A Pair of Lost Socks

"Yvonne," Ian acknowledged her with a nod, then to Max he said, "Good God, man, don't you own anything more than a t-shirt? It's five degrees out there, don't you feel the cold?"

Yvonne chuckled and Max smiled, "Five degrees? Thought it was at least six or seven."

Ian grunted, then turned to Yvonne, saying, "Travel restrictions get lifted for five seconds and all these people pour into our town."

"They've come to see you, Ian," Yvonne said with a smile. "Despite your best efforts to the contrary, they heard what a friendly bloke you are."

"Well they better not think of shopping, because they won't find much," Ian said, pointing to the semi-bare shelves. He grunted and shook his head. "They should send a semi-trailer or two up to restock us."

"Not everything's in short supply," Yvonne said, picking a bottle from the shelf, and then she held it up to Max and said, "Hey, lover, I've noticed it takes me a bit to get worked up these days, so maybe we should try a bottle of this when we need to speed things up?"

"Biggest one you can find, Vonnie," Max said with a grin, and Ian grunted again, giving them one last disapproving stare before moving away.

Yvonne, still holding the bottle of sex lube, raised her eyebrows and said, "I was being serious, what's got into him?"

Max laughed. "He should buy a truck-load of the stuff and cover himself with it if that's the effect holding a bottle up has on people, scaring them off."

"I think the poor man is in desperate need of a good fuck, to be perfectly honest. It'd help him lighten up."

"But who'd help him out?"

"Beats me..."

"Nah, he'll have to beat his own meat."

They laughed some more, finished their shopping and drove back to Yvonne's. The leaves of the eucalypts about the cottage glistened in the sun, while the elms nearby were completely bare now, and Max naturally looked to the shed.

Despite Yvonne's offers for him to move into the house with her, he continued to sleep in the shed because as much as they were enjoying sharing a bed again, the cottage was quite small with thin walls. Parked in front of the shed was a sun-faded blue VT Commodore station wagon with a long silver flat-top trailer hitched to the towbar.

"I knew it was your brother bringing Tim up!" Max said. "What's with the trailer though? Is he picking up your ride on mower or something?"

"Don't know," Yvonne said with a shrug.

King came bounding around the house to greet them, followed by Patrick Bell, Yvonne's brother. Max smiled, "G'day, cobber!"

"Maxie!" Pat said, grinning, the men gripping hands fiercely, despite the government health advice not to shake hands, Pat slapping Max's shoulder too. Now, Max's knowledge of genetics was extremely limited, but he'd always marvelled how Yvonne was a tall lithe beauty, while her brother was a giant beast of a man. Pat stood a couple inches taller than his own six-two height, and was broad too, with arms like tree trunks, and his hair was red-brown, matching his ruddy complexion, maintaining its colour as if by magic despite his age, though now thin and falling at the edges of his otherwise smoothly bald head. His brother-in-law was an intimidating sight to many, especially to young Max Coughlan the day he'd first driven up the coast to see Yvonne. However, they'd quickly found common ground in football, both staunch supporters of the Hawthorn Hawks football club, and even after Max and Yvonne's separation they'd remained mates of sorts. Still, they hadn't spoken in at least a year. Still grinning, Pat said, "You're looking great, cobber."

"You still look scary as hell, but ya don't look half bad either," Max said. "How ya goin', anyway, alright?"

"Can't complain, cobber, can't complain. How 'bout yerself?"

"Fantastic." Max grinned some more, saying, "Speaking of looking fantastic, here she is!"

Pat's wife, Joan, a big woman now with dyed black hair and hazel eyes, joined them, smiling, saying to Max, "We heard there was a miracle going on up this way and needed to come see it for ourselves! And here you are, looking handsome as ever!"

"Settle down, Arckie," Pat said, using his wife's nickname, "Max doesn't look all that handsome. Not compared to me, anyway."

They all laughed, then Pat carried all the shopping into the house, the others walked to the back deck where Heather and Tim were sitting in the sun, fighting off the chill of winter. Max grinned and said, "Look who's here, the big fella himself!"

"G'day, Max!" Tim said, and Max held his hand out and Tim hesitated, then said, "Ah, bugger these handshake restrictions," and shook his hand.

"Yeah, won't be doing those fist bumps they reckon we should do," Max laughed.

Pat fired up the barbeque, and Max joined him, soon the smell of cooking meat and onions filled the air, and they ate out on the deck, the sun warming their bones. There was talk of Heather and Tim's baby, and the virus of course, especially life under the recent restrictions, and more importantly, the effect on the AFL season which was to resume soon with reduced numbers of games and limited spectators.

After dessert of cheesecake, Pat said to Max, "Yvonne's said ya still can't sit still for a second or two, so we brought a little somethin' for ya to keep ya occupied and out of Vonnie's hair."

Max raised his eyebrow and asked, "Does it have anything to do with the trailer you've hitched to the Commodore?"

Heather and Tim smiled at each other, standing and taking one another's hands, and then Heather said, "Come for a wander with us and we'll show you."

"Okay..." He followed, then so did Yvonne, her arm slipping through his, and Pat and Joan followed too, King rushing past them, past the Commodore station wagon to the shed.

Heather turned to her father and said, "Close your eyes," and Tim disappeared through the little door beside the roller doors, and Max closed his eyes, listening to the screech of the chain hauling one of the roller doors open. "Open them, Dad."

And there She was, yellow and black and beautiful, smiling out at him from where She sat on the concrete slab in the shed, sun glinting off Her headlights.

Max almost fell over, and Yvonne steadied him and said, "Everything alright, my darling?"

"I'm...I'm...speechless." He couldn't wipe the grin from his face and walked over, taking Her in, caressing Her bonnet.

They gathered around him and Pat said, "Heather gave me a call a few months back. She said your brother was threatening to sell Her so we hatched a plan. When they announced the lifting of restrictions the other day, Heather organised it with your Mum, and Tim took one of them corona tests where they stuck a thing up his nose to tickle his brain, and he was given the all clear, so we drove down to yer Mum's yesterday."

Max felt the prickle of tears at his eye. He was a man who grew up surrounded by tough men who often told him his father was one of the toughest of the lot, enduring the worst human-kind could throw at him, and though his father never once told him men shouldn't cry, he'd once witnessed his father cry on ANZAC day, after visits by old army mates. He'd cried alone in the old shed where he thought no one could see him, where young Max heard his sobbing and peeked through a gap in the timbers. But other men and their sons said crying was weakness, and Max grew tough even when he felt emotions, where he tried to bottle up tears when he'd lost his own son, at a time when his entire life felt it was falling apart in every way imaginable. He'd struggled for years, but despite the hard society he'd grown up in, the emotion came easily now, and he wasn't ashamed to admit it, letting tears flow free, because he felt the love of his family, knowing he'd always been soft in his heart where society told him he must be hard.

"I...I'm still speechless," he said, raising his hand to wipe the tears. "Dunno what to say."

"Rebuild Her, cobber," Pat said. "She's in great nick, so won't take you much."

Yvonne, her arm still linked through Max's, said, "You can order parts online. The internet. I'll show you how. We can have smaller things sent to the post office, or bigger one's couriered here."

"This is incredible," he whispered, running his hand lovingly up Her A-pillar and across the passenger-side roof. "You're the best, Vonnie."

"This will be good for you, Max. You won't be as fidgety, looking for things to do all the time. Keep you out of my hair too, so it's good for me too!"

They all laughed, then Max said, "What about your pottery?"

"There's room in this shed for both of us, Max."

He leant in and kissed her hair, whispering, "I love you, Von, I really do."

She smiled, and so did Heather, watching them, seeing her mother and father happy with the first car she'd grown up with till she was about twelve, before they'd bought the Commodore station wagon too. Max grinned at Heather, who stood with Tim at her side, arm around her waist, and it was Tim who spoke up. "Take a look up the back wall over there."

Max looked where Tim gestured, and there were a number of red metal tool storage boxes with lockable drawers at the front. "My tools..."

He'd once wanted to sell them, to use the money for alcohol, cigarettes and other drugs. But Ryan took his tools and Heather hid them. "No way," she'd once said, "No way are you going to sell your tool kits to buy cigarettes and beer and God only knows what else, all because you can't use your friggin' leg. You still have hands and can still use a socket wrench!"

At the time he'd become angry, because these tools were worth a small fortune, and he'd wanted the small fortune to deaden the pain, knowing he'd never work commercially as a mechanic again, but now he was glad his children saved them, because his tools were excellent quality.

"It was a team effort, Dad," Heather said, smiling.

"You've made an old man cry," he said, wiping his hand over Her ducktail spoiler with a smile on his face.

"You're still in your fifties, Max," Yvonne whispered. "Not old yet."

"That makes two of us who aren't old," he said, grinning. "I'll need a notepad and pen."

"Later, when everyone's left."

"Oh, by the way, Max," Pat said, handing over what appeared to be a sticker, "We got you this, to put on the back window."

Max looked at the sticker in his hand, reading, Hawks in bold brown writing on a golden background, with the brown Hawthorn Hawk head displayed underneath.

"Perfect," Max smiled. "This'll make Her a million times better!"

Later in the afternoon Heather and Tim said their goodbyes, and King jumped into the Impreza with them. Pat and Joan followed them down the drive in the Commodore towing the empty trailer, and suddenly Max and Yvonne were alone in the shed.

"I'll fetch you a pad and pen," she said, heading to the cottage.

The sunlight was barely a wedge-shaped sliver across the concrete floor and grill and head-lights of the Torana, filtered through the bare branches of elms near the house, and Max hobbled around the driver's side, opened the creaky door, reached down and pulled the bonnet release, the mechanism giving a satisfying click. He walked around Her, running his fingers in the gap where the bonnet now rested slightly ajar from the front panels, stopping in the centre of the grill, lifting the lever, then lifting the entire bonnet lid, uncovering Her V8 heart.

"Hello, gorgeous," he whispered.

"Hi, Max," it purred back. "What took you so long?"

He turned and there was Yvonne, laughing.

"Sneaky," he said, grinning. She kept laughing and offered a pad and pen. "Thanks, my love. Gonna take a bit of work."

"Doesn't look to bad," she said, running her finger in the dust coating the black air filter, centre-top between red rocker covers, tracing the large numerals and letters, declaring 5.0 Litre. She then drew a love-heart in the dust. "Pat reckons She's still in real good condition and you shouldn't have to buy many big items, just lots of little ones."

"Yeah, it'll take me a while to inventory everything." He ran his fingers over the radiator hose, squeezing, testing its integrity, firmly tugging and checking the clamps, checking the heater hose too. "These'll need replacing. I'll have ta get an engine hoist and pull the donk out for a full recondition."

"Plenty of time, Max. Plenty of time."

"It's gonna cost money. I don't have much..."

"You've got a bit. Heather told me how she was forcing you to put your old cigarette and beer money into a bank account. And I have a bit too."

"I can't ask you for..."

"Max, we're married, whether you like it or not," she said, giving him a nudge. "Even if we've been separated for years, I'd have stayed if you'd not acted like such a mopey bastard. But you worked your guts out for over twenty years for us, and even if we never owned a whole lot, we always had enough. And now it's time to reap the rewards."

"We did it together back then," he said. "We were a team and you earned our extra cash doing the admin job down at the zinc-smelter. I can't contribute much here."

Yvonne smiled and winked. "Maybe we can work something out. Like, you can pay me in other ways."

Max grinned and held out his hand. "Oh, I get it, we can work out a little transaction."

She took his hand and smiled, looking into his eyes. "Sure, a transaction, if it's what you want to call it. You've already earned your keep cutting fire wood, so now, what else can we find you to do?"

"Hmmm, I'm plenty handy in many ways."

"Oh, I'm sure you are, I've heard rumours."

He began leading her towards the door of the bedroom on the side of the shed. "Step into my office and we'll work something out."

"Oh, no," she said, gently pulling her hand from him. "I was meaning work. Since you already cut this and next winter's firewood, and made my new hydraulic log-splitter obsolete in the process, now maybe I'll have you cook for me every night."

Max laughed, heartily. "Meat and three veg, seven nights a week it is then!"

"You're a man who likes his meat." She cupped his crotch, looked him in the eye and whispered, "And I've only ever liked prime meat from one particular beast."

"We could test the suspension, like we used to in the very early days."

"What," she said, shaking her head slightly, "You want me to join you in the back seat like all the other girls you took back there?"

"They meant nothing to me."

"Nothing...really?" she said, eyebrows raised, and she released his crotch. "The nurse, the teacher from the kid's school, several girls down the footy club...including Bev..."

Surprised, he said, "How do you know about Bev?"

"I didn't, but you literally just gave it away," she said. "I always suspected it."

"Bev and all those other girls were from before I met you. You're the only one I've wanted since the day you slipped your phone number under the wiper right there, and you're the only one I've ever wanted since."

"I know." Yvonne smiled and took his hand, leading him towards the rear of the Torana, opening the door and climbing in, then wriggled across the bench seat. "Pat and Tim said it wasn't as dusty as expected but they ran the vacuum around in here anyway."

He climbed in next to her, and for a moment they both sat there, side-by-side in the back of Her, silent, aware of one another. Aware of their history and their history together with this car.

"I remember our first time," she whispered. "Our fifth date, up the coast near Swansea. You were showing off by swimming in the freezing ocean, but I only went in up to my knees before running up the beach, and you teased me about it."

"You'd never think you're from a family of fishermen, the water was perfectly fine!"

"When you walked back up the beach, I'm pretty sure you were shivering."

"You said I looked like a God rising from the ocean."

"Oh, I did not!" she said, gently whacking his arm with the back of her hand.

"I'm pretty sure that's when you first called me the vitru-man."

"Vitruvian man," she corrected him. "Yes. I should never have mentioned it, because it appears you still have a whole bunch of tickets on yourself!"

Max chuckled. "I remember, because you looked so damn beautiful, trying to get warm, struggling to change back into your clothes in this here backseat, your legs hanging out the door."

"You laughed at me."

"You told me if I didn't stop laughing it was gonna be our last date."

"And you laughed even more."

"You looked funny, wrestling with yer woollen jumper, which was inside out."

"You said I looked beautiful."

"You did and you do."

"But I looked funny too?"

"Always."

Yvonne chuckled. "You came and sat next to me, right where you're sitting now."

"You suddenly looked hungry..."

"I shocked myself, I'd never felt so horny..."

"So you..."

"I pounced!" She launched herself across the rear seat, holding him, their lips crashing together in a sudden passionate kiss. He returned her kiss with equal passion, opening their mouths, tongues joining in desperation.

Their kiss ended as abruptly as it began, Yvonne pulling her mouth from Max's, then she rested her head on his chest. He kissed the top of her head, his lips lingering against her hair, the scent of shampoo or some other product in his nose, replacing the musty smell of the Torana's interior.

"I love you, Von," he whispered, and she held him tighter.

After a short while she lifted her head, looking Max in the eye, and whispered, "I love you, Maxie," then kissed him again.

His hand found hers, and the other hand rested on her waist, their kisses gentle and long. Eventually she pulled her lips from his again, her eyes centimetres from his, big and green and staring into his soul, and her lips were slightly apart. He whispered, "You look hungry again."

Without a smile, she whispered back, "Hungry for meat..."

And then she kissed him again with voracious passion, their hands tearing at buttons and buckles, removing shirts and jeans. Max kissed Yvonne's neck, sucking at her skin, down her chest, over her breasts, teasing her nipples between his lips, tonguing them, all while she pushed his jeans down, gasping.

"My leg," he whispered, helping her remove his jeans. She was naked and lay back, running her fingers gently over his skin, down his chest and belly, lightly over his erection, around his cock head, down his shaft, a sweet pleasure tickle. Outstretched over the black back seat, Yvonne was longer than the Torana was wide, and her legs hung over the edge of the seat and out the open passenger door. Max kneeled on the edge as best he could, but he'd always struggled in the back seat, his own height and bulk confined. So now he stepped back, standing outside the vehicle, running his hands over Yvonne's long legs, caressing her thighs, brushing her recently shaved pussy.

"Keep those dirty mechanic hands off my privates," she whispered, but smiled across the cabin at him.

Max grinned and bent over, kissing her gently there, her labial lips swelling, some of her hair growing back as stubble and prickling his skin. She shifted, slightly raising her bottom, and he kissed her pussy again, gently running his tongue over her, lovingly, tasting her tang, and she gasped. Her clitoris was swollen, the button sensitive to the flat of his tongue, and he massaged her, licking, firm then soft, round and around, up and down, sucking her there too, and Yvonne responded, moving her bum up and mashing her cunt into Max's face, smearing her wetness, coating him. She gasped and moaned, her legs bent at the knee now, and he wrapped his arms around her thigh, eating her out, lapping her juice, pushing his tongue into her, feeling her smoothness, soaking in her wetness.