UNLIKELY OBSESSION
I’m not sure what I said while I was in the garage. I was in shock. He certainly didn’t say anything or let on about anything. Of course that might be because his boss was standing in the doorway to the office behind me and listening to what was being said. The mechanic was dressed in loose-fitting coveralls—and maybe just that and the boots, because he didn’t have a shirt on underneath them. It was New York in the Christmas season. I was bundled up in a long leather coat and gloves, and it made me shiver to see him clothed so lightly. The service garage doors were closed, but it wasn’t warm in the car bays—and it was drafty. The armhole slits of the coveralls went midway down his hips and it was clear he wasn’t wearing anything underneath. He was tall and sort of gangly here in the garage of the custom car repair shop. He looked sort of like a stork or a ferret in the light of day. He was something over thirty—maybe closer to forty than twenty. Nothing about him was that attractive...