The Red Piano Lounge

There was no use in arguing about it. Randall was Randall Macey, the VP of Operations, and whatever Randall wanted to happen always did. I figured I'd spend the days looking for potential problems and fixing them if I could. The nights I'd spend listening to jazz and sipping a scotch or two at The Red Piano Lounge. With any luck, Sharon would be there a couple of nights so I'd have somebody to talk to.

After a pizza I bought and took back to my room, I drove to the bar. Sharon wasn't there, but it was only about eight thirty. Jack brought my scotch, and I'd just taken the first sip when Sharon walked through the door. That night, she wore a different dress that was a little shorter and had a lower neckline. The heels and the stockings were the same. It looked like she'd done something with her hair too.

She walked up beside me and smiled.

"Is this seat taken?"

I grinned.

"It will be as soon as you sit down."

When Sharon climbed up on the barstool, her dress rode up her thigh enough I could see the lace top of her stockings, and on the side closest to me, the clip of the garter belt that held them up. She didn't try to pull it back down. I didn't know if she didn't notice or if she just didn't care, but I didn't care either.

I was sitting there imagining the soft skin just above those stocking tops when Jack brought her drink. Sharon took a sip, and then asked how my day had gone.

I told her about what I'd found and how we'd gotten it fixed. She smiled.

"I wish I had somebody like you around. This morning, one of my tenants called me to say their ceiling fan stopped working. Would you believe it cost me two hundred dollars to have an electrician come out and look at it? He charged me twenty five dollars for the switch he replaced too."

"Yeah, I can believe it. Electricians are getting a hundred an hour back in Springfield and you pay for their travel time to and from the job. They mark up parts by at least two hundred percent too. That's why I do most of my own home repairs. I could have probably fixed your fan in half an hour and the switch couldn't have cost more than five or six. I could have replaced the whole fan in an hour and it still wouldn't have cost that much.

Sharon giggled.

"Do you do house calls?"

"Well, it's a long drive from Springfield to Knoxville, so probably not."

"Damn", she chuckled. "I thought I was on to something."

I liked Sharon. She wasn't all that sophisticated, but a lot of the time, sophisticated turns into stuck-up, and I don't like stuck-up at all. Sharon was just an ordinary, if better looking than most, woman with a sense of humor. It didn't hurt that when she was making a point, she'd put her small hand on my arm. When that happened, I'd feel a tingle race through me.

We talked through that drink and then another. I didn't want Sharon to leave, but she said she had to clean an apartment after one of her tenants moved out. I walked her to her car, and just before she got in, I told her I'd be in Knoxville for the next six days.

"Since I'll be here and I don't have anything to do in the evening, would you let me buy your dinner?"

Sharon laughed.

"You must really be bored if you want to do that."

"I am bored, but that's not the reason. I just like you."

"Well, I like you too, so I'll accept. What time and where?"

"I'll leave the plant about five, so maybe six thirty? As for where, I don't know any good places in Knoxville. I usually just have a pizza or a burger. You tell me where you'd like to go and we'll go there."

Sharon touched my arm.

"Do you like barbecue? Sweet P's makes some of the best in Knoxville. It doesn't look like much on the outside, but it's not really expensive and the food is great."

Well, Sweet P's was great. I love barbecue anyway, and the half rack of ribs was the best I'd ever had. Sharon's plate of chicken breast looked really good too. Even better was sitting there with Sharon and talking. She hadn't dressed up quite as much, but she was still giving me ideas. I think it was the way her jeans and top fit as much as anything. Her jeans weren't all that tight, but they were tight enough to show me she was all sensuous woman. Her top didn't fit that snugly either, but the low neckline didn't do anything to hide the soft swell of her breasts.

We ended up back at The Red Piano Lounge for a drink before we said goodbye for the night. Well, I hoped it was only for the night anyway. I was getting to like Sharon a lot more every time I saw her. It wasn't the fact that she was a pretty woman or that she was sexy without seeming to know that. It was just something about her that I couldn't really explain, but it was there.

We were half way through our drinks when Sharon excused herself. As she walked back to the ladies room, an idea popped into my head. I walked over to the low stage where the band had set up and asked the sax player if they knew "Where Is Your Heart". He leafed through a stack of loose music, then pulled out one sheet.

"Yeah, I thought we had it. Don't get many requests for that one, so it was on the bottom. Let me tell the other guys and we'll play it for you."

I asked him to wait until Sharon came back. He just grinned.

"I know Sharon. We'll wait."

Sharon came back a couple minutes later and climbed up on the stool beside me.

"Now, where were we?"

I smiled.

"I don't remember. How about if I just tell you I had a fantastic time tonight and I want to do it again tomorrow night?"

Sharon opened her mouth to answer, but stopped when the band started playing "Where Is Your Heart". I saw tears in her eyes a few seconds later. For the whole song, Sharon just looked at me and dabbed her eyes with a cocktail napkin. When the song ended, put her hand on mine.

"You did this, didn't you?"

"Did what?"

"You had the band play my song."

"Oh, that. Well, yes. I thought you'd like it."

"I did. It was like when Dave used to bring me here."

"That makes me happy then."

Sharon squeezed my hand.

"That song always makes me cry, but tonight it made me happy too."

"If there's another song you'd like to hear, I'll go ask them if they have it. Maybe it won't make you cry."

Sharon stroked my arm.

"I don't need another song. I need something else."

I hoped the way her voice had gotten so soft was telling me what I thought I was hearing.

"Sharon, I'm not sure what you're asking?"

"You could come home with me and find out if you'd like."

I said earlier that Sharon was an ordinary woman, but she was far from ordinary that night. An ordinary woman wouldn't have put her arms around my neck and kissed me like Sharon did as soon as we were inside. An ordinary woman wouldn't have pressed her cheek against mine and whispered, "I need you to make love to me" like Sharon did. An ordinary woman wouldn't have taken my hand then and led me into her bedroom like Sharon did.

Sharon was pretty and sensuous when she was dressed. When she was naked and lying on her bed with her arms outstretched, she was pure sexuality with dark brown hair that splayed out on the pillow and trimmed dark brown hair on her mound. As I eased down beside her, she stroked my chest.

"Tom, I haven't done this for a long time because I never found a man I liked enough. Go slow, OK."

I did go slow because I didn't want to go fast. Fast would have meant ending things too quickly, and I wanted to savor Sharon for as long as I could. As it was, I did have to try to slow down. Sharon was so responsive she had me wanting to feel my cock in her long before I was ready to take that step.

It was sort of torture, having to go slow, but it was a torture of making it last so we were both so in need of each other we couldn't do anything else. I couldn't get enough of the feeling of her soft breasts when I fondled them, and her little moans just made that feeling more intense. Sharon's nipples rose at my gentle touch, and got even tighter when she pulled my face to hers and kissed me. I felt her tongue trying to reach mine, and then the little purring sound she made when it did.

She stroked my hair when I closed my lips around her right nipple, and then caught her breath when I licked the tip. I was nibbling her left nipple when I felt her small, soft fingers close around my cock and slowly stroke my shaft.

Sharon's tummy wasn't flat and she had a few stretch marks, but that just made her all that much more erotic. I've always thought a rounded tummy was erotic, and stretch marks on that tummy are just the proof that a woman is all woman. As I nuzzled my way down over Sharon's tummy while I lightly pinched her nipple, I felt it roll a little.

Her scent filled my nose as I moved further down, and when my lips felt the coarse hair, Sharon opened her thighs. When I teased that hair apart with a fingertip, Sharon caught her breath and then murmured, "Oh God, yes."

I took that as a request, and moved on the bed until I was kneeling between her upraised thighs. Just one lick of my tongue over Sharon's slender lips told me I was right. The second lick brought her hands to my head and a little moan.

Sharon tasted about like all women I've tasted -- a little tart, a little musky, and all female. Her folds were rippled and when I sucked them into my mouth, Sharon lifted her hips a little. When I licked up between them to the little button where they joined, she didn't lift her hips. She lifted us both off the bed and gasped.

She was beginning to breathe faster when she pulled on my shoulders and whispered, "I need you now...inside me."

It was more torture to not just ram my cock inside Sharon and pump away until I couldn't hold back any longer, but it was an exquisite pleasure to feel my cock being slowly sheathed in her warmth. I didn't get to go as slowly as I'd planned though. Sharon met that slow stroke by raising her hips until I was inside her as far as I could reach. She ran her nails down my back and then eased back down.

Most of the women I'd been with just sort of laid there and let me take them to their orgasm. Sharon didn't. The longer I stroked my cock in and out, the more frequent were her little moans and gasping breaths. Those sounds really wind my clock, and I had to struggle to keep control of my self. The other ways in which she responded were also making that difficult because they were making her extremely erotic.

It was the way she rocked herself up into my slow strokes and then gasped when the base of my cock bottomed out against her lips. It was the way her body seemed to open to me and then tighten up around my shaft. It was the way I kept feeling little flows of wet warmth around my cock when I pushed in.

I could tell Sharon was getting close when she dug her nails into my ass cheeks and murmured, "Oh God, Tom...don't stop."

She was panting hard by then, and a minute or so later, Sharon gasped, arched her back, and her legs started to shake. I couldn't do anything about the surge that raced up my cock. All I could do was push my cock inside Sharon as deep as I could while the sensation blinded me to everything else.

Sharon fell back down, then arched up again and cried out. Her hips were rocking so fast then I couldn't do anything except try to keep my cock inside her. I spurted inside her clasping passage twice more and then groaned because she was still shaking and my cock was throbbing like mad.

Sharon made one last little cry and then pulled me down with her as she eased back down on the mattress. She hugged me tight and kissed me again, then jerked as a little contraction squeezed my shaft.

When my cock slipped out of her, Sharon stroked my hair.

"Can you spend the night?"

"Wild horses couldn't drag me away from you."

"Mmm...then tomorrow morning, we can do this again."

"If that's what you want."

Sharon stroked my back,

"I want that more than anything I've wanted in a long, long time."

Saturday morning was a repeat of the night before, but better in some ways. I found out Sharon liked being on top sometimes, and watching her breasts bounce and shimmy when she shook out the orgasm was enough I didn't want to leave. I had to go check on the plant though. Sharon kissed me before I left and made me promise to come back. I didn't need any encouragement to do that.

I spent an hour in the plant that Saturday, but things were running fine. I told Bill and Jerry to call me if anything happened, and then went back to Sharon's house. We didn't make love again. I took Sharon to lunch and then we drove around Knoxville seeing the sights. It felt good to have her sitting in the seat beside me. It felt better when we had dinner that night at another place she picked. When she put her arms around my neck in her living room again, I knew I wouldn't be leaving until Sunday morning.

Sunday was about the same, except the restaurant Sunday night was different, and Sharon and I made love twice. We didn't have time on Monday morning because I had to be at the plant at seven. Sharon just grinned and said, "Then we'll have to make up for that tonight, won't we?"

I got to the plant at a little after seven. I couldn't get Sharon to stop kissing me, so I was a little late. When I walked into the office to drop my laptop on an empty desk, Maggie, Ron's secretary hustled over.

"You need to go to Ron's office right now. Mr. Macey is in there."

When I walked into Ron's office, he wasn't there. Randall asked me to close the door and have a seat. He was frowning when he started to speak.

"Tom, you've been over here what, six times in the last year?"

"Yes, about that many I guess."

"What do you think of the place?"

I'd worked with Randall before and knew he wanted the truth, not something designed to make him feel good, so I didn't hold back.

"Well, it's a nice plant and the people work hard. They just aren't getting the support they need. The plating line I just fixed is a good example. That could all have been avoided if they'd just ordered the part like the maintenance supervisor requested."

"Ron told me the cost was too high and it would have hurt their profit forecast. Delaying the order seems like the logical thing to do, or don't you agree?"

That statement made my neck warm. It was the type of logic that isn't logical if you know how to run a plant. I thought Randall was better than that.

"That's what I heard from Jerry, the maintenance supervisor, but how much did the three day shutdown hurt that profit? They paid overtime to most of the shop for Saturday and Sunday to get caught up and unless I miss my guess, they're paying for expedited shipping to at least some customers. I'm no accountant, but there had to be somewhere else to reduce expenses in order to get that valve in stock."

Randall smiled then.

"That's what Harry, the Controller said too. He recommended they cut the entertainment budget by a little or cut back on staff meeting lunches for a month or two."

"Well, it would have been nice if he'd told Ron that before everything went to hell."

Randall stood up and walked around the desk, then sat on the corner.

"He did. Ron wouldn't listen. That and several other reasons are why Ron isn't the Plant Manager anymore."

"You fired him?"

"Let's just say Ron's exploring opportunities outside the company. The rumor mill's probably working overtime already. No sense in adding fuel to the fire. I need a replacement. You interested in the job?"

Randall had caught me completely off guard, so I couldn't say anything for a while. I wasn't really qualified. It was a corporate policy that all managers and above had to have an MBA. I didn't. I also didn't have any experience in Purchasing or Human Resources. That's what I told Randall. He just waved his hand.

"That corporate policy is just there so we have a legally defendable way of saying no to applicants we don't like for some other reason. I don't need a guy with an MBA. I need a plant manager who knows how to run a manufacturing operation. Harry can keep track of the dollars and cents, and you can trust Walt to keep the purchased part and MRO costs in line. As for the HR thing, all the government regulations are so complex the only people who understand them are HR people anyway. June will keep you out of trouble. What do you say?"

I walked into that office as an engineer. I walked out as the new Plant Manager of the Knoxville plant. I wasn't sure I'd made the right decision. Randall said he'd be all over my ass for profits but he was sure I'd find a way to meet budget. That afternoon, Randall called a staff meeting and told the other managers the news. The smiles told me they were pretty pleased.

I told Sharon that night over dinner. She put down her fork, put her hand on mine and said, "I'm happy for you. I suppose we'll have to stop seeing each other though. A plant manager can't be seeing a woman who runs an apartment complex."

I just grinned.

"The last plant manager's wife was a former stripper, or at least that's what I heard. I don't think anybody would care if I'm seeing a successful business woman...or if it went further than that."

Sharon smiled.

"I understand what your saying, Tom, but it's too soon for talk like that. Can't we just go on like we are?"

}{

Well, we are going on just like we were, except that once I bought a house, Sharon spends as much time there as she does at home. Saturdays and Sundays are fix-it days. Well, that's what Sharon calls them. I go to her apartment complex with her and fix whatever needs fixing. After that, we go back to my house and fix whatever needs fixing there. Usually, that means Sharon and I ending up locked together while both of us gasp out the orgasms and then lay there together until our hearts stop racing.

I keep telling her I love her, and she wouldn't act like she does if she didn't love me, but she hasn't been able to say that yet. Maybe someday, I'll convince her to make it a permanent thing. I'll keep trying because I can't imagine a life without her, but I won't push. I'll just take her to The Red Piano Lounge and ask Jimmy, the sax player, if he can find "Where Is Your Heart" again. I've heard it so many times I can mouth the words right along with Sharon.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Whenever we kiss, I worry and wonder.

Your lips may be here but where is your heart?

It's always like this, I worry and wonder.

You're close to me here but where is your heart?

It's a sad thing to realize that you've a heart that never melts.

When we kiss do you close your eyes, pretending that I'm someone else?

You must break the spell, this cloud that I'm under.

So please won't you tell darling where is your heart?

It's a sad thing to realize that you've a heart that never melts.

When we kiss do you close your eyes pretending that I'm someone else?

You must break the spell this cloud that I'm under.

So please won't you tell darling where is your heart?

"Where Is Your Heart" from the movie "Moulin Rouge"

Music by Georges Auric

Lyrics by William Engvick