Chapter 46

Dan Granger's turn:

It's great when you've been on the road for a couple of days and you make that final turn back home, knowing that you've got a nice clean place to stay and you've got somebody waiting there who loves you and is waiting for your return.

Jason and I had been in North Georgia. That's the southern state of Georgia in the USA, not the one in Europe that birthed Stalin, in case you're wondering. The little regional electrical cooperative is in the process of upgrading itself. We looked at some equipment that was seventy years old. It's still working, but it needs changing. We're angling for some 'from the ground on up' projects here. We stand a chance to make a lot of money.

Heading home, Jason and I talked. I let him drive and I madly tapped out emails describing what I thought we should do for the proposal.

"If we get this we're gonna need some major help," Jason said.

"Yeah. I just know you've been keeping track of some good techs you've worked with in the past."

"Got some. And let's see ... All the panels? We can build those in the shop and ship 'em to the sites. Gives our wives some hands on experience, all the way up to function testing."

"Yeah, they sure liked the one we did for that other company." We'd grabbed a 'let's see how you do on this one' contract to build a new control and protection panel. We did it. It turned out beautifully, that is, if your ideas of 'beauty' includes technology assembled to do the jobs that keep civilization functioning.

I remember some of the conversations, though. We 'let' (as in how do you STOP them) the girls do a lot of the assembly and wiring.

"Can you imagine," Nikki told the group, "Trying to do this with your brand new designer nails?"

I've done a few of these in my life. I find the work almost therapeutic. I said so in conversation.

"Yeah, but while you're stretching wires, there's other stuff you should be doing," Cindy said. I watched Nikki's head bob in assent. "We should do this because we need to learn."

Jason walked over and looked at us. "Yes, please learn. You'd be surprised at how much equipment is designed with no thought given to how it has to be built, or worse, serviced in the future."

"Yeah," I said. "I haven't seen a good historical citation for it, but there's a saying that Roman law required the engineer to sleep under his own bridge. Sometimes you have to argue with the client about that. Sometimes 'cheap' collides with 'maintainable'."

"Don't I know it!" Jason reinforced. Jason's life as a field technician was much more hands-on than mine as an engineer. Between the two of us we had horror stories. Of course, it did little good to get depressed about it. These things are the fabric of life.

"Good. Fast. Cheap. You get to pick two of the three," I said.

"That's his mantra," Nikki sighed.

"I think it's part of some secret catechism for engineers," Cindy laughed.

"It's not universally observed," Jason countered. "Clients are hoping for the impossible, or they're buying stuff that they never expect to break or work on."

That was work. I was coming home, and I pretty much didn't like spending the night in an empty bed any more, not that I liked it in the days between Wife #1 and Nikki, but with Nikki, somehow it was just better. I really missed the conversations around the house, the constant activities of the Community, and the quiet time with just the two of us.

I guess having to spend an extra night or two apart every now and then served the purpose of sharpening my appetite. I knew that with Jason and I both out of town, Susan and Nikki would end up at one apartment or the other, usually mine because the cat liked company.

Also not unusual was the presence of Terri, who took advantage of these little hiccups in the status quo to give Alan and Tina a night to themselves. Was that intentional on Terri's part? Absolutely! In her own words, "Tina and Dad need some time for themselves. I can be quite a handful, you know."

She is, but not in an obnoxious or destructive way. It's just that if you're doing something and Terri's around, she's liable to ask questions. I wonder sometimes what's the point of an eight (Almost NINE!) year old asking about inputting data into a software for power system studies, but when you give her the 'age-appropriate' answer, you get a stern look from those blue eyes that says, "Come on, give me the real stuff. I can handle it." And when you do, you get "Impedance? That's like from 'impediment'? Huh? Something that gets in the way."

"Yes. Has to do with flow," I'd answered. I was almost blinded by the light bulb going off in her head.

"You mean like when you first squeeze the trigger on the water hose and there's a lot of pressure but then it drops off?"

"Terri-dactyl, you're not supposed to be making those leaps."

Elementary schoolgirl smile to go with her answer. "But is that right?"

"Yes, that's right. The water hose is hydraulics and this transformer is electrical, but impedance works pretty much the same."

"And you can measure it?"

"Yes. And calculate it. And use it to predict how things are going to happen when the flow changes."

Giggle. "'Kay! Thanks!" And she bounced off to the next adventure, leaving me sitting there contemplating how many professional electrical people I've worked with over the years who didn't understand what this little blonde pixie had just derived from casual conversation. (Or how casual was it?)

I can only imagine the conversations between my Nikki, Susan and the Terri-dactyl over the course of an evening. I'll get a short synopsis, I'm sure.

This evening was chaos of the Community kind: in addition to Jason and I returning from a road trip, Dan 1.0, Cindy, and Nikki had flown to Houston and returned with Kara. Naturally that resulted in Kara's immersion into a Community Friday night, complete with food and music. The girl can play very well, not that I'm the guy to really ask, but she just seems more comfortable than Sim is when he plays with us. Since the only other violinist I've seen up close is our friend Ann, that's my reference. Taking into account that Kara is a decade and a half younger than Ann, which puts her skills in the 'precocious' category.

'Precocious' fits right into the community. Plus, Nikki tells me that she's another mathematical adept. Like we need another. It's good, though. She's spending this night at Dan and Cindy's. May do the rest on the sofa at Maddie and Anita's. If she decides to stay, we move the three of them to the last three-bedroom apartment. I'm glad we took the option to build that last pair of units. That still leaves us with another two-bedroom unit, brand new, along with either Maddie and Anita's old unit or the new three-bedroom unit.

But right now I'm following Nikki back to our apartment. She's leading the way, leaving me behind her, watching that butt wiggle as she walks. She swears she doesn't do that little swish on purpose, but I find it mesmerizing. I'm not a horn dog, driven by my sexual urges, but I've had two nights away from Nikki and I miss her.

As I close the apartment door behind me, I find myself pressed back against it. Apparently she misses me, too. It's an attack I won't fight off. I cup my hands under the cheeks of her firm butt and lift her so we're face to face.

"You do realize, don't you, that I really miss you when you're gone."

"Perhaps as much as I miss you, little brown-haired girl," I said. That got me a searing kiss, a sigh, another kiss.

"Then let's shower and then tear the bed up." Giggle.

"Great idea."

"I have needs, you know..." the blue eyes twinkle. Corners of her mouth turn up. She's biting her bottom lip, knowing that it's a move that melts me. Well, MOST of me, anyway.

"You give me that look one more time and we won't make it to the shower..."

Giggle. "We'll make it TO the shower. Prob'ly won't make it THROUGH the shower..."

We didn't. There could be a long debate as to who initiated that session in the shower. Any choosing of sides would be wrong. It's both of us. A wet, clean Nikki is the stuff of which delights are born. I am thankful for that huge shower. I'm thankful for the teak bench in it.

We knew pretty much what was going to happen when we undressed. Warm water and soap and shampoo performed the assigned functions, then provided enhancement for recreation. I teased and tickled my dark-haired partner from giggle to sigh to gasping and then pulled her onto my lap as we sat under the warm spray. She straddled me, impaled, a favorite position, and keened through orgasm. As she was quivering I allowed myself the happy release.

"I feel that," she sighed. "You really did miss me."

"Was there any doubt? You're my everything, Nikki."

We got out of the shower. My knees were still uncertain from the orgasm, but we steadfastly went through the post-shower routine, right up to the point where I finished shaving and took her hairbrush to finish drying and brushing her hair.

"I like it like that, you know," she said.

"Like what?"

"Being your everything. I like it. I watch, you know."

"Watch what?"

"You. When we're someplace with other people. You don't stare at other women."

"I have you. What other woman would offer as much?"

Going on two years together, she still does that demure 'Who? Me?' thing so well. She laid out her nightshirt on the stand beside the bed and tossed the covers back, presenting us with a crisp clean playing field. We met in the middle. I attacked her neck, savoring the sweet touch of perfume in her hair, the velvet of her skin, the giggles as I hit sensitive spots, then I acquiesced to her hands pushing me back onto the bed. This time the coupling was slower, soulful, sweet, satisfying on every imaginable level.

Sated, we stretched out under the thin covers. A thump at the foot of the bed announced that the cat had determined that the bed was safe enough for him to join us. Nikki brushed her fingertips along my cheek, then patted Tommi's spot between us. He starts out there. When the lights go out, he moves to the foot of the bed on Nikki's side.

"D'you know what I'd be if I didn't know Cindy?" Nikki asked.

Okay, this was a new line of conversation. I tiptoed in. "No. What?"

"I'd be the youngest lecturer EVER in the Math Department at Auburn. Cindy is. I'm second."

"You did the final reviews for a roomful of students," I said. It was the end of the semester. I knew that the university had asked my Nikki and Dan's Cindy to do a review session based on reports of what was going on off-campus, next door to our office.

"Well, they put it in the official record, and now it's history."

"And it's very unusual. Much of my life with you is unusual."

She smiled, passed her hand down the back of the lounging cat, bumping his purr volume up a few decibels. "Unusual can be very, very good." She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, bit her bottom lip just a bit.

I felt stirrings in my groin. "Yes. Very, very good." I reached over and gently brushed strands of that short brown hair away from her rounded cheek. "You're somebody I never imagined, much less imagined being in my life."