Full Circle - Searching for Help (Ch.3)
soppingwetpanties
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, merchandise, companies, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All characters in sexual situations are 18 years or older.
Chapter Three
Searching for Help
Elaine checked her phone, which showed no service. The battery indicator was red. Walking away from her disabled Tesla on a dark country road, she made a kicking motion into the cold night air to vent her frustration. What more could go wrong? According to her workout app, she'd walked exactly a mile. She was hoping to see the gas station she remembered was on this stretch of lonely expanse of thick woods but all she'd seen were a family of rabbits, two deer, and what she could swear were the glowing eyes of a coyote. She wanted to live in the country so here it was.
Elaine was almost a comical sight wearing an indecently short red designer cocktail dress and battered sneakers that were about to fall apart. Her bare shoulders were unprotected from the biting wind because Elaine, in her haste to get away from her country estate and the break-up she'd just finished with her three-year girlfriend, forgot to bring the jacket she'd carefully set aside for her drive to New York City. Elaine's wispy blonde hair was a jumbled mess and her make-up had smeared down her cheeks. She wasn't the epitome of elegance of elegance and sophistication she was just a few hours earlier at her 50
th
birthday gala at her magnificent 160-acre Somerset County estate. She was just Elaine. Cold, tired and now ravenously hungry Elaine.
There was no sign of the gas station she remembered and with each step Elaine doubts about her decision to go in the direction of the gas station instead of towards home increased. Her arms and legs had gone numb from the stiff breeze. The sole of her left shoe had now fully separated in the front, so she had to walk awkwardly so she wouldn't trip. It was almost pitch black and the dense forest was only a few feet back from the dirt shoulder of the road. Her hopes flagged with each step.
It was without a doubt the suckiest day of her adult life.
Elaine was also becoming more fearful the farther she strayed from the safety of her Tesla. She was more than twenty minutes into her walk and she hadn't seen a single car. She didn't have any food or water and in a short time that wouldn't matter because she would have frozen to death. But giving up never entered her mind. She continued to put one foot in front of the other, telling herself that everything would work out.
Elaine's thighs and calves ached from her awkward gait and her feet were starting to scream in pain. Finally, in the distance, she saw the dull glow of the streetlight she remembered marked the location of the service station. Her heart leapt knowing she might be able to get some shelter as well as access to a working phone. She walked briskly, trying not to trip, and ignoring the pain from the blisters that formed where her shoes rubbed against the back of her heels. Her face dropped when she saw the station was closed. The lights above the pumps were dark, as were the lights inside of the station.
The station was built in the 50's, and still maintained most of its original architecture. It had a small office and two service bays adjacent to it. The roll up glass paneled doors were in the down position. With the faint light from the streetlight Elaine pressed her face against one of the bay doors noticing there was a car up on one of the lifts. She recognized it as an older model Ferrari. She walked past the service bays and around the corner of the building to the back. There was a pockmarked asphalt driveway leading to a parking lot filled with cars in various states of repair and beyond that a log cabin and a dock leading to White Feather Lake.
It was a small lake surrounded by rustic log cabins like the one located next to the dock. The cabin was dark but there was light leaking out from a door to a shop adjacent to the cabin. The shop was about the size of Elaine's six-car garage but made out of corrugated sheet metal walls that long ago had rusted to a pleasing shade of bronze. Elaine walked closer, careful not to trip in one of the potholes, and could hear Jon Bon Jovi singing "Livin' on a Prayer," and a strong female voice, pretty much in key, belting out the words with him. Elaine got to the shop's large sliding door and knocked, knowing it probably wouldn't be heard. She waited for a few seconds and then pounded on the door with her fist.
"Just a minute!" a female voice on the inside shouted out. The music was silenced and Elaine heard only the waves from the lake slapping against the pillars holding up the dock.
Elaine stood at the door, arms folded across her chest and shivering. The corrugated metal clad door slid open and bright light flooded out into the darkness. A tall dark haired woman wearing bib overalls with nothing on underneath answered the door. Her face was smeared with black grease and her long straight hair was pulled back and covered with a Harley-Davidson bandana. She was young and stunningly beautiful. Her dark, smoky eyes apprised her late-night visitor standing there in her skimpy red cocktail dress.
"Hey pretty lady. Are you lost?" she asked in sultry voice, not able to resist poking her unexpected visitor.
"Kind of," said Elaine, her teeth chattering.
"Where are my manners? Come in this instant," the woman said, pulling Elaine into the shop.
Elaine felt a welcome warmth as she stepped in, greeted by a strange mixture of smells - - gasoline, car exhaust, strong coffee and stale cigarettes. She noticed the inside was neat, with Snap-On logoed rolling tool chests on top of an epoxied floor and well-lit workbenches lining the two side walls. Her eyes travelled to the rear wall, where there was a small kitchen area with a mini refrigerator that had an ancient coffee maker and small microwave on top of it.
The woman wiped off her right hand with a rag and extended it to Elaine, who shook it. The woman's hand was warm. Elaine's was freezing.
"Sylvia . . . Sylvia Bianchi, but my friends call me Syl. And who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?"
"Elaine . . . Elaine Harris. My friends call me Elaine, and the pleasure is mine."
Elaine was reticent to let go of Sylvia's hand, being both soft and warm, although she did let go.
"So Elaine Harris, how can I be of service to you?"
"A landline would be amazing. I can't get any cell service here. My car's about a mile from here and kind of a wreck."
"I think better with a cup of coffee in my hand and I think you need one to warm up."
Syl went over to the coffee machine and poured each of them a fresh mug. Elaine wrapped her hands around the warm mug.
"Ummm," said Elaine. "I can't thank you enough Syl." She took the first inviting sip and felt the hot liquid warm her belly.
"You drink your coffee and wait here," said Syl. She went over to a set of lockers in the corner of the building and opened one of the locker doors. She pulled out a worn and scuffed brown leather jacket and brought it over to Elaine.
"Turn around," she said to Elaine. Elaine turned her back. Syl looked at the flawless skin revealed by the deep cut in Elaine's dress and then draped the heavy jacket over Elaine's shoulders.
"It's my motorcycle riding jacket. It's old but the warmest thing I've got."
Syl's hands rested on Elaine's shoulder for a moment before Elaine turned back around.
"What do you think?" Elaine asked as she assumed a model's pose with her hand on her hip.
Syl put her finger to her chin. "Very sexy, but in a weird way. The sneakers don't really work with your dress."
Elaine looked down at her ratty shoes.
"It's an embarrassing story."
"I'll tell you what, why don't I set you up with a phone so you can make your call and I'll finish up here? We may have some time after that for you to tell me that story."
Then Syl stopped as a thought jarred loose in her head.
"Do you own a Maybach?" she asked out of the blue.
Elaine was shocked by the woman's question.
How did she know?
"Why yes I do," Elaine answered.
"I know Geraldo. I've worked on your car at your place."
Elaine's eyes lit up. "You know Geraldo?"
