Sarah yanked the door behind her and thumped the steering wheel. No matter what, she was going to hold it together.
She knew that working for a start-up meant that Matt was working stupid hours, and she'd pretty much resigned herself to not seeing him in the evenings for the next month or so, but she'd really needed to see him today. Not only was it another shitty week full of technically illiterate customers making stupid demands, but today was her 30th bloody birthday. They ought to be illegal. Birthdays and stupid customers. Ban them both, the fuckers.
Sarah sighed, feeling a little better from venting, even if it was only inside her head. She needed to get out into the countryside and take her car for a blast down the familiar lanes that led home.
Without thinking, she fell into her pre-"blast" routine -- a couple of minor changes to the mirrors and her seat, twist the key a notch and watch while the diagnostic lights went out in the correct order, drop her iPod in the dock, select the playlist "punk rock" and wait for the guitar to kick in on American Slang before giving the key the final twist that fired the engine into life.
With the faintest hint of wheel spin, the MR-2 pulled out of the car park and into the rush hour traffic.
Her anger at Matt kept swapping places with her anger at herself. She'd spent so many years arguing that any birthday that wasn't legally significant was, well, insignificant, that she couldn't really complain when people paid attention and ignored her. Like every other day, it was just another chance to beat her personal best for the number of continuous days without dying.
As she pointed the red roadster up the first of the narrowing roads, she decided what it was that had annoyed her most. It wasn't the fact that Matt wasn't able to spend the evening with her. It wasn't even the fact that he'd cried out of their lunch date. It was the fact that he'd done so with a text message that simply read "Sorry S, need to do stuff this lunch. Raincheck? M". Not even a mention of the birthday she'd told him to ignore.
Changing down a gear, she accelerated hard out of the bend, overtaking three middle aged men in their respective rep-mobiles. The front one, a diesel engined Focus, belched black smoke as its driver tried to play follow-my-leader.
It didn't succeed.
-=-=-=-=-=-
(shimmery time travel effect)
It was amazing how much you could get from two words in a medium as soulless as a text message. The ones Matt had got from Sarah spoke of a world of pain that was coming his way in the near future. "Sure. Whatever."
Yeah, he guessed he deserved that. The problem was that he couldn't really explain where he was and why he was missing lunch without spoiling the surprise.
He took a final bite out of the cardboard and mayonnaise monstrosity that masqueraded as a service station cheese sandwich, and threw the crusts out the kitchen window. Sarah's kitchen window. And that was the problem -- if she knew that he'd had to dash to her house because she still hadn't left for work when he'd driven past this morning, she'd think that he'd got plans. The sort of plans that deserved a capital "P" and maybe a hint of a fanfare. The sort of plans that reality never lived up to.
He climbed the stairs and placed his gifts in a neat stack in the middle of her bed. In the cluttered chaotic mess of his house, the three boxes could have hidden in plain sight for hours, but here in Sarah's minimalist room, the childish wrapping papers screamed for attention.
To emphasise the order he wanted her to open them in, each box was wrapped differently: the smallest gift covered in a printed mess of ribbons, balloons and the number 1 in a dozen different fonts; the one beneath it in bright pink paper covered in silver 2s; and at the bottom of the pile, a large yellow box decorated in teddy bears and the number 3 in a font someone thought looked child-like.
Matt decided that she'd either love him for this, or hate him with a passion. Either way, the die was now cast and he'd got a five hour wait to discover how it would land.
He glanced at his watch and decided he had just enough time to raid Sarah's fridge before heading back to the office.
(shimmery time travel effect)
-=-=-=-=-=-
The car crunched to a halt on the gravel driveway as Basket Case faded to an end, and Sarah quickly killed the engine before the next track could start. Breathing slowly and deliberately, she waited while her heart beat dropped back to it's normal rate. The drive had been the perfect balm to her anger, the feeling of pushing the car toward its limits relaxing and invigorating her in the way she assumed beauty treatments relaxed other women. She smiled at her reflection in the rear view mirror and, with a mock posh voice, asked it "Would madam like whale song and fresh ylang ylang today? Or maybe some rock music and a cheeky vintage of refined hydrocarbons?"
Leaving the car gently ticking as it cooled, Sarah went indoors, scooped up a few unexciting looking letters, and headed towards the kitchen. Phone bill, junk mail, junk mail, what looked suspiciously like a birthday card from her mum, a promise that she'd already been pre-approved for a credit card, and two takeaway menus. She put the card to one side and dumped the rest on the pile of things needing her attention at the weekend.
She poured herself a large glass of red wine from a part bottle in the fridge and headed upstairs to swap the confines of her smart office clothes for something to slob around in while she decided what to do with her evening.
Reaching her bedroom door, Sarah stopped dead in her tracks. Those quite obviously hadn't be on her bed when she'd gone out this morning, which meant that either Matt or her mother had visited.
After scanning the bed for a card or note, and finding nothing, she picked up the smallest gift and slowly turned it over and over in her hands. Taking a deep breath, she gingerly pulled at a free edge and tore the paper away.
It took Sarah nearly half a minute before the gentle pressure in her chest reminded her she'd not actually breathed out again. For six months she'd been lusting after the Android phone that was now in her hands, but she'd never actually expected to get around to getting one. A post-it note stuck to the box lid simply read "Ignore the other boxes. Turn me on".
-=-=-=-=-=-
Matt turned off the TV and picked up his warbling phone, the flashing icon showing him that Sarah had turned on her phone for the first time. There were times, he knew, when Sarah hated dating an engineering and electronics nerd -- especially the awful puns and the house full of partly disassembled electronics -- but he hoped this wouldn't be one of those times.
Matt opened up an app simply called "Sarah" and pressed a button marked "V.Chat", triggering a two way video chat between the two phones. The shot of Sarah's face rapidly cycled through intrigue to surprise to slight embarrassment.
"Happy Birthday, darling! What do you think of your new toy?"
"I... It's... it's incredible," she stammered. "It's too much, but it's wonderful. Thank you! But, how'd you do that? The video thing?"
"It's an app I wrote especially for you. Don't worry, it only started automatically this once. I need it for the rest of your present."
Sarah's face lit up. "They're all from you? Can I open them now?"
"Not yet. There's a taxi due at your front door in just over an hour, so I need you to start getting ready for a night out. Don't bother getting dressed yet, just shower, do your hair and stuff. Does that sound good?"
Sarah pouted slightly, but nodded. "It's not long, but it's doable. I haven't chosen anything to wear, or got any cash for the taxi, or - "
Matt cut her off, "Don't worry about anything other than getting your butt into the shower and drying yourself off again. Okay?"
She muttered affirmative and tossed the phone on the bed, leaving Matt to watch a video feed of her ceiling, with occasional peeks of her face or naked body parts at the corners of the screen.
When Matt heard the shower room's extractor fan grumble into life, he locked the phone screen, took a sip of demarera rum, and went back to getting dressed.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Sarah stood motionless under the hot stream of water, enjoying the feeling of the high pressure water drilling into her neck, back and shoulders. Matt certainly had a way of surprising her, and she was itching to know what the other boxes contained. The big box, she decided, was about the size of the ones Matt's best shirts were stored in, and the dimensions of the middle sized box were about that of a small shoe box. Add Matt's insistence that she not get dressed and she decided she had a pretty good idea of what the boxes contained.
Reaching through the shower curtain, Sarah grabbed her glass of wine and finished it in two swallows. As good as the water felt, the taxi would be here too soon for her liking, so she forced her body into action. The room filled with the scent of her cherry and almond shower gel as she ran her hands over her arms, her slim but untoned belly, and up to her breasts. She found herself automatically checking her breasts for anything unexpected and had to made herself stop, rolling her nipples between thumb and forefinger instead.
She'd shaved this morning, but she ran her razor over her legs as quickly as she dared just to be certain. With significantly more care, she then gently trimmed the edges of her pubic hair, leaving a neat strip of short hair on an otherwise denuded mound.
Turning the shower up to full power, Sarah thought about the night ahead as she washed away the remains of the soap suds. Knowing Matt, the night would be long, probably boozy, and would result in her spending half the night thinking about the things he would do to her once they got back to his place. She gently chewed on her lip as the shower head reached her crotch. Adjusting the shower head to "massage" mode, Sarah lent back on the cold tiles and used her free hand to gently part her lips, allowing the pulsing water to massage her aching clit.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Matt's valet box was something of a joke among his friends. The six bays across the front were home to six watches, each with a titanium or black anodised case and strap, each with a dark face and contrasting hands, and all but one of them within a couple of seconds of each other. The only dissenter -- a black cased watch with anthracite face and silver accents -- had stopped during a funeral the previous year and he couldn't face getting the battery replaced.
He listened in on Sarah singing to herself while she blow dried her hair. He knew he recognised the tune but he couldn't hear the words clearly enough to work out what song it was.
He slipped a titanium strapped chronograph onto his wrist and a satin titanium ring onto his right hand and started rummaging through the hidden cuff-link tray for the sibling to the one that was lying on his bedside table.
All things considered, Matt didn't think of himself a bad looking guy: a touch over six foot tall made him above average height; his weight was slightly higher than he'd have liked but what he couldn't keep in check with a daily run was normally hidden by well cut clothes; his hairline was beating crappy genes (even if it was thinning a little); and his facial features seemed to fit him more since laser surgery had lead to him ditching his glasses. All in all, he thought, he had nothing to complain about.
