Divorced and Available

A guy came over smiling and pulled off his earmuffs.

"Hi I'm Roger. Are you interested in having your kitchen or bathroom remodeled?"

"No but thanks for the offer. Actually I'm looking for Keaton Coleman."

"Keaton sold to my partner and me four years ago when he and his wife were going through their divorce. He now operates the cell phone and hand-helds store over on Lincoln Street."

Dillon recalled with a start the phone store where he used to work was on Lincoln.

The guy was busy so Keaton left, heading for Lincoln. He found the store was now called Coleman's Cell Phone Center. He told the slim earnest guy with an over-grown thicket for hair he wished to see the boss. Instead of walking off the young guy pulled out a phone, pressed one button and after a slight pause said, "Someone here to see you Keaton."

A recognizable Keaton emerged, although gaunt, looking older with a receding hairline and glasses but he's retained was the enquiring look and measured movement still familiar to Dillon.

"Hi Keaton."

Keaton said hi but said that without conviction as if still wondering who the hell was this caller?

"I'm Dillon, Dillon James."

Keaton took in the expensive suit and the meatier frame of the guy who now must be thirty, tipped up his glasses to take a closer look and said, "By god, so you are. Howyadoing buddy?"

He embraced Dillon and they both engaged in back-slapping.

Keaton said, "Just a moment and I'll grab a jacket. Tina I'm over at Della's for coffee, If my wife calls take a message. I won't have my phone with me."

Tina, a sexy-looking 18-year-old blonde who was attending to an elderly client, looked up at Keaton and smiled curiously.

Well Keaton was warm, friendly and forthcoming. It had happened just like Dillon had warned. Keaton had failed to work on his marriage and Denise had finally given up on him and requested a divorce. He's suggested counseling and she'd agreed but according to Keaton the fool of a counselor spend most of her time chipping away at him for not making a real effort and so that expensive interlude also failed.

"Where are Jill and Denise now?"

Keaton said Jill completed her accountancy degree and then married her boyfriend from the same class. They now lived 250 miles away in his hometown and were very happy with a kid who was now eighteen months old.

"And Denise?"

"I have no idea. The termination of our marriage was total termination. She left and we haven't been in contact since. I visit Jill twice a year and believe she and Denise remain in contact but Jill and I never mention her. Jill comes here once a year but stays at a hotel. She and my new wife had a row the first time they met."

The remainder of the time with Keaton was just like kicking tires and being mostly unproductive. He didn't ask what Dillon was up to these days and with that lack of interest Dillon didn't bother telling him. It appeared Keaton was just being polite socializing with Dillon so after twenty minutes he said he had to go and despite the handshake he felt the message was clear: he was nothing more than a stranger to Keaton.

Keaton felt a stirring and believed as least one partner in that former lop-sided former marriage would be keen to see him. Denise would be forty-five now and he understood some women that age remained interested in sex. How large a segment was 'some' he had no idea simply because people tended not to talk about that sort of thing. His mom would know.

He stopped opposite their house and phoned. His mom answered and he said hi mom and she screamed "Dillon!" and that made his ears ring.

"Where are you?"

"About to come up your driveway."

"Oh great, we'll be down to meet you."

He held the phone away from his ear and heard her scream, "Doug to the front door. Dillon's home."

This excited Dillon, making him feel he was welcome to return to the fold. He'd always called his mom on the last Sunday of the month and occasionally his dad had taken the phone to say hi and ask was Dillon successful yet. Dillon would say something like, "Well I haven't turned Pro yet" and his dad would hand the phone back to his wife and she would tell Dillon he ought to be more forthcoming to his father and not tease him. Dillon's reply remained consistent, "Well if he were interested and not have this warped attitude about why I have to be successful then perhaps I might communicate with him more openly."

He'd kept his mom informed of his whereabouts and vaguely what he was doing but she appeared more interest in his girlfriend of the moment and always asked was she pregnant.

His parents came down the steps looking only slightly older but beautifully groomed, looking very much like two seniors featuring in a advertisement in a luxury resort or international travel magazine. The looked at him admiringly, at least that's what Dillon concluded, and would have noticed the blonde streak in his hair and his gym-toned body.

His excited mom planted lipstick on his face, on both cheeks, and his father applied his strong grip, a legacy from being a Pro golfer and pulled away without comment when he felt the uncompromising return grip.

Doug kicked a tire of the new-new mid-size Mercedes and grunted, "Did you steal this or is it a rental?"

"It's my work car. I've had it since new and with unrestricted private use."

"Gee what do you do?"

"I'm director of operations for a company specializing in redesign and retrofitting of resort installations here and in four other countries."

"Jesus that's interesting. Why didn't you tell me or your mother?"

"Dunno, I guess it's because I've always struggled to know what things you really want to know from me or to discuss with me apart from the world of golf."

Doug stiffened and Jennifer sighed and with practiced ease said, "Now boys."

Father and son dutifully pulled in their horns.

"You'll stay with us of course."

"Yeah mom thanks. But not in my old room with its memories if that's okay."

"Yes dear, not a problem." She too remembered those occasional nights when Doug would return home drunk and beat his son instead of her.

Doug looked at them expressionlessly and murmured, "Welcome home son."

The two-night stay proved rewarding. During that time Dillon talked to his dad more than he'd probably accumulated in conversations during the past ten years. But the real highlight of his stay came on his final night after his dad had turned in.

His mom arrived in with yet more coffee.

"These girlfriends of yours, why can't you settle on one of them?"

"Because they're not hot women."

"God that's all you men ever think of until your drive begins to lag."

"My definition of a hot woman includes sex but it means more than that."

"What else is there to interest a man than carnal desire?"

"I think of that phrase carnal desire at times."

"Very frequently I'd think."

"Mon I picked that phrase up from you. Until now I never realized it."

"Your father could always be egged on with it when I goaded him with it."

"Mom!"'

"Mothers still have sex after finishing having babies darling. Surely you understand that."

"Yes I do."

"Your father and I still have sex regularly."

Dillon gaped.

"And last year in Athens I had a lover, a Frenchman."

"Jesus!"

"Dillon I'm still your mother and you don't use words like that in that way in my home."

"Yes mother."

Jennifer smiled. "So exactly what is a hot woman to you?"

"A woman who interests me in every way, so much so I can feel her presence when she's near me although I might not be looking at her. It's rather like, um, she triggers my sensory perception."

"You see her aura?"

"It might be an aura but I don't actual see it; I feel it."

Jennifer said hmmm.

Dillon waited for her to give him possible insight. Instead she asked, "I gather you have met women like this."

"Just the one."

His mother sounded excited: "Then where is she?"

"I have no idea."

Dillon could almost see his mom's nose twitching as she thought she was on to something.

"Was it Denise Coleman? You stayed with her and her husband one summer and were working for them when you upped and left here."

Jennifer smiled triumphantly, looked at her son's astonished expression."

"Ah so it was you who triggered them to divorce. You horrid toad, committing adultery with your boss's wife."

"I never had sex with her."

"Don't lie to me Dillon."

"I'm not and you know that's the truth mom but I wished I'd had," he said looking straight at his mom.

"I believe you," she said softly. "Denise called me twice, no three times asking had you managed to land a good job somewhere. I offered her your phone number but she said she had that. The only reason she was calling was to check on your welfare. I told her the little bit I knew and the cheeky bitched asked were you and I estranged."

Dillon grinned. "That's Denise, she becomes very direct when concerned. Where is she?"

"I have no idea."

"Mom!"

"Well that's the truth and don't blame me. She asked me not to say she'd contacted me because she was too old for you."

"She's not."

"She thinks she is and with a daughter at college I think she was too old for you too."

"Well she's not. I can't believe..."

"Although I said I didn't know where she was I know someone who will, her aunt who was my tennis coach at high school, the first person to recognize I had talent. Milly Wagner is Denise's aunt because the second time Denise called some three or four years ago she told me Milly was her aunt. Get my phone from the kitchen and I'll find Milly's number for you."

Dillon felt he was amid a detective novel, engaged in tracking down the heroine who was missing and then dismay, his mother said Denise would have remarried by now.

"She can't have married," he yelled and his mom laughed and said people didn't organize their lives for the benefit of Dillon James.

His father yelled for them to cut the noise or else close the door.

An anxious Dillon tossed and turned for hours before falling asleep. His mom awoke him at 8:00 and handed him the phone. "I called Milly and got her sister's number. Here is Mrs Cate waiting for you to talk to her."

"Who's Mrs Cate?" Dillon yawned.

"Denise's mom, dummy."

With blinding speed Dillon ripped the phone from his mom's grip and was saying hi to Mrs Cate before Jennifer realized the phone had gone from her hand.

She grinned and left the room.

* * *

Dillon began the long drive home to Charlotte, North Carolina, where the headquarters of the company he worked for were located. He'd learned that for the past eighteen months Denise had been working at the international airport for US Air, less than a half hour's drive from where he lived and worked and he often flew US Airways.

Her mom had told him other things that Denise had not remarried but she'd been going out for two months with her present boyfriend and no, they didn't live together.

But not only that, Mrs Cate said she knew who Dillon was because for the best part of a year after the marital split when Denise was living at home she often mentioned Dillon.

"My understanding was you were too young for her?"

"That's only a perception, easily changed Mrs Cate."

"We yes, I suppose it is. Then go after her young man, she's never yet met a man that she really likes. The fact she sometimes mentioned you must means something and when I asked Jill about you she described you as being adorable."

"Your granddaughter is a great kid Mrs Cate."

"Don't you mean mother? She and Ted have made me into a great-grandmother."

"Well thanks for the address where Denise works Mrs Cate."

"She phones twice a week. Should I say you called asking about her?"

"Yes, I'd appreciate that."

"Where do you live?"

"Charlotte Mr Cate and have done so for almost six years."

"Omigod. That will interest Denise or else I don't know my daughter. I call that destiny."

"Good by Mrs Cate."

"Goodbye Dillon. You sound like a very nice young man."

He'd laughed and cut the call.

God fancy he and Denise living so close. It was scary or as her mom had suggested, perhaps something good was meant to happen between them. She'd called it destiny.

When stopped for a lunch break Dillon smiled, thinking he was now a lot closer to Denise. She was forty-five so perhaps could still have a baby, their baby, with medical intervention if necessary but only if she felt up to it. Or perhaps they could adopt a baby? Well she now had to decide between lover boy of two months and him.

"Jesus what if she chooses lover boy," Dillon muttered, his day suddenly turning bleak. Well that would be destiny wouldn't it, whichever way the cookie crumbled?

He sighed.

"A coffee top-up?" the waitress smiled.

"Yes please," he smiled.

"Do you require anything else," she asked suggestively. "I finish in half an hour."

"I'm oozing blood."

She splashed coffee into his cup and hurried off.

"God why where women always wanting to be fucked and whenever a guy wanted a fuck they couldn't be found?"

He grinned. Well that's what life was: complicated in every sense.

He worried that Denise might have piled on weight and now waddled instead of walked but thought well her manner and mannerisms ought to be unchanged.

Such conjecture was a waste of time, he thought. Wait till their reunion and then decided what had changed, what hadn't and whether they were still on track as a couple.

CHAPTER 3

Denise had this premonition that she sometimes experienced, though not in the sense of impending disaster thank god. She remembered getting it two nights before Keaton Coleman finally proposed, just before she realized she was pregnant, one night just when the phone went and it was her mother telling her Denise's father was in hospital with stomach cramps and during one night when she awoke wondering why she had that feeling and she then decided in an instant, putting an end to her fretting, deciding she'd seek a divorce.

Now the feeling was with her. God she wasn't pregnant at her age was she?

Ronald (he didn't like being called Ron) did the thing she preferred men not to know about her. He grabbed both nipples and tweaked and she felt both legs opens like gates to the citadel.

"God not here Ronald," she said as he bent over and pushed a finger under the crotch of her swimsuit and scooped some liquid from her sudden burst of arousal and then held out his finger for her to lick.

What a peasant. No way did she ever like to taste herself. How men could head down there and slosh about was a thought that had her close to puking.

"Come on, bring that erection to my apartment. Hold your towel over it because everyone is looking," she said, as they walked past people crowding the perimeter of the swimming pool at a distance to escape being splashed. She wondered if everyone enjoyed seeing her nipples up like this. Christ couldn't a girl be primed for sex without everyone thinking it was their business to notice?

Well Ronald was certainly aroused by all the tit and exposed butts that had surrounded them. At least that was good. She'd so far only allowed him to penetrate her three times in the past eight weeks so he'd be sexually hungry unless he was getting it elsewhere and she doubted he was that lucky. And now being aroused he might last the distance to get her off before he fizzled. Well if he didn't she probably knew him well enough by now to suggest he finish her off with his fingers.

After ten minutes of grunting and shoving and Ronald crying, "Oh la-de-dah, I'm about to come." He then rolled off and slumbered. A disgruntled Denise went into her bedroom, locked the door and grabbed her favorite dildo.

She was basking in sweat and accomplishment when her phone went.

She checked who the caller was and answered, "Hi mom. You don't often call me."

In a voice almost dripping of intrigue or conspiracy, her mother announced she had some big news.

God her mom wasn't the one who was pregnant was she?

Denise bit her arm to smother her giggle.

"Dillon James is looking for you."

Denise gasped, grabbed the dildo and reinserted it and felt her nipples tingle.

"Well?"

Denise twisted the silicone shaft.

"That's very interesting mom?"

"Well how about this? He lives and works within half an hour's drive of you."

"What in Charlotte?"

"You haven't moved have you?"

"No."

"Of course I mean Charlotte. He's a senior executive for Resorts Retrofit International in the Carillon Building."

"Omigod I often pass that building," Denise said, jerking the dildo and giving a low moan.

Ronald knocked on the door.

"Just a minute mom."

"I'm on the phone to my mom."

"I'm hungry. I'm off to eat. Want to come?"

"No Ronald, bye. Thanks for whatever you call it?

"Eh?"

"Hi mom. Ron was here and it was time to get rid of him. So how when is Dillon darling coming to see me and why?"

"I don't know the answer to the first question and I suppose the answer to question two is to screw you."

"Don't be crude mother. He's far too young for me."

"So you say."

Denise visualized a big dick, presumably Dillon's, up her and climaxed over her dildo. She felt awfully embarrassed doing that when on the phone to her mom and how the hell that that dildo gotten back inside her?"

Her mom said she must go. "You're having too much sex. That's why you are not energized when speaking to me."

"Yes mom. I wish."

Relaxing in the bath Denise began to think about Dillon erotically and looked down and saw her nipples were fully extended and felt her breasts swelling.

"Omigod," she marveled. "Look at me and I'm not even touching myself."

Denise worked as a senior hospitality hostess, looking after VIPs who included airline executives, arriving with a break before resuming the next leg of their flight or to get them to the right place and the right time for their journey into the city and for VIPs arriving from the city or elsewhere. She liked the job and had received more than a few exceptional service awards.

She put Ronald off for several days when he asked for dates, not wanting him around when and if Dillon called. Finally the exasperated Ronald yelled at her on the phone, "I'm through with you. You rather talk to your mom than hang out with me."

God what a loser.

"You've insulted my mother Ron (she emphasized the shorter version of his name) and so we are finished. Never attempt to contact me again."

"Well goodbye bitch. Little wonder your marriage failed."

That riled Denise. She hurled a shoe at the sofa where she remembered him last sitting and felt heaps better, especially when rushing over to confirm that the heel hadn't ripped into the sofa.

Her room mate Barbara arrived and said, "Toy boy hasn't arrived yet?"

"No sadly. Oh god Babs please don't use that name within his hearing."

Barbara smirked, "I work for an airline. I'm trained to be lovely to people."

Denise's phone went. She didn't recognize the number of the caller. Her stomach tightened and anticipation tensed her entire body.

"Denise Cate speaking."

"With a voice sounding as lovely as ever."

"Dillon!" she screamed. "How lovely to hear your voice."

Barbara arrived with coffee and three times used the motion of pulling on the handbrake of a vehicle.

He sounded pleased and said he'd like to catch up and asked could they meet.

"Yes Dillon, I'd like that," she said slowing down. "I fairly fully booked."

She looked at the grinning Barbara who rolled her eyes.

"Oh okay, I ought to have realized that and you must think it awful of me intruding like this. Perhaps we'll catch up sometime soon. Bye?"

"Dillon!" Denise yelled, but too late.

"Damn," she bleated. "I've scared him off." She appeared ready to cry.