The bodice ripper...

[Cameraman Jenn]

She was tired. It had been a long day and several auto repair jobs that should have been finished were still sitting waiting for parts. She had finished her end of day paperwork and her walk through the shop and was about to roll down the garage door for the night when a horrible metallic sound rapidly approached and a dark blue bmw came limping into the driveway on a pathetically bent rim with the barest shards of shattered tire clinging to it. "Great, just great." she thought as she fixed her best customer smile on her face and went to deal with this latest addition to her day. She glanced in the car and realized the driver was on his cell phone so she knelt down near the tire to assess the situation. Late model, custom tire size and she already knew that the spare could not be mounted and driven on without potential damage to the automatic load levelling system. Given that information and the fact that the driver was already complaining about the inconvenience on his cell she knew this was not going to be and easy fix. He hung up and stepped out of the car. She got her first good look at him as he checked himself in his side mirror. He was gorgeous, tall with dark wavy hair held back in a ponytail and piercing blue eyes. He had full lips accentuated by high cheekbones and an aquiline nose. She noticed his athletic physique in his custom tailored suit from the corner of her eye. She glanced back up just in time to see him set his face into his most charming look and his calculation of how to get her to do what he wanted using his good looks. "Damn salesman" she thought as she straightened up to face the moment at hand.

He had his most gregarious smile in perfect place as he asked, "Can you fix the tire?"
She snorted a laugh of disbelief and replied, "What tire? There is no tire left and the rim is damaged beyond repair."
"What about the spare?" he asked.
"With the customizations you have had done I can't put the spare on without causing damage to the suspension. I can order a new tire and rim tomorrow and let you know when and how much it will be when the dealership is open but for now there is nothing I can do."

[Cameraman Jenn]

He started to get huffy.
"Look, I absolutely have to have the car tonight, surely there is something you can do to get me on the road. I just can't be without my car, it's impossible. Maybe if I pay you double for the extra trouble?" He quipped as he put on his best ten thousand watt smile and she thought to herself, "Asshole."
"I would help you if I could for the normal price, I don't operate that way and I take offense at the implication. I told you, there is nothing that can be done for you tonight so I need to get your info if you want to leave your car here, otherwise you can try to find another shop." She cocked her head and looked at him with a slightly angry raised eyebrow look. "What's it gonna be?"
"Do you have a loaner car?" he asked.
"Nope, but the BART station is six blocks north and you can rent one from one of the 24 hour desks at the airport." This quickly wiped the smile off his face. He looked down at the mangled rim and with a sigh of resignation, looked back at her. "Ok, I guess I really don't have a choice."
She smiled a genuine smile at the change in his attitude, appreciating that he was finally expressing a genuine emotion and in an equally genuine pleasant manner said, "I'll need to take down your contact information so give me just a moment." He smiled back and held her eye contact a little bit long. She turned went to roll down the garage door, then unlocked the office to get the form to fill out and realized he was following her strangely close. She grabbed up a clipboard from the rack and handed it to him along with a pen and told him to fill it out. When he had finished he handed the board back and stood blocking her way out of the office.
"That's an interesting scent you are wearing, what is it?" he asked again making deep eye contact.
"That would be axle grease, brake fluid, solvent and the sweat of honest labor." she replied with a bit of sarcasm in her tone.
"I meant no offense." he quickly replied. "I actually find it intriguing."
"I guess I should say thanks then, but now please excuse me." she said and gestured for him to move out of her way. He barely backed up a full step so she pushed past him to leave the office to get the vehicle information. He followed her again. Feeling a little unnerved by the flushed reaction she experienced when passing him she watched in the side view mirror as she bent over to get the vin number off the plate. He was blatantly checking out her ass and making no show of disguising it but then again he probably couldn't see her watching the mirror from his angle. "I should be used to this by now but he's so mercurial, what game is he playing now?" she thought to herself as she completed the form. She often had guys checking her out at the shop. She was about 5'4", perfectly toned but curvaceous, filling out her tops and bottoms very well. The deep green eyes, full mouth, perfectly arched eyebrows and dark auburn curly hair and perfectly placed cheek dimples only served to entice the guys on even more. "Well, that's everything for now so I'll call tomorrow when I have an accurate estimate and time frames."
"I look forward to hearing from you," he hesitated and read her name badge and looked at her with an amused questioning look. "Jorge? By the way, my name is Peter and it's a pleasure to meet you."
She laughed and shook his outstretched hand. "It's Lucy, borrowed a tech's shirt due to the axle grease, brake fluid and solvent shower I accidentally took earlier and I highly doubt it's much of a pleasure since the fates decided to hand you a short stick with emergency auto repair this evening but I appreciate the gesture. Now if you will let me finish locking up?" and gestured towards the door. He took a few steps towards the door and as he reached for the handle he turned back to her."Are you sure I can't escort you to your car? This isn't the best of neighborhoods." he offered.
"Don't worry, I am armed and highly dangerous at all times." she smiled sweetly, green eyes twinkling with mischief.
He scoffed then asked, "How's a tiny thing like you going to protect herself against a big guy like me?" In a lightening fast fluid movement she ducked and pulled a throwing knife with her right hand from a hidden brace at her ankle and with her left from a hidden brace at her waist and in less than a second they were quivering in the wood of the door just centimeters from his ears. He looked at the door and turned back to her decidedly pale and wide eyed and whispered, "You are full of surprises aren't you?"
She laughed and gave him her best mock innocent smile. "You don't know the half of it. Have a nice night." and shooed him out the door. Once he was gone she locked the door and leaned against it for a moment wondering what had possessed her to respond to his machismo so blatantly. She decided her reactions were from tiredness rather than the fact that he got under her skin both annoying her and attracting her but then again it had been a while since she had been in a relationship and maybe too much work and not enough real life was not such a good thing. She decided that she needed to take a vacation at the first possible moment to get her perspective back and to just rest up. She locked up the shop and got in her car and headed home but she could not stop thinking and re-thinking the encounter over and over.

[Cameraman Jenn]

When she got home she dropped her bag by the door and her keys in the dish on the table. She stretched tiredly in the entryway then went about her evening ritual of feeding the fish and changing into a pair of pajama pants and a tank top. She headed into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of red wine and plopped into the chair at the kitchen table and opened her laptop. She signed on and checked her email, mostly junk and mechanically filtered through it. Nothing too exciting, just a note from her Dad about how things were going on his farm in Virginia complete with the latest photos of his beagle. She smiled and made a mental note to respond to it tomorrow. She was having trouble concentrating, still mulling over whatever had possessed her to throw knives at that guy. She sat back and seriously thought it over in her mind and came to the conclusion that he had successfully unnerved her . She was used to being checked out by guys but not normally so blatantly and he had actually seemed to show a genuine interest. A lot of guys were a bit intimidated by her because of her vast knowledge of automotive which was a traditionally male field of work. They were also commonly intimidated by her independent nature and self composure. Perhaps his reactions scared her so she needed to scare him off. "I really am exhausted." she thought as she slowly sipped wine from her glass. "Maybe I should just close up shop for a week and get out of the city and figure out why I build such walls around myself." The idea intrigued her and so she started to surf the net for places to go and have a real vacation rather than just make plans to visit one of her family members. "I need someplace exotic. Something to explore and just simply do something for me for a change." Just thinking that made her feel newly invigorated. She soon got caught up in perusing travel sites on the internet. She looked at so many locations, so many vacation package specials but nothing seemed to be quite right until suddenly it seemed as though the room lit up and she knew that _______ was the place she must go. It was perfect with small beachfront cabins, beautiful vistas, scuba diving and it was cheap. Her scuba certification was expired so she quickly looked into renewing it at the local PADI store. She scheduled the renewal. It seemed as though this was meant to be, all the pieces falling in to place like a perfectly played game of tetris. In only four weeks she would be winging her way to paradise. Glancing at the clock as she refilled her wine glass she realized it was after two am. "OH CRAP! I am going to be exhausted again tomorrow." she mused but the epithet was half hearted as she thought about her upcoming vacation. She reluctantly closed the lid on the mac and eased herself out of the chair and headed to bed. She crawled into bed, snuggled deep in the covers and drifted off to patchy dreams of piercing blue eyes and confidant machismo of which she had no recollection upon awakening.

[Cameraman Jenn]

She crawled out of her warm cozy covers and went to do her usual coffee assembly and mental steeling to face the day. She found herself smiling instead, feeling vaguely dreamy and wondering with amusement how badly Jorge would react when she told him he was going to run the shop for ten days. Instead of this giving her a new source of stress, she laughed out loud at his imagined reaction. She finished grinding the ice and added the half and half to her morning dose of iced coffee and took it out on the back balcony with a cigarette grabbing a sweater she kept by the porch door on the way. It was cold and foggy, a typical San Francisco Sunset District morning. Sounds amplified in the fog so she listened to the resident dominant male crow she had named Jake greet his mates and announce the day while the faint susurations of nearby ocean waves leant a pleasant white noise in counterbalance. "I'm going to have to buy a whole new wardrobe for this trip." she realized as she took a deep drag on the cigarette. "Let's see, I have a bikini, snorkel, towels, tank tops, but wait all those tank tops are pajamas, I'll need all manner of summer clothes. Hmm, might have to make a shopping day date with Julie." This thought made her realize that this decision was even more perfect than she had realized, another tetris piece falling perfectly in place. She hadn't seen her best friend Julie in a few weeks and that was brief, a quick brunch on a Sunday in a group. Not the good bit of quality time she needed to catch up with Julie and let Julie catch up with what was going on with herself. She continued thinking about the upcoming trip until the cigarette was spent. She stubbed the butt out in the ashtray and headed in to the computer to email Julie about potential shopping day dates. Julie was a first class shopper with amazing taste and an eye for style and colors. The thought of asking Julie to help her pick out an entire wardrobe for a special trip made her grin, knowing the excitement and enthusiasm Julie would express when given a project of this magnitude. She fired off the email and headed for the shower still grinning. She turned the water on nice and hot and stripped down. She slowly stepped in to the shower letting her recently fog cooled skin adjust to the steaming temperature. She leaned her face into the water letting the piping hot pellets splash over her skin sloughing off the last vestiges of sleepiness. She stood motionless under the water for a few moments just reveling in the feel of the hot hot droplets scour her body of the previous day's sweat and grime. She realized that the decision to take a vacation had done more for her than she realized. She took her washcloth and her favorite lemony soap and lathered up slowly scrubbing her skin while imagining the feel of the surf and salt water and sun on her body soon to come.