A bright flash and the boom of thunder that rattled the windows made me sit straight up in bed. The echo was rolling on and there was a tingle in the air. I ran my hands over my face and up over my scalp. My hair was standing on end. I could feel the static electricity.
"Man, that had to be close!" I said out loud.
A glance at the clock across the room told me the power was off. No red numbers, no power. I sighed and rolled over to get up. I might as well. I was wide-awake. It was raining like hell and the wind was whining and moaning through the treetops. Just as I stood up, thunder crashed and lightening flashed outside the window next to my bed.
"Damn, that wasn't quite as close but close enough," I said aloud and then shook my head. I needed to quit talking to myself.
I live alone at the end of a dead-end road. It wasn't designed that way but the creek washing out the bridge a few hundred yards past my house made it a fact. I kind of liked the idea when it first happened but lately loneliness had slowly crept in. I do Internet research for several companies and work from home. The only reason for me to go to town is groceries and companionship.
I sighed as I went into the kitchen and found my flashlight. I would have laughed at the word companionship, if it hadn't hurt so much. Besides being a class "A" geek and a nerd, I wasn't exactly Adonis either. You can add four eyes and beanpole to the other two names. All four I had carried since high school like a flock of albatrosses around my neck.
You would think at thirty, it wouldn't hurt so much. Wrong! It always hurts. Well, except for when I was role-playing in one of my on-line personas. That's where the real me could shine, the person I was inside. The person I wouldn't dare show in real life because laughter was, by far, the worst pain of all.
I checked the clock on the kitchen wall. It showed ten after twelve. That first bolt of lightening must have been at exactly midnight. My body gave a shiver at that thought. I started for the spare bedroom/office and then stopped. I had the phone line and the electricity to my computer unplugged. I was glad I did as another bolt from the pitch black sky flashed through the kitchen window followed a second later by the crash of thunder.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I didn't need my only link with sanity to go up in smoke. It had happened once before. I had been without a computer and the Internet for six days. Six of the longest, loneliest days of my life. The last two I spent in town waiting on the parts to build a new unit. I had to have some kind of companionship.
There was that word again. I chuckled and shook my head as I headed back to bed. Weird looks, pitying looks, whispers, and shakes of the head. Those don't make anything but pain, even for someone who has skin as thick and tough as iron on the outside. That was me, a man of iron and steel on the outside but marshmallow cream on the inside.
With a sigh I went past the bed and headed for the bathroom. As I passed my bedroom window, I heard an odd whirring sound. It was like one whirring sound overlaid with another. I opened the blinds and looked toward the road. I couldn't see anything in the pitch black.
I hurried back to the living room and opened the front door. Rain whipping shrubs, cedars, and blackness were all that I could see, even with the flashlight. My house sits back off the road and is in a natural setting, which means I don't have any landscape except for the woods. I like it that way. The cedar siding and shake roof blend in beautifully. I have a big white mailbox out by the drive just so the UPS man can find the place.
I opened the glass door, the whirring got louder. I can tell that both sounds are rising and falling in unison. It's a vaguely familiar sound, one I've heard before but can't place. Then it hit me. It's the sound of a small engine and tires spinning in mud. Someone must be stuck in the ditch out by the driveway.
I backed away from the door quickly and hurried to the bedroom to find some clothes. Since there's never anyone around, I stay nude most of the time, weather permitting of course. Unlike most people, I like my tall lanky body. I keep it tanned and in the best shape I can for what I have to work with. Anyway, who needs laundry?
*****
Dressed in shorts and a tee shirt, I paused to wonder where my raincoat was. In the barn was the answer to that. Where was my umbrella? In my car outside, of course. I grabbed an old jacket and put it on as I headed out the front door with my flashlight in hand.
As I stepped off the front porch, I realized that I wasn't dressed nearly warm enough. The rain was cold, thick, and stinging, even here under the trees. The swirling, gusting wind made it feel even colder. I was about to turn back and find better clothes when I heard someone call for help. The voice was female, which brought out my shining coat of armor. I headed for the road as quickly as I could in the storm.
A small gray car was nose first into the mud and water filled ditch just past my driveway. I noticed my mailbox was missing and from the shattered windshield I could guess where it went. My teeth were chattering as I got to the car.
"Is anyone hurt?" I asked in a loud voice.
The driver's side window came down an inch or so. "No one is hurt but we're stuck," the female voice I had heard earlier said.
"Your front wheels are in mud and water and aren't going to get any traction. The car is bottomed out on the side of the ditch so there's no weight on them."
"Can you pull us out or push us out or something?" a second female voice asked.
"I could if my tractor was working but it's broken at the moment. I don't think my car will pull you as it's not much bigger than yours."
"Could you try?" the second voice asked. "We have a very important appointment and we can't be late."
I tilted my head and replied, "Where would you have an appointment down this road? There's nothing past my place except a washed out bridge."
"Don't mind her," the first voice said. "She gets flustered at the littlest thing and this isn't that little, if you know what I mean."
"You're both welcome to come inside. The electricity is off but it's warm and dry."
"We can't do that!" the second voice said.
The window came down half way and I was looking at the face of an angel. Her long blonde hair framed a heart-shaped face with large dark oval eyes and a small nose.
"Do you live alone out here?" She asked with a shy smile.
"Yes, I do but you'll be safe, I swear," I replied hastily.
There was a deep husky chuckle from the back seat and a deep female voice said, "Safety is not one of our concerns, believe me." Then she gave a deep sigh and added, "Our luck driving tonight sucks, which means we don't, so we might as well accept the man's offer."
I thought the comment was odd but laughter from the other two soothed my feelings. My first thought was three girls out clubbing and lost on the back roads. The two in the front sounded giddy and possibly high or drunk. That would explain them being in the ditch.
My thoughts were interrupted by the girl in the back saying, "Come on. Let's get out of the car and someplace dry. There's more rain coming in through that windshield than I care for."
"You won't melt, Maggie. You might float but you won't melt," the driver said with a grin.
"If I wanted any shit out of you, young lady, I'd squeeze it out," Maggie replied in her low rumbling voice. It sounded menacing, to say the least, but the blonde just kept grinning as she tried the door.
"It's stuck on this side. How about on your side, Mandy?" the blonde asked.
"This one won't open, either," Mandy replied.
"The car is sunk into the side of the ditch far enough to block the door," I told them, shining my light along the bottom of the door. "You'll have to climb out the window."
"Oh goodie! That should be fun in a tight skirt," Mandy said to no one in particular.
"Hey! I like looking at your legs, among other things," Maggie said with a laugh.
"Kiss my ass!" Mandy shot back at her.
"I'd love to, dear, but you wouldn't like the teeth marks."
"I said 'kiss', not bite."
"Same difference in some cases," Maggie whispered.
The blonde shook her head, looked up at me, and said, "Don't mind those two; they were sisters once so they're all the time barbing each other."
"Ok. Uh. Do you need a hand getting out?" I asked to cover my confusion. How were people once sisters?
"Yes, please," she replied, rolling the window all the way down.
My eyes locked onto the front of her white blouse. The dark circle and hard nipple that capped each of her breasts was plainly visible through the wet translucent material. My hands shook and the light wobbled wildly as she tried to come out the window facing me. I had to use my hands on her shoulders to help her back in before she fell head first to the muddy ground.
"Well, that isn't going to work. The steering wheel is in my way," she said with a giggle.
"You usually hit your head on the steering wheel, don't you?" Maggie asked from the back in a catty voice.
"I've been known to."
"Marla, don't let her talk to you that way. I have to put up with it but you don't," Mandy said.
"I'm not worried about her. Anyway, I thought it was funny in a smart ass sort of way," Marla replied as she turned in the seat, her back to the door.
"Don't let me fall," she said to me as she wiggled up and out to sit in the window opening.
"Turn to face the front of the car, hold onto me, and bring your left leg up and out," I told her.
"Ok, I'll give it a try."
Holding onto my neck, she got her left leg out. It was encased in dark nylon hosiery that came up almost to the pure white panties she had on under her short skirt. As her foot found the muddy ground, it slipped and she sat down hard, straddling the door. She gave a yelp of pain and scrambled to get a foothold on the wet earth, a look of pain on her pretty face.
"Oh, that hurt!" Maggie said softly and then added louder, "Somebody will have to kiss it and make it all better. Pick me! Pick me!" Then she laughed.
Marla finally got her footing and stood up. As she got her other leg out of the car, she said to Maggie, "I'd love to sit on your face and let you do it but you'd enjoy it way too much."
"You've got that right, baby girl," Maggie cackled.
Marla was hanging onto me tightly as I moved back up onto the blacktop. Her breasts were warm and firm as they pressed to my cold, soaking wet tee shirt. I had an arm around her waist and the flashlight in the other hand. At the rear of the car, I stopped. Much to my surprise, she kissed me on the cheek.
She leaned back against the car and shivered. I took off my coat and handed it to her. "Thank you. You're a life saver."
Before I could reply, a wild head of dark hair appeared over the roof on the passenger's side of the car. Mandy turned around to face the car and I took a deep breath. Her cute pixie face was magical. I hurried around to give her a hand getting out.
The ditch wasn't quite as steep on this side. Her dark blouse didn't give me much of a show but when she brought her right leg out, I gulped and tried not to stare. She didn't have anything on under that tight short skirt. It rode up to her waist and bared all her charms to me as she got her footing and then leaned back to get her left leg free.
She was smoothly shaven except for a V of dark curly hair on her milky white mound. Her sex was short, round, and had dark lips. Or, rather, the edges of the fold were dark brown. Even with all the porn I had seen on the Internet, I had never seen anything like it.
