Author's Note: Although rating are nice, nothing beats a comment or two about what you liked or disliked about a story. Please take a moment to leave or send one. Thank you.
August 1985
Tracy Monroe cursed under her breath as she glanced at the dashboard clock and noted the time -- six forty-five. The bus to the Red River Outlets was scheduled to leave from the parking lot at Oak Hill Elementary at seven sharp, and she was still twenty minutes away. The annual trip to the upstate shopping hub had been a tradition for Tracy and her girlfriends since their high school days, and the curly haired brunette was infuriated that she might miss it.
She'd called both Caroline and Vanessa before leaving home, to tell them she was running late, only to be told that they'd left over an hour before and were undoubtedly already at the school. Tracy was sure her friends would try to cajole the bus driver into waiting, but, with a three-hour ride ahead of them, she doubted the other passengers would feel so accommodating -- especially since they'd all managed to arrive on time.
'This is all Morgan's fault,' Tracy thought as she pressed down on the gas pedal, causing the needle on the speedometer to jump. 'If he hadn't wanted to go for a drive after dinner last night, I'd have gotten to bed at a decent hour and not overslept.'
It didn't occur to the thirty-three-year-old divorcée that, if this morning's excursion was really that important to her, she simply could have stayed home last night. Nor did the fact that, prior to the last-minute dinner invitation, she'd decided to end things with the thirty-five-year-old bookkeeper. It was obvious, at least to her, that there wasn't any spark between them. Something that Morgan should have also realized, if only for the fact that, even after three dates, he hadn't gotten past first base with her.
But Morgan had managed to get reservations at Fontaine's, the most popular restaurant in the Tri-Counties, a score that Tracy wasn't about to turn down. She had felt a bit guilty about her duplicity afterwards, but had assuaged it by not only letting Morgan again get to first base, but skip second entirely and land squarely on third. Initially, Tracy had only intended to get Morgan off with her hand, but once his pants were down and his cock out, long months of abstinence had caused things to progress further than planned.
"He did seem to really enjoy that blow job, though," Tracy thought aloud as she turned the car off Red Brick Lane and onto Industry Ave. "You'd almost think he'd never had one before."
The four-lane road before her ran the two-mile length of Marshall County's industrial area and, this early on a Sunday morning, was devoid of traffic. If there was any chance of reaching the school in time, she was going to have to make the most of that.
A bit more acceleration and the nondescript white and gray buildings on both sides of the road began to flash by in a blur, putting a confident smile on Tracy's face as she began to think she might make it after all. At least until she heard a sudden loud bang, after which the car forcibly swerved to the right.
If she'd had time to think about what was happening, Tracy would have undoubtedly panicked and crashed the car, but there wasn't time to think, just react. To her amazement, Tracy remembered the long-ago drivers' education lecture on what to do in such a situation and acted accordingly, managing to bring the vehicle to a safe stop up along the curb. Like most of her friends, she'd taken the course in high school and, until this moment, the only part she readily recalled was how she'd tried to influence the instructor by flashing her boobs as much as she could.
Getting out of the car, Tracy walked around to the passenger side and saw, much to her distress, that the right front tire was pretty much shredded.
"Fuck, now I'll never get there in time," Tracy said to the empty air, her thoughts still focused on the shopping trip rather than the fact that she could've been seriously hurt.
Looking up and down the road, there wasn't another car to be seen, and, as she surveyed the buildings around her, all seemed closed for the weekend. Additionally, there didn't seem to be a payphone anywhere in sight.
'There has to be a one around here somewhere,' Tracy thought as she picked a direction and set off in search of it.
After walking about ten minutes with no success, Tracy gave up and headed back to the car. As she walked, she thought of that outlandish gizmo Dean Baxter, a construction engineer she had briefly dated last spring, had told her about. He'd spent half of their date going on about it, which was one of the reasons there hadn't been a second one.
He had jokingly called it 'the brick', but it was actually a prototype cellular phone that his company was field testing. The nickname came from its size and shape, plus the fact that it weighed almost two pounds. Tracy couldn't see why anyone would spend so much money -- it cost almost four thousand dollars -- to lug such an ugly thing around, just on the chance that they'd need to make a phone call. Plus, the charge, which took ten hours to complete, only lasted thirty minutes. The final kicker was that after all that it cost almost fifty cents a minute to make a call, whereas pay phones, which were everywhere, cost less than a fraction of that.
'Of course, you have to have access to the cheaper option,' Tracy admitted as she finally made it back to the car.
Thirty minutes passed as Tracy, leaning against the side of the car, vainly waited for someone to come to her aid. She was beginning to think it was hopeless when, there on the horizon, a vehicle suddenly appeared. One which, as it grew clear, turned out to be the one thing she'd never have dared to hope for -- a tow truck.
Tracy watched with stunned appreciation as the blue and white wrecker slowed to a stop about thirty feet past her. As a reflex, she took a moment to check her face in the driver's side mirror, then straightened out her blue skirt before undoing an extra button on her yellow blouse. The more cleavage you show, she had learned long ago, the more cooperative most men were.
The driver's side door, emblazoned with McKenzie's Garage in large letters, swung open and a slim figure wearing soiled navy-blue coveralls climbed down from the truck cab. Between a baseball cap and a smattering of dirt on the driver's face, Tracy couldn't get a good look at him, but she could make out the letters K.C. on the ill-fitting bodysuit. K.C. couldn't have been more than five three and a hundred and fifteen pounds, making her wonder if he was more boy than man.
"Am I glad to see you," Tracy said as the driver approached.
"Seems like you have a bit of a problem," a less than masculine voice said, adding weight to Tracy's thought that the driver was a teenager. Which was all the better as they didn't take much to charm.
"You could say that," Tracy replied, putting on her best smile as she simultaneously pushed out her chest.
Disappointingly, the action didn't have the effect she'd hoped for as, after barely a glance at her prestigious bust, the driver turned and walked around to the passenger side of the car, bending down to take a better look at the damaged tire.
"Oh yeah, that's definitely shot," was K.C.'s assessment. "Do you have a spare?"
"I don't know," Tracy replied, thinking that was one of the things her ex always took care of.
"Why don't you pop the trunk and we'll take a look," the mechanic suggested.
Tripping the latch, Tracy was relieved to see that there was indeed a spare. Not that she had the slightest idea what to do with it, having persuaded one of the boys in that drivers' ed class to do that for her during the field test.
"Did you hit something on the road?" K.C. inquired.
"I'm not sure, but I guess I might've been going a bit faster than I should have," Tracy admitted.
"That'll do it," K.C. said knowingly.
Since her charms didn't seem to be having much effect, Tracy considered that she was going to have to actually pay for the roadside assist. She was already nearly maxed out on her credit card, although that hadn't prevented her from agreeing to go on the shopping trip. In her mind, there was a big difference between new clothes and car repairs. The former being practically a necessity, and the latter an unwelcome inconvenience.
"I hate to ask, but what does a tire change cost these days?" she inquired, again flashing her best smile.
"AAA usually covers it," K.C. replied, checking the jack and tire iron in the trunk before deciding that the ones on the truck would be a better choice. "You do have AAA, or some other auto club membership, don't you?"
Again, that was something her ex-husband usually handled and Tracy just shrugged as she continued to put on her damsel in distress act.
