Chance Encounter

Most of my stories seem to be about love, romance, and hot sex. I guess that's because, there's just not much call for stories about hate, violence, and loathing. You'd think, I would get bored with it all after a while, but the fertile soil of my dirty old mans brain, keeps coming up with new ideas. Here's the latest one, let's see where it goes.

I'll let you in on a little secret; even I don't know where my stories are going to go when I start them. I have a very basic idea and they take wing from there. This title is a perfect example. I wrote it down and started this introduction, by now I have the two main characters, the starting sentence, and the setting.

Where does it come from? I wished I knew but I don't have a clue. Where it going? Only time and the characters will tell.

*****

I got off the plane in New Orleans around four in the morning. I had to be downtown by seven. One of my clients in Houston has a branch office here and the computer network has been giving them fits. No one around here seems to be able to figure it out, so here I am.

I'm not saying that there are not good network people here, or that I'm a miracle worker, I'm just more familiar with the total system. At one time or another, I have trouble shot it over a three state area. It's old and pieced together but it works, most of the time.

I caught a cab downtown and arrived quite a bit early, so I had the driver let me off at a local café. One thing about New Orleans, cafes, and bars are not in short supply. This one was on the corner across the street from a charter bus line; casino tours seemed to be their stock in trade.

I ordered coffee. Yankee coffee, I specified and a slice of apple pie. If you don't tell them Yankee coffee, you'll end up with enough chicory to kill an elephant. I don't remember exactly what chicory is but I do know that it makes strong coffee and makes me as jittery as a nun in a whorehouse.

Not that I have ever seen a nun in a whorehouse or actually been to one of those places. Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I had finished the pie and about half the coffee. The coffee tasted strong and bitter, I had an idea that they had taken their normal cup of coffee and cut it with twice as much water.

The waitress came by and asked if I wanted another cup. I checked my watch and told her ok. I still had a lot of time to wait for the building two blocks away to open.

She brought the cup of coffee and another glass of water. I added a little of the fresh coffee to my old and cut it with some more water. I was adding a couple of teaspoons of sugar to it, when someone entered the cafe by the side door. I glanced that way to see a person wearing a bus driver's uniform and returned my gaze to my coffee cup.

As the person walked past my booth, a whiff of a women's perfume drew my eyes up to follow the provocative sway of a well rounded ass across the room to the hallway leading to the restrooms. The red hair and swaying ass reminded me of my first ex wife. I grinned at the thought of her and shook my head.

I hadn't seen her in over thirty years and anyway she was in California. We had not parted company under very friendly circumstances but a long time later, we became at least friendly towards each other. The next two husbands she had after me were total assholes in comparison.

At least I had a job and didn't beat the shit out of her when she got angry and started her yelling. I just worked my ass off and occasionally went out for a beer and forgot what time it was. Oh well, that was all water under the bridge, as the saying goes.

My mind was wandering over some of the more fun times from early in our relationship, when the woman reappeared around the corner. I glanced that way and then did a quick double take. If that wasn't my ex, then she had a twin sister.

My mind and eyes did a quick inventory, five foot nine inches tall, red hair, heart shaped face, boobs out to there, narrow waist, nice hips, and long legs. They were all there and even nicer than when I had last seen her. She had told me that she had lost some weight but I just chalked that up to general bullshit.

Just before she got even with the table, I said questioningly, "Sandra? Sandra White?"

The woman faltered and stopped, looking down at me, a questioning look on her face. She cocked her head slightly to the side as she studied my face. The puzzled look on her face turned to a frown, and then she asked, "Do I know you?"

I recognized that voice immediately and grinned. "You should, you've slept with me enough, about six years, more or less," I said and then laughed.

Her eyes got wide at the sound of my voice and then a big grin was on her face. "Randy? My God, I didn't recognize you. You're so much bigger than I remember, and that beard and long hair. Is that really you?"

I stood up, still grinning, and said, "Well, I was when I woke up yesterday morning. After the last twenty hours though, I'm beginning to wonder." Then I asked my burning question, "What the hell are you doing in Louisiana? You're supposed to be in California."

She laughed and flapped the bus driver's jacket at me. "I drive a tour bus remember. I'm here with a busload of tourists that are visiting the French Quarter. What are you doing here? You lived somewhere over in Texas, last I heard."

I explained that I was here to fix a computer system and then I invited her to sit down and have some coffee with me. She grinned and sat down in the booth across from me. I waved at the waitress and she headed our way.

"Unless my memory is totally out of whack, you had better have the hot tea; the coffee here is stronger than homemade sin."

She smiled and replied, "There's nothing wrong with your memory, I still don't like strong coffee, and especially what they call coffee around here. Tea will be fine."

I placed her order with the waitress and then we both asked at the same time, "How long are you going to be in town?"

We both laughed and then Sandy said, "Jinks, you owe me a coke."

I chuckled and shook my head. "Damn, I haven't heard that in twenty five years or more."

"I guess I'm showing my age aren't I," she said and grinned.

I looked at her for a few seconds, as the memory of the twenty-year-old girl I had married all that time ago, floated behind my eyes. Other than a few lines around her mouth and at the corners of her eyes, she hadn't changed much. I blinked and said, "Actually, you're looking damn good, much better than me, that's for sure."

"Lair," she said with a smile.

"Actually no, I'm still carrying the picture of you as a twenty year old girl in my mind, and here you are a full grown woman. Believe it or not, it's an improvement," I said with all seriousness.

She grinned and asked, "Which picture are you referring to?"

I wondered for a second if the question was serious, and then I shrugged and answered truthfully. "It's not just one picture but more of a composite of a bunch of the happier times we had. Some part of you was added by each one." I paused to grin and looked at her chest before I added, "Some parts to that picture don't look like they've changed a bit."

She laughed and pulled the jacket closed. "I see you're still a dirty old man working on the age."

I chuckled and shook my head. "Not anymore, now I'm just a dirty old man, I've got all the age I need and then some."

She smiled and ran her eyes over the parts of my body above the table for a moment. "You sure have filled out. I remember a skinny guy with a sunken chest; you sure don't fit that image now. I think you're even taller than I remember."

"No, not really, I just learned how to stand up straight. I've put on quite a bit of weight, I weight about half again as much as I did the last time you saw me. It was all muscle a few years ago, but my working on or at a computer all the time, has let a little of it puddle up around my waist," I said and then grinned.

"I didn't see anything to complain about." She shot back at me. "The beard and long hair are what really threw me. You wore a mustache for a little while after you got back from Nam but the full beard and all that gray...." She let the sentence trail off as she looked at me. "I like it; it makes you look more distinguished and handsome."

"Old and senile is more like it," I said half to myself and chuckled.

Something buzzed in her pocket and she reached for it saying, "That's my summoning page, I have to go get my bus ready. Are you going to be around later?"

"Sure," I said hastily. "I've got to repair that antique network but if I'm lucky it will be something minor. If not then I could be there quite a while. Is there someplace I can call you later?"

She took a small notebook out of her pocket and wrote a number down. "This is the hotel I'm staying at and I should be back there around five or so." She wrote down another number and said, "This is my mobile number on the bus. If you get through early, call me there."

She stood up as I did and gave me a hug, which I returned, and a light peck on the lips. "Call me," she said and walked toward the door. She paused there, looked back at me, and grinned. "I'll be damned, if there isn't some muscle under there." Then she was out the door and headed across the street.

I stood there for a moment just staring at the door. All kinds of thoughts were whirling around in my head. I shook my head and grinned, and then sat down. What were the odds of my ex and me ending up in the same café at five in the morning, in a town neither of us lived in? They were too high for me to even think about, even if I had any idea how big the number was.

Thinking of the hug she gave me, and how she felt in my arms, brought back a flood of memories, all of which were good ones. There had never been anything wrong with our physical relationship, in fact that had probably been the least of our problems. Sex was more or less, anywhere, anytime, and anyway. As young and broke as we were back then, sex was a large part of our recreation and always fun.

My mind set off down memory lane, wading through the tons of great times we had had sexually. Some of the things we had done and some of the places we had done them, brought a smile to my face. I was so lost in the past that the waitress had to touch my arm to get my attention, so she could ask if I needed any more coffee.

I looked at my watch and got a surprise. It was a quarter to seven, where had the time gone, I wondered. I told her, "No thanks."

I paid my bill and hurried out the door.

*****

It was a little after four by the time I found the main problem with the computer system. It seems that someone had reset one of the older slave servers over to a master and it was in direct conflict with one of the three newer master servers. The way the new system was intermixed with the old system, nothing had been shut down. It was all just slowed down, as multiple conflicts tried to take precedence over each other.

I reset the old server back the way it should have been and ran a couple of tests. Everything seemed to be back to normal, or as normal as the system always worked.

I hunted up the company's local computer guru and told her that I was going to find me a hotel room and that I would call in the morning to check to see if everything was still ok. She told me to try the Madison Hotel, two blocks south, the company kept an executives suite there. If it wasn't being used, then I could probably use it for the night and it wouldn't cost me anything. I thanked her and headed out the door.

In the outer office, I checked with the receptionist and asked about the hotel room. She told me that it was empty and that she would call and let the hotel know I was coming. I thanked her and asked if there was a phone I could use for a local call. She pointed to the desk across from hers and told me to use that one.

I tried Sandy's hotel room and got no answer but I did find out that she was staying at the Madison Hotel. All I got on her cell phone was her voice mail, so I left a message and headed for the hotel.

*****

The company suite was nice, a living room with a stocked wet bar, a large bedroom, and a full bath; the bathroom even had a hot tub. I tossed my overnight bag on the bed and tried Sandy's room again. There was no answer, so I tried her cell phone and got the voice mail again. I left the hotel number and my room number there and then called the desk and left her a message with them.

That was all I could do about that right now, so I checked to see if the hot tub was turned on. It was, so I stripped and raided the bar for a cold beer before I climbed into it. I relaxed and let the hot bubbly water work on my tired body.

As I lay there sipping my beer, my mind wandered over the subject of Sandy. Since I hadn't heard back from her, I figured that either she had just been yanking my chain about seeing me later or that she was tied up somewhere.

I had finished my beer and was wondering how I could get another without getting out of the tub, when the phone rang. I started to get out of the tub, when I noticed a phone handset on the wall within reach of the tub.

Picking it up, I said, "Hello."

"Why didn't you say you were staying at this hotel?" Sandy's voice asked me.

I chuckled and replied, "I started to ask you this morning if you had a roommate or maybe wanted one? I didn't know where I was staying until I got ready to leave the company where I was working. Then I was told about this place, it's on them, so I took it. Yeah, I'm still cheap." I ended with a laugh.

She laughed and then said, "You never were cheap; easy, but not cheap. I'm sorry to say that I do have a roommate and she's a bitch. She's driving the second bus on this tour, and slow as molasses in January. She's the reason everyone was late getting back to their hotel. She tried to make a wrong turn down a one-way street. New Orleans cops don't like that very much and we had to wait while she got straightened out and then got her ticket."

"Want to come join me? I'm neck deep in a hot tub right this minute and just finished a cold beer." I asked jokingly.

There was a short pause on the other end of the line and then Sandy laughed. "Why the hell not! I'll be there in about five minutes. Bye." She hung up.

I sat there with the phone still at my ear for a second and then slowly hung it up. "Oh shit." I muttered to myself as I wondered what I had gotten myself into. I had been joking, or had I?

After my long trip down memory lane this morning with all its wonderful, sexy memories, had I unconsciously been serious? It didn't really matter now, my ex-wife, thirty years removed, was on her way to my hotel room.

"Ok stupid, get out of the tub, and go unlock the door." I told myself as I stood up. "Yeah, and maybe you should put on a pair of shorts while your at it, you wouldn't want to scare her." My mind added as I dried off with a towel.

I slipped on my shorts, unlocked the door, and got myself another beer. I took a long swallow and there was a knock at the door. "Come in," I said and took another sip of the beer. "This should be fun." My mind muttered to me.

Sandy opened the door and came in. My eyes bugged out and my mouth dropped open when she did. All she was wearing was a smile. My eyes took in the robe in her hand but only as additional information, my eye were too busy wandering over her lush body.

She had packed on a lot of weight the last year I was in Nam. That was about a year before we separated and then divorced. She had lost that plus a little. Well, maybe not, it looked more like she had toned it up quite a bit. Whichever, she looked better now, than when I had married her and that was saying something.

Sandy laughed and said, "I'll take that as a compliment. Now, close your mouth and quit drooling on the rug."

My eyes snapped up to her face and I closed my mouth. She grinned and asked, "You wouldn't have another one of those beers would you?"

"I don't remember you as a beer drinker; you were always the sloe gin type of girl," I said as I got another beer and opened it.

When I turned around, she was standing right in front of me. She grinned, placed one hand on my shoulder, and then kissed me lightly on the lips before she replied, "A lot of things have changed about me. What I drink is probably the least of them."

She kissed me again and my surprise had worn off enough for me to kiss her back. My hand went to her lower back and I caressed her as the kiss went on for a minute or so.

Pulling her head back, she smiled and said, "You still kiss as good as ever, although that beard makes it definitely different. Come to think about it, I've never kissed anyone with a beard before, a mustache yes, but not a beard."

She took her beer from my hand and looked around the room. "Nice place, a whole lot nicer than mine. Where's that hot tub you were talking about?"

"In the bathroom." I replied.

She walked toward the bedroom door and I stood there watching her. She moved with a grace and ease that she had never had back when I knew her. She was one beautiful woman from the back as well as the front.

Her ass had been the thing that had attracted me to her in the first place. That and the short skating skirt she was wearing at the time. She had been bent over tying the laces on her roller skates. Her long legs in dark tights were the second things I noticed. Damned if she didn't look even better now.

At the door, she turned and looked at me, a slight smile playing around her lips. The smile blossomed and then she said, "Admiring the view and my ass as always, huh."

She did a little spinning step and asked, "Well, what do you think of the new improved me? It took a hell of a lot of work and sweat to get to where I am now. I got tired of being a cow and did something about it."

"You look better than ever, even better than when I first met you at the roller rink." I told her.

She leaned against the door jam and grinned, "We were a pair, weren't we? We were not the best dance skaters around but we sure won a lot of contests together. Two state championships, back to back. It hasn't been done since, you know."

"Yeah I know; we were so tall that we looked out of place with the rest of the skaters but it also made us look so much smoother and more graceful than them. I think that's what got us all those trophies," I said as I remembered our dance skating days.

She chuckled and said, "Yeah, and I think they could see something else too, like the love we shared back then. We moved more like one person and always danced closer together than anyone else."

I laughed as I remembered something. "Those dances always made you so hot, and the sex after a big meet was even hotter than normal. You always fantasized about doing our routine nude. I wonder if that showed to the judges also." I reminded her.

She laughed and replied, "I wanted to do that so bad, but we never could find a place big enough, or private enough to try it. If we had, we would have either hurt ourselves or ended up fucking like rabbits right there in the middle of the rink. We nearly ended up doing the latter, several times as it was."

I laughed and then nodded. "Yeah, we did the rabbit thing on a regular basis, anywhere and everywhere else but the rink. I'm surprised we never did it there."

"We never could get a place where we could be alone; there was always too many people around. I wasn't into public sex and flashing, well not that much anyway. Do you remember that little park up near my mom's house? The one where we always went to fuck our brains out after a competition. I still smile every time I drive by there," she said with a big grin.

"Yeah, I remember it, I remember it well. We had to cross that creek and we always spread that old blanket of yours back by those large trees. It was dark enough there that no one could see us but we could see everyone in the parking lot and the cars on the freeway." I replied with a grin. "You always wondered if anyone saw us. The thought of someone seeing us always made you hotter than ever."