After Action Review

Previous Chapter: Time for Distraction

Wow!

What an extraordinary experience! Yet “extraordinary” seems an inadequate way to describe what happened. After I helped Isabel get to the airport and got her bags checked, I left her to start my cleanup. I find myself pausing in thought from time to time. Sometimes it’s a memory of our love making, other times when I feel like I catch a hint of her smell. I’ve always liked smart women, but so seldom find one. I recall a conversation with one woman, Victoria, years ago. She wasn’t shy about showing off her intellect. When I complained about the dearth of smart women, she explained a few things to me about men. It seems the average guy is intimidated by smart women, so some women will hide their intelligence just to get a date. She told me about an MD-PhD friend of hers who she guessed might very well still be a virgin. Though Victoria considered her friend to be beautiful, the friend’s focus was on studying in college, then the grind of medical school, exhaustion from her residencies and later the intensity she needed to apply to her research. Occasionally, Victoria dragged her friend out to a bar, even though the friend wasn’t comfortable with the exposure. Her friend only knows one way to be: herself. When a guy would come up to talk, it was no time before he’d discover her past. It was almost comical how quickly they’d run away. Maybe that’s why I haven’t met that many smart women; they’ve been hiding it from me.

Sometimes it seems Isabel can read my mind, she so quickly gets ahead of our conversation. Her brains make her sexier still. I’m totally happy being eclipsed on that front. The payoff of enjoying her company is far and away compensation for sometimes feeling like a dummy.

I shake my head when I realize I’ve been woolgathering, wondering how long this will go on. Though I’ve often thought about a lover in the hour or so after I’ve left, this winds up going on the whole day. With everything wrapped up, I head back to my current center of operations. 

I’ve been using portions of my exorbitant fees to design a “modest,” “little” mansion. Inside the Eastern edge of the Rockies, I purchased land with million dollar views. I got it several years ago and have been spending my spare time studying it, walking over every square foot, to choose exactly the right spot for my “estate manor.” With the help of architects and engineers, all paid cash and none who know where I intend to build, I’ve come up with a design where I can complete the interior myself, once the bulk of the exterior structure is completed by others. As there are some particular features I don’t want anyone to know about when complete, it was sometimes a challenge to get the expert’s input without revealing my purpose. Perhaps one or two guessed, but they were smart enough to keep such thoughts to themselves. I’m just about ready to break ground, but need to complete a few more jobs to have the cash to get that initial stage complete. Even though I could arrange enough of a fiction to be able to borrow to finance the construction, I’d rather keep things simple.

As I prep for the next job, I keep seeing Isabel everywhere. Never the whole “package,” but here a beautiful butt, there amazing hair, somewhere else the gorgeous face. It’s like purchasing a new car; all of a sudden that model is every other one on the road and the specific color is every third vehicle. Even though I’m distracted, I usually dismiss these women quickly. The woman with the amazing butt lacks the gorgeous hair, the one with the hair has stick-skinny thighs and barely a waist, the beautiful face is on a skinny blonde with big tits. I used to have no opinion about the size of a woman’s breasts, enjoying them all. Now I’ve been spoiled by Isabel’s perfection and don’t find interest in the larger or saggy ones. I have to exert a lot of control to get my focus back on the job.

Despite all the distractions, I do manage to get the job done correctly; another happy customer. The next couple go better.

I’m finally ready to break ground on my construction effort. The next couple of months are spent in close observation to make sure the contractors I’ve chosen get the work done to my satisfaction. There are some key moments during the construction where I do some after-hours work to get something in place before their efforts cover it up. Being on site during this period also helps me ensure that they don’t discover those modifications. I still check my job board from time to time and am eventually lured away with something interesting and lucrative. Six weeks later, I’m gratified to see how much was done, and all according to plan. This sets my mind at ease and I take some more jobs. In between, I continue my efforts to find physical satisfaction.

There was this one chick: she had an awesome body, like Isabel, and was smart, really smart, and not afraid to show it. A student, naturally. Pre-law I think. We talked for hours afterwards. Normally I leave once the post-coital glow has ebbed, but this time we talked until dawn. Her hair _looked_ as good as Isabel’s, but it was coarse to the touch. Not that great in bed, but her intellect made up for the deficiency.

Because I unexpectedly found sleeping with Isabel was so enjoyable, I experimented with staying the night a couple of times. I couldn’t recapture the same feeling I had with her. When they moved around, I found it a distraction and didn’t feel like I slept well. I did, however, come up with a theory on why Isabel and the other women look so sexy in the morning. I think, with their hair all awry, they look like we’ve just finished love making and they’re in post orgasm glow. That wasn’t enough to make me want to repeat the experience more than a couple of times, though.

My construction has been going on for about a year now and the weather-tight shell is almost complete. Though I intend to do a lot of the interior finish work, something I expect to take years, I didn’t want to have to race the weather doing the outer structure myself. I still plan on hiring contractors from time to time, particularly for things like drywall, flooring and cabinets, but a whole lot of the behind-the-walls stuff I don’t want anyone else to know about. I’ve had good luck with the contractors, they don’t mind being paid extra to travel and they all seem to like cash. I’ve found my obsession has started to ebb. I’ve been able to enjoy my time with non-Isabel looking women occasionally. There were exceptions, though...

There was this one time where I met someone who had a body and hair that was close to Isabel’s, at least with respect to her curves (though not as muscular). I was at a high-end, classy resort, where you practically have to pass a credit check to be allowed to make a reservation. I have a deep cover perfect for situations like this: he’s an international salesman and makes good money. He exists, at least insofar as anyone exists in our electronic world, and he/I engage in regular sales as I move about the world. Indeed, he has more legal existence than I do. I chatted her up as she lounged by the pool in a bikini. I could tell from the occasional glances I got from other guys they were jealous I’d made contact and was having success. She wasn’t quite as smart as Isabel, or was hiding it, but physically she looked the part and certainly wasn’t a dummy. And smelled pretty good as well, though how much of that was her tanning lotion and how much was intrinsic I couldn’t tell. We agreed to go out to dinner and met at her room. My anticipation came crashing down when she opened the door and it seemed like she’d spilt a bottle of perfume on herself. She wasn’t uncomfortable, so it seemed clear that she didn’t apply that much by accident. Though it was certainly strong in that instant, I thought back to similar times in the past and didn’t recall being so turned off by perfume. Perhaps it was because I was anticipating the smell I’d detected on the beach. Our evening proceeded otherwise as expected, though she was quite passive in love making. 

I’d finally met someone who seemed to match Isabel physically as well as intellectually. She was the CEO of a medical equipment company, had an MD and everything. I’d been relaxing and enjoying my ill-gotten gains, between gigs and after checking in on the construction, and found her attending a conference. Usually, I go with college towns, but haven’t been finding what I want there. I thought a more mature area might get me what I need, something that worked excellently in this case. I wined and dined her at the best restaurant, thoroughly enjoying our conversation. The evening proceeded as I expected and we wound up in bed. Though she was better than many of the others I’d been with since Isabel, it almost seems like it might have been better if she wasn’t, as her almost as skilled love making made the memories of Isabel all the more sharp. Though she had the excellent padding of Isabel, the muscle tone underneath isn’t as defined and she was rather soft. As a final insult, her smell just reminded me that it wasn’t Isabel’s. At least she wasn’t wearing a gallon of perfume! I can’t really figure what I like so much about Isabel’s, I just know this woman didn’t have it. Though I put in my usual effort, which seemed to be rewarded, based on her expressions and body language, her intelligence just wasn’t enough to push me to that next level. I left shortly after we’re done, with a lingering feeling of dissatisfaction.