Chance Encounter Ch. 03

"Hurry, Paul! Let's do it right away," she gasped. Her lips were inches from his.

Paul didn't push her away, but didn't kiss her, either.

"Marge, I thought about this on the drive over and ..."

"Paul, I knew you would 'think it over'. I know you too well to think that you wouldn't," she told him. "Please don't call it off. My mind's made up. I would never think of doing this with anyone but you. I know what I'm doing."

Paul felt Marge's body pressing against him. He felt her breath. She felt good and Paul needed human touch. He put his finger under Marge's chin and lifted gently. He kissed her and she kissed back. They sent each other a mixture of affection and desire through their parted lips. They held the kiss for at least a minute, and then broke to take a breath. The engaged all over again. This time tongues caressed lips and danced together, and they allowed the pleasure of being caressed to fill them.

Marge took Paul by the hand and led him up the stairs. They entered Paul's bedroom. Marge had been there five years before when she sorted through Sally's things for Paul. Nothing had changed.

"Give me a few minutes to get ready," she said. She kissed him lightly and turned to claim the master bathroom. Paul slipped in ahead of her. He grabbed his robe and toothbrush and disappeared to the guest room bath down the hall.

"Help yourself to whatever you find in there." Paul called out as he exited.

It was early in the evening. It was still dusk in the summer months. It was hot outside but the inside of the house was just right. Paul re-entered the bedroom, hoping that Marge was nearly finished with her ablutions. The lamps were turned off; the shades drawn. In the half-light he saw her sitting in the bed waiting for him. The sheet was pulled over her beasts, leaving only her bare shoulders to remind him of her nudity waiting for him underneath.

"Let me see you, Marge." He grasped the sheet and pulled it gently downward, but she stopped him.

"No, I'm a little shy; you first," she said in a subdued tone.

Paul untied the belt of his robe. He threw it open and stripped it off. He faced her, his naked body displayed. Though in his fifties, Paul had retained much of his athlete's physique. Only a little bit of thickening betrayed his age. His penis had erected, pointing straight at Marge. The sight of his muscular body, which would provide the power of his thrusting, was impressive.

Marge gasped slightly as Paul revealed himself, and he heard her. It made him stiffen harder.

"Now, your turn," he said.

He tugged the sheet from her fingertips and drew it off her body. As the sheet peeled from her body, Marge slid lower to a lying position, as if chasing it. Her hands were folded together just beneath her breasts. Her head was turned to look at Paul. One leg lay flat on the bed. The one closest to Paul was bent so that her raised knee hid her center.

Paul stood alongside the bed, viewing her. He saw her start to breathe faster, and her eyes widen as she inspected him. Her tongue parted her lips and licked them. In the shadows of the dusky light he saw a woman's figure, not a girl's. It was full, but not flabby. It was just a little filled in a few places. Her breasts were ample and the nipples erected. Paul made a mental note to give them a good sucking a little later.

Marge turned on her side. It caused her mound and thatch of dark hair to be displayed. She raised her top leg, which had the effect of opening more to view. Marge stretched out her arms toward him.

"Please, Paul. Come to me. Don't make me wait any longer." Marge's voice had grown husky and filled with desire.

Paul climbed onto the bed. She embraced him and they kissed long and slow. Paul thought to ease himself down alongside her to make his way delicately into her neglected ardor. Instead, with a sudden inspiration, he gently pushed her over onto her back and straddled her. He placed his hands aside her shoulders. His move had inspired a look of eagerness on her face. He leaned down and kissed her. While the kiss was tender, it was probing. Paul could feel his hard penis and the soft skin of his scrotum pressing and rubbing against Marge's belly and triangle of hair. He knew that she would have had to feel it too. She showed him that she did by the groans she issued into his mouth as they continued the passionate kiss.

Paul raised himself up and slid down her body a little bit. He treated his lips to the pleasure of her nipples. He brought a hand up to firmly hold the breast, which isolated the tawny bud. He alternately sucked it and danced his tongue over it. Marge pressed her chest up at him to deepen the contact. Paul knew that she liked it, and did the same on the other side.

There was more to be done. Paul slid lower. Without hesitation, he plunged his face into her center. He licked her labia and searched out her clitoris. He felt Marge's hands on top of his head, pressing him down harder on her. She was openly moaning, spreading her legs wider, thrusting her pelvis up at him. She abandoned all reserve. Paul heard her give a high pitched sigh and felt a small contracting spasm. Marge held her breath as the little orgasm came over her. Paul pressed his tongue to her clitoris and held it there until she resumed breathing. It wasn't a huge climax. Paul knew that it was the first time that a man had given her one since her late husband.

Paul lifted up and looked at her. He waited for a cue to tell him that she was ready to resume. He saw that her eyes were closed and hands were stretched over her breasts. It was a beautiful sight to him, because he knew that he quenched a thirst that had parched and emptied her out. It was his lesson learned during his times with Glenda after his own years of doing without. He would have never understood Marge's need without the experience.

She flexed her hips to press her mound back up at him. Her recovery was complete. He would give her a chance to satisfy him. He wanted her to have it because that feeling is the best that sex has to offer. He ascended back up to be face to face with her again. As they joined in a kiss, she showed him her approval by mewing into him. It excited him and spurred him to more boldness. He lifted off her once again and straddled her chest, so that his manhood was inches from her face.

Marge accepted the invitation and took him into her mouth. Paul pressed gently forward to send his penis into her throat. Marge sucked and squeezed him with every soft tissue in her mouth and throat. Paul withdrew before he came. To end it then would have been too soon.

Paul slid back down. They were again face to face—pelvis to pelvis. It occurred to him to re-excite her vulva. He could have tickled her with his fingers, but chose not to. His crown would do nicely. He touched her with it, just at the gate of her womanhood. He raised himself up and down to find the right place. Soon he did, judging by her reaction. He let himself linger there. It was soft, wet and warm. The bumping of his penis against Marge's clitoris brought her great pleasure. Soon her rhythmic rocking changed to a ragged fury, trying to catch his throbbing and bobbing head within her labia, desperate to maintain the contact.

She issued primal grunts and moans. Paul knew that he had brought her to that special place again. He thrust into her, all the way. He pushed through the long-neglected flesh that was happy to receive him. He felt Marge's legs wrapped around him; before long, he felt her climax approaching. They thrust to each other strongly, with a purpose. Paul released his own feelings, letting in the pleasure that he knew was there. He felt his own release. It erupted all at once as he spurted into her.

As Marge felt Paul's ejaculation, she yelled out.

"Carl! Carl!"

She climaxed with great force. Paul was happy. The physical release had brought with it an emotion held deep inside her that needed to escape. They had no words at the moment. As they lay together Paul appreciated what had taken place. Tomorrow they could relax and talk over breakfast. Paul would tell her to take a sick day from work.

Early the next morning, Paul made the coffee and toast. Marge scrambled the eggs. They moved about the kitchen like nothing had happened. As they finished their eggs, Marge was the first to speak.

"It was lovely, Paul. I don't know if we'll ever have a chance to do it again. I'm glad that we did it this time."

Paul just smiled and nodded.

"I'm sorry that I yelled out Carl's name. Did it upset you?" she went on.

"No," said Paul, "I'm glad that you did. You needed to. You know now about Carl what I do about Sally; that they will never leave us. Any lovers we may take are not in place of them; they're something new. One thing that I found in Glenda is that she understood it so well."

"Were you thinking of Glenda, or maybe Sally?" she asked him.

"No," Paul replied. "I was thinking of you, and how you were thinking of Carl at that moment and how you needed to be thinking of him, and that I was glad that I was there to help you do it."

Marge sat silently, taking in what Paul had told her. Then she spoke again.

"Don't worry, Paul. Things in the office will be the same. It will be our secret. Nothing is changed." She assured him.

"I was worried about it before we started, but afterwards I knew that it would be alright. Things are not the same, though. We've lost nothing, but there's something new. We'll handle it," he replied.

Paul felt that Marge still had something on her mind.

"If you need me to prove it, I can give some extra typing," he joked.

"That's not what is bothering me, Paul." She rolled her eyes at the corny joke.

"What is it, then?" he asked. He leaned closer to her.

"I need to know something, Paul, and you must tell me the truth. I would choose a cruel truth over a kind lie. Did I ... did I please you?"

"Yes, Marge." Paul answered gently. "Yes, I couldn't have asked for more from any woman."

Marge knew Paul well enough to know that he was sincere. Yet, the last sentence confused her. She decided not to ask, but ponder it later. She had to show him that she felt better—good, actually.

"Well," she said with a little laugh, "I know that I can please an old man like you!"

"I didn't hear any complaints!" Paul retorted.

Marge stood up to clear the dishes. Paul stacked them to be cleaned later. He would clean them himself. The housekeeper would arrive later, but he wasn't ready to share their secret with her.

"Thanks, Paul," She whispered, and kissed him on the cheek. She stepped back from him. "I'll be at my desk right after lunch."

In a minute Marge was in her car exiting Paul's driveway and Paul was cleaning the dishes.

**************

Paul was on an airliner en route to his conference with Larry Wilton. This night he had an appointment with Audrey Wright to listen to what she had to say. She was eager to speak to him, according to Jim Spencer who had arranged the secret meeting. She would meet him quietly at his hotel.

Paul was thinking about all that surrounded the purpose of his trip: Grafton, Morehead, Hopkins, the delayed construction in Peoria. Faced with a multi-year lawsuit, the City Council of Peoria had already abandoned ship and they were promptly rewarded by Hopkins who lifted them from the list of defendants. Jim Spencer had kept them tentatively tied to the project by having them freeze the enabling zoning, to keep the property open 'pending the resolution of issues'.

The pilot's voice came over the speaker.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you look to your right you will be able to see the city of Chicago just below us and to the west."

Paul didn't look. Maybe if he ignored the city passing below him he could escape having Glenda seep into his thoughts. Even their times together brought pain when he recalled them. The memories were so beautiful. They should be making more of them right now. The deprivation ate at him. He admitted to himself that she had found a place in him.

He wondered how Glenda was. He wished that she had been more courageous in standing up to Judson. He didn't blame her. Only she could know her limitations. He and Glenda had, after all, been an item for a scant few weeks. Glenda was protecting a position built over a twenty-four year career. Still, the injustice gnawed him. As time passed, he suspected more and more that they would never reunite. He had tried to contact her. He called her home, but only got the voicemail. He left messages that were never returned. He found out her address and sent letters in the mail. There had never been a response. Still, Paul could not forget her.

Grafton was at fault in this, and so many things. If he had played it straight from the beginning everything would be right. The plant would be operating. The workers in Peoria would have their jobs. He and Glenda would be together. He wondered if he and Glenda would have revealed their secret by now. There were so many places to go together, experiences to share. People like Grafton, Paul thought, would ruin this world if they weren't stopped.

Paul found out that Grafton's job at Montgomery was 'Director of Governmental Relations'. A fox and henhouse analogy came to mind. Grafton would have Montgomery paying off regulators right and left. Dunn Chemicals would be out in the cold if they didn't follow suit, and that was something that Paul refused to do. He was sure that putting Grafton out of business was the right thing. It burned him when he thought of Grafton pocketing his state pension and his salary from Montgomery, too. He wouldn't be easy to trap. Paul would have to be sharp to pull it off.

Paul had not finished his mental travels when the plane landed. Soon he was at his hotel, waiting for Audrey Wright. If she could fill him in, or even give him a hint of what to look for, he could start putting the pieces together. At least, it would help pressure Wilton if he could appear to have something besides bad-appearing coincidences.

Paul's hotel room phone rang phone rang.

"Hello, Mr. Crane," said a female voice on the phone. "This is Audrey Wright speaking. I'm in the lobby of your hotel. May I come up to room right away?"

A few minutes later Paul opened the door for her. She rushed in.

"I don't want to be seen," she whispered. "This is a government town. You never know who you'll run into. I could lose my job over what I'm doing."

"So much for formal introductions, Miss Wright. You know that I'm Paul Crane. I'm glad to meet you."

Audrey smiled sheepishly and they shook hands.

"If anyone asks you," Paul said, "tell them that you had a job interview. I'll back you up. They won't like it, but they can't fire you for it."

Paul motioned for her to sit down. There was an easy chair in the room. Paul went for the wooden chair at the desk.

"No! I'll take that one," she said as she hurried over to the harder chair. "Well, you are a lot older than I am."

Paul offered her a drink from the mini-bar, and she asked for Club Soda.

"It'll be Geritol for me!" Paul joked.

"I'm sorry," she sighed, "I'm just nervous."

"Well, stop being nervous. This is important. We'll need to get down to business," Paul said sternly.

Audrey stopped blushing and nodded.

Paul noticed how good looking the young woman was, but in the mood of the moment, it seemed irrelevant. In fact, Audrey was beautiful. She was tall with golden blonde hair. She was dressed in business attire, but her slender outline suggested a body that had been honed by swimming or running. Her face was one of those scrubbed, fair, Nordic ones, with bright skin, blue eyes and a pleasant visage. Her wavy hair, parted in the middle, framed it, and then descended past her shoulders. If she had braided her locks and worn an iron helmet, she would have passed for a Viking maiden.

"Miss Wright ... do you mind if I call you Audrey ... did Jim Spencer told you why we are interested in speaking with you?"

"Audrey is fine, Mr. Crane. Yes, I know why we're here. That's probably why I was so nervous a few minutes ago."

"I would like you tell me your story of the Peoria Project from the start." Paul said. "Don't leave anything out or add anything that doesn't belong."

Audrey took a gulp of her soda and began.

"About two years ago I had been with the Agency for almost a year. The Peoria project was the first big project that I was assigned to. Ed Grafton and Craig Morehead were on it from the start. They didn't care very much for what I had to say. They seemed to be preoccupied in the drawings and blueprints. They would spend a lot of time pouring over them. My specialty is Environmental Science. I really couldn't read the drawings very well, at least at first. Later, I got better."

"For a while, I thought that I really didn't know what was going on. The engineers from your company, and Harry Carmichael's would submit drawings to us. There would be a discussion. Ed would take the drawings away with him and write a report. Then he would tell us that the review had been extended again. He would tell us something that showed up in the drawings that wasn't right."

"After a while I started to understand things better, I noticed that at the next session of meetings with your company, Ed would talk about some issue that had nothing to do with what he had told Craig and me earlier. I asked him about it. He told me that if he didn't do what he was doing he was sure that the solvents made in the plant would leak into the river. He said he was stalling for time so that he could prove it. I was naïve then. I believed him."

"So," Paul interrupted, "he was getting extensions from Larry Wilton on false pretenses? No matter what we would do, we would never get the permit because Wilton was on the wrong page."

Audrey nodded. "And your people would never even know why," she added.

"There's more, much more." She went on.

"One night I was working late on another project. I was walking through the department. I saw Ed Grafton working in the CAD room. He didn't see me. No one else was around. He had the Dunn prints with him. He got up and went to the cafeteria. He left his work out. I went into the CAD room to see what he was doing."

"The designs had been sent to the Agency through the internet. We had it in our server. I hid among the cubicles outside the CAD room when he came back from eating. He changed the drawings in the server. He scanned the signature on the real copies. He practiced writing the signature. He printed everything, signed it and used a fake seal that he got out of his desk. He put the changed version in the hard copy file and shredded the real ones."

Paul was not shocked by the disclosure, but by the fact that he was not surprised by it. When he was a young man, this sort of corruption wasn't heard of. In the current world it was common. He wondered if it was money or decay of values that had ruined the work he used to enjoy so much.

"Are you aware, Audrey, how serious these charges are?" Paul asked. "Do you know that Grafton could lose his PE license for what he you say he did? Are you willing to send him to jail?"

"I don't want to see anyone go to jail, Mr. Crane," Audrey said, looking him straight in the eye. "But if it has to be, then so be it. I worked hard to become a scientist. I believe in my work. I just want to be able to do it the best that I can. I want to be an honest person. When Grafton retired and was hired by Montgomery I knew what he had done. He lied about his concern for the river. He was just out to get rich. I don't want to be like that. Before Jim Spencer called me, I thought that I would just have to accept it. I could hardly sleep at night."

"Why didn't you go to Larry Wilton?" Paul asked.

"He's a hard person to get to see. There are three bosses that I would have to get through just to get approval to make an appointment with him. I was on loan from another department. My boss's boss has a degree in sociology and works here because his father is a friend of the governor. What chance did I have? If I did get in and couldn't defend myself perfectly, I would be torn to shreds. It's an engineering issue, and I'm not an engineer."