Happy Birthday, Stranger (in a Strange and Happy Land) [CAW Entry] - Sex Stories

Happy Birthday, Stranger (in a Strange and Happy Land) [CAW Entry]

"[America]: Nowhere on Earth was sex so vigorously suppressed—and nowhere was there such deep interest in it.” -Robert A. Heinlein. “Stranger in a Strange Land.” The novel "Stranger in a Strange Land" had a big influence on me when I read it as a teenager. (This is not a book you should give to an impressionable teenager.) Particularly the (slightly misquoted) idea that "[Love means] the happiness of the other person is essential to your own." This shaped my dealings with women for decades. It was less than a decade after reading the book that I got to America, there were times I felt like "Mike", the stranger in the strange land. Familiar, but sometimes subtly alien. It all started with an innocent enough question. "How would you like to spend January in Southern California?" It sounded almost perfect, I could get away from the dreary weather in Utrecht at that time of year (that's in the the Netherlands). The only problems I could think of about that were: I'd be working; and I'd be away for my birthday. I'd be working if I stayed at home, so that wasn't really much of a problem. The birthday, being away from friends was a bit of a drag, but I thought I could live with it. The gig was a big installation in one of the high tech companies which had grown up around the University in Santa Barbara, UCSB as the natives referred to it. It was a job that should take about three to four weeks. I went out with Geert, the project lead. For those not familiar with Dutch names, that's ...

... pronounced like you're clearing your throat followed by 'hurt' (something like that anyway). He'd answer to "Gert" or "Hurt", he was used to people mangling his name. Geert also brought along his wife Rebecca, it wasn't uncommon to bring a companion with you on long gigs. I was between girlfriends at the time, so I didn't have anyone to bring with me. Rebecca and Geert were keeping themselves to themselves and making plans for the weekend, they were going to take the car and drive up the coast. That left me wondering what I could do without a car, when I saw the ad in the local paper for Enterprise Rent A Car, "$9.99 a weekend day". That sounded like a bargain, so I rang them and found I could pick up a car Friday lunchtime and drop it off Monday lunchtime. They'd even pick me up from the office, sounded great, so I booked that. Friday lunchtime, I got picked up. The Enterprise office sent out one of their office workers in one of their cars, so that's how it worked. First I was impressed by the car, a white Thunderbird. That's not a car you get over in Europe, but was very pretty, though it wasn't the car I was going to get, I asked the girl that. Next was the girl, wow! she was a stunner. Now I'd got to Santa Barbara, I found the Santa Barbarians, as they called themselves, were quite proud of their university. Some of the less PC comments were about the quality of 'babe' you got attending the university. There were certainly a lot of good looking 'babes' around the place. ...