Road Service

"Nah, I'm guessing you're probably too much of a lady for that," Kaylee offered, an even broader grin now on her face, "We could've done it in the cab of my truck."

Tracy wasn't sure if Kaylee was serious or not, but she found herself glancing in the direction of the wrecker and wondering if there really was that much room in the front seats.

"Well, would you look at the time?" Kaylee abruptly said, changing the subject again as she lifted an arm and exposed her watch. "This might be the start of a new day for you, but it's the end of a very long one for me. I really need to get home and take a shower."

From out of the blue, a curiosity of what that might look like flashed unbidden through Tracy's mind. It was all she could do not to react to it, or at least try not to.

'Where the hell did that come from?' she asked herself.

If Kaylee had noticed anything, she didn't comment on it. Instead, she suggested that Tracy start up the car, just to make sure that there weren't any other problems. She did so and, after letting the engine run a bit, she turned it off and got back out of the car.

"Okay, it looks like you're all ready to go," Kaylee noted.

"I'm really grateful for your help," Tracy again said, feeling almost sorry to have the unanticipated encounter end, "and I still wish you'd let me ..."

"You know, I might be willing to settle for a kiss," Kaylee interjected, letting the suggestion hang out there for a long moment before drawing it back, joking that if she couldn't have the main entrée, why bother with an appetizer?"

Tracy wasn't sure she felt relieved or disappointed that the offer had been withdrawn. She kissed girls before, but those had been chaste exchanges of friendship. What would it be like, she sometimes wondered, to kiss another girl for real?

But the moment, and what it might have held, passed as Kaylee picked up the last of her gear and loaded it onto the back of her truck. Then she opened the door of the cab and was about to climb up inside when she paused and turned back to face Tracy.

"I'll tell you what," Kaylee said. "If you ever find yourself over Clayton way on a Friday night, I can usually be found at Lady Jane's, that's just off the exit on Route 4. Stop in and you can buy me a drink. Until then, let's just chalk this all up to a belated expression of school spirit. Go Mermaids and all that."

"Thank you, I appreciate it," Tracy said, the sincerity in her tone real.

"Until then, try and go a little easier on the gas pedal," she said. "You're much too pretty to wind up as just another highway statistic."

As the redhead climbed up into the cab, Tracy heard Kaylee say something to herself that she was sure wasn't to be overheard.

"Damn, that could've been fun," she'd said softly.

Then, with no further fanfare, Kaylee started her engine and was on her way, leaving Tracy watching until the wrecker faded in the distance.

-=-=-=-

Although it had seemed much longer, Tracy's encounter with Kaylee had only lasted about twenty minutes. Two hours later, long after she had returned home, she still couldn't get the lively redhead out of her thoughts. There was something about her that Tracy found fascinating. Try as she could, though, she couldn't find the words to say why that was.

She was still trying later that afternoon when Caroline and Vanessa stopped off on their way home from the shopping excursion, both to check on her and to show off what they'd bought. Over a shared glass of wine, Tracy shared a carefully edited version of the accident and her rescue, leaving out both the fact that she'd been speeding, and that the tow truck driver had been a gay woman.

"Thank God you weren't hurt," Caroline had said once the story was done.

"It was just a flat tire," Tracy insisted. "Let's not make too much of it."

Vanessa had a different view of the episode.

"Was the tire guy at least cute?" she'd asked.

"I didn't notice," Tracy replied.

"Oh, like I believe that," Vanessa laughed, then caught Tracy off guard as she asked what color hair he had.

"Red," she replied without thinking.

Vanessa quickly tossed out a volley of further questions, all of which Tracy tried to reply to without really saying much.

"Did you at least get his name?" Vanessa asked, certain that Tracy was not being as truthful as she might.

"His coveralls had K.C., or C.C., or something like that," Tracy said, again cautious with her answer. "I really didn't pay that much attention to it."

"Well, for someone who wasn't paying that much attention," Vanessa pointed out, "you do seem to have noticed a lot more than you think."

"Not intentionally," Tracy said. "Besides, he was just a kid, couldn't have been more than twenty-two. What would I ..."

"What would you do with a twenty-two-year-old?" Vanessa said, completing answering the question for her. "Honey, I can think of a lot of things."

"Vanessa, you're awful," Caroline cut in.

"So says the only one of us who's getting laid on a regular basis," Vanessa retorted in a flippant tone. "Honey, those of us that don't have a warm body next to them every night have to take our jollies where we can."

It was common knowledge, even if it wasn't often said out loud, that Vanessa seemed to take a lot of them. Also, despite her protestation, the ebony skinned woman preferred the single life and happily traded a lesser frequency for a larger variety of partners. Marriage was fine for her friends, well, for Caroline at least, but not for her. Since Tracy's divorce, Vanessa had been encouraging her to get out of her comfort zone and have some fun, but, to her disappointment, the brunette still insisted on going out with dullards like Morgan.

-=-=-=-

A few weeks passed and the events of that Sunday morning receded into memory. Tracy finally told Morgan that it wasn't working out, which, she realized in hindsight, would have been a lot easier to convince him of before she'd taken his cock in her mouth. Evidently, that had been his first blow job.

Her job at the Tri-County Mall began to occupy more of her time, especially after one of her co-workers went on maternity leave, requiring Tracy to put in extra hours. Which she really didn't mind because she could use the money, even if it meant that on most nights she didn't leave the store until after seven.

A plus side to the later hour was that it helped her avoid rush hour traffic, usually resulting in a much shorter ride home. Tonight, however, that wasn't the case. A jackknifed tractor trailer had shut down two lanes of the Interstate, forcing her to take the much narrower county road home instead. A change that had already added an hour to her trip.

"Looks like no 'Dynasty' for me tonight," Tracy said to the empty air as the brake lights on the car in front of her again came on.

The late-night soap drama was a summer rerun, but she had missed this particular episode when it had first run earlier in the season. One of these days, she really should invest in a VCR, she reminded herself, especially since they'd come down so much in price the last few years.

The thought of money also reminded her of the phone call she'd gotten from her ex-husband this afternoon, telling her that this month's alimony check was going to be late, adding to her aggravation. The new Mrs. Monroe, it seems, had insisted they take a trip to visit her family out in California last month, and it had left him a little short.

'It's not fuckin' fair,' Tracy thought, as she compared her lack of a sex life with the fact that Jack had already remarried.

True, he had been sleeping with Connie before the divorce, but it wasn't fair that he had that twenty-something bimbo riding his cock every night while she'd only been laid twice in the last year.

"Come on, already," she yelled, as again the lights ahead flashed red. Two hours since she left work and she had barely reached the Clayton exit.

She resisted the urge to use her horn, unlike many of her fellow equally stranded commuters. All that would do, she realized, was make her even more infuriated. The best thing to do, she told herself, was to just accept the fact that she wasn't going anywhere.

That was just as true five minutes later as, inching her way beneath the overhead exit sign, Tracy noticed a small billboard alongside the opposite roadway. It had just been a flash out of the corner of her eye, but enough to make her turn her head to take a second look.

"No way!" she exclaimed as she read it a second time.

Made of cheap wood, and badly in need of repainting, the small five by three board read -- Lady Jane's -- 2 miles, along with an arrow pointing down the adjacent dirt road.

Captivated by the sign, Tracy didn't notice when traffic began to move again, at least not until the driver behind her brought it to her attention with a blaring of his horn. Shifting her foot from the brake pedal to the gas, Tracy closed the distance between her and the car in front of her, covering a whole twenty feet before she again had to stop. Glancing in her side view mirror, she could see that the sign carried the same message on both sides.

After a few more stop and gos, the sign faded from view but not her thoughts, as Tracy found her curiosity rekindled. She wondered what the place might be like, asking herself if she had the nerve to find out. Then, as a space unexpectedly opened in the lane to her right, she hit the gas and maneuvered into it.

'It's got to be more interesting than sitting here in traffic for another hour,' she thought as she again hit the turn signal and veered into the exit lane.

It took another twenty minutes to reach the next exit, where she used the overpass to cross over to the opposite side of the road. Westbound traffic was practically non-existent, and it took less than two minutes to double-back to where the sign stood. There, she again exited the roadway, turning down the drive the arrow on the battered sign had indicated.

There were few buildings along the narrow road, which made it seem like a lot longer than two miles. Tracy began to wonder if she'd missed a turnoff or something when another sign, in much the same condition as the first, suddenly appeared on her right. One that again had the bar's name with an arrow beneath it, along with the notation that additional parking could be found in the rear.

There was a large tree just behind the sign that had prevented Tracy from seeing the two-story tavern until she was past it. As she slowed down to take a look at it, she saw that, much like the road markers, the decades old structure was badly in need of a fresh coat of paint and not a few repairs on the shingled walls and roof. There appeared to be about ten parking spots in front, but only three were occupied.

"Doesn't look very popular," Tracy said to herself, "but I've come this far."

Since it was easier to continue onward to the rear parking area than double back to one of the empty spaces in front, Tracy did just that. The rear lot wasn't very well lit, the only illumination coming from a few spotlights on the back of the building. Still, even in the encroaching dimness, Tracy could see that her initial assumption about the place had been very wrong.

Spread out across a wide grass covered field were more than forty vehicles, a mix of cars, vans, trucks and even a few motorcycles. Even if each had only carried a single occupant, it translated into a respectable number of patrons, especially for a bar so far out in the boonies.

"Okay, I was wrong, clearly it is quite popular," Tracy quipped as she looked for a decent parking spot, finally finding one in the next to last row.

As she walked the distance from her car to the back door, Tracy noticed that not all the cars she passed were empty. More than a couple were occupied by shadowy figures doing God knows what. In one car, parked close enough to the lights for the interior to be visible, the brunette was shocked to see a woman inside was partially naked.

"Well, it is Friday night," she said to herself in a very low voice.

Leaving the woman and her date to their revels, Tracy continued to the back door of the bar, there to pause and ask herself one last time if she really wanted to do this?

'Like I said, I've come this far,' she reminded herself.

Taking a last deep breath, she climbed the three steps leading up to the door and stepped inside.

-=-=-=-

The bar was as full as the host of cars out back suggested, but once she was inside that proved to be the only expectation that proved true. Considering the condition of the building exterior, Tracy expected the interior to be similarly distressed. Yet it didn't take more than a quick glance around her to see that the opposite was the case. Clean and well kept, the tavern only slightly showed its age.

More surprising, however, was the clientele that both lined the long bar along the side wall and populated the large dance floor. They were certainly not what she'd expected when she decided to check the place out. There were as many if not more men than women.

'So much for the notion that this was some sort of lesbian bar,' Tracy thought as she stepped further in, taking a longer look at the crowd around her.

While there were some women sitting together at a few of the tables, as well as a few girls dancing together, their number didn't exceed any other bar Tracy had been to. Most couples seemed to be men with women. An observation reinforced when she glanced into the back room, which held a couple of pool tables and a dart board.

'This place reminds me of the bar my dad and uncles used to go to," Tracy concluded, slightly disappointed not to have stumbled across a secret 'den of iniquity'.

Deciding that, even if the place turned out not to be what she envisioned, she might as well have a drink, Tracy headed for the bar. As she moved through the crowd, she noted the dress among the patrons varied as much as their ages, which made her feel less self-conscious in her short-sleeved pink and white print dress.

Slipping in between two men earnestly trying to strike up conversations with women adjacent to each, Tracy gained the attention of one of the bartenders, a tall, thirty-something Black woman wearing a peasant blouse and jeans. As she ordered a beer, Tracy noted that the other two people behind the bar were also women. One was a short rounded fiftyish blonde, in a corduroy dress, who was filling a beer mug from the tap. The other, down at the far end, was a dark-haired Hispanic girl who looked barely out of her teens, wearing just a bikini top and shorts.

'Something for everyone,' Tracy mused as the well-endowed barkeep quickly filled her order.

Sipping her drink, Tracy looked out into the crowd, wondering if Kaylee might be somewhere in it. She'd managed to somehow avoid that thought as she made her decision to check the bar out, but now the question seemed unavoidable. Still, with the number of patrons filling the floor, it seemed doubtful that she'd be able to find her. That was if she cared to look.

By the time she had finished her drink, Tracy figured she'd done her due diligence and if she had happened to run into Kaylee, she'd certainly would've bought her that drink she owed her. But she hadn't, and it was time to get back on the road. Hopefully the traffic had begun to clear by now and she'd be home soon.

"Can I get you anything else?" the bartender asked, noticing that Tracy's glass was now empty.

Tracy was about to say that she was fine, but instead unexpectedly heard herself ask if the bartender knew Kaylee.

A confused look filled the taller woman's face; she couldn't really hear Tracy over the din of the bar. The brunette started to repeat herself, then decided against it, offering her intended reply instead, adding a hand motion to it to make it clear.

The bartender acknowledged Tracy with a nod of her head, then moved off to attend to another patron's needs. Leaving the few coins that had been her change on the counter, Tracy backed away from the bar and started for the door.

Or at least she tried to, as the number of people between her and the exit seemed to have grown considerably. The press of bodies against her should have caused her concern, yet the opposite proved true. It actually made her feel both warm and a bit excited, taking her back to more youthful days when bars were more part of her life.

'Now you're making yourself feel old,' Tracy chided herself as she pressed on toward the exit.

The crowd shifted enough for her to spot a more or less clear path to the door, causing her to rush forward before it could close again. Then, just before she reached it, the outer door again swung open and another group of revelers entered the bar, one of whom nearly collided with her.

"Excuse me," Tracy said out of reflex as, without turning her head, she tried to pivot around the new arrival.

"Hell's bells and cockle shells," the woman Tracy had narrowly avoided unexpectedly said in an unladylike tone, "I can't fuckin' believe you actually came here!"

Tracy was more taken back by the force of the woman's exclamation than the obscure phrasing, causing her to pause and turn to take a better look at her.

The short haired redhead wore tight black jeans and boots, along with a white vest with nothing beneath it. A barely-there top that did more to highlight a small set of breasts than to conceal them.

"Kaylee?" Tracy asked with uncertainty.

A warm smile answered her question.

"My God, I almost didn't even recognize you," Tracy added.

The expression on Kaylee's face didn't reflect an appreciation of that remark.

"I mean, you look incredible," Tracy quickly substituted. "I mean, the last time I saw you..."

"I do clean up pretty nice, don't I?" the smaller woman laughed, now seeming to toss aside any dissatisfaction.

"You certainly do," Tracy offered.

"What are you doing here?" Kaylee asked.

Before Tracy could answer, the people Kaylee had come in with drew attention to the fact that they were blocking the entranceway and that others were trying to come in behind them.

"Why don't you guys go ahead, I'll catch up with you later," Kaylee said in response.

As they did, Kaylee took Tracy by the arm and pulled her off to the side, into an empty space along the far wall.

"What are you doing here?" she repeated.

"Well, I happened to be passing by and..." Tracy started to say, but then paused as she realized that, while true, that sounded pretty lame.

She started over, explaining that the accident on the Interstate had forced her to take the country road and how, after being stuck there as well, she'd spotted the billboard for the bar.

"I guess I was curious about what it might be like and thought I'd take a look," she concluded.

"Curious about this place?" Kaylee asked, skepticism in her voice.

"Well, to be honest," Tracy said in a tone that grew lower until it was almost a whisper, "I actually thought it was a lesbian bar."

"If only," Kaylee said wistfully, her own voice growing in volume. "Whatever gave you a cockamamie idea like that?"

"Well, the name for one thing," Tracy replied.

"What about it?" Kaylee asked.

"You don't know?" Tracy asked.

"Know what?" Kaylee said, a perplexed expression on her face.

"Lady Jane," Tracy said. "That was what some women called their vagina back in Victorian times. In fact, I've heard that there's a notorious n infamous lesbian club called that just outside London. It dates back to the late eighteen hundreds."

"I don't know about Victorian times," Kaylee said, "but the original owner of the bar named it after his wife, Jane O'Connor. He always called her his lady."

It never occurred to Tracy that the bar's name might have a much more innocuous origin.