Chapter 26: The Insurance Business

Barbara Blockings stopped the car in the parking lot of the Whistlestop Saloon. Tossing her sunglasses on the dash, she grabbed her purse and opened it, to retrieve a small hairbrush and makeup kit. Pulling the sun visor down, she used the vanity mirror to check her hair and makeup, then repacked her bag. Throwing her keys in the purse, she climbed out and locked the car up, then took a second to straighten her clothing before going inside.

Short black leather skirt, mid-thigh, zippers at the sides, no panties - check! Tight sleeveless white blouse unbuttoned low enough to show both considerable cleavage and the lack of a bra - check! Black stiletto pumps, small ankle straps - check. Purse with wallet, car keys, mini-hair brush, mini-makeup kit, ‘Pocket Rocket’ mini-vibrator, tube of AstroGlide - check! Smiling to herself, she pulled the strap of the purse up over her shoulder and confidently started across the parking lot towards the front door.

It was Friday night and Barbara Blockings was on the prowl!

The trip to the Macon spa had been a real revelation for Barbara, in more ways than one. One of the most interesting things Barbara learned was that she didn’t need to be with Georgia all the time holding her hand while picking up men. After that first night, she and Georgia had split up a fair bit, usually sleeping together at night, but often going their own ways during the days and into the evenings. Once she had come back from the spa, she had joined a local divorce support group.

The group had several different sub-groups and cliques within it. Some of the people, both men and women, used the group to meet new people. The women seemed to gravitate towards cliques related to economic circumstances. Some hadn’t come out of their divorces with much more than the shirts on their backs, others had taken their spouses to the cleaners. Some had young children, and some had grown children. An awful lot of talk went on about the incredibly mundane aspects of real life, like dealing with children, shopping, and arranging car repairs without somebody to drive you back after dropping off the car.

There was a very active group of women intent on getting laid.

One of the wags of the group called themselves the Orlando Divorcee Service Group, ‘since they really needed to get serviced.’ Barbara had gravitated towards this group early on. Her children were at an age they didn’t need babysitters and she had enough money from the settlement that she could go out on a Friday or a Saturday night and have a few drinks. Most weeks four or five of them would meet at a local watering hole to look at and be looked at by members of the opposite sex, with the hope of meeting, if not Mister Right, then Mister Right Now.

With a degree of confidence that her week at the spa had restored to her showing, Barbara strode across the parking lot towards the Whistlestop Saloon, her high heels clicking on the asphalt. A fairly average bar and grill, the ‘saloon’ was supposedly modeled on a Victorian era train station, although Barbara had her doubts. She wasn’t sure if Orlando had even existed in the Victorian era, let alone had a train station. As far as she knew, nobody in the world had ever even heard of Orlando before Walt Disney had secretly bought up about a zillion acres of swamp land to build the House of Mouse.

Stepping inside the restaurant, Barbara went through the double doors and stood to the side, letting her eyes adjust from the bright late afternoon sun. It took her a second for them to acclimate themselves to the darker interior, and she heard her name called out, but was surprised. The voice hailing her was a man’s voice. Looking around curiously, she spotted her ex-husband Jerry sitting at the bar, looking in her direction curiously and waving in a half-hearted fashion.

Barbara moved closer towards the bar. “Jerry?” He looked different somehow, thinner. She hadn’t seen him since before the spa, though they talked on the phone every few days, about visitation and the kids’ school functions. She had to admit that Jerry was certainly trying to be a good father, no matter what his other failings had been.

“It is you! I wasn’t sure when you came through the door,” he replied. She gave him a confused look. “I mean, you look different. You look good, I mean not that you didn’t look good before, but better, I mean...” He tried to stumble through an explanation but felt that he was only digging himself in deeper.

His ex-wife laughed at him. “Don’t worry about it, Jerry. Thank you anyway.”

Jerry was sitting at the bar, in a backless bar stool. He pointed to the stool next to him. “Sit down, have a drink. Did you do something with your hair? You look, I don’t know, different.”

Barbara eyed the bar stool. “A drink? Jerry, are you trying to hit on me or something?”

Jerry looked at her like she had just slapped him. “My apologies. I just thought we could talk. It’s been a while since we just talked, you know. I’ll let you go now.” He sat upright and turned back towards the bar.

“Oh shit!” she muttered under her breath. Reaching out, she touched his arm. “No, Jerry, I’m the one who should apologize. You’re right, if we can’t talk, who the hell can.”

The look on his face softened and he turned back to face her. Nodding, he pointed at the empty stool. “I shouldn’t have been like that. Please, sit down.”

“Give me a moment. I was here to meet with some friends. Let me tell them I’ll be with you for a bit.”

Jerry watched his ex-wife walk away, sashaying through the restaurant, her ass moving in a pleasant figure eight. He kept a yuppie from stealing the bar stool and waited for her return and was amazed at the difference in her since he had last seen her. She looked like a new woman! When she climbed onto the bar stool, she showed more leg than she had shown in public for a long time, he thought, and it looked damn fine!

“You did something with your hair, but it’s more than that,” he told her. “You look fantastic.”

“Thank you.”

“What, did you join a gym or something? Don’t take this wrong, but you look like you’ve lost some weight or been working out or something,” he pressed.

Barbara smiled at him. How could she possibly explain her transformation? The week at the spa had been simply amazing. The sex had been everything that Georgia had advertised. There had been the cleansings that prepared her for any kind of sex she wanted, the massages by both men and women that had degenerated into incredible sex sessions, the workouts in the pools that had been nothing more than skinny-dipping and al fresco screwing, and the late nights in the lounge. How could she explain the Friday night she and Georgia had gotten late afternoon irrigations, and then, after dinner, had moved into one of the party rooms in the lounge to take on any and all comers?

And of course, there was no explanation for the room called ‘Electromechanical Massage’, what was euphemistically called the Toy Room, a collection of high-tech toys that started with Sybians and went crazier from there. There had been that one afternoon where Georgia had strapped her naked into what looked like a dentist’s chair with gynecological stirrups, and Velcroed her wrists to the arm rests. Then the attendant had wheeled up a pair of large vibrators attached to pneumatic pistons and inserted them into her pussy and her ass and attached a pair of suction cups connected to a vacuum pump to her nipples. Once the electric motors were started, she had to lay there helplessly as the vibrators whirred and turned and pumped in and out of her, while her nipples were suctioned. Her first orgasm had occurred within ninety seconds, but Georgia kept up the delicious torment for twenty exhausting minutes. Barbara had collapsed from nervous release when it was over and watched through half open eyes as the attendants strapped Georgia into the machine for her own session.

Still, for all the endless sex the spa had served up, it was still first and foremost a health spa. Barbara had developed a taste for some serious exercise workouts. By the end of the week, she could understand the phrase ‘endorphin rush’ and was delighted when the scales showed she had lost five pounds. Yes, she had pigged out at the McDonald’s with Georgia when they left, along with several other faces she recognized from the spa, but she had also joined a gym when she got back home. Combined with a better diet and morning jogs, she had lost another five pounds, and felt fitter and healthier to boot.

Barbara smiled at Jerry. “I joined a gym,” she admitted. “Thanks for noticing.”

“You look good, Barbara. You look, I don’t know, tighter or something. You’ve been tanning, too, right.”

In the nude, she didn’t say. “A few times a week.”

“You look good. A little different, but good,” he repeated.

The spa had a full beauty section, too. They had cut and styled her hair, exfoliated and treated with gloppy pastes and herbal wraps, and shown her a few new ideas on skin treatment and makeup. Now she looked subtly different and rather enticing, and Jerry felt himself stirring at the sight.

“I lost ten pounds!” she bragged.

“Good for you, but there is no good way for me to answer that. I didn’t think you were all that heavy before, but you look better now. Which answer gets me in less trouble?”

Barbara laughed. “You look different, too. Is that a new suit?” she asked.

Jerry smiled ruefully. “No, it’s one I haven’t been able to fit into for a few years. I’ve lost about ten pounds, too.”