On Monday morning, Karen made herself a brandy coffee at eleven on the dot. She then settled down at the kitchen table, mug in hand, to do some research into chat lines. It was nice to have something other than her impending financial meltdown to think about.

     Believing it would help, Karen made a second cup of brandy infused coffee at twelve. After all, it sharpened your focus, didn't it? If learning to talk sexy was the order of the day, she decided to have a look at a few of the non-charging porn sites to see if she could pick up a few ideas. As it turned out, they weren't very helpful at all. They mostly showed short videos where the only audible noise was either grunts or groans while some tattooed super-stud ground away at a woman who was doing her best to simulate the throes of passion.

     By twelve-thirty she was beginning to feel peckish, so turned off her iPad to charge the battery while she made a ham sandwich. Because it was the first time she'd had any appetite since Saturday night, Karen enjoyed eating it while she sat in her plant filled conservatory that led off the kitchen. After she made yet another brandy coffee, she returned to her IPad to do some more research.

     The minute Karen logged onto the internet, her screen was filled with dozens of images of naked men and women, and when she clicked out of those, they were only replaced by more. Try though she might, there was no way she could get out of the endless porn sites that popped up, one after the other.

     'Frigging thing!' she wailed after ten frustrated minutes.

     Karen tried turning it on and off several times, but the same thing happened every time. She picked up her mobile to phone Jenny in the hope she might know what to do to sort it out.

     Jenny couldn't help laughing when she told her. 'You've been hacked, you silly cow! That's what those dodgy free sites do. They register your ip address and lock you into a loop. I remember reading something about it the other day.'

     'So how do I fix it?'

     Jenny didn't have a clue. 'What kind of internet security are you using? I'm surprised the sods have managed to get past that.'

     Karen groaned when she remembered. She'd meant to update her free version of AVG that morning, but she'd been side-tracked because it tried to sell her a monthly package.

     'Eh... I think it's out of date,' she admitted.

     'You're not serious... How could you be so stupid?'

     Karen immediately retaliated. 'Don't lecture me! How was I to know this might happen? I only went on those bloody sites to do some research. How was I to know a gremlin would take over my internet connection?'

     Hearing how upset she was, Jenny promised to come right over. She'd hoped to chill out on her last day off until Friday, but it was obvious Karen needed help. As it happened, the state of Karen's IPad wasn't Jenny's biggest concern after she arrived. Not only did Karen look completely frazzled after her three brandy coffees, but her infected leg had ballooned out so much, the puffy skin was bulging over the edge of her shoe.

     'I'm taking you to hospital!' she told Karen, the concern sounding clearly in her voice.

     Karen didn't care about her leg, just about the problem with her IPad.

     'Sod that!' Jenny told her as she grabbed a jacket from the back of the kitchen door and threw it over Karen's shoulders. 'Our research can wait, this can't.'

     Although Karen wanted to sort her IPad out before she did anything else, Jenny bundled her into the car and set off for the emergency department. All the way there, Karen was still fretting. Without the internet, she felt as though she’d lost touch with the world. ‘Do you think we’ll be able to fix it before the kids get back from work?’ she asked Jenny as they drove up to the front entrance of A & E.

     Jenny pulled on the handbrake before turning to face her. 'Hopefully. I should have thought to bring my laptop over to your place so I could log on and find out what to do online. Don't worry, I'll pick it up on the way home.'

     'But what if we can't fix it?' Karen moaned.

     Jenny let out a growl and clenched her teeth. 'Never mind about that now. Get your arse in there while I park the car!'

    

The waiting time to see a doctor was at least forty-five minutes, and after half an hour Jenny was ready to rip her hair out because Karen was still going on and on about her IPad. She grabbed a hospital wheelchair from the reception area, and ordered Karen to get into it.

     'Let's go and have a free look at a few magazines in McCall's while we're waiting,' she suggested, before pushing Karen across the concourse towards the shop.

     Fortunately, it was fairly empty, and because the one and only assistant was unpacking some stock behind the till, they were able to browse through several magazines without being overlooked. Karen wanted to look in the section for PC users. Jenny had other ideas.

     'What are you doing?' Karen hissed when she saw her pick up a glossy porn magazine from the top shelf.

     'Market research,' she whispered back. 'These magazines probably advertise the best sites for chat lines. You didn't think we were going to try and join up to that grubby little outfit who advertise in the local paper, did you? If we're going to do this, we'd be better off going with a big company that's well advertised and gets loads of callers.'

     She flicked past images of countless bulging breasts and girls with no, or see-through panties, before reaching the classified section at the back. There were indeed dozens of adverts for chat lines, most of which showed beautiful, naked girls, asterisks strategically covering anything that shouldn't be seen.

     'Look at this,' she enthused as she flashed a page in front of Karen with an advert showing four older women in plunging necklines.

     'Super sexy cougars and gorgeous grannies are just waiting for your call...' she read out. 'Perfect!'

     Karen wasn't convinced. It was just one advert, and the rest seemed to focus on girls who didn't look old enough to have left school. 'Wouldn't we be limiting ourselves too much if we signed up to a chat line for oldies?'

     Jenny shrugged her shoulders. 'Possibly, but who's to say we can't try both? I mean, there's nothing I've found out yet to say you can't register with more than one site. From what I was able to work out when I went on the internet this morning, you're given a code to punch in when you log on to take calls, and you can do it at any time, day or night. We'll probably find that the old codgers are more active during the day because they're tucked up in their beds by nine o'clock at night.'

     Unfortunately, they were so engrossed while they studied the rest of the adverts, they didn't notice the male shop assistant coming up behind them.

     'Can I help you, ladies?' he asked with a polite, albeit amused smile.

     Jenny got such a surprise, she dropped the magazine.

     'Eh... yes. I'm sure you can...' she stammered as she reached down to pick it up.
   
     Recovering her composure, she held the magazine up for him to see. 'Can you recommend this one?' she asked.

     It was the shop assistant's turn to look embarrassed.

     'Ah, I'm not really familiar with it...' he muttered after he'd considered the question for a couple of seconds.

     Having hastily come up with what she thought was a good excuse to be looking at porn magazines in the first place, Jenny continued to quiz him.

     'My husband asked me to get him something to assist him when he goes to the fertility clinic this afternoon. I just wondered if you thought this one was appropriate for the job in hand, so to speak.'

     Karen nearly burst out laughing, especially when she saw Jenny's dead-pan face. The fact that she was probably officially well past child-bearing age, however young she looked, obviously hadn't occurred to her. To an effort to try and back up her story, Karen looked up from the wheelchair with a serious expression.

     'Yes, they have to do something before it's too late. They've been trying to start a family for so long, they've almost given up hope. She's okay, so it's time to get the baby gravy checked out. I've been telling them to do that for years.'

     Jenny could feel the laughter rising from the pit of her stomach, and looked down at the magazine in the hope the shop assistant wouldn't be able to see her mouth twitching like a brewing volcano. Having opened and closed the magazine several times, she stopped at a double page spread of a topless, stiletto heeled brunette who was lying on her side while she licked her fingers.

     'What I really need to know... Is this likely to help him?' she asked, as she held it up for him to see.

     The poor man looked mortified 'I'm sure it will... madam.' He stuttered, before dragging his eyes away from the picture and back to her. 'Would you like a bag for that?'

      Jenny tried to control her twitching mouth as she replied.  'Yes, that would be lovely...'

     After he scuttled away towards the counter, Jenny and Karen suppressed the laughter just long enough to follow him and cough up seven pounds fifty-five for the magazine and bag. Once back in the waiting area, they exploded with laughter.

     'Did we actually have to buy it?' Karen asked when she eventually drew breath. 'I mean, seven pounds fifty for a sleazy mag is bad enough, but you'd think a five pence bag would at least cover the sodding thing up. This one's see-through!'

     Sure enough, the image of the voluptuous, half-naked blond, holding her ample breasts in her hands like two over-ripe melons, was visible to everyone around them.

     Oh, God!' Jenny moaned before she pulled off her jacket and slid the bag underneath it on the empty seat beside her.

     Sadly, most of the people in the waiting area saw it before she did. The elderly woman sitting opposite them dug her elbow into her husband's ribs, before muttering the word 'disgusting,' and giving both Karen and Jenny a filthy look.

     'I thought we'd better buy it so we could check out all the sites who advertise in it,' she told Karen in a lowered voice. 'It stands to reason that magazines like that are where people who aren't internet savvy are going to look for them.' It makes sense to check them all out.'

      Because the old woman was now staring at them and straining her ears in an effort to hear what she was saying, Jenny was relieved when she heard Karen's name being called out to go through to a consultation room. With the carrier bag still concealed under her jacket, she wheeled Karen through the swing doors.

     After the young Indian doctor examined Karen's leg, he asked her how long she'd had the infection. When she told him it was at least two months, he looked concerned.

     'Which antibiotics has your GP prescribed? I would have expected this to have cleared up by now.'

     Karen frowned as she tried to remember what they were called, but after racking her brain for nearly a minute, she admitted defeat.

     'Well, whatever they are, they're obviously not having much effect. I'll have to prescribe you something in the hope that it's different. Do you have any allergies?'

     Karen shook her head.

     'Any history of heart complaints or diabetes?'

     Karen's doctor had told her that her diabetes could affect the progress of her recovery, which was why she'd used it as an excuse when she'd talked to the kids after she got back from Jenny's on Sunday. She nodded her head.

     'Yes, diabetes.'

     The doctor suddenly wrinkled up his nose and looked back at Karen accusingly. 'I'm sorry to have to ask you, Mrs Walker, but have you been drinking?'

     'Just enough to help out with the pain,' she told him as though it was the most natural thing in the world to be stinking of brandy mid-afternoon.

     'Has your doctor not given you anything for pain relief?'

     Karen decided not to mention the Co-codomol because she'd nearly run out.

     'Eh, no. I didn't ask because I thought the brandy would do the job...'

     The doctor tut-tutted. 'Well, I don't mind prescribing you painkillers, Mrs Walker, but only if you promise not to mix them with alcohol. The same applies with the antibiotics I'm going to prescribe for you. If you mix them with alcohol, they could make you sick or give you diarrhoea.'

     That at least explained the last lot. Hopefully these new pills would be more alcohol friendly, because Karen wasn't thinking of giving up her brandy any time soon.

     'You also need to keep your leg elevated as much as possible to get rid of the swelling. I can't stress how important that is.'

     Karen was past caring. All she wanted to do was get back home and get her IPad sorted out. She thanked him profusely after he'd written out a prescription for the hospital pharmacy, which included enough Co-codomol to keep her going for a month.


The minute she got back in the car, Karen started fretting about her IPad again, so Jenny had no choice but to grit her teeth and keep driving while she did.

     'At least the doctor gave you some new antibiotics,' she said in the hope Karen would change the subject.

     'It doesn't matter if he did,' Karen replied dismissively. 'They'll probably make me sick and give me the runs as well. I won't be taking them either, if they do.'

     Jenny couldn't believe she could be so stupid. 'Don't you want your leg to get better?'

     Karen looked indignant. 'Of course I do!'

     Jenny shook her head. 'Well, you could have fooled me. I think it's time you got a grip, my friend. I didn't even know you had diabetes. When did that happen?'

     Karen thought she'd told her. 'It's nothing to worry about. It's only because I'm overweight. It'll sort itself out when I lose a few pounds.'

     Jenny realised she was fighting a losing battle trying to talk any sense into her, so gave up. After she stopped off at her house to pick up her laptop, she headed for Karen's. Just after she came off the M8, the car suddenly started making a chugging noise before it lost power, so Jenny had to pull into the kerb.

     She swore under her breath as she tried turning the ignition on and off several times. Nada. At least they weren't in the middle of nowhere. If she'd broken down on the motorway, it could have created a dangerous situation, especially if she'd been in the outside lane. Jenny just thanked God she was a member of the AA, or they would have been in real trouble. She'd recently downloaded their mobile app which would tell them exactly where she was located, so she picked up her phone and gave them a call. Two minutes later she received a text to confirm road-side assistance would be with them within fifteen minutes, so they sat back in their seats to wait for someone to arrive.

     'So what do we do while we're waiting,' Karen asked.

     'Anything, as long as you don't mention your bloody IPad,' Jenny huffed.

     They sat there in silence for a couple of minutes until Karen looked over at the pub on the opposite side of the road.

     'Well, I'm frigging starving,' Karen moaned as she looked over at the billboard advertising a two-for-one deal on rib-eye steaks. 'I've only eaten a piece of toast today, so my stomach feels as though my throat's been cut. What I would do now for one of those steaks...'

     Jenny burst out laughing. Like Karen, it had taken at least forty-eight hours to get her appetite back after their blow-out on Saturday night, and yes, she was really hungry too, but eating out just wasn't up for discussion.

     'No way, Karen...We can't afford it, even if they are half price. God knows what getting the car sorted is going to cost if the AA can't fix it. After buying that magazine, I only have about twenty-five quid left to get me through to payday next week, so eating out is definitely off limits.'

     Karen chuckled. 'I know that, but I can always dream, can't I?'

     Jenny grabbed the porn magazine in an effort to distract her. A hungry Karen could be just as annoying as a Karen who was fretting about her IPad, so she frantically looked for something to take her mind of food. As luck would have it, there was an article on what 'real' men liked their women to do when they were in bed, and talking dirty just happened to be one of them.

     'Okay, let's practice what we're going to say to the punters when we get started. That should keep us amused until the AA man gets here,' she suggested.

     Karen didn't seem to be interested. Now the thought of a rib-eye steak had entered into the equation, she couldn't think of anything else.

     'Mmm, what I would do to gobble you all up right now,' she sighed, her eyes shut tight as she imagined it on a plate in front of her.

     Jenny burst out laughing again and put the magazine down. She'd seen Karen do this when she'd half-heartedly attempted to diet the year before. On that occasion, it had been when they were parked outside Kentucky Fried Chicken, another of Karen's favourites. She'd moaned and groaned so much at the thought of a chicken burger with fries and sweetcorn, Jenny had eventually given in and turned into the drive-through.

     'So, what else would you like to do with a steak?' she asked.

     Karen thought about it for a moment. 'I'd like to look at it for a couple of minutes before I start putting it into my mouth... Then I'd savour the way it tastes for a while...'

     Jenny couldn't help sniggering.  She'd been thinking 'talk dirty,' Karen was thinking steak.

     'And what does it taste like?' she asked.

     Karen opened her right eye and looked over at Jenny to ask if her fictitious steak had pepper sauce on it, or not.

     'No sauce, just the steak on its own,' she decided.

     'Mmm...It's absolutely delicious...'

     'And how does it feel when you've eaten the last piece?'

     Jenny watched the AA van arrive, then the mechanic walk towards the car as Karen cried out with satisfaction at the thought.

     'Oh yes, big boy. You were frigging perfect. In fact, you're the most delicious thing I've clapped eyes on in a long time!'

     'Thank you very much!' the mechanic replied as his face appeared at Jenny's open window.

     Karen didn't know where to put herself. 'I was just imagining eating a big juicy steak...' she told him as she squirmed in her seat.

     'There's no need to explain. As long as you enjoyed the experience,' he teased. 'So, what seems to be the problem?' he asked Jenny as he stood back to let her get out of the car.

     'The engine just died after making a weird noise. I've tried the ignition a few times, but nothing's happening. I haven't a clue what's wrong with it because nothing like this has ever happened before.'

     'Well, that's what we're here for,' he told her. He then checked his paperwork before asking if she was Ms Gardener, and when she confirmed that she was, he asked to see her membership card. Fortunately, Jenny had it in her purse, so after she'd shown it to him, he turned his attention back to the car. He then winked at her before he sat in the driver's seat to try turning on the ignition himself.

     'Yup, she's not even responding to my gentle touch. Time to bring in the army and find out what's wrong.'

     'The army?'

     'The army is my little gizmo that's linked to the computer in my van,' he explained. 'It'll tell us where the problem is, so we can hopefully have you up and running in no time.'

      He then attached a wired contraption to something underneath the dashboard, before returning back to his van. Jenny waited nervously by the side of the car, hoping against hope it would be something simple. Her credit card was almost maxed out, so if it was anything major, she just couldn't afford to have it fixed. If that happened, she really would be in trouble because it would take her at least an hour to get to work by bus.

     After a few minutes, the mechanic got out of his van and walked back towards her, his lips pursed. 'Well, do you want the good news, or the bad news?' he asked.

     Jenny held her breath before answering. 'Let's try the bad news first and get it over with.'

      'I'm afraid your cylinder piston is knackered.'

     'Oh no...' Jenny groaned. 'How much does a new one cost?'

     He rubbed his chin for a couple of seconds. 'From memory, just over a hundred pounds, but...'

     Jenny panicked and put her head through the car window. 'It's going to cost about a hundred for the part. I don't suppose you can help out, can you?'

     Karen grimaced. 'Sorry, chum. I've only got twenty quid on me.'

     Jenny turned back to the mechanic and told him she couldn't afford to repair it. He just laughed, then picked up from where he'd left off before she interrupted him.

     'I'd better give you the good news then. I was just about to tell you I've got a second-hand one in the van. It might only last for a few months, but at least it wouldn't cost you anything, and it'll only take five minutes to fit.'

     Jenny nearly flung her arms around his neck and kissed him, but managed to hold back. She grinned from ear to ear, and told him he was a life saver instead...


If you enjoyed this sample chapter, you can read the first three chapters free of charge here; http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00Z3B90B6 and/or buy the kindle for £1.99 ($2.99)