The Driver

LAUREN

Click. Swipe. Click. Swipe.

Moves: 26.

Click. Swipe. Click. Swipe.

Sixth game? Seventh? I’d lost count. Spider Solitaire was now the highlight of my day. That realisation hit like a punch to the proverbial cunt. I stared blankly at the screen.

“Do something,” I muttered at myself, but didn’t.

Click. Swipe. Click. Swipe. Click. Swipe. Click. Swipe.

Completed in 101 moves. A brief flicker of triumph fluttered in my chest, then disappeared with a sigh so deep it might have reached my soul.

Spider. Fucking. Solitaire.

Kill me now.

I stared at my laptop, as if it might offer answers. How had this become the pinnacle of my daily excitement?

When did I stop doing things that lit me up?

I couldn’t even remember. It had to be years ago. Hands braced against my temples; I watched the limp little fireworks burst on-screen to celebrate my win. ‘Would you like another game?’ the pop-up taunted cheerily.

“No, I fucking wouldn’t,” I muttered.

It wasn’t like my life was bad. It really wasn’t, far from it in fact. I had a good job, a fantastic job. Decent friends, even if I barely saw them anymore. Weekly hobby classes. Sooz dragging me to fitness boot camps that left me fantasising more about post-workout pizza. I did like Pilates, though, mostly because I could lie down and breathe for an hour without anyone asking me anything.

So why did I feel like I was clinging to reasons to justify being OK?

That was the problem. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt high. Not the drug kind, the life kind. Adrenaline. Laugh-until-you-snort euphoria. That dizzy head-rush from standing on a summit, or the full-body electricity of great sex. When was the last time I really let go?

The thought lingered too long in my limbs, and it unnerved me. I tried to shake it off, to clamber within my mind to see if I was being ridiculous, if I had gotten high recently, but my thoughts went silent.

I’m not repressed, far from it. I say yes to things. But somewhere along the line, I must’ve pulled on the handbrake. Hard. And never took it off.

Shit.

Now I felt even worse than when I started the stupid game.

My laptop, my so-called portal to the world, stared back at me. The search bar remained blank like my brain.

I stood up, talking to myself because at least someone would listen. “Right. What are my options?” I wandered around the flat, loading the dishwasher with a single mug and a sad scattering of cutlery. Thrilling.

I needed a jolt—something, anything, to shake me awake.

Drive to a cliff and scream into the wind? Free therapy. But fleeting.

Girls’ day out at a theme park? Risk of vomiting: high. Still, possible.

Climb Kilimanjaro for charity? Noble. But not me.

What had I always wanted to try, but never had the chance? Or the guts?

The answer floated up, quietly confident, as it had always been there. Rally driving.

I’d always wanted to do it. Always chickened out.

But after seven games of Spider Solitaire, what exactly did I have to lose?

I opened Google, heart thudding, and searched ‘rally driving experience days’... for fucking losers, I wanted to add. I had no clue how it worked. Could I drive someone else’s car? Did I need to be in a league or a team? Thirty minutes passed in a blur, then suddenly.

Click. Send. Done. Booked.

A taster session, just over an hour away. Saturday after next.

I skimmed the itinerary and immediately wanted to shit myself.

What did I just do?

Come and drive on our 4-mile specialist course set in woodland and countryside.

You’ll be taught:

Driving.

Co-driving.

No speed limits.

No rev limits.

Trained by our ex-professional rally drivers.

7-hour full-day experience. Lunch included.

My pulse surged. I let out a nervous squeak.

This was exactly what I needed. Something bold. Something messy. Something completely out of my comfort zone.

The website looked decent: good reviews and a well-designed layout. The course included off-road tracks, rally terrain, and a racing circuit. That helped. Maybe it attracted a mixed crowd, not just hardcore car nuts.

But deep down, I pictured teenage boys with need-for-speed t-shirts, the car world’s version of biker gangs and beer-bellied truckers. Definitely not my people. Not even sure who “my people” were, in fact.

What the hell was I thinking?

No, come on, I wrestled with myself; I did love cars. Always had. The growl of the engine, the hum in your chest when you hit the throttle. I wasn’t afraid of speed or getting flung about. I’d even looked into doing a skid pan course once, the one where they add extra wheels, so you spin out safely.

Never got round to it, of course.

Another thing I’d wanted but didn’t do.

But now? I was doing this.

It would be fun.

It would be something.

It was worth a go.

-

I must’ve argued with myself all week. Back and forth. But it was too late now. I’d lose my deposit if I backed out.

Sooz laughed when I told her.

“Of course you are,” she said, dry as a martini. “You can’t just do normal, can you? It’s always the extreme.”

“Maybe,” I replied, sulking into my drink.

“It’s not a bad thing. Just an observation.” She raised her hands like a scale. “Over here, nothing.” Her left hand hovered low. “And over here, rally driving.” The right shot up theatrically. She smirked.

We were at our local after work—a cosy bar, good cocktails, good tunes and, importantly, some very decent male scenery. We were knocking back our drinks far too quickly, and she was chuckling over the printout of my booking confirmation.

She knew me, probably better than anyone. So, none of this really surprised her. I was unpredictable: dormant one moment, volcanic the next. Fiercely driven when I cared, stubbornly idle when I didn’t and the only person who ever printed off tickets or booking confirmations anymore.

“Anyway,” I said, “it’s this Saturday. I’ll send you a photo if I haven’t wrapped myself around a tree by lunchtime.”

I slapped her raised hand down, and she cackled.

“Jesus. What’s the public liability in a place like that? People must be wrecking those cars left, right and centre.”

Sooz was my rock. Susie McCloughan, full name. Mad as a box of frogs, but loyal as anything. We met at art college and stayed close, even when I lost touch with everyone else. I’m not great with keeping up, but Sooz? She’d ace any course in friendship management.

She had mousy-blonde curls that bounced like springs when she talked, and she talked with everything: hands, eyebrows, neck, shoulders. Always expressive. Always there.

“Fuck me, he’s hot.”

Her eyes had drifted to the bar. She absentmindedly stroked the stem of her wine glass. I followed her gaze.

Matt had just walked in with a few friends. They were chatting, relaxed. She was grinning like a cat in the sun.

They’d been seeing each other for a couple of months. He was smitten. She glowed. Together, they were like a human chill-out playlist, no drama, no mess, just completely chilled.

“How’s it going?” I asked, trying to sound casual. The most action I’d had recently was from my cat. The other day, he massaged my boob while kneading for the perfect nap spot. The only other male presence in my life? My vibrator was on charge more often than my phone.

“Good. Gooooood,” she said, smiling dreamily.

“About time you got off the dickhead train,” I teased. “You were practically the conductor.”

“I know. My radar’s crap.”

“Crap? Sooz, your dickhead radar is excellent. It practically emits man-whore whistles. They come running.”

We both cracked up. Not that my love life was any less tragic.

“I think we’ve both been a bit shit in that department,” she said, shrugging. “But onwards and upwards. Maybe we’ve just been looking in the wrong places. What’s that proverb? Don’t look under rocks or you’ll find a worm?”

I frowned. “Is that a real proverb?”

“No idea. But you get what I mean.”

Oddly, I did.

The nightclubs we grew up with didn’t exactly produce top-tier dating prospects. But still, there were some good times. Before him. Before Josh.

One-night stands, flings, short bursts of something. It was fun. The sex was... fine. Good, even. But looking back? Kind of beige.

No zing. No fire. No oomph.

What is it with me and oomph? Maybe I’m the problem. How’s anyone meant to impress me if I’m mentally grading them against some unquantifiable “oomph chart”?

Sooz noticed the spiral brewing in my head and wisely changed the subject.

“So, how’s work? Have you done that big trade fair yet?”

“Yep. Last week. Massive. I networked my arse off, gave two talks, one for the forum crowd. All expenses paid.”

“Oh, get you, Miss Thing,” she said with mock glamour.

“I was asked.” I protested, “And paid, thank you. It’s good for the company. I think I’ve got three potential deals out of it, but we’ll see.”

Every friend I have tries so hard to understand what I do. But they always end up with that same face: part curiosity, part constipation, like they need one more piece of information to unlock the mystery.

It doesn’t bother me anymore.

It all clicked during that Friends episode when no one could remember Chandler’s job. They think they know... but ask them to explain it and they have no idea—just blankness.

So, here goes.

I’m a Creative Licensing Director.

Still confused? Yeah. Most are.

In plain English: I sign artists, and we get their artwork onto stuff: clothes, cards, jigsaws, wallpaper. I work with amazing creative people who don’t know how to make a living from their talent. I help them monetise it. And I love it. I really do.

It’s a tight-knit industry, though. And they screw like rabbits. Affairs, office love triangles, swinging, and backroom promotions. You name it.

That’s actually what inspired me to start my erotic blog. There was just so much material floating around that I couldn’t cope with all of the office gossip. I changed names and added flair, but every post was rooted in truth. Not always mine. Some were fantasies, sure. But most? Plucked from the juicy office grapevine.

It became a surprisingly good outlet, especially after the breakup with Josh. I started posting short stories on erotic blog sites, and the act of writing them helped me process everything I could not quite say out loud. The comments from other readers, and sometimes their own stories, made me feel less alone. Strangely, it guided me through it all. It felt like clandestine therapy.

No one in my real life knows I write. I suppose there is still a part of me that feels a little embarrassed, as though erotica is somehow not “proper” writing. But it is a release. It gave me somewhere to put the ache, the anger, and the want. And it helped me heal.

Josh and I were done: eighteen months of nothingness followed by nine months of emotional hangover. I was hormonal, lonely, and sometimes horny. So, the blog was born, and the vibrator charger basically became a permanent fixture in my socket.

If I’d known just how long the celibacy stint would last, maybe I’d have made more effort to get back in the saddle sooner.

But saying it and doing it? Two very different things.