“Tell me, Mr. Vasey,” Lucy started, folding her hands together, “is hitchhiking a new thing for you? Or have you been drifting for a while?”
“A little of both. I’ve been drifting for some time, but it’s not my life’s work.”
“Then you have a career?”
“I suppose I’m building up to one.” My gaze shifted from Lucy to Lia. “I’ll be like one of those old biographies you used to see. ‘He worked as a whaler, a lumberjack, and a riverboat gambler before becoming president.’”
Lia giggled. “I’d vote for you.”
“Have you been to college?” Lucy asked.
“University of New Mexico.”
“And did that lead to anything?”
“It led to me having a degree. But if you’re asking if some law firm scooped me up right out of college—I’m afraid not.”
“Then you have a law degree?”
“No.” I snapped my fingers. “Maybe that’s where I went wrong.”
“I’m just wondering what it is you do.”
“I deliver pizzas. And I clean hotel rooms. And I install televisions. And a dozen other things that pay the bills without really paying you.”
“And you got tired of that? Decided to literally walk away?”
“Oh no, that’d be irresponsible. I waited for someone to give me a lift.”
“I think it’s romantic,” Lia put in. “Seeing the country from down in the dirt instead of flying over it.”
“We’re down in the dirt too,” Lucy replied. “Do you think that’s romantic?”
Lia’s eyes darted sideways to me. “It could be.”
Lucy’s eyes widened a little, taking in me and her daughter, but without disdain. She seemed amused by Lia’s crush. “Well, you can find it romantic if you want, but if you ever get tired of your job, at least keep working there long enough to buy a Greyhound ticket. Mr. Vasey would probably still be at that sandwich joint if we hadn’t stopped for lunch.”
I put a bit of a song into my words: “If you can’t have money, try to have luck.”
“Oh, you don’t know how lucky you are,” Lia told me, giving me a wink that was surprisingly lascivious for such a little gesture.
I cleared my throat, startled to find myself hardening a little for the kid.
Lia kept staring at me. She wet her lips sensually. I tried to ignore her. Humoring the girl was one thing, but I needed to keep her mother happy with me or I’d be stuck here. I probably couldn’t even foot the bill.
The food arrived.
It was delicious like only free food can be, and like food can only be on an empty stomach, and like food can only be with a beautiful women. We ate it all and then got a slice of pie for Lia and a banana split for me and Lucy to share. We talked some more. Lucy didn’t pry anymore and I returned the favor.
I also tried not to flirt too much, but mother and daughter seemed to share a yen for teasing me. It was like they were both tempting me, but without ever acknowledging that that’s what the other was doing. Queer, but not unerotic.
Pretty soon it was past seven.
“Doesn’t seem much point in staying up; we should turn in. I want to be up at first light and get some driving done before the heat arrives.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Lucy paid and we went out. The motel was our next stop. We were on the stairs to the reception office when Lucy stopped to lean against the guardrail.
“Where do you intend to sleep, Mr. Vasey?”
I shrugged, trying not to let on how many ideas I’d already had about that. “Hadn’t really thought about it. One floor’s as good as another.”
If Lia’s face fell with sympathy, Lucy’s outshone it with how composed her features were. “I suppose you don’t have enough money for your own room.”
“Couldn’t we—” Lia began.
Lucy spoke almost before Lia’s suggestion started. “And we don’t have enough money to pay for a second room. But, Roy, you are welcome to sleep in the car.”
“Beats the rocks.”
Lia sounded worried. “Will you be comfortable there?”
“I was all day,” I pointed out.
Lucy nodded stiffly, like she’d expected me to put up more of a fight. “It’s settled then. Good night, Mr. Vasey. See you in the morning.”
“Have a nice night,” I told them, feeling a bit like I was telling someone to enjoy their lobster thermidor while I was going hungry.
They went inside. I was left there like I’d just seen a movie’s twist ending, trying to think back and see what clues I’d missed. All day Lucy had been flirting with me, teasing herself with me like she would smell a steak on the grill. And now, nothing. I’d thought for sure that she would get me my own room, just so she could sneak into it and we could have our rendezvous away from Lia’s prying eyes.
I guessed all my sweating had taken the edge off my charms.
There was no more fading; the night was all black. When the wind picked up, the chill was like being plunged into icy waters. Yet not… not quite… there was an absence to it, an emptiness. The desert in the day wasn’t full of heat, it was just… heat without any variety, without anything else. And at night, the desert wasn’t cold, exactly. It was without heat. You felt something missing.
I walked under the artificial moon of the neon motel sign and left it behind me. The stars made the land around me a shade of gray and here and there the red of the flickering neon made it out onto the rocks and shrubs, splashing them with blood that ceased to exist when the neon cut off.
I reached the car. It was unlocked. I got in, put the top up, and rolled up the windows. Like that, the backseat made for an okay bed. I stretched out and let the red neon drip its way into the water, watching it with my mind otherwise a blank, a cat playing with a toy. When I closed my eyes, there wasn’t even that. I was clear of thoughts, clean of them. And without anything for my body to do, it gave into the stillness I imposed on it and let me sleep.
No sweating. No twitching. Just nothing.
Sleep is a desert. Nothing else is. However empty other deserts are, they still have heat, they still have cold, they still have distance and when you travel the distance, you’re somewhere.
Dreams are different. There’s nowhere to go. There’s nothing to do except wake up and you can’t do that for a long, long time. I slept and my heart beat and my lungs pumped and my blood flowed and I knew nothing of it. In this desert, all I had was the past.
I dreamed of Jennifer Connelly blowing me. Naturally I woke up slow. Until I realized it wasn't all the way a dream. Then I woke up fast.
Whatever space I wasn't taking up in the backseat was Lucy's. She knelt between my legs, doubled over so that her ass was up in the air and her torso came back down. Right into my lap. She looked up from there with a smile that made me think what she'd just had in her mouth met with her approval.
“I don't like the way we left things. I thought you might join me for a nightcap.”
I was throbbing too hard to possibly say no. “It looks like you already have my answer.”
“And I'm very pleased with it. But not as pleased as I'm going to be.” She took me in her mouth again, so completely that I got the idea my input was not required. No more than I’d already given her, at least.
She just wanted me to lie back and let her show off her expertise. Which I did, hands behind my head and barely even thinking about how Lia’s mouth would feel, how Lia would suck me.
I kept watching. The sight got better and better, but eventually I had to throw my head back and resign myself to just experiencing how it felt. That, torturously, was when Lucy took a breather. Sucking her way off my towering erection to admire how hard she'd made me… and how much of me there was to get hard.
“Scoot up,” she told me. “If you're going to take up more room, then so am I.”
I sat up and backed down the bench of the backseat until my shoulder blades met the window glass. Lucy rolled onto her side, taking a moment to kiss my cock from this new angle, then lifted her right leg until the canvas top wouldn't let it go any higher. Then she hooked it on the back of the driver's seat, parting her enough that I could see the shocking wet of her cunt.