Katie

by wantsomefun

©Copyright 2017 wantsomefun

Author's Note: This story begins in the late 1960s. If explicit sex is what you want, skip to the middle, but you won't understand who this woman is.

NOTE: I ran into wantsomefun at an erotic stories forum, and we hit it off from the start because I made friends with a classy lady there, a friend of his, ejls. Over the next five years, we had our share of laughs and triumphs and our fights too. He was a very good writer, a great conversationalist, funny, and rather intelligent. At one point, in early 2017, the three of us got pissed at the state of affairs at that site, and made a decision to leave and start a new site, one that would be, above all, devoid of trolls. And that's exactly what we did, and today, it is still running strong. Unfortunately, one month after the site opened, wantsomefun (Rich was his name) passed unexpectedly. It was a huge, huge blow to the website, and to those who knew him. As per the terms of the website that he helped create, we're publishing his stories, and we know that he is smiling down upon us. --ahorsewithnoname

Chapter 1

Katie was my first real girlfriend. We dated when we were seniors in high school. We both turned eighteen the summer before, so we got fairly serious that year. When we received our college acceptances, we knew we had a problem. She planned to go a few hundred miles out of state to a prestigious college that offered her a scholarship in her chosen major. I was headed for a campus near home. We had a serious discussion one night in the back seat of her dad's car.

She wiped the last traces of our love-making from herself with a tissue from her purse, fluffed her strawberry blond pubic hair, and pulled her panties on. “I don't know what to do, Ed.”

“Yes you do.” I found my underwear on the floor of the car.

“I never thought I'd get the scholarship.”

“When they read your essay, I'm sure the decision was easy. This is your first choice college, Katie, one of the best journalism schools in the country. You can't pass that up.”

She clipped her bra in front of her, turned it around, and fumbled with the straps to position it over her small breasts. “With that scholarship, I won't be buried under student loans forever. All I'll have to pay for is room, board, and books. I can borrow enough for that and pay it back pretty fast when I get a good job.”

“You said you weren't sure you could get a loan for tuition and everything anyway.”

“It was only a dream without the scholarship. With our family budget I was going to be lucky to borrow enough for a state school. Dammit, I hate being poor.”

“You're not poor, Katie. If you were, you would have qualified for a needs-based scholarship.”

“Okay, my parents both work, so we're not poor, but the cost of keeping Billie in that institution means there's never money for anything. Saving for college for me was out of the question.”

“How far is it to campus?”

“It took us six hours each way when we visited, so I guess you won't be able to come see me much.”

“We can call.”

“There are pay phones in the halls of the dorms, but the long distance charges will be ridiculous.”

“We could write.”

She put her hand on my leg. “Is that realistic? We'll be six hours apart, never seeing each other. College will be different worlds for both of us.”

“Do you want to break up?”

“No, Ed, that's not what I want at all, but I don't see how we can continue. I guess you despise me now.”

“I could never feel that way about you.”

She kissed me, and soon our clothes were on the floor again.

We dated after graduation but agreed to end things. It was the only logical thing to do, which meant there weren't many tears. The last time I saw her was at someone's New Years Eve party when we were both home for winter break freshman year. We kissed under the mistletoe, but we did more reminiscing about old times than renewing the relationship, so that was it.

I got my Bachelor's Degree in a major that turned out to not be marketable. My college career placement office was no help. There was absolutely nothing available that was technically in my field paying more than minimum wage to people without an advanced degree, so I went back to my summer job full-time and read the help-wanted ads in the newspaper every evening. With my crappy paycheck, I had no choice but to move back in with my parents.

I was a young man, fresh out of college, facing the prospect of living in my childhood bedroom. Sleeping next door to my folks was bad enough on breaks from college. I wasn't prepared to do it full time at that age. Mom and Dad took pity on me and let me have the finished family room and its folding sofa-bed in the basement as my quarters.

There was a powder room down there too, which allowed me to piss and brush my teeth before bed without risking waking anyone since my folks went to sleep early. I was too old to have a curfew, but it was easier lying about what time I got home if I used the downstairs door.

At dinner one evening, my dad asked, “Do you remember a man named Clifford Schmidt?”

Chapter 2

I thought for a moment. “You used to work with him at Somerset Labs, didn't you? He went to the company picnics. He's about your age, but kinda paunchy and bald. Funny guy, kicked everyone's butt playing quoits.”

“That's him. After old Mr. Somerset died, his kids sold the company. The new owners started replacing management with men from the home office. Cliff got fired about two months before I did. He walked right into an equivalent job at Tompkins Technologies. When Somerset terminated me, I called him.

He hired me the following day. I started at a higher salary than I had been earning, they give a raise every six months and an extra two weeks' pay as a Christmas bonus, and the benefits are about the best around. I told him about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“We're expanding. We need more product testing technicians on second shift, one now, and probably another soon. They haven't advertised it yet, but they posted an opening on the bulletin board in the lunch room today. You could get that job. It would be perfect for a night owl like you.”

“I don't know anything about product testing except what I learned here at the dinner table.”

“You had math and science classes in high school and college.”

“Yeah. So?”

“You passed them all, didn't you? The main qualification for this job is a college degree.”

“Cool, but I don't have a degree in any kind of scientific or technical field.”

“You don't need one. You're a smart kid. You used to read science magazines for fun in high school. You translated a German technical paper for that one class in college.”

“Right, but I was an English Literature major. I took as few math and science courses as possible. German class was easy for me in high school, so I minored in German in college to keep my grade point average up. I'm not sure how much any of that has to do with product testing.”

“It doesn't matter, Ed. They'll teach you everything you need to know. It's simple quality control where you compare samples to standards. You could probably have a degree in basket weaving and still get this job. The girl they hired for day shift a couple months ago was a business major. She's working out great. Cliff interviewed her for about fifteen minutes and hired her. He goes a lot on first impressions, and he's usually right.”

“I wonder what his impression is of me.”

“He thinks you grew up a lot in college and need a decent job.”

“He's right about those things.”

“Son, all they want is people who can pay attention to detail. The guy who will train you is a character. Everyone calls him Crazy Frank. He's funny, he's easy to get along with, and he knows what he's doing. He was a high school history teacher, but his bad back won't let him stand all day, so now he does this.

For you, it would be a good entry-level job. There's room for advancement in the company. A lot of people have been there for decades. They promote from within when they can. The only reason they hire new people is to grow, because no one quits the place. It's a good company, maybe the start of a career. At the very least, it's something to put on your resume for later.”

“Not exactly what I pictured myself doing when I was in college, but my degree prepared me for jobs that pay about as poorly as flipping burgers, and what I'm doing now isn't much better. This could be okay, I guess.”

“How much do you make now, if you don't mind me asking?”

I told him my hourly rate.

“Call Cliff as soon as you can. After your two-week training and probation period, you'd earn almost twice that.”

I applied and got hired, no doubt because of a good reference from Dad. I gave notice at my old job and started at Tompkins Tech two weeks later. The work was easy, or at least I thought so. Crazy Frank's nickname fit him. We got along well, and his stupid jokes and antics made the nights fly by. My folks encouraged me to keep living at home while saving for a newer car and furniture for an apartment. They charged me minimal room and board to help me get on my feet financially.

When I cashed my Christmas bonus check, I went out to buy presents. I was in the men's furnishings department of an anchor store at the huge new mall that opened the previous summer, shopping for winter dress gloves for my father. It was a weekday morning, which meant the place wasn't crowded. I found a pair exactly like Dad's shabby old favorites. I was busy fishing in my wallet when I walked to the cash register, so I only glanced at the slender girl behind the counter.

“Ed?”

Chapter 3

Her pale blue eyes were framed in more stylish glasses than the last pair I saw. The cute bob hairstyle she wore in school was gone, strawberry blond waves flowing over narrow shoulders and spilling onto her compact breasts. She was taller than I remembered, but I guess I was too. “I wondered if I'd ever see you again, Katie.”

“I lost touch with everyone from high school when I went to college. It's hard to get a job in this area with a B.A. in Journalism, so I'm working here.”

“Full time?”

“I'm seasonal help, but I take all the hours I can get. This week I should clock about sixty. Too bad the pay is so low.”

“What will you do after the holidays?”

“Supposedly they'll give me twenty hours a week minimum, so I'll stay on here while I look for another job waiting tables or something and try to figure out what to do with my life. I won't starve. I moved back into my old bedroom at home. I was stupid. I assumed it would be easy to find a good job with my degree here like I did in the city where I went to college. Wrong.”

“Why did you leave that job?”

“I left my husband. With my school loan to pay off, I could barely afford the rent on a crappy studio apartment there alone. Joel and I worked in the same building. We saw each other almost every day. We either bickered or tried to pretend the other one wasn't there. The whole thing got too awkward. It was time to cut my losses, so I moved back here to start over.”

“I didn't know you got married.”

“We both thought it was a great idea junior year. After all, we were in love and living together. Things worked for a while. Now we're getting divorced. We don't hate each other. We just can't be together. His idea of a wife's role in a marriage is different than mine. I won't be subservient. If I'm going to be with a man, he has to treat me as an equal.

The whole Tarzan and Jane thing was fun as a campus couple, but we were grown-ups trying to start careers. He loved the income, but he hated the idea that I earned as much as him. That was our problem. I don't play 'little woman' well.”

“What kind of job are you looking for?”

“At this stage in my life, pretty much anything that pays a decent wage. Selling gloves and scarves isn't my dream career. In January my payment is due on my college loan. If I don't have enough, Mom will bail me out with money she's saved from tips at the diner over the years. She hides it from Dad. If he knew, he'd take it and build the bar in the basement he's been talking about ever since I was a kid.

When I got that scholarship, and we looked at the expenses it didn't cover, Mom started cleaning houses when she wasn't at the diner so I wouldn't have to borrow as much. She deserves something for all she does. I need to pay her back too.”

“I guess I'm lucky. My parents paid for a lot of my college, and I had a campus job for beer and pizza money. My problem was my major. A bachelor's in English Lit. turned out to not be the ticket to fame and fortune. I went back to my summer job after I graduated from college. About three months ago, Dad told me about an opening where he works now.

His old employer, Somerset Labs, was sold when I was in my sophomore year in college. The new owner replaced all the managers. Dad got a better job right away at Tompkins Technologies. Now, I'm a product test technician.”

“You're doing a science job, Ed?”

“No, not really. Our department does work for small client companies who need independent quality control testing or certification. All I do is sit in a comfortable chair at a table with some simple equipment and compare production samples to specifications and standards. It's easier than high school science and math classes. Everything we need to know is printed out for us. They're hiring, but it's all second shift. That's when I work.”

“I'd work with you?”

“Would that be a problem?”

“Not for me. But I'm the one who broke up with you.”

“Katie, it's in the past. We talked about college all senior year. I knew what could happen. It was the only sensible thing to do, so I wasn't mad at you. I think we can act like adults.”

Chapter 4

“You're right about all that. Hmm. I never even thought about that kind of job, but I didn't know much about men's scarves when I started here either. It don't think I'd want to do it forever, but second shift now would be okay, I guess. What's the starting wage?”

“After a two-week probation period you get a raise to this rate.” I showed her my last regular weekly pay stub. “If I get good evaluations, they'll give me another increase in about three months and then twice a year after that. There's a Christmas bonus and annual cost-of-living raise too.”

She looked at my gross pay. “Shit! You earn that much? That's almost what I was making in the city, and it costs a lot more to live there. I could pay off my loan and my mom in … let me think ... probably less than a year. That's not bad at all.”

I wrote Cliff Schmidt's name and office number on a slip of paper. “Call this guy tomorrow. He's the Personnel Manager. I'll talk to him this afternoon before my shift, and I'll make sure my dad puts a good word in for you too.”

The phone woke me the following morning. “It's me, Katie. I can't believe I remember your number after five years. Guess what?”

“What?”

“I just got off the phone with Mr. Schmidt. I have the day off from work tomorrow, so he gave me an appointment with him at three-thirty. He said it was the best he could do. I won't have to fill out the job application if I bring my resume, and I have copies of my transcript, so I guess I'm set. He sounded like he couldn't wait to meet me. What did you say to him?”

“Probably the same stuff my dad did - you're smart, you have a degree, and you know how to work.”

“Well, it was enough to get my foot in the door, so thank you. Apparently Mr. Schmidt changed a meeting or something to make time. When do you go to work?”

“I have to punch in at three.”

“Could I follow you there? I have the street address, but I don't know exactly where the place is. I'd rather kill time in the parking lot than get lost.”

“Normally, I pass your neighborhood around two-thirty. That often gets me to work early, but with traffic, you never know. I still have the same car I did in high school. I'll come to your house, and you can follow me.”