"No!"
Lara stared at the computer in disbelief, trying to will it back to life. The blank screen just stared back indifferently, mocking her. Lara almost threw the laptop to the floor but stopped herself just in time. It might be fixable. It had been fixed before. Sure it had been getting worse recently, but surely a laptop would last longer than six months?
She was more frustrated by the fact she was about to reach her orgasm when the screen flickered to darkness. In the last three weeks she had tried to masturbate no less than twelve times, each time thwarted by her housemate banging on her bedroom door or the phone ringing or something else equally infuriating.
With a loud sigh she laid the computer back down on the bed and pushed the covers off her bare legs. This was the first time in a week that she'd been home alone, a perfect opportunity to lay in bed and watch her favourite porn clips on the internet. And now what?
Susie had been a godsend at first when she'd moved into the spare room, paying enough rent to get Lara's mortgage back on track. But Lara hadn't realised how much she had taken living on her own for granted. Always a sexual person, she felt like a teenager again, unable to ever masturbate with the sound of Susie moving about the house. And she never seemed to go out much, working from home as she did. Always on the phone to some agency or other, half the time shouting at the top of her voice. And then her assistant kept coming round as well to sort out paperwork or make tea or a million and one other things to earn her minimum wage break into P.R slave labour internship.
It was a dilemma that frustrated the hell out of Lara. Only sporadically could she sit on her own, find one of her favourite porn sites, stories to read or clips to watch. Even the laptop that she had convinced herself she'd bought for work was really purchased to let her find these things on her own in her bedroom. And now it was broken. Another sign the of how the day would go. That morning Susie had mentioned she might be moving out. She'd found a client up north and it might pay her to be up there, dealing with things in person instead of over the phone.
She'd dropped that bombshell then headed out the door. Off to speak to the council about something or other. Lara had immediately planned to start looking up house mate websites. But within minutes of switching on the laptop she was in the browser, finding her favourite porn site. The one with nothing but clips of women masturbating, the one she wouldn't dream of letting anyone else know about.
Lara had spent years coming to terms with her sexuality, learning to accept that though she preferred the company of men in reality for the most part, there was nothing wrong with enjoying images of naked women in the privacy of her room, in her own home.
She still felt slightly ashamed of her love of beautiful women though, the exquisite sight of their loss of control when they came, the movements of their bodies as they touched themselves. Laid in her bed, skirt up round her waist, hand buried inside her panties, Lara had been staring at the screen, watching as one woman laid beside another. The video showed the two of them masturbating naked, staring at each other's bodies. Lara felt like a voyeur, watching as if through a keyhole at something so intimate, so dirty, unable to take her eyes from the screen.
She was just approaching her own pent up orgasm when the computer had died its horrible death.
"No!"
Lara took the laptop into town, wondering if Brian would be able to fix it for her. She'd been friends with him for nearly ten years, through university and out the other side, thick as thieves through the lectures of the most boring beardiest tutor in the history of the world. But then they'd drifted apart, in touch through social networks from time to time but she hadn't seen him in person for about three years now. Not since Janet's party.
The computer repair shop Brian ran was still in business. But when Lara reached it the shop was closed. This was too much. It was like some divine intervention, some mocking gods adamant she wasn't to get to come no matter how much she wanted to. Would she end up at a service station buying an actual physical porn magazine like it was the 1980s again? Did anyone buy those magazines anymore? Did they even make them? She didn't know.
Lara stood in the shop doorway glaring at the sign that read "Shut for lunch, back in a bit," as if it was the sign's fault. She was no longer sure if she was angry about the laptop dying or angry that all her attempts to come kept being thwarted. She thought that if someone, man, woman, vegetable came along and asked her if she wanted sex there and then in the street, she would say yes without hesitation.
From across the street Brian Johnson was staring out of his front room window through the net curtains his ex had put up and he still hadn't gotten round to taking down. He had always thought it serendipitous to fall for someone who lived directly opposite his shop. But not now she was gone, leaving him in charge of the sky high rent of the shop and the house on his own.
He wolfed down his sandwich, not wanting to leave the shop locked for long, wondering once again why he never seemed to have time in the morning to make food to take with him for the long days of fiddling with the innards of computers.
He frowned when he saw Lara? She was pushing the shop door, laptop under her arm. Brian pushed the net curtain aside with his finger and stared out. She turned and saw him as he did so. He dropped the net and stepped back. Did he want to see her again after all? After Janet's party? When she'd slept with him and announced afterwards how crap he was to everyone in the house. Through the microphone the DJ had brought for crying out loud. Ear splittingly loud denouncing of his abilities in bed while everyone laughed.
He was brought out of his reverie by a knock on the door.
"Brian? Are you in there?"
Should he answer? Pretend he was out. He hadn't had a customer in two days, could he afford to turn her away?
"Brian?"
After the party he had walked home silently ashamed of himself and furious with her. He was angry with her for a long time afterwards. How well could anyone perform in bed when that drunk? He'd done his best, but she was so sexy, he knew he hadn't lasted long enough. She'd laughed at him when he came even as he was apologising.
"I need some help Brian," she called through the letterbox. "I can pay. I've got money."
If life was a cartoon, dollar signs would have replaced Brian's eyes at that point. The main way he'd been able to survive in business this long was by charging too much for the work he did. At least that was the plan. But he wasn't cut throat enough to follow it through most of the time. A good sob story and he'd sometimes do the work for free. But not this time. He remembered how rich Lara was.
"Lara!" he said, smiling as he opened the door. "Good to see you. How can I help?"
"My computer. It's broken."
"Oh dear. Well give me two seconds and we'll take a look." He grabbed his keys and they headed over the road.
Once inside the shop, he took the computer from her and laid it on the counter.
