Chapter 2
During the next four weeks, Mitzi did not have much time to think about her problems with her husband Oscar. In addition to six hours daily of practical training in the plumbing workshop of the technical trade school, the ambitious young wife had all the plumbing manuals to master before she could start work in the field. It involved great effort, but she enjoyed working with her hands for a change, and none of the procedures was more challenging than she could handle.
The class of thirty-four women and twenty-six men-had spent so much time together that it was only natural that they had become acquainted with each other. Most of the classes had begun having lunch together at times, and often they stopped in at a nearby bar for a drink before going to their respective homes.
On the last day of the class training period, Mitzi joined the others in a ritual drinking bout at the local bar to celebrate making it through the intensified training program. The following Monday, they would report to their respective employers for the initial on-the-job training period. As was the custom, section foremen from various plumbing companies represented attended the get-together. At Golden Gate it was already known which sections they would be working with, and Mitzi was waiting to meet her foreman, Dan Roper. She was sitting with Ted Mason, with whom she had become friendly in the course of the month-long period.
"You heard anything about Dan Roper, Mitzi?" Ted Mason asked her when the initial excitement of the cocktail hour had passed. The handsome virile young man looked at the curvaceous redhead with the look of a man who knows how to handle women. He was well over six feet tall, with a lean, hard body still in shape from his recent hitch in the Army's Green Berets. His hair was light brown, trimmed short, and his sun-tanned complexion was a startling contrast to the penetrating soft brown color of his eyes. Mitzi was not one to admit it, but she enjoyed the young apprentice's company, and her spirits unconsciously rose every time Ted came into her presence. She was a little sorry that he'd been assigned to a different section, but after thinking it over, the young wife decided it was better that she not see too much of her handsome co-worker. Since she and her husband Oscar were slightly at odds with each other, this strong, muscular plumber with the penetrating gaze had begun to occupy more and more of Mitzi's thoughts. This way, they would probably only see each other every two weeks when they picked up their checks.
"Nobody seems to like him much as a person," Mitzi replied in answer to Ted's question. "But they say that he's a good man to work for. He knows his job and lets you be if you do yours. How about your boss?"
"Martin Johnson? Oh, I've heard various stories. But I'll wait and see how he works before I make up my mind. All I'm interested in right now is doing my job." The tall young veteran met Mitzi's clear blue eyes with a determined look, then, in a deep masculine voice he added, "I expect to be a section foreman myself as soon as possible."
"You'll make it, Ted. Anybody can see you're a good man," Mitzi answered in a deep soft voice, almost blushing at the way they were looking at each other. Neither of them wanted to reveal in words the attraction they each were feeling for the other, but it was all there in their eyes. "Of course, you'll be competing with me. There's no reason why I couldn't be a foreman, too, once I've learned the job." Mitzi watched Ted's face for a sign of ridicule, but if he felt any impulse to make fun of her, he was hiding it very well. Instead, he lifted his glass in a toast.
"May the best man win," he said with a lighthearted smile.
While they were waiting for another round of beers to be brought over, a stocky middle-aged man sauntered over to their table. His deep-set eyes were heavily-lidded, and he had full, sensuous lips fixed by habit into a derisive smile.
"You Mason?" the man asked bluntly, flicking his eyes once over the rounded contours of Mitzi's amply filled white sweater before looking at Ted.
"That's right," Ted answered affably, wondering who in hell this officious older man could be.
"I'm Roper. Dan Roper. You've been shifted from Johnson's section to mine." Roper put out his hand and gripped Ted's in a firm handshake. Then he turned his gaze back to Mitzi and met her appraising glance with an obvious lecherous glint in his dark brown eyes. "Mitzi, right? When I saw your name on my list, I thought you were a little girl in pigtails, but now I can see you're very much a woman. Pleased to meet you."
The foreman's eyes lingered at the shapely redhead's full, sensuous lips before dropping lower to her voluptuously thrusting breasts. The young wife felt worse than naked under the foreman's insulting gaze and immediately felt antagonistic toward him. He was obviously a coarse man who didn't like the idea of having a young woman in his crew section, but he wouldn't dare to admit it for fear of complaints from the ladies' faction of the union.
"How do you do, Mr. Roper?" Mitzi said, forcing her voice to be as pleasant but formal as possible. If she were going to be working with this man for the next trial month, she would have to get along with him, and she would do her best.
"Everyone I can," the burly foreman wisecracked. Then, slumping into the chair next to Mitzi without an invitation, he waved for a drink. "What I'm waiting to see is how you do after a couple of days crawling under houses with an arm-load of wrenches."
It took a lot of willpower, but the red-haired beauty kept from answering him in an angry voice. Instead, she looked him straight in the eyes and said, "If you can still make it, I think I can."
"What? Why you...." He stopped, his lips already forming the "b" of the next word he was about to say. Barely catching himself in time, Roper merely smiled knowingly and nodded his head several times as if to say, "You'll get yours later, baby."
When the waiter arrived with his bourbon-on-the-rocks, Roper lewdly announced in a loud coarse voice, "Here's to ladies who can make it ... with long two-inch round pipes." Then he emptied the glass in one gulp, replaced it on the tray, and immediately ordered another.
The three of them sat drinking in silence for a long time, thinking their own thoughts and pretending to watch the activity in the room. Dan Roper felt his stomach muscles tighten as he thought about the snippy little bitch coming back at him like that. He would have to watch his tongue, however. Already the union had been giving him hell about the rough way he had been treating his crew, and now with the new policy about women's rights, he would have to be even more careful. Judging from some of the rumors that got back to him, the rugged foreman had sensed that someone in the office was out to get his ass fired. That would be a blow, all right. To lose his job only four years before his retirement fund was paid up. It would be just like those administrative bastards to find a reason to get rid of me after almost twenty years with the company, he thought. However, as he understood it, they couldn't cut him off completely-the union had done some good things for him-but he could lose almost half of his pension money if he didn't finish his full twenty years.
Ignoring the tension in his stomach which he had begun to think was an ulcer, he turned to the young veteran sitting beside Mitzi.
"You ever drive a truck?" he asked in a false friendly voice. He hadn't decided yet if there was any hanky-panky going on between his two new plumbers, but, if he was any judge, he'd say they were a little sweet on each other, whether they knew it or not.
"Yeah, I was in charge of a motor pool at Hood before taking my Green Beret training," Ted Mason answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "Guess I drove about everything on wheels for a while. Why? You looking for a driver?"
"Maybe. I don't drive much anymore. My regular driver has been out for a week with the flu, and all the other guys seem to think that a double clutch means both hands on a big pair of tits!" The burly foreman chuckled without humor, the sound coming from deep in his throat and out between lips that slightly turned up at the corners of his mouth.
Dutifully, the attractive young wife tossed her head back and tried to laugh at the crude joke. She reasoned that, if she were going to go through with what used to be strictly a man's job, she would have to learn to mix well with her male co-workers. But she had taken an immediate dislike to her new boss, and nothing he could do would be able to change the rather low opinion she had of him as a man.
It was obvious to Ted Mason what was going on in his shapely co-worker's mind. He could see her blue eyes calculating how she should treat this Dan Roper, and he knew she was smart enough to work it all out. Still, Ted couldn't help feeling a little sorry for the lovely young girl and for the ordeal she would have to go through before she was accepted by the other plumbing crewmen. Sure, he had thought it a little strange at first that a woman should want to do a man's work, but, as he had gotten to know her and talk with her about it, he had begun to understand. There was no reason why she or anybody else should be cooped up in an office all the time if they didn't enjoy it.
It was all the young woman could do to keep from telling Dan Roper to get lost, particularly since he kept making insinuating remarks and crude jokes at the pretty redhead's expense. Also, there was no way to avoid noticing that the older man enjoyed running his eyes lustfully over the twenty-one-year-old girl's lust-inciting curves. Not that you could blame him. Ted had never known a woman who attracted him as much as Mitzi did, and the fact that they could talk so easily together made her even more interesting.
Although Mitzi had never really come out and said so, Ted gathered that the captivating young housewife and her husband-what was his name?-Oscar, that was it-she and Oscar were having problems, even though their marriage was only a little over a year old. Ted suspected that it had something to do with this women's lib thing, and he had often wanted to ask Mitzi about it, but he respected her too much to bring it up first. Sex had to be involved, too-it never seemed to be far behind in matters of women's lib. Anyway, Ted wouldn't be adverse to satisfying any needs the young redhead's husband was leaving unsatisfied.
When Dan Roper finally left their table to greet another foreman who had just come into the bar, Ted and Mitzi both gave a sigh of relief, looked at each other, and broke out laughing.
"I see you don't like him any more than I do," Mitzi said.
"He's all right. He's just not used to treating women as equals. His type uses women; they can't befriend them. But you're right. He's still an obnoxious bastard."
"I can't imagine a woman letting him touch her," Mitzi wondered with a tone of disgust in her voice. "Do you suppose he's married?"
"Probably his wife is married, but he's not," Ted suggested sarcastically, and again they laughed together, eyes locked in mutual appreciation. Neither of them spoke of the gladness they felt at the chances they would have to see each other, now that they would be in the same working crew. It was a real stroke of good luck, and it wasn't a good idea to tempt fate by talking about such things when you didn't have to.
It was six o'clock when Mitzi looked at her watch. The lovely young wife got up from the table.
"Time to get home and wait on my lord and master," she said, only half-joking. As Mitzi bent down to pick up her things, her tall young co-worker ran his eyes over her curvaceous body, lingering on the softly rounded contours of her nicely shaped buttocks encased in her tight short skirt.
As he helped her slip into her coat, the handsome ex-Green Beret leaned forward, his face close to the clean sweet fragrance of her silky red hair, teasingly blowing into her right ear.
Longing to press his lips to her neck, he huskily asked, "Does Oscar really give you a hard time?" There was an obvious touch of desire in his voice. It was difficult for him to see at that moment how any man could treat this lovely, unconsciously seductive creature with anything but tenderness. He himself would be anything she wanted him to be if she would only say the word. For a brief moment, Mitzi let her head lean back against his chest, not wanting to pull away from him right now, as she knew she should.
"N-no Ted," she answered hesitantly, with a slight quaver in her voice. Her knees felt a little weak, probably from the beer, she thought. "He just doesn't understand me, that's all. I get the feeling he thinks I'm attacking his masculinity by taking this supposed man's job." Her tone made it clear that she was hurt and bewildered by her husband's attitude. Abruptly, she turned and faced Ted Mason, her long flaming red hair falling back from her shoulders as she craned her neck back to look up at her co-worker. "But why would I do that? Any woman who wants to do that to a man is crazy," she added.
When it finally dawned on Mitzi that, in effect, she was saying she liked a man to be virile, she blushed and smiled up into Ted's admiring face. Then, fighting down the impulse to give him her lips, the young wife swung around in a graceful pirouette and walked toward the door. "Enough therapy for one day," she called playfully from over her shoulder. Then she was gone.
Ted had felt the impulse she'd had to kiss him and, as he watched her beautiful shapely form thread through the crowded bar, he felt a flood of warmth down in his loins that he recognized only too well-he would have to make love to her, and as soon as possible. She was right on the verge of getting into an affair and, with a little push, would give in. Wild pictures of the young shapely redhead lying naked beneath him with his desire-hardened cock sunk deep up into her beautiful young cunt ran though his mind as he moved toward another girl he had gotten to know in the recent weeks. She couldn't hold a candle to Mitzi, but Ted never liked to be without female companionship, even if he had no romantic intentions. But still ... still his balls ached from just the thought of fucking the voluptuous young Mitzi out of her mind whether she was married or not!!!