Trades

It had been six long months since Jack Conner was laid off from his job working at Davis Industries.

After graduation, he had taken the position as an entry level engineer, with good pay, good benefits. Finally the job as lead man came open, Jack was tickled pink when he got that. With the increase in pay, he and his wife Jeanie splurged some, buying a nice home. The payments made quite a dent, but with real estate making steady gains for literally decades, they were sure that one day they would be well off.

Things proceeded to go all to hell a few short years later.

Barely six months after the company reorganized, with the economy in the toilet, Jack found himself applying everywhere he could think of with zero success. His entire department had been cut, that came as a complete shock.

He did land one short stint as a fork truck driver on a graveyard shift, non union and no benefits, $13.00 per hour.

Unemployment paid darn near as well, and Jack just could not sleep during the day, no matter how hard he tried. But it was work, and he felt much better about himself doing something.

He also hated the big machine, the noise, the smell of the place. It was just something to do until one of his resume's caught a company's attention.

One night completely exhausted, he side swiped his boss's wife's new Camaro trying to get some cartons into a box car out in the yard. No one was supposed to park their vehicles in the yard but this was the boss's wife, she could do anything she wanted to.

The huge carton blocked his view at the exact instant he had to swing the machine to clear a row of shelves, and he bumped the thing. It was parked where he had to get through, right under a big sign that read, "Keep Clear!"

The door panel on it folded up like it was made of tinfoil.

The woman was rich and always looked like she was about to go out on the town, hair piled up, slinky clothes on, way too much makeup which did little to hide the ravages of time on her 50 plus year old face. She would be called a Cougar in any bar Jack had ever been in, every time he saw her she had way too much of her clearly store bought tits on display.

Several times Jack had actually seen her nipples, the tops she wore looked like she had her boobs sitting on a shelf and they were undone to the point of ridiculous without fail.

Add in that when she went up to her husband's office, she strutted like she was sure all of the crew thought she was hot.

Even worse, she looked at the workers like they were nothing more than a herd of cattle and spoke to them the same way, with distain.

When she spotted that dent, perhaps four inches long, she let out a stream of profanity that would make a sailor blush.

Jack didn't get fired, he quit. That was because the names she called him were not something he would stand for, he was not stupid, was not having sex with his Mother, and his Mother was not a Dog.

"You can't speak to me like that, you smart mouth little bastard!" The woman yelled at him when Jack blew his stack and told her to shut the fuck up.

"Actually, I can, bitch! Nothing to it." Jack told her, just as her husband came around the corner to see what the yelling was about.

The man looked at Jack, then at his wife. He barely managed to keep a straight face when he heard Jack finish up by telling her to go fuck herself, it was probably a good thing the woman didn't see that.

Then she was yelling at her husband to fire that mouthy son of a bitch.

Jack just turned and walked out.

So it was back to looking for work.

+++

Jeanie Herman was an on the round side young lady when they met back in college, it took Jack a full dozen dates to finally coax her into his bed.

The petting sessions made it clear she wanted to long before but she also wanted Jack for keeps, and she was afraid that if she gave in too easily he would move on.

There had been a couple of brief situations with boy friends where exactly that had happened.

Jack tried several times to get her into his bedroom, finally with success. A good part of that was because he told her he loved her, and he was being truthful.

Once he got her in his bed, it was darned hard to get her out of it. She turned out to be one of the nastiest gals he had ever managed to seduce, not that he had any great skill or experience in that department.

Jeanie was only the 3rd one on his list and neither one of those were more than a hurried and messy mating while parked. This was completely different, it all meant something.

+++

Jeanie was being careful with men, her early experiences had not gone all that well. She managed to fend off men on earlier dates, and when she met Jack she did the same at first.

Jeanie had let herself get a bit too drunk a few months earlier and woke up on a mattress on the floor. There were two other of her college girlfriends in the room, along with three men she knew and one she didn't.

No one had any clothing on which was quite startling.

How that happened she was not sure, a goodly portion of the night before was lost. What she had thought was Vodka turned out to be Everclear.

Of course with everyone also smoking pot, the room was filled with fumes and that added to the lowered inhibitions.

One of the three men Jeanie knew well, she was dating him. The relationship had only barely evolved into sexual. He was a handsome young man, working towards his law degree, and she was thinking maybe he was the one?

But the one she didn't know was snuggled up to her snoring, his limp sticky penis lying on her thigh, his hand on her breast. That came as something of a surprise, Jeanie sat up and saw the others scattered everywhere. She realized she was naked, and really didn't remember very much.

In the cold light of the next day, her boyfriend now wanted nothing to do with her, even though he was smack in the middle of things the night before. Jeanie vaguely remembered seeing him on top of one of the other girls and wondering why he was doing that with her?

But then someone was on top of her at the same time, she had no idea which one it was, then she had passed out.

That was a terrible thing, not like her at all.

From then on, she was very careful about Alcohol, since that was her second "incident". The other time had been at her senior prom and she had no idea at all of how many or even who that time.

Alcohol appeared to be something Jeanie should avoid.

From the mess, it was obvious that it was way more than one at that prom party. She did barely remember the first one and then realizing that it was not her boyfriend. Her attempt at yelling "no!" came out as a moan, then she was helpless. After that, there was a lot of thrusting at her and she just wanted it to be over. Jeanie decided that nothing like that would ever happen again, but it did.

Now, she was more mature, and thought she had control. One drink was her limit, and she usually simply carried that around to avoid getting refills.

Once she felt sure about Jack, she told him the truth. She wasn't proud of that but she also did not want any secrets from her past popping up.

Jack had been through the far milder things of his own in college, so he shared those incidents with her. College was a crazy time, things happened, but it was all before and this was now. So together, they agreed to let the past stay in the past.

+++

Jeanie had one of those female bodies that fully dressed, a person would think she was on the over weight side. She wasn't, not one bit. Big hips, big breasts, a muscular abdomen, she could almost hold her own up on a stage with any group of body builders.

Not that she would ever do anything like that, there was that underlying sensitivity to the fact that she was a solid 150 pounds, barely 20 pounds less than Jack's own six foot frame. So at just over 5'5", Jeanie was a large girl.

Jack liked to lift weights, that made his muscles burn and kept him in shape. One afternoon before they married Jeanie was at his house, she came into the spare room and saw him doing curls with 120 pounds on the bar.

"How heavy is that?" Jeanie asked him.

"One hundred and twenty." Jack replied, setting down the bar. His face was beaded with sweat, he had just finished a dozen slow reps. It was not a huge load, not really, but many strong men could not do it.

"Let me try?" She asked.

"Kind of heavy for you, hon." Jack said with a grin.

"Oh, I don't think so." She replied, then she proceeded to pick up the bar and do half a dozen curls herself, fairly easily.

"That is pretty heavy." She smirked at him, setting it down while doing her best to not let the strain show.

Yes, Jeanie was a big strong young lady and Jack was very happy with her.

She also kept a neat home, handled everything that needed to be handled, it was clear quickly that they were a perfect fit.

The wedding was fancy, the week long stay at a ski lodge up on Mount Hood was great, too.

That morning when Jack woke up and looked out the window, seeing the tracks in the snow just outside was a start. Those turned from the trail going by 30 feet away and came right up to the window. From the way the snow was packed down, whoever it was had been out there for some time.

He pulled the curtains after that. They hadn't bothered the night before, after all, they were on the second floor? But snowpack piles up, and it was clear to the windowsill outside.

Jeanie giggled when he told her that they probably had put on a sex display, she wasn't overly modest and someone had clearly gotten quite a show the evening before.

In an odd way, that was sort of a turn on. Back at home, a few times they talked about that. Jeanie never failed to get fussed up, that was fun.

The idea of ever doing anything like that deliberately never came up.

Life was wonderful, even comfortable, until it wasn't. Lack of money can spoil happiness very quickly.

+++

One day the phone rang, Jack's old college buddy named Dale asked if he could stay a few days until he could find a place to live. Dale was in the same boat as Jack, he had been out of work for a full year.

Dale was a designer, his specialty had been fiberglass. Mostly he designed and built offshore fishing hulls, big ones, like in the 40 foot and up range.

Not too many folks were buying 40 foot long sport fishing boats lately. Dale had finally found a job working for a company that did hot tubs, and the kind that were intended for older or handicapped people.

The problem was that that job was in Portland where Jack and Jeanie lived, and Dale was located in Shrevesport, Louisiana. Jack would have tried for that job himself but he was a machinery designer and setter, his latest job with Davis Industries had been installing and maintaining big machines making plastic bags.

With so many people screaming about plastic bags, things went south in that field, and they went quickly.

No end to it, first the environmentalists were mad about trees being cut down to make paper bags, then they were mad about plastic bags? Hell, they were always mad about something, no end to it all.

+++

Dale was tall and slender, over six feet. Jack knew he was married to a woman named Cheryl, he had seen the photos that came in the Christmas cards but never met her. She was clearly very pretty, her body lithe and apparently in shape. Her head was topped with a mass of long blond curls.

Since Dale and Cheryl had no hope at all of selling their house in Shrevesport, he had no choice but to leave her there and take the job in Portland.

"We are kind of upside down, Jack. Money is real tight, it will take me a couple of months or so to get back on my feet. This is sure going to help, thanks." Dale sounded grateful on the phone.

"No problem, we have a spare room here. But we are in the same situation, there just are no jobs in my field. Maybe you could kick in a few bucks, that would help us make the house payments, anyway?"

"Sure, glad to." Dale told him.

Jeanie didn't mind at all when Jack explained it to her. She had never met Dale but she had heard a lot about him. From Jack's accounts, Dale was just a nice guy, trying to make it in the world.

They had three nice bedrooms and no children, so why not put them to use?

+++

It was only a week until Dale showed up, they got him settled into his room. He was tall, slender and good looking, just like her husband Jack.

Dale also had an easy manner, he was the kind of man that was easy to like.

Transportation was no problem, the light rail terminal was only four blocks away and it was another dozen blocks to Dale's new job from his stop.

He did invest in an umbrella, finding out quickly that rain in Oregon is quite different than what he was used to. Rain in Louisiana is often similar to bath water.

Jeanie laughed at that, almost no one in Oregon ever bothered with umbrellas.

One evening they were sitting at the dinner table, Jack was still having no luck at all finding work. He was complaining about the city and their plans to ban plastic bags, Dale became lost in thought for a moment.

"Say, did you ever think of switching? Paper isn't that much different than working with plastics, why not give that a try? A machine is just a machine." He asked.

"I have, but there is nothing going on here. I did try at Georgia Pacific but they aren't hiring." Jack said.

"There is a company back home, they are building a new plant down there making reycled wallboard. I know it's a long ways and tough being apart from the wife, but it's what Cheryl and I had to do until we can get everything sorted out. I wanted her to come with me but her folks, her friends, her church group, everything she knows is back there. I guess we will just have to do things this way until work opens up back home."

"It should just be a few months anyway. This new administration told us they will turn things around, that huge stimulus package should create a boom." Jack added, hopefully.

The next day, Jack sent a resume online, not expecting anything. The following day came a reply, they asked him to come in for an interview.

Jeanie threw a fit when he told her.

"You know my Mom and Dad live here, all of my family. If we move all the way down there it will be difficult." She told him.

Jack understood, her folks lived in a partially assisted living center, her Father had Parkinson's and was very frail, her Mother was OK but couldn't be driving. The last time she had tried driving got four mail boxes wiped out. For some reason her Mother always drove practically off the shoulder of the road, obvious from the right side appearence of her car.

Mall parking lots were a place her Mom should never go.

They depended on Jeanie for about everything that the living center didn't supply.

If they sold the house and moved, there would be no one to care for her parents since full time assisted care was not in the budget. That was assuming they could even sell the house, the mortgage was thousands more than the current market value.

"Maybe I could go give it a try, if I get the job the pay is good. I could fly home every couple of weeks?" He asked.

Jeanie nodded but she didn't look very happy.

+++

The interview went well, Jack was hired. The position gave him authority, the pay was even better than he was making at Davis Industries.

He also had an office, it was great.

The three of them were sitting at the dinner table talking about it all. Dale suggested that Jack move into the spare room at his house in Shrevesport, and Dale could stay here in Jack and Jeanie's spare room.

"No point in us paying each other rent, it will just be for a few weeks or a month or two until we can get settled." Dale said.

"This sounds like that silly TV show, I guess. The 'wife swap' one." Jack chortled. They all laughed at that.

But things were settled. Jack would move to Shrevesport and stay at Dale and Cheryl's place, Dale would stay in Portland and live in their spare room until they both got enough money up to afford their own places.

Jeanie's eyes were damp when Jack gave her the last hug, telling her he would be home in a month. He wanted to fly home every weekend until he found out what airline tickets cost, and driving was of course out of the question.

It was going to be one very strange scenario, each of them living almost full time with the other's wife, but what else could they do?

The only good part was that neither couple had children to deal with, that made things easier.

+++

Jack looked up at the nice home when the taxi cab pulled up. Dale had described it, but Jack was still surprised at the size of the yard, the big two car garage.

His own home in Portland was nice but deep in the city, the yard was small and the garage was a single one. Portland had done a lot of what they called "infilling", so the entire street was packed with homes, none of them had any yards to speak of.

He had seen photos of Dale's wife Cheryl, even talked briefly on the phone, but never met her.

She was expecting him, she came out on the porch as soon as he got out of the taxi.

Cheryl was now a very pretty redhead now, he had expected blond from the pictures but with women one never knows.

She did appear to be nervous though. Jack could understand that, he was almost a complete stranger, so he did his best to put her at ease.

She showed him to the spare bedroom, then gave him a quick tour of the home. Like his own, it was well kept.

There was a small bathroom and shower off the spare room, that was nice. His own home had just the one big bathroom, there had been plans to put in the second one but with no money to spare, it had never been done.

It only took a couple of days to settle in, Cheryl was easy to talk to. At first he ate all of his meals out but that got expensive very quickly. Cheryl told him he was being silly, she liked cooking and hated eating alone.

Her cooking was completely different, for one thing Jack realized there would be no reason to ever add any hot sauce to anything.

The day Cheryl bought some Frog legs was a bit much, Jack had never eaten anything like that in his life. But he finally did try one, surprised to find them excellent.

The first week, except for meals, Jack kept mostly to his own room. Each day he got up and went to work in a taxi, by the end of the week he found an older used Honda and bought it.

He sent almost all of his first paycheck to Jeanie so she could pay the bills, Dale was doing the same and had been for a few weeks already.

Every night Jack called Jeanie and they talked for hours, thank God for unlimited access.

"I rented a movie, why don't you come on out and watch it with me?" Cheryl asked him over dinner one evening.

"OK. If it's all right." He told her.

"Of course it's all right, you don't have to be a hermit in there all the time. If we are going to live together until everything sorts out, we might as well relax." She gave him a big smile.

He told Jeanie about that when he called later, she didn't say anything. He asked her how things were going, she told him it was fine except for just one thing.

"What was that?" Jack asked.

"I almost bumped into Dale, he was coming out of the bathroom."

"What do you mean?" Jack asked.

"Well. All he had on was a towel." She giggled slightly at that.

"Oh. Probably just an accident. I have a private bathroom here, I wish we had managed to get our own addition done." Jack said. There really was no reason to be concerned, he thought he knew Dale very well from back in college, he really was a pretty nice guy.

Jack did remember one party he had been to, Dale was there and things got to be rather nasty when a couple of very drunk girls were dancing on a table. Clothes were coming off and Jack knew where all of that was headed, and he didn't know them and sure didn't want to catch anything. He had slipped away when that all began but Dale stayed, and later told him some of what went on.