Ah! Home sweet home. Much better than a hospital bed, that's for sure. Heck, I was just kidding last night, when I mentioned laying on the couch, naked. Needless to say, he took me up on it too. I was given a proper welcome home too. What a randy devil.

Waking the next morning, I discover Nigel’s side of the bed is cold and notice it is almost 10am. Well, no since in wasting the day. After taking care of the morning routine, I went to the kitchen for something to nibble on before I called Nigel. Deciding on simple, I dug the cereal out, and to be a bit different, used chocolate milk, it's got to be an improvement. When I was finished with my semi-odd meal, I dug through the newspaper, finally reaching the Want-Ads, I seen something interesting in there "Wanted: Mechanic for small garage" After looking at it, then the phone number, I thought to myself, 'I didn't know Nige was looking for help.' With the devil coming out, I decided to call on the ad.

"JPT, this is Nigel."

 

"Hi, I was calling on your ad in the paper." I needed to disguise my voice better after that start.

 

"Good. What kind of experience do you have?"

 

"Well, I'm a little green at it, but it's something I wanted to do for years and hoped you had room for an apprentice." Hey, I didn't lie, did I?

 

"That sounds possible. Let me think about it and I'll get back to you. You do have experience working on cars though?"

 

"Yes, I do, mainly in my garage, but I wanted to get into it professionally now."

 

"Ok, let me think on it and I'll get back to you in a day or two."

 

SHIT! What number do I give him, without being obvious? Ok, idea. My old number from home with this places area code, surely that should work. And that’s what I gave him.

 

"Ok. I got it and I'll call in a day or so, thanks for calling, bye." I think it worked.

What to do with the rest of my day...go to the shop and look at my car or mow the yard? It's not too hot out, but I shouldn't be exerting much for a few days, until I fully recover. I'll start with the house. I think something is growing under the couch but was too afraid to find what it is. No time like the present I guess. As I dug the vacuum out and all the assorted cleaning supplies, I find an apron hanging in the closet. "What the hell" I thought, Nigel won't be home too soon anyway. Here I am, all dolled up. All I needed were the pump heels and to paint my nails, and a few assorted items and I'd be "Dressed". I get busy in the kitchen, moving everything and cleaning, doing some re-arranging in the process. Working my way to the living room, I finally get to the couch, and move it out of the way, and discover what was ripening down there, about half of a microwavable burrito laying there, and started laughing hard when I remembered how it got there. I was sitting on the couch one night, grazing, of course, and Nigel comes in and sits next to me. As I'm trying to eat, Nige starts to play around, and then went for the one spot on my body that'll make me laugh and dance around. No, not that area, but he dives right in, attacking me without mercy. Needless to say, the burrito went flying someplace. We ended up wrestling around for a half hour or so, until we got too excited to continue, so we adjourned to the bedroom to finish what we started. What a great night it was too.

I have the stereo playing pretty loud while I'm doing all the cleaning and re-arranging, time must have flown by, because the next thing I see is a flash. Once I regain my sight, I see Nige holding a camera.

 

"Damnit, Nigel! The camera?"

 

He immediately falls to the floor, laughing so hard, he's not making any noise. I wait him out for a couple minutes until he calms down.

 

"I couldn't resist, the devil made me do it, honest!"

 

"Ok, devil in disguise, give me the camera, so I can destroy the evidence."

 

"Like hell, this is going to be on-line tonight. Paybacks are a bitch, aren't they?"

 

"Payback-payback for what?"

 

"Oh, I got a nice call today, someone interested in coming to work for me, he's a little green, but just may work. But, you forgot one thing, I do have caller ID at the shop."

 

In the meantime, I'm trying to crawl under the couch and hide.

 

"Yeah Dar, your busted."

 

"Well hell, I was bored and seen the ad, by the way, did I lie at all?"

 

"Afraid not, or else I would've nailed you with something other than a camera."

 

"Promises, promises"

 

"Ok, just for that, I won't tell you what I acquired today" Ok, game time, and a sorry puppy dog face, should be enough.

 

"Nope, not gonna work. You'll have to find out tomorrow. It would have been today if you dragged your sorry ass to the shop, but no, you had to play maid, and by the way, the place looks great."

 

"Thanks hon" With that, I shook my ass, and collected everything to put away.

Dinner, ala Nige. There's more than one place that boy can cook, and it's the kitchen. He surprised me with some barbequed ribs. I think the clean-up just got interesting. After getting started on my plate, I made Nige shudder as I licked and sucked my fingers clean after every rib. Once, I actually thought I heard him moan. Seems turnabout is fair play, as he started doing the same thing, with the expected results as I let a groan out here and there.

 

"Well, are we going to tease each other all night, or eat dinner," I asked.

 

Nige acted innocent and said, "Who, me? I was just eating and cleaning up. You're the one doing the teasing."

 

"Not I."

 

With that, I batted my eyelashes at him and continued eating sucking the bone I was holding, clean.

 

"Ok, that was a tease. You'll get yours Dar."

After the evening’s entertainment, I decided to drag Nigel back to the shop and look the car over. I just hope that I'm ready to see it. And see what else he had up his sleeve. Once we got there, it seems he had a bit of time to tinker today, as my car was on the hoist.

 

"I did some diagnosis today and discovered something, in your rear end."

 

I started to laugh, but Nige looked serious, so I shut up.

 

"It looks like, once I got the rear end tore down, I found that one of the gears in the differential broke and wedged itself between the ring and pinion gears, essentially, locking the rear end up."

 

Nigel showed me what broke and how it was lodged in there. The broken part was out and everything looked fine, according to my chief mechanic. And this part can be used again, after being rebuilt. After I thought about it for a minute, it made sense. I was blasting down the track, doing about 130mph and the gear breaks and locks the rear up-sending it into a slide and, ultimately, flipping over.

"By the way, did you ever get the time slips from that run?" I knew he was going to be mowing the lawn, but I wanted to see what the car did before it self destructed.

 

"Yeah, they came in today, lemme get ‘em." He heads to the office to get the slips as I look at my demolished car. I actually survived this wreck, mostly intact.

 

"Here they are, damn good numbers too. Looks like on that run, you got a 10:50 at 137mph versus my 11:96 at 125mph, and that was on your roof too. Imagine what it could have been?"

 

"Well, good enough reason to get a roll cage in the next car, because they would've kicked me out for not having it and running those numbers. You got an 11:09 run? Excellent!" After looking the car over, deciding, what was salvageable, and what was trash, we went to the other car, seeing what we can swap over, some interior is about it, and of course the engine, transmission and assorted accessories.

"So, when do you want to get busy here?" Nigel asked.

 

"How about this weekend, we can get the wreck stripped at least. I'll need to go back to work Monday. I need the money."

 

"Sounds good, you sure you don't want to work here-get dirty and everything?"

 

"I don't know, as much as I'd want to be here, working with you, do you think there would be problems with the constant contact?"

 

"I couldn't say for sure, but I would really like you around. You would, of course, get paid, but it's up to you ultimately."

 

"Let me kick it around, I just don't want the stress from work to mess our relationship up."

 

"True there, but do think about it. Let’s go home."

On the way home, we stopped by an ice cream place for a cone and some chat.

 

"What's on your mind, Dar?"

 

"Just thinking. As much as I would love to work with you, I would almost rather keep the job I have now, it gives me something to look forward to every day."

 

"Yeah, there is that, wouldn't want to use you as a punching bag when things get rough there."

 

"Why not, I just went 3 rounds with the BMW and won. Think you can take me?"

"Oh, I want to take ya, but in more of a fun way, not that I can't take ya on."

 

"Remember what happened last time we did that. I found the evidence today, under the couch."

 

"Remind me not to get you going when you’re stuffing your face, then, otherwise, I'm taking advantage."

 

"Remember, it works both ways." I had to wink on the last part.

When we finally got home, it was dark out, so we got ourselves settled on the couch and flipped the TV on. Settling on a movie I seen way to many times, I dug a blanket off the couch and got us covered up as the movie started.

 

About an hour or so into the movie, I ask Nigel "You think that guy is cute?"

 

"Which one, there are a few in this."

 

"The guy with the long hair, the archer."

 

"Oh yeah, I could wrap him in a taco shell and eat him up."

 

"You perv, leave it to you to bring food into the picture."

 

"Well, I would, given the chance." Then he winks at me, the animal.

 

"Well, to me, it looks like they poured him into those pants."

 

"What are ya doing, trying to get me going?"

 

"Yup."

"I think I'm going to work with you tomorrow. I'll be bored off my ass sitting here for two more days until the weekend gets here. It'll give me an excuse to start on my car."

 

"Fine with me, just be ready to work."

 

"Fine by me, now hush and watch the movie."

 

"Me hush? You’re the one who started it, you hush."

 

I found a way to shut him up. I planted a nice one on his lips, and got a smile from him in return.

 

********************************

 

Did I ever say that I hated mornings? I still do. After finishing the morning S.S.S. routine and breakfast, we went to work. After getting the place opened up, it was time to get dirty, and he had the perfect job for me to accomplish that-brakes on some crusty pile of crap.

 

"This should keep you out of my hair for a while."

 

"Gee, thanks, I think."

 

I got the car, and got started. What a dirty pile, the interior stunk to high heaven, no wonder he wanted me to work on it. I'll get even with him on this one. Once I got that job done and outside, it was about lunch time, and I wanted one of those killer greasy burgers, the kind you can see through the wrapper.

 

I sent Nige to fetch lunch, and found something appropriate for my payback. I found a small bottle of a lube additive that goes in certain differentials. It stinks to high heaven, and then some, with the cap on yet. I put that under the seat of his truck while he was out and went to the office and waited for lunch to arrive.

YUM! Love those burgers. Time to start pulling my car apart, I thought it was going to be a tough task, but the car sacrificed it’s self so I could go on. Starting with the interior, there wasn't much which could really be salvaged as I looked from the new car to the corpse, so I pulled everything I wanted to swap, then got started on the engine and transmission.

 

The nice thing about working on a wreck is you can cut most everything that is in the way for access, fenders, supports, since it's all going to the scrap yard anyway. At least the underside of the car is clean. I won't get too dirty stripping it. After a couple hours of goofing off, I had the engine and transmission swinging, I found a cart to put them on and rolled them out of the way while I could get the suspension out and the rest of the car gutted.

Cars take up a lot of room when they’re apart. I had to make some space in the back room for everything. Finally, quitting time arrives and I almost forgot about my little surprise I stashed in Nigel’s truck, but I did forget one thing. I was riding in it too, and it was a hot day today. I'm gonna die, either from the smell, or being strangled by Nige. We get closed up, and Nige heads for the truck and opens the door.

 

Immediately I hear, "What the fuck!"

 

I fall on my ass, laughing. I'm in hysterics when Nige walks up to me.

 

 "I guess your driving, because I'm riding in the back."

 

I couldn't answer him yet, but just nodded my head. I hope he left the door open.

With both windows down and the rear slider open, I still had to hang my head out of the window to drive. Nige wasn't faring much better in the bed as the wind was tossing him around a bit. Oh well, the joke kinda worked, I just got two stinky things today. When we finally got home, my hair was wind-whipped and as Nige passed me, he punched me in the arm...hard.

 

"Leave the window down. If we’re lucky, half of the smell will be gone by morning." I was still laughing and I stunk, but was still having fun with it.

 

**************************************

 

We had nothing notable for dinner this time, just hotdogs on the grill.

 

"Paybacks are a bitch, even if they backfire on you." I had to open with something.

 

"I've been in that car you worked on this morning a few times. I thought it would be nice if you experienced it too." Of course, he was grinning when he said it.

 

"Geesh, that was almost inhuman, I was going to check the trunk for a body."

 

"I was wondering what was going through your head, seems you found something suitable for revenge. I forgot I had that stuff around here."

 

"So, we got time to start on the other BMW tomorrow, or wait for the weekend?"

 

"Weekend. We’ll have more time to pull things and swap over."

 

"Good enough. Got any stinky cars on the book for tomorrow?"

 

"For you, I'll dig one up."

 

"Good, something to look forward to."

The rest of the evening was totally lazy-guy time, a power lounge with the remote in one hand, and someone important at my side. I stretched out, and used Nigel’s lap as a pillow, and took a nap, feeling great. I woke up about an hour later, with my hair being stroked-that felt good. I was home. He must have noticed I was awake, because the next thing was, he went from my head, and stuck a couple fingers in my ribs. THAT woke me up, but he was in the wrong position for that game. I attacked his ribs, legs and anything else accessible. I’d never seen him jump so high before.

 

"DING! Daffy parts guy versus dopey mechanic, round one!"

 

Needless to say, the floor took some more abuse that night.

After a few minutes, Nigel said, "Time for bed, wannabe mechanic, your going to be busy tomorrow."

 

"Oh joy..."



To be continued...