My Cheatin' Heart, Oily Parts

Brazzers

Bill Bailey, Erica Fontes Pic(s)

The humid summer air did little to cool my cheatin’ heart, still aching from the discovery of Bill Bailey’s oily parts scattered across the garage floor. He was my steadfast companion for a decade, a complex symphony of pistons and promises that had finally fallen silent. My attempts at a repair were a desperate, greasy ballet of wrenches and whispered pleas, a futile effort to restore his former vigor. It was in this state of greasy despair that I first called Erica Fontes, a mechanic whose reputation was built on resurrecting the seemingly dead. She arrived not with judgment, but with a calibrated silence and a toolbox that seemed to hold ancient secrets. Her hands, a contrast of delicate strength, moved with an intuitive precision I could never possess, diagnosing the deep-seated maladies I had only superficially scratched. As she worked, she spoke of compression ratios and camshafts with a kind of poetic reverence, her voice a steady rhythm against the clatter of tools. Each oily component she laid bare on the stained concrete felt like another layer of my own foolish denial being exposed and cleansed. Under her meticulous care, Bill Bailey’s heart began to turn over once more, the sputter giving way to a familiar, healthy rumble that vibrated deep in my own chest. The betrayal I felt was not his, but my own, for ever doubting that such a profound and oily healing was even possible.