Bac on the Bloc

It's kind of funny how life turns out sometimes. You can be cruising along in your life thinking everything is great, and then life, or God, or Fate or whatever your belief system calls it, just decides to fuck with you. I was moving through life with the wind under my sails, when all of a sudden the wind just stopped blowing. While I waited for the next gust, to blow me back to where I belonged, I had to do something. So that's how I found myself cruising for hookers, in a not so nice neighborhood just outside of DC.

They call it the block. It's a roughly 1/2 mile square area, where one can find almost anything, for the right price. My Screaming Yellow Mustang GT stood out among all of the BMW's and Lexus models I saw slowly trolling the boulevard. It was louder and more aggressive sounding, announcing our presence, with the authority that only nearly 500 horsepower, and several quasi-legal exhaust and engine modifications can muster. When added to her ultra-bright paint, my little pony had a way of making an entrance.

I looked out through the tinted glass, and was revolted by most of the women, and other things that I saw take notice of me. How the fuck did I fall this low? Actually I wasn't this bad; I was just suffering from the HLDs. Heart Broken, Lonely and Desperate, the divorced guy's main affliction.

My name is Jason Burton. I'm currently the Chief Operations Officer for Navarro Logistics. I'm not some stunning Nordic God; I'm just your average guy. Straight down the middle in terms of height and weight. My looks while once again; not heart stopping, also haven't chased too many women away from me. So since I have decent looks, a great career and future, a nice personality if I do say so myself; why the hell am I chasing the lower levels of rental pussy? To put it succinctly, "What's a nice guy like me, doing in a place like this? It's Okay to ask, I'm still confused about it myself. But here's how it happened.

During my last year of college, nope not logistics, I was majoring in business, I met Dana Navarro. Her Father Kurt Navarro used to play professional baseball, and had moved right into business after his sports career had ended. Dana was tall, slender, and hot. The worst thing was; that she knew it.

Her family had more money than some countries and school was basically a joke to her. Everyone knew that she was never going to have to work a day in her life. I was rocking a 4.0 on the Dean's list and working 2 part time jobs to stay afloat. Dana was cruising through parties, with her solid C-/D+ average, and having a great time.

She was one D away from getting kicked out of school, and had run into a problem. Her problem was Mr. McQueen's accounting class. Victor McQueen was a local small business owner, who also taught at the college. He took his subject very seriously, and believed in a serious work ethic. If you worked hard in his class, you did well. If you played around, you failed, regardless of who you were. He had no tolerance for spoiled rich girls, who thought they could get by on astoundingly good looks and donations from Daddy. It was a case of the irresistible force, namely Dana, meeting an immovable object, IE Mr. McQueen.

In our final project for the class, my best friend Tom and I were assigned to work with Dana. Tom hated the idea, "Just watch," he said, "She won't do any of the work, but she'll somehow get all of the credit."

While working on the assignment, somehow, Dana and I hit it off. For some reason she seemed to like me. I just didn't get it, so I took it with a grain of salt. I thought that she was just spinning my wheels to get through the project, and that when it was done, I'd never be able to get within a mile of her again. She'd be back partying with her rich, crazy friends before the ink was dry on the project report.

In the end, even Mr. McQueen was impressed, not only with our report, but he'd actually seen Dana and me, with our heads in the books late into the night, on more than a few occasions. We got an A+ on the project which raised Dana's grade up to a solid D+. Tom and I went out bar hopping to celebrate our A's.

It was one of the few times that we got really drunk. The next morning I was feeling terrible, and luckily for me didn't have classes, so I had no reason and even less inclination to get up. I did have to go to work that day, but not until 3:00 p.m.

At 9 a.m. I thought someone was hitting me in the head with a hammer; in reality someone was knocking on the door. I looked through the keyhole and saw Dana. I opened it and she marched in. I think she noticed before I did, that I only had my boxers and a T-shirt on.

"Where were you last night?" she asked. "I called you at least 10 times, and I left you messages. The least you could do, is call me back," she spat.

"Dana, Tom and I, went out last night," I said. "We wanted to celebrate the end of McQueen's tyranny. So if we were out, I couldn't check the phone to see if I had any messages," I explained.

"Why don't you forward your messages to your cell?" she asked.

"That would be difficult," I began.

"Oh, it's not that hard, I could show you how to do it," she said.

"Dana, it's really hard to forward messages to your cell phone, when you don't have one," I said. "So what happened?" I asked. "Did McQueen change his mind about our grade?"

"Well no," she said looking down.

"Oh, do you want a copy of the project report, for your portfolio?" I asked.

"Does it have to be about the fucking project, for me to talk to you?" she snapped.

I put both hands over my ears, and fell onto the couch. The pounding in my head, was only adding to my confusion. Dana leaned over me, and looked at me with an expression I'd never seen on her face before; it appeared to be concern. "Are you OK?" she asked.

"I have a big time hangover," I told her.

"OK, let's go for coffee," she said.

"Anything, just don't talk so frigging loud," I said. I got up, and started walking towards the door.

"Uhm, Jason," said Dana.

"Yes" I said looking at her.

"Clothes," she said, as if she was talking to a 2 year old.

So I got dressed, and we went to a café on the corner. I got a cup of hot black coffee, with extra sugar. Dana got some kind of fluffy concoction, with caramel, cinnamon and a cherry. She stared at me over our cups of coffee and looked so good that I would have done anything for her at that moment. If I had known then that those two cups of coffee would have led to lies, divorce, blackmail, head games and hookers, I probably would have run out of that cafe like my ass was on fire.

"Ok Dana, what do you need?" I asked taking a sip from my steaming cup. Life was starting to make more sense, now that I had some caffeine in me.

"I don't understand," she said seriously.

"What do you need from me?" I asked again.

"I still don't understand," she said, even more seriously.

"Why did you call me last night?" I said refusing to put a "duh," in front of the question.

"Why do I have to have a reason to call you?" she asked. "Do you have a jealous girlfriend, or some other reason why I shouldn't call you?"

"No," I said still puzzled about why the school's princess would want to call me.

"Then why can't I call you?" she asked.

"Because girls like you, don't call guys like me," I said matter of factly. "Dana, your phone, probably cost more than my car is worth. You're beautiful, you're rich, you're..." I hesitated.

"I'm what?" she asked, "I like the beautiful part, I'm not rich my father is, but what else am I?"

"You're out of my league," I said seriously.

"Either you aren't as smart as I thought you were, or you just have your head shoved so far up your ass, that you can't see anything but shit," she snapped. Dana had fire in her eyes and her dander was up. "Haven't you noticed that we get along, really well," she said. "I have fun, when we're together. You're very smart, but you don't try to show it off, by making other people feel stupid. You're funny, and you're kind of cute. I really like you. So what would be so wrong, with us being friends?" she asked.

From that day forward we never looked back. Our friendship quickly blossomed into dating; then we became a couple, which shocked me to no end. I ended up meeting all of, or most of the rich and beautiful people, whom I have only seen from a distance. Though I would probably never be one of them, there was kind of a mutual respect forged by Dana. About a month before we graduated, I actually met Dana's dad. He had taken us out to dinner, mostly so he could meet me. Dana had gone through 8 or 9 boyfriends during her first 3 years of college, so when the revolving door stopped revolving, he took an interest.

I was really impressed with him. I'd expected a wash up old jock with lots of left over baseball money. But he was a very dynamic business man, with his eyes firmly planted on his goals. He in turn asked me to stop in for a meeting with him, before I took any offers after graduation.

I ended up going to work for Navarro right out of school, and at first it was a fucking nightmare. I didn't understand it, but Kurt had a plan for me. I guess I'd made more of an impression on him than I thought. He'd given me a job. Fresh out of school with the ink still wet on my degree I was working for Navarro Logistics. I had probably the shittiest job on earth. I was a Midnight Shift truck loader, the very bottom of the barrel. So much for my career, I thought.

Well it was money, probably as much as I'd have earned as an entry level salesman, or account rep. So, I decided to try and stick it out for a while, because I didn't want to burn any bridges with Dana's Dad. Dana on the other hand was livid. She called her Dad every day, complaining about how insulting it was, for a man with a degree in business, who graduated top of his class to be loading trucks. She also complained, about the fact that my working the night shift put a damper on our dating schedule.

After a few weeks I was the best truck loader in our facility. I could look at the way boxes were stacked and reposition them to get much more on a truck. The foreman always gave me the bigger more important loads to stack. He was always praising me to his boss as well. One night as I was working he assigned another loader, whom I'd never seen before, to work with me. This guy was nearly as fast as I was. He was a bigger guy and I couldn't see his face. When we were inside the truck, he was nearly always in shadow, and he kept his hat pulled down over his eyes. As we worked, we talked.

"Why do you spend so much time planning on where to put things, instead of just throwing them in place and moving on?" he asked me. "You could be even faster, and make the company even more money."

"There aren't very many guys who are faster than I am now," I said.

"Oh I get it" he said. "You work just fast enough to stay ahead of everyone else, but not fast enough to tire yourself out, that's smart."

"That's also not it," I said. He looked at me and was clearly puzzled. "What's the most expensive thing there is to ship?" I asked him.

"He thought about it, and then said, "Probably heavy metal parts."

"Nope," I said

He thought about it some more and then said, "Okay, I give up."

"Air," I said, he looked even more puzzled. "The more I can get on a truck, the fewer truck loads we have to pay for."

"Any empty space on a truck, costs the company far more, than the few seconds it takes me to fill it," I said. We finished the load in silence. I thought I had given him something to think about. For the rest of the night I worked alone since we were each given a different truck after that one.

When my shift ended, I was told to report to the office. My boss handed me a stack of papers, and told me he was going to miss me. I was upset because I knew that Dana was going to be pissed. But I'd given it my best shot. And on the bright side, I thought that at least I could go out and find a real job. As I read through the paper, it suddenly dawned on me, that I hadn't been fired, I'd been promoted. And it was a substantial promotion. I'd leap-frogged several positions, to Loading Dock manager. That put me over not only my old foreman, but above his boss, who was the loading Dock supervisor.

I was also going to be doing the new job, at another facility across town, and it was a day shift position. I drove over to Dana's apartment, to tell her the good news, but she wasn't home. I didn't like being in Dana's apartment without her, so I headed home to get some sleep. As I got into my car, I saw another car pull up in front of the building.

Dana got out, and leaned in, and kissed some guy. I was in shock and I didn't know how to react so I just sat there. Then finally I went home, and went to bed. It was Friday morning, and I needed to give my body a chance to readjust to the day shift, so I just took a quick nap and got back up at about noon. I went out and got my hair cut. I'd gotten a bonus to go along with my new job, so I bought a couple of suits that would reflect my new position.

Up until then I got off work at 8 a.m. slept until about 4, and then Dana and I went out. We were typically together from about 4 when I woke up, until I had to go to work. There were lots of days that I had been awakened by Dana sliding into bed with me, and jump starting my heart with her mouth on my dick. So at about 3:30 when I heard my cell phone ring, I knew who it was. I just let the call go to voice mail, and all the others too. I did call my buddy Tom, and arrange to go out drinking with him that evening. I had one more stop to make before I was ready to go home.

I was ushered into an office bigger than my apartment, less than an hour later.

"Mr. Navarro; thanks for seeing me," I began. "First, I'd like to thank you for the promotion," I said. "But I really don't understand it."

"You're wondering, if I promoted you because of my daughter?" he asked.

"The thought had occurred to me," I said.

"Jason, I love my daughter, and my sons," he said. "I'd do anything in the world for them. Someday, I won't be here, and I need to ensure that they'll still be well taken care of," he continued. "In order for that to happen, I need to make sure that my business is in strong and capable hands." He walked around the office and went over to a framed picture of Dana. "Can you really see my daughter, running my business?" he asked.

"She could learn to," I said. "She's smart, and she has a way with people."

"Spoken like someone who loves her," he said. "But you've pointed out only her good points, and her brothers are far worse. I saw the way you helped my daughter get past her accounting class; and without very much effort saved me a great deal of difficulty," he said."Professor McQueen was not a man that could be influenced or paid, but you got her past him, and she really cares for you too," he said. "So I had you checked out, on paper you seemed too good to be true, so I wanted to meet you in person, and I liked what I saw even more," he paused as if he was considering something or changing tactics.

"My daughter is really smitten with you, and probably wants to marry you, but I wanted to know more about you myself," he said. "So, instead of giving you a nice cushy sales job, on the fast track, I stuck you in the toilet. I wanted you to learn my business from the ground up. I stuck you in the shit, and you still came out, looking like a diamond," he continued. "But what you told me last night, really let me know, that you understood, and were far better than I'd hoped for."

"When did I talk to you last night?" I asked, in confusion.

"When we loaded that truck together," he said, pulling out the hat he'd disguised himself with.

"For the past 3 weeks, all I've heard about was how great you were doing," he said." I wanted to see it for myself. And since I occasionally go down and load a truck or 2 myself, just to make sure I remember where I came from. I got to see for myself," he smiled at me as he said this, and I could see that he hadn't lost the killer instinct that makes great athletes great, he'd just focused it on business instead of sports.

"I tried what I did with you, with both of my sons," he said, "neither of them lasted an hour. Now they both have jobs in the company, with really important sounding titles, that don't matter. But you really impressed me, so you earned the promotion on your own," he said. "It had nothing to do with Dana; let's see what you can do from here."

I left the building happy as hell, and depressed at the same time. On one hand the promotion was great, and I was proud of myself to be able to get it, but I knew that it would probably be short lived, because Dana and I were over. We weren't married, we weren't even engaged; so legally what she had done, or what I thought she'd done wasn't cheating. But I still wouldn't stand for it. Shit I didn't even know what she'd done. All I saw was her kissing some guy, when she got out of his car. Maybe he'd just picked her up on the road, and that was a thank you kiss for the ride. It was implausible but it was possible.

Dana and I had a lot of talking to do, and I wasn't in a hurry to do it. But before we could do it I needed to know what was going on, and I had an idea of how to find out. I went over to Dana's apartment and watched to make sure that she was not hanging around outside of the building. I spoke to the doorman Ernie. Ernie's a really nice guy, and had told me from time to time when Dana was having problems with things, or people in the building. Like me, he was a working class guy, he was going to college, and as I had, he was working his way through. He'd often told me how lucky I was, to have hit the jackpot with Dana. And I'd often told him how I expected the ride to be over with soon enough, because girls like her, just didn't end up with guys like us.

Ernie had leveled with me, and it was about like I figured. While I was out working at night, a girl like Dana wasn't going to stay put away on a shelf waiting for me. Dana was going out 2 or 3 nights a week and often staying out all night. He even told me that there were at least 3 or 4 different guys. I know he felt sorry for me, but not nearly as sorry as I felt for myself. It felt like there was a lump in my throat that I just couldn't swallow. No matter what I did it wouldn't go away. I told myself that I'd always treated Dana like a princess. I'd never cheated on her, so at least one of us, could leave the relationship with their head held high.

After I left Ernie, I headed back for my apartment. I realized after a few minutes, that going home might not be my best bet. I was sure that Dana would be there. As if to make things even worse my cell rang again, and the screen showed Dana's smiling face. The only difference was that now I knew why the bitch was smiling.

The only question I had was why she kept up the farce with me. Why didn't Dana, just leave me alone and go out and have all the fun she wanted. I was obviously just a complication, so getting rid of me, would free her up to go out and live her life.

I went to Kinko's to use one of their Office set ups and I wrote her a letter. I dropped it off with Ernie and asked him to hand it to her, next time she came in from one of her late night visits. Then I called and left Dana a message on her home phone, telling her that I'd been called out of town on an emergency, and I'd be back late Saturday. I thought that telling her that would buy me some time.

I went to meet Tom. We went to a bar that he hung out at sometimes. The drinks were strong and the bar maids were pretty, it was almost enough to make me forget about Dana. We talked for a long time, about everything we'd been going through, since we got out of school. He laughed his ass off when I told him about loading trucks. But when I told him about my new job, I could tell he was jealous as he'll.