"The FHA inspector's here for your meetin', Hal," said the secretary over my cell phone. I was away from the office, checking on foundation work done that week in a 100 home government-funded housing development my company was building in Tennessee for victims displaced by Gulf Coast hurricanes.
This was the third Friday meeting I'd had with the inspector β Lucretia β since the Phase One contract had been signed. A professional civil engineer, she was a stunning, light-skinned, 30-year-old African-American woman from southeastern Tennessee who'd lobbied her government agency for the watchdog position. She'd grown up in a little hamlet nearby and knew a great deal about the area near Manchester, plus she'd worked her way up in the Federal Housing Administration for eight years.
I put on my funky tee shirt, which immediately clung to me with sweat from the oppressive southern heat. "Should've shaved and brought a real shirt," I mumbled to myself as I drove the pickup down the dusty gravel road to the project's office, a doublewide mobile home which included a small bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette. Lucretia would probably show up in jeans, boots and a simple top anyway, I thought. The blistering local climate had a way of dictating a very informal style of clothing on construction sites, regardless of one's high official position. So, in the design/build company in which I was a junior partner, I'd gotten used to boots and jeans on this project; those and the sweaty tee that now clung to my torso like an oppressive second skin.
As I burst into the air-conditioned office, however, I immediately felt like a slob. Sitting near our secretary in a guest chair was a very curvy black girl β looking like a local high schooler β dressed in a wispy black skirt ending at her beautiful knees. On top she wore a skin-tight, white, short sleeved, ribbed cotton top with a scooped neck that hugged what must have been 36D breasts. In a split second my eyes devoured her lovely, V-shaped face, cluster of long mini braids pulled into a ponytail by a red bandana, and a large rhinestone "M" on a silver chain around her smooth, flawless neck that nestled in the deep valley of her dark chocolate cleavage. The large silver bag she was carrying on one satiny shoulder β complemented by a silver belt cinched around an impossibly small waist β and matching flip-flop sandals on her dainty feet, completed the appetizing picture.
I stood over her and asked β a bit roughly β "Are you here to see me?"
"No, suh," she responded. "Ah'm waitin' fo' Miss Lucretia," she purred sweetly in that Cumberland foothill accent which, after three weeks of hearing it spoken by local women, made my groin throb. Her eyes dropped bashfully to the floor as she finished her sentence. I continued looking down at her and felt a couple of quick, horny pulses in my genitals, since she looked positively edible.
"Oh. Well, we shouldn't be too long," I grunted, a bit distracted by this girl's discomfiting effect on me. I entered the conference room down the hall, closing its door, and saw Lucretia standing and poring over house plans on my drawing board with her back to me. "Sorry I'm late, Lucretia. Did you get coffee?"
"No thanks, Hal. Just wanta check your preliminary designs today, t' see if they're up to code," she said, virtually ignoring my presence. Like the young girl outside, Lucretia had dressed up, causing my horny juices to keep flowing. It was the first time I'd seen her except in baggy jeans. I scratched at my scraggly, three-day growth of blond beard and moved toward her, standing slightly behind and to the left, as she made notes in red on the draft plans and toyed sexily with a backless high heel on one foot.
Since I'd moved to the site a month earlier, designated as my company's project's representative, I'd been attracted to the statuesque Lucretia. But I wasn't at all prepared for her today, an afternoon on which I felt particularly lusty. She was easily 5'9" tall in bare feet, with what looked like succulent chest measurements of 34C with a narrow, perfectly postured back, under a 23" waist, and β who knows? β maybe 35" hips. In her heels she stood just under six feet, 3" shorter than I, with muscular legs that appeared longer than mine. I groaned at the skin tight fit of her sleeveless top that showed muscular, bronze shoulders. Her matching pants were stretched tightly over her high, protruding butt and I tried to cover an involuntary groan with a faked dry cough. Lucretia stopped what she was doing at the sound and turned slowly with a slight smile, her back to my drawing table with breasts extended proudly. "Mmm...maybe I
will
have that coffee, Hal. Light...lotsa' cream and sugah," she requested, batting her black, half-inch lashes at me.
This woman knows exactly what she's doing, I thought, which I'd sensed weeks earlier. She had her hair cut short, with large, one-inch ringlets, frosted with a blonde color at their tips. Her mocha complexion was delectable, covering rather wide cheek bones, an aquiline nose and vulpine jaw, with dimples in her cheeks. Her lips peeled back like pieces of the ripest, moist fruit, and her light hazel eyes spoke volumes about the glories of mixed race ancestry.
From the outer office I brought us coffee, handing hers to her as she sat in the only easy chair in the room. "Thank yewww," she purred, stirring her brew with its wooden stick and licking its length with a pink tongue before setting it on a napkin. "Now, Hal," she said in a no-nonsense way, "after three weeks the formalities should be over. We can stop the chess game between designer/contractor and inspector. From what I see of your plans, you folks do good work!"
"We've got two shifts churning out these drawings," I confessed. "Each shift sends 'em to me electronically from L.A. and we print and edit 'em here. Saves time, shipping costs, and keeps me busy almost six days a week sending back corrections!"
"Yeah. Well, I'm concerned that β with your work load β you'll miss what's really goin' on with this development," she said. "Y' know, black folks've been isolated in this county for over two centuries. An' the guv'mint β in its
infinite
wisdom β has cut a deal that'll clean out N'Awlins of a low payin' black tax base an' transplant it to southeast Tennessee, an area that's been federally subsidized since the 1930s!"
"Wow! Where'd you learn all this?" I asked. It was common insider knowledge but I was surprised at the unusual candor of an FHA bureaucrat.
"I know folks from FEMA and other agencies, honey. I also went t' school at Vanderbilt...in Nashville.
And
I'm a proud member of the Black Women's Engineering Society. I also ran track. How 'bout yew?"
"UCLA. Architecture. Got lucky with my company because I worked almost free as an intern for a couple of years, then worked my way up," I answered.
"Rich, pretty white boy," she murmured. "Your people 're probably from Beverly Hills."
"Sorry, but you're mistaken. I had to work my way through school
and
the internship...as a lifeguard at Manhattan Beach."
She almost sprayed coffee as she burst into laughter. "A
life-gawwd