Loading...CHAPTER 1
Caleb Hunter had this recurring thing in his head about returning to the room and the woman sprawled on the bed, covered in sweat after having had sex with him, the moonlight coming in through the window and highlighting her, breeze fluttering the curtains. She’d opened her glistening eyes and coo, “Are you ready to fuck me again darling?”
The film strip ran through his head like a familiar memory, only he’d never experienced it. In all of his years of ‘plucking’ females Caleb had never met a woman like that. In fact none have ever come close. The women he’d fucked over the years, including his wife, said things like…
“Caleb I don’t want you sweating on me like this.”
“You’re too heavy.”
“Stop, you are making me perspire.”
“Shut the window Caleb.”
“You know I don’t wish you to see me nude.”
“Fuck off Caleb. One a session is enough for me. Have you run the bath?”
Caleb sighed. It was a wonder he bothered having sex. At least his hand didn’t give him a hard time. He wondered if he’d be better of being gay but his cock began trembling at that thought.
* * *
Caleb Hogan Hunter was the second and youngest son of Hogan and Bernadette Hunter and had his first full sexual experience when in his final year at high school. The younger daughter of one of his mom’s arty friend had told how to make every move, and she told him not to fire inside her but of course he did, not understanding that instruction. The bitch belted him one and he remembered that very well. He saw stars for hours and was probably lightly concussed.
He wanted to go to the local college with his pals but oh no, his mom decided he required something called ‘strong moral fiber’ and sent him to a college run by a religious trust where he learned the meaning of edifying things so useful in life such as brimstone, the Dead Sea Scrolls, controlling masturbation and something called God’s Word. He was one of the few guys who wasn’t gay but fortunately the matron and the married female cooks were looking for guys who weren’t gay. As he aged his was through college his dick grew and he no longer kept falling out of those fat female sluts.
Aunt June, his mom’s sister arrived one weekend at college and applied for a leave pass to take him away for a picnic. Waiting to eat beside a river Caleb learned a secret about Aunt June. She liked sex, quite passionately in fact.
“If there are no women students and an all-male teaching staff Caleb, how are you developing your sex life?”
He was too embarrassed to answer so made masturbation motions to her.
“Oh my poor darling,” Aunt June cooed, smothering him with tit. As he gasped for air she was undoing her dress and bra and soon was pushing a nipple into his mouth.
“Er Aunt June?”
“Shut up and suck,” she purred and then asked in awe after unzipping him, “How old are you Caleb?”
He was nineteen then and stayed four years to graduate with a master’s in media studies, majoring in print media. Caleb’s mom also visited and asked him, “Why does June visit you so regularly?”
Caleb choked, unable to answer.
“Ohmigod, she and you are doing it aren’t you?”
Caleb nodded thinking that would be the end of Aunt June’s visits.
But no. His mom giggled and said the dirty slut and she made him tell her what they did and where they did it. She then chatted on as if that exposé had been forgotten. But no; next time when his mom arrived on a Sunday afternoon visit she took Caleb on a picnic where she hitched up her skirt and handed him a condom. They continued until he graduated. Caleb was very proud of his mom; she was such a good fuck, considerably better than her ‘dirty slut’ younger sister.
Caleb failed to win a position on the local newspaper after graduating. His mom called the chief-of-staff of the Clarence Herald and when that guy said no she went in to see him and took him out to lunch.
“How did you get on?” Caleb asked when his mom returned home from lunch just before 5:00.
“I have no idea,” she yawned and said she was off for a bath. Caleb noticed she was walking a little bow-legged.
Three days later a letter arrived offering him a position on the Herald as assistant to the motoring editor Karen Hobbs. Apparently there were complaints her road tests were too female oriented and it was decided to give her a male assistant to add his perspective.
“God a slick college graduate is the last thing I need,” moaned fat Karen whose tits wobbled down around her belly button, or at least where Caleb imagined the navel on a fifty-five-year old woman would be. He’s been briefed Karen was a former motor vehicle repair technician and possessed no formal training in journalism.
“I’m not interested in having sex with you,” she said. “I’m gay.”
Caleb longed to tell her how relieved he was to hear that.
Their first combined test was of a new model Ford pickup.
“A fucking gas guzzler,” she moaned.
“Then let’s also test the diesel version.”
“Are you mad Caleb? Two vehicle tests by two testers and we only have twenty-eight single column inches to fill including pix.”
“Easy. No introductory waffle like you usually provide, all comment confined to main points that readers are likely to wonder about compared with the model being replaced.”
“Listen asshole, talk to me like that again and you’ll get a shifter handle with over-size ball up your ass.”
“God you’re such a bitch but still very likeable,” Caleb said.
“Oooh, you are such a gentleman. Perhaps I should introduce my Carole to you.”
Caleb groaned to himself thinking that would be her girlfriend.
The review was presented for editing with Caleb combining both reviews and then chopping them fairly expertly to just over-run the allotted space to give the sub-editor something to do. It received complimentary remarks from the chief sub who hated every reporter/writer on the planet, as was the tradition.
Karen was over the moon because she also received praise and invited Caleb to dinner. He attempted to weasel out but was reminded Karen kept that shifter handle in her office locker. Caleb agreed to go.
Just like in the movies it turned out Karen and Sam’s daughter Carole who still lived at home was great-looking, a desirable featured being big pointy tits. Oh how Caleb desired. But she paid little attention to him. It interested the visitor that in the home environment Karen acted nothing like a lesbian. She was all over Sam when he came home and Caleb was very sure as wife and husband kissed Karen had a hand down the front of Sam’s trousers. A reporter is trained to be a professional observer to notice such things.
After a great roasted lamb dinner Carole announced she was off to bed.
Caleb joked could he accompany her. Sam thought that was a great joke and roared his head off but the two women looked at Caleb through narrowed eyes and that little incident taught the fledging reporter a great deal about women: sometimes they lack humor. Carole hissed at him to fuck off and Karen snarled, “Yeah, why don’t you go now Caleb. Shut the door on the way out.”
Caleb arrived at work next morning to be handed a memo by the chief of staff’s assistant.
‘You have been deemed unsuitable for Motoring so are now transferred to…”
“Cobb’s Bank is being robbed,” someone shouted.
Everyone rushed to see the action, sweeping Caleb along with them and they raced down stairs and out on to the street. He was excited, expecting to be near the center of real crime for the first time in his life. Cops were arriving, keeping people back.
“Where are the two guys dressed and wearing masks as Dr Spock and Eddie Murphy?” shouted the police captain.
Two policemen picked items from the gutter. They were masks, presumably when worn looked like Dr Spock and Eddie Murphy.
“They must have got away when customers were fleeing the bank,” the police captain raged.
Caleb spotted something and said to a Herald photographer not known to him. “I’m a new reporter and have seen something. Take a photo of me pointing and then follow me on the charge and keep shooting.”
The guy nodded as the police captain yelled to his men to spread out and apprehend suspects.
Caleb jumped out on to the street and pointed to two street sweepers pushing their handcart.
He then raced over, yanked open the handcart lid, saw the four bags of money and yelled, “Here’s the loot! Arrest these two felons.”
The guys attempted to run. He wrestled one to the ground and a woman tripped the other and as he fell she and her female companion sat on him.
Cops raced up, arrested the two robbers as well as Caleb and bundled them off to the nearest precinct.
But it ended well. He was soon released when other cops who’d been witnesses identified Caleb as the good guy.
‘Blonde and Rookie Reporter Foil Robbers’ screamed the front-page special edition of the Herald and that night the blonde Tracy Black and Caleb Hunter appeared on local TV on a network hookup.
“Weren’t you taking a risk foot-tripping an armed robber?” the interviewer asked Tracy.
“I just reacted and my girlfriend supported me in reflex reaction. What was there to be worried about?”
“A .45 slug through the center of your forehead would have destroyed your beauty,” Caleb interjected thoughtfully. Blondie’s eyes rolled up and she fell, to be caught gallantly by Caleb.
“Oh Mr Hunter. Please tell our viewers this wasn’t pre-arranged.”
“It wasn’t. I’ve been itching to get my hands on… er to personally congratulate Miss Black for her bravery and this has been my first opportunity. She’d been interviewed by the Herald after making a statement to the police and by the time I’d arrived back from my false arrest she’d gone, much to my dismay.”
“Please confirm how you solved something that some thirty police professionals had failed to observe?”
“I saw those two street sweepers pushing their cart or whatever it’s called. I thought why aren’t those street cleaners slacking off and watching the scene behind them like everyone else was? I then thought when do you ever see two street sweepers push the one cart? You never do. So I alerted one of our photographers and moved in to foil the near successful getaway.”
“Were you scared?”
“No I had been diverted by the sight of Miss Black’s body.”
“What about her body?”
“Just take a look at it… it’s superb.”
“Oh Mr Hunter, you say the nicest of things,” murmured Miss Black, her body being very much the on-screen camera shot.
Caleb emerged from the dressing room he’d been taken to for removal of make-up and asked where Miss Black was. H e was told she’d gone. He cursed silently and went home, dispirited. His parents had copies of the Herald and had seen him on TV and expressed their pride in him.
* * *
Next morning the chief of staff’s assistant handed Caleb a memo. It stated he was to work directly under the supervision of the crime bureau chief.
The guy Phil Wright smiled and said, “Lucky break yesterday. Well done. Here’s a piece to do about high school girls apparently prospecting for spending money by offering sex after school. That’s Jake your photographer waiting over there looking surly.
“The law says we can’t identify minors soliciting for sex,” Caleb said.
Jake said darkly, “What the fuck do you know about press photography and the law?”
“Probably more than you do.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Yeah. Come on, let’s grab a car and go. We are far too early. The soliciting occurs after school.”
“Phil said this assignment is to test your initiative. He thinks you were dead lucky catching those robbers.”
“Yeah I was.”
“Come on now, don’t disappoint me.”
They arrived outside the school in their blue and yellow car clearly marked ‘Herald News’.
Three women coming out of the school gates shied away until one of them peered at Caleb and said, “It’s him; the guy who solved that robbery yesterday for the cops.”
They came over to the car.
“Get in the back,” Jake said and talk to Caleb if you know anything about child prostitution.
“We know nothing,” said one of the mothers, putting her fingers to her lips.
Caleb spotted that and said, “You are the mothers of some of those girls up to no good and have been to the school to plead with them to take stronger action to stamp out loitering, haven’t you?”
There was no reply.
“Publicity could embarrass your daughters and put them back on the straight and narrow. But who knows?”
“My Karen has been having sex. I wash her clothes and caught her with all this money. Come on girls, Caleb could be right. What have we to lose?”
“I’ll just write three mothers worried their daughters could be pulled into the sex ring, if one of you thinks about saying that to me.”
They got a great story. Caleb then stood in the street with the school in the background and called the school principal who identified himself but said no way would he be commenting to the media. Jake took the photo of Caleb on the phone.
The women lived nearby and the guys delivered them home and went back to the office.
The newspaper’s attorney made only a couple of small changes to Caleb’s story and advised the chief sub it should be only edited for grammar and spelling.
It was the front-page second lead in the newspaper that afternoon. When Caleb arrived to work next day the chief crime reporter Phil Wright said, “Good work yesterday. Today you work with photographer Kurt Brink and me. We work outside the school in an unmarked SUV with dark windows. If we see guys gathering we get their photos and then attempt to interview them. You do the talking and I’ll cover you and Kurt. Whatever happens don’t let them get Kurt’s camera.”
The stake-out ended in near disaster and was caught by an arriving TV crew who’d belatedly thought about their own stake-out.
Caleb had secured some great quotes from a couple of cocky young guys when an older guy came up and told them to shut their mouths.
“What’s the problem Alan? The girls involved are seniors, aged eighteen so we’re not fucking minors.”
“Shut up Roberto and you too Smithy. Give me your camera Mr Photographer.”
“Get fucked Bozo,” Kurt said calmly, and photographed the angry Alan with his top lip pulled back over his teeth in near maniacal rage.
Alan grappled Kurt for the camera and Phil dived in to push Alan away. Alan pulled out a knife and stabbed Phil through the shoulder. The TV cameraman standing in the middle of the street was filming that incident, oblivious to slowing traffic. Alan pulled out the knife out of the now screaming Phil, reversed it and smacked Kurt between the eyes with the handle.
Kurt fell, Caleb caught the falling camera and as Alan turned on him he kicked Alan in the balls. As Alan doubled over Caleb thumped the back of Alan’s neck with his elbow and the thug dropped to the ground, out cold.
The female TV reporter meanwhile had pulled off her camisole, had ripped Phil’s shirt open and was stemming the blood flow. The TV sound technician was on his phone calling emergency services and school staff including the principal and school nurse with her medical kit came running out the school gates. Two young guys jumped from their vehicles parked in the middle of the road and felled Roberto and Smithy to the ground and restrained them. Sirens blared in the distance.
Caleb was back for a TV studio interview that night and said modestly, “A guy doing his job can’t be a hero when he’s just a guy doing his job and protecting his work pals under attack. Both Kurt and Phil would have done the same for me if our positions had been reversed.”
“You are very modest,” simpered the interviewer.
“And you are trying to make a hero out of nothing,” he grinned. “Haven’t you got any real newsmakers to interview?”
“Mr Hunter, you have been working on the Herald less than a week and already you are becoming a media star. You solved a bank robbery for the police who were there at the scene gawking. You filed a scoop story about concerned mothers worried their daughters might fall into prostitution and you were instrumental in busting the vice gang involved. All that in just three days.”
“Call me lucky and call our crime chief unlucky because he took the knife protecting our photographer and our hard-earned photos.”
Caleb came out of the dressing room after having his make-up removed and a blonde stepped up and kissed him, squashing her tits all over his chest.
“Caleb my hero,” she cooed.
“Tracy,” Caleb marveled. “Ohmigod, I thought you’d gone from my life.”
She whispered into his ear, “I’ve come back to give you my body you appeared to have admired so much. I ran out on you here after our joint interview the other night but having seen you back on TV twice more and tonight hearing the Mayor chastising the police chief publicly for the police not clearing away loiterers from that high school, I was aware I’d let a hero slip through my fingers.”
Miss Black and Mr Hunter fucked like rabbits that night. But Tracy ran out on him again.
When at last she answered one of Caleb’s near desperate calls she said, “I’m sorry Caleb but you sweat too much for my liking, you pass wind noisily during sex and you are poor at conversation afterwards. That’s you finished, get it?”
“Bitch,” he snarled, as he tossed his phone on to the sofa.
That was enough to get Caleb Hunter thinking.
Some women such as his aunt and mom don’t mind a guy sweating during sex but he now knew some females were not so lenient. Being intelligent, he resolved to tidy up his sex act by not farting, not ejaculating down women’s throats unless they pleaded for him to do that, and to talk to them lovingly during downtime. Er, perhaps he ought not put them through such a punishing schedule. If he was less energetic perhaps he might keep drier? Oh, it might pay to associate only with females who don’t mind being bathed in sweat?
For a while he thought it might be easier not to consort with females but that soon went the way of idle thoughts.
The chief of staff’s assistant handed Caleb a memo and he asked politely, “Eve we can’t just keep up this note-passing relationship. Do you fuck?
Eve, a pretty brunette with the reputation of being untouchable, looked around wildly and then said, “Meet me tonight at 7:00 at The Melba Bar.”
Caleb grinned and thought what a wonderful brush-off. Reading the memo he found he was temporary assistant chief of the crime bureau, the assistant moving to acting chief while Phil recovered from his shoulder wound. That afternoon he visited Phil in his private room in the hospital and Phil’s pretty wife Jenny said after kissing him in thanks for keeping Phil from being battered further, would Caleb mind the door while she gave Phil a blow job. Caleb didn’t mind but thought that why hospital had big-mouthed nurses, wasn’t it? He kept an eye on Jenny thought she was pretty good at it and when she finished noticed her brow carried signs of sweat.
The Melba Bar was crowded. Caleb had gone reluctantly thinking the promise of a date could be Eve’s idea of punishing him with a no-show for being so foul to her. He looked around and sighed. There was no sign of her but then a great-looking babe with her hair piled high, great make-up and a plunging neckline popped up in front of him and said, “Have you decided not to join me Caleb?”
Huh? He focused and could tell it was Eve.
“Um, just getting use to the light. Wasn’t sure if I’d recognized your thighs up there on a bar stool, not having seen them.”
She smiled and led him to where she’d been sitting and the two guys moved along one, freeing a stool for Caleb. Even then pulled her skirt up over her hips and asked, “What do you think?”
The sight of white flesh above the black stocking stops and lined by the black straps of her garter belt made Caleb dizzy with lust.”
“Er okay.”
“Only okay?”
“Eve, keep this up and I’ll come in my pants.”
“Oooh, I’ll back off until later tonight darling.”
Darling? Caleb almost came in his pants at the thought of shafting her later that night. She did seem to be promising to open her legs for him.
Ninety minutes later, with Eve’s two roommates at the movies, Eve dropped her skirt for Caleb and then dropped her panties.
He said hoarsely, “I sweat when I fuck.”
“So do I but only a little.”
Thirteen months later they married and remain married, although they rarely have sex. After baby Jane was born Eve announced she didn’t think it was necessary for her to have sex any more.
Caleb knew he should have dumped her but she was such a fucking good cook and never required him to lift a finger around the apartment. But he helped of course and even initiated, considering himself a family man with responsibilities to discharge. He said well if he couldn’t have sex with her he’d have to find it elsewhere and she just smiled and said she understood that and asked would he like coffee and a piece of brandied chocolate cake. He followed Eve to the kitchen like a lamb.
* * *
Caleb was thirty-eight when it happened.
As editor of the Herald, reporting to the executive editor, Caleb was invited to many function. Some women climbing in their career path who viewed him as being in a position of power would suggest they go for a drink. More often that not a proposal would follow: you get your features department to do a big piece on me Caleb and I’ll have sex with you (usually just the once because he sweated, although it probably would be only the once anyway).
Females on his staff sometimes offered him sex without asking for anything in return. Usually once was enough for them because they became too wet having sex with Caleb.
One day Caleb received an invitation to visit a newspaper 400 miles away. The proprietor had had consultants in to advise on restructuring the editorial department and to update the newspaper in appearance, meaning such things as format, layout, selection of typefaces and style changes. Caleb had recently taken his own newspaper through that exercise and Cliff Manning had been impressed at seeing the before and after results. Cliff asked Caleb to stay two days to get a real feel for the newspaper before making his recommendations.
Cliff met Caleb at the airport. They knew one another vaguely from attending conventions but Cliff being older tended to mix with the older guys.
“The consultants are sending their Miss Nash for direct accessing of your input if that’s okay with you?”
“Yep, why not. But I’ll still write you a report. Interfacing with the consultants is not a bad idea as it may generate useful dialogue.”
“Actually Miss Nash arrived on an earlier flight had booked in at your hotel. She assumed you were unlikely to refuse her company’s request.”
After booking in and inspecting his suite and approving it, Caleb returned downstairs to have coffee and a snack with Cliff who said Miss Nash would join them.
“Here she is now, Cliff said, standing.
Caleb saw a prim 40-something in a gray suit approaching but Cliff wasn’t looking that way. Instead Cliff was facing a striking blonde in a silver suit, aged no more than thirty to thirty-two.
“Hi I’m Nancy. May I call you Caleb?” she said before Cliff had time to perform the introductions. “My father Max owns and operates Fast Track Media Consultancy Inc.”
“Yes sure, nice meeting you Nancy. I recall meeting your father three years ago when he addressed a media convention I attended on the east coast.”
Their coffee and finger food arrived.
Later they walked across the street to the impressive offices of ‘The Guardian’. Cliff left them, saying Nancy knew he way about the place blindfolded and personnel were used to seeing her on the prowl.
Nancy looked at Caleb coolly. “I have spent hours and hours on research, conferring with personnel and compiling my report and recommendations. What will it take for you to not blow all that work apart.”
“Sex?”
“Very well,” Nancy said, lips curling.
“Nancy, I was just being flippant. If you have a bulletproof scheme you have nothing to fear. Many aspects of your brief involve subjective decision-making that I’d be unlikely to dispute. Just give me time to get the feel of this operation and then show me what you’ve got.”
“I thought sex was off the agenda.”
Caleb looked at her startled, saw the grin and grinned back.
They toured the editorial department, with brief introductions to senior people, and then went out to the printing plant that was a completely new replacement establishment with the same German-made presses the Herald had commissioned just two years earlier.
“Right, let’s go to where two-thirds of reorganization and resistance lies, the production department.”
“Okay Mr Know-all. It tells me you know your stuff.”
“And you know what we achieved on my newspaper, as an internal team and entirely without consultants.”
She laughed. “Yes and don’t rub in that outcome with no consultants when were are in front of Cliff and his team.”
“Now how could I possibly do that to a lady?”
“You have a sexy side to you Caleb.”
Caleb grinned and decided to be honest. “I’m married.”
“So Cliff made sure he told me. I’m separated.”
“You mentioned the son. Is he a spanner in the works?”
He’s company president and a right know-all.”
“Oh fuck.”
Nancy smiled. You use that term in front of ladies?”
“Yes, in error.”
“You will be pleased to know the son is in Hawaii on vacation.”
The director of newspaper production was wiry and looked to be running an ulcer. “Look, I can give you five minutes. We’ve lost enough time around here talking to Nancy and her team.”
“Five minutes is okay by me. Cliff has invited me in to eye the strengths and weaknesses of the proposals so production doesn’t get fucked up. I was about to invite you to lunch with Nancy and me but five minutes won’t allow that.”
“You’ll mean you’ll listen to my concerns over lunch?”
“Well if you prefer we can discuss Nancy’s boobs.”
Gary grinned and said, “Cliff told me you ran a good ship and were highly regarded. I believe he may not have been lying to me.”
“Oh he’d be lying to you Gary. So your worries or debating Nancy’s tits over lunch.”
“Perhaps we could do both,” Nancy deadpanned.
Gary roared with laughter and said, “Just give me time to inform my deputy that I’ll be away for an hour.”
“Make that two hours Gary. I aim to be into serious discussion.”
“But we have the afternoon edition…”
“If your deputy is incapable of managing without you Gary, and you being only a phone call away, then fire him.”
“Oh. Richard is okay, in fact very competent. Give me two minutes.”
Nancy complained to Caleb about discussing her breasts with Gary. “You know what production people are like.”
“That I do which is why I brought them up. Did you simply think I was an ignorant street bum?”
“Oh I see. Very adroit Mr Editor. I’m impressed although still rather embarrassed. We could have spoken in the same manner about your dick.”
“And do you feel you could have held Gary’s interest with that comment and thinking you and he were on the same wavelength?”
“Ah, there you have me. Will we have sex tonight?”
“Perhaps if you are a good girl.”
* * *
After dinning with Cliff and his wife Josephine, Caleb and Nancy went straight to his suite, Nancy apparently loving the pawing and kissing she received in the elevator.
“I haven’t had sex for quite sometime,” she puffed excitedly. “God this room is fancy and expensive.”
“Our executive editor knows Cliff and decided there would be no charge for my consultancy. So I guess he upgraded my accommodation.”
Caleb pulled down the back zip of Nancy’s dress and she squirmed and it fell to the floor.
“Ohmigod, what a beautiful bustier. I’ve always thought that if any women in a bustier is not fucked then something’s very wrong.”
“Oooh.”
Caleb dropped to his knees and found she wasn’t wearing a g-string or any other form of panty for that matter.
He licked the twin fat hairless lips and Nancy groaned, pulling his ears. As his tongued wormed into her Nancy relaxed and began crooning, quite musically in fact.
When she tensed and began breathing heavily Caleb stopped and stood. “Let’s fuck now that I’ve gotten you well primed.”
She grabbed him and wrestled him on to the bed and unzipped him before he’d got near it. He pulled it out for her and she moaned, “Ohmigod, a real man.”
Then came quite a shock, although not quite a big a shock as if Nancy had announced she had a STD. She said almost shyly, “I need to warn you that I perspire a great deal when having real sex.”
Caleb shook his head almost in disbelief.
“Say that again.”
“I fucking well sweat like a pig when I’m engaged in passionate sex.”
“Oh really. I won’t mind that at all, being a sweater myself.
So they slapped and slammed their bodies together and at times slipped so much that whoever was on top at the time slipped off and the penis had to be reinserted.
They had a great time.
At last Nancy groaned, “I need sleep.”
Caleb went for a pee and when he returned couldn’t believe it.
Moonlight was coming in through the opened sliding doors, and the curtains were flapping. Moonlight illuminated Nancy’s glistening body.
Her eyes opened and she saw him standing looking at her in awe. She smiled and sighed and said, “Come and fuck me darling.”
* * *
The next day there was a series of meetings on various issues to resolve with the personnel concerned. The chief sub-editor and the chief page designer agreed with Caleb’s recommendation that changes to families of typefaces should be even more narrowed than the consultants had proposed. Arguments developed over whether to retain Times Roman or move to Cheltenham. Caleb said Helvetica had been proposed but it was really not suitable on newsprint for body type and retaining Times Roman for the body type and using Helvetica faces for headings was mixing contrasting faces and was not the way to go.
The debate bogged down and he suggested some pages of the newspaper be printed in the typefaces being pushed for say three issues and then assessed with any unsolicited comments from readers.
Caleb disagreed with the consultant’s recommendation that made-up pages composed electronically by sub-editors go direct to plate-making was not desirable at this stage. It would be best to wait until newer technologies were better perfected so that system ran like clockwork which was what newspaper production on a daily basis required.
Cliff said he was well-pleased by Caleb’s contribution and said at his count fifteen contentious points had been resolved. He’d ask the consultants to put more work into their recommendation to change to editorial to direct plate-making with the production department being scaled down to just compose advertising and place camera-ready advertisements from agencies, working in concert with sub-editors completing the pages. He’d instruct that Caleb’s suggestion that the two or three favored typefaces be tried in individual sections of the newspaper for three issues.
Nancy went with Caleb to the airport as her flight left only forty minutes after his.
“That sex last night was the best sex I’ve ever had,” she said. “I’ve always been embarrassed at perspiring but with you it didn’t matter. You are also so energized, capable to running me down, so to speak. Few men I’ve known had any show at doing that.”
“And what about our general compatibility?”
“I think it’s fine don’t you?”
Caleb nodded. “Agreed.”
They drove on in silence until Caleb said, “What say we meet every fortnight for two months for a hot night together and at the end of that assess where we’re at?”
“That sounds intelligent.”
“We then assess our possible life together with due consideration to our careers and if we are happy about that we proceed.”
* * *
They never did come together permanently. Ten days after that conversation Caleb was promoted to executive editor upon the retirement of the incumbent. Then neither Nancy nor he would agree to give up their career and home city. So they drifted apart. Nancy’s estranged husband filed for divorce and not long after that took effect she re-married.
Was she happy? Caleb never found out because they lost contact with one another. He thought it was ironic the dream of seeing a girl on his bed and bathed in moonlight had become reality and then that reality faded into nothing.
Caleb’s answer to the gap left by Nancy, his replacement personal assistant, a married woman, who had no problem that he sweated during sex. A mature woman she was ever so grateful Caleb was more than interested. He found she also sweated during sex and loved hearing the wet slapping of thudding limbs and bellies.
And Eve? She was kept on because she was a damn good cook and a fine mother and didn’t mind Caleb finding sex elsewhere. She rarely wanted it from him because she’d decided sex was not what it was cracked up to be.
Caleb’s new recurring dream was picturing himself dying in the saddle. He’d wake up, sweating and sticky over one of his hands. It remained unclear whether death came before or after ejaculation. He’d sigh thinking it didn’t really matter. At least it was a heroic death.
THE END