Tuning Fork

I've been at the gliding club two years now, and I still don't know why nobody locks the workshop. Faith, thirty-four, housekeeper, and I know exactly which drawer has the big tuning fork in it. The one the instructor uses for the vibration checks on the fiberglass. It's about this long, heavy in the hand, and if you strike it and hold it against yourself, the hum goes right through you.

I'm not proud of it, but I'm not sorry either.

It started in February, some dead Tuesday night when the hangar was empty and the heating was clanking away. I was cleaning the workshop bench, and the fork fell off the edge onto the concrete and rang like a bell. I picked it up to put it back and it was still buzzing in my hand, this low steady thrum that went up my arm, and I thought, well, that's interesting.

It's better than interesting. I strike it twice on my palm, press the tine against my clit through my knickers the first time, and by the second go I've learned to get my clothes out of the way. The frequency is sort of exact. Nothing buzzy and cheap like the one I bought in town that died after four uses. This thing doesn't flutter, it hums, one deep steady note that goes through the whole of my pelvis like the hangar roof is humming with me. I've timed it. Eleven minutes, start to finish, and I come so hard I have to put a hand on the wall.

The problem, of course, is Vince. He's thirty-five, he rigs the festival tents and the winch gear, and he notices things. He noticed the extension lead got moved. He noticed I started locking the cleaning cart. Last week he said, "Your cart's got a padlock on it now, that's new."

"Valuables," I said. "People leave stuff lying about."

He looked at me the way he looks at a knot he doesn't trust, and let it go. But I know I can't keep this up forever. Sooner or later he's going to want to know why his girlfriend comes home from cleaning a hangar looking like she's had a bath in warm honey.

Tonight I've got the hangar to myself until ten. The gliders are all tucked away, the floor's half mopped, and I've got the fork tucked into the waistband of my jeans, hidden under my apron. I strike it on my palm and hold it low, and honestly, just the hum through the fabric is enough to make my knees sort of loosen.

That's when the side door bangs.

"Faith? You still here?"

Vince. Of course it's Vince, three hours early, come to check the tent rigging because the forecast says wind tomorrow and the tent on the lawn has been swaying like a drunk at a bus stop. I shove the fork into the mop bucket, throw a rag over it, and by the time he comes around the gliders I'm wringing out a mop like I've never done anything else in my life.

"You're early," I say.

"Tent's moving in the gusts. Nicky said he saw it leaning when he closed the pub last night." He pulls his gloves on. "Where's the rope I left by the office?"

"Coiled up on the shelf. I moved it to mop."

"Right, yeah." He's already half gone, that man. Head full of guy lines and anchor points. "Storm's supposed to come through about two in the morning. I want this thing doubled up before I go home."

"Big wind?"

"Big enough. You got the porch lights on?"

I tell him yes, and we do the small talk thing, weather, the university students who keep parking on the grass, whether the kettle in the office still works. He stands there with a rope over his shoulder and says, "You're home before ten then?"

"Half nine probably."

"I'll bring chips."

And then he's out the door to the tent, and I'm standing in an empty hangar with a mop and a decision. The sensible thing is to finish the floor and go home.

I check the side door. Closed. I check the big hangar doors. Shut. The gravel lot is empty except for his van. So I do the stupid thing, because it's Tuesday and the heating is clanking and nobody is coming.

I sit up on the front row of the bleachers. They're steel, bolted down, cold even through my jeans. I strike the fork twice on the heel of my hand and it hums up into the quiet like it's been waiting. I press it against the inside of my thigh first, just to feel it travel, and then I work it up slow until the tine is resting right against me through the denim.

Oh, that's it. That's the note.

The vibration goes through my jeans and into my clit and then it doesn't stay there, it spreads, down through my pelvis and up my back, and I can feel it in my teeth. I press harder and roll the tine a little and the whole lower half of me lights up like a circuit. I have to bite my lip, because a hangar echoes. Everything I do in here, the building does back at me.

I get my hand down the front of my knickers so there's nothing between the metal and me, and that's the difference between a nice hum and a full freight train. The tine sits on my clit and just keeps going, steady, patient, no fumbling, no losing the spot. My hips start moving on their own. I've got my lip clamped between my teeth so hard it hurts, and I'm thinking, don't shout, don't shout, and the wave comes up from somewhere behind my belly button and breaks over the top of me and I come hard against the metal, legs shaking on the bleachers, one hand fisted in my apron.

It takes a minute for my ears to stop ringing. That's the other thing about the fork, everything sounds muffled after.

Which is why I don't hear the side door.

"Faith? You in here? Thought I saw Vince's van, is he still..." Nicky, twenty-eight, the bartender from the pub, standing fifteen feet away with a can of coke he'd just bought from the machine, staring straight at me.

I do the fastest thing I've ever done with my clothes, which is yank my hand out, snap my jeans shut, and shove the still-humming fork into my apron pocket, where it buzzes against my hip like a trapped wasp.