Wanders

Author's note -

This series is an ongoing collection of character studies and not a stroke story. But there are steamy passages here.

All characters are over eighteen years of age and are found only in my imagination. While some places may be geographically correct, what happens is fictional. Let me restate a plea if you have an interest in helping out on this series. I do need an editor and beta readers. Would that be you? If so, please reach out to me.

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We tumbled onto our bed as the lights from the passing cars danced along Lakeshore Drive. "Kat? Have I told you lately how amazing you are?"

"No? But, you can always tell me that whenever you're in the mood."

"I have known Charlie for ages. To say that he is highly focused and targeted is an understatement. Yet, I have never seen him as relaxed as he was at dinner tonight. I've seen you weave your magic before. Like in Hyde Park, when we had dinner at the award's banquet. Somehow, you got everyone at our table engaged with each other. Hell, you told me that some of the folks from our table had stayed in contact with you. It blows me away how you get people so very at ease and comfortable, then bring them all together. Lady, you are going to be a fantastic teacher."

Chuckling and surprised that my ribs were not colliding with her elbow once more. "OH?" Kat asked. "And what do you think of all the news blurbs that Sandy dropped on the table?"

"Well, OG, and yes, I do like that name for you. It fits you to a "T." Just you wait until I get with the other sisterhood members, everyone will forget your old name, you will only be known as OG. Do you think that Charlie is a force? Well, Sandy makes him look like Casper Milquetoast. Together, the two of them, well ain't no way I'd get in front of them."

"It seems that Sandy, or is it, Sandra, as everyone knows her as. They all genuinely like her as a person and for no other reason. That's a skill. The application process at UC for the MFA is like jumping backward through a hundred hoops. Well, of course, she knows everybody there and has worked with the chair of the MFA selection committee."

"On top of that, she knows all my old teachers from my school. So, what does she do? She gets everybody together on a conference call talking about me. They all agree that it would be beneficial if I did the UC MFA Graphic Arts program. That program is only one of the most demanding programs of its kind. And gee, I need to be challenged to discover and use the full range of talent I have. As if the program I just graduated from was a cakewalk. So now, I have to do three separate studies, pencil, charcoal, and a pen and ink, for submission Thursday afternoon when I meet the MFA selection committee."

"The way the selection process works, it seems. The committee leaves two or three slots open until the end of the selection process for late applicants. Folks, like me. No one is getting bumped aside for me to get in. Damm, right I do have the talent to do this. But shit, three different studies in one day, and those studies are to be presented to the selection committee. That's a hell of a challenge."

"Neil! The next time I start to run my big fat mouth off. Shut me up. Swat my ass and stuff your big cock down my throat."

"Kat? There ain't no way in hell I'd do that. Shit! Woman, if I did that, you bite my cock off. I like my cock where it is now." Funny thing, that comment earned me an elbow in my ribs. "Honey?"

"Don't you dare 'honey' me after that comment, OG! You deserved that. Now go to sleep. OH, you forgot to call Cathy and Carl. So you are on their shit list too. You do like to be on shit lists, don't you?"

"You're right; I did forget. The saving grace is that I will know more tomorrow evening when I get back from the office."

Rolling over and placing a kiss atop Kat's head as I reached out to hold her.

"Don't try it, OG; there ain't enough butter in the world." With that, she flopped over in bed and pushed her butt up against my hip, and fell asleep.

As my eyes slowly began to come into focus, I discovered that my lovely woman had rolled over on our bed at some time during the night. And her head was once again resting on my shoulder. Stretching my neck forward, I placed a kiss atop her head. "MMMmmmm, that's good. That's how I like to start my day. Neil? I'm sorry I was such a bitch to you last night. Yesterday afternoon and dinner last night, I don't know. Suddenly I found myself confronted with all the dreams I have ever had. Shit, Neil, I got scared."

"Kathleen, you and I will always be together. Together we will make it happen. Honey, you have no reason to be scared. Hell, we got Ru here to chase the boogie men out from under the bed."

"OG! You are impossible, and I love you. Now, take your stinky sack of bones and drag them into the car wash and clean up your act. I got things that need to happen here today. Today ain't going to be a lay around, lazy ass kinda day."

Well, I guess I got my marching orders; at least I'm not in the dog house. So, that's a good thing. "Hey?" Kat called out, "did you set up the coffee pot last night, or were you so deep in the arms of the goddess of wine that you forgot?"

"Yeah, I did while you were commiserating with your four-legged boyfriend."

"Well, what do you expect? When we got home, well, Ru came over and said hi."

"Darling, you know what's funny and at the same time sad too. Whenever almost anyone walks in a room and their pet sees them, they both greet each other so joyfully. When their spouse walks in, that person is lucky to get a grunt. Baby, whenever I walk into a room and see you, I will always go to you and give you a hug and a kiss too."

"Neil? Why?"

"Lady, that's an easy one. Why? Because I love you, and I want you to know how special I think you are. But most important of all, because doing that will warm both of our souls. That's why? Anyway, I hate to say it. But I need to get my ass in gear and make this day happen." With that, I got the necessaries done, and as I walked into the kitchen, Kat was pouring me a cup of coffee.

"Shit damm, who's this hot-looking guy all dressed up like some kinda bigwig."

I looked over at her and smiled as she stood in the kitchen in her new robe, standing on one foot with a mischievous smile. "Kat, you look amazing standing there in your robe."

"Hey, OG? Ya, think that looks good? So tell me, what do you think this looks like?" With that, she untied the belt that had held the robe closed and pushed the robe open, so she was gloriously showing off her cute body. "Ya like that, OG?"

"KAATTT, you, you are an impossible woman. We both have full cards today, and youuuu."

With a twinkle in her eye, she asks, "so, honey? What do you want for dinner tonight?"

Looking over my shoulder as I reluctantly headed out, "HAIR PIE!" With that, I closed the door and went back into my old world.

My day started with meetings, then went on to an endless series of emails only to be punctuated with phone calls as one or another person dropped off a brief they wanted me to review. Shit, and people wondered why I wanted to escape? I knew why I was back in the saddle because I loved my clients, and I knew I could help them.

Walking in the condo that evening, I did things I have never done before. Starting with calling a greeting to my Lady, "hi, girlfriend. Whatever you got cooking smells divine." Then going over and finding Kat rolling her head about as I placed a kiss on the top of her head. "Hi, you. How was your day?"

"Actually, great! I got all three studies done for tomorrow. Late this afternoon, I went down to the lobby. What's it called again, the storeroom' and got a few things for dinner. While I was there, I ran to Sandy, and we had a good chat. We went over and got a cup of coffee, and sat for a while. She laughed at how I had gotten Charlie to all but eating out of my hand. Then she wanted to know how you and I got started."

"Well, how do I explain it? Two very neatly dressed men walk into a sports bar with a large scruffy brown dog. The two men were nice and polite. But that damm dog is a total flirt. Then before I have a clue, the man who is with the dog comes on to me. Well, damm it! He is an absolutely charming man who took me on his magic bus to see the world. And baby, here we are about to be married to each other."

"Sandy came up here to see what I had done for tomorrow. I showed the pen and ink I did of Ru sleeping, which she loved. Then the charcoal of Lakeside Drive, and again she loved it. But pencil study blew her away. I had taken a sheet of drawing paper and put it on the kitchen counter, so there was no clear break horizontal and vertical. Then put an egg on the paper. The trick is to show the egg against an infinity background, so the egg appears to be floating. Can I show you the studies?"

"Kat, you are amazing! Can I have these to go to my office?"

"No, sorry, Sandy has already claimed them. That is if the committee doesn't take them first. I've only done student shows and a few local shows. I've never really shown anything I did in public. Along the way, teachers at school and others suggested that I was a little better than average. Honestly, Neil, Sandy has a wider perspective of the art world than anyone I have known. She has pulled me into my dream and shown me what the world is like when I complete the most demanding degree in my field."

"Neil, all I ever wanted to do was teach kids how to draw. All of this is like five miles over my head. I can't believe it. You do not want to know how lost I feel."

"Kathleen, you have two great talents. First of all, you are an amazing artist. Second, you have an innate ability to open paths with people, so they welcome you and create a desire in them to want to help you. Look at Sandy. What has she done for you? Did she have to, no? Somehow, Kat, you got her to want to enable you to meet your dreams. Hell, look at me. When we first met, I planned to find small back roads, maybe even roads that had become forgotten. Those were the roads I wanted to journey along. All that's changed."

"Kat, thanks to you and your desire to have me home at a reasonable time. I did something today I have never done. I gathered all the whatever that had been dumped on my desk for me to decide. I assigned projects to my people, telling them that they own this and that it is their responsibility to make change happen. Regardless, you own it. It is your responsibility. After it is all said and done, get back to me and tell me what happened and its result then we'll talk. You got me to see I am not Hercules and can not carry the firm's weight on my shoulders. Kat? Thank you for getting me to see that, my beloved."

"Neil? I didn't do it."

"Lady, thank you. Thank you for being my girlfriend and opening my world for making my life fuller than it has ever been. For all of this and more, I love my lady. Hey? What's for dinner?"

"When I was a tike, and I had something big coming up, Aunt Flo would make my favorite thing in the world, Bangers, and Mash. It is an old English pub dish. OH!!! Almost forgot! I told Sandy about you and wanting hair pie for dinner. She told me to tell you that you will look like hamburger meat at the grocery store if you ever said anything like that to Charlie. OH! And it turns out that Charlie has some type of relationship with Bird's Nest too."

"Let's have dinner then see if we can do a conference call with everybody; Cathy and Carl as well as Aunt Flo and Uncle Herman. There's a lot we need to talk about with them. The Inn and our wedding."

As we cleaned the kitchen from dinner, she began to mellow out. Charlie and Sandy dropped by. It turns out that they had talked about our plans for the Inn, and he was interested in that project and the Bird's Nest property also. I quickly laid out an outline of what our vision was, and Charlie jumped all over it.

"We're about to do a conference call with the others that are involved in this crazy dream. You're both welcome to sit in on the call if you guys have the time and would like to."

Both Sandy and Charlie nodded as I pulled out my phone. First, I got Aunt Flo on the line and asked if she could get Herman on so we all could talk. While she went to get him, I called Cathy and Carl and got them on the call as well. "Hey guys, a lot of things are going on here with us two love birds. It's no surprise that Kat and I are getting married. My sweetie is an impatient gal, so we are doing the deed in ten days, a week from this coming Saturday. The wedding will be a small affair with family and very close friends event. We will be doing everything in the condo here in Chicago. For everybody coming in from out of town, we'll arrange for rooms at the hotel next door." Needless to say, of course, that announcement opened all kinds of conversations and screams and groans.

"Next, let's talk about the Inn."

Herman started the ball rolling with info on the possible sale was in the local papers. The word was out that the Inn might be on the market and that some group of investors wanted to buy the place, tear it down, and do something. What something might be was an open question.

Carl got into the conversation, reminding everyone that Tom has an attachment to the city. He wants to see the Inn restored to its former glory and owned by locals. With Herman as the lead and Carl and myself behind him, our group certainly meets Tom's desire to keep ownership local.

I had not spoken directly with Tom's attorney. However, he has been in contact with the attorney who works for my firm that handles real estate matters for our clients. Tom wanted to hear from us; in fact, he was looking forward to our presenting our ideas for the future of the Inn. One big thing Tom wanted was to get out of the winters in Buffalo and find a place where the winters are warmer. Of course, the potential offer from the investor group would give him the cash he needs to move. But, the downside is they are not local, and the group sees the property as a teardown.

I've had people look into Tom's positions. He's been accumulating cash, which suggests that he wants or wanted to renovate the Inn himself. But, and this is a guess if he did the work, his family would ultimately sell the place, and his work would be lost.

IF we get the Inn, a big problem is what work would be needed to bring the place into line with a restored historic Inn. Carl, we all stayed in a beautiful Inn there in Poughkeepsie. If we do this, my thinking is we need to be at level. This place offers a lot of possibilities. Could we do a marina on the river? From what I understand, there is a lot of undeveloped land behind the Inn. What to do with that? A golf course, hell, maybe even two golf courses? There's space to put in some cottages there too. Which, by the way, folks, would go a long way in making Flo happy. As this could have Kat in the neighborhood."

"Guys, this is Charlie, Neil and I go back ages and ages. Let me toss this into the pot. I have an old friend who owes me big that lives over that way. He owns a construction company there. As I recall, he is an engineer who has gotten into development. I can call him and ask him to ride around the Inn and give us an idea, a WAG if you will, what the place could maybe take to bring it up to Neil's and Charlie's vision."

Herman chimed in, "what's a WAG?"

"Oh, that's a technical term; it stands for Wild Ass Guess. It gives an idea of what could be there and a range of some of the costs involved. If this moved off to first base, then a detailed engineering and architectural study would need to happen. Only then would those questions be addressed."

Carl chimed in, "Guys, there's another thing. While Tom's wish is nice, the real question is, would this idea be supportable. Is there a market for something on these lines? I know folks that can begin to answer those questions."

"Another question becomes, how can we structure a deal that will exceed Tom's expectations? A deal that will fit his desires and long-term outlook, I believe he doesn't need cash from the sale of the Inn. That opens other potentially interesting avenues. I have a piece of undeveloped property just off the Gulf Coast near a small town, Bird's Nest. The property is around 200 or so acres and offers several real possibilities for development. At one time, I had thought about building a house there and moving there full time. But those plans have been put aside thanks to Kat. Now I plan to stay here for the foreseeable future. Tom wants to go south, well that's south. Second, Tom is an active man; he will want to find things to keep him busy. Certainly, developing that property would keep him busy."

Carl chimed in, "funny you mentioned that, Neil. Cathy and I have a place on the beach in the Carolina's. It's a nice beach house that we have enjoyed for years. But with the kids either grown-up or just about to fledge we think that we want to do something else. By the way, the house has about 75 acres of land around it. If that were part of the deal, Tom would have a place he could move to immediately."

"Folks, it's getting late, and I have bitch of a day tomorrow. Let's do this; I'll have our guy reach out to Tom's attorney and layout our thinking on an offer and get his reactions."

Both Charlie and Sandy nodded their heads in agreement. Cathy and Carl chimed in with their agreement. Flo jumped in, "Neil? Does this mean that my dream of having Kat nearby could happen?"

"Aunt Flo, this crazy old man of mine is well. Well, he is crazy; he takes dreams and makes them real. So yes. But know this, you better be ready to do a lot of babysitting in the future."

"Kat!!! The more, the merrier. Now you two kids get to work!" Well, shit, that's our marching orders.

Afterward, we headed to bed and fell into each other's arms. We both mumbled that this had been a day but that tomorrow promised even more.

We lay tangled together into a knot of limbs tied together with my Kat sprawled over me. "OG? Is this all happening? I mean, the MFA has always been some kind of distant star that was an unreachable goal. Now, it might just happen. Dreams can happen. And well, wizards and their shaggy brown dogs do walk into a girl's dream and sweep the girl away. Baby? Thank you."

"Good morning, my dear man." Those were the first words I heard as the skies warmed to the rising sun.

"Darling, I need to get in the office early this morning. But before I head off for all my meetings. I know that one of the big topics at the meeting and hell in the office will be our wedding. We haven't talked about it a lot other than to say a week from Saturday at 2 is the day and time. I don't know what you want, and of course, this is your show, your day. My original thoughts were that we would get married in our home. If that's the way you want to go, then the maximum number of people we can have here is about twenty. I'm guessing Sally does the ceremony, and we could have a nice buffet reception here. What do you think?"

"Mister Man, ya did it again. So you want me to start thinking before coffee. You really are a loving shithead. Now move it, old man, get in and out of the shower and get dressed. I'm grabbing my new red robe, firing up the coffee pot, and getting my head in gear on this. Thank you, by the way, forgetting my pea brain off the interview later today."

Fifteen minutes later, I wandered into the kitchen and found Katty camped out with pads of paper all around her as she gripped a cup of coffee. "All right now, Mister Dickweed. I've started laying things out this way. Of course, Aunt Flo and Uncle Herman as well Cathy and Carl, along with Sandy and Charlie, have to be here. Oh, Jack and Cindy from the bank. I have three old girlfriends from college I want here. Should we invite Cathy and Carl's kids? Anyone from the firm that you want to invite? But regardless, we would be under twenty. How does that work with your thinking?"