|
I thought driving across the country to California would be fun. Everyone I knew who'd done it had great stories to tell; amazing bars they'd run across, visits to freaky tourist things that resulted in postcards I'd taped to my cubicle wall at work; hookups with hot guys.
I hadn't run across any amazing bars, though I'd been in more than few where there was nothing good on tap and it was clear that since I wasn't a local I wasn't welcome. Tourist things like the world's largest rocking chair were sad in person, kept in a dusty room in a tired town where it was clear my admission money would keep someone's family barely fed for a few more days. And the guys--let's put it this way. I saw tourists in awful t-shirts and bad shoes. I saw plenty of traveling businessmen, rumpled and defeated looking. I had someone tell me I looked like his sister and then act surprised when I wouldn't tell him where I was staying.
And then there was the trip itself. I hadn't realized that driving across the country meant so much actual driving where day after day I got up, drove for twelve or fourteen or sixteen hours only to stop and fall asleep in a motel room that only varied in price and color of the bedspread just to get up and do the whole thing over again. I hadn't realized driving across the country would be so.... boring.
I thought about turning around but when I got to California I was going to stay at my cousin's house for three days before driving back and the thought of those three days--three days where I wouldn't be in the car--kept me going. If I turned around I wouldn't get any time away from the car at all.
I hit the last stretch of the last state I had to cross before California early in the morning. I was crossing the desert. It was all I had seen yesterday, hours and hours of gray-brown ground, and I knew it was all I'd see today. The only remotely interesting thing I saw was a military base but even then there was really nothing to see; just a sign, a few armed guards, and then mile after mile of tall, wire fencing in nothing but more gray-brown dirt.
When the fence ended I drove for hours without seeing anything but more dirt. I ate a sandwich, stopped for gas, listened to cds I'd heard too many times already. I actually cheered when I saw a broken-down military jeep on the side of the road because it meant I really was moving forward and not driving the same patch of road over and over again. It had started to feel like I was.
After the jeep there was nothing again, just ground and sky and road unfurling in front of me. I changed the cd I was listening to and looked at the map. The nearest town seemed so far away.
I looked back at the road. The sky had gotten darker, turned a hazy gray that made it hard to see, but I thought there was something up ahead, moving along the road. I couldn't tell what was but it seemed close.
It wasn't. I drove and drove and it stayed where it was, a blur almost out of sight. I was sick of the desert, sick of my cds, my car, the road. I was sick of everything. I stared at the spot and mashed the gas pedal to the floor. My car shook--it was old and crappy--but finally the spot grew closer. I wondered what it was. I hoped it was a fancy hotel that only charged thirty bucks a night. I figured it would be another abandoned car, a metal skeleton lying on the side of the road.
It was a person. I drove by so fast they stayed a blur, a spot against the hazy sky. I sighed, wished I'd at least seen something interesting. I wanted a story to tell.
If I picked someone up I'd have one.
I stopped the car, looked at the desert stretching out the same and endless all around me. Eventually the person came into view.
I hoped whoever it was would look exotic and maybe even a little dangerous but all I saw was a guy; average height, average weight, average brown hair. He was dressed in jeans and a gray t-shirt and frankly I looked more dangerous than he did. He had that just-out- of -college -and –ready- to- join –the- world look about him, a kind of newness that fades as soon as real life smacks you on the forehead with its relentless boringness. He stopped when he saw my car, paused a few feet away like he wasn't sure he wanted to come closer.
"Do you want a ride?" I asked, rolling my window down.
He looked away from me, glanced back down the road. I decided when I told the story he'd be exhausted and grateful, not stand staring out into the desert like there was something to see.
"I would," he finally said. He voice was as average as the rest of him.
“Where are you going?” I asked when he got in the car. He was silent for a moment then named the town I was planning on stopping at for the night.
"You're in luck," I told him. "That's where I'm headed."
I looked at the road--the sky was still so dark--then over at him again. He was asleep. I'd never seen anyone fall asleep so fast. He'd just closed his eyes and was gone. It was annoying because I wanted to listen to music and also because I was hoping for his story, something to share when I told people I'd stopped and picked up someone walking along the road.
He slept until I drove into the town I'd named when he'd gotten in the car and then woke up, opening his eyes the moment I pulled off the highway. Apparently he woke up as suddenly as he'd fallen asleep. So far that was the most interesting thing about him. Some story this would be.
"You have a place to stay?" I asked, hoping for mention of a crazy relative or a spirit quest--something--but he just shook his head and looked out the window, staring out into the desert again.
Buying a stranger a hotel room would definitely make great story material. "I'll get you a room where I'm staying, ok?"
He turned away from the window and looked at me. After a moment he nodded.
In the hotel he stood looking at a display rack of tourist pamphlets while I checked in. The clerk never batted an eye when I asked for two rooms even though I was standing by myself, just told me in a bored voice that free breakfast started as seven and asked for my credit card. I decided in my story the clerk would ask questions and possibly chew bubble gum. When I got the keys I turned around to find him. I looked right past him twice.
It turned out he was staying in a room down the hall from mine. His reflection in the dull metal surface of the elevator was finally interesting, his face blurred so much it could hold the promise of beauty, of something startling.
I thought of another story I could tell, one better than anonymous generosity.
"Do you want to come to my room for a while?" I watched his blurred face. I couldn't see anything but the elevator churned, motor whining for a moment, and I heard his breathing hitch, surprised.
"Your room?" he said and I decided when I told the story his voice would be deep, mysterious, and there would be no question in it.
I nodded and looked at him. He was looking at me. There was a bright flush of red across his cheekbones and his eyes were wide with what looked like surprise. As I watched something else flickered across them, something dark, hot. I suddenly thought I might really have a story to tell.
When we got to the room he watched as I pulled my shirt off, stared down at his hand when I linked it through mine and put it on my skin like he'd never imagined such a thing.
He touched me like he'd never touched anyone before, careful brushes of his hands over my skin, lingering at places most people skip over. He ran his fingers over my arms, my shoulders. He licked the hollows around my collarbone, the fold where my arm bent.
I unhooked my bra for him, made anxious for his touch by the way he ran his hands over it again and again, letting his fingers slide under to rub against my skin a little more every time. He ran his thumbs over my nipples and I gasped, arching towards him. He made a low sound, a strange sigh that seemed to echo, fill the room, and I wanted his mouth on me sucking and biting so bad I was almost shaking. I pushed my hands through his hair and opened my eyes.
He was watching me, his eyes bright, and when I looked at him he bent his head and closed his mouth around my nipple, teeth grazing it just the way I'd wanted. It was so perfect I shifted, restless, and pressed myself against him. I knew he'd push inside me soon, eager and fast and that I'd think of his mouth on my breasts later and make myself come.
He made me come. He didn't even stop what he was doing, kept pulling at my nipples, sucking and biting them until I came so hard it hurt, the spasms leaving me aching and empty feeling. Leaving me wanting more.
I pushed off the rest of my clothes and he ran a hand down my stomach, letting it rest between my legs. I wanted that and spread them, guided one of his fingers and then another inside me. He moved his fingers in and out slowly, watching me. I saw his chest rise and fall and it was like I felt every breath he took, his air sinking into me. He put a third finger in and pushed his thumb against me, circling around and then lingering, pressing against me in time with his fingers. I kissed him for the first time when I came again, digging my fingers into his back. His skin was cool and smooth. He tasted like water. I moved one hand down, shoved it into his pants, circled his cock through his boxers. He moaned into my mouth, a ragged sound that made my skin prickle, my ears ring.
I didn't want to stop touching him but I wanted him inside me more so I pulled away, sat up and motioned for him to take off his clothes. He did, moving more smoothly than I would have thought, as if what we we'd done had given him some sort of grace.
Or power, I thought crazily as he moved across the bed towards me, his expression lit with a look I hadn't seen on anyone's face, those average features seeming to shift, bloom into the something startling I'd dreamed in the elevator. He closed his eyes when I touched his cock again but opened them when I guided him into me, when I shifted underneath him and wrapped myself around him, my body urging him to move.
He did, pushed into me deep and hard, breathing like he'd been running forever, and as I opened my eyes the whole room seemed to shift somehow, his thrusts pushing me into the shadows, into a space that lurked behind the world. He shuddered, pausing, and everything went gray, the color of the sky before a storm.
Gray was all I could see, as if he'd melted away, but I still felt him inside me. I could feel him everywhere, his thrusts pushing me to a place I'd never been. To a place I was sure I wasn't ever supposed to be. It was then I knew there was nothing even remotely average about him.
I didn't come again. It was something past that, something that dragged me into the shadows, held me down and covered me with gray. I don't know how long it lasted. I just know I opened my eyes and he was staring down at me. I reached out and touched his face, curved it into a smile because I needed to pretend everything was fine. It looked like any other smile. It looked brand new. It didn't look like a smile at all.
Off in the distance I heard sirens. I thought of the military base I'd passed early in the morning, the endless fence guarding something--someone--I couldn't see. I thought of the broken-down jeep I'd passed.
"I took it," he said and I knew then I didn't need to ask anything else. I didn't want to ask anything else. I got up and handed him his clothes. I'd left marks on his back, tiny crescents where my nails had bitten into his skin. I could see through them. I saw nothing but gray, a color so deep I knew it could swallow everything.
I left the motel with him, slipped out a side door and into the parking lot. The sirens sounded closer now. I unlocked my car.
In my story I would have asked him to go with me but I'd seen the fence surrounding nothing, the guards watching over it. I'd seen the world turn into something I didn't know and my vision was still spotted gray. I got in the car.
"Drive and don't stop," he said and there was a hint of his true voice there, in the way the words sounded strange and new.
I locked the doors. By the time I started the car he was just a spot, a blur fading into the dark desert night.
I drove and drove. Eventually I couldn't hear the sirens anymore. The sun rose but the sky stayed a heavy gray for a long time. I stopped for gas, bought a soda. The headlines on the newspapers stacked by the checkout were dark with print, tall letters spelling out headlines I didn't want to read.
When I got to my cousin's house we sat on her porch drinking beer. I looked up at the clear blue sky and listened to her ask how my trip was. She said she was sure I had stories to tell.
I said I didn't.
END
Wheeler Scott - http://home.comcast.net/~wheeler_scott/
|
