Mint Condition - E. D. James

At first he thought the little round spot was just a speck of dust. Or a bug that died and left its carcass as an homage to the beauty of it surroundings. He actually was in a good mood as he got out the Swozol Divine car wax he’d had specially formulated with his favorite sandalwood scent and prepared to restore his beauty to mint condition. There was no detail too small for him to attend to when it came to the Lamborghini Reventon roadster that was his pride and joy. Outside of his business, it was the only thing he paid attention to with any regularity. The cars name (Reventón, after the fighting bull owned by the Don Rodriguez family and known for killing the famous bullfighter Felix Guzman in 1943), its sleek shape, and the fact that there were only twenty of its vintage in the world made it his prized possession.

The can of wax felt great in his hand. Took him back to his roots working on the line at the Ford factory as a very young man. He’d come a long way. Those tech geeks didn’t know shit about actually making things when the whole Silicon Valley thing got going. Sure they understood their chips and software, but they need hardware to put it in, and that’s where he came in. He wasn’t any futuristic egghead genius, but he’d made a pile of money, and he was enjoying it.

He pulled out the shop rug and laid it on the shiny concrete floor of the garage he’d had specially built behind his house in Atherton to house his prize. The big space was perfectly lighted to allow him to fully enjoy its beauty. The lid of the wax popped up easily, amazing what they can do in a fifteen hundred dollar can, put the cloth on it and tipped out a tiny dollup to rub out whatever bit of flotsam was marring the surface of his prize. He looked forward to restoring it again to perfection. The first wipe of the cloth brought the sandalwood scent to his nostrils and gave him a thrill. He rubbed and suddenly felt sick. The tip of his finger defined the speck not as a lump or bump, something that he could rub off; but as a dimple, a hole, a depression, something he would not be able to rub off. He pulled the cloth away and looked closer. God, it was a ding. A ding in the door that could only be caused by the edge of another car door hitting it.

That fucking Tommy and his fucking slut model girlfriend. He must have snuck the car out to impress her while I was away on that trip to China last week. The fucking worthless spawn of his loins would pay for this. The kid needed to learn.