Chapter 6

It didn’t look like much had changed thought Bill Meyer as he parked his car in the garage of his townhome. While he had a nice time doing his ‘Wintering” in Florida this year, it felt good to be home. On the drive back he gave some thought as to where he would do what he termed ‘Wintering’ next and came to the conclusion that there was no need to wait for the fall of the year to do some vacationing. Going out to the west coast was a strong possibility because of Maggie being there as he did miss her.

After a good night’s sleep he decided to go to his country club for its Sunday brunch. A number of his friends were there and welcomed him back. Some of his friends had heard of the awards his dealerships had received and congratulated him on receiving those awards. A few of his friends said they were golfing already and asked Bill to join them.

“I will wait till the weather warms up a little more. I have been spoiled by the warm weather I had in Florida so there is no rush for me to start golfing here.”

Most of his friends chuckled at that response but Bill could see some envy on their part that he was able to spend as much time as he did in Florida and still manage his businesses.

As Bill was talking someone came up behind him and placed their hands over his eyes saying, “Guess who?”

Bill could tell immediately from the voice that it was Danni who did this but he responded, “Hillary Clinton... , Pam Anderson... , I know, I know... , Miss America.”

“In your dreams, Bill if you don’t stand up and give me a hug you are going to be in deep trouble.”

He did stand up and gave Danni a hug and at the same time quietly whispered into her ear that only she could hear, “Your fuck-buddy missed you.”

Danni started laughing and when she could control herself, she asked to join the table.

“So how does it feel to be a free single woman?”

“Bill since you are a free single man maybe you should try and find out.”

He faked an expression on his face to show to his friends that he was taken back because of her response but then he smiled as he responded, “Let me get back to you on that.”

The remainder of the time at the table was spent in conversation with his friends giving each other some good nature kidding. People started to leave the table which eventually left just Bill and Danni as the sole two people remaining there.

“I did miss you while you were in Florida. That weekend I flew down there was very enjoyable. I don’t know if you noticed but I was walking a little funny when you took me to the airport.”

“No I didn’t notice that but maybe that was because I was looking at your great ass.”

Danni gave Bill a playful slap on his arm and said, “You sweet talking devil you. Seriously though, there is something I need to say to you. We get along good together and I like it when you make love to me in the many ways that you do. While I do like you as lover I think that is all we will ever be to each other. Now that I am divorced, I am not looking to get married again so you should either not be worried or maybe not be disappointed that we will only be fuck buddies. I hope you understand and I needed to say that to you.”

“I am glad you did. While I think you are a super lady and a great lover I don’t know if it ever would be more than that. You saying what you just did clarifies our relationship and I am glad it does.”

“That being said, would you want to come over to my house now and look at the ceiling in my bedroom?”

That remark caught him a little off guard but he said, “Last one there is a rotten egg.”

They both walked rather briskly as they left the club to get to their cars in the parking lot. He could see once outside that Danni was running to her car which caused him to laugh.

He didn’t run any red lights but he did drive pretty fast in getting to Danni’s house. She was the first one back to her house. He found her front door closed but unlocked. When he walked in and up the stairs to her bedroom, he saw her on her bed buck naked waiting for him. As he undressed it didn’t go unnoticed by him that she had placed some lubricant on her night stand. He knew he was in for a long session of sexual debauchery with her and admittedly was something he was looking forward to doing.

That afternoon was what he had come to expect in being with Danni. She was one great lover who enjoyed having sex to the fullest. Her antics exhausted him and made him one satisfied man. He thought he was able to satisfy her needs but with her strong sex drive he could never be sure if he did. He did note that when he left her he could see that freshly fucked look on her face and thought if others could see her now they would agree.

The next day Bill was a little exhausted as he went to work at his dealerships. His employees warmly greeted him and asked how his vacation had been. He took the time to talk with each employee that wanted to talk to him.

Calling Jan into his office he asked her to bring him up to date on what he should know about things that had happened while he was gone and weren’t mentioned during his video staff meetings.

“We hired replacements for the two people who retired. The replacements are Connie Gibbs in new car sales and Troy Leonard a mechanic. You may want to go and say hello and welcome them. Finding new hirers presents no problems because the word has spread of this being a good place to work. Between us and Toyota we must get four applications a week from people who want to work here. Per your instructions all departments have a list of applicants that they would hire who have already been interviewed and pre-screened so when we have an opening it can be filled right away. There would be no lag time in replacing turnover.”

“How about Toyota on terminations?”

“No terminations that I know of. There was a problem with our combined body shop labor rate but Casey can better fill you in on that.”

“Did the employees get their checks from the award money?”

“Yes they did and probably have spent it all already.”

“Thanks for the update and keeping us on the straight and narrow while I was gone. I guess I will spend the rest of the morning going through the paperwork and the company bulletins. When you get a chance ask Casey to come in but there is no rush for him to do that.”

Bill in an hour had gotten through about half of the bulletins when he looked up because of the knock on his open door and saw Casey doing the knocking. Casey Zawatski was the manager of the combined Lexus and Toyota body repair shop.

“Come on in Casey and take a seat. Jan said you had some interesting times on our body shop labor rates.”

“Well, we raised our labor rates by $4 an hour which was three years since we last raised our rates. A major insurance company who raises their insured’s rates every year tried to stop this increase but with all of the body shops in the area raising their rates, the insurance company bit the bullet and agreed to the new rates. This from a company whose only growth is by raising what they charge their insureds for their policies. I guess they are cutting expenses by reducing their adjusting staff as they now are asking customers to mail in photos of their damaged cars. They will write estimates based on those photos. Along that line and after all their bitching about us, they now want me to write estimates on the cars that come in and they will spot a check a few of my estimates to make sure they are in line.”

“One of their adjustors told me they are taking away their retirees life insurance and reducing the pensions they will be paying their retirees to save on expenses. This adjustor laughed when he said they had their drive-in claims open on Easter Sunday. Whoever is running that insurance company’s claim department has about the same management ability as a community organizer.”

“Well I don’t know about that but Casey you handled that situation correctly as I have come to expect from you. How is the family?”

“Things are fine. The oldest wants to go to law school when he graduates this year. Looks like I will be here for a long time.”

Casey left Bill’s office. Watching him walk out, Bill just thought that hiring good people made his job that much easier.

Going over to the Toyota dealership he was told by Hal Conway, the Service Manager, that there had been a union representative there who wanted to unionize the employees. No one in management knew of him being there and it turned out management didn’t need to do anything as the employees kicked this representative out and told him not to come back.

The Service Manager repeated what one of his employees told him. “What more is a union going to do for us that Bill doesn’t already do? The union may do enough damage that we wind up getting less. I can’t imagine us getting any of that award money if we were unionized or having a daycare.”

It felt good for Bill to hear how his managers and now his employees handled some potential problems. They made his job easy and contributed heavily to the dealership’s success.

Bill skyped Maggie that night and was glad he did. She was just a joy to look at and to talk with. He enjoyed teasing her and seeing her reactions when he did. It seemed to him she enjoyed his teasing of her as well.

Not to overlook Danni he also phoned her and arranged to take her out to dinner Saturday. She told him she was looking forward to ‘really’ seeing him again.

Danni looked real good in the tight red dress with the low neckline when he called for her on Saturday. They dined at a restaurant that was a good distance away from the club because they still wanted to keep their relationship a secret. Danni was a little frisky because she was putting her hand under the table and was rubbing Bill’s thigh.

He told her in a faked stern voice that if she keeps doing it, she is going to get it.

Her response of “Promises, promises” told him he was correct when he popped that pill before he picked her up.

At her condo it was a long but a very sexually satisfying night. Bill didn’t need to ask her if she wanted to do some back door loving. She didn’t vocally say she wanted him to do that, but she just assumed the position and handed him the lubricant which told him what she wanted.

Bill started to think about heading out to the west coast to see if there were places he would consider ‘wintering’ at. He knew that was just an excuse for him to go out there for him to be with Maggie.

He video phoned Maggie and said he was planning on coming out there. He said he would fly into San Diego and rent a car to see the sights and slowly work his way up to the Los Angeles area and see the sights there.

Bill was hoping for but still was a little surprised when she said, “Instead of staying in a hotel why don’t you stay with me at my condo. It is a three bedroom condo and has a nice view. Are you bringing your golf clubs?”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

“I think you should as there is a nice golf course next to where I live.”

Bill booked his flight and made a car rental reservation. He was really looking forward to going out to the west coast. He didn’t think he would need his nanny cam but he planned on taking it anyway.

After landing in San Diego and getting the rental car, he drove south to the downtown area. Checking into a high rise downtown hotel he had some time which gave him the opportunity to walk along the waterfront that had a nice public park. After the walk he was a little thirsty and noticed a small bar across the street from his hotel.

He walked into this bar and was glad he did. That was because of the plaque on the outside wall that said some of the bar scenes for the movie ‘Top Gun’ were filmed here. He tried to remember what those scenes were.

The next day Bill walked over to where the decommission aircraft carrier USS Midway was moored and he toured the ship. He had a nice conversation with one of the naval volunteers who was a pilot during the Vietnam War. They talked about flying and landing a phantom fighter on a carrier during the day and during the night. The pilot explained to Bill what “Call the ball” meant that Bill had heard said in some naval movies.

While he still had some time to see more things in San Diego, he was not excited to go to the famous zoo or the other attractions. The one attraction he wanted to see was in Los Angeles. Why wait he thought, he checked out of the hotel and set the GPS for Maggie’s office.

It was about three in the afternoon when he walked into her office and asked the receptionist if Maggie was there. When the receptionist said she was, Bill told her who he was and asked her to tell Maggie that he was here.

Maggie walked out of her office and came up to Bill extending her hand to him which he ignored. He closed the gap between them and with one of his hands raised her chin to give her a good kiss on her lips slipping her a little tongue into her open mouth.

When the kiss ended he said, “We may not know how to say good bye in the Midwest but that is the way we say hello.”

He could see that he had caught Maggie by surprise and she was flustered. She started to look around the office and saw the people there staring at her which caused her to blush. She was at a loss for words.

Finally she recovered a little but all she would say to Bill was “Follow me.”

She walked into her office and asked Bill to take a seat.

Bill said, “Sorry if I embarrassed you but I had been thinking of doing that ever since you said good bye to me when you left to come back here. I won’t apologize for doing it because I really enjoyed doing it. Now are you going to make me go and stand in the corner for being a bad little boy?”

Maggie smiled at his remark and still hadn’t recovered to where she could laugh.

In a while she admitted that he surprised her by him doing that but she said it was something she enjoyed him doing. She didn’t know what she would say to her fellow co-workers and said maybe she wouldn’t say anything. Since Bill had just effectively put an end to her work day, she said they should head over to her condo and he could follow her car.

When they arrived at her condo which was south of her office in Palos Verdes, he was impressed. She lived in a condo that was on the third floor of a three story building. The building was located on the coast within a good stone’s throw to the water and next to a golf course. Maggie told him that the owner of the golf course was Donald Trump.

The inside of the condo was nicely furnished and he was surprised at its size. It had to be a little over twenty two hundred square feet. The balcony gave him a nice view of the ocean and the golf course. He could see Catalina Island which as the song said was “Twenty six miles across the sea.”

Maggie pointed out his bedroom and asked if he wanted a drink.

“I’ll have whatever you are having.”

“After you greeting me at the office the way you did, I think I will make a vodka martini as I still feel the aftershocks.”

Bill sat on the couch watching Maggie making the drinks and appraising her. He didn’t know how far their relationship would go or what would evolve, but just to see and be with her was worth coming out to California.

As she handed him his drink he said, “I really like your condo and its location. I don’t mean to pry but it must have cost a pretty penny out here in California.”

“When the real estate market and the economy crashed, this unit and the one below it became available because of the bank foreclosing on it. I have a friend who gives me the foreclosures information before they are published. I was able to purchase both units at a little less than what the bank had in it. With the market coming back, this unit is worth close to twice what I paid for it. The unit below is rented to a movie producer and with the rent he pays, it handles the mortgages on both units.”

“I never really got into investing in real estate and am more into stocks and bonds. One of my employee’s wives is my financial advisor and she handles my investments for free. I sell her a new Lexus every year at my costs. It’s a win-win situation for both of us.”

“I am just the opposite as my investments are in real estate. Besides these units I have four ten flats with two being in the nice Brentwood area and two in the Santa Monica area.”

“Doesn’t that take up a lot of your time?

“Not really as I only get involved when there are major decisions that need to be made. A management firm handles the building maintenance, tenants, rent collections, mortgage payments and bill payments for a small percentage of the rents. I say small percentage but that amounts to a pretty penny as the rents out here are a hell of a lot higher than they are in the Midwest.”

While Maggie was talking Bill was listening but he was also looking at her nice legs with slim calves and thin ankles.

There was more talk but Bill asked Maggie if she wanted to go out to dinner. She said she did and she went to change into more comfortable clothes.

Maggie directed Bill to a nice restaurant that was a decent drive into Torrance. They had a nice meal with again some interesting conversation. He sort of repeated in saying what he did in Florida but gave her more detailed information on what happened at Baker Lexus and the training he did there. He told her that Emma sends him periodic reports on how the dealership is doing and it looks like things are going in the right direction.

Back at the condo they watched some television. Maggie said she needed to go into work the next day as she because she has some showings to do and needed to meet with a client to get a contract on a new listing signed. She handed Bill a list of things she was suggesting he go to see in the area along with the addresses.

Maggie rose and said good night but stopped and smiled when she heard Bill say, “Is saying good night the same thing as saying good bye?”

She knew what Bill wanted and that was a kiss. She went to him and with their arms around each other engaged in a very nice kiss.

When the kiss ended she turned and walking to her bedroom said, “That should hold you.”

It did and in fact gave Bill some trouble when he went to bed and tried to fall asleep as he was thinking of that kiss and the promise it held.

He was up next morning all showered and shaved as Maggie appeared dressed and ready to go to work.

“Have you decided what you are going to do today?”

“I think I will try and visit two movie studios and maybe NBC studios. I don’t know if I can do all three in one day but I will give it a try.”

“You aren’t going to do all three because of distance and traffic so just do two. I should be back here around five.”

She gave him a kiss on his cheek and a set of keys as she left the condo.

Bill left shortly thereafter and was able to tour one movie studio and the NBC studios. It was interesting in seeing the movie and television sets. He didn’t see any celebrities but he remembered what his dad had once said, “They are just like you and me since the put their pants on one leg at a time.”

In between these two tours he stopped at a small restaurant that was advertising hot Italian roast beef sandwiches. He ordered one and had that sandwich dipped in the meat juice which made it messy to eat but it tasted good.

Coming back to Maggie’s condo he found that she was already there. She asked about his day and he gave her a description of what he saw. She said she was free tomorrow and would like to go with him to the Getty Museum.

The evening was sort of a repeat of the prior night with them going out to a restaurant and then back to the condo for some television. When Maggie said she was going to hit the sack Bill was hoping he would get a kiss and he was not disappointed. The kiss was nice and longer than the prior one with a lot of tongue. Things were getting better and better and he would let Maggie dictate if anything more was going to happen in their relationship. Obviously he hoped it would and that was the thought he had before he fell asleep.

Visiting the Getty Museum the next day was an all-day affair. The Getty Museum building design alone was worth the effort to see it. Both of them marveled at the skill and artistry which they saw in the paintings and sculptures. They took their time and slowly looked at these wonderful works these talented artists had created.

On the way back to her condo Maggie had Bill take a detour into Santa Monica. They parked the car and walked the famous Santa Monica Pier. In getting there she pointed out other places of interest as the hotels famous people had once stayed in.