Lauren Davis was pissed off.
This was hardly unusual, Lauren's temper was practically legendary among her social circle and rare was the day someone didn't fall foul of her scathing tongue.
Today as quite often happened her temper was firmly focused on her lousy husband Jerry and his continual lack of talent.
When they had married Jerry had been a geeky but promising engineer with a wealthy family to back his research and Lauren had been young, gorgeous and willing to put up with his faults in order to gain access to his bank balance.
But as the years passed Jerry failed to rise to the greatness Lauren clearly deserved while she wasted the best years of her life on him. She could leave him of course and indeed often threatened to do so but his parents had insisted on that damned pre-nup and putting up with him was far more attractive than losing his bank balance.
Lauren was still a very attractive woman, she had time to look for a suitably wealthy Mr right before cutting her ties to Jerry. She spent a lot of time money and effort keeping herself slim and youthful looking with long artfully styled blonde hair and strikingly pale blue eyes she looked like a woman entering her thirties rather than about to leave them.
Entire weeks would often pass without having to speak to her miserable husband, she had kicked him out of her bed years ago and over time he had virtually moved into the guest house above the garage so he could be closer to his useless inventions.
That had been fine as far as Lauren was concerned, she could do her best to ignore his existence but this morning her credit card had been refused and a snotty young counter girl had the gall to cut it up like she was some kind of poor person.
Storming from the car and into the house she hit the intercom button to her husband's workroom and practically screeched her husband's name only to get no reply.
So outraged and furious she stormed out to find the little worm and demand to know what had happened to her money.
"Jerry! Jerry, you useless bastard get out here this minute." She screamed hammering on the door to her husbands hide away.
Distantly she heard the sound of a power tool being switched off inside the guest house followed by the unmistakable noise of bolts being pulled back before the door opened.
Jerry appeared slowly creeping round the door as if using it to shield himself from his wife's ire, his slightly receding hairline, and thick glasses gave him an extremely bookish appearance not helped by his filthy old overalls covered in grease stains and pockets overflowing with odd tools.
"You called dear?" he stammered hesitantly.
"Don't dear me you asshole," his wife snarled throwing the diced remains of her credit card in his face like expensive confetti. "My card for the joint account was just declined in front of half the town, where the hell is my money, Jerry?"
"I have had to make a few purchases this week for my new invention," he replied wilting visibly under her furious expression. "but there should have been plenty in your personal account."
"That allowance is a pittance Jerry, I spent it already," she replied. "how dare you empty our joint account on your stupid worthless inventions without telling me."
"Because it's my money, Lauren." He replied, his voice quiet but surprisingly firm in the face of his wife's furious tirade.
"I'm your wife you pathetic little prick, it's my money too so call the bank and fix this right now or I swear Jerry I'll make your life even more miserable than it already is."
"No," his voice was barely a whisper but the world hung there in silence for a moment as he tried to stand his ground.
" No. What the hell do you mean no?" Lauren demanded in an outraged voice, first the humiliation in town now Jerry was actually refusing her it was utterly galling.
"I mean no Lauren, if you want more money from me this month you will have to earn it," Jerry's voice got louder as he went on each word sounding more determined than the last. "I was going to have to pay someone to test my invention but you can take the job instead."
"There is no way in hell I'm going to test one of your useless inventions," his wife protested.
"That's fine Lauren," he replied calling her bluff. " if you prefer you can spend the next three weeks broke or you can spend a couple of hours a day for three days doing your husband a favour and I'll give you double your monthly allowance."
Lauren paused, it was unlike Jerry to stand up for himself but when he did he usually stuck to it. As much as it grated on her three weeks without any cash would be worse than a few hours of his company and besides once he doubled her allowance she was sure he would never have the balls to reduce it again.
"Fine." She replied doing her best to make it sound like she was the reasonable one. "I'll test your invention but you call the bank and fix this now Jerry and I swear if it so much as gives me a paper cut..."
"It's perfectly safe I assure you," Jerry said as he started to close the door it her face. " I'll call the bank just come over around ten tomorrow and I'll have it ready for you."
It wasn't until she was halfway back to the house that she realized she had no idea what his latest project actually was.
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"It's a relaxation device," Jerry explained gesturing at the monstrosity in the middle of his cluttered workshop the next morning. "basically it combines all the different relaxation and massage equipment currently on the market with a lot of unique functions of my own invention.
The thing dominated the room looking like a reclining chair frozen in the middle of exploding, padded leather pads and cushions in a variety of colours and styles were strung along strange metal arms that looked to have dozens of complicated joints while other limbs held up hanging sheets of fabric or weird looking implements.
"There is no way in hell I'm getting on that thing," Lauren protested eyeing the bizarre contraption with distaste.
"I know it looks a little thrown together right now but is just the prototype," her husband explained patiently. "The finished design will look a lot more sophisticated but most of that will just be decorative all the functional parts will be essentially the same as you see here."
"It doesn't exactly look safe."
"Trust me," he replied fiddling with the controls, it's designed to adjust perfectly to your body for maximum comfort that's why it's in so many pieces but I assure you nothing will go wrong."
Lauren eyed the impossible looking machine dubiously, none of Jerry's inventions had ever been dangerous they had just failed to sell but this gargantuan monstrosity seemed totally over the top even for him.
"You know they already make massage chairs Jerry..." she said hesitantly.
"Totally obsolete technology," he gushed excitedly. "comparing this to a massage chair is like comparing a bottle rocket to the space shuttle."
"Well yes but they don't require you to be naked Jerry," she replied .
When Jerry had calmly explained that she had to get on the machine nude Lauren had nearly balked at the whole idea, only his stubborn insistence that it was safe and more importantly her only chance of getting his cash had stalled her retreat. Now she stood there wrapped only in a bathrobe her blonde hair carefully plaited to prevent it getting tangled in the machinery wondering if three weeks of penury wouldn't be so bad.
It wasn't that she was ashamed of her body, a strict diet, plenty of exercises and all the plastic surgery she could wring out of her husband had given her a figure a twenty-year-old would be envious of but the idea of sitting on the device without anything to protect her from potential disaster was curiously intimidating.
"Clothes would interfere with the test results," Her husband said interrupting her train of thought. "Now up you get it's all ready for you."
Biting back a retort, Lauren let her robe fall to the floor and stepped onto the box Jerry had provided, gingerly she eased herself down into a sitting position, the leather pads were cold against her bare buttocks and the whole apparatus seemed to sway alarmingly.
"Lie back please," Jerry's voice was firm now the testing was beginning, full of confidence in his new invention. " it can't adjust until you're in position."
Letting her spine touch the cool leather panels that made up the back of the chair Lauren eased back until the chair took her full weight, with a whirr it began to move lifting her legs up away from the box as it moved under and around her shifting until she was surprised to find herself almost horizontal.
"Comfy?" Jerry asked.
"It's a bit cold," she replied squirming slightly, how do I get off this thing if I need to?"
"Think of it like a normal recliner," her husband replied. " if you need to get up you push down with your calves and the chair will disengage and return to its starting position, but please don't do that unless you really have to okay."
Jerry hit a button and a long arm lowered above her head carrying a bulky headset and visor, he instructed her carefully on how to put it on and she was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable and seemingly weightless they were once she had them in place.
"Okay I'm going to start the program in a few moments," Jerry's voice sounded slightly tinny coming through the headset, the program runs for an hour so just lie back and relax."
'Relax, that's easy for you to say,' Lauren thought to herself as the chair seemed to gently thrum into life around her, the blank screen lighting up and beginning to swim with gently shifting colours
Slowly, but with increasing intensity, the chairs vibrations deepened in pitch vibrating through a range of frequencies as the cold leather quickly warmed against her skin.
