* A (very) short story idea I noted down two years ago, yet hadn't come around to writing it.
*
The small blue hatchback halted in the sparsely lit urban backstreet late in the evening. 'Thanks for the ride, Beth.' said Edith as she opened the passenger door.
Beth, a long time friend of Edith with an ever pleasant demeanour, gave her a quick smile. 'My pleasure. I'll have George call the garage in the morning to take your car there.'
Edith stepped out of the car and leaned on the roof, looking back inside. 'Tell George he's a darling.'
Beth chuckled. 'I tell him all the time. This time I'll tell him it's from you.'
Edith chuckled. 'All right. I'll talk to you later.' she said and closed the door. She waved at the car as Beth drove back home and stuck her hand out of the window. When it was out of sight at the corner, Edith sighed. She could already imagine her husband Frank complaining that the car had broken down again, even if the last time was almost a year ago. What else was broken was the street light just outside the back garden. The dark corner of the street and the Halloween mood as of late gave her a bit of the chills when she thought she saw movement and the reflection of eyes under the shade of a low tree. 'Silly old bat.' she muttered to herself. 'You're too old to believe in superstitions.' She went through the gate of the wooden fence and up the stone path to the kitchen. The sudden laughter from Frank startled her when she entered the house.
'You have no idea!' he said on the phone. He sat in his usual place on the couch, the seat sagged slightly from the years of his butt being parked there, and with his feet on the table in front. 'When I saw that costume Larry had found I knew right away what I wanted to do with it, give Edith a good scare on Halloween when I jump out at her after pretending I left the house for a bit. Just imagine the look on her face from seeing a werewolf!' He laughed again while Edith went over the location of all heavy kitchen utensils in her mind. 'I know, right!?' Frank sniggered. 'That should bring back some life into our marriage.'
Edith could say a thing or two about bringing back some life into their marriage when that only happened after they both had drank enough but not enough for them to fall asleep the moment they hit the bed. Events that barely panned out once a year since their children left the house. She sighed deep. It seemed they'd caught the middle age slump like so many other couples she knew suffered from as well. Sometimes it seemed to her only Beth and George were as wild in the sack as ever from the stories Beth told her.
A light went up in her head. Beth once confessed to a little kink they did on occasion and Edith grinned with a nearly malicious joy at the thought of doing just the same, only without telling her Frank beforehand. 'You want life, I'll give you some life.' she whispered and silently left the kitchen while making a list of what she'd need in her mind while rounding the house to the front. She made sure to make plenty of noise with her keys and her shoes as she unlocked the door and entered the hallway.
'I gotta go, Edith's back.' she heard Frank say quickly and took her time to hang up her coat and take off her shoes.
Frank looked up from the television when she entered the living room. 'I didn't hear your car.'
'It wouldn't start when I left Beth's place.' said Edith with some annoyance and dropped her handbag next to her place on the couch. 'She gave me a ride to the corner.'
'It broke down again!?' grumbled Frank. 'I'll bet it'll cost a pretty penny again just like last time.'
Edith poured herself a glass of wine. 'Beth will ask George to have the garage pick it up. He can usually get a good deal on repairs, if it's worth it.'
Frank changed the channel from one sports program to another. 'It better be, buying another car isn't an option right now.'
Edith stared at the two men discussing some game score or something on the screen. She knew there was no budget for a decent replacement to her car when they had to cough up the expenses of replacing the old roof of their house. The kids looked after themselves now but she and Frank had other things they needed to spend money on instead. She sipped the little pleasure she could afford, thinking it wasn't much of a surprise how their marriage stagnated over time when he worked long days and she part time. She clenched her jaw. It still didn't justify the cruel prank he had planned and she would get him back for it.
***
Edith booted up the computer the next day and pulled up the search site in the browser. 'What did Beth call that site again?' she said to herself as she pondered. She typed in the name and went through the results. Not sure which was the right one she tried the first link that looked like what she was looking for and gasped at the row of product photos that appeared. 'Oh my!' she said before covering her mouth with her hand, afraid the neighbours might hear her. She giggled in shameful pleasure as she knew they couldn't hear her and certainly not see what she was doing.
The site wasn't the one she was looking for because she didn't recognise the logo, but her curiosity got her to browse through what it had to offer in the various categories. Some products made her ears burn, some weirded her out a bit, and some she didn't understand what they were for until she read the instructions and turned beet red at the images in her mind. She closed the site eventually and tried the next link, and the morning had passed before she finally found the site Beth had recommended. By that time she was of one mind to buy more than what she had planned, but that would be more than she had the budget for. She satisfied herself with the thought that she could always buy them later and quickly submitted the order when she noticed the time. She needed to call the garage to find out what was wrong with the car and how much it would cost in repairs.
'Ah, the car George called about.' said the young mechanic who answered the phone. He sounded athletic to Edith and because her mind was still lingering on an interesting morning browsing the internet, her thoughts latched onto the question if he'd have any secret kinks and how naughty they could be. She dragged her mind just in time out of the gutter to hear him say '..not so bad. Some wiring had been exposed and had rusted through, causing a short that prevented the car's computer from functioning.'.
Edith exhaled. 'It won't be expensive then?'
'If there's not more damage than the wiring, replacing it will be around fifty dollars.' the young man said. 'We can't be really sure until we fix that but I doubt there's more damage from the short. I'll call if something else has broken, otherwise the car is ready tomorrow morning.'
'Thank you.' said Edith. 'Then I'll come by tomorrow around noon.'
She hung up the phone and sat back, relieved that the defect was minor. She'd call Beth later to see if she could give her a ride and felt really in the mood for wine. She stood up to walk to the kitchen and twitched at the sensation of her moist panties. She giggled and turned red in embarrassment at the realisation she'd been talking to someone on the phone while her panties were wet from the things she saw during the morning. She went to the kitchen, relishing the wet fabric sticking to her sensitive parts and the brush of air against her skin underneath her skirt. She'd enjoy her glass of wine and her little secret thoroughly before going upstairs to take a quick shower.
***
