Sooner or later, if you drive often enough, you will climb into your car one morning, put the fob near the ignition, press the button and...

... nothing.

You try it again. Nothing. Then again. Maybe the battery in the fob has gone dead. The car still won’t start. You stare into the distance, your brain frozen with indecision. What the hell? You start to think: Maybe it’s not the fob. Maybe it’s the car battery. You turn on the headlights. They spring to life, then quickly fade to yellow and die altogether.

Shit.

It’s the car battery, the freaking car battery.

So now what do you do?

That depends on where you are. If you’re parked in your driveway you start calling friends to give you a jump. Except they all work during the day, and can’t take an hour off to help you with your car. You knock on your neighbors’ doors but they’re not home either.

Shit, shit, shit.

It’s looking like a tow truck is your last option. That’ll be a hundred bucks. What a racket. In your next life, buy a tow truck and work banker’s hours. You’ll be rich before you know it.

I’ve found myself in that position and I’m sure it’ll happen again, which is why I added a set of jumper cables to the box of car repair tools I keep in the trunk. You never know when some poor stranded motorist will need a jump, and besides: I like the karma I get from helping others.

In fact just the other day those jumper cables paid dividends in a big, big way. I’m still grinning over the memories. In fact, if I try hard enough I can still taste them.

I had friends visiting and we met for dinner at this out-of-the way place in a quiet part of town. I usually don’t drink alcohol when I go out because I don’t want to risk an accident or a ticket, but these friends insisted, so I had a beer with my meal. Problem is, one beer usually leads to two beers, then three. I was able to get out of there before that happened, but my taste buds had been activated, and they wanted more beer. So I stopped at a convenience store to pick up a six-pack.

The minute I got out of the car I was approached by a kid. I was instantly suspicious because this convenience store is a notorious hangout for homeless guys wanting to bum money for alcohol and cigarettes. I don’t mind helping people when they’re down on their luck, but these guys made the streets their lifestyle and I had little sympathy for them.

My suspicions were unwarranted because as the kid got closer, I could see he was wearing a vest with the store’s logo on it. He worked here.

“Excuse me sir, I hate to bother you,” he began, “but I wondered if you could help me out. I need a jump.”

Funny he chose that word. I would love to have “jumped” him because he was a luscious guy, about 5-11 or 6 feet tall, 150 pounds, a nice tan, with brownish-blonde flyaway hair. He looked like a young River Phoenix, down to the cute button of a nose. He didn’t have much of an ass, at least what I could tell through his baggy jeans, but the slight bulge in his crotch suggested he was packing more than minimal equipment on the front side of things.

“Sir?”

Oh God. I must have been staring. I shook my head to snap out of it, then stammered to recover. “Um, yeah. Sure. Where are you parked?”

He nodded in the direction of the side of the building. “Around back. The manager won’t let employees park up front. He wants the spaces reserved for customers, so I’m in the back there.”

I told him I’d head that way and he hurried off down the sidewalk. I checked him out as he walked away and saw that my earlier appraisal of his ass had been mostly correct, although now that he was moving you could see those skinny glutes pressing against the fabric of his jeans. I enjoyed a momentary mental image of my face pressed into his ass crack, my tongue lapping against his hot hole, the hole itself pulsing as it opened and closed, awaiting the entry of a finger ... or something else. I felt a building pressure in my groin and let out a pent-up sigh. The kid didn’t look underage but he was surely too young for me. Even if he weren’t, the odds favored he was into girls. I tried to tamp down my imagination and get the car started.

There was a narrow dirt track that led to an open area behind the store, and sure enough, beneath an oak tree rested an aging Pontiac with the hood up, the kid standing next to it. He was fanning the battery and I wondered why he was doing that, until I remembered sometimes batteries give off fumes that can ignite if there’s a spark. More than one person has been injured by an exploding car battery. Thanks, kid.

I pulled up next to the Pontiac and popped the hood on my Toyota. I left the engine running while I untangled the jumper cables from the box of tools in the trunk. I had to read the instructions again to make sure I made the connections in the proper sequence – I can never remember which way it goes. Is it negative to negative and positive to ground, or the other way around? Anyway, I got the clamps hooked up to the battery terminals – averting my eyes in case the battery decided to blow up anyway – and told the kid to start his car.

He got into the Pontiac and turned the key. The starter turned over grudgingly and then the engine roared to life. He let out a small whoop of pleasure and beat his hand against the steering wheel.

I went to the door of his car and yelled, “Let it run a few minutes before you try to drive it. Might charge up the battery a bit.”

He nodded and started saying something, but I couldn’t hear. He saw that and patted the passenger seat, so I went around and got into the car, closing the door. There. It was much quieter now.

“I really appreciate this. I’ve needed a new battery for awhile, but they’re so damned expensive, you know?” he said, shaking his head. “I guess it’s unavoidable now. I’ll have to head down to Wal-Mart or AutoZone. Maybe I can get out of there with my ass intact.”

I nodded. The question was, would he get out of this car with his ass intact. Because if I had anything to do with it he wouldn’t. The more I saw of him the more attractive he became. I found myself wanting to take his hand into mine, slip my fingers between his and insert each one into my mouth, slowly sucking on them until he relaxed to the point I could reach behind his head and gently pull his lips to mine, kissing and caressing and running my hand through his hair as I made the sounds one makes when they’re aroused beyond their ability to control themselves.

“Is there something I can do to repay you?” I suddenly heard him say. He was looking at me with a strange expression, as if once again he had caught me staring and didn’t know why.