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CLUE NUMBER EIGHT (from Las Cruces):


For the Hidden Journey:

Out of romance springs surprise, euphoria, uncertainty and responsibility.


For the Puzzle:

Here is the eighth set of 5 letters of the puzzle/cryptogram:

c i t e v

To solve the puzzle, collect the other 13 parts and assemble them in order. This is part 8.

                                   


The Story:

We drop our packs on the bed, and as I make some blinky little comment about the room's weird cooked-cabbage smell, Alex is already stripping down to his boxers. He's tossed his cut-offs on the chair and is about to open the door when I warn him in a whisper that the owner is doing a spy-versus-spy on us.

He snaps off the lights, both inside and out, and we all peer through the curtains at the office. The owner sits back down in front of his TV, and a few seconds later Alex creaks the door open and crouches down behind the thirsty little hedge that fronts the parking lot. Then he slips off toward the pool in a bent-over crab-walk shuffle, and Tracie and I watch him until he disappears in the darkness. I hear the chain link gate squeak open, and I can picture how King Tut that cool water must feel.

Tracie must be thinking the same thing, because she closes the door, unzips her jeans and peels off her top in one quick movement. She pulls down her jeans and I can't believe how beautiful her body is in the dim light seeping through the curtains: the glow of her damp skin, her hair tousled by yanking her top off, her white bra strap crossing her back, the shadowy curves of her legs as she steps out of her crumpled jeans. Her white panties are below her butt, pulled down by the tight jeans as she took them off, and she catches me staring at her as she pulls the clingy little white triangle back up over her buns. She turns to face me and I eat up her smooth belly and hips with my eyes. She snaps the waistband of her panties and smiles enough for me to see her teeth.

"What, Daz," she says in a soft fake-surprise voice, "haven't you ever seen a girl naked?"

I must have gulped like some idiot in a movie because she giggles when I tell her, "To tell the truth, no."

She glances through the curtains and whispers matter-of-factly, "I don't have a bathing suit."

(continued in Chapter Eleven of I-State Lines)


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