A Cold Bargain

Copyright © Emmi Lawrence

All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission from the author.

Short Story (Approx 1500)

On the pamphlet it said they were Battery Everlasting. An interesting gimmick. Unrealistic, she was sure, but it was a nice touch. Especially since it was written in big broad letters, with phallic shapes to the b and g. It cost less than five though, slashed from a seventy-five percent sale, and she loved a bargain.

The only two left were hot pink and frost blue so she bought the blue. Once she got home and opened the packaging, the phallic b ripping in half because the tape wouldn’t come off, she discovered that blue really meant purple. Of course. She’d probably just been scammed. No return policy either given the intimate nature of the product.

Oh well.

She washed it thoroughly and lay down to test it out. Sans batteries. She didn’t actually believe it would turn on, but—surprise!—it hummed to life in her hand, dancing like it wanted to mate. Interesting. She could save a fortune on double As if it worked.

With a shrug against her pillow, she began to work it inside, pushing and pulling as vibrations rumbled against her clit and through her vagina. She’d just closed her eyes, silently enjoying, when a chill began to seep through her hand. Startled, she looked down. What had once been purple had deepened to a blue. A coldness spread along her internal walls and inched up her abdomen. She shifted her grip to her other hand and shook out the cold from her fingers. Then she shivered as the weight inside of her turned to ice. Hard, unyielding and freezing.

No wonder they’d been on sale.

Maybe she would have been better off trying the hot pink one, because the cold was making her nipples peak and her walls clench. She pulled it out carefully, almost dropping it as her fingers numbed. Sensation against her clit faded, leaving her partially aroused, yet shivering too badly to find enjoyment out of the frozen ice block the toy had become.

Great. Another dud of an experiment. And this one didn’t seem as if it wanted to cease its below freezing fun.

She switched it off and then sighed explosively as she dropped her head against the pillow. After a moment of the cold inching up her arm, she shook the toy, wondering why it didn’t seem to be settling down. Figuring her hand was too chilled to notice any difference in the temperature, she hopped up and grabbed a washcloth from the bathroom to wrap it in. And then, with a glare at the offending object, she straightened herself up, washed her hands and went to make some dinner.

With the television blaring a reality show, she threw some chicken on the stovetop. The oil sizzled, the heat from the pan warming her hand as she stirred the diced pieces. It wasn’t until she took the pan off the stove and stepped away to grab a plate that she realized just how cold the house had become.

Surprised, she checked the thermostat and nudged it up. As she ate she could hear the heater groaning, but the chill didn’t diminish. With a grumbled curse, she went to grab a sweatshirt.

That first step into her bedroom made her gasp. Her nipples hardened as if turned to metal. Her skin prickled, a million tiny bumps rubbing against the inside of her jeans and sending a shudder down her back.

No. Just no.

She rushed to the bathroom to find ice crystals growing on the washcloth. Her breath clouded in front of her face. Water droplets in the sink had frozen solid and the window had a crust of frost.

Angry now, she twisted the tap all the way to hot and shoved the frozen washcloth-clad toy under the spluttering water. The ice sank away, swirling down the drain, but only for a few seconds. Then the water grew sluggish before curling into a swirling design that froze backwards into the tap. The plumbing gave a great groan as she slammed a hand on the faucet to shut it off. What was left was a thick mass of ice surrounding the washcloth and toy, filling the sink and shining over the faucet.

Shivering now, she slammed the door behind her and rushed to the trashcan to find the packaging she’d thrown away. The directions were nothing but a slip of paper with the same two sentences in six different languages. Nothing about how to stop a rampaging vibrator though. Nothing at all.

She sifted through the ripped cardboard, but the words were only gaudy advertisements, stressing the everlasting nature of the product. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about. With a colorful curse, she rushed back into the kitchen and tried the other sink. It merely sat there as if the pipes had frozen.

She spun, her next thought to call an emergency line. Yes, that call would go well. Hello, excuse me, but my vibrator is going crazy and I need someone to destroy it before it freezes the entire apartment complex. She could already envision the laughter.

Then her gaze landed on the stovetop where the pan she’d used still sat. Probably a bad idea.

Ignoring that thought, she turned the pan on high heat and poured some oil into it. Definitely a bad idea.

While it heated she shoved her arms into her winter coat and pulled on a pair of gloves in a vain attempt to keep from shivering. When the oil began to sizzle, she grabbed a hot pad and rushed the burning pan into the bathroom. There, she poured the oil onto the ice while ducking away and when the ice only melted slowly, she cursed at the damn toy and slammed the pan onto the chunk of ice, chipping it off the side of the sink. The ice chunk with the toy in the middle slid around the sink and landed in the pan where it immediately began to spread its frosty fingers, the chill penetrating her gloves.

She shrieked as ice began to form on the tips of her gloves and almost abandoned the pan, but, in a fit of desperate inspiration, she turned and clawed the window open, practically popping the screen out in her haste before she threw the pan has hard as she could in a lateral motion.

It ripped free of her glove and sailed through the outside air, sending a cold breeze back into the bathroom. She cringed as the pan smacked and clattered across the road. There was a cutoff squeal of breaks and a another round of clattering. Then quiet.

When she dared peek outside, a very fine man was bent looking under his car, a short-sleeved shirt showing off sexy muscled arms and riding up far enough she could see the top band of his underwear. Her warning caught in her throat as the man straightened with the bent pan and ripped washcloth. And, oh yes, he had that other thing as well.

She groaned under her breath and then froze as his head lifted and his gaze sought hers. He was just as fine on his front side, with the cutest twisted smile she’d ever seen.

He lifted the vibrator, obviously unaffected by its everlasting iciness, and called, “If this is how you treat your partners, it’s no wonder you have to resort to toys.”

She shoved the window open further and stuck her head out. “It all comes down to performance. Either you can please me or you can’t.”

The man laughed, a great loud sound of the infectious type. “I take it you don’t like when underachievers come crawling back?”

She waved a hand. “I’ll give everything a try once. Second chances though, you got to earn them.”

He laughed again, then waved and got into his car. With a sigh that was mostly relief that her five dollar sale rack investment hadn’t cost her more than a pan and a washcloth—and a call to the landlord about some frozen plumbing—she shut the window, shrugged out of her coat and began to clean up the oily, watery mess in the bathroom.

A few minutes later, a knock came on the door. She peeked out the window, but the man’s car was gone. Probably a neighbor then, wanting to know if her water was having problems too. So she sighed and wiped her hands clean and went to answer.

That very fine man was standing on the other side, the offending toy in his hand. She blinked in surprise, but didn’t hold back the smile at seeing him. He twirled the toy broadly, as if he hadn’t cared whatsoever if anyone had seen him holding it.

“Thought you might like your things returned,” he said, a twinkle in his eyes.

She shook her head with a grin and dropped her hand from the doorknob so the door could swing further open. Could be worse, she figured. She could have picked the hot pink one and had the fire department called.

When the man slipped her his number and wink along with the cracked and broken vibrator, she figured yeah, things could be way worse.

The End

This story is a bit on the silly side. I was just playing around when I wrote it, so there’s nothing serious here. Just something that, hopefully, made you at least smile.