Here's another bit of story fluff that I hope you all will enjoy. It is my first time categorizing a stand-alone story as Mature. I've written May-December (okay, May-September) stories, but this is the first where I thought the main hook was that differential.
If you haven't read any of my stuff before, you should know that I'm not here for realism, instead seeking the plausibly ridiculous narrative. If you need the gritty truth, there are many other great authors for you!
Sit back and enjoy the ride.
----------
TESLA GIRL
Bernadette caught sight of herself in the mirror in the hall on her way to the garage. She stopped and stared at herself, feeling suddenly dissatisfied. She looked fine, of course. She was just going out to Brenda's ranch for a couple of hours to help stuff the gift bags for the meeting next week, and then swing by the store on the way back home. She didn't exactly need to doll herself up... she never did anymore, really. Her usual casual business attire of knee-length skirt and high-necked, creamy white blouse was certainly fine. Brenda was a friend, but also an employee after all.
God, that sounded like a woman with a stick well and truly up her ass, Bernadette thought wryly. That really wasn't her, was it? No. Of course not.
But she still didn't bother to change clothes. Just as there was no need to doll up, there was no need to go back and dress down either. This... was the way she dressed.
Looking out the front windows of her house, her mood rose as she observed that it was going to be a truly great summer day for a drive. It was sunny and hot, with clear skies. During the day on a Sunday, there wouldn't even be much of any traffic out in the desert.
The car was fully charged, and she decided she would let it run a little bit. She snorted. She had not yet really had a chance to put it through its paces, and yet her Tesla had still gotten more action than she had in recent memory.
Bernadette shook her head at her mental tone again, then shrugged it off. She did not have a stick up her ass, she had responsibilities... up the ass. A thirty sev... um, thirty-
something
-year-old woman, one who had had to learn how to run a decent-sized company with no more notice than the arrival of a military chaplain at her door when her husband had been away on a training deployment,
had
to live a serious life.
Her normally sober face broke into a smile as she slid into the Tesla. She had finally let herself order it the day that she realized that she was not going to drive the company into ruin. Once she did finally place her order, Bernadette had had to wait seemingly forever for Elon to get around to making her goddamned car. She had almost canceled her order twice, during bad weeks where she thought she might have run the firm into the ground after all, but all had turned out well and she'd had the bright red car now for almost a month. It still gave her a thrill every time she so much as sat in the big, spartanly luxurious vehicle, with its sci-fi reminiscent interior.
Her feelings of vague dissatisfaction faded as she eased the car silently down the driveway and onto the road. In what seemed like moments, she was out of the built-up area and the Tesla was sweeping her smoothly off onto the open desert roads. The two lane roads out here were wide and straight, with wide shoulders. The legal speed limit on them was fifty-five, but even in her consciously conservative mindset, Bernadette was amused at the fiction of that.
Subconsciously, she was outright contemptuous. These roads out here were built like drag strips, interrupted by nothing but the occasional, highly visible in advance, stop sign every mile or three. She felt herself easing up to seventy with almost smug satisfaction. Her father had been a gear head, and she knew her way around speed a little.
Easing away from yet another isolated stop sign, she found herself at almost ninety without even thinking. She smiled when she saw the number on her display, then realized that she should be shocked at herself, and let her foot off the pedal. The car slid backwards to a more sedate rate. She shook her head. She had not yet really plumbed the limits of the car's speed, but she knew it could go faster than she had just taken it. Far faster.
She had bought the souped up version, after all. It had been an almost unconscious decision, just a click of the mouse when she ordered it on the website.
When she accelerated again after the next intersection, she caught herself as she passed eighty. Without realizing that she hadn't slowed down, she looked around for cops. A ticket would be the kind of embarrassment that a woman in her position ought to avoid, right? She shook her head at how far-fetched that concern was. The last time a police officer had driven these roads, a barn had been on fire.
She checked her speed again. Eighty-four. With a naughty smile, she flicked on the cruise and auto-steer modes.
She leaned back, released the steering, and gloried in the sensation. She almost shivered, and used her free hands to smooth out her clothing. Her fingers lingered as they tidied the silk of her blouse where it covered her breasts, but she did not notice that consciously. Her nipples did, though.
After the glory of the road out, the gravel driveway of Brenda's ranch was agony as she rolled up it at a 20 miles per hour crawl. When she parked, she popped out and went up Brenda's front steps with a bounce in her step that had not been there when she had left her own home.
*
Brenda's large dining room table was strewn with piles of things for the gift bags. Some piles held materials for the meeting, such as the agenda and some PowerPoint slides for Bernadette's presentation, but most of them contained snacks or candy, or some company swag, and there were even drink tickets for the hotel bar.
The two women fell into an easy rhythm of filling the bags, and Bernadette actually found herself singing along with the Bon Jovi album that Brenda had playing on her stereo. Her blonde host smiled at that.
"You are in a good mood today, Bern," Brenda said, almost teasingly. "What have you been getting up to? Who is he?" she added, more hopefully than expectantly.
Bernadette blushed a little. "There is no he, in theory or practice, Brenda," she said repressively. "I just enjoyed the drive out here, that's all," she added almost sheepishly.
"Well, your car is a dish, that's for sure," Brenda replied, teasing harder, but also feeling real concern for her boss and old friend. "But unless that model comes with some strange options I don't know about, there is more to life than work and driving fast." Then she ducked out of the way of the logo-imprinted stress ball that Bernadette hurled at her. The two laughed, but Brenda kept pushing.
"I mean, really," she said, becoming serious. "He wouldn't have wanted you to just be alone like this. You know that, right? Pretty soon people are going to stop calling you Boss, and start calling you Mother Superior!"
Bernadette almost blushed again. She was quiet for a moment. "It's not like I'm still being 'faithful' to Tom," she said softly at last. "But dammit, I have a business to run--one that you... and Barton and Kenny... had to teach me to run with absolutely no notice or experience. My calendar, as well as my mental bandwidth, is full," she finished firmly.
Brenda looked at Bernadette somberly. "A company is an even worse lover than a car," she said after a moment. "You really are fading into a stick in the mud, Bern. Come on," she began to cajole, trying to lighten the mood once more. "I'm betting, despite how you dress all the time these days, that you could still absolutely rock a bikini almost as well as you did back in college. Throw one on, go to the pool, and see what kind of 'mental health enhancement' you can attract."
Bernadette snorted derisively. "Oh, sure. That's all I need. A bunch of horny country club husbands making passes at me..."
"Ah ha!" Brenda said triumphantly. "At least you admit that you'd attract a bunch of them!" She laughed as she successfully ducked a veritable hail of the foam balls... until Bernadette finally tagged her with one right between the eyes.
"You had better pick up all those stress balls off the floor," Bernadette said smugly. "They belong in these bags, not all over place behind you..."
*
After the women had finished filling the bags and stashing them in Brenda's Suburban for Monday, they shared a lemonade on the porch... all blessedly without any further randy pestering by Brenda. Bernadette was feeling uncommonly relaxed and might have stayed longer, but Costco was calling and she had a long shopping list.
She reached the end of the gravel and once more pressed the accelerator as the Tesla met good asphalt. Bernadette snorted to herself, 'Mother Superior my ass!'
She turned right, deciding to take the long way on the open desert roads around and back toward town and Costco. The more open asphalt the better, she admitted to herself.
Soon she was lost in the feeling of acceleration and speed. She wasn't going as fast now, instead reveling in playing with acceleration and braking. The car could do plenty of both, though she found herself agreeing with Car & Driver that the brakes were a little less robust than she was comfortable with on a car this fast.
Just after crossing a larger state highway, she eased to a stop at yet another pointless, deserted stop sign. Suddenly, she was aware of another car on the road with her, the first she had seen almost all day. A bright blue and white Corvette was whistling up behind her. It was a dammed good-looking car, even in her rear-view mirror, and Bernadette gave it the eye as it slid closer to her.
To her surprise, rather than stopping behind her, the driver swung it wide into the oncoming lane and pulled up beside her at the stop. Its engine growled throatily as the driver revved the motor-head's dream of an engine.
Really? Bernadette didn't deign to look over.
