What if a physicist went back to high school?
Read a sample and find out!
“Mom, could you please help me buy a car?” I asked one day at dinner.
“You’re too young for a license,” she reminded me needlessly.
“I know, but for the car I want to fix up, I should have it by the time I’m done.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I want to get a junker that I can rebuild. I’ve got some ideas that I’d like to test out. You know, I want to tinker with it.”
I had always been a tinkerer. I liked to figure out how things worked. My uncle had gotten in the habit of asking me what I thought when fixing things, not because he was polite, but because I could usually figure out how to make things work.
Mom put down her spoon and looked at me. “What kind of junker do you have in mind?”
I smiled and pulled out a paper. It was folded to the classified section. I had circled an ad for a 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner. It was a muscle car built along the lines of the Dodge Charger, but cheaper. I wanted it for its frame more than anything. It was priced at $400 and marketed as not starting and not drivable.
Mom read the ad carefully and then looked at me. “It will take a lot of work to make that a car worth driving,” she said.
“I know. But I can afford it, and I really don’t plan on just refurbishing it. I think I can make a better car. I want the frame and chassis and the transmission. I’m not concerned about the motor or the rest.”
She thought for a few more minutes and then nodded. “I’ll talk to your Uncle Ben, and we’ll see.”
That weekend, I wrote a check for the car, and another for the flatbed tow truck to deliver it to the farm. I smiled as we lowered it into a cleared-out section of the machine shed. Everyone else saw a pile of junk, but I saw the foundation of everything I planned to build.
“No slacking off on chores or work to play with this thing,” Uncle Ben warned. He had tried to talk both my mother and me out of this “waste of money” as he called it.
“No, sir,” I agreed.
It was the last time for nearly a year that Uncle Ben said anything about my car.
Progress on the car was steady but slow. I had stripped most of the body away and pulled the engine. I had gotten all the rust ground off, and a coat of primer on but was finally ready to start what I considered the real work. Building it back up.
I had a firm idea in mind for what I wanted. The car needed to do two things. It had to be a test bed for my designs, and it had to look sexy as hell. I hated the idea of fuel-efficient or safe cars that were ugly. I was almost certain that was what had delayed their adoption until gas prices rose above six dollars a gallon. This car was going to turn heads when it was done. It was also going to be easy to work on.
I looked at my drawings each day before starting to work. I had put a lot of thought into things as I pounded out miles over the summer. I had originally planned to use the stock transmission and drive train but changed my approach after seeing an article in popular mechanics. I really wanted to make this car different.
I wanted a small turbine generator, but couldn’t afford one that would meet my needs. Instead, I had decided to work on an electric drive train that would use a regular or small diesel engine to generate electricity. Without sufficient onboard storage for electricity, it wouldn’t be as efficient as I desired, but should still beat the fuel efficiency of any car coming out of Detroit.
Each wheel would have an independent electric drive motor mounted on a gimbal, giving me four steerable wheels. This configuration would really let me show what a true drive-by-wire system could accomplish. Additionally, I could redesign the passenger compartment dramatically once I eliminated the driveshaft connecting to the rear axles. But getting the mounting right for the motors attached to each wheel was the first critical build component I was tackling.
I was working at the lathe when I saw daylight spill through the door as someone came into the machine shed. I pulled the bit back on the machine and flipped it off, and I stepped away and pushed up my safety mask.
“Who’s there?” I called.
Jordan stepped around the rear wheel of the tractor, blocking my view of the door. I smiled.
“What brings you over today,” I asked. She was in jeans today, that hugged her slim curves, along with a tan, sleeveless blouse. Her tanned shoulders looked delectable.
“I stopped by to invite you to our back-to-school party next Friday. Mom and dad expect you there.”
I tossed my gloves on the workbench and stepped closer to her. “Mom and dad expect me?” I asked.
She nodded. “And Jeryl, of course.”
“What about you?” I leaned in and kissed the spot on her shoulder I had been admiring, just above her collarbone.
“Nope, not me. I’ll be with Steve and probably not even look your direction when you dance with my little sister,” she said.
I kissed her other collarbone. “Then why did you stop by to invite me?”
She smiled and gave me a hot kiss on the lips. “Because Jeryl can’t drive, and I think you need a little more training based on what I saw in the rearview mirror the other night.”
Then she was on me. Before I knew what was happening, we were sprawled on the back seat bench cushions I had pulled from my car, and she was holding my face against hers. When our kiss finally ended, she was panting heavily.
Having this delectable senior so aroused from my kisses and touches was intoxicating. I knew the release she wanted, and I knew I would give it to her. I was firm, but gentle, playing her body like the fine instrument it was, striking chords of passion in both of us.
After our mutual crescendos, I flopped back on the worn cushions and took in our disheveled state. She caught me looking at her and gave me an enigmatic smile. She was the perfect embodiment of “the cat that caught the canary”.
“I take it you accept the invitation to come?”
The only response I could think of was, “Yes, ma’am.”
These are just two scenes from chapter two. Read a sample on Amazon to start from the beginning.
Charlie Forêt 