Okay, a lot of these stories start out with a cliché, it goes something like this: I came home from work and there was a strange car in the driveway. Well shit, it does happen like that a lot. And my story does have some of that in it, but it's just a tad different. It's different because Chrissie loves me, and will do whatever it takes to protect me, no matter what.

Maybe I should start at the beginning. Well the recent beginning anyway. My name is Tim Matthews. I work in IT at a mid sized company in the Midwest. I'm about 5'10", 180 lbs. I have dark brown hair, and blue eyes. I'm fit, and stay that way from regular workouts and runs. According to all of my friends, I should be drowning in pussy, but I rarely ever date. It's not that I'm not interested in women, or that they're not interested in me, but I have to be very careful. I was lucky the first time, and though there was suspicion, it was all chalked up to a series of freak accidents. So I wasn't charged with anything, but I'm sure the police are still watching me now, almost 5 years later. Mostly because what happened was so fucking weird and because they still don't believe it.

A couple of weeks ago, I was replacing a monitor, in an office on the 5th floor of our building. I checked out the old monitor and it seemed to be working fine, the screen was clear, graphics rendered beautifully, and text was easy to read. I found absolutely nothing wrong with the monitor so I ran it through the troubleshooting program for color depth, screen position and everything else I could think of. Finally I marked the monitor A-OK and swapped it out anyway, with a nearly exact duplicate of the same model.

The current user of the cubicle appraised me, as I worked.

"Okay, you know there's nothing wrong with my monitor. Why'd you swap it anyway? If you were going to just swap it out, why not just unplug it, plug in the replacement and then be own your way. You could have been out of here in 5 minutes," She told me.

"Look Ms. Uh," I paused as I looked for my trouble ticket to find her name.

"It's Miss," she said. "As in if you don't look at me you might miss something that could be really good. And the last name is Henderson. The first name that you should be using though is Elaine. Put it all together and you get Elaine Marie Henderson. Elaine to my friends, Lainie to you though. I had the feeling that I had just been treated to her version of the Bond, James Bond line.

"Well Lainie, my ticket says that you requested a monitor swap because you've been having trouble with your monitor. I checked it out here, so I could see if there was anything wrong with it and didn't find anything. But the problem could be situational which means you have to do certain things to see it happen. Or it could be just something that happens at certain times. This way I didn't have to haul it all the way to the IT workshop and test it, I can just mark it usable and put it on the shelf when I get there. Once again I'm not trying to second guess what you need, if you want a different monitor, I'm giving you one. I don't comment on the way you do spreadsheets or whatever you do, so please give me the courtesy to respect the way I do my job as well. I'm only trying to help you, and give you the tools to do your job. We're all supposed to be one team after all. If you ask for a new monitor, and I have one, it's yours plain and simple. Please have a nice day."

"Wow, that makes a hell of a lot of sense," she said. "Maybe what they said about the IT department wasn't totally true. But what if I already knew that there wasn't anything wrong with my monitor? What if this was all part of a dastardly plot to get you up here so I could ask you a question?"

"I guess it must be a hell of a question for you to go through all of that trouble and risk." I said. "So what's the question?" I turned and looked at her for the first time, and almost fell over. She was tall and thin but curvy where you want your woman to be curvy. She had a mane of unrestrained tawny curls that spilled over her shoulders like a waterfall tumbling over the side of a cliff. Her luscious lips were pulled back in a welcoming smile and when she took off those square framed glasses that were all the rage for the office types lately, I nearly fell into her sea green eyes."

It all looked like she had rehearsed it for days. She took off the glasses and twitched her head, causing all of that hair to flip around. It looked like a damned shampoo commercial. She even put one of the ear pieces of her glasses in her mouth and bit it lightly so I could see how white her teeth were. I was expecting her next move to be the one where she opens up her blouse by pooping a few buttons and then slides across the long conference table to me, like in the "Hot for Teacher" video that Van Halen did back in the 80's. I was ready for David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen to come tearing into the room. With Dave looking for all the world like a game show host on coke, and Eddie playing one insane riff after another from a hidden Marshall stack, on a guitar that looked like it was recued from a junk yard and held together with spit, Elmer's glue, and duct tape. In the dim recesses of my mind, I heard the music and couldn't help thinking, "I've got it made, got it made, got it made. I'm hot for Lainie.

Okay where was I. Oh yeah she was about to hit me with the big question. If I zone out like that again let me know.

"Why don't you want to go out with me?" she asked. I felt like all of the air in the room just vanished. I tried opening up my lungs and pulling oxygen in but it just wouldn't come into me. Nor could I let any back out.

"I uh, don't date," I managed to choke out.

"Why, not?" she asked, a pout distending those perfect lips.

"It just doesn't work out, it never has. And I don't think it ever will." I grabbed my stuff and started for her door. The cubicle wasn't that big, but she crossed the distance really quickly and slammed the door blocking my exit.

"I think we'd be good for each other. I've done my homework. We're both divorced. We're actually divorced for the same reason. We both had partners who were no where near worthy of us, who cheated on us. We're both into cars, and we're both cute." She paused, here and looked at me again. "At least you're cute; I'm not too sure about myself." As she said that last line she ran her fingers up her body, from her slim hips to those small but perfectly proportionate breasts. It was almost like she was a stripper practicing her routine with her clothes on. This woman should never be allowed to watch MTV or soft core porn. "Am I cute, Tim?" All I could do was nod my head up and down.

"Well let's talk about it some more, how about tomorrow at lunch in the cafeteria? You have to have lunch sometime. When do you eat, Tim?" she asked. It took me a few seconds that seemed more like a few days to answer.

My brain wanted to say "As soon as your legs open," but what came out was "12:45."

"I'll see you then," she smiled.

When I got back to the IT office, none of the women there and would look me in the eye. Most of the men were also seemingly busy, but I could tell they were all looking at me, as I carried the monitor in and put it on a shelf. I looked at the board for open tickets and was about to grab one and head back out when one of my best friends Josh Thomas grabbed my arm.

"Well, what did ya think?" he asked excitedly.

"What did I think about what?" I asked, looking confused. I noticed that every eye in the IT office including my long time friend and supervisor Emma Smith, was on me.

"I went upstairs, tested a monitor, it checked out okay, but I swapped it out anyway, then I came back. If you're asking me whether or not I think there was anything wrong with that monitor, I'd probably have to say no, but you know how it goes. Anyway, I'm going to do another ticket."

He looked at me as if I had just thrown away a winning lottery ticket. Then he looked around the room, and everyone else was just as incredulous. He threw his hands up in the air as if he was exasperated. Emma ran across the floor to me and stopped me from leaving. "Uh Tim, was there anyone in the cubicle upstairs when you swapped out that monitor?" she asked.

I tilted my head to the side as if I couldn't remember, or hadn't thought about it. Then I opened my mouth to speak, but quickly closed it again. I noticed that everyone in the fucking office was waiting for me to say something so I wanted to stretch this out as long as I could.

"Yeah there was some woman there." I said it so low and so quickly that no one could make out what I said. Then I reached for the door handle. Emma smacked my hand away from the handle.

"Alright, we know, that you know, that we set you up and we want to know what happened," spat Emma. "Don't be mad, we all love you and think you're a great guy, who works too hard and we just want you to be happy. Elaine has been asking about you since she started working here 6 weeks ago. You guys have a lot in common, you both do that car thing, and she's really pretty. She's been through a divorce and so have you. You should at least give it a try. I know she asked you out tonight. So are you going?"

"Well I guess your plan didn't work," I said. "She didn't ask me to go out tonight."

There were a lot of sighs and exclamations made when I said that. I even heard someone say, "That bitch!"

"We're having lunch tomorrow," I said smiling. And everyone in the room started laughing and screaming and cheering, like they'd all just found that winning lottery ticket I threw away and cashed it in.

The lunch the next day was low key and understated. We sat in the cafeteria together, in a booth in the back, in the corner, in the dark. We talked and nibbled our food until we had to go back to work. Almost instantly I could tell that there was something going on between us. It was like we were two halves of a coin that had been separated and became whole when joined. The first time she grabbed my hand I wanted to just scream, "Wonder Twin Powers ... Activate," it was that powerful. I could tell that she felt it too. That lunch led to more, and then a few movies, and dinners, and then we were suddenly a couple. We hadn't seen each other's homes yet, or even kissed let alone had sex, but everyone knew that we belonged to each other in a high school sort of way. It was almost like we were going steady. She was ready for the next step, but I just wasn't sure I was. I mean I liked her, a lot. Maybe I even knew that I loved her, as much as you can love anyone you haven't done the horizontal bop with. But I had dated a few women since my uhm, divorce, and Chrissie hadn't liked any of them.

I could tell that Lainie really liked me too, because she was always doing anything she could, to touch me. And she constantly rubbed up against me. She also made it clear to all of the guys who tried to flirt with her, that she was interested in someone else. She is a very beautiful woman, but she seemed to want me. And it wasn't just bullshit that we had a lot in common. Her ex was a lazy bastard who had stayed home and supposedly taken care of their house while she worked. What he was really taking care of though had been their neighbors' wives. They had a nasty divorce, where she'd ended up having to support him for 2 years, or until he got a job and could take care of himself on his own. The bastard rode it out for the entire 2 years and then got a job making more money than she did.

Another thing was the car thing. A lot of times, friends who want to interest a guy in a woman, tell him that she's into the same things he is. So it seems like they have something in common. Like if a guy likes football, they tell him, oh she loves football, when actually she can't tell the difference between football and hockey. Usually she shows up at his house in a baseball jersey with a hockey stick, ready to exhibit her awesome NFL knowledge. But come on, if the woman is hot enough, we're going to put up with it. Three years later you're married and she won't even let you watch football, let alone watch it with you.

But Lainie was different. She was the real deal. The woman drove an absolutely gorgeous Orange 1970 Chevelle SS, with Black racing stripes. She had the car modernized with disc brakes and modern wheels and tires for more control and better traction. Her engine mods had that beast putting out well over 400 HP. It was not a car to be trifled with and she drove it well.

I could tell it was time for us to take our relationship to the next level when she just came out with it. There were a couple of questions that had obviously been bothering her.

"Tim, don't you think it's time," she asked. She shook all that hair at me, and pouted those lips the way she knew, got to me.

"We don't need to rush into anything Lainie," I said. "I think you're the one, but we have all the time in the world, to ... you know."

She laughed, at me. I always was kind of shy. "Tim I'm not talking about sex. We're doing that, this weekend, whether you want to or not. I'm not waiting for that any longer. You've sent me home to my vibrator, hot and wet too many times, but I was talking about something else."

I was still trying to get over my shock at her frank statement about me sending her home hot and wet. Things like that do wonders for the fragile male ego. But I still wondered what the hell she was talking about, so I asked her.

"Well, sweetie," she said. "You've seen my car, you've ridden in my car, you've driven my car. You've even worked on my car. Don't you think it's time I got to see this famous Mustang of yours that I've heard so much about from everyone?"

My blood went cold and there was an ominous rushing in my ears. This might be the end of my relationship with Lainie and I really did like her. But I knew that it had to happen, one way or another. "Okay," I said with trepidation. "I'm washing her on Saturday afternoon as usual. Why don't you come over and we'll wash her and then go out for a ride, and maybe dinner and a movie."

"And I'll plan on spending the night, don't forget that," she smirked.

I just nodded my head woodenly because as much as I had dreamed of having sex with Lainie, I was pretty fucking sure that we'd never get that far.

Saturday came, as it always does and right around 1 o'clock in the afternoon, Lainie showed up at my house. She had an overnight bag and a clothes carrier with her. She obviously had no idea of what might happen. My eyes bugged out, when I saw the shorts she was wearing and her T-shirt stopped above her waist showing off a tiny belly button piercing on a remarkably taut tummy. Her legs had a golden tan and seemed to go on forever.

"If you're so interested in my legs, how come you've never tried to get between them?" she laughed as she caught me staring.

"I guess I wanted to enjoy the time we had, and get to know you as well as I could during it," I said.

"Why do you sound like we're about to break up or something, Tim?" she asked. "Did you know that I turn down dates with other guys to spend time with you? I really like you a lot, so you don't have anything to worry about." Then she kissed me, and I have to admit I was a little bit nervous kissing her in front of my house. I had kissed her lots of times, before so it wasn't the kiss. And I really didn't care if my neighbors or friends saw us. The real danger was her planting one on me so close to my house. My heart was beating so loudly that I was sure Elaine could hear it. My sense of dread at what might happen, had a thin river of sweat trickling down my spine.

"This is Elaine, the one I call Lainie. She's really nice, and she loves cars." I said very loudly. Lainie looked at me as if I was a little touched. I took her hand and led her into my house. She looked around and was smiling the whole time. It was really hard for me not to smile as well. She immediately dragged me down onto my sofa and reclaimed her lip lock on me. We sat there smooching for about 10 minutes, and my hands had started wandering around her body when suddenly she popped up like a jack in the box.

"Okay let's go see this car before we get too worked up and don't wash it, or make dinner," she said.

"Are you sure you want to see her now?" I asked nervously. She nodded seriously.

All I've heard from everyone is about your car. Before I ever met you, as soon as people knew that I liked muscle cars, everyone in the building said, "You should see Tim's Mustang. I don't care if it's 80 years old and rusty. I love you, so if it's important to you and you like it, I'll love it too."

"Okay," I said, thinking that it had to happen sooner or later. The garage was attached, so we just walked out a door in the kitchen and into the garage. It was heated and had nice striped flooring panels that matched the car. I kept Lainie behind me as I walked into the garage, but she wasn't having it. She jumped out from my shadow and looked the car over.

"My God, she's beautiful," she screamed, as if she'd just seen a new supermodel. She started trying to walk around the car to see it from all sides, but I quickly grabbed her hand to keep her from walking in front of the car or behind it.

"Is something wrong with the other side of the car?" she asked me suspiciously.

"Chrissie, this is Elaine, I've told you about her. She's really nice, and I have very strong feelings about her. I'd be really upset if anything were to happen to her," I said loudly.

"Lainie looked at me as if I was a little off. I opened the garage door to let some fresh air in. "Should I back her out so we can wash her easier?" asked Lainie.

"I'll do it," I said. I noticed that Elaine looked at me funny.

"So you love me but you don't trust me with your car huh?" she asked.

"Well you two have to get to know each other first," I said.

As I walked towards the car again I smiled. It's funny I've had the car for nearly 5 years now, but I still smile every time I see it. A 2006 Mustang GT, with the shaker hood system and Flowmaster chrome dual exhaust. The car was screaming Yellow with black racing stripes. I had custom chrome bar billet grills in the upper and lower positions that matched. I had a front chin spoiler to increase the aerodynamics, and add extra cooling to the engine compartment. A rear diffuser and rear blackout panels in the back. Cross drilled and slotted rotors all the way around and extra large calipers painted yellow to match the body paint. Elaine was still shaking her head as I got ready to get into the car.

As I approached the car the door locks popped open, the windows lowered and the engine started. Elaine didn't think anything of it. She did comment on the beauty of the exhaust note that the Flowmasters gave me. I backed the car out of the garage far enough that we could wash it but still stay in the shade for the wax job.

Elaine laughed as I wheeled out my cart of cleaning and detailing supplies and equipment. She grabbed the Armor all leather cleaner and a microfiber towel and got ready to start on her side of the interior. I love a woman who knows how to wash a car I thought.

"Hey unlock my side," she said.

"Chrissie," I snapped under my breath. I knew this was an important step. The door lock on the passenger side slowly slid up and the window went down. Elaine looked at me smiling.

"I noticed you have an automatic starter, but is it voice controlled?" she asked.

"Uhm, something like that," I said.

She leaned the front seat forward and began to very gently clean the leather in the back seat on her side as I did the same on mine. We used regular Armor all for the surfaces in the back that weren't leather and vacuumed the carpet. As Elaine got out of the back and got ready to start in the front, the passenger seat snapped back into place. She smiled and gently patted the side of the car. I had a horrifying flashback of that same seat snapping back into place and nearly crushing a woman I had dated about 2 years ago. She'd had to be hospitalized and was still seeing a chiropractor today.

I won't bore you with what goes into washing my car, but two hours later we were just getting done. Nothing had happened that was terrible so I was beginning to relax a bit. We went into the house and kissed for a bit before Elaine broke away from me and said, "Stop teasing me. We'll never make it to dinner at this rate and you're already trying to get your desert." She kissed me one more time and went into the bathroom to change.

"We're taking your car to the restaurant," she yelled through the door. "I'm driving," she threw in afterwards. A sudden shock froze me in place. Elaine was still alive and hadn't been hurt, but exactly how much would Chrissie allow?

"Uhm, she's kind of tricky to handle," I said.

"Relax daddy, I won't hurt your baby," she said as she stepped out of the bathroom. I wasn't actually worried about her hurting Chrissie, I was kind of worried about the opposite happening. But Elaine looked so good stepping out of that bathroom in her little black dress that I just couldn't say no to her.

"I'll be as gentle as if she were my own. Besides we get along great already. I feel like we're old friends." She was smiling at me as she said it, and I just looked into a nearby drawer and gave her the car keys.

We locked the house and walked hand in hand to the car. I walked around to the driver's side and the locks popped open.

"Hey, I have the keys, how'd you do that?" asked Elaine puzzled. "Is it some kind of proximity sensor?"

"Uhm yeah, something like that," I said.

I held the door open for her and she sat down in the driver's seat and snuggled into the butter soft leather. "Holy shit, it feels like this seat is molding itself to my back," she said excitedly. "It feels really good, really comfortable. It feels almost like I'm wearing the car instead of sitting in it."

"Yeah good seats are like that," I said.

She turned the key and nothing happened."Do you have a short in the ignition system," she asked.

"Chrissie," I said. "Come on."

"Don't scold her," said Elaine. "Maybe I didn't turn the key right. Let me try it again. She simply reached for the key and the powerful v8 started and came to life. The whole car was vibrating from the force. Elaine just smiled, leaned over to me and kissed me again. "I love that sound," she said.

I was in heaven. I love Elaine, and it seems as though Chrissie had accepted her. That in its own, was a miracle. Chrissie had never even tolerated anyone before, let alone accepting them.

We had a nice dinner and were driving back home when a near tragedy struck. Elaine looked over at me, and our eyes met. I guess we were lost in the moment and she took her eyes off the road for just an instant, and before it even registered, we were in trouble. Everything started to move in slow motion. There was no way for us to avoid hitting the semi, and Elaine appeared to be frozen at the wheel. The semi driver had slammed on his brakes since he saw us before we saw him, but it was going to be too late. Suddenly the wheel wrenched right and my car turned so sharply she almost went onto two wheels. We missed the truck by millimeters, and no one was hurt. We stopped on the shoulder of the road and watched as traffic continued. Both of our hearts were beating way too fast for the next few minutes. The only sound was the big V8 throbbing in the background.

Elaine's eyes were as big as saucers. "We should be dead," she said. "And it'd be my fault. I took my eyes off the road."

"But we're not," I said. "It wasn't even an accident. No one got hurt. No harm, No foul. You're a great driver, you pulled us out of that, and saved us all."

"That's just it Tim," she said looking at me strangely. "I didn't do shit. I froze. The wheel just turned on its own. If it was up to my driving skills, we'd all be scattered all over the road and wearing toe tags. It was really weird, like the car..." She looked at my face as if she was waiting for me to say something, to let something slide, but all she heard was the thrumming of the big V8.

She put the car back into gear and drove us home. The rest of the way she didn't talk, or hold my hand or try to kiss me at all. She drove into the garage when we reached my house and got out and patted my car on the hood. Then thinking better of it she kissed her on the hood and said, "Goodnight, and thanks."

I closed the garage door and we went into the house. I could tell something was different. I chalked it up to the near accident. I pulled off my jacket and tie and sat down on the couch next to her. I just knew in my heart that there wasn't going to be any fucking done that night.

"Would you like a glass of wine, or a beer?" I suggested.

"How about telling me the truth?" she said.

"I always tell you the truth," I said. "I've never lied to you about anything."

"There's a big fucking difference, between not lying and telling the truth," she told me. From the look in her eyes, I could tell she was on to something. "All day I've been wondering why the hell you named your car after that ditzy blonde on Three's company, but that's wrong isn't it? Chrissie isn't named after Suzanne Somers at all, is she? That car isn't voice controlled is it?" she asked staring straight at me. I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head.

"Chrissie is short for Christine, as in the Stephen King book, Christine, isn't it?"

I nodded my head.

Elaine grabbed my arm and wrapped it around herself. I could feel goose bumps on her skin, and she was chilled far more than just from the cool evening breeze. I got a blanket from the closet and we snuggled up together on my couch.

"I'm going to tell you the whole story," I said.

"Five years ago I was married. I thought as most people do that I had a good marriage. Shanna and I had been together for about 8 years. We both had great jobs and were pretty happy. We didn't have any kids, but that had been a blessing.

We'd met in college and I just couldn't figure us out. We didn't fit. I was a nerd, plain and simple. She was a cheerleader and the prettiest girl on campus. She had so many guys chasing after her, that you needed an appointment just to ask her out and be turned down. It was a total fluke that we even met. To say that she was out of my league would be a gross understatement. If my league blew up, none of the pieces would ever reach her. She was the quintessential All American beauty. Blonde hair, blue eyes, enormous chest, long legs, the whole nine yards, plus.

Her room mate Sarah, was in my Honors English class and we were working on a report together. Sarah also did most of Shanna's English and History homework. Shanna had other people to do other things for her, so none of that tedious studying could get in the way of her social life.

Anyway Sarah and I were working on our English assignments when Shanna came in fresh from a date to the beach with some guy or another. She dropped her cover-up as soon as she got into the dorm room, and started taking off her clothes before she even noticed that I was there. Looking back on it, maybe she did know that I was there, she really loved showing off her body. Her breasts were huge, not in that freakish Porn-star fake way, but big enough that they just looked out of place on her small frame. It was nearly impossible to look anywhere else.

"Ooh sorry," she said, covering them up, while she looked directly at me. "I didn't expect Sarah to have company. She never brings anyone home."

I just turned away from her and went back to studying with Sarah. The mood in the room had changed somehow though. Sarah spent a lot of time looking at me, as if she was trying to determine whether I still saw her in the same way, now that I'd seen the school's princess nearly nude.

A few days later, I got a call from Shanna. Her laptop wouldn't boot, and since she'd heard from Sarah that I was a Computer Science Major, she hoped that I could help her out. I told her that she'd probably be better off taking her computer to the store she'd bought it from, or taking it over to the computer science lab on campus. Then I politely told her that I had studying to get back to and hung up the phone. The next day Sarah came over to my apartment with a big batch of cookies she'd made. I didn't understand how or why but all of a sudden, in her eyes I was special. I think it had something to do with the fact that I was the first person she'd ever seen, who had refused Shanna anything.