Transferred to Dayton

[To the reader: The places described in this story are real places, and people with the names I have chosen to use no doubt exist in those places. But, alas, what follows is fiction. It would be fun if it weren't. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy.]

*****

"You're sure I'm not imposing, right?" I asked. "It would be great to see you again and meet your wife, but if it is any inconvenience at all for either of you, I wouldn't want to—"

"No, no! No trouble, bud!" he interrupted. "We'll be back in town by then, and Kerri will love it that our guest room will finally get used. This'll be great!"

"Okay, I'll see you on Friday then. Probably right around 6:00 or so."

"Fantastic! I look forward to it. Have a safe trip, man!"

I signed off and hung up the phone.

Brett, the person on the other end of the call, was an old college buddy of mine that I hadn't seen in ... well, I guess it would be almost six years now. When we graduated, he went one way and I went another, and though we crossed paths on Facebook once in a while, both of us had come to see that FB was mostly just an effective time drain, so even that contact was infrequent. All I knew was that he was now married and living in Dayton, Ohio.

Back when we were both at USC, he and I hung together a lot, engaged in the activities typical of young males in college, most of them involving alcohol and women. In actuality, it would be more accurate to say "I hung with him" rather than vice versa. Brett was one of those guys blessed with a natural and irrepressible charisma that made him a people magnet. He had a confident ease around anyone who happened to be in his path. He was also one of those rare guys who could get away with draping his arm over the shoulder of anyone—male or female—even someone he had just met. You felt like an old friend almost instantly. Most men who came on that strong to a woman would likely get pushed away or even slapped. Not Brett. The worst reaction I ever witnessed was a blush.

That was the positive side, anyway. The flip side was that his confidence and social fearlessness would wear others out. Being continually drenched in Brett's boundless enthusiasm and energy was draining. He possessed such an overpowering personality that talking to him directly really meant he was talking to you; you were lucky to get a few words in periodically. Even normally talkative people seemed reserved by comparison when he was around. Yet—and this is where his natural charisma and likableness came into play—no one seemed to hold that against him. "It's just how he is" we would all say.

This "flip side" was the reason that when we talked on the phone just now, I hadn't told him I was going to be moving to Dayton. I just told him I'd be in town for a quick visit. I hadn't lied, actually, because in fact I was just flying in very early on Friday and would be flying back out on Saturday. I just left out the part that I'd be back in Dayton permanently within a few weeks because my company was transferring me there. I figured I'd wait until I had a chance to reconnect with Brett in a very limited way before deciding whether to divulge that I'd soon be living nearby. I'd play that by ear once I got there.

Yet, I realized I was anxious to see him again. Part of it was curiosity about whether he was the same now as he was then. Plus, I could use a liberal dose of exuberance right now.

I grew up and completed all my years of school in southern California, and while I'd certainly ventured outside that home base many times on vacation and business trips, I never envisioned myself living anywhere else. Now my employer had other plans. Yes, it was a good opportunity: I would be managing a tax accounting division nearly 25 CPAs strong, I'd have my own administrative assistant, and I'd be making significantly more money than I had been. It was a great career move, one I couldn't really turn down if I were to have any future with this company.

But it was in Dayton. Only those Americans living under a rock don't know about the recent tragic event that occurred in this midwestern city, and it isn't the type of event that evokes a warm fuzzy feeling about moving there. Even ignoring that aspect, I'd have to leave behind the climate, the ocean, my family, season tickets to the Trojan games, the famous tanned California girls in tiny bikinis ... all the familiar things I had grown up with, and move to a smallish city in the middle of nowh—well, Ohio. Really? Except what I'd heard in the news recently, I didn't know a thing about it. And I didn't know anybody who lived there.

Except Brett. Who now had a wife I'd soon get to meet, so if you'll allow me to exaggerate and include her, that brought the total to two. Yes, a dose of Brettian ebullience would be welcome.

In truth, I also wondered about his wife—Kerri, I guess he said—knowing it would take a special kind of woman to be around Brett on a full-time basis. Then again, maybe she had tamed him. It would be interesting to see. [Reader: Remember that last sentence. I had no idea at this point how much of an understatement it was to be.]

The quick trip there and back before I officially moved was to give me a chance to see the Dayton offices of IBK (my employer) and meet the people I'd be working with and managing. Then it was back to California to wrap up my last couple of projects in the Santa Ana office, and pack up my stuff for the move.

That's probably all the background you need for the rest of this story to make sense.

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The following Friday I flew in to Dayton International Airport, then spent the rest of the day rubbing elbows with the IBK accounting staff that would soon be reporting to me. A few people I'd soon be working closely with were unfortunately out of the office, including my immediate manager, who had planned to be there, but a death in his family—a father-in-law, I think—meant he had to be out of town unexpectedly. It was vacation season, so it wasn't surprising in a group that big that not everyone was there, particularly on a Friday in July. Nevertheless, I was impressed with the ones I did meet. It came as a surprise to me, but Dayton is big in biotech. And of course those companies need good tax accounting support, so that's a good thing for my new team and me.

At about 5:15 I joined the Friday afternoon exodus from the office (I'm pretty sure some of them stuck around that long to impress me with their dedication) and caught an Uber to the address Brett had given me. I mentally switched gears on the way, leaving accounting behind. I had expended a lot of mental energy, so I was looking forward to relaxing and catching up a bit with my old friend.

When I got there, Brett came bounding out of the house to greet me. I was just barely out of the car before he wrapped me in a big bear hug.

"Hey, bud!" he gushed. "Great to see you!"

Yes, this was the Brett I remember. Occasionally he might actually address someone by their real name, but most of the time men were "bud" and women were "baby." It all sounded so friendly and natural coming out of his mouth—kind of like those waitresses we've all encountered at some point that call everyone "honey"—that not even the women were put off by it.

I greeted him back, waved a thank you to the Uber driver, and Brett steered me toward the house. As we did so, his wife (I assumed that anyway ... who else could it be?) came out to greet me as well. She was barefoot and wearing a pair of those ubiquitous black leggings that it seems every American woman owns, along with a cropped tee shirt with "Wright State" emblazoned on the front. (I'd discovered earlier in the day that a number of my new co-workers had degrees from that local university.) The shirt left quite a bit of her slim, tight midsection exposed. On the right woman, an outfit like that can look great ... and let me make this clear: She was most definitely the right woman. Her curves were all in the right places, that's for sure. Her hair was kind of an auburn-red color, with casual, loose curls that some describe as the "beach" look. On the basis of looks at least, Brett had married well.

Kerri appeared to be a tiny bit more reserved than Brett, but only just a little. She approached me with a beaming smile.

"Welcome to Dayton! Brett has been so excited that you were coming to visit that he could hardly sit still all week!" she laughed. While she was still laughing, she gave me a hug. "It's so good to meet you!"

"I'd like you to meet my wife, Kerri," Brett said.

"You're too late, Brett. I think I just did!" I said, to which they both laughed in response. "I appreciate the warm welcome. I've been looking forward to this myself." As you know, that last part wasn't 100% true, but it seemed appropriate to say anyway.

"Speaking of warm, let's move this inside, shall we?" Brett interrupted. "It's sweltering out here." It was late July in Ohio, after all. So, yes, in an air-conditioned space is generally the right place to be.

Kerri led the way, followed by me, then Brett. This gave me an opportunity to admire her lovely backside without it being obvious. Nice. Sorry, but a man's brain just naturally and quickly progresses from that sight to thinking about what delights must lie just underneath that thin sheath of fabric that showed no panty line. But I caught myself. This was my friend's wife, after all, and I didn't have any right to be thinking this way. Still, I envied him at that moment.

Once in the house, Kerri kept walking and disappeared around a corner. Brett put his hand on my shoulder from behind.

"I hope you don't mind, bud, but I promised Ker [he pronounced it "Care"] we'd go dancing tonight. We're just back from visiting my family in Maryland, and it was a little payback for the time she had to spend with my mom, if you know what I mean." He chuckled. "She just loves to dance, so I told her we'd finish off our short vacay that way." He paused, then looked a little more serious. "I was going to get you a date, but figured that wasn't a good thing to spring on you on short notice."

I had been on couple of blind dates before, and both had lived up to the poor reputation that blind dates generally have. Still, if Kerri had a sister that looked like she did ...? Nah. Probably not.

"Not a problem, Brett," I said, feeling a little disappointed but doing my best not to show it. A night by myself in front of the TV is an activity I was familiar with, but I didn't fly half way across the country just for that. "You two go and enjoy yourselves, and I can relax here."

"Oh, no way! You're coming with us," Brett exclaimed.

"I don't want to be third wheel," I responded. "I'm sure Kerri would enjoy the time more without a stranger tagging along."

Brett smiled. "Hey, I appreciate your thought process, bud, but you don't know Kerri. She doesn't know any strangers." He chuckled. "There is no such word in her vocabulary, I don't think."

I was still dubious about being a tag along. "You're sure she feels that way?" I asked.

"Absolutely!" he responded. "As a matter of fact, by the time the night is over, she will have danced with probably half the guys at the club where we're going. She wears me out, so I have to spread the wealth!" He smiled again. "With you there she'll have one more dance partner!"

Dancing wasn't at the top of my list of favorite activities, but I could do it with the right incentive. Maybe a little dancing would be fun. (I would have to keep it gentlemanly, of course, knowing it was most likely that my only dance partner for the evening would be my friend's wife. My friend's very hot wife, that is.)

"If you're sure," I said.

"Terrific!" Brett responded, taking that as an affirmative answer. "We'll have a great time, bud!" He pulled his smartphone out of his pocket and consulted it as he continued talking. "We need to leave in, um, let's see ... like about 30 minutes or so. Traffic can be heavy in that direction on a Friday night." He nodded toward the hallway. "Here, let me show you the guest room where you'll be tonight. Ker is already getting ready, and I need to take a quick shower before we go. I don't mean to welcome you here then ignore you, but we'll have a chance to talk later. We have a few years to catch up on, right, bud?"

I nodded and followed.

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Actually, we didn't have much of a chance to talk later, at least for a while. We drove their little Mini Cooper convertible. It's a fun car, but with the top down and zipping through traffic, not conducive to conversation unless you feel like shouting at each other.

Nor did conversation get much easier once we got inside the club, where the loud music basically precluded it most of the time. Gesturing worked better. It was a live band playing, so there were sometimes breaks between songs when you could talk at a fairly normal level and be heard, but the rest of the time it was too much work to communicate. Fortunately, Kerri provided plenty of entertainment, in the form of eye candy.

But let me back up, because I left some very important details out. You see, when we were still back at the house, it didn't take me long to get ready, so I just went back out to the living room to wait. Brett and Kerri came out together just before the time Brett had told me we needed to leave. Honestly, though, I hardly noticed Brett because I was too busy noticing Kerri ... and I guess it showed.

"Hey, bud, you might want to wipe that drool off your mouth," Brett said to me, then laughed, slapping me gently on the back. Then he addressed his wife. "I think that means your outfit has his approval too, baby. I believe that makes it unanimous."

"Uh, oh, I'm ... I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to stare," I stuttered, embarrassed. I'm sure my face was reddening. "It's just, well, she looks, I mean, you look amazing, Kerri. That outfit looks great on you."

"Looks great?!" Brett guffawed. "Just tell her she looks totally hot, because that's a more accurate description!" He chuckled again. Clearly he wasn't upset by my reaction to his wife.

"Brett, give the guy a break," Kerri interjected, coming to my defense, and giving her husband a gentle elbow. "He's our guest!" Apparently she wasn't offended by my reaction either. She turned to me with a smile. "I'm flattered, and I'm glad you like it. I consider drooling a compliment," she said, then giggled.

When I describe what she was wearing, maybe you'll understand my reaction. [To set the record straight, I feel the need to point out that I wasn't literally drooling. They were just giving me a hard time. But you could hardly blame me if I had.]

Her outfit—what there was of it—was all black. Starting upward from the floor, first came her tall stiletto heels with straps around her ankles, followed by a vast expanse of leg. [And what legs they were! You don't see many stems so perfect as these, except maybe when the Trojan cheerleaders are bouncing around the sidelines.] Above that was a tight miniskirt, then another stretch of feminine skin both above and below her belly button, which was adorned with a delicate little pendant ... like a dangling diamond earring but in the wrong place. [I'd think it would tickle when she moved, and I can attest that that part of her body did a great deal of moving over the next few hours. But, hold on, we haven't gotten to that part of the story yet.] Her top was a scoop-neck vest hanging loosely from her shoulders. The left and right sides of the front didn't meet in the middle of her chest; instead, there was a three-inch gap there, spanned by several gold chains that functioned to hold it in place. The top and inside curves of her breasts were clearly on show from directly in front, and would be even more so when viewed from other angles. When Kerri turned away from me, I realized that the vest had no back ... four longer chains matching the ones in front crisscrossed her back in kind of a modified 'X' pattern. To call her outfit "daring" would be accurate, but I would stop short of calling it "slutty," if for no other reason than she was beautiful and carried herself with class. [Okay, I'm a guy, and I can think that way if I want to. Even though her skirt was short enough that it would be challenging for her to sit down without accidently revealing the promised land ... not that I would even think of looking, of course.]

From a man's perspective (at least from mine, and I know I'm not alone) the real allure of a backless dress on a woman is evident enough when you think about it, but I feel compelled to point it out anyway. Other than revealing skin that is often reserved for the beach or the pool, there is nothing taboo or scandalous about a woman showing that part of her body. Mind you, a woman's back from the top of her hips to her shoulders is quite beautiful, as exemplified by the one I was looking at at that moment. But as I said, one can see plenty of bare backs at a beach—many with just a single strap or tie across the middle—without it causing the brain's voyeur neurons to kick into a frenzy. Those clever neurons know that the presence of the strap or string indicates another part of the swimsuit is also present and most likely performing its assigned task: covering those diverse and interesting features on a woman's front side that have almost a magnetic pull on the eyes of males of our species. In other words, her boobs are covered. Move along. Nothing to see here.

It's different with a backless dress, however. Those same astute brain cells quickly recognize there is no bra strap and no place to hide one, so the wearer is almost certainly braless (unless she's cheating and wearing those ghastly stick-on silicone things). Signals immediately go out to other parts of the brain, putting it on high alert, and it begins watching for confirmation—a little extra jiggle, maybe even a little bump advertising the position of a nipple just beneath the topmost layer of fabric—and all the neurons give each other high fives when the braless state is confirmed. In the current case, I already had 95% of the required confirmation; there was no place that straps could possibly be hidden, and while Kerri wasn't busty enough to be falling out of her vest or flopping wildly from side to side, let's just say that it was apparent that no hidden force or device was curtailing their natural motion. There was quite a bit of high fiving going on in my grey matter right then.

My thought process (which occurred in roughly 1.5 seconds) was interrupted by Brett.

"Ker likes cutting loose once in a while, 'cause at work she always has to be prim and proper, you know."

"Or at least give that appearance!" Kerri added, then snickered.

Brett chuckled at that comment. "Yeah, what people don't know doesn't hurt them!" he said, smiling at her. "But on the dance floor, the real Kerri comes out!" He pulled her into his arms and planted a kiss on her lips. Kerri returned the kiss—not a quick peck, but like one out of a movie—while his hands migrated down her bare back and began gently kneading her ass, which caused her to break the kiss and twist away.

"Save that for later, tiger," she scolded, but with obviously no ire. "We have a guest!" She glanced at me with an apologetic, "boys will be boys" look, then turned and bent to pick up a clutch purse from the chair beside her. I noticed that Brett watched her movements with the same attention that I did. Much like a wolf eyes a lamb.

Though when I observed their kiss I definitely felt like the third wheel that I thought I might, I didn't want to miss tagging along with them now. It would be difficult to overdose on gazing at a sexy vision like Kerri. I'm not one to pass on an invitation to witness a few "oops moments" when attentive eyes might see a part of a beautiful woman that was usually not intended for public consumption, and do it as an official and bona fide guest. I'd have a front row seat.