Free Submersed by Rachelle Vaughn

and short clingy dresses. The supercars were extraordinary and exorbitantly expensive.
                  Howard Davenport greeted us warmly at the door and even remembered Dillon from the charity dinner the week before.
                  Once inside, Dillon and I perused the massive showroom. It was laid out in museum fashion with interactive touch screens to learn more about the cars. There were over forty cars on display in the veritable shrine to high-end luxury vehicles.
                  As an artist, I could appreciate the sleek lines, mechanical engineering and sexy aesthetic designs, but cars weren’t really my thing. Dillon, on the other hand, was like a kid in a candy store.
                  I couldn’t necessarily blame him. The cars did have the ability to notch up your heart rate without even starting the engine. They had the power to make you feel the wind in your hair and feel the rumble of the finely tuned engine just by looking at them. It was a strangely erotic experience and I was glad to be sharing it with Dillon.
                  We saw a yellow Lamborghini Murcielago with its upswing scissor doors. A Lamborghini Reventon painted an eerie flat black. It looked like a cross between a stealth bomber jet and a concept car from the future. Of course, there was a sexy classic red Ferrari 458. A Porsche 911 GT3, an Audi R8, an Aston Martin Vantage v12 and a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren.
                  There were so many makes, models and numbers I didn’t know how car enthusiasts kept them all straight.
                  There were also cars I’d never even heard of like a Bugatti Veyron, a Pagani Zonda and something called a Koenigsegg .
                  Howard caught up to us as Dillon and I stood admiring the silver Koenigsegg .
                  “This is the Koenigsegg CCX,” he said.
                  I stifled a giggle and Dillon looked at me with a frown. “What’s so funny?”
                  “It sounded like you said Conan’s Egg,” I said to Howard.
                  “It is an unusual name. It’s Swedish for ‘knife’s edge ’ .”
                  “It’s incredible.” Dillon sighed.
                  Howard agreed. “CCX stands for Competition Coupe X. It has a supercharged V8 engine and can reach from zero-60 in 3.2 seconds. This baby has a top speed of 245 mph.”
                  Dillon whistled and I silently wondered why anyone would ever have the need to go that fast.
                  Howard opened the driver’s side door. It opened in the same sort of scissor-like way a Lamborghini’s doors opened, but not really the same at all. The doors rotated vertically in a unique way I‘d never seen before. This thing really was as much a piece of art as it was a car.
                  “It has dihedral synchro -helix actuation doors,” Howard explained. “It’s just a fancy way of saying the doors pull out, then up.”
                  “Very cool,” Dillon purred.
                  “Would you like to get behind the wheel?”
                  Dillon’s face lit up like a child being given a balloon and cotton candy at the county fair. “Sure.”
                  I looked around and didn’t see any of the other guests being allowed to sit in the cars, or even touch them for that matter. It must have been Dillon’s charm. Either that or my father had instructed Howard to dote on my “boyfriend” and me.
                  After Howard opened the equally incredible and extraordinary passenger door, I slid into the belly of the beast to join Dillon. Inside, it smelled like a million dollars wrapped in leather. Which wasn’t too far off.
                  Howard closed the door and left Dillon and me