Machine by Normandie Alleman
22
Bridger
After the bigreveal at the Luv Machines offices, the only return message I got from all the texts I’d sent Dynassy was one that said, “I need some time to figure things out.”
That was three days ago, and following her social media accounts, I knew she’d gone on a modeling trip to Milan.
Dynassy had been the best thing that had ever happened to me. I loved her completely. She was everything I could want in a woman—beautiful, smart, spirited, and she got me. Our connection had been so powerful from the beginning.
But, I’d known my time with her was limited. If I could give up the porn business overnight and make it disappear to be with her, I would. Since I was steeped in the damned thing, that wasn’t possible, so I came out the loser when it came to love.
So I’d have money, but not love.
Barvo tried to console me, saying, “Most dudes would pick money over love. And now that your dick’s working again, you can have all the pussy you want. You should be the happiest man in the world.”
When I’d showed less enthusiasm than he’d expected, he changed his tune.
“You’re right, man. You’re never going to get a woman as fine as that one again. Sorry.”
Yeah. The truth hurt. And it wasn’t just about Dynassy’s looks. And I didn’t give a rat’s ass about how famous she was. I loved her—the things we did together, the way we laughed at the same jokes, and liked to watch the same shows. She was my partner, and I didn’t think I was going to get that back, and it sucked. It sucked more than I thought it could.
The best thing I could do was get my mind off Dynassy. I’d lost her, and I knew it. But I refused to allow myself to spiral out of control into a pit of pain.
Instead, I got angry. And the best person to point that anger at was the bastard who stole my machine design.
I remembered that day at work, the day I’d seen something that looked a bit like the basic setup for my machine in the corner of the back room. It didn’t have a fake penis attached to it or anything, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that someone who worked in our shop could have gotten access to my design, but I wasn’t sure how. What if they’d found out about how I made my extra money and decided to get in on the action themselves?
I told everyone at work the story I’d told Dynassy, that I’d gotten an inheritance, that was how I’d gotten the money to buy a Viper, to go to the Super Bowl last year, and a few other things I’d done that cost more money than you could make on an auto mechanic’s salary.
But there were a few guys who’d asked me more questions than the rest.
I decided to go into work one night and see if I could pick up some more clues as to who the thief might be.
It was around eleven o’clock when I went back to the auto shop. The place was dead, and all the lights were off. I had a key, so I let myself in, turned off the alarm, and began my imitation of a detective.
The first place I looked was the in the room with our lockers. Most of them didn’t have a lock. I went through the ones that were unlocked, and with some of them, I wished I hadn’t. I came across more dirty socks and rotten bananas than I care to admit. And one guy had a sandwich in there where the meat had turned green. I tossed that thing in the trash. To hell if he was saving it. I might be saving him from salmonella.
Other than a set of matches from a strip joint, the locker search hadn’t yielded any results.
Then I went back to Sal’s office. I had a key to that too, which most of the other guys didn’t. I searched his desk drawers and everything. In one of them I found a stack of orders for parts.
There, on the sixth page was an order for parts like the ones I used for my machines. Definitely not parts you used when working on cars.
And Sal had been coming to work less and less over the same period of time that someone else had started copying our machine and making videos.
Could it be that Sal was making porn videos instead of coming to work?
His wife had died a few years ago, so he didn’t have a woman in his life who might keep him from doing it.
Dammit, Sal!I’d trusted him. The man always came across as such a stand-up guy, but it appeared that was all an act. I realized I was grinding my teeth hard, and I forced myself to relax.
Now, I had to figure out how to stop him.
