The story you are about to read is a fantasy. All characters are fictional. However, if you do see Susan, please tell her that I'd like a return match.
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She was leaning on the receptionist's desk, conferring with the other lass. Red pumps, long legs that went all the way up, crimson skirt exposing the knee, a gold chain masquerading as a belt around a slender waist, tawny blouse pleasantly filled out and covered with a scarlet vest, a ruby ring on her right hand but nothing save a bracelet on the left, shoulder length brunette hair, cinnamon eyes large enough to devour you, and a smile that would charm Scrooge. Definitely nothing that would hurt the eyes.
"Hi!" she said, "You must be the guy on special assignment. I'm Susan."
"Sure am," I wittily replied, "name's Kirby. Phil Kirby." Oh, well, they can't all be winners. My new boss then joined us. Susan, it seems, was one of my peers in the group. After a few more pleasantries, she went her way, and I was invited into the boss's office for coffee and a chat.
I was on temporary assignment to headquarters for the next year. They needed help in rolling out a new product, and my skill set matched the requirements - customer technical support with a recent degree in marketing, which I was desperate to use. They were bringing me down for the duration, giving me an apartment and letting me commute on weekends to my wife and home about three hours away. I was looking forward to the change of pace, and felt sure that it would lead to a promotion when I went back to the field. Personally, I also looked forward to a year away. My wife and I, after years of marriage, had reached the blahs and we both figured that this would give us a little break from each other. My body was doing the forty-thing, getting a little too heavy here and there, and this would give me a chance to trim up. Of course, I had to put my life on hold back home, but this was no big thing. My only child from a previous marriage was a senior in high school who lived with her mother and didn't much want to see her old man on weekends anyway. I resigned as president of the backgammon club, and was on my way.
I began to immerse myself in the new role, and was contented. My project was running on schedule and under budget. All of my peers were agreeable people who liked to get together after work every once in awhile, and Susan of the red outfits usually accompanied us. After three months I was getting into shape (working out at the corporate health center instead of eating ice cream every night will do that,) and I really looked forward to the weekends. If I hadn't developed any close friends in the new city, it wasn't a big thing. There was only one thing missing in my life. . .
I'd been working with Susan on collateral for my project, and had learned that she had a reputation as a person who always did what she said she would, and made sure that commitments that she received from others were kept. A real straight arrow; if she told you that the sun was going to rise in the north, watch for Santa to be digging a swimming pool, because all the ice at the north pole was going to melt. The only real oddity that I had observed about her was that she liked to wear red. Even when her basic outfit was another color, she used red jewelry, scarves or other accents. One day I stopped into her office, and noticed a backgammon board on her bookshelf.
"You play?" I asked her.
"Only for blood," she retorted.
"I've played a little in my time. How much blood do you want?"
"I'll start you out at a buck a game. You do know how to use the doubling cube, don't you?"
"Is that the extra piece that I gave to my daughter to use as a footstool in her dollhouse?"
We made plans to meet in the cafeteria the next day for lunch. She was good, real good, and after an hour I figured I was lucky to be down only three dollars. Over the next three weeks we played at lunchtime two or three times a week. I enjoyed the companionship and she seemed to enjoy our chatter over the sound of the stones clinking. I discovered the salient facts; married once for a few years a ways back, now single and happy about it; no children and no desire for children; worked out at a health club three times a week; the reason that she wore red was because she was able to look sexy without being unprofessional; and the other things you find out just by being around someone. However, she never referred to Significant Others in her life; in fact, she seemed to avoid the subject.
She also got my basic statistics - how I was 'happily' married and enjoyed my weekends at home; my musical tastes; the fact that I wasn't too lonely, and all of that.
We were having a good time. During my first weekend after the games started, I got out my old copies of Robertie and Jacoby and brushed up on my backgammon. After three weeks, she was only a few dollars up, and I felt I was holding my own. I considered inviting her out after work, just for companionship, but I always lost my nerve at the last minute.
Late on a Thursday afternoon one of the guys came in to my office and said a bunch of folk were going up to a local bar and restaurant for a few pops after work; was I in? "Sure," I replied. I finished up the remaining details of the day, and when I got to the pub, most everybody was there. We started playing darts, and somehow Susan became my partner. She insisted, of course, that we get the red arrows, and I found out that backgammon wasn't the only game she was proficient in. We wound up whipping all comers, not necessarily due to my superb play. After awhile the party started pooping out, and eventually, Susan and I were the last ones standing.
"Dinner?" she asked.
"What's the food like here?"
"Passable. Let's get a table and order. I'm famished."
Sitting down, we ordered, and then got to talking over a couple more drinks.
"What's it like to only have the weekends?" she asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you know. Nothing during the week and then you go home. Do you and your wife act like teenagers, doing it in the kitchen because you can't wait to get upstairs? Or do you turn Letterman on and get it on during the commercial?"
"Actually, it's great. We hadn't had that much interest in it, but now when I get home it's pretty romantic, even if we do the same old things. The weeks get a little long, but . . . ."
"Did you ever think about having an affair?"
"Always, I think about it. But I've never looked for the opportunity, at least in this marriage. Now, I guess, I'm too set in my ways. And, after all, at my age I can't imagine any woman that I would want wanting me."
"Nonsense," she said, "You're a very sensitive and attractive man. Any woman in her right mind would love to see what you have to offer. . . . Don't you want to know about me?" she said.
"As far as sex? I figure a hot number like you would have a hundred guys. Or is the Age of Aids crimping your style?"
"You've got it. A single girl's got to be pretty careful these days. I've always been the kind of girl to have one guy at a time anyway. My last boyfriend got transferred to the coast three weeks ago and that one's over, so now I'm back to being celibate. I really need a safe date."
I was trying to figure out how I could offer humorously myself as a stopgap as the blond waitress delivered our sandwiches, breaking into our intimacy with a question about ketchup. The spell was broken, and the conversation slipped into something else. After dinner I escorted her to her car. She said, "You know, you're a really nice guy," and then pecked me on the cheek. Although I thought the attraction was starting to build and was having fantasies about how the evening was going to turn out, she slinked into her bucket seat and drove off.
On the weekend my wife was quite pleased as I was fantasizing about Susan while taking care of her, and on Monday morning a yellow stickie was posted to my phone. "Backgammon today. I'm gonna have your ass!" I don't know what got into her, but she played fantastically that afternoon. She won 6 games straight, and gammoned me twice. As I got my wallet out to give her the $8 I'd lost she queried, "Doing anything Wednesday night?"
"Just the usual," I said, "frozen pot pie."