Two days after a storm ripped away most of our roof, we moved into a room in the next town over at the Gardener Inn & Motel. The insurance company said it could be anywhere from four to twelve weeks before we could move home again—depending largely on when they could get a crew to replace our roof and make the other repairs necessary. Since we were one of many families that suffered damage from the storm, I worried that twelve weeks was optimistic. In the weeks that followed, we joked every time we ordered pizza or fast food meals that at least we lived at the GIM.
Faith and I moved into the hotel that evening with several snow-white plastic bags of clean clothes each. We carried them, two each per trip, through the lobby and down the hall to our room. I only noticed the linemen on the second trip. I saw them look away from my face and back to their game of cards. Their eyebrows were raised and they were trying to conceal their smiles. I looked ahead and, for the first time since the storm, I remembered how Faith’s ass fills out a pair of jeans. I smiled too as I caught up to her.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“I feel like we’re worker ants hauling eggs for the colony.” Faith dropped one to the floor and reached into her pocket for the key card. She opened the door and dragged the trash bags into the room.
“This look like the right tunnel to you?” She laughed.
*****
The Gardener Inn & Motel is not The Ritz. In fact, in all the years we had lived in this area, I had never given the place a second glance as I passed. It was one more boxy, two-star hotel in a row of boxy, two-star hotels at the edge of town. We got to know the place pretty well in the weeks after the tornado. The door to the stairwell nearest our room sounded like a piledriver when it slammed in the early morning hours. The shower would scald whoever was in it if the folks in the neighboring room flushed their toilet. The individual pastries they put out for continental breakfast had been made two states over…and two presidents ago.
The GIM got fairly crowded. Some were locals, like us, dislodged by the tornado. After a few painful conversations, Faith and I guiltily avoided them. The ones who had been luckier than us reminded us of what we had lost. The ones who had been less lucky than us terrified us with what we had almost lost. The damned are miserable company for each other.
But most of the guests in the GIM were people who had come from away in response to the storm. In the first few days, the lot was full every night with big yellow and white bucket trucks as linemen from several states had come to reassemble the power and phone and cable lines. As they finished up and moved on, their places were taken by roofers and builders and painters and all the people required to put a neighborhood back together.
Coincidentally, it was a week or so after the tornado that Faith’s sex drive came back.
*****
One crew of power company guys stuck around after the rest of the linemen had gone. I never caught all of their names, but we got to know two, Mike and Ken, in passing. Through conversations in the elevator, and the parking lot, and the breakfast lounge, Faith learned that they had come from downstate to clear trees from the power line right-of-ways. “They’re starting on County Line Road and working all the way to Phillips Road,” Faith told me.
I teased her that I had never seen her so interested in the doings of the power company.
One nice thing about staying long-term at the GIM was that we got to know all of the staff. One of the young men, Kyle, that worked weeknights (who could never take his eyes off of Faith’s rack), agreed to let us use the hot tub after hours so long as we kept the lights off. “Seriously. Keep this on the down-low. If other guests or staff hear, either they’ll all want in or I’ll get in trouble. Or both.”
We got into the habit of making a thermos of cocktails every night and then loitering around the lobby until there was an opening for Kyle to sneak us into the hot tub. We would usually soak for thirty to forty-five minutes, then head up to bed. At first, we wore our bathing suits and kept our eyes on the glass wall to see if others had spotted us. Occasionally, someone did show up to the door in their flip flops, a towel draped on their shoulder, only to read the sign that said the pool closed at 9 and leave disappointed. No one ever seemed to notice us in the furthest corner. When it became apparent that we could not be seen in the darkness, we started soaking in the nude, staring up through the steamy skylight. We even played around a few times.
Eventually, Faith wheedled Kyle into making us a special key card. So long as we knew he was on duty, and we were discreet, we were free to sneak in on our own.
One night, we were looking up through the skylight and Faith began to tell me how Mike and Ken and their crew were progressing and how they were going to go home for a week before they started again on Beech Hill. I laughed at yet another update. “You know how many times I’ve caught those guys checking you out when your back is turned?”
Faith slid closer to me in the tub and put her hand on my cock. “You know how many times they’ve caught me checking them out when their backs were turned?” My cock gave a little twitch.
*****
About a week later, we packed up our little GIM bag to head to the hot tub. But, as soon as we let ourselves in, I ‘remembered’ that I hadn’t packed plastic cups for the cocktails and promised to be back in a flash. I walked past the elevator with my stomach doing flip-flops and picked up the house phone near the restrooms. I dialed room 1204. After one ring, someone picked up. I breathed deeply. “Let’s give it a shot.”
*****
Mike and Ken came in silently behind me when I opened the door to the pool room. Faith, lying in the tub, heard the door open behind her. “Hey, Buster,” she called. “The cups weren’t the only thing you forgot. Somehow, my bathing suit must have ‘fallen’ out of the bag.” She took a sip from the thermos and set it on the lip of the hot tub.
“Oh gosh,” I teased, while the three of us stripped down quietly. “Your birthday is on Friday so I thought it would be nice to wear our birthday suits.”
I could almost hear her eyes roll. “I was actually horny, but lame dad jokes seem to be taking the edge off that.”
I walked around to the other side of the hot tub and stepped in. “Well, if it makes a difference, both of our bathing suits must have fallen out.” Faith’s smile flickered as I set a stack of cups and another thermos of cocktails on the lip of the tub.
“Why…?” Her eyes flew wide as two pairs of bare feet appeared on either side of her shoulders. Her hands shot to cover her breasts and she pushed herself quickly to my side of the tub as she looked up.
Mike and Ken were standing there in the buff. I had kept my eyes on her as we were undressing so I hadn’t checked them out yet. Ken’s package, like mine, was average-sized. But Mike had an enormous dick that hung halfway down his thigh. I think we were all a little surprised.
Faith was shooting questions rapid-fire. “What is happening? Did you set this up? Did Kyle see these guys? Shit, what did you do with my bathing suit? What…”
Mike sat down on the tiled lip and swung his feet into the hot tub. “We’re leaving town Friday morning but we wanted to wish you a happy birthday before we left.” His semi-erect cock twitched on the tile.
Faith looked at it, diverted her eyes and continued to stammer.
Ken, too, sat down, but he didn’t linger on the tub's lip. He eased himself fully into the water. He was the smoother of the two. “One birthday toast and we’ll be out of your hair,” he promised and nudged Mike, motioning for him to get in the water. Mike also slid into the tub. As soon as his big cock was under the water, I felt Faith’s heartbeat slow down for a minute.