The Texoma Deluge

I started this one thinking I would build on a vignette from "Gunny" with Winona Gustophsen as the main character but the more I wrote into it the more I was reminded of the protagonist, Dave, and the story needed to be his instead of the curious woman named Winona. She still has a story to tell but the unfolding of it will have to be on her timeline rather than Dave's.

None of the people or events is anything other than fictional accounts. I might allow my mind to wander but I assure you my life is rather mundane in accordance with my preferred mild preferences. As usual I will allow anonymous comments but please keep them civil. As for the two or three who are constant thorns, well, you know who you are. Don't waste your time. You will not like the story and I did not write it for your particular enjoyments. There is no scorched bitch or bastard. There is no swinging, well, there is one scene that was border-line but no spouses were involved. I don't have a clue what a RAAC scenario is in a real world sense; there are always costs to any failed or challenged relationship. I know because I have racked up quite a charge to my own account over the years.

I will delete turds. If you are one and your comment is deleted consider yourself outed. Contrary to rumors I actually like constructive criticism and it helps me on the next endeavor. For example a commenter once noted I misused "and I" vs. "and me" often and because of that I try to catch myself on that when I can. If I miss a period, let me know; I get cranky when that happens. If you don't like the story, email me and I'll get you a refund.

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There is always the potential for another chapter in every saga.

Sheets of rain were pouring off the highway when I pulled into the convenience store off Rt. 75 between Sherman and Denison, Texas that afternoon. It was the kind of rain where vision was down to a couple feet and even when sitting still I couldn't make out the store signage between my car in the parking lot and the entrance.

When I landed at Dallas-Ft. Worth there were grey skies but the rental agent told me I'd probably run into heavy storms as I approached Lake Texoma to the north. I was on my way to one of our plants in Durant, Oklahoma to oversee installation of a new extruder on the shop floor and needed to be there at the start of the next morning shift. From where I was I didn't have all that far to go.

It was a last minute trip pushed onto me the previous evening when one of the engineers on site at Durant took sick so I got the task. My wife travels a lot for her job as well and this was one of her weeks; she was in Atlanta for a conference and I'd be finished and done with this one about the same time she returned.

I walked up to the counter with a bag of chips and a soda and a little high school girl rang it up and handed me the receipt.

"Are you heading north, sir?"

I let her know I was.

"Well the State Police just closed northbound Rt. 75 up at the bridge. A couple tanker trucks had a big wreck and shut it down. I think they are routing all traffic across Rt. 82 to Rt. 377 but it's going to be backed up for miles."

I thanked her for the information and headed back to my car to figure out what I was going to do now. The rain was still coming down in torrents. From where I was I could get to Durant in maybe fifteen, twenty minutes on dry pavement when it was cleared out by morning. Given the conditions, that meant a night on the Texas side of the border.

I pulled up my honors club app and reserved a room at the Texoma Garden Inn just less than a mile from where I was off one of the access roads and headed in that direction.

"Mr. David Hoff?" The desk clerk asked when she checked my reservation.

I affirmed that's who I was and she gave me a key card to the room. It was a typical business traveler's hotel; it had the breakfast room and for this rainy mess of a day it had a nice bar and grill to kill some time in if I wanted to stay in for the evening.

With a quick call to the plant I settled into the room. I've got this thing about hotel rooms; I don't like them even though I live out of them so frequently. I couldn't stay settled for more than an hour. I tried calling Tracy, my wife, and I couldn't get ahold of her so I left her a message instead and let her know I'd call later that evening.

"So what are you looking to have for dinner?" The clerk asked when I inquired of a good place to eat and maybe have a good beer. "I think you'd like 'Loose Wheels' over behind the hospital across the highway from here."

I took the advice and later that evening made the short drive. It was a busy crowd so I agreed to take a seat at the bar and have a burger and a beer right there. The band had just begun to play by the time I finished the plate and the next beer arrived.

The next few moments I guess could be described as a pause of what I might otherwise consider reality. 'Loose Wheels' became an extraneous backdrop and if you can imagine what a sense of horizontal vertigo might seem like, that's the best I can describe it. I watched her lift a glass of wine to her lips and wipe a smudge of it onto her napkin. She was smiling, happy, definitely not feeling any pain and she wasn't alone. She was with another couple and a man I had never seen before. I knew the other woman.

The two of them were intimate and it was obvious at least to me that the four of them knew each other well. It was an intimacy that wasn't acquired overnight. The two of them were pretty much as I pictured Tracy and me to be except it wasn't me at the table.

I watched my wife of four years lean over and kiss the man she was with as her lips lingered on his before they both stood and moved out onto the dance floor. From where I was sitting I had a box seat to every furtive exchange between the two of them, to every embrace and each brush of the cheek.

I don't know how long I sat there watching them. Nothing else around me mattered and as if on autopilot I pulled my card out and handed it to the waitress to settle the bill as the two lovers continued to move on the floor. By the time the song ended I had signed the check and watched as the two of them returned to the table.

He held out the chair for her before she sat down and as he seated himself and pulled into the table she looked up and perhaps it was the greatest coincidence of all time; a brilliant lightning strike hit the ground outside and was immediately followed by a tremendous thunderclap, just as Tracy's eyes met mine.

I don't know why I did it but I slipped off the stool and approached the table all the while Tracy's eyes grew large and her face drained of color. By the time I reached it she was shaking and weeping and trying to mouth words I just couldn't hear above the din.

"Hello Tracy. Don't get up on my account. I'm just leaving."

I took off my wedding ring and looked at it in my hand and held it up as if to appraise it.

"Twenty four carat gold; it's probably worth more now than four years ago. Buy yourself something nice with it."

I tossed it onto the table in the middle of the two couples and turned around and walked out. I remember thinking to myself 'what a hell of a coincidence' as I turned the ignition over in the car and headed back to the hotel. She was standing outside the entrance watching me drive away with a hand over her mouth.

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I'll never let you see The way my broken heart is hurting me I've got my pride and I know how to hide All the sorrow and pain I'll do my crying in the rain

Tracy Gallant was a twenty nine year old road warrior for an IT services provider when I first laid eyes on her in a cafe in downtown Charleston, SC. She was dining with a table of people and I met her while waiting to use the restroom; hell of a place to strike up a conversation but we did.

She was the picture of an All American girl next door with her hair cut short in a bob and a dress providing just a glimpse of cleavage yet offering hope for what lay underneath. We've all heard the stories of falling in love on first sight. Well that didn't happen. I fell in love on second sight when she joined me at the bar after her party broke for the evening.

I was working for a plastics manufacturer in North Charleston spending half my life on the road as a troubleshooter and Tracy was doing pretty much the same thing in her professional realm. She grew up in north Texas and after graduating from UT- Austin and working out of Dallas for a few years, went for the complete change of scenery by taking a job as an IT troubleshooter for a company on Daniel Island here in the Charleston area.

I started my career with the plastics extruding company and have stayed with them ever since, rising in the ranks to the point I was their go-to guy for most deadline crunches. Being thirty years old most of the guys considered me an early achiever; I think I'm just consistent and finish what I start to the end.

"So, Dave Hoff, your place or mine?"

I didn't need to be asked twice. She followed me to my condo on the peninsula and I discovered just how damn good my future wife was going to be. Tracy was all in for everything that night and after we had fucked each other into oblivion she made plans for the next time.

"I'm back in town next Friday. Let's do this again, my place this time."

"Only after a proper dinner and drinks. I'll pick you up at 7PM."

From that point on it was off to the marital races. When our work schedules allowed it we became a couple. I have to admit it was touch and go for a while because when I might have been in Scottsdale, Arizona on a job Tracy might just as well have been home on Daniel Island. By the time I returned she could have been on a plane to Houston.

Leave it to two professional travelers to figure out a way to hook up. We created a system of layovers. If we were each traveling through Atlanta or Cincinnati or Memphis or anyplace we crossed paths we would book a room up at the airport hotel and continue on in the morning. That actually added a great twist to our romance.

We kept it up for several months and finally we sat down and analyzed our business travel, the locations and how frequently we overlap. We realized that two thirds of our travel would place us in the same region if we managed our schedules to our benefit. So, that's what we did.

It worked better than we thought. Both of us were on the road for 50% of the time and we were able to travel together for the most part. We have a plant in Arkansas and Tracy has a hospital client in Memphis. We would coordinate our trips to fly into Memphis and I would then take a rental down to Pine Bluff. For the return I'd join her at the hotel the night before and we would go out to dinner and fuck our socks off afterwards. We repeated the pattern with other locations.

Finally we were able to coordinate our travel to put us in New Orleans on a Thursday afternoon and we made a weekend of it. Over dinner at Commanders Palace I proposed to Tracy on a bended knee in front of the whole dining room and she accepted. We came back up for air Sunday afternoon to catch a flight back to Charleston...

"Charlie, this is Tracy's cousin Lynn. Lynn, Charlie is an engineer in South Carolina." Tracy's sister Lucy said to the woman beside her.

It was the third time Lucy had introduced me as Charlie at the reception. I had never met any of Tracy's family except her parents until we flew back to Denton for the wedding.

"Lynn, I'm Dave, not Charlie." I said casting a glance at Lucy as well.

Tracy's other two sisters were each welcoming but distant as well. Whatever the case I didn't let it ruin the afternoon. Tracy and I turned our attentions toward each other and thankfully I got along great with her parents. I put the identity slights to the back of my mind and later that night my bride rocked me in bed until 3AM. We left the next day for a honeymoon in Jamaica...

Married life was good, real good for the first couple years and Tracy and I were able to keep our travel schedules in synch with only a few disruptions. Then she got a promotion and things began to change. Her clients were reassigned and she began spending a lot more time in Minneapolis and Dallas. Actually two thirds of her travel was to those two locations. My company had nothing in the Minneapolis area and only a plant up in Durant, OK.

"Dave, it's not going to last that long, only a couple years or so and then I'm going to go off the road and maybe then we can work on that baby we've been talking about."

It was a nice carrot since we had been talking about starting a family for several months.

"Seriously, Dave, I know we are going to consolidate the department once my boss retires and at that point I'll probably only have to travel once a month or a couple times a quarter."

Of course having her rub my attentive member through my trousers didn't hurt her cause any. She fucked me into compliance and life continued on... Being on the road as much as the both of us were has a lot of drawbacks, one of which is longing for the pleasures your spouse provides and the temptations on the road are frequent. I've never had eyes for anybody but Tracy since we married but sometimes it's not the eyes that are doing the thinking.

"Dave, this is Susan DeLong. She is going to be your travel companion for a while to learn the ropes and the ins and outs." My boss Monroe informed me one morning in his office with a grin on his face.

Susan was a mid- thirties new hire from one of our competitors, natural blond, fucking great body with a tremendous smile and a personality to match. Her husband was working oversea in Saudi Arabia and she had made it abundantly clear to him that there was no way she was going to live in that socially backward country. Regardless the opportunity was too financially advantageous to turn down so he makes the rotation back stateside every twelve weeks and heads back four weeks later. The arrangement worked perfectly for the travel requirements Susan would have with our company.

The two of us had made a couple trips together before we ended up stuck at a Doubletree hotel in downtown Memphis. We were iced in during a rare southern storm that iced airports from Memphis to Charlotte. Tracy was in Dallas and staying over the weekend to visit with one of her sisters since she had to be back there on Monday.

After a light dinner Susan and I were enjoying a couple drinks in the bar and just talking about things in general. Her beauty aside I had come to like her a lot and to be honest I thought her husband was a damn fool for leaving her alone for months at a time. Well with no work needs in the morning and our flight being delayed until the following afternoon I became pretty sophomoric.

Two other couples who were stranded as well joined us and we were soon bantering like long lost friends. Somehow the conversation turned to drinking and whatever crazy experiences each of us might have had during our more adventurous youth. By that time I had already had a bit more to drink than I should have but the women started doing dares, specifically dares with tequila.

God knows I knew better, I really did. Tequila and I have a long storied history together. It's been said tequila causes women to lose their clothes. In my case it's common sense and most of my memory. One of the women, Carole or some such, ordered a round of shots. Before I knew it we were on a third round and that's when I stopped keeping count.

I can remember the women playing musical chairs on us guys laps and at one point Susan was firmly planted on a very appreciative and growing accessory. I don't know where my hands were but they weren't on the table.

Sometime later, according to accounts, the six of us were heading up the elevators to the cheers of other patrons. The two couples ended up in the room across from mine and Susan steered the two of us into my room.

I honestly do not remember what happened when the door closed other than I was lying flat on my back at one point and a completely naked and beautiful woman was lying on top of me feeding her erect nipple into my mouth. For the moment I didn't have a clue but over time a few of the memories slip back into consciousness.

I know she gave me a blowjob and at one point I'm certain her entire pussy was in my mouth and for a brief moment I can remember fucking her strong and deep from a missionary position. Everything else is lost until we woke the next morning. She was smiling and I was confused.

"Susan, did I fuck you last night?"

"Twice."

I groaned and almost reached for the bottle again but settled for water. With modesty tossed to the wind I walked naked to the bath and drank at least three glasses of water before returning to the applause of a sexy whistle.

"I fucked up." I said to her. She just giggled and said "You sure did the second time but it was more up and in it."

In any other circumstance I might have laughed at the response but at the moment I knew I had made a mess of things. First, no matter how much anybody drinks I think there is a willingness to do wrong even if the inhibitions are totally shot. Granted, the ability to resist might be feeble minded at times but taking the steps to get in that condition was certainly voluntary.

I know what happens when I drink too much tequila; there is no excuse and now I had fucked around on my wife which is the last thing I wanted to do when I took that first drink. As I sat there pondering the mess Susan just sat up with the sheet around her waist and her fabulous tits on full display.

"Dave, if it's any consolation, what we did isn't going outside this room, I promise. Just so you know, this is the first time I've done this since Billy started working for the Saudis. It isn't something I'm practiced at, I swear, and like you I'd like to keep this just between the two of us."

"Yeah, what happens in Memphis stays in Memphis, right?" I had to chuckle at the predicament.

Susan gathered up most of her clothes, threw them on and headed to her room to get cleaned up before we met for breakfast downstairs. Neither of us held it against the other and promised to not let it happen again although we both knew that whatever happened was damn good.

That was the only time I cheated on Tracy and rather than open a great big can of worms I decided to keep it to myself. She wasn't going to know about, it wasn't going to happen again and I was certainly going to do everything I could to make it up to myself. I say myself because I'm the one I let down, at least as long as she doesn't know about it.

With my one off peccadillo aside things in the Hoff household continued as they had. I still traveled with Susan and if anything our friendship had actually strengthened rather than drifted as some might expect. Tracy on the other hand was gone more often than she was home now, most often in Dallas. Sure, that let her see her family but if I saw her more than a couple days a week I was lucky.

The sex stayed good and Tracy was looking great, really good. She had done a wardrobe upgrade and given herself a more feminine and less business look to her attire. I sure wasn't going to complain because my philosophy was why work all that time in the gym only to hide it under a lot of layers.

Her sister Lucy came to visit us one week when Tracy was working out of the home office. She didn't call me Charlie this time but she didn't have much to talk about either. The two sisters would get in their own zone and most evenings the two of them would step out for drinks somewhere.

One of those evenings the two of them came in three sheets to the wind and I had to help Tracy to bed. Lucy had plopped herself down on the couch when I returned to the living room.