Traveling Man

by Just Plain Bob

Copyright© 2019 by Just Plain Bob

Fiction Sex Story: Just more of my usual.

Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa   Consensual   Fiction   Cheating   .

Authors Note

A couple of minutes into this story you may think you’ve already read it, but you haven’t. The job that serves as background for the story is a job that I have used as background in three other stories so it will seem familiar to you if you have read those other stories. Also this story took place before cell phones and before the satellite’s that can now track the truck’s movements came along.


I’ll skip all the high school, couldn’t afford college so I joined the Army and go right to the meat of the story.

I was working for a company in Michigan that did specialty work for the Ford Motor Company and by specialty I mean all sorts of weird shit. Things like Ford engineers would have us buy a certain competitors vehicle and cut sections out of it so they could study them. Things like a section of rocker panel, a section of the A post or floor pan. The weirdest thing we did was build fake cars for them.

The materials for the ad campaigns had to be in place when the new model years came off the assembly line, but the new cars wouldn’t even go into production until late July or early August so there were no cars to use to make up the sales brochures, TV commercials and other stuff needed for ad campaigns. These ad campaigns needed several months to prepare so the usually started in mid-April.

Ford’s solution to the problem? They gave us the clay models they used to design the new model cars and we used the model to make molds and then used the molds to make fiberglass bodies. Then we would find a vehicle with the same wheel base, cut the steel body off of it, mount the fiberglass body the chassis, paint it and make it look like a real car. Once that was done we would load the car onto a truck and haul it all around the country to places the ad agencies wanted to use.

Typically it would go something like this. Load the car onto an enclosed truck and take the car Rancho Mirage in California so ad agency X could shoot photos for brochures for Avis. Before the shoot was over you would get a call to take the car to Phoenix where ad agency B would shoot a commercial. Next stop would be Palms Springs where agency Y could do their thing.

You can’t do outdoor photo shoots unless the weather is clear and sunny so the majority of our trips were to the west coast. We went there so often that the company had a permanent shop located in Palm Springs complete with a paint booth. The paint booth was needed because the advertising agencies needed specific colors for which ever ad campaign they were doing. It could go something like this.

Agency A would require a Galaxy 500 in red to be delivered to a specified location. The photos and films would be taken and you would return the car to the shop where you would find the Agency B wanted a blue Galaxy 500 delivered to a golf course in Rancho Mirage so you had to paint the car blue and have it ready the next day. You couldn’t keep painting the cars with different colors without the car starting to look bad. Try to imagine what a car would look like with ten or fifteen coats of paint on it.

The solution to that problem was a process called Strip Painting. In strip painting you spray a release agent on the car and then spray a thin latex film over the release agent and finally you spray the red paint on the car. When you are done with the red car shoot you peel the red paint of and repeat the process in blue. The process takes about six hours.

Once the new cars start coming off the assembly line our job changed. Instead of our fake cars we started using the real models and while ad campaigns and TV commercials were still being done our job turned into hauling cars to car shows and special events. There is a dealer introductory show usually held in Las Vegas where all the new models are on display for dealers. Examples of special events were the debut of the Lincoln Mark IV at the Kentucky Derby and the introduction of the American series cars at the Daytona 500. The America Series cars were the Pinto, the Maverick and the Mustang which were painted red, white and blue and had American flag decals. The deal was that every dealer who bought at least fifty of the series would get a ticket to the race and they could pick up one of the cars they ordered and drive it home.

Our job was to move one hundred of the cars to the race track and park them in the infield where they would be on display for all of the race fans and where they would be seen on television by anyone watching the race on TV.

Our job wasn’t only trucking the cars around, but also included cleaning and taking care of the cars while they were unloaded. Basically it amounted to babysitting the cars and a big part of that was keeping the public away from the cars. They were the new models and hadn’t yet been seen by most of the public so they drew a lot of attention and as a result people wanted to get close to it and get a better look at it. We had to keep them away. Remember strip painting? Someone gets close to a car and somehow fucks up the paint and the shoot has to stop so the car can be rushed back to the shop for repainting. Very costly as the production crew is still on site and being paid.

The question that comes most to mind is why did Ford use us instead of keeping the work in the company? I have no idea if I’m right in my assumptions since I’m not privy to what goes on at Ford’s headquarters, but I believe it has to do with the unions Ford has to contend with. We were non-union and were not saddled with the work rules, pay scales, hours of service and all of the other stuff included in Ford’s contracts with the unions.

I did get time and a half for over-time which was any time after an eight hour day or forty hours a week, but I never saw the double-time, double time and a half or the triple-time that the union’s contract called for and when you consider I worked a lot of sixty, seventy and eighty hour weeks you can just imagine how much the company I worked for saved Ford on just wages alone. And I was just one of the thirty-eight employees the company had.

A typical trip for me would go something like this. I would load the car or cars – we had trucks that could haul one, two or four cars – and then set out from our shop in Romulus Michigan and head for the photo site. I’d drive until I got tired and then pull into a rest stop, climb into the sleeper (all of our trucks had sleeper cabs) catch a few hours of sleep and then be on the road again.

The Department of Transportation had rules that drivers were supposed to follow, but most of the drivers I knew didn’t pay any attention to them. The DOT mandated how many hours you could drive before stopping to take a mandated rest period before you could start driving again. You were required to maintain a logbook that recorded your driving times and rest stops and quite often when you stopped at a weigh station you were told to come into the station and bring your logbook with you so they could check it. I (and most drivers I knew) kept false logs that showed the inspectors that you were legal. I’ve had as many as six logbooks under the mattress in my sleeper cab when making a trip to California.

When I got to the site I’d check into a motel, call the number I’d been given for the director of the shoot and he would tell me where he wanted the car and at what time. I’d show up at the appointed time and place, unload the car (or cars) and then babysit them while the photographer or film crew did their thing. When the shoot was over and sometimes they went three or four days I’d load the car or cars back onto the truck. At one each day I’d call the office, give them a status report and be told what to do next. Sometimes I would be told to come home. Other times I would be told to take the car to another photo shoot or to take the car to Palm Springs to be repainted.

As with all jobs there re upsides and downsides. On the upside there was a fat paycheck because of all the overtime you earned by putting in sixty, seventy sometimes eighty hour weeks. There was the travel to new places and – big factor – there was always something new and different to do. You weren’t in the ‘same thing day after day’ rut.

The downside was pretty much the same as the upside. The travel and the hours. I’ve left home on a trip in April and not come home until August or September. A three or four day shoot could end up running two or three weeks. One year I left for a four day shoot on the 9th of March and didn’t get back home until the 29th of July.

I didn’t have to take the trips. You were always asked if you wanted to take a trip and you could always say no and just stay home and work in the shop, but the big money was in the trips. If you stayed home and worked in the shop you got a straight forty hour work week. You could make a decent living doing just that and several of the guys opted to do just that, but again the big money was in the trips.

This long preamble is to give you background so that you might be able to understand the what’s and whys of the following.


The job, if you took all the trips offered, pretty much made having any kind of permanent relationship impossible. I learned this the hard way. I was an aircraft mechanic working for an airline that had a maintenance hub at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Maintenance was split into two sections. There was line maintenance and base maintenance. Line maintenance handled the work on the aircraft that arrived at the gate from a flight and that had problems that could be taken care of at the gate before the aircrafts next scheduled departure. If the problem was going to take more time than that the aircraft was towed to the hanger and base maintenance took over. Base maintenance also did all of the maintenance on aircraft that overnighted at the airport.

The company, for reasons known only to those in the boardroom, decided to split base maintenance and send it to Los Angeles or Newark. I was told my job was being relocated and that I could have my choice of locations. I didn’t have enough seniority to bump into line maintenance and I wanted no part of living in Newark or LA so I ended up being laid off.

The day I was laid off I stopped at The Landing Strip, a bar in Romulus to have a drink or two and try to figure out what my next move should be. My wife was not going to be happy to hear the news as we had just bought a house and it was taking both of our paychecks to make the house payments and the payments on all of the new furniture and appliances she just had to have to fill the house.

I was a regular at the bar. It was close to work and I and some of the guys I worked with stopped in two or three times a week to have a drink or two after work. A lot of people for other businesses in the area stopped in also and you get to know the regulars. When I got to the bar there were already several people there and they had pushed a couple of tables together and I was invited to join them.

There were two girls and a guy from the Kelsey Hayes wheel plant, Marsha and John from the real state office across the street and Vern, Ray and Bill from The Tube which is how they referred to their employer (whose real name I will not mention). I was into my second drink when Vern said:

“You look a little down today. Problems?”

“Big one. I just got laid off and I have to start job hunting.”

“Why not take it easy for a while and just collect unemployment?”

“Unemployment wouldn’t even cover my house payment let alone give me enough to pay the rest of my bills.”

Ray asked “You are an aircraft mechanic right?”

“Yeah.”

“So you know sheet metal, fiberglass and composite work right?”

“I’ve done all three.”

“I’ll bet you could get on where we work right guys” he said addressing Vern and Bill. They both said yes so I asked just what it was they did and Ray explained the whole fake car thing to me. It sounded like something I could do so I told them I would stop in at their place in the morning and then I finished my drink and went home to share the news with my wife.

She did not take the lay-off news well and the news that I had a lead on a possible job didn’t make her feel any better. All she could do was moan about how we were going to lose everything and moan about having to take on a second job part time. I tried to put on a brave front, but I probably wasn’t convincing since all I had was a “Bet you could get on where we work” from Ray to go on.


The next morning I showed up at the “Tube” as Ray and the guys called it and filled out an application. Steve, the guy who interviewed me asked me how my home life was and I told him it was fine.

“The reason I ask is the job sometimes includes travel and you could be away from home for a while.”

I told him it wouldn’t be a problem. He walked me around the shop and explained what was going on and then asked me if it was something I thought I could do and I told him I could. He hired me and I started the next day.

The wife was happy that she didn’t have to take on a second job and it didn’t even phase her when I told her about maybe having to travel.

The next four months were fine. The work was interesting and always changing so you never got in a rut. I was called into the office the first week of the fifth month. The concept car we had been working on needed to be taken to an auto show in Toronto and I was asked if I could take the trip. I said yes and two days later I crossed the Ambassador Bridge into Canada. I unloaded the car and then baby sat it for four days.

On the third day during my daily check in call I was told to take the car to a show in New York. I spent five days in New York and then was told to take the car to Daytona Beach. Three days in Florida and then I was on my way to Houston where I spent five days before being told to bring the car home.

I called home every night to check in with the wife and after the first week she started to get a little ‘pissy’ wanting to know when I would be home. I kept telling her as soon as the show I was working was over and I told her that is what I was being led to believe on my daily check in calls to the office. I really couldn’t blame the company because the bottom line was that Ford was calling the shots and constantly changing things. When I finally did get home, including travel time I’d been gone for twenty-seven days.

I fully expected an extremely upset wife when I got home, but instead I got a big surprise. While I was gone the wife was driving into the shop and picking up my paychecks. At ten to twelve hours a day taking care of the cars at the shows, constantly cleaning it and keeping it looking pristine and twelve to fourteen hours a day in driving the checks were large and I didn’t have to take any expenses out of it because I had a company credit card for hotels, motels and fuel for the truck and I was drawing twenty-eight dollars a day per diem for my meals and personal expenses.

After I dropped the car off at the shop I took three days off and the wife fucked me into exhaustion all of the three days trying to play ‘catch up’ on our love life. When we weren’t making love she pumped me about the trips and what I did on them and then she hit me with it.

“With what you make on trips especially if they are all like the one you just came off of we can pay the house off in eight years instead of twenty and we can wipe out all our debt in a year. How often can you take one?”

I had no idea and I told her so and then she said “You need to take all you can get.”

It was two months before I was asked if I wanted to take two cars to Palm Springs for two weeks and during that two months the wife asked at least three times a week if there were any trips coming up. She was overjoyed when I told her about the Palm Springs trip.

The two week trip turned into six, but I heard no bitching about it from the wife.

Over the next two years I took every trip I was offered and while I was gone the wife collected my paychecks and paid the bills. After the first year and a half we were debt free except for the house and the wife was doubling up on the house payments every month. Financially we were in great shape and the makeup sex when I got home was out of sight.

When I first started taking trips I used to call home every night, but over the years it dropped to two or maybe three times a week. Then came the three week trip that turned into four months. J. Walter Thompson wanted the car in Santa Fe then Grey Advertising wanted the car in New York and that was supposed to be the end of it, but the Avis wanted an LTD in Phoenix and I had the only LTD available so I headed for Arizona. Then it was:

“We need the car in Rancho Mirage in two days and you are already close at hand.”

From Rancho Mirage I was sent to LA and from LA to Brigham City, Utah and it was in Brigham City that my marriage went to hell.


The shoot was over and I was supposed to take the car to Denver, but on the way out of town the truck broke down. I had it towed to the nearest for dealer which was in Salt Lake. There I got the bad news that the transmission needed to be replaced, they didn’t have the part on hand and it would be a week before they could get one. I was looking at about eight days before I could get back on the road. I called the office and they told me I might as well catch a flight home.

I called the wife to let her know I would be home earlier than expected, but I got no answer. When I arrived at the airport the office sent Ray to pick me up and when we got back to the shop I called home again and got no answer. I took care of some paperwork, arranged for a week off and then got in my car and drove home. When I got home no one was there, but I didn’t think anything of it. The wife was probably still at work or out shopping. I unpacked, dropped my laundry into the hamper and then got a beer, sat down and relaxed.

A couple of hours went by and still no wife. I was getting a little bit anxious. I hadn’t been laid in over four months and from the time I stepped on the plane in Salt Lake I’d been looking forward to getting some loving. When she still wasn’t home by nine I started calling around. I called her mother, her two sisters and her brother, but none of them had seen her or talked to her in a week and none of them had any idea of where she could be. It had been a long day for me so after making the calls I went to bed.

She was surprised to see me when she walked in the door and saw me sitting at the table drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. She rushed to give me a hug and kissed me and then asked:

“How long have you been home?”

“I’ve been here three days. Where have you been?”

Her face paled and I said “Don’t bother trying to tell me you were visiting family because I’ve talked with all of them and they haven’t seen you in over a week.”

Before she could say a word the door opened and a guy came in. He was saying: “Hey babe; I went to put your car in the garage, but there is alrea...” and then he saw me.

“Oh fuck!” he said as I stood up and headed for him. He turned and ran out of the house and I followed him to the door and saw him get into the wife’s car and take off. I went to the kitchen, picked up the phone and called the police.

“A man just stole our car out of our driveway. He is heading east on Clairmont. Car is a yellow 1966 Mustang and the plate number is BR549.”

I gave them my contact information and then hung up. I turned to the wife who was standing there visibly trembling and I just shook my head in disgust. I might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but when she wasn’t home by the second day I’d pretty much figured out what was most likely going on and I had packed up everything I wanted and loaded it in my car.

I had planned on having a sit down with her to give her a chance to prove me wrong in what I was thinking, but the guy walking into my house like he belonged there put the kibosh on that idea. As I backed out of the drive I saw the wife standing at the front door watching me. I wondered what she was thinking. I didn’t give a rat’s as what it was, but I still wondered.

I hit the bank and cleaned out the accounts, checked into a motel and then drove into work and told the boss what was going on. Then I asked if he had something for me to do until it was time for me to go back to Salt Lake and pick up the truck.

“Actually I do. Your bad luck can get me out of a hole. I’m short painters. Ray and Ty are in Palm Springs and Clyde had a death in the family and had to go to St. Louis. I’ve got two cars that need to be painted so I can get them on their way to Fort Worth. You and Miglio can team drive to Fort Worth and you can catch a flight to Salt Lake from there.”

Before starting work I went up front to the office and told Shelly, the secretary, receptionist and all-around girl Friday that the wife and I had split and that if she called not to page me for the call and toss any messages into the trash can.

“Certain sure it is over? Not just a temporary split with make up to follow?”

“The marriage is history.”

“Too soon for you to be checking out other ladies?”

“Why? You interested?”

“If this had happened before I met Tony that would have been a yes, but since I did meet Tony it has to be a no, but there are two other girls here who think you are hot.”

“And who might they be?”

“Not telling, but I will let them know you are now available. I’ll leave it up to them to decide if they want you to know or not.”

I left the office and got to work. After work I stopped in at The Landing Strip for a drink or two and found the place full of faces that I knew. The usual three or four tables had been pushed together. Besides the usual girls from the wheel plant, Marsha from the real state office, three guys from the wheel plant there were also two guys from my shop. Max worked in the machine shop and travel wasn’t part of his job. There was also Terry and he would have loved to take trips, but after his first one his fiancé told him no more trips or she would be history. I’d met her and I could understand how she won out over the trips.

The big surprise was that Shelly and the other three girls who worked in the office were there. I’d never seen anyone of the four in the Strip since I started stopping there. I wasn’t blind to the fact that less than eight hours earlier Shelly had informed me that there were two girls in the office that thought I was hot and suddenly all four of the girls are where I’m known to spend time. The question was which two of the four were the ones Shelly alluded to?

I could eliminate Shelly based on what she’d said about her guy Tony, but I was having trouble believing that any of the other three could be the ones Shelly mentioned as they – all three – were wearing engagement rings. Not that it mattered.

While there wasn’t any doubt in my mind that the wife and I were through it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since I learned the wife had played me for a fool and my emotional state was a bit raw. I knew that I would eventually start looking for feminine companionship, but it was way too soon for me to be thinking about things like that. But that day would come and it wouldn’t hurt to do some ground work.

The Strip had a band on Friday and Saturday, but the jukebox was loaded with dance music for those who couldn’t wait for the weekend and it was always ready to go except for Wednesdays when it was unplugged for open mic nights. This was a Tuesday and Max got up and fed some quarters into the machine and then asked one of the wheel plant girls to dance.

I asked Shelly and she smiled and said she would love to. As we moved out onto the floor I asked:

“Any chance of getting a clue about the two you mentioned?”

“Nope. It is up to them to let you know.”

“Pretty rotten thing for you to do. Setting me up and then leave me hanging.”

“I don’t see it that way. I know you know all three are engaged and I’m not going to point you at them and let you try to win them away from their guys, but if they want to give you a shot it is up to them. All I can say is there is enough interest on the part of two of them that got them here tonight.”

“There are four of you and you have already let me know you’re not interested.”

“Two of us are here moral support and an alibi if needed.”

“An alibi?”

“The story we will tell our guys is that we were having a girl’s night out.”

When she said that my interest in anyone of them went to zero. If they thought they needed an alibi then they knew what they were doing was sneaking around and I’d just walked out on one who was sneaking around. I damned sure didn’t need to end up with another sneaker.

Of course I kept that thought to myself and when I finished dancing with Shelly I took her back to our table, finished my drink, said goodbye to all and left.

The next morning I’d been to work for an hour before I was called up to the office. When I got there Shelly asked:

“What the hell happened last night? Why did you take off like that?”

I told her what my thinking was and she said “I never considered it that way. I guess I can see your point. What I called you up here for is that your wife has called nine times and has left messages.”

She handed me a stack of message slips and I dropped them in the wastebasket next to her desk.

“Aren’t you even going to read them?”

“No need. There isn’t anything she can say that I would be interested in listening to. The next time she calls tell her you have been instructed not take her calls or messages and hang up on her.”

“I’m starting to believe you meant it when you said it was over between you.”

“Believe it sweetie; believe it.”

We finished painting the second car that day and would load both cars and leave the next morning. It was four when we finished getting the cars ready for Fort Worth and I left work, found a cheap storage unit and moved all my stuff into it.

It was seven when I called it a day and I didn’t feel much like going back to my hotel room so I headed for the Strip thinking to have a drink or two and maybe even dance with some of the girls from the wheel plant.

There were three girls from Kelsey-Hayes and Marsha from the real estate office was there. They kept me out on the floor for the better part of two hours and then it was time for me to leave. I don’t like to drink and drive and I’d had my two beer limit so I told the girls goodnight and headed out.

The wife must have accepted that she wasn’t going to get me on the phone so she decided on the personal approach. She was sitting in her car at the shop when I got there in the morning. She was at my door before I could even get it open. I got out of the car and she said:

“We need to talk.”

I gave her a very insincere smile and said “Okay; how bout them Lions?”

“I don’t want to talk about the Lions.”

“Can’t say as I blame you. They pretty much do suck this year so how about the Red Wings?”

“You are being childish. You know I don’t want to talk about hockey.”

“Yeah, but I know you don’t like baseball so talking about the Tigers is out so what is left?”

“We need to talk about us!”

“There is no us! ‘Us’ ceased to exist when that asshole walked into our house like he belonged there.”

“That’s what we have to talk about. Brad’s being there isn’t what you think.”

“That’s your story and you’re sticking to it right? Problem is I’m pretty damned sure that it is what I think. In fact I’m so sure of it that I’m not going to waste my time talking about it. You have a nice life now hear? I just won’t be in it.”

I walked away from her and into the shop.

When Miglio and I drove the two car hauler through the gate I saw she had moved her car next to mine. Miglio was driving and I was sitting next to the passenger door and the angle was wrong so I’m sure she didn’t see me. I did wonder what hoops she had to jump through to get her car back from the cops. Then again maybe her boyfriend didn’t get caught and they hooked up later. No matter. She was apparently going to sit there and wait for me to get off work. I smiled at that. She was in for a long wait. I figured it would be anywhere from three weeks to a couple of months before I got back.


Team driving was a lot different from driving alone. When you were alone you stopped when you felt like it and where you wanted to. In team driving it was eight hours behind the wheel and eight in the sleeper and you stopped wherever you were when it was time to change drivers.

Miglio dropped me off at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport and I caught a flight to Salt Lake. The truck was done and ready to go when I got there. We had missed the window for the shoot in Denver so I was told to take the car to Palm Springs and work out of the shop there until I wasn’t needed any longer.

The crew working the Palm Springs shop were staying at the Vista Del Sol so I checked into a room, unpacked and then went out to the pool where the rest of the guys and their wives and girlfriends were.

The company was a little loose when it came to wives and girlfriends. If you were going to be away from home for over thirty days the company would foot the bill for flying your lady out to see you. I’d never had the wife join me because I’d never stayed put in a place long enough for them to do it, but the crew assigned to the Springs were usually there for two or three months.

 
There is more of this story...
The source of this story is Storiesonline

To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account (Why register?)

Get No-Registration Temporary Access*

* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.

Close
 

WARNING! ADULT CONTENT...

Storiesonline is for adult entertainment only. By accessing this site you declare that you are of legal age and that you agree with our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.