Shoveled and Plowed

I cupped the warm mug of coffee in my hands as I gazed at the wintery landscape outside my window. Yesterday's snow forecast had called for "two to five inches"; this morning the local weatherman had admitted not only his earlier error, but his utter bewilderment at the overnight shifts in the atmosphere. Whatever had changed in the sky, the ground outside was covered in almost a foot of the white stuff.

Shivering as I watched the tapering flakes fall in the courtyard, I glanced down at my bare legs. I sipped my coffee, debating whether the chill outside would force me to put on pants. The hem of the white Henley that I'd slept in stopped halfway down my bum, permitting a sunny glimpse of my yellow thong. I opted to pour another cup of hot coffee and move away from the frosted window. Settling in at my computer on the dining room table, I started digging out from my usual pile of Tuesday morning emails.

On the table next to my laptop, my phone lit up with a series of messages. Without interrupting my typing, I shifted my eyes. On the phone screen, I found a sequence of texts from John. "Wow, crazy storm, huh?" "If I'd known, we could have gotten snowed in together, baby ;-)" "It's crazy! The whole city's shut down!" When my boyfriend sent rapid-fire texts like this, it typically meant he needed something. He also knew that I hated when he called me 'baby'. I tucked a lock of red hair behind my ear and turned back to my computer to finish my work task before replying to him.

"Yeah, it's wild how things changed overnight. Have you been outside yet? I'd be content not to put on pants til spring comes!" I answered, then returned to my work. A fat blob of grey flashed on the phone screen as his lengthy response arrived.

"Haha no-pants snow day sounds so good. Hey, I hate to ask, but if it's not too much trouble, can you clear the snow from my car?" I was right to anticipate the favor but was surprised by what that favor was. Shoveling my boyfriend's car out of a snowdrift didn't feel urgent in a city immobilized in the aftermath of a blizzard, never mind digging it out all by my small-girl-self. And it wasn't like he had a Maserati buried out there. I asked him how urgent this chore was.

John replied in a burst of messages. "As soon as you can please! I might not be able to get over there for days, and it's gonna thaw and refreeze, so when the ice compacts it could damage the paint and body." "Also, the snow needs to be cleared from the wheels and exhaust." "I mean, if we need it in an emergency, we might not have time to dig it out!" "Please?!" His texts were as pleading as they were exasperating. I didn't see how 'we' would need his car on short notice at present, since I didn't have a key and he was trapped on the other side of the snow-crippled city.

The street in front of John's was being repaved and parking near his place was a mess right now. So, I was letting him park his car in the spot outside my apartment for a couple of weeks. It made sense; I didn't even own a car at the moment. However, the prospect of leaving my warm den to shovel mountains of snow -- and, of course, putting on pants to do so -- was not a welcome one.

"I'll make it up to you, I promise!" John's follow up came quickly, likely sensing my reluctance. Sighing in acceptance of my inescapable chore, I confirmed to my boyfriend that I would take care of his precious car as soon as I cleared my email load. "You're the best!" He replied.

"Yeah, you don't need to tell me." I groaned aloud at my table, though I texted a smiley face in reply.

Half an hour later, with my inbox satisfied, I rose from the table and went to my bedroom to dress. I pulled on a pair of oversized grey sweatpants over my yellow lace panties and blindly grabbed the first pair of socks my fingers found in the drawer. With my feet covered, I tied on my duck boots from the back of my closet. Debating in front of my dresser for a long moment, I decided that a bra wouldn't be necessary if I layered a heavy winter coat over my waffle-knit base layer.

The fact that I even owned a snow shovel was due entirely to the prior tenant's neglecting to clean out the hall closet when moving. I'd also inherited crusty paint brushes, sheets of worn sandpaper, a rusted caulk gun, and half a tub of hardened spackle, all of which I'd thrown away. But the shovel I kept, if only because it wouldn't fit down the trash chute. Pulling on my yellow and black ski jacket and purple knit beanie topped with its big fuzzy pom, I clasped the shovel in one gloved hand, a scraper in the other, and headed out the door.

The walkway from the building to the street hadn't been shoveled yet, and I sank into the deep piles of snow until cold powder cascaded over the ankles of my boots. "Blergh!" I stuck my tongue out in the empty yard as I awkwardly-but-determinedly shoveled a path to the car. I reached the street and surveyed the line of identical snow mounds. My gloved hand carefully brushed a patch of snow off the front of one buried vehicle. The patch of familiar metallic blue of the hood of John's Toyota confirmed I had guessed right.

I quickly determined that the six-inch plastic scraper was not up to the task. Instead, I stretched on my tiptoes to sweep my arms along the roof of the car and windshield, dragging off armfuls of snow. As I clumsily worked, cold powder spilled into the wrists of my sleeves and bled down the neck of my jacket. The legs of my sweatpants rapidly darkened with melted snow. My sharpening nipples beneath my coat and dampened shirt tipped me off that wearing a bra would have, in fact, been wise. "Brrr! Let's get this shit over with!" I chattered to myself, recovering the shovel from the bottom of a drift beside the driver's door.

With the body of the car clean, I evaluated the piles of snow engulfing the body and wheels. In clearing the top of the car, I had added multiple inches (and, of course, pounds!) to the surrounding drifts. I scooped a shovelful of snow, and after a confused moment, piled it on the sidewalk at the nose of the car. Slowly, I cleared the driver's side, then dug out the back tires. As I inched forward on the far side, one aching shovelful at a time, boisterous voices jawed from further up the line of cars.

Hidden on the far side of John's car, I couldn't see the approaching group. I tried to count the voices as they trudged my way through the unplowed street. As I pushed another load towards the curb, I was pretty sure I could pick out five distinct male voices. The group stopped a few spots up from John's driver's side.

"Black Mercedes SUV. Looks like this is it." A man announced. It sounded like Dr. Fenton had hired contractors to dig his car out. 'I wonder if John knows there are options besides making your girlfriend freeze her tits off!' I grumbled silently.

"Yeah, that's the one. All right, fire it up!" A second voice announced, followed by the tripled scraping of three shovels moving snow. 'That's not gonna take any time at all!' I thought, wondering how much such a service would cost. I'd have to get their number from Dr. Fenton for any future storms; I knew John would pay me back if I didn't give him a choice.

My inner monologue was derailed by the rumbling of a small gas motor. "What the fuck is that?" I said aloud, pausing and craning my neck to see over John's car. As my face crested the top of the car, a flying stream of ice and slush, spewed from the team's snowblower, sprayed across John's roof, and splattered into the chest of my coat. My reflexes couldn't shield my face, as my protectively crossed arms blocked only a portion of the rushing snow from hitting my cheeks and chin.

"Hey!" I sputtered from behind my arms. Wet snow smacked my nose and brow. None of the men could hear me over the blower. "Hey! What the fuck, man?!" I called louder, but the roar of the machine still drowned me out. "Stop! You're hitting me in the face, shithead!" I bellowed, lowering my voice to try to undercut the high-pitched scream of the motor.

Slush splashed onto my purple knit cap and my exposed face below. My sweatpants sagged under their own drenched weight. More troublesome, a mass of thrown snow had rolled down the neck of my jacket and was rapidly soaking my already-damp shirt underneath. I couldn't see the driver's side but could only imagine how badly my work had been reversed by the machine operator's carelessness.

The snowblower abruptly shut off.

"Who called me a shithead?!" A heated voice approached from the other car. The other voices noised in juvenile anticipation of a fight. "Damn, Terrance is about to go off on some fool!" one of them gleefully chimed. My eyes narrowed into slits; I was cold, wet, and ready for a confrontation.

The hulking black man came around the rear of John's car. His scowl scanned the passenger side, ready to identify a target and pummel it. As he locked eyes on me, his fury shifted to confusion.

"Where'd the guy go?" He demanded while scanning the empty snowy street.

"What guy?" I responded. I set the shovel against the freshly snow-covered car and dug clumps of snow out of my jacket collar.

"You're telling me there wasn't a guy here yelling at me?"

"No, believe me, there hasn't been any guy shoveling this car today." I grumbled and brushed irritably at a the slushy streaks on my chest.

His confused stare softened to a mirthful grin. "So that was you yelling at me? It was you calling me a shithead?!" His eyebrows raised in a maintained edge of disbelief.

"I was yelling for you to stop blasting me -- not to mention the car I just finished clearing -- with snow and slush!" I indicated the roof of John's car and my dripping coat and hat.

"Oh shit, sorry! You're so short I didn't see you behind the car!" I wasn't sure how he thought calling me short made up for shooting snow into my face, but at last he'd apologized. He stepped forward until we were separated by only a few feet. His large form loomed over me. Standing next to him, the chasm between our sizes intimidated me in an exhilarating way I hadn't expected. I felt fresh color spread into my cheeks, unrelated to the cold or car.

"I'm Terrance." He offered a gloved hand, and I shook and introduced myself.

Terrance's four partners had meanwhile finished clearing the doctor's car and arrived at the scene of our preempted fight. Though they had obviously anticipated a scene, they seemed contented to find a small girl instead, and Trey, Devon, Quincy, and Jarrett took turns shaking my gloved hand. Each of them stood a foot taller than me, their winter coats concealing frames stacked with sinewy muscle.

"Guys," Terrance addressed the group, "we did Sarah dirty and blew snow on her car after she dug it out. It's only right that we help her clear it off, right?" The other four agreed and set to work.

Devon, Jarrett, and Trey took the driver's side, shoveling up the freshly deposited pile of snow from around the wheels and clearing the doors and roof. Terrance dug through the deep snowpack on the passenger side that I hadn't cleared before his manmade avalanche had frustrated my efforts. Quincy joined me in brushing the snow off the hood and windows on our side.

"Damn, how long did this take you the first time?" Jarrett asked as he dug a mound of snow out of the wheel well and heaved it onto the sidewalk.

"Like half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes? That's for the three-quarters of the car I finished before Terrance undid my work and blasted me in the face to boot." I laughed between labored breaths. Terrance responded with an affable wink.

Jarrett seemed impressed. "That's a pretty good job, though, considering how much fell."

"Yeah, she can really handle those inches..." Devon added, getting a playful smack in the shoulder from Jarrett for the innuendo. I blushed and stared shyly at the car door as I cleared it.

"So, where do you have to go?" he asked me as he brushed snow off the roof.

I laughed as I responded. "I'm not going anywhere, that's the ridiculous part! This isn't mine; I don't even own a car." My mind wandered to my road trip last summer in a rented car, and how I'd been repeatedly pulled over for roadside 'inspections' by each of four coastal county Sheriff's offices. Despite the cold, I felt a feverish worm moisten between my legs as I pictured those repeated acts of depravity on the side of the country highway. I hurried to continue my explanation. "I let my boyfriend park in my spot, then he texted this morning pleading for me to shovel it out!"

Quincy was shoveling up the snow displaced from the hood but paused in disbelief. "So, you give him a place to park?" he set his shovel perpendicular to the ground and rested his hands atop the handle, then his chin on his hands as he measured the situation. I nodded in agreement, and he continued. "Then he makes you shovel his car out of a foot of snow without offering to help?" I shook 'yes' again. "And after all that, you got hit with a snowball?"

"Wait, I wha-?" My dumbfounded reaction was interrupted as Quincy unleashed a sidearm pitch that struck me square in the sternum. The snowball exploded as it hit my chest, splashing icy shrapnel onto my cheeks and nose. Quincy cackled as I staggered from his attack. Wiping snow from my cheeks, I narrowed my eyes in my best attempt at menacing. "Oh, you're dead!" I laughed as I collected ammo from the roof for my counterattack.

As Quincy and I sparred, exchanging rapid-fire volleys in the snowy street, the others lined up beside the car and cheered him on. I paused my fight and gestured to them, holding out my arms in a request for my own cheers; Trey responded by drilling an overhand fastball into my shoulder.

And just like that, all five of them were hurling snowballs at me. The battled raged along the empty, snow packed street, with the men attacking then retreating behind snowbound cars, pummeling me from all sides, and reacting with exaggerated agony when my throws struck true. Giggling so hard I could barely run, I fled to the far side of Dr. Fenton's SUV for cover, feeling their barrage striking my jacket and butt as I ran through the shin-deep snow.

"This really isn't fair!" I called through my laughter as I packed a pyramid of ammunition to counter their inevitable assault. "All of you ganging up on me! It's not a fair fight!"

Terrance rounded the rear bumper, unleashing two snowballs as he dashed past. "And as far as 'ganging up', you ain't seen nothing yet! Fun doesn't have to be fair!" The first whizzed past my head -- close enough to graze the purple wool of my cap -- before colliding noisily with the car door behind me. The second caught me in my shoulder as I released my counterstrike. To my amazement, my snowball cruised straight like a bullet, striking Terrance in the chin and spraying ice over his mouth and neck.

"Ha! How do you like taking one in the face?!" I taunted, bending over to rearm myself.

"I'm gonna get you back and then some!" He promised with a grin.

While I crouched, Jarrett crept up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and lifting me into the air. I screamed with laughter, kicking my legs in equal parts fun and fight. Terrance recovered from the shock of the strike to his face and rushed over to assist Jarrett in attacking my midsection. With one hand clutching a giant ball of slush and ice, Terrance fought my struggling arms with his other, trying to lift the lower flap of my jacket to expose my pale belly.

"No! No no no!" I howled, writhing and flailing against Jarrett's hold on my waist and Terrance's grip on my jacket. The electrifying intimidation I'd felt earlier beside Terrance amplified in the clutches of the two large black strangers. It was a game, but I recognized that the men had the strength to overpower me as they wished, and any progress I made in resisting their mischievous advances was what they allowed me. I had to force myself to struggle, choking down a docile instinct to submit.

Devon, Trey, and Quincy joined our wrestling heap. Trey grabbed and restrained both of my thrashing arms binding my wrists together in the grip of his powerful hands. Devon aided Terrance's efforts in lifting my jacket and the shirt underneath. As my pale tummy unveiled, Devon attacked the ticklish softness of my midsection.

"Noooooooooo!" My squealing protest deteriorated into babbling giggles. I kicked and twisted spastically in their hold, my muscular control failing under Devon's tickling and my own hysterics.

Quincy lifted my ankles in his grasp to keep them from kicking, almost tugging off one of my boots in his fervor. The damp weight of my sweatpants threatened to overpower the hold of the drawstring as the heavy wet fleece inched off my waist with my squirming. The diverging paths of my pants and top flashed a sunny spark of my panties' lacy yellow waistband in the overcast street.

I yelped in excited anguish as Terrance succeeded in slipping his first fistful of ice under my jacket and against my bare stomach. The torturous cold sent shivers radiating throughout my body. But the cold on my skin was joined by a thawing thrill creeping up from below my belly. As I playfully fought against the five larger men, warm moisture beaded along my slit. My day had somehow gone from resentfully shoveling my boyfriend's car out of the snow to being restrained aloft in the inescapable clutches of these teasing strangers. Beneath my compulsory shouts of protest, I swallowed a stimulated moan.

The black Mercedes behind us double chirped as it unlocked. Our lighthearted spell was immediately broken by the stern arrival of Dr. Fenton. He shot me a disapproving onceover as Jarrett released his hold on my waist and Quincy dropped my feet to the snowy ground. I straightened my jacket, then discreetly hoisted my sweatpants back into place on my waist.

"You guys got here quick. Thanks." He curtly addressed the five men, before shutting the door and backing out of his spot. Dr. Fenton hadn't acknowledged me in his greeting, but his eyes were trained on me as he drove up the street.

Self-conscious about what Dr. Fenton might think he had interrupted, I quietly walked back to John's car where I'd dropped my shovel. Quincy joined me at the car, retrieving his own shovel.

"You alright?" He asked. In a show of good faith, he swept a last clump of slush from the rear door.

"Yeah," I reassured him. "We kinda got carried away there, I guess." I stared at the knees of my soaking pants. Beneath my jacket, the seeping rectangle of melted snow on my Henley now reached down my front from my collarbone to my bellybutton. I had to get out of my wet clothes, or I risked getting sick.

Terrance and Jarrett rejoined us while Trey and Devon maneuvered the snow blower out of the street and up on to the sidewalk.

"You look like you're getting cold." Terrance assessed my damp, snowy appearance. He dusted snow off the pom of my hat, then the same snow off the shoulder of my coat.

"Yeah, I was just thinking I should go in and warm up. I've been out here a while, and I've got a lot of work to do this afternoon." I banged my shovel on the asphalt to knock the last chunks of slush off the blade.

My giddy excitement during the game had been replaced by abrupt shyness. Where had my mischievous lizard brain expected my flirtation would lead? Had I really imagined I'd ditch work -- and my boyfriend -- to let five strangers fuck me on a Tuesday afternoon? No, the idea was reckless and insane, even for me. I'd say goodbye to the group and get a business card in case it ever snowed like this again. Then I'd change into dry clothes and finish due diligence on the agreement my client had sent this morning. "What about you guys? You've gotta be pretty busy today, huh?"

Trey and Devon returned to the group and exchanged a glance with the others.