Car Trouble

"Where's Tess?" I was afraid of being caught. I thought about all our neighbors looking over to see her groping me in my garage (even though there was no way to see back into that part of it) or seeing her coming or if they saw her going.

"She'll be fine. Take me up to your bed. I need you to fuck me."

"I can't do that," I hissed. "That's my marital bed."

"I know. And if you want me to leave you alone, you'll gratify my wish. If we use my bed, it's because you want to be there. Because you want to make it our bed. If we use our bed, it's no longer a 'one-time thing' like you always say. So, what bed is it going to be? Yours or ours?"

"I don't want to cheat on Krista."

"She's gone. The boys are gone. Nobody is going to know. I know," she said, stroking my now firmly throbbing erection, "that you want it. It's only a matter of time before you give in to me. If you take me today, I'll leave you alone. Otherwise, you're just prolonging your agony until you give in to your own desire."

"I'll know I cheated..."

"You'll know you cheated, but you'll also know it's done with. Come on, big boy, Krista will never know."

I took her into the house and she led me upstairs to the bedroom I shared with my wife. She pulled the covers all the way off and inspected. The sheets were unmarred by any nighttime play. It was clear whose side was whose. She stepped around to Krista's side of the bed and began to disrobe.

Off came the black t-shirt to reveal a black lacy balconette bra (unnecessary in her case for more than hiding her pointy nipples). Off came the shoes. Down came the black joggers and then the black panties. Finally, off came the bra.

I was still fully clothed, but she didn't care. She climbed onto the bed.

"I'm not getting off the bed until you've had your way with me. If you don't want your wife to catch us, you'd better hurry up."

I took off my t-shirt and kicked off my tennies, feeling awkward as I pushed my pants down. I sat on my side of the bed and drew the pant legs off. I was wearing only boxers and white athletic socks. I turned towards Nathalie. For the first time, she smiled.

We embraced and I tentatively kissed her. Her tongue leapt out to press against mine. I closed my eyes and let the kiss wash over me. I could taste bubblegum on her breath. Her hand darted into my boxer fly and wrapped around me, as I was re-thickening under her tutelage. My temperature gauges jumped. She slid her cool fingers around my piston, measuring its bore and stroke. She squeezed it lightly and milked out a bit of moisture.

I swallowed hard. My breath came only in gulps. I shouldn't be here, shouldn't do this. This was what betrayal felt like. I wanted no part of it.

She pulled my boxers down and rolled me onto my back, before swinging a leg over and straddling me. I could feel the heat of her furry mound just inches from where she held my cock. Her body maneuvered and twisted to bring my tip into the merest contact with her sloppy lips.

"See how hard you are? You're right at my entrance. You can admit you want it."

"This is so wrong," I gasped. But I was pushing my rod up against her, in expectation.

"I can tell you want to get in there. See? But you have to admit you want it." She slipped the tip up and back twice, letting me feel her wetness. I could feel exactly where her hole was. She sat a fraction of an inch lower and let my purple head lodge right there. She took her hand away.

"Do. You. Want. To. Fuck?" I swallowed again. Did I? I didn't. I shouldn't. I tried to shake my head. She sat a fraction of an inch lower.

"Do you? Don't you want to give me this hard cock right here in your marital bed? Don't you want to shove that babymaker deep inside me? Tell me you want it, or you can't have it."

I was still fighting against going all the way. I didn't want to be a cheater. But I could feel her juices coating me, felt the tight clench of my balls, felt the stiffness in my loins that wanted to pierce her, doing what they were meant to do. I felt ashamed at wanting it. But I couldn't give in, could I?

"I know you want to connect your hoses to my oil pan and turn your socket wrench in my motor mount. Don't you want to feel my slick lubrication? The smooth ride of my suspension?" She bounced her body up and down to the word 'suspension' and my shock absorber took the jolt.

"Do you want me? I need to hear it." It struck me that I was more-or-less naked in bed with my neighbor. I had invited her into the house, and I had kissed her. I was already cheating on Krista. What are a few inches of suspension travel, one way or the other?

"Yeah." She sat all the way down, impaling herself.

"Mm. Good. I'm glad you worked that out." She flexed her back, letting me feel how deep I was inside her. And then she pulled herself up and off, rolling to the side. She seated herself facing away, with her feet on the floor, reaching down to find her clothes.

"What are you doing? I thought..." I started to protest. My mind was catching up with my body. Wasn't this what I wanted? Not to be a cheater? Not to consummate whatever this was?

"What did you think?" She was pulling on the sheer little bra.

"I thought you wanted me to fuck you." She was pulling on the t-shirt again. I grabbed her arm.

"I do. I want you to be a man, push me down on this bed, and make me yours. You man enough to do that for me?"

I hesitated. She was giving me an out. I could escape!

But the other thought I had was still echoing in my head. I'd already been inside her. What did a bit more matter now? I pulled her close and kissed her taunting lips. She didn't resist: she kissed back, our mouths open, tongues tangling. I pushed her back onto the bed and wormed my way over her right thigh. She brought her knees up and apart, spreading herself open before me. Her grey eyes looked expectantly up into mine.

I mounted her, holding myself up with my arms, but letting her feel the weight of my body on her hips, my speedster knocking on the door of her garage.

"I need to hear what you want from this."

"I want you to shove your cock into me and make me your woman. I'm a powerful chassis. I need an experienced driver to take me near the limit." She wrapped her legs around me. It took effort not to park myself inside her.

"What makes you think I need you for that? I have a woman. You're in her bed." I wiggled around, feeling my cock nudging up against the tighter ring of flesh inside her, where I had been just moments before.

"I need it. I fucking want you. Please?" I thought in that moment of repeating her performance of a few moments ago, pulling off, denying her. Telling her how I was Krista's man and she should find one of her own. But she put her hands on my ass and flexed her hips and drew me into her.

She was warm and tight.

I could feel the flex in my driveshaft, the pull of her love tunnel bending me downwards. The way I slotted perfectly against the opening of her cervix. We both gulped air. I shifted this way and that, marveling at the soft damp embrace. I was gripped firmly, yet gently.

"Oh! Oh, God. Fuck me," she whispered. I rocked forward and back. Once. Twice.

"Oh! You're doing it! Come on, baby. Fuck me!" Instincts and rhythms older than time took over. I accelerated.

"Yes... yes... I want to feel you shooting your cum up inside me. Mark me. Make me your woman," she begged. I drove into her faster, heedless of her pleasure, heedless of how reckless I was being. The finish line was coming up fast and, engine roaring, I flew past it. Several weeks' worth of pent-up frustration fired up my cylinder, burst through the head, and sprayed all over her garage floor. I cried out inarticulately as I pumped and twitched inside her. Her arms held me tenderly.

I rolled off of her and we laid, side-by-side, for a minute.

Then, she leaned over slightly and whispered in my ear, "Thank you, lover. Next time, we'll do it in our bed." And, with a giggle, she sat up and began putting on clothes.

"Next time?" I asked, recalling her promise to let me alone.

"You've taken the test drive--twice now, actually. You've taken the sports car to the redline and you think you'll be satisfied with a Camry? Next time, though, when you take me for a spin, it's for the pink slip. You'll be committing to me, babe."

And, with that, she pecked me on the cheek and headed for the door. But she had a last parting shot: patting her belly she remarked, "Maybe you shouldn't have thrown out those condoms, though."

I hastily got dressed, cleaned myself up, and remade the bed. Eventually I crept back downstairs and stood in the garage, staring at the Sprite. I went to the fridge and opened up one of the beers.

What had I done? Krista was a wonderful wife and mother, yet I had cheated--twice now!--with my neighbor. It wasn't as if I could blame her for it, either. She didn't have a gun or a knife or something. In the end, I had voluntarily thrown my rod in her engine block. Still, if she kept her promise, it was up to me now. Cross my fingers and hope she kept quiet about our little affair.

I drank both the dark beers and felt a little tipsy after. For once, I didn't feel like working on the car.

Krista came home and the neighbor dropped the boys off. Once again, life snapped back to normal. When we crawled into bed that night, Krista wanted to read her magazine and then, later, she turned out the light. When I reached for her in the dark, she sighed. We made a kind of perfunctory love and, when it was over, she got up and went to the bathroom to clean up.

The next three weeks were a kind of blur of normalcy. I threw myself into work, into the car, into playing with the boys. Krista seemed somehow remote and perhaps a bit moody. Sensing the need to talk, I arranged for a "Friday night off" for us. I stopped off to buy fresh flowers from a roadside stall I saw a lot on the way home, I got the boys to go to a friend's house for a sleepover, and I prepared her favorite dinner.

Krista came home a bit later than usual looking worn down. She smiled tiredly at the attention and the unexpected break from routine. The evening went okay and she perked up by bedtime a bit, but when we got in bed, she seemed unhappy.

"What's wrong, babe? What's going on?" I asked. She sighed, a deep exhale with gumby shoulders.

"I don't know," she started. After a hesitation, "do you ever think about having another child?"

"I thought you were happy with two boys?"

"I am. But... sometimes I want more. I see the neighbor's daughter..."

"Tess," I supplied.

"Yeah, Tess. I see her and sometimes I wish we had a little girl."

"We could try for one. No guarantees!"

"No. It's just a phase. Thanks for the nice evening, hon. G'night." And with that, she rolled over and went to sleep.

Saturday the forecast was thundershowers. Instead of car stuff, I puttered around the house. Krista made herself scarce, finally announcing that she was going to meet some friends. The boys weren't due home until the afternoon, so I was at loose ends.

No sooner had the garage closed and the minivan departed then the doorbell rang. It was Nathalie.

"Hey neighbor, I see the family is out."

"Hi Nathalie, what's up?"

"Tess and I were wondering if you wanted to come play house?"

"What would that entail?"

"Well! I think Tess will probably have a tea party and make you play with dolls for a while. And then mommy and daddy can go play cars for a while."

"I don't know," I said, trying not to sound crestfallen. Here I'd avoided her for weeks, tried to get Krista and I back on track, and here she was again. And there was that cold knife-thrust of fear too: did she mean anything by "mommy and daddy"?

"I thought you liked Tess?"

"I like her very much! I just don't know if we should be seeing each other... unless you have some kind of news to share with me." She laughed at that.

"No, you're safe there. Tess is a good chaperone. Why don't you come over? I won't put the moves on you--unless you want it?"

So, I went to her house. Tess did indeed have a tea party, this time with real tea. And we played with dolls: I got a stuffed squirrel named Pookie and Nathalie was a well-worn gray colored bear named Mr. Stuffins.

"Pookie and Mr. Stuffins should sit next to each other, because Mr. Stuffins is Pookie's boyfriend," Tess announced. We squiggled over to sit side-by-side at the tea table. Nathalie rested her hand on my thigh, and laughed (where had that musical laugh been hiding?) as she made Mr. Stuffins kiss Pookie... mwah... mwah... mwah.... Tess giggled. I laughed.

After a little while, Tess announced that she was tired, so Nathalie took her off for her nap.

"She probably won't nap that much, but she'll play in her room." Rain lashed the windows and we stared wistfully at the wet backyard. "You know, Mr. Stuffins and Pookie could have nap time too."

I let out an explosive snort. "I'm guessing Mr. Stuffins is not feeling like sleeping either."

"I think he needs to be stuffing Pookie with little buns. When do you have to go back?" I hadn't seen Nathalie vulnerable and a little hesitant before.

"The boys are at Jacob and Daniel's house; their mom will text me before. I don't really know what to expect." I glanced at my phone.

"I promised I wouldn't try to seduce you again, but I really want you to hold me down in our bed and make love to me right now," she said in a tiny voice. I didn't miss the "our" paired with "bed".

"You can't be missing me that much. We barely had a couple of quickies. How do you know I'm not a two-stroke engine with a faulty valve cover when what you really need is a Cummins turbo diesel?"

"I know we've been more drag race than enduro, but that's on me. I'm kind of infatuated with you. I know it doesn't make sense, the attraction I feel. It's, um, you know, at first sight. And I guess... I know what I'm doing is wrong. But I just want your greasy paws all over me." She had lain back down beside me and her hand was firmly between my thighs, not quite touching my crotch. My face felt hot, and I was dimly aware that I wanted her to reach that last half an inch. It was like I wanted the excuse to pin her down the way she wanted.

"You know, that's flattering... and super tempting." My phone buzzed. It was Jacob's mother, Angela, asking if the boys could stay another night.

"I should go. The boys are spending another night out. I need to take them some spare clothes and stuff." Both of us looked pained, but I made myself stand up somehow. "I'm glad you invited me. Mr. Stuffins had a lot of fun with Pookie."

I stomped back to the gloomy house to pack up more supplies for Aaron and Sam, then drove over to Jacob and Daniel's house in the Mazda. Seeing Aaron and Sam bouncing around with a bunch of other kids on a rainy day lifted my spirits. I spent awhile talking to Angela and her husband Tim before I went home. My insides were churning. Here I was being a normal, respectable, thoughtful husband and father. But part of me wanted the excitement, the thrill of illicit love.

When I got home, the house was still dark. My phone was quiet: nothing from Krista. I sat in my dumpy daily driver, watching the water sluice down the windshield for a minute. Glancing over at Nathalie and Tess's house, with the lights burning brightly made me ache for Mr. Stuffins and Pookie's nap time. Still, I knew I was making the right choices here. I got up and went inside to wait.

Krista dragged herself in around six, looking disheveled. She went and changed into her around-the-house clothes while I whipped up some leftovers for dinner. I didn't feel like making a romantic dinner, even though I thought that this was our opportunity to reconnect. With that thought in mind, I put in some extra effort to make the plate look nice and I pulled out a bottle of red wine.

She took one look at the dinner and the wine, and her face faltered. Then she smiled and we sat down. As I went to pull the cork on the wine, she said "None for me. The girls and I had some cocktails and I'm not feeling like it."

I put the bottle away. After dinner, we rented a romantic movie Krista had been wanting to see and held hands on the sofa. Then we went to bed. She turned away and went to sleep. I listened to the last traces of rain against the windows.

Sunday dawned clean and bright, the rain having washed the world clean and the sunshine making everything glisten. Krista slept in late, while I sipped coffee and read the news on my phone. Around nine I went to rescue Tim and Angela by picking up the boys. Everyone there looked like they'd had five minutes of sleep.

When I got home, Sam went upstairs to bed. Aaron wasn't tired, though.

"Hey, son, want to help me with the cars today?"

"Sure, dad! Can I?"

"Yep. We're going to change the oil in mommy's car." I pulled the Mazda out into the street, opened the garage, and pulled the Sprite out. That let me pull the minivan up on the ramps so I could easily get under it. I showed Aaron how to change the oil filter and let him drain the oil into the pan. He got up on a step ladder and poured in the new oil. We checked the belts and hoses. Then I backed the van down level in the drive, and I showed him how to read the dipstick. Then I cleaned him up and sent him to take a shower, before turning to putting the tools away.

Finally, I dragged out the shopvac and went to clean up the van's interior. I removed bits of trash and errant Cheerios, vacuumed the carpets, washed the windows. I was feeling ebullient: working with my son, maintaining Krista's car for her. Last night was a rough patch, but today was a new day.

I checked the glove box and made sure the registration, insurance and AAA cards were on top, just in case. The Toyota minvan has two glove boxes, though. The second one is more of an afterthought, but I peeked into it in case it needed tidying.

There were a number of things there, but three stood out: two condom packets and a white plastic oblong. It was a pregnancy test. A used pregnancy test. A positive used pregnancy test.

I sat there dumbfounded, staring at the little blue plus sign.

Keeping the test out, I closed the glove box.

I had cheated. I was no saint. But I had mended my ways. I could see, with the benefit of hindsight, how my inattention or actions or something might have led here. But I'd never thought that Krista...

I put the test down in the cupholder, where it couldn't be missed, and went into the house to get my phone. Krista was still abed. Aaron was playing cars in the backyard.

I went out to the Sprite and fired it up. The raspy little motor coughed a few times and came to life. I went through the familiar drill, nudging the choke, nursing the throttle, entirely on autopilot. My body was doing the work; my mind was numb.

I put down the handbrake and launched out, no destination in mind, letting the road take me. I drove by feel, aggressively pushing the little engine. Soon I was passing through fields and then into curvy roads in the hills. My phone buzzed a few times. I ignored it. The little car wasn't fast, but it dug into curves precisely. The narrow tires and sensitive steering required concentration to keep from slipping on roads still wet from the rain.

I crested the hill doing maybe forty. The black cow standing in the middle of the road got very wide eyed as I swerved to miss. I clipped her anyhow, the car spun, and I ended up nose down in the ditch.

I killed the engine and burst out crying, my fists pounding the steering wheel.

At least the cow appeared uninjured.

The Sprite, however, was resting with the rear wheels off the ground by an inch and steam rising from what a probably a pierced radiator. I retrieved my phone from the passenger footwell. I was beginning to feel sheepish about the whole thing.