Chapter 5

Sam watched as Tina walked from the office. It was a Friday afternoon, warm but beginning to get dark as the sun began setting earlier in late September. The rest of the office had cleared out right on the dot at five, but he had paperwork, and Tina had volunteered to work overtime to help him. Now it was almost six, and he had let the girl go home. She had seemed almost sorry to go, and as she walked to her car, Sam watched her through his office window.

She was a fine-looking young woman, he thought to himself. Sam’s job took him to all the sales offices, and he knew almost everybody working in the offices. Busby Housing had a number of very good looking women working for them. In the Oneonta office, Margie was a real beauty, young and trim, with a really great set of legs. Saratoga had Barbara, perhaps the best looking of the salesladies, small, blonde, and sexy, and a total dingbat. Even the Fort Plain office had Sondra, an older lady, now well into her fifties, who had the best set of legs Sam had seen in his entire life, except maybe for Rosa, in the Albany office.

Still, his eyes kept coming back to his young secretary. He was secretly captivated by her slim and leggy build and found himself staring whenever he could get away with it. Tina had caught him a few times, too, and had simply smiled when he blushed and looked away. To be fair, she never provoked his attention; she always wore slacks and blouses or sweaters. The fact was, however, that nothing but a flour sack would have hidden her shapely ass, her bountiful tits, or those long and luscious legs.

Sam watched as Tina went down the walk to her car, then stop. She looked at his car briefly, walking around it, then came back up the walk to the office. Sam rose from his desk and greeted her at the door. “What’s up?” he asked.

“You’ve got a problem, Sam. Both right side tires on your car are flat,” she explained.

Sam groaned and went outside with Tina and examined his car. She was right, both front and rear passenger side tires were as flat as pancakes. “Oh, shit! I must have hit some nails on the construction site over in Davenport this afternoon.” He glanced at his watch. He was screwed but good. He looked over at Tina and asked, “Listen, can you do me a favor and run me over to the Holiday Inn? It’s too late to get the Goodyear place to come over and fix me up, and I only have the one spare. I can stay the night there, then get the tires fixed in the morning. All right?”

It was Tina’s heaven-sent opportunity! She had been dying to find a way to see her boss somewhere other than the office, and now those flat tires made it a possibility. The only problem was that the Holiday Inn was only a mile away. She’d never be able to talk to him. What if...? “Uh, Sam, uh...”

“What, is there a problem? I’ll just call a cab.”

“No, no!” she blurted out, afraid her plan would backfire. “Listen, why don’t you stay the night at my place?” Sam’s face began to cloud up, and she continued, “It’s not like that! My couch has a fold-away bed, and it’s got to be better than some damn motel room. I’ll cook some dinner, and we can watch TV or something.”

Sam stared at Tina for a moment. Confused, he answered slowly, “Are you sure? I don’t mind the Holiday Inn. It’s not the first time I’ve stayed in a motel room.”

“No, really, come on over. I’ll even cook breakfast in the morning. Please?”

The girl’s desire to impress her boss won him over. “Listen, are you sure you want me over? If somebody finds out, you know what they’ll say?”

Tina waved it off. “You need anything from your office?”

“No but give me a couple of minutes to call Lizzie and tell her I’m tied up, then I’ll close up. Come on back in.” Sam called his daughter and cleaned off his desk, then locked up the building. Outside, he popped the trunk of the Taurus and grabbed a small overnight bag, then pulled a dry-cleaning bag from the back seat.

Tina gave him a curious look. “You always plan on staying in motels?”

Sam laughed. “No, I always plan on emergencies. I keep a complete set of emergency gear in there, along with a sleeping bag, heavy boots, and a snowsuit and coveralls. Just in case!” He lifted first one bag then another. “This one has a complete set of clothes; this one has my dry cleaning, which I picked up this morning.” He tossed them both in the back of Tina’s car, then held the door open for her. “Listen, let me pay you back for this by taking you to dinner.”

Tina had to concentrate to keep from screaming ‘Yippee!’ “Okay, we’ve got a Denny’s or the Neptune Diner right down the road,” she said, pulling onto Rte. 23.

Sam snorted. “Nuts! Let’s go over to Cathedral Farms. I feel like something better than a diner. My treat.”

Tina goggled at the thought. Cathedral Farms was the fanciest and most expensive place in town. “I can’t go like this!” she announced, pointing at her slacks. A toner cartridge for the copy machine had busted all over one pants leg that afternoon.

Sam shrugged. “So? You live where, up Franklin Mountain? That’s almost on the way. We’ll go over there, and you can change. Come on, live a little! Be kind to an old man and keep him away from diner food.”

“Okay, if you want to.” Tina drove through town and started up Rte. 28. “You’re not old!”

“Eh, maybe not, but I’m not young either,” admitted her boss. He changed the subject, and they talked about work until they pulled into the driveway.

Tina was relieved to find that Heather and Bobby weren’t around when she stopped the car. She waited for Sam to retrieve his bags, then led him upstairs. ‘Thank God I cleaned just the other night!’ went through her mind.

Sam looked around approvingly. “Nice, very nice,” he commented, walking around the living room.

“Thanks. Do you mind if I clean up first? What should I wear?” she asked.

“Sure, go ahead. Wear something nice, like your rich grandfather is taking you out to dinner,” he said with a smile, forestalling her probable comment that he wasn’t old enough to be a grandfather. Tina grinned and went into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. Sam made a sad smile; if Jenny had been alive, he would have been old enough to be a grandfather. She would have been the same age he and Lee had been when she was born.

Hearing the water run through the door to the bathroom, Sam looked himself over in a mirror in the living room. Realizing he needed to clean up himself, he went into the kitchen and turned on the faucet at the sink. Moving quickly, he stripped off his shirt and grabbed a towel. Wetting it, he used it as an impromptu washcloth and gave his torso and arms a quick sink bath, then washed his face and neck. Air drying, he went back to his bags and rummaged through them to find a fresh shirt, putting it on. He also changed his socks and pulled a lightweight wool navy blue pinstriped suit from the dry-cleaning bag. He had just slipped his shoes back on and retied his tie when Tina came out of her bedroom, and he caught his breath when he saw her.

Tina had stripped off her clothes hurriedly and hopped into her shower, as nervous as she could remember about her upcoming dinner with her boss. She wanted to make a good impression, not just as an employee, but as a young woman. She bathed mechanically. Her first thoughts were to lean back against the shower wall and play with her clit, she was so turned on, but she stopped when she realized that Sam would hear the screaming orgasm she was sure to have, and that in any case, she’d end up smelling like a two-bit hooker afterwards. She spent the rest of the brief shower going through robotic motions, as she considered what to wear.

Tina dried herself off and slipped into a terry cloth bathrobe while she rummaged through her closet. She decided to dress as if for a fancy date. Despite her inexperience with dating men, she had plentiful experience dating other women, even if on the sly. She had been sleeping with other girls since she was a young teen and had discovered that two women could get dressed up and go out together, and most men would think they were on the prowl for guys. They never suspected that they were only interested in each other. She settled on a sleeveless red dress and pulled the hanger out of the closet.