"The FHA inspector's here for your meetin', Hal," said the secretary over my cell phone. I was away from the office, checking on foundation work done that week in a 100 home government-funded housing development my company was building in Tennessee for victims displaced by Gulf Coast hurricanes.

This was the third Friday meeting I'd had with the inspector – Lucretia – since the Phase One contract had been signed. A professional civil engineer, she was a stunning, light-skinned, 30-year-old African-American woman from southeastern Tennessee who'd lobbied her government agency for the watchdog position. She'd grown up in a little hamlet nearby and knew a great deal about the area near Manchester, plus she'd worked her way up in the Federal Housing Administration for eight years.

I put on my funky tee shirt, which immediately clung to me with sweat from the oppressive southern heat. "Should've shaved and brought a real shirt," I mumbled to myself as I drove the pickup down the dusty gravel road to the project's office, a doublewide mobile home which included a small bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette. Lucretia would probably show up in jeans, boots and a simple top anyway, I thought. The blistering local climate had a way of dictating a very informal style of clothing on construction sites, regardless of one's high official position. So, in the design/build company in which I was a junior partner, I'd gotten used to boots and jeans on this project; those and the sweaty tee that now clung to my torso like an oppressive second skin.

As I burst into the air-conditioned office, however, I immediately felt like a slob. Sitting near our secretary in a guest chair was a very curvy black girl – looking like a local high schooler – dressed in a wispy black skirt ending at her beautiful knees. On top she wore a skin-tight, white, short sleeved, ribbed cotton top with a scooped neck that hugged what must have been 36D breasts. In a split second my eyes devoured her lovely, V-shaped face, cluster of long mini braids pulled into a ponytail by a red bandana, and a large rhinestone "M" on a silver chain around her smooth, flawless neck that nestled in the deep valley of her dark chocolate cleavage. The large silver bag she was carrying on one satiny shoulder – complemented by a silver belt cinched around an impossibly small waist – and matching flip-flop sandals on her dainty feet, completed the appetizing picture.

I stood over her and asked – a bit roughly – "Are you here to see me?"

"No, suh," she responded. "Ah'm waitin' fo' Miss Lucretia," she purred sweetly in that Cumberland foothill accent which, after three weeks of hearing it spoken by local women, made my groin throb. Her eyes dropped bashfully to the floor as she finished her sentence. I continued looking down at her and felt a couple of quick, horny pulses in my genitals, since she looked positively edible.

"Oh. Well, we shouldn't be too long," I grunted, a bit distracted by this girl's discomfiting effect on me. I entered the conference room down the hall, closing its door, and saw Lucretia standing and poring over house plans on my drawing board with her back to me. "Sorry I'm late, Lucretia. Did you get coffee?"

"No thanks, Hal. Just wanta check your preliminary designs today, t' see if they're up to code," she said, virtually ignoring my presence. Like the young girl outside, Lucretia had dressed up, causing my horny juices to keep flowing. It was the first time I'd seen her except in baggy jeans. I scratched at my scraggly, three-day growth of blond beard and moved toward her, standing slightly behind and to the left, as she made notes in red on the draft plans and toyed sexily with a backless high heel on one foot.

Since I'd moved to the site a month earlier, designated as my company's project's representative, I'd been attracted to the statuesque Lucretia. But I wasn't at all prepared for her today, an afternoon on which I felt particularly lusty. She was easily 5'9" tall in bare feet, with what looked like succulent chest measurements of 34C with a narrow, perfectly postured back, under a 23" waist, and – who knows? – maybe 35" hips. In her heels she stood just under six feet, 3" shorter than I, with muscular legs that appeared longer than mine. I groaned at the skin tight fit of her sleeveless top that showed muscular, bronze shoulders. Her matching pants were stretched tightly over her high, protruding butt and I tried to cover an involuntary groan with a faked dry cough. Lucretia stopped what she was doing at the sound and turned slowly with a slight smile, her back to my drawing table with breasts extended proudly. "Mmm...maybe Iwillhave that coffee, Hal. Light...lotsa' cream and sugah," she requested, batting her black, half-inch lashes at me.

This woman knows exactly what she's doing, I thought, which I'd sensed weeks earlier. She had her hair cut short, with large, one-inch ringlets, frosted with a blonde color at their tips. Her mocha complexion was delectable, covering rather wide cheek bones, an aquiline nose and vulpine jaw, with dimples in her cheeks. Her lips peeled back like pieces of the ripest, moist fruit, and her light hazel eyes spoke volumes about the glories of mixed race ancestry.

From the outer office I brought us coffee, handing hers to her as she sat in the only easy chair in the room. "Thank yewww," she purred, stirring her brew with its wooden stick and licking its length with a pink tongue before setting it on a napkin. "Now, Hal," she said in a no-nonsense way, "after three weeks the formalities should be over. We can stop the chess game between designer/contractor and inspector. From what I see of your plans, you folks do good work!"

"We've got two shifts churning out these drawings," I confessed. "Each shift sends 'em to me electronically from L.A. and we print and edit 'em here. Saves time, shipping costs, and keeps me busy almost six days a week sending back corrections!"

"Yeah. Well, I'm concerned that – with your work load – you'll miss what's really goin' on with this development," she said. "Y' know, black folks've been isolated in this county for over two centuries. An' the guv'mint – in itsinfinitewisdom – has cut a deal that'll clean out N'Awlins of a low payin' black tax base an' transplant it to southeast Tennessee, an area that's been federally subsidized since the 1930s!"

"Wow! Where'd you learn all this?" I asked. It was common insider knowledge but I was surprised at the unusual candor of an FHA bureaucrat.

"I know folks from FEMA and other agencies, honey. I also went t' school at Vanderbilt...in Nashville.AndI'm a proud member of the Black Women's Engineering Society. I also ran track. How 'bout yew?"

"UCLA. Architecture. Got lucky with my company because I worked almost free as an intern for a couple of years, then worked my way up," I answered.

"Rich, pretty white boy," she murmured. "Your people 're probably from Beverly Hills."

"Sorry, but you're mistaken. I had to work my way through schooland the internship...as a lifeguard at Manhattan Beach."

She almost sprayed coffee as she burst into laughter. "Alife-gawwd! Iknewit! With that big football playa body o' yours! Why, I betcha yew've even had a black woman!" she said, watching me closely to see how I'd react. "From now on I'm gonna' call yewHollywood!"

"Call me whatever you like, Lucretia. Just give me a fair shake on the plans as they come through," I said, feeling that I'd finessed her reference to my interracial love experience by simply ignoring it. Regardless, women of color – particularly attractive black ones – had always been a weakness of mine.

"Aww, relax, Hollywood!" she said good naturedly, looking me up and down. "Whatchya'll gonna do for a social life while you're down here?" she probed.

"Haven't really thought about it," I admitted.

"Well, maybe you should, baby," she said, soberly. "Stay outta the redneck bars, though, 'cuz they automatically hate what'cher doin'. The Klan's still active y' know. Yer bes' friends may be the black folk 'roun' heah. On second thought, better stay outta the black bars, too, 'specially on Saturday nights!"

"It's quite a change from California," I ventured.

"Not really, sweetheart. I got a cousin who left here t' move to a place in L.A. called Watts. She's the mama o' that li'l chil', Millie, outside in the waitin' room. She went out t' seeHollywood, hooked up with a pimp – got inta crack – an' now I'm her daughter's guardian."

"Any kids of your own?" I asked, brazenly.

"No, sugah...I lost my baby," she said quietly...sadly. "Coupla' years ago I pulled Millie from school – she was a bit slow – 'cuz I was afraid she'd get knocked up by one o' these welfare crackers. Got her started in a li'l laundry an' cleanin' business, an' now she's doin' okay, for an 18-year-old."

"I'm sorry you lost your child," I mumbled.

"S'all right. They took out my plumbin' too. Some o' us are breeders...others are professionals. Which are you?" she asked, fixing me with a serious look.

"So far, a 35-year-old professional," I said. "Married once, didn't work out. Lots of time left to procreate." I don't know why I said that, since I'd hesitated to tell her the divorce had been caused by my marital infidelities, so I changed the subject. "Uh...you said your...cousin...does laundry. I've got three weeks' worth in my room. Sheets, towels, shirts, jeans, underwear, ironing that needs to be done. Does she pick up and deliver? I'll pay her well!"

"Yeah! She's got that ol' Bronco parked out front. 'Course, from here she could hand carry it. We live in that li'l sugah shack 'bout a half-mile outside yo' project fence. Y' can almos' wave ta us. C'mon, I'll introduce y'all."

"We already met, when I came in," I said.

"Not in the southern way, y' didn't," she said. "Millicent!" she called sharply, as we walked down the hall to the waiting room.

"Yes, ma'm," answered the beauteous Millie who suddenly appeared, her ripe breasts drawing my eyes as they heaved with youthful excitement.

"This is Mistuh Hal, Millie. He wants t' retain y'all as his laundry person," said Lucretia. Millie curtsied and shook my hand as my eyes pored over her frame. The feel of her damp, silken palm struck me somewhere around the solar plexus as her eyes dropped shyly to the floor. Had her chocolate complexion not been so dark, I could've sworn that she was blushing.

"How 'bout tomorrow, Millie?" I asked. "Can I drive the dirty laundry over, or...".

"Oh, no," broke in Lucretia. "That's what the Bronco's for. Door-to-door service. She also does cleanin', so let her know tomorrow if you want that too, okay, Hollywood?"

"Okay," I muttered, suddenly feeling embarrassed at her nickname for me and sensing that the line between my professional and personal lives had been compromised.

"And," Lucretia said while standing in the office door before leaving, "...for that social life we talked about, you might wanta consider comin' up ta Nashville. Maybe we could meet. See ya nex' Friday," she winked. The silhouette of her body from the side made my genitals pulse repeatedly as she smiled suggestively and the door closed. She's the spitting image ofHalle Berry! I thought, as I returned to my office.

I slept late the next morning, since it was Saturday. At 8 a.m. I walked out to unlock the chain link project gate and there was Millie, patiently waiting outside in her old Bronco. "'Mornin' Mistuh Hal!" she beamed, showing perfect white teeth, and pulled inside the enclosure. "Want a lift?"

I jumped in her car and we roared off to my office, a quarter of a mile away. She was wearing a standard, light blue hotel maid's uniform that ended at mid-thigh. Her shapely leg, closest to me, was highlighted by a deep hamstring muscle crease, hinting at what could be phenomenal lower body strength. I looked at her beautiful limb and she smiled shyly, noticing where my eyes went, which scanned her frame further. The middle of her uniform was gathered in deep folds with a belt, since her waist was so small compared with her hourglass hips. The buttons holding the tight garment together struggled vainly to hold it closed in front over her high, fulsome breasts. Her rippling calves and trim ankles ended in perfectly-shaped feet whose toenails were painted dark red in her sandals. Her adolescent profile, frozen in a pleasant, self-conscious smile, and long, mini-braided ponytail – like the day before, held in place by a red bandana at the back of her head – looked almost painfully innocent as I entertained lecherous thoughts about the voluptuous body that writhed smoothly under her dress like a small animal in a pillow case.

We ground to a halt in a cloud of dust and she giggled, sounding almost relieved, "Door-to-door service for Mistuh Hal!"

I smiled, knowing that her guardian, Lucretia, had coached her on how to treat me. "Start with the bathroom laundry, please, then strip the bed," I said. "I've gotta shower and shave when you've got the dirty linen and other stuff out. If you will, you might wanta use the vacuum. I live like a pig, and I'll pay extra just to have it done."

I had a cup of coffee and checked e-mails while Millie worked, making the bed with clean sheets. In thirty minutes she came out and said, "Dirty laundry's in the hallway. If'n ya want t' shower, y'all c'n do it now, Mistuh Hal."

I smiled and said, "It's okay, Millie, you can call me 'Hollywood'. Your cousin does."

"Yessuh," she said, and turned to walk down the hallway, looking over her shoulder at me regard her magnificent butt. It seemed to beckon to me poetically with an easy, rolling – sublimely southern – invitation.

I grabbed a clean towel from the cabinet and headed to the bathroom. Jeezus, I thought, I've gotta get laid soon. Maybe Ishould drive to Nashville next weekend, as Lucretia suggested. I hesitated to masturbate in the shower, since Millie was vacuuming the bedroom just beyond the door. After cleaning up and shaving I felt much better, though, and was thankful that I'd be working in the air conditioned office on the computer all day. I didn't hear the vacuum so assumed Millie had finished and left. I wrapped the towel around my middle and, with dirty boxers and shorts in hand, walked quietly into the bedroom.

I stopped when I saw her reclined on my bed, with her sandals sitting neatly next to it. She was engrossed in a photo album I'd brought with me, showing snapshots of me as a lifeguard with bevies of bikini-clad women of several ethnicities at Manhattan Beach. My heart leapt and cock jumped when I caught a glimpse beneath her short dress, since her relaxed legs lay slightly apart. She wore no panties, and at the nexus of her chocolate buns pouted the damp petals of her pussy, beckoning like a black rosebud covered with dew. In a fraction of a second she noticed me staring and gasped, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and looking down.

"Ah'm sosorry, Mistuh, uuh...Hollywood," she said, then panned upward from my feet to the lump in my towel, which was getting larger by the second. "Ah wuz jes' lookin' at you an'...are these ladies...movie stars?" she asked softly, swallowing quickly and running a pink tongue over her lips as her eyes stayed fixed on my bulge.

"No, Millie, just pictures of friends," I assured her. "I thought you'd left."

She stood, folded her hands self-consciously and said, "Well, ah reckoned you'd want me t' clean the bathroom 'fo' ah left. See!" she said, showing me a caddy of cleaning supplies she'd gotten from her Bronco. "So ah'll do it now an' y'all c'n finish dressin' while ah'm in there." She stepped to one side and I walked to my chest of drawers for clean clothes. As I did, her curious glance never wavered from the rising lump in my towel, and in the mirror I noticed that her eyes kept scanning my butt, back and shoulders until she'd backed into the bath. "Y'all be sure an' let me know when you're finished, so's I know when it's safe ta come out, okay?"

"You got it, Millie," I said, as the bathroom door closed with a click. Kee-rist! I thought, that dark little piece of trim could get me in trouble...the inspector's cousin! Discipline, Harold! I told myself, as I dressed and went into the office. I hoped that losing myself in work would get my mind off the teenage temptress.

Part 2

Millie left while I was working, leaving my bathroom pristine, saying, "Ah may not get all this laundry done t'day. There's lots o' ironin', too. Tomorrow okay, Hollywood?"

"Perfect, Millie," I'd said, absently. I was engrossed in altering house plans per Lucretia's directions and had forgotten my earlier horniness. I worked the whole day, without lunch, and was starving by five o'clock. After a final e-mail to the office I got up, stretched, and went to my kitchenette. I'd bought a microwave and small refrigerator, but was a slave to barbecue, so I fired up my new gas grill on the deck outside my bedroom. I'd marinated chicken breasts since the night before in a garlic sauce of my own invention, and fixed a salad. I'm a health nut, yet I was looking forward to sitting on the deck after dark, nursing some Jack Daniel's sour mash, and smoking one of a few cigars I allow myself each week. The masculine satisfaction I felt at my productive – albeit monastic – existence, was at its peak.

With dinner finished I sat in my canvas camp chair with a glass of whiskey over ice, smoking a stogie and surveying my domain. I was wearing only a pair of cargo shorts and Birkenstocks, coming to grips with the oppressive heat of the southern night, and looking ten yards ahead of myself at the chain link fence that surrounded the project. I was sweating so much my fingers wet the wrapper on my cigar...but I was content.

I heard her plaintive voice twice before I realized whose it was. Millie was calling, "Hollywood! Hollywood!" and I stood squinting toward the fence from the dim porch light illuminating my small deck. I saw her outside the fence, with the tall grass behind her, and immediately strolled over, a bit unevenly since I'd had several ounces of JD.

"Millie! What're you doing here?" I asked. She was carrying a square pan of something to eat, and behind her was a battered old kid's red wagon stacked with clean, plastic-wrapped laundry.

"Well...I saw your light...we live jus' over there," she said, pointing to a flickering light in a bungalow window a half mile away at the edge of some pine woods. "Thought you might like some o' mah cornbread!" she gasped, her eyes flashing. Then she looked down shyly, apparently embarrassed at bringing the delicious gift.

"I'd love some!" I gushed, touched by her gesture and stimulated by the whiskey. "C'mon down to the gate here. I'll unlock it." We moved a few yards down to a single gate that was padlocked, one of several in the peripheral fence. I took the cornbread and she pulled the wagon inside before I relocked the gate. When we got to my deck I noticed that her uniform was soaked through with perspiration at the armpits, at her pelvic creases and at the small of her back. She'd stuffed a red bandana – matching the one holding her ponytail – at its top button to absorb the sweat that coursed between her succulent breasts. "Sit down," I urged. "I'll get you a cold drink," and disappeared through my bedroom to the kitchen. Returning, I asked her, "What brings you by, other than the kind gift?"

"Ah thought ah'd bring some o' yo' laundry ah did t'day. Ah'll finish the res' t'morrow after church 'n' bring it by in the evenin', if thas' okay."

"I didn't expect it back tonight," I said. "D'you usually deliver in the evenings?"

"No. Jus' wanted t' get outta the house. Gets awful hot at home an'...Miss Lulu is out. Won' be back fo' a while. She like t' party late on Saturday night." Millie was obviously agitated. I noticed her thighs trembling slightly as she tried to keep them covered with her uniform skirt. She took a sip of soda, swallowed and quickly sneezed from the bubbles, causing her to rip the bandana from her cleavage, giggle, and dab at her nose. The top button of her outfit came loose, exposing even more of her phenomenal breasts.