Two black men were driving an old Ford pick-up along a country road in South Carolina late on a sunny afternoon. Coming round a bend they saw a car with its bonnet up. Next to it stood a beautiful young blonde in a lovely white satin wedding dress, complete with veil and gloves. She reminded the driver, Jake, of the film star, Grace Kelly. She raised an arm and Jake let the pick-up roll to a stop.
"Can we help you, honey?" he enquired politely enough.
"My car stopped," she explained rather lamely in a cut-glass accent.
The driver got out. "I'm Jake and this is my cousin Ray," he announced, "We'll soon get you going."
He tried the starter button. There was just a click. He rummaged in the back of the pick-up and produced two pieces of wire with which he connected the pick-up to the small car. The car's engine fired up and kept running even after the leads were removed. The girl was very grateful and even gave Jake a peck on his unsuspecting cheek.
But as the cousins watched the car move off down the road it only travelled four or five hundred yards and stopped again. Jake and Ray went up to it as the girl got out.
"It doesn't look like your alternator is working at all," Jake told her.
"Is there a garage near here where I can get it fixed?" she enquired.
"About fifteen miles further on. But we can give you a tow," Jake volunteered.
He positioned the pick-up, connected a tow bar between them and hoisted the front wheels up a few inches. Jake motioned the girl up into the pick-up cab with him. She hitched up her dress giving the men a tantalising glimpse of her shapely nylon clad legs as she climbed aboard the pick-up. They set off at a slow pace, the men chatting amiably.
Then the truck stopped for Ray to get out. He set off up a path through the woods to the shack where he lived with his wife and children.
As the truck moved on Jake said to the girl, "I'll have to stop for some diesel or we'll run out before we get to the pump."
He turned off and started making his way up a narrow track for about a mile. They stopped outside a wooden house.
"My home!" Jake nodded towards the building. He got out and went down to a large shed where he kept a couple of barrels of diesel oil.
Meanwhile Jenny got out and wandered into the house and started browsing through the books on the shelves. She was amazed at some of the titles. There were classic novels, reference books, technical volumes, and books on just about every subject she could think of. Jake stuck his head round the door.
"I'd offer you a coffee or something, but it's getting late and I think we should get down to the garage as soon as possible," he told her.
They got back into the pick-up and trundled off down the track. Soon they were bowling along at a reasonable pace. Jenny looked at Jake with great interest. She had been fairly quiet in the earlier part of the journey, but now she couldn't stop chatting. Jake found he was answering a stream of questions about himself and his life. He wondered what had changed this quiet, sad but pretty young bride-to-be into such an inquisitive chatterer. Eventually he managed to get in the vital question that had been bugging him since they had stopped for her.
"What was a girl in a wedding dress doing driving along a lonely country road on her own anyway?" was the gist of Jake's query.
"I was jilted at the altar!" she said, "My fiancé ran off at the last minute. Not only that, but he ran away to San Francisco with the best man! I had thought he was being a gentleman not trying anything before we were wed. You know, he didn't ask me for sex at all. Not even just to try it out. And now I know why! I just wanted to get away from the crowd, all the far-flung relatives who were there for the wedding. So I borrowed my aunt's car and took off."
"And where did you get that accent?" he wanted to know.
"I spent four years in Oxford, England," she explained.
They arrived at the garage to find it shut. A note on the door said it had been shut that afternoon and would be open again at eight thirty the next morning. Jake towed the car round the back and unhitched it. He wrote a note and stuck it through the door.
"I'm afraid we can't do any more tonight. The next place is thirty miles further on and it would be closed long before we got there. We also need to find you somewhere to stay for the night," he said.
"Would it be alright if I stayed at your place, Jake?" she asked him.
He looked at her quickly. She wasn't kidding him or messing him around, it seemed.
"If you haven't got a spare bed, I could sleep on the couch," she suggested innocently.
"Don't worry, I've got a spare bed: a put-you-up that you could use," he told her, feeling quite excited at the prospect of such a beautiful guest staying overnight.
As the pick-up went slowly back up the track to the shack, there was a flash of lightning that made Jenny grasp Jake's arm. Then, as she buried her face into his shoulder. Jake could hardly fail to notice that, when the thunder had died away and the rain began to fall, Jenny still kept a tight hold on his arm and her head stayed against his shoulder. Not that he minded at all; quite the contrary. He felt a thrill at her touch and a stirring between his legs. He found himself imagining things that no black man in South Carolina even dared dream about. Things about the beautiful young white bride with her head on his shoulder that sent a shiver down his spine.
The rain began to beat down heavily on the roof of the cab. Water poured down the track causing Jake to wonder if they would make it up to the house without being forced to stop. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped. And a minute later they stopped in front of the house. What had been a grassy yard marked by several tyre treads was now a quagmire interspersed with puddles of muddy water.
Jake could get the pick-up no nearer than four yards from his veranda, which was up a modest slope. He looked at Jenny and wondered how he was going to get her up to the house without getting her lovely dress soiled. He opened the driver's door and squelched round to her side, the one nearest the house.
"Come on then. I'll have to carry you in," he said with a grin.
