Don't... (2 page)

Flashing off my hard drive caught my eye as I passed my bedroom, and I went over and shifted the mouse to give it some life. Just next to my keyboard sat a Polaroid snapshot showing a guy getting out of a black Mercedes Benz. Gray had shown more than his bastard side learning someone had gone photographer on his ass. The picture had been taken for posterity’s sake, or whatever excuse Gray’s trainee had pleaded after Gray caught hold of him. Either way, the photo had been confiscated, camera destroyed, and the trainee? Fuck knows. I didn’t ask; he didn’t lie. Gray didn’t usually leave this personal shit around, and the way it sat there all casual on my desk, it prickled a few uneasy spider runs down my body.

Still, I managed a smile. The black of Gray’s suit matched the sleek Merc’s, the look of quality and class an instant draw to both, although once you’d slipped behind the frosted windows and saw the owner, you forgot about the mechanics, focus naturally given to what lay hidden inside. I ignored that familiar rush to my groin in favour of picking up the photo, then dropping it casually back on my desk. Gray was good, the way he could still aggression, use tone and tonicity to calm a threat down, but it did no good to fuck ghosts who had their own unique way of saying “you don’t fucking touch”. Leaving shit casually around like this, though? He should have fucking known better.

I opened my e-mail and fuck, if that wasn’t a passion killer, I didn’t know what was. My old man’s e-mail raved on about the latest Range Rover design, then in the next, he was all for the new Jag, and would I have a look through a few brochures with him sometime.

Shit. “Sometime” usually meant “before you take your shoes off and kick back.” No doubt I’d get a follow-up text in an hour or so. Funny how positions reversed as you got older. I’d learned my love of cars off the old man: Saturday morning spent in the garage at home, the smell of oil, grease, and seeing cuts line my old man’s knuckles. (I wasn’t blind to the fact that being around cars kept my old man close.) But now I was the one that looked every part the mechanic while sitting back and watching him grow older in a business sense. One garage had given birth to four more, and at sixty-seven, he’d taken more to the administrative side of things. Part of him missed that hands-on approach, but a bigger part of me missed the hands-on look to my old man, which is why I ran my own garage, and he got on with his. We were business rivals only without the animosity. Our fight to win the up-coming Strachan deal being the main point of discussion.

As I sat there, another message checked in, and I noticed my floor manager’s name attached to it. Seems Sam was back in work tomorrow, and Steve was asking me not to sack him. Please.

I had no intention of sacking his ass, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t screw with his head a little in the process. I didn’t reply, no communication being better than some at this point.

Out of sympathy for my manager, my hands hovered over the keys, but I backed down, using the excuse that the urge to keep on top of my own accounts took priority. I set about wrestling a dozen or so spreadsheets and didn’t realise I’d been sitting sorting through them for an hour until I needed to switch the bedroom lights onto dim and chase away the night shadows. Giving a yawn and stretching my legs under the table, I switched off from work, needing to wind down a little. I brought up local Jag dealers, just to compare prices. Computers were a tool for work, nothing more; something I used to get a car tuned, or keep the accounts straight. On the rare occasion, I watched the odd porn video, forever on the lookout to try something new and all that bollocks.

Damn. My hand was way ahead of me, and it was a toss-up between doing something with my hard-on, or scrolling through the numerous lists of X-rated sites available and at least escaping that jacking-off-alone bollocks. Any company was better than none, or so I tried to reason. There were plenty of videos on offer, but I needed something else beyond the visual. I clicked on a link to what looked like an adult fantasy discussion site. Usually I didn’t do social at the best of times, least of all over a computer. Just seemed
strange
; no walls, rooms, or faces, replies that came in two days later? Yet here were people talking openly about likes, dislikes, fetishes.

Maybe it was “the voice” thing in me, but the fact these were realish people talking about realish sexual fantasies got me going more than watching any porn video. Topics varied from female on female, male on female, female-female on male. None of those set-ups interested me away from the computer, so they made little impression now. Even the gay community seemed a little wild. To be honest, meeting anyone from the BDSM sub and Dom scene who didn’t know what they were doing would scare the hell out of me. But among the talk of whips (kinky) and chains (kinkier) there was the strong undercurrents of trust and respect, something I liked to see after a good extreme scene. Being fucked in a cage was kink fantasy, but the real turn-on for me came afterwards with the two guys sitting and smiling together, all misconceptions over dominance and surrender put back in their place and reality kicking back in with a relationship. Among those discussions, which delved into golden showers (moving on) fisting (any more than three and my ass was dust), and caging (maybe linger a little longer on that one), the pre-consent rape-fantasy thread took me by surprise.

People hid behind usernames, and it gave them a confidence to be more open with their fantasies. Some were really extreme, going into the where (woods), how (bound between trees), and why (’cause they wanted to be used); making me wince with the scenarios being played out among the inexperienced. And seeing some of the terms and the heat in the discussions, you could tell they were just think-kinksters; vanillas wanting in on the scene and not knowing where to really start. Other posts, more basic, were just tentative introductions. Then a poll came into view, and it asked the question “Do most men fantasise about being raped?”

I sat back, thinking. Maybe even a little guilty about
thinking
. Shit, I was English, after all, and being born with an old man who hated the internet, I’d grown up (at least until my teens anyway) with pretty limited sources to get off to.

That didn’t make me shy in the bedroom. I had a sadistic streak. One Sam would attest to by the time I finished with him tomorrow. My masochistic side was putting up with him.

Had I thought about role-playing at rape? I shrugged. I suppose. The reality of the situation was a different set of spanners altogether. I’d been doing karate since I was a nipper and wrestled engines on a daily basis. If the guy didn’t know what he was doing, was easy enough to... persuade him to stop, it wouldn’t make for a good kink-link in my eyes. Didn’t stop my cock pointing out “guilty”, though. Give me any situation where a guy sported a full hard-on, unable to hide excitement like women, well, was it any wonder my cock rose in true
fuck yes, please
fashion?

Don’t...

The single word for a discussion topic took my attention.

I clicked on the link and found a few guys had responded pretty much the same way I had, only with the less polite “WTF?” and “You taking the piss, mate?” to “Go fuck yourself.”

Don’t...

Again, eighth reply down, one italicized word.

Weirdest shit.

I scrolled down to the last reply, and sure enough, there was a third post from the same guy:

...
FEAR.

The Unknown.

Nobody else had replied after that, which was surprising. I expected some snide remark over the poster being a little soft. Everybody feared something. I “feared” facing an opponent that held a higher Dan than me; Gray, the bruises, and near-broken bones on our first meeting helping with that thought. I feared losing my old man, but that only made me love him more, not lose any sleep. Yet the formatting intrigued me. It was being asked in an acrimonious sense.

Don’t... FEAR

FEAR? FEAR what?

Just out of curiosity, I joined under the user name of “Jac,” didn’t bother with a profile because I had no intention of returning, and, just for pissing about sense, I left the closing comment:

Fear Encourages Aggressive Rebellion, in which case, yes. Do... FEAR. The Unknown. Wholefuckingheartedly.

It surprised me. I didn’t do socializing. Period.

Shutting the computer down, I resisted the urge to inch the Polaroid back into alignment with my desk, with the precision of the keyboard, and hid a smile. Three days was my personal best; I wanted to beat that this time. Granted, I’d have to let Gray know it was here next time I saw him. Until then, the snapshot had its uses. A satisfied nod, I headed off for a shower, then went downstairs for something to eat. I was too tired to do anything about my cock, so watched a little TV before climbing into bed around elevenish. I felt old. Which was peachy, Just fucking peachy.

The sun was trying to push its way into my bedroom, the room a soft orange glow and leaving that strange state of not knowing whether it was dusk or dawn. The clock blinked quarter to six and was the only guider to morning, yet the sun and all its zealousness didn’t fool me. Acting all fresh and vibrant, with her bubbly will to get up, she had burned the ground for so many days now you could tell even she was just going through the motions, all smeared makeup and false smile. I had this habit of waking before the alarm assaulted the quiet of the room. I didn’t know why, put it down to hating having a guy’s elbow dig in my side because I’d let him sleep over, both guy and clock being a pain in the arse for waking me. Now the one just reminded me of the emotional bollocks surrounding the other, so it was best to avoid both whenever possible.

I showered and shaved more out of routine than any real need and headed off to work after a clean change of clothes and full breakfast. Steve met me as I opened the garage doors at six thirty, and we set about running through the day’s appointment book before the rest of the crew came in. I had a total of ten mechanics, not including me and Steve, and three apprentices, Sam being my most experienced of the latter and in for a major bollocking later.

“Chelsea lost,” said Steve, warming up the customers’ drink’s machine. “You think I can make him feel any worse?”

“Who?” I said, knowing he was talking about Sam. It was Steve’s job to give the verbal warnings, and he didn’t look happy about it.

“He’d bought a ticket for the final and everything,” said Steve, deliberately ignoring me being an arse. “He called me last night after he got home.”

“To apologise?” I doubted it. Steve’s flick of eye at me gave me that
yeah right
look. “To whine about the match?” I asked.

“An hour,” said Steve, and I gave him an “ouch.”

“Bet your Carole loved that.”

Steve didn’t look happy. “She said we don’t need another puppy.”

I chuckled as we made our way along, switching lights on in the main garage and getting the main doors open. There was something to be said about routine.

“’Sides,” said Steve, “he’s a good kid at heart.”

I could see where this was going. “You want me to warn him?” I said, making sure the last ramp was in place. It was my workspace, and it pissed me off that part of the reason I’d been late last night was due to me nearly breaking my own rule over leaving the work place ready for the next job. Sam. Again.

“You mind?”

All tools were back in order, even my coffee cup was washed and ready to go. “No,” I said over to Steve. He was doing his own final checks. He had a real soft spot for Sam. The kid was the same age as Jake, Steve’s eldest, and Sam and Jake had been through school together. Steve had pushed for Sam’s apprenticeship here, and I’d agreed knowing Steve had good instincts for workers. Sam had been with us for two years now, but the death of his father had left him faltering at work. Steve had been there for him through the rough, and Sam had been there for Steve when Jake had signed up for the army and left home. Steve knew Sam needed to be pulled up over his attitude to work lately, but he hadn’t got the heart to do it.

Besides, I doubted Sam would take him seriously anyway.

“When he gets in at eight, tell him I want to see him before lunch,” I said, first pulling on my work gloves, going the extra mile and using clips around my coverall cuffs to keep the grease off skin. Must be the only mechanic around to hate the feel of fucking grease on my skin.

“Lunch?”

“Uh-huh. I want the ‘what ifs’ to play on his face for a while.” Which wasn’t quite the truth. I had the Strachan’s major expansion deal coming up in a few weeks, and I thought best when I worked on an engine.

Steve gave a wry smile. “Sadist.”

True to form, Sam sauntered in with the rest of the crew just before clocking in on time. As others set to work, shouting their mornings, Steve took Sam to one side, and I caught a few furtive glances over in my direction. Bless.

To make matters deliberately worse for him, I decided he was due a little personal training. Coffees for everyone first, followed by a bit of lackeying, and then a full on induction into stripping an engine down and getting him to call out each part and its relevance as he put it back together.

Twice he made one of our other apprentices, a lad named Mike, come over and ask if I wanted a coffee, which meant taking him away from his regular duties, which earned Sam a few more scowls from Steve. And I threw a few in to boot too. I’d completed a clutch change and brake check by the time lunchtime came, the clutch being the worst and needing the whole engine to be dropped, all to get to this little fart of a part made more awkward to reach because of all the shit new cars came out with nowadays. I’d pulled Mike over to give me a hand and guided him through the process. The apprentices were usually rotated around the mechanics according to job size and importance. All three were on a Government-funded wage packet, which I topped up with bonuses, again according to job size and importance. All three were worth their weight, but Sam was the first one who had that natural ear for picking up a fault without referring to a guidebook. He had another year left of his apprenticeship, then hopefully he’d agree to come onboard. Christ knows it was hard enough for a kid to get a job today. I wasn’t about to piss him about with false promises of taking him on just so he would put that extra graft in. The job was his if he wanted it. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t screw with his head in the meantime. He was already pouting over Mike getting one of the big jobs.