New Man

I never really thought I'd use my CDL experience to haul the remains of my life across five states. The empty house wasn't as strange to me as everything loaded into the trailer. I didn't keep much for myself -- a desk my ex-wife bought me for our fifth anniversary present, my clothes, some of my bedding. Almost everything of Tina's was long gone, sold or donated. The bed, I just wanted gone, and paid a couple of friends to do whatever with it. The rest of the furniture I'd kept after the divorce went to family and friends. It was time for upgrades anyways, so I wasn't too broken up about it.

But it was jarring seeing Isaac's and my life condensed like that. My son's things took up the bulk of the trailer. The last wall of boxes contained his toys, his bedding, his clothes. We each had an overnight bag loaded with essentials in the truck along with a cooler full of drinks. That was it. Our life here, done.

My brother and a couple friends had helped us get everything loaded. I paid them each a couple twenties, and Isaac hugged his uncle tight. When everybody but us had gone, I told Isaac quietly, "I should go through it one more time."

"Should I go too?"

"Do you want to?"

He looked back at the house that had been his home longer than he could remember, and shivered. His head went low, but he stood up. Like he was young again, Isaac took my hand and I squeezed it.

It's funny how alien homes seem when they're empty. We have a tendency to say stuff doesn't matter, but the truth is, it does. It holds memories. Emotions. Hopes and regrets and stories come from things. Not nearly as much as they do people, true, but you look at an empty house and there's nothing left but the ghosts there.

I left one box in the entire house, a small one, and pretended like I needed to check the bedroom closet one more time in case there was anything I missed up there. I made a big show of flailing my arm around, making Isaac smile, but it was a pained thing and I dropped the act to produce the gift-wrapped box for him.

J rubbed his shoulder and said, "Isaac. This isn't going to make things right. Maybe we can't ever do that. But I think it's important you know this gift, it's not just from me. It's from your mom too. She's paying for it. She insisted."

"What is it?" Isaac asked.

I grinned. "Open it up."

He tore into the wrapping and gaped at the slim box underneath. The phone was something he wanted for years, and his face lit up as he hurried open the box to pull it out. "Holy crap!" he shouted. "Thank you, Dad!"

"Don't just thank me. When we get going, you need to call your mom. She'll be expecting you."

He nodded and threw his arms around me. I chuckled. I'd been the one roadblocking the phone for the last six months or so of the marriage, mostly because I didn't want to believe our son was old enough to want -- or need -- one. But the truth was, if we were going to be apart, me working, him at school, he really did need one. I wanted to always be a phone call away.

We locked up the house, and while Isaac piled into the truck, I gave the place one last lingering look. Most of the worst things that had ever happened to me happened right there in that place, but there were so many good memories too. Holidays and birthdays and making love to Tina for hours and hours the first few years we lived there. All of that was good. All of that deserved to be remembered fondly.

Time to go.

* * *

"Hey sweetie."

Her voice on speaker was a cold knife. Like I said before, I don't hate Tina. But we hadn't talked much since the divorce, and hearing her now ripped open wounds I hadn't realized were still so fresh. I stayed silent, and headed for the Interstate.

"Hey Mom! Thank you for the phone!"

"Is it cool?" Tina asked. Her voice was, as always, low and smoky. It had been years since it roused me the way it used to, but I was amused and a little irritated to find it did it to me now.

"Oh yeah. I haven't played with it much. Dad said I needed to call you first."

"Are you guys on your way?"

"We just left."

Isaac filled her in on the packing, and where we'd be staying until we found a more permanent house. Yvonne, the wildly sexy real estate agent who showed me the houses when I went up to Agramonte solo, gave me a lead on a great apartment building with two bedrooms and a pool that would allow me to lease as short as three months. Normally there was a stringent background check and waiting period, but she pulled some strings and shot me to the front of the list. Knowing what kinds of things she did for me to help sell me on her as a real estate agent, I could only fantasize about what she did to help with the apartment building.

If we did wind up getting the house, I didn't want to move in right away. The carpeting needed to be replaced, and if I could get it at my asking price, I could finish the basement in one fell swoop before Isaac and I made it our home. That made more sense to me than getting everything in there twice.

Isaac and Tina's conversation shifted slowly to the work she was doing up in Alaska. She was an ecologist, and was in the process of studying the effects of the climate on the soil in a remote location. This was her dream job, and I wanted to be happy for her, even if a part of me was pissed that Isaac and I weren't part of that dream.

Finally, they brought the conversation to a close nearly an hour later. Isaac cried some, and I think Tina did too. I said a quick and heartfelt goodbye to her, and she to me, and that was it. She was gone. That was the most I'd heard from her in months, and it would very probably be the last for at least that long.

Isaac was silent for a while, and then he asked me, "Dad?"

"Hm?"

"Do you hate Mom?"

"No, buddy. Never." Quiet again, and slowly, it dawned on me why he might ask me that question. Maybe it wasn't about me. Maybe it was about him. "Isaac, do you... are you angry with her?"

He chewed on a fingernail, a nasty habit I thought he'd broken. When he saw me glance at him, his hand dropped and he stared out the window. "Sometimes," he said listlessly. "Sometimes I... guess I wonder if it's... you know, maybe my fault."

"It's not. It never was," I told him.

"Why did she want to leave us, then?"

"Your mom has always had big dreams about doing something to really help the world out. I think she felt trapped with a family."

"Do you?"

"Do I what? Feel trapped?" He nodded. "No. If anything, I think I want a bigger one someday." I realized something and grinned. "Guess I never asked you about that. How'd you like a brother or a sister somewhere down the line?"

"They'd be really young," he said, "but I think it'd be cool."

"Heck yeah it would."

The rest of the drive went pretty well. As was to be expected, Isaac wanted to play on his phone, and I smiled to myself when I found out the first thing he did was download a book app and half the books in his digital library. Then, of course, it was games, games, and more games. I straightened up in my seat when he called Morgan to tell her about his new phone, hoping he didn't notice. Thinking about my ex-wife's sister always did that to me.

Truth was, after our last encounter, I was kind of glad to be putting some miles between us. It was the first time either of us let our walls down with each other, and though we hadn't kissed or anything of the sort, I thought maybe we came close. Or was that wishful thinking?

It didn't matter. That was in the past. She was married and I was moving on.

Moving on to a neighborhood full of gorgeous, available women.

* * *

Here was something unexpected. I actually really liked road-tripping with Isaac.

This was the first time we'd gone on a really long trip, just the two of us, and I was thrilled to see him bop on his knees to the early 2000s rock I listened to. It turned out he was a pretty good navigator too, particularly when it came time to pick lunch and dinner. His mom would have hemmed and hawed over the choices, but Isaac breezed through lists of restaurants and zeroed in on what sounded good in minutes.

We might have made it by midnight if we started earlier and pushed hard, but Isaac also, curiously, made me realize something about myself. I never stopped. He wanted to look at vistas, at turnoff points, at mountain ranges in the distance. Stuff I noticed at the periphery but didn't really pay attention to. He didn't have to twist my arm hard to get me to stop along the way for walks both long and short, and you know what? I'm grateful to him for it. My mood, kind of gray and dim, solidified into something brighter and cheery when we hiked a mile up a popular trail. His unbridled enthusiasm for all the new greenery around him, the wildlife we saw, the people we met along the way, they made me realize how much we needed these little moments.

We stopped that night at a hotel, and after a big meal and a languid swim, Isaac was out in minutes. I grabbed my phone, smiled, and texted Tina a simple thank you.

She sent me back a smiley face.

* * *

That first week was a blur. I enrolled Isaac at a good local school that would be close to the apartment and the houses I'd looked at. Small class size, safe environment, and the buses ran close to home. Isaac wouldn't be walking far, a big concern for me. I knew he was getting older, but still, you worry about that crap especially in this day and age.

The apartment was pretty killer. Three buildings bookended a pool, and a weight room and workout area helped me work off some of the tension of the last few weeks. Our place was small, but we didn't need a lot of space, not yet. Still, I looked forward to sprawling out, to being somewhere that felt homier and less clinical. That was also the week we closed on the old house, so that consumed a lot of my free time in a good way.

I started work the day before I got the call from Yvonne. Construction tends to attract a lot of alpha type guys, and this place was no exception. I was going to be grinding my teeth until I could work by myself again. Oh well. I expected it. There were a lot of reasons I stopped working for big companies and here I was right back with one. Still, the paycheck was going to be fantastic. In at eight, off at five. Not too bad at all.

Yvonne reached out in the middle of one of my shifts. I waited until I had a break, then found a quiet corner of the site where we were breaking ground on a new gas station and called her back.

The owners changed their mind. The dream house was mine.

* * *

Isaac walked through the living room, turning around to take everything in. "Whoa," he breathed. "it's huge."

"Yeah it is," I said, chuckling. "I figured you could have a game room or a library down here and I'd have an office, and we could sleep upstairs."

"There are that many rooms?" he squawked.

I nodded, grinning, and he whooped. He hurried down the hall to look in the two bedrooms, then down the stairwell into the basement. I told him before we moved in I wanted to finish the room and redo the carpeting.

"And you, lucky dog, get to help me out with it," I said.

He grinned. "Okay."

"Whoa, I was expecting a fight on that one."

"Nah. I'm too excited right now to say no."

I laughed, and we headed out first into the backyard. He peered up at the balcony off the master bedroom and thought that was pretty cool. We headed up there, and I showed him the room I as thinking for him because it had the most light for reading.

"This is so cool," he breathed. "I really can have my own library and bedroom?"

"Heck yeah you can! I think you're an alien for not wanting a game room, but whatever you want, buddy."

He stuck his tongue out at me and hurried back through the house to look at it all one more time. "I can't wait to move in."

Remembering Jenna, the neighbor across the street walking in to find Yvonne on her knees sucking my cock, I grinned. "Neither can I."

* * *

Work on the house went by faster than I expected. Two guys from work looking to make some extra bucks helped me rip out the carpeting on the first floor. One of them was a drywall expert, and after we insulated the walls downstairs, we had the bones pretty well defined. Isaac learned a lot that week, and was stellar at spotting staples we'd missed. It was a small thing, but it made him feel good.

I didn't want to spend all my time cleaning the damn carpets every time someone walked through there, so I wound up going with a plush swirled carpet that would hide stains and wear and tear pretty well. It was as thick as a blanket, and cost me a fortune, but it was worth every penny. When we laid out the first section, Isaac and I laid down on it and both faked snores. It was perfect.

Before we did the basement's flooring, I wanted to paint down there. Isaac had made a few friends at school, and one of them invited him over for a sleepover. It was the perfect opportunity to bang out the painting and get it done.

I hustled my ass to the hardware store, and settled on a dark green gray with white for a trim, a combination that would really pop with the cool lighting ideas I had in mind. It was a big basement, and I figured I'd divided it into two sections. Throw a big TV on the wall in one along with a pool table and a couple armchairs, and I'd have a pretty neat hangout spot for Isaac and his friends. The other half would be mine, a small gym with weights and a treadmill or a rowing machine. Perfect for my needs. That would be long-term. I wouldn't be able to afford most of that for a while, but I wanted to be prepared for it and have the room ready.

As I was hauling in paint cans, a sleek coupe slowed and pulled into the driveway across the street. Jenna. My cock surged thinking about her, the long black hair, the curvy hourglass frame, the supermodel like features and big luscious lips.

She stepped out in tight sweatpants stretched tight across her legs with a matching top open over a tank. I raised one of the cans in my hand and gave her as best a wave as I could, grinning.

Jenna glanced at her place, then at me, and my mind whispered, "Gotcha," when she headed towards me.

"You got the house," she called. Out of makeup with her hair in a ponytail, she was still a stunner and I straightened as she approached.

"I did," I said. I settled the other can down and stepped forward to meet her. "I never actually, ah, got a chance to introduce myself."

"Oh, but what a hell of an introduction," she said, grinning as she shook.

"For what it's worth, I had no idea what she was planning," I said, holding out my hand. "Lionel."

"Jenna." She shook. "And oh trust me, I'm well aware Yvonne's the devil."

"That she is," I said, chuckling.

"Are you two...?"

"Dating?" I shook my head. "No. Keeping it... friendly."

"Mm hm," Jenna said, smiling impishly. "Friendly." She peered beyond me at the house. "I heard you were renovating, but I've been away for work."

"Somewhere fun, I hope?"

"Oh yes. Eleuthera."

I raised my eyebrows. "Wow. Always wanted to go, never have been. What kind of work takes you there?"

Her impish grin reappeared. "Modeling."

Fuck. Me. Sideways.

"Oh hey," I said, "I do some modeling too. Mostly bikini, but hey, sometimes lingerie."

Oh, that smile. I was going to dream a lot about that smile. Jenna's unnaturally white teeth were also unnaturally straight and perfect, and I had zero doubts a lot of money went into that smile. I fucking loved it.

"Now, a little blonde birdie told me you were an electrician and in construction," Jenna said, giving me a light push on the shoulder.

"I need to be relicensed in the state, but yeah, that's the general shape of it."

"Mm, a handy man." She said it just like that too, with the deliberate pause in between the words. Handy man.

"I'm pretty okay with them," I said. "Among... other things."

"Mm hm." She gave me another light push. "Well, Mr. Handy Man, I need to get a shower. But if you're interested in a, mm, bite, why not pop on over?"

"I might just do that," I said.

Jenna turned and started down the driveway. I stared at that ass swishing in her sweatpants. Every thought in my mind drained and all the blood shot somewhere much further south. Before she made it too far, she glanced over her shoulder and added, "Don't be too long now."

Fuck the painting.

I took just long enough to drop the cans inside the door, locked the place up, and tried not to run across the street.

* * *

Jenna left the door unlatched but closed, and when I pushed it open, I heard the faintest sound of a shower running somewhere in her massive house.

I thought my place was big, but her great room took up more space than my living room and kitchen combined. Much of it was empty though, and I remembered Yvonne's words that Jenna had just gone through a divorce too.

I stepped further in and cocked my head, listening. Upstairs. I slid off my shoes, no longer in such a hurry, and dropped my clothes along the way until I was fully nude and sidling into her bedroom.

The thing was absurd. Soft pink, with an enormous bed draped in more pink. The bed was turned down and a mountain of pillows rested on the floor.

On a wall were a few photographs. Like me, there were no traces of her ex on the wall, or at least I assumed the people she was hanging out with weren't him. They looked too familiar and comfortable for that, not playful but close. Plus, she was a young teenager in some of them, which would have made for a hell of a weird marriage.

I grinned as I tested her closed bathroom door. Also unlocked. She must have heard something, because she started singing softly. I could just barely make out her frame through the beveled glass of her walk-in shower, and stepped closer.

"You have a beautiful voice," I said, opening up the shower door.

She turned and smiled. Oh holy balls, that body. Like her smile, work had definitely been done, but whoever did the sculpting was fucking Michelangelo reincarnated. Her tits gleamed with the water cascading down across her body, and the perfect hourglass of her figure led to hips just begging to be gripped as I split Jenna wide.

A bottle of shampoo was in her hands and she held it out to me. "Wash me," she said, giving me a cute pout.

Well, you don't have to ask me twice.

I stepped in and took the shampoo from her. She blinked up at me in the mist of the shower spray, and I leaned down to kiss those full lips. My hands looped around her and pulled her tight to me, my hardening cock against her hip. I uncapped the shampoo and drizzled some into one of my hands even as I kissed her still. She pulled back, smiling softly, but I thought I saw something in her eyes then. Hesitation, or sadness, or something. Odd, but she didn't tell me to stop and so I kept going, bringing my hands up to her long black hair.

I'd never really washed anybody's hair. It was unique, and not as sexy as you might think, thanks largely to the suds. They kept cascading down as I'd try to chase Jenna's lips. She got the giggles, and that set me off. Eventually I gave up trying to do it face to face and spun her around, my cock poking at her back as I worked my fingers through her long tresses.

"You're a beautiful woman," I murmured. "This hair on your pillow's going to be one of the sexiest things I'll have ever seen."

She shivered at that and reached for a loofah. I added more shampoo to my hands and worked it slowly and easily into her hair this time, not going for sexy, but caring and warm. I couldn't have known it at the time, but it was exactly what Jenna needed, and she melted back into me, her head back, eyes closed. As much fun as we were about to have, it's that image of her that's stuck with me the longest. It was her, vulnerable for just a moment.