Steve Muller Writing Samples

Compatible Equipment
By Leonard Ciucciarello

“I’m finished polishing the ten-inch pipes!” shouted Rod over the noise of the Ericson 2230 Orbital sander, “If you want to come check them out.”

Monique strode across the shop floor at Piscataway Pipe & Tube, towards Rod and his stack of anodized aluminum alloy fittings: Interior diameter 1-7/8 inch with edges burnished to a mirrorlike shine by the Ericson’s powerful carbide belt. Rod had cut a hundred of them to ten-inch lengths: a special order.

Wrapping her slender fingers around one of the heavy cylinders, Monique's blouse parted. Rod glimpsed her breasts in their white, unlined demi bra, surging over the imported nylon/elastane/viscose fabric, like floodwaters over Hoover Dam. He looked up to meet her eyes -- just a moment too late.

Like the nearby Porter-Cable 43720 Straight-Cutting Double Flute Router, Monique was self-lubricating. She shifted her stance, and several of the ten-inchers rang like a glockenspiel as they hit the concrete. Kneeling to pick them up, she found that suddenly, at eye level, was a pipe of a different sort. Through Rod’s khaki board shorts, she spied a familiar contour. It was a Simmons 440a! A gas line connector PP&T carried in stock: Copper, 1-7/8 inch exterior diameter, threaded, in 6-, 8-, and 10-inch lengths. This appeared to be an eight. “Why does the kid have a 440a/8 in his pocket?” She wondered, and instinctively reached towards it. Rod’s moan revealed that she had been mistaken. She stroked the “440a” through his shorts, then found his zipper.

She explored his fixture with her lips, eventually opening her mouth and engulfing the entire 1-7/8” diameter that, it appeared, came standard with Rod. “Luckily I have a compatible fitting,” she thought, as she stood and pushed the awestruck machinist backwards towards the workbench. A red sign on a nearby wall said, “KEEP BOTH HANDS ON THE CONTROLS AT ALL TIMES.” She nodded to it as she guided his hands to her full breasts. “Safety first,” she said huskily.

He had been the machinist and now he became the machined, as she pounded him like the Evanoff 1100-GR, a beefy, five-speed drill press. He reciprocated, like a saw.

Monique knew people would be trickling back from lunch soon, so speed and reliability were key. She encouraged Rod’s fingers towards her Escutcheon. Rod didn’t need a Freud 91-100 13-piece 1/2” shank set to achieve the right alignment, and before long they felt a heat building, one that it would take more than dual side-mounted cooling vents to dispel.

With a yelp Rod unleashed the full might of his twin hydraulic compressors into her. At the same time, contractions shook her interior, surging with a whopping 8.3 horsepower of raw female energy—an astounding power output, thought Rod, for a unit so compact.

Rod lost tensile integrity and collapsed. Monique fell on top of him, breathing hard. The last of the pipes clattered to the ground, like wedding bells. Hearing car doors slam snapped them out of it just in time.The first to arrive was “Paulsy”, the shop foreman. He was not called Paulsy because his first name was Paul or because his last name was Polesino, but on account of his withered left hand.

“Got those suckers finished off, Rod?” said Paulsy.

Rod nodded.

“Rod’s got a real knack with those pipes,” said Monique, “I’m going to lunch!” She grabbed her purse and left the building, still shaking inside like a Steimen vibrating concrete mixer, the diesel-powered one, not the less-powerful, electric one.