I was doing a favour for a friend. That's all. The boss had asked Mike to do a special job in the country over the weekend and Mike said sure. Why wouldn't he? He'd get some good money from a full weekend's overtime plus travelling expenses. He was heading up there straight after work so that he'd be on the job first thing in the morning.
Unfortunately, he had a bit of extra personal stuff in the back of his ute that he didn't want to take up bush with him. Work wouldn't cover it if some lowlife helped himself, so Mike asked me of I'd take it and drop it off at his place the next morning. His wife would show me where to put it.
Why not? No skin off my nose. It was just a case of dump Mike's stuff in my ute right now and swing past Mike's in the morning. Take fifteen minutes, tops. So I said OK and we tossed the stuff aboard.
Now let me explain to you that when I say I know Mike's wife, Naomi, I only know her enough to say hullo and goodbye. I don't think I'd ever had a chance to really have a conversation with her, although I had heard her voice yacking away at a couple of do's we'd both attended. Naomi had a rather noticeable voice.
Next morning I fronted up to Mike's place and knocked. Naomi answered the door and I explained I'd brought Mike's stuff around and that Mike had said that she, Naomi, would show me where to put it.
She opened her mouth and started on me.
"Oh, right. Mike said you'd be around with it," she said. "I'd expected you earlier. I've been waiting." (It was only nine. How much earlier did she want?)
"You'll have to bring it in by the back door. I don't want you tracking mud and grime through the house. Make sure you close the side gate when you come through."
I shrugged, picked up the stuff and headed around the side of the house to the back door. Naomi met me there, still talking.
"Just bring it in and put it over against the wall there. Try not to bang the walls. The plaster chips so easily if you're careless. Try not to get any oil on the floor, won't you. Did you brush your feet? I've just vacuumed this room. Oh, you've got another load? Couldn't you have carried it all in one trip? Well, hurry up, I haven't got all day."
So I went back to the ute and fetched the rest of the stuff and brought it around, and wiped my feet, as per reminder, before I entered. I was reminded again about dripping oil on the floor, and watching I don't chip the walls and is that the lot?
I managed to break into her monologue long enough to say that's the lot but, unfortunately, not long enough to say goodbye.
"Well, seeing how you're here you can help me move the fridge back into position. Mike pulled it out of its cubicle yesterday so I could get behind it and clean it and it's too heavy for me to put back. It's this way."
Cursing to myself for not taking a quick get-away, I followed Naomi into the kitchen.
"Can you lift it and put it back, please?" she said. "I don't want it pushed across the floor in case you scratch the tiles or break one. It looks so untidy when the tiles get scratched."
(A heavyweight lifter, I am not. I was going to push the damn fridge back into place. I'll lay odds that Mike didn't pick it up to take it out of its cubicle.)
"You're as bad as Mike," Naomi grumbled as I slowly manoeuvred the fridge back into position. "I know it's full, but it shouldn't matter. It will be a lot easier for me if you just move it like that."
(Full? It was packed. She must have had a complete cow just in the meat compartment.)
"No, not there. Can't you see that it's not straight? It needs to be moved to the left a little. No, the other left. You men are all the same. Utterly helpless without someone to direct you."
Now Naomi had been bitching at me from the second she answered the door, and probably from the time she woke up and realised that I was coming. I'm not saying that she was starting to piss me off something chronic but. . .
OK. I am saying that she was pissing me off something chronic. I was initially doing Mike a favour, bringing his stuff around, and then I was doing her a favour, shifting her giant, overloaded fridge. And all I got was complaints.
"Listen, Naomi," I growled at her. "Ease up a little. I'm not your husband. I'm just a friend giving you a hand."
It turned out I wasn't the only one in a snarky mood. At least I hope that Naomi was just in a snarky mood. If she was like this all the time Mike had my deepest sympathy. When I chided her she almost went for my throat.
"You're the same as him. You're all the same. All beef and balls and lacking in brains. If I wasn't telling you what to do you'd probably have the fridge in back to front. You're hopeless."
I tossed a nasty look at her. Naomi was standing there, hands on hips and sneering at me. The day was shaping up to be a hot one. The sun was bright and shining through the window behind her. It effectively turned her dress transparent, showing her figure and it was a good one.
Now my only excuse for what happened next is that I'm just a man; beef and balls and no brains.
"We're all the same, huh?" I said.
I took a step towards Naomi, took hold of her dress at the collar and just yanked it in either direction. There's not much of a trick to ripping material. A firm grip and the application of some muscle and it's a breeze. That dress just shredded under me, effectively leaving Naomi clad in her undies.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing," she screamed at me, while at the same time I was dropping my trousers.
"Oh, my god," she yelled. "You wouldn't dare."
Then she saw that my trousers were off and that my erection was swelling rapidly.