"Why?" Morgan asked curiously.

"Takes forever. Gets everywhere. When I am done. I have more paint on me than the wall. I would rather write code to earn money to pay someone else to do it."

Morgan pointed over at a nearby porch. "My dad and I did some restoration work down here once. A kind of 'Habitat for Humanity' thing. These houses are expensive, but there is also a fair number of people who made them into multi-family units, and the people in them are not well off. Paint was donated, and they needed people to swing a brush. Dad and I did a couple houses back up the street and over a few blocks, with some others from Dad's company. Dad paid his people to do things like that. Angel was with us too. Nakoma when she was little. All that gingerbread would make you swear off painting yet again. It is a lot of work."

"If I was working on one of these houses, I would probably just be painting you." I told her.

"That is because you have no ability to concentrate on the task at hand."

"No. That is because I concentrate on a different, much more interesting task at hand." I countered.

"This is why we never ask you to join us in the garage." Morgan told me.

"Because I am inept at cars?" I asked. I am not really. I am just not at her or Jessica's level.

"You know how to work on a car. Mostly. You change your own oil. No: we don't ask you out there with us because you would end up covering Jessica with axle grease and fucking her on the car lift, raised to the appropriate height. Jessica would encourage you, so it is not ALL you. Nothing would ever get fixed, however. There is also that axle grease is awful stuff to get off. A terrible sexual lubricant. Speaking of that, nice sneak attack after lunch yesterday. I am still three up on you."

"You inspired me. You weren't wearing underwear." I said with innocence, remembering the feeling of her heels tapping my back.

"So you stripped off my pants is a very swift move, then carried me around on your shoulders, facing me, and savagely attacked me with your mouth. No maids came into the linen closet while all that was going on, but you also pressed my 'public place' button in addition to your oral loving. Sometimes I am not sure I am happy I told you about my love of sex in public places. Now you have inspired me. Again." Morgan said. It was sort of a threat.

"It's not a competition, my love." I said. "I just wanted the best dessert there is. You. Yumm."

Morgan said nothing. Merely rolled three fingers rhythmically on the steering wheel. Morse code of a sort for what is coming my way.

11 AM came again. No Andrea. Must have been a lot of food on that trip home.

"Let us get a big burger today." Morgan said, starting the Honda.