The Women Of Hilltop Haven: The Beginning

The shop was humming with activity. It always did this time of the year when vintage motorcycle enthusiasts would bloom along with the foliage of the spring season. Between buyers, people needing alterations on the bikes they already owned, or just needing seasonal routine maintenance, business was booming.

Jesse Riley was off at one end of the shop sitting on a stool, preoccupied trying to reassemble the stubborn carburetor of a ‘49 Harley-Davidson FL Hydra Glide that sat on the counter before her. She had learned to take apart, and rebuild motorcycle carburetors before she could read, and even when they refused to initially yield to her expert mechanical prowess, the challenge to make it surrender was a thrill.

She had been working all morning without a break. Ray, one of her employees who had first worked with her father, strolled over, and watched as she wrestled with the last pieces of assembly.

He crossed his arms, and watched for a minute before speaking. “Think you’ve got her now?”

Jesse sighed, placing the carburetor off to the side before standing. “I think so, but we’ll see what happens when it’s reinstalled.”

Ray nodded. “Do you want to do it, or tackle the modification on that ‘59 BMW Matt Chambers bought last year?”

She ran a hand though her dark hair, her hazel eyes glancing over to where the BMW sat waiting for attention. “Know what? Get Pete to take care of that BMW. As for this,” she motioned to the carburetor on the counter, “You do the honors. We’re pretty caught up, and I need to clear my head for an hour, or so.”

She grabbed her leather jacket, and helmet hanging by the front door of the shop, and left. The sound of her boots crushing the gravel outside the shop echoed lightly as she strolled over to her Triumph Adventurer 2000 bike. She straddled the seat, and in one kick start, the engine purred. Gliding up the road away from the shop, she headed toward Miller Ridge.

The air was sweet with flowers starting to bloom, and the air was still slightly chilled this early in the day. She took a deep breath as she opened the throttle for the few miles it would take to get to the boulders on Miller Ridge overlooking the valley of the congested town below. Slowly, she guided her bike along the worn path that wasn’t really a road until she came to rest at the series of huge rocks. Shutting down the engine, and removing her helmet, she walked the rest of the way, carefully negotiating a small climb to one large flat boulder where she sat.

The sky up here was incredibly blue with only a few billowy clouds, and with a deep breath, she stretched out on her back, placing her hands behind her head as a cushion. It was here that she would ponder things that troubled her, or was struggling with decisions that had to be made. A light wind caught her hair, and she closed her eyes. She remembered it was a Friday, and that meant the town would be bustling at night with weekend activity. She considered what form of entertainment she might engage in to release the tensions of a productive work week. There were the usual assortment of local bars, of course, and one in particular, the Dusty Duo was one she often frequented. It was predominantly patronized by the gay, and lesbian community, but straight people often went there. A tenuous coexistence was maintained by the two very attractive lesbian barkeepers who had a knack for rebuffing the advances of the straight men by utilizing harmless humor that amused both patrons, and whichever man was hitting on them.

Jesse smiled to herself. She had, of course, taken both of them to bed herself, along with an assortment of other women to temporarily fill a physical, and emotional void, but in each case, it left her feeling more empty than before. Ava, and Sofia would have no hesitation to come home with her again, but just thinking about it made Jesse sigh with frustration. She felt there had to be more. The women were interesting, yes, but something was missing in each case. Jesse was very aware of the various sides of her nature. No one woman was ever able to satisfy all of them, and women, having been raised on the idealistic romantic novels that were more imagination than reality, never agreed to her dating more than any one of them at a time. Jesse opened her eyes, sat up, drew her knees up, and clasped her arms around them. It seemed her home, coined by the locals many years ago as Hilltop Haven, would forever remain her own private refuge void of the unconventional love she hungered for.