Chapter One: The Suite
Carol almost didn't make the trip to Chicago. When her daughter's softball team qualified for the prestigious tournament and she saw the dates, Carol knew her husband would be out of town and wouldn't be able to go. Although all the other parents would be there, Carol dreaded the thought of being in the big city without him.
She was shy and naïve, uncomfortable outside the confines of her little rural community, and highly dependent on her husband. Just the thought of being alone in Chicago made her quiver. It took weeks of persuading by the close-knit set of parents to guarantee Carol that they would travel to and from the games together and that Carol never had to leave the luxurious downtown hotel they were staying at when her daughter wasn't playing.
The kids would be fine. They were staying in another location outside of town and were chaperoned by trusted, volunteer parents. The other parents had chosen the downtown location for shopping and the sheer elegance of the place. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for some of them.
Carol eventually caved in and timidly said she would go.
If nothing else, she made a lot of the fathers happy. Carol was easily the cutest and sexiest mother in the group. She was average height and slim, but with exceptionally fine breasts and an ass that screamed to be held. Her face was framed by short, straight brown hair that made her look younger than the thirty six she really was. Her dark eyes and petite nose and mouth would not have looked out of place on one of the daughters. Carol was a brunette Barbie doll come to life.
Nobody was more surprised than Carol at what happened when they arrived in Chicago and began to settle into the hotel. She felt like she was on another planet, or in another dimension with absolutely nothing resembling what she was used to. It was a fantasy world and she found herself slowly wanting to explore more and more of it as the hours passed.
That first evening, she tagged along with a group of parents that explored Michigan Avenue and, later, took cabs to The House of Blues. Despite urgings from several she was with, Carol never made it onto the dance floor. But she came closer to accepting than she ever thought possible.
The next day involved the first set of softball games and another late dinner. It was well past ten o'clock when the group dispersed in the lobby and Carol waited for an elevator up to her room.
She was beginning to miss her husband's constant companionship. For all her introverted tendencies, Carol needed a man around her more than most women. And if the fathers on the team knew of another of her characteristics, she wouldn't be standing alone by the elevators: Carol loved sex, to the point of near addiction. She always told herself it was compensation for her shyness. In lieu of making male friends, she drove her husband to the edge of exhaustion with an insatiable sexual appetite.
Whatever it was, she was feeling it after a couple days away from home.
A man close to her own age joined her at the elevators and smiled. Carol bashfully returned the smile of the handsome stranger. When they entered the elevator, the man inserted his room key and punched the top floor, marked Suites.
"What floor?" he asked Carol.
"Uh, fifteen."
She started to say something, then stopped. He looked at Carol as if to question her. She paused.
"I bet the suites are nice. My tiny, little room is nice, but...," she said softly.
The man grinned. "Would you like to see one?"
Carol instantly replied, "Oh, no. I was just saying...."
"I'll show you one. It won't hurt."
Carol shook her head but did not respond.
"C'mon," he said, not quite pleading. "Just a quick walk-through. We won't be alone. The company I'm with is having an annual meeting this week. Other people will be there."
They had reached the fifteenth floor. The doors opened. Carol stood frozen in place, fumbling with her purse and key card. When the doors began to close, the man reached for the button to keep them open.
"Oh, OK. Just a peek inside," Carol finally said.
"Great. You'll enjoy it. By the way, my name's Andy."
"Hi. I'm Carol."
Silently, they rode to the suites floor. Carol's nerves were ready to snap by the time the door opened and Andy motioned for her to exit first.
"This way," he said, leading them down the plush hallway.
Carol nearly changed her mind when she realized how informally she was dressed. She wore a simple polo shirt and black jeans that hugged her hips and legs. Surely she would be out of place in the suite full of businessmen if they were dressed anything like Andy with his sports coat, expensive shirt and perfectly pressed pants.
She managed to ask, "What does your company do, Andy?"
"Oil and gas. It's a profitable field to be in," he said, looking over at her with a wry grin. "Here we are."
The moment he pulled his key card out and opened the door, Carol was convinced the entire trip was, in fact, a dream. She stood at the entrance, looking into what appeared to her to be the inside of a mansion. Andy let her take it all in, and then closed the door behind them once she was finally in the suite.
In front of her was a massive living room, with lavish furniture, a stone fireplace, and ten foot windows looking out over the lake. Two or three men were in a corner, holding drinks. Their conversation ended the second they saw Carol and their unrelenting stares made her uneasy.
"Would you like a drink?" Andy asked her in a tone that almost forced her to reply positively.
"Sure. Whatever you recommend."
"Follow me," Andy said. "I'll show you where the bar is and you can help yourself after that."
"I won't be staying," Carol told him as they walked into the next room.
"Just in case."
The dining room they entered was another immense space with a bar extending nearly the entire length of one wall, windows again from floor to ceiling, and a table that must have sat twenty. Two more men were at the bar as Andy and Carol walked up. She acknowledged their welcomes and accepted a glass of wine from Andy, who opened a beer for himself.
"How big IS this place?" Carol inquired.
Andy chuckled. "About sixteen hundred square feet. A small house."
"My house," Carol admitted. "Without the million dollar furniture."
"Two bedrooms. Two and a half baths. A small home theater," Andy said.
"Nothing in here is small."
"Carol, this is Doug and Tony," Andy said, directing her to the two middle-aged men next to her. "Gentlemen, this is Carol. She asked for a guided tour."
"You offered a tour," she quickly added. "Nice to meet you."
"Glad you came," Doug said. "How do you know Andy?"
"I don't."
Her straight-faced reply left the men momentarily speechless. Then Tony said, "Why doesn't that surprise me."
"You'll give me a bad reputation," Andy stated.
"You mean, add to it," Tony responded.
"He wouldn't let me out of the elevator and insisted he show off his room to me," Carol told the men. "I figured it was a line, but fell for it anyway."
"Works every time," Andy said.
She was well beyond her comfort zone and asked Andy to show her the rest of the suite before she had to leave. She thought to herself that vocalizing that she had to leave would make it easier, but she also didn't want the dream to end.
As they passed back through the living area, two young women had joined the men in that room and Carol felt somewhat better.
"What do you do for the company?" Carol asked Andy.
"Vice President for Exploration and Drilling."
"Sounds important," she said dryly.
"It's a job."
They entered the theater and Carol couldn't withhold a 'Wow.' It was not in use and tiny ceiling lights barely illuminated the room, but the essence was still there.
"Very nice," she said.
"The guys watch adult films in here until the boss kicks them out."
Carol cringed. "I won't sit down, then."
Andy took her into the first bedroom they came to and she expressed her amazement again.
"Not like any hotel bedroom I've ever been in," she admitted. "In fact, this is about the size of the entire room I get in a hotel."
They did a quick reconnaissance of the remainder of the suite. At the end, as they reentered the living area, Carol asked, "Will I meet the boss?"
"If you stay long enough, I suppose you will," Andy told her.
"Nice try. I can't stay. I'll finish your excellent wine and then I have to get back."
"Back to your husband?" Andy inquired.
Carol looked him directly in the eyes and held the gaze.
"They guys were right," was all she said.
He never flinched.
"You ARE married," he said.
"He's not here."
"But you are. Why don't you allow yourself to be entertained, Carol?"
She grinned. "You're entertaining me. That's enough for a simple country girl like me."
He looked down at her empty wine glass. "Well, you can leave any time you want, simple country girl. But you'll lay in bed thinking about what we're doing in this suite. How about another glass of wine?"
