Blue-Collar Boys (Service Calls - Alpha Male Romance Erotica Stories) (3 page)

It wasn’t a boredom that rushed into Chloe’s life one night and strangled her without warning.  It was a dull, polluting sensation of apathy that smothered her like a blanket, suffocating her emotions and numbing her mind.  She had grown bored with making school lunches in the morning and cooking family dinners in the evening.  She had grown bored with folding laundry to the white-noise drone of mundane day-time TV.  She had grown bored with her children’s elementary school homework and ironing her husband’s suit shirts.  She had grown bored with the predictability of her role as wife and mother, and the predictability of her future.  And she had begun to resent the fact that everyone around her assumed that she was happy with her mundane life because she smiled more than she complained.

Her friends and family assumed that because Chloe was a studio art major in college, she would be happy as a stay-at-home mother.  It wasn’t as if she had a
real
major or gave up a
real
career, so why would she have aspirations beyond car-pooling her children and redecorating her newly-purchased suburban home? No one suspected that Chloe secretly yearned for even more in her life.  Instead, there was only the assumption that she should feel nothing but gratitude.  Before she married Mel, Chloe was hopelessly broke.  In fact, they met her husband while working as a night shift waitress at the local Stake ‘n Shake and putting herself through art school.  Mel was a medical school student from a wealthy family who loved chocolate malts, especially the ones made by the sassy waitress from Buffalo, New York.  He never had much aspiration in his life—except to marry Chloe—who cracked her gum when she smiled and made his shakes extra-malty.  Growing up rich meant that Mel had never gone without.  But Chloe had grown up without; she knew what it was like to yearn for something that she couldn’t have.  And although Chloe didn’t marry Mel because took her on beach resort vacations in Hawaii and wine-tasting getaways in Napa, she certainly didn’t mind being treated to the finer things in life.  But Chloe was almost forty now.  Splurging on designer shoes and lavish jewelry was certainly an entertaining distraction from the banality of her housewife routine.  But Chloe wanted more from life than shopping sprees.

Now, as an affluent housewife and suburban mother, Chloe rarely felt motivated to achieve goals beyond laundry and grocery shopping, parent-teacher meetings and neighborhood play-dates.  At least when she was young, she had been driven to obtain the unobtainable.  When she was poor, every day offered Chloe a new challenge that she had to overcome—whether it was scraping together enough spare change for the bus ride to school, or washing her clothes in her bathtub because it saved her two dollars at the laundry mat.  Every day offered a new way to test her resourcefulness and prove to herself that she could have anything she wanted—not because she could afford it—but because she had worked harder than anyone else to earn it. There was no possibility of returning to her industrious youth—life as a single, struggling studio artist, never knowing what tomorrow would bring.  She loved her husband and children, but she knew she had lost herself somewhere along the way.  She had chosen her comfortable roles as wife and mother, trapped within a lifestyle of luxury.  And no matter how much money Mel made from his pediatrician practice, it would never fill the void that Chloe was yearning to fill now.  Amid her meaningless routine of housework and errands, Chloe felt trapped. 

Trapped, trapped, trapped
, she thought as she tapped the spoon against her coffee mug, and then began mindlessly stirring it again.  Chloe was still in her robe, struggling to muster up the motivation to take a shower and face the day, which like her house, promised to be empty and lonely and wearisome.  It was the neighbor’s turn to drive the children to school, and Mel had early morning patient appointments.  Suddenly, the sonorous doorbell echoed off the cathedral ceilings of her foyer.  Her spoon clattered against her mug.  Chloe had forgotten that she had arranged for carpet delivery and installation for her daughter’s playroom.  It was the last thing that Chloe would forget about that day. 

Chloe rushed to the foyer.  She briefly peered into the mirror. She was a wreck. 
It didn’t matter
.  It was just carpet installation, not a job interview. 
But she was still in her robe
.  Chloe hesitated.  The doorbell rang again.  Chloe started up the stairs, as if she thought she could change and make it back downstairs in warp speed.  Instead, she simply whisked open the door, and suddenly felt regret when she was seized by his gaze.  Sharp.  Strong.  Steady.  Attractive.

“Hello.  Delivery for a Mrs. Patterson?” 

The delivery man reference a pink work order while balancing a two-hundred pound roll of carpet across one shoulder. 
Mel could barely even carry their daughter slung across his shoulder
, Chloe thought.  It was fleeting observation, petty and unrelated.  Chloe felt ashamed, then insecure.  She closed the folds of her robe, tighter.  He was staring at her, unwavering, unflinching, waiting for her to welcome him inside. 

“Oh, of course, of course, come in, come in…” Chloe pushed open the door and swept herself across the foyer.  “The bedroom is upstairs.”

He nodded and accepted.  “I’m Tommy.  I’ll be installing your new carpet today.” 

He was young, younger than Chloe.  She suddenly caught herself staring at Tommy’s chest, specifically the two loose buttons on his workman shirt, which exposed his smooth bare skin. 

“We should go up to the bedroom,” Chloe said, assessing his blue eyes and strong hands. “I mean, the room for the carpet, of course.  It’s upstairs.”

Tommy stopped to wipe his feet on their place mat.  “Should I take my shoes off?”

Chloe glanced at him, disarmed by his politeness and his boundless ocean eyes.  She looked away, replaying his question in her mind. 

“No, of course not.  But thank you…”

But Tommy wasn’t convinced.  He surveyed the plush white carpet that flowed up the staircase like snow drifts, and immediately kicked off his sneakers.  He wore no socks.  His bare feet were sunbathed and pristine.  Later that evening, while she was making dinner for her family, Chloe reflected on the fact that Tommy’s manners—and his manicured feet—were likely the reasons why she agreed to let him seduce her.

“The room is upstairs.  I’m sorry you have to lug that thing all the way up there.”

“No problem.” His gentle blue eyes told her there was no need to apologize.  With an upwards shrug, Tommy shifted the carpet roll, redistributing its weight.  Chloe was certain he could stand there—balancing two-hundred pounds across his shoulder—for hours. 

Then his gaze settled onto her face.  He scanned her nose and cheekbones, as if he was noticing how beautiful she was.  Chloe had always been naturally pretty—her own mother’s Swedish profile mixed with her father’s Mediterranean complexion.  But after the kids were born, the men had stopped noticing.  Even Mel had forgotten to mention how nice she looked whenever she took the time to put on make-up and wear something other than yoga pants.  It was one of the many reasons why she always wore the same sweat shirt every day and rarely bothered to put on lip gloss.

“I’ll show you the room,” she said, suddenly wishing she had taken a shower.

Chloe started up the staircase, then peered down at Tommy as he jetted up the staircase with ease.  She noticed how the muscles in his neck and arms flexed, and how his white cotton shirt stretched tighter across his back.  He followed her to her daughter’s playroom, where he flung down the roll of carpet and waited for instructions.  Her daughter’s toys had been boxed up, and removed the night before.  Only the old carpet remained—a stained history of the last six years of her daughter’s life, a greasy chronicle of Lucy’s affinity for splattering apple sauce onto the carpet in a temper tantrum and smashing wax crayons deep into its fibers.  Tommy noticed the stains.

“Looks like you’ve got your hands full.”

Chloe nodded.  “Two kids.  Two too many,” she forced a laugh.

 “You don’t look old enough to have two kids.”  His serene blue eyes lingered on her face a little longer than usual.

“Some days, I prefer to pretend that I’m not…” She said it with a nervous laugh, which formulated an awkward moment of silence between them.  They were alone in the house.  The emptiness confirmed it.

“And you?  Kids?”

“Nah,” Tommy said, kneeling down to measure the room’s dimensions.  “Not even a cat or a dog.  Too busy to be committed like that.”  Tommy jotted down a few measurements.

There’s no girlfriend
, Chloe thought, then felt her own cheeks flush.

“I’m putting myself through night school,” he offered, unclipping his tool belt from his hips.  His wore blue uniform service pants, but his blonde hair, white shirt and bare feet made him look more like a beach resort bartender.

 “Oh, really?  What are you studying?”

“Art History,” he noticed the surprise in her face. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“No, I’m sorry.  It’s just because I was an art major, too,” Chloe adjusted her ponytail, letting her long black hair fall to her shoulders before swiping it back up again.  “French Impressionism.”

“Monet, Renoir,
Cézanne
, Pissarro,” Tommy confirmed.

“Yeah, Pissarro.  He’s my favorite.”

Tommy nodded.  “I noticed your Pissarro in the hallway.” 

‘That’s funny.  Most people just think it’s something my oldest son painted.  What about you?”

“Twentieth-Century American Realism.”

“Oh no!  That means we can’t be friends,” Chloe joked.

“But we can respect each other…mildly,” he smirked.

Chloe relaxed the folds of her robe.  For a brief moment, her bare neckline hinted at the fact that she was naked, and she felt certain Tommy noticed it too.

“This just pays the bills and gets me out of the house.  Plus, I get to meet a few interesting people.”  He flashed a confident smile. 

“I tried to put myself through school way back when,” Chloe offered, attempting to be more interesting. “I worked at a diner as a waitress during my first year of college. Night shift. But then I got married.”  Chloe fiddled with her wedding band.  “I never finished college. I wish I had.”

“Well, it looks like you made out pretty well…” 

Had Chloe made out well?  She suddenly wasn’t so sure, and the oppressive emptiness in the house confirmed it. 

“Yes, I have a nice family.”  They both registered the tone of uncertainty in Chloe’s voice, which dropped flat like a coin in a bucket. 

“Excuse me,” Tommy nodded as he pushed past her to the opposite corner of the room.

He was always so polite
, she thought, as she caught the faint scent of cologne on his collar. 
She could trust him
. 

Chloe watched as his hand gripped the corner edge of the carpet, ripping it upwards with ferocity.  Chloe adjusted the folds of her robe, wondering if Tommy could rip it off her body with such a swift, decisive motion.  Later, when she reflected on that first day—while cleaning up the toys that her daughter had refused to put away herself—Chloe wondered if he had been the one to seduce her, or if she was had been the one to initiate it. 

Perhaps Chloe asked him to fuck her outright. 
Or maybe he offered?
Especially after the belts of her robe came loose—exposing her naked body.  In the blurry aftermath, Chloe couldn’t remember.  Maybe
he
was the one who tore off the belt of her robe to grope her breasts and finger her pussy.  The sting around her wrist was still fresh.  She had asked him to be rough with her.  It was a request that surprised him, but not her.  Chloe had always asked her husband to manhandle her during sex, but Mel never did.  He only saw her as his precious wife—the mother of his children.  But Chloe was not a mother when she was with Tommy.  She was his conquest. 

“Rough,” she insisted.

Tommy complied.  He grabbed her and spun her over the carpet roll, pushing her robe up past her crotch, exposing her smooth backside.  He thrust his pelvis against her thighs, forceful, unapologetic.  He pulled her hair and gripped her fleshy ass with his rough palms, treating her like an object of primal desire.  And she loved it. 

Yes, it was wrong.  But that was the point.  The fact that sex with her carpet installation man was naughty and taboo only added to the excitement.  And it wasn’t as if she planned to divorce her husband or break-up her family.  Chloe simply needed to escape the mind-numbing monotony of her housewife existence.  And while all the daytime talk shows warned her that having an affair would not solve Chloe’s unresolved feelings of listlessness and depression, they were wrong.  In the past eleven years of marriage, Chloe had never felt more exhilarating bliss than when she was fucking her carpet installation man.

After her first delivery, Chloe quickly developed a keen interest in replacing all the carpet in her home.  They met at least a dozen more times.  Chloe was determined to re-carpet her entire house, and every house call was completed by Tommy.  The first half of the morning, he would remove her old carpet, and replace it with her new order.  Cottonwood blue in the dining room.  Summertime yellow in the living room.  Ireland Green in her husband’s study.   Her husband commented that Chloe had a natural eye for color.  Really, most of her choices were based on how soft they felt to the touch and how easily they camouflaged the imprints of knees, elbows, and palms—evidence left behind each time they fucked.  Their agreement was a simple one: Tommy delivered and installed her new carpet in the morning, then they would fuck, just before lunchtime.  Their affair was furious, but fleeting.  They both realized there was an ultimate finality to his visits.  There were only so many rooms in the house that Chloe could re-carpet.  But still, they never discussed it.  They never talked about much of anything, and Chloe liked it that way.  It was merely an escape from the monotony of her life—an overdue vacation from her unchanging script of housewife and mother, a way to affirm that she had more to offer than folding laundry and helping with homework, even if that affirmation was only to her carpet installation man.