What would you do if you were stuck in traffic, minding your own business, mind a blank, waiting for the car in front of you to move, when your passenger door is wrenched open and this body dives in, jamming as much as possible into the footwell and pulls the door shut? Be honest, you'd shit yourself, right?
"What the fuck!" I don't normally use that word, with the exception of when I hit my thumb with a hammer.
"I'm not here." It was a woman's voice.
"All evidence to the contrary."
"Well, pretend I'm not here, please." She seemed desperate.
This bloke running alongside the line of cars peering into them seemed to support her feelings of desperation.
"You can get up now, he's stopped looking."
"I'll stay here until this traffic gets moving, if I may."
"You may." From the little that I could see she appeared to be well dressed and of slim build.
Two sets of lights later she decided that we were far enough away, from where she joined me, for it to be safe to climb from her cramped position and take a seat. Putting her seat belt on, she looked at me. "I guess that I owe you an explanation."
"That would be nice." What I was really thinking was; "You reckon?"
"I was running away from him. I was in fear for my life." She paused to gather her thoughts. "The he of this story is someone that I work with who has gotten it into his head that he and I are in a relationship. I have complained to my boss but he has done nothing. It would seem that he has taken the guy's word, complete with a fictitious account of our sex life, over my complaint."
"So what have you done about it?"
"Despite my need for this job, I couldn't stand it any longer so, I told my boss to stick his job up his fat arse and that I resign. I then told him in no uncertain terms, my reason for chucking in what could have been a very good career and that I would have made major contributions to the company, all of which had just gone down the gurgler because he took the word of a lecherous bastard over mine. The language that I used got him concerned that I would take the matter further."
"So what happens now?"
"As far as the job is concerned I don't know. As I was leaving he was involved in a heated discussion with my supposed boyfriend. As for now, could I impose upon you to take me somewhere safe, I don't want to go home because the bastard knows where I live."
"If you think that you can trust me not to take advantage of your situation, you can stay with me, but I have to warn you that I am neither blind nor stupid."
"Hmm," She held both hands out, palms up, looking from one to the other, "Frying pan, fire, frying pan, fire, which is it to be?" I was just about to put forward my case for her to come with me. "What the fuck, it's going to be fire, hello fire, I'm Tracey."
"You may call the fire Benji. Hi Tracey, I'm pleased to meet you."
"I think that I'm pleased to meet you."
"Are we going to my place or somewhere else?"
Before she could answer her phone rang, she put it on speaker. "you fucking bitch, I'll get you for what you did."
"Just what did I do?" She said politely.
"You just went and got me fired."
"Really? I'm so sad for you, not. What did I do to get you fired?"
"You made allegations about me harassing you."
"I made those allegations a month ago. By the way, I'm recording this conversation and I have a witness, say hello to Steve, he's a cop." The line went dead.
We had just turned into my driveway when her phone went off again. "Hello."
"Tracey, it's Bradley,"
"The boss." She whispered. "Why are you calling me, did I miss something out?"
"No, you didn't miss anything out. I'm offering you your job back, it seems as if your friend Errol has been telling lies."
"But you didn't believe me before, what's changed?"
"It's because of your outburst. The other girls in the office overheard what you said."
"You think so?"
"Well, you did have your volume cranked right up to ears bleeding. No sooner had you stormed out than I had a deputation of thousands telling me exactly what was happening between you and Errol. I confronted him about it and he tried to pass it off as a bit of harmless fun. His harmless fun has the potential to cost me a great deal of money. The girls are threatening to take me to court unless you come back to work. What is it to be?"
"I need time to think. I'll drop in tomorrow to have a chat."
"Good, I'll look forward to talking with you. There will be changes made, believe me."
"Wow you really shoved a shovel full of stinking turds at the fan, didn't you?" I commented.
"No more than he deserved."
I chucked my keys on the coffee table, "What are we going to do about dinner?"
"Do you have any bright ideas?"
"I'm not big on fast food, so it's a toss-up between restaurant and pub, your choice."
"It looks like it'll have to be a pub meal, I'm not exactly flush with money until I get paid."
"I could pay for you, no probs. (We Australians like to shorten things, 'no probs' is short for 'no problems') But, if the truth be known, my local does a pretty good salt and pepper squid if you like that."
"Sounds good to me."
I rang the hotel. "Hi Rach, What's the chance of a table for two in about half an hour? Great, we'll see you then." Since the Covid19 outbreak hotels have had restrictions on the number of customers they could safely seat and maintain social distancing protocols.
"Do you eat there often? You seem to be on friendly terms with the staff."
"I manage to eat there about once a week, the food is good and the salad bar is well stocked with good stuff."
We were served quickly, one of the perks of being a regular customer and there not being many customers. We went up to the salad bar for something to go with the salt and pepper squid and chips (fries). There were at least a dozen different salads in containers behind a clear shield. We pointed to our choice of salad and it was served onto a plate by a staff member wearing PPEs complete with gloves.
"This is good, I think that I'll have to come here more often."
"If you stay with me you will." I was kite-flying here, in the hope that we could prolong our friendship."
"Getting ahead of yourself, don't you think?"
"If I don't try, I'll never know."
"You just might get lucky. You never know."
We finished our meal and I waved to Rachel as we left. She gave me the thumbs-up of approval and smiled at Tracey.
"I guess that's it then."
"What do you mean?" I knew damned well what she meant.
"You friend likes me so I suppose that I'm stuck with you, at least for the time being."
The night was still a pup when we arrived back home. "What would you like to do now? We have TV or we could watch a video from my extensive collection, or, we could listen to music, I have an eclectic mix of records and CDs."
Tracey went over to the shelves that contained my record collection. "My. You weren't wrong, were you? You have everything from heavy metal to classical. What to choose." She ran her finger along the rows of vinyl, stopping at the classical section. She slid an album from the stack, it was the orchestrated version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition' She handed it to me and I cranked up the turntable and we sat on the sofa, lost in the music that flowed from the stereo.
Somewhere during the playing of the music Tracey leaned against me, her shoulder tucked under my arm and face on my chest. I didn't have the heart to move her. The music stopped and the pickup arm lifted from the album and the stereo shut down. "This is nice." She whispered. "Don't move."
"I had no intention of, at least not right away."
"That's good." I'll give her this, she didn't snore. We stayed where we were for something like half an hour before she sat up. "Which way to the loo?"
I showed her the facilities, toilet, bathroom, and left her with it. I had the kettle on and a couple of mugs ready to receive coffee and water when she came into the kitchen. "Wow, I crashed, didn't I?"
"Yes, but it was nice, something different for me to have a beautiful young woman snuggled up against me."
"And you didn't try to take advantage of the situation."
"The thought did cross my mind but then I remembered how you reacted to unwanted attention, so I resisted. I'm about to make coffee, will you join me?"
"Yes, thank you." I made two coffees and handed her one. We sat at the kitchen table and sipped in silence for some time before she spoke. "I suppose that you want to know if I want to sleep with you."
"The thought did cross my mind. I'll leave that decision up to you, but let me say that my preference would be for you to stay, at least for tonight, and for us to sleep together, what do you think of that idea?"
"I say yes to that and, if you should get the urge to make love to me, ask nicely and I just might agree."
"If we go to bed together, will you allow me to make love to you?" I put my best hangdog expression on.
"Oh yes, all right, but not right now." Her reluctance disappeared the moment that she kissed me. There was no reluctance in that kiss.
Both clad in tee shirts over, in my case jocks and, in her case panties, we slid under the covers. "Good night Tracey." I whispered.
"Good night Benji," She whispered, "And thank you for everything."
I was thinking about her term, 'not right now' and what that meant, when a hand reached across and found my, half-erect in anticipation, penis. "What have we here?"
"That is a penis."
"You think?"
"Yes, it is my penis and, if you keep doing what you're doing, I will not be responsible for its actions."
"Is it often irresponsible?"
"No, not as often as I would like."
"Lift your bum." I lifted it and felt my jocks heading south. She disappeared under the sheets and engulfed him. My god that felt good.
"Tracey."
