"Why can't you get on an earlier flight?" The phone in my hand was slick from the sweat of my hand. The temperature in Tucson was already 85 and climbing, and it was only 7AM. Even standing there naked in the air conditioned house I was dripping with sweat. The sheets I'd left when the phone woke me up were soaking wet.
"I told you that the conference has splintered into departmental groups," my wife said with exasperation. "I have two more meetings tomorrow and by the time they're over it will be too late to catch the last flight. Believe me, baby, if I could get on a plane right now I would. This is the wettest summer Seattle has had for ten years, they said. I'm frickin' cold!" At least I wasn't getting rained on. I looked out the patio doors at the pool. The sun sparkled off the blue water.
She had been sent to Seattle as part of her promotion to the position of regional rep for her corporation. It was a real plum for her and would look good on her resume. It also carried a considerable raise in salary. Even though it meant she'd be doing more traveling, I was happy for her and proud. The glitch in this present change of timing had one big drawback. A month earlier she had made arrangements for her ex-roommate from college to come visit us. She would be meeting me for the first time. Now I would have to pick 'Tally' up alone, introduce myself, and entertain her for two days.
Barb (my wife) has shown me pictures of the two of them back in school. Tally is -- or at least she was -- a tall redhead with skinny hips, big tits and a nicely rounded ass. She wasn't fat, but, as Barb had, she looked like she might broaden with time. I guessed I'd be able to recognize her from her height, if nothing else. Barb told me Tally was exactly six feet tall. Her green eyes have a wicked gleam in them in most of the pictures. If I'd met the two of them together back then I can't say honestly that I'd have gone for Barb.
Tally had been in an accident her last year of school. Apparently she was pretty badly injured. Barb had never really said how exactly, she'd been hurt -- if she even knew. Other than Christmas cards, the call from Tally was their first communication in a whole lot of years.
According to Barbara, Tally was just returning to the country from England. She'd gone there to live years ago. While she was there she got married and had just recently gotten divorced. When I was single, I'd have been thrilled at the prospect of spending two days alone in a house with the pretty redhead. The problem is that now I am married to Barb. I've always been a 'true blue' kind of guy: I was never unfaithful to any of my old girlfriends and I have continued that integrity in my marriage to Barb.
We finished our conversation and I hung up the phone. I went down the hall to the bedroom and slipped out the sliding door to the patio. Beyond the adobe brick wall surrounding the yard the hill dropped away sharply. Baking and glittering in the desert sun, the city of Tucson stretched out below. Rush hour traffic streamed along I-10 and on the cross town avenues. We don't have neighbors on either side of the house.
I decided to take a quick dip in the pool before showering and dressing to go to the airport. Barb and I normally go nude at home. Barb said Tally would probably take to it, though we should probably take it slow. I thought about that as I dove into the pool and stayed under the surface as I swam toward the shallow end. Tally was supposed to stay for two weeks. I surfaced and snorted the water out of my nose as I backstroked to the pool's edge. I pushed off and side stroked back the other way. I wasn't really looking forward to two weeks of enforced clothing, so I hoped Tally was okay with nudity.
The air inside the airport was only slightly cooler than the air outside because the doors were always opening and closing. I felt drops of sweat breaking out on my forehead and dripping down my sides under my shirt. Tally's flight was going to be twenty-five minutes late according to the monitor on the concourse. I stepped into the bar and ordered a vodka Collins. I pulled the latest J. A. Jance novel from my pocket and opened it to my mark. I drank and read until it was time to go to the gate.
The speakers announced the flight's arrival as I joined the crowd milling around. Relatives and friends all peered expectantly past the security checkpoint as passengers began streaming down the concourse. I was standing so I could look straight up the ramp. After a few minutes a head covered with red hair appeared at the bend. It moved along above the heads that surrounded it. 'This has to be her,' I thought.
Sure enough, when the throng thinned out she stood looking around. I was surprised at the changes from her younger picture. The tall thin woman with a great rack who had roomed with my wife had put on a few pounds. Her hips were broader, but still nicely rounded under her summer dress. Her waist had thickened some too. Her breasts had also burgeoned along with the rest of her body. She was undeniably attractive, but not in the way I'd expected. I took a deep breath and stepped forward.
"Tally?" I called out. Her head turned toward me. I raised my hand and she smiled at me. Her smile was beautiful! I smiled back. She came toward me. I held out my hand but she took it in her left hand, pulling me toward her. She hugged me as if we were old friends. I was a little uncomfortable but it felt good too. I hugged her back.
"So you're Frank! I've seen pictures, and Bobbi has told me so much about you I feel like I know you already. Sorry I didn't see you right away." Her breath on my neck was hot. She smelled good. It wasn't a perfume smell. It was more likely the trace of her soap mingled with the natural heated scent of her body. Her tits pushed hard into my chest as I returned the hug. She broke away and looked around. "But where is she?"
I explained the problem and Tally just grinned. "You mean she trusts you alone with me for two days?" Her eyes held a mischievous gleam and her eyebrows wiggled up and down. 'Uh-oh,' I thought. "She must have a lot of faith in you."
"Well," I said, blushing for no reason I could name, "she has good reason to trust me." Even to myself I sounded like a prig. I tried to lessen my discomfort with a grin and a 'gawrsh, ma'am' kind of a shrug. She looped her arm in mine as we walked down the concourse toward baggage claim.
"Good Lord, it's hot!" she said. "Can you find me a cold drink soon?" I noticed she had a slight limp. She was dressed in dark slacks that had to be hot. I offered to buy her one right there in the bar but she was aware of airport prices. I assured her it wouldn't take long to get home. While we waited for her bags at the carousel she told me all about her flights and the idiots she had to endure all the way from New York. She spoke with a pronounced British accent. That could be expected from an American after living in London for fifteen years, I guessed.
We got her two bags and ventured into the furnace outside. Tally stopped and staggered -- actually staggered -- when the heat hit her. I grabbed her arm to balance her. She gripped my shoulder. "Good God! Is it always this hot here?" I eased her down onto a concrete bench just behind where we had stopped. I stood up and looked at her.
"No," I told her with a grin. "Sometimes it gets hotter. The good part, according to those who don't live here is that 'it's a dry heat'." She looked at me and I saw that she had broken a sweat already. She also was too hot to enjoy my little attempt at humor. "Don't worry, though. All the cars and the houses have air conditioning. I told her to wait just inside the door and I'd go get the car. "That way you won't get heat stroke and the car will have a chance to cool down some before you get in it." I left her fanning herself with her book while I went to get the car.
I walked through the lines of cars to my Jeep. Using the washrag I keep in there for the purpose, I held the steering wheel as I started it up. I would have to drive with the cloth between my hand and the plastic of the wheel until the A/C kicked in to make it cool enough to handle bare-handed.
By the time I'd paid for parking and driven around to pick Tally up, the car had cooled pretty well. I popped the hatch and loaded her bags in and we were off. "I don't think I could ever get used to this heat," she said, looking around us at the desert landscape.
