The big rigs move through the night, the heavy eighteen wheelers with their forty-five foot trailers flying through the darkness, torpedoes in the sea of air, the roar of the wind as it resists their forward motion symbolic of struggle, of human effort, human endeavor against an incessantly, if passively, hostile environment. Which is the world.
Which is time, distance, the elements, finance, competition, politics and law, all of which combine to militate against the movement of the trucks.
So that each tractor-trailer plummeting through the darkness, its lights a Christmas display going too fast to be admired, absorbed, is a triumph, a victory.
And each driver is some kind of hero, the brain of the speeding behemoth, the brain and much of the muscle as well.
At least so it seems to Shana, lying there in the darkness in her little room, the room where she lives now, a room ordinarily rented by truckers passing through, truckers who view the truck stop as an oasis, a temporary refuge from the road, from time, from distance.
A place to rest with its gas pumps, its restaurant, with the complex of painted cinderblock rooms.
Not a good place for a motel, this.
Because it is too close to the highway, the highway which runs, four lanes in either direction, thirty feet above, and immediately adjacent to, the frontage road which runs by the truck stop, conveniently located at the foot of an off ramp.
So that no, the ordinary traveler, whether businessman or tourist, is hardly likely to select the truck stop as a place to spend the night, notwithstanding the cheapness of the rooms, despite the attempts of management to make it more attractive, the low, cinderblock maze of the complex sporting a coat of fresh, peach-colored paint, the small swimming pool, visible from the highway, filled and maintained.
And, for the most part, unused.
Because the truckers don't make money for stopping, only for running.
So that many is the driver who will make do with four hours' sleep at the truck stop, spent fitfully tossing and turning, usually during the evening rush hour, the drumming of the noisy highway in his weary ears as he catches a minimum of rest while allowing the traffic to clear up there, scarcely the length of a football field away from him.
So that, a quick shower, a fast brunch or supper, and he is once more a part of the nation's circulatory system, bearing the nutrients of commerce toward their destination.
Where, no doubt, he will pick up a return load.
Oobladee, ooblada, life goes on.
For him, for his rig, for the country.
All of this, Shana knows.
They're here, then they're gone.
And what you see is what you get; it's as simple as that.
Because she won't get to know them, doesn't want to know them.
She is a trucker freak, a driver groupie. Why not?
Why does she want to know them, to learn of the whole man?
Far better to see them, big, strong men, true knights of the road, roaming the country from coast to coast, border to border, free spirits, men with no problems, no personal lives, no attachments of any kind.
Absolutely free, they are.
Oh, Shana isn't stupid; she knows that this isn't true, not in the absolute sense.
But for a while, it is.
It is, because it has to be.
They have one job and one job only-to get the stuff they're hauling from here to there.
Which they will do with their strength, their skill and determination.
Which they will do, despite the vicissitudes of weather and the hazards of the highway.
Somewhere far away from here, there are, could, be, wives and children.
Or perhaps aging parents.
And medical bills to be paid, a mortgage, a house badly in need of repair or renovation.
Perhaps, if they are owner-operators, there are even truck payments to be kept up.
But that doesn't concern Shana, any more than, at the moment, it can or should concern the truckers.
Because, whatever else happened or is about to happen, first, they have to complete this run.
Maybe, for one reason or another, it's their last run.
Even that doesn't matter to Shana! Because that's the other thing about the long haulers.
Which is that every run is magic time.
Magic time, not a vacation, certainly, but a time apart, a time of separate reality, a time in which their time is not the same as the time of the world outside the run.
All problems are suspended, held in abeyance.
They touch no one and no one touches them, their passage Teflon-coated, gliding through the world, through the atmosphere, through time and distance, prepared to overcome every obstacle with sheer determination.
Oh, there are the weigh stations, which they can avoid by driving at certain hours, avoiding the hassle of weight, log and safety checks.
And, inevitably, even for the wisest, the best of them, the traffic jams, that one last obstacle before the delivery or the pickup, necessitated by business hours.
The business hours of others, of course.
Because they have no business hours, but merely on hours and off hours.
Off hours, as required by law, as required by physical necessity.
And this is where Shana has them.
Because they have no choice. Supermen of the highway they may be, but supermen in the literal sense, they are not. So that they have needs.
The need to rest, to eat, to sleep, to relieve themselves.
And that other need as well, Shana knows. Because there is it the drive behind the driving. Why drive?
Because they have to do something? Not likely.
Because there are a great many things a big, strong man can do in this world, anything from construction to garbage disposal.
Even in trucking, there are many other jobs, many aspects other than long haul driving.
But this, this is their chosen thing to do.
As the recruiting posters say, to them, it's not just a job-it's an adventure.
And Shana?
She is a part of that adventure.
The big rigs and the men who drive them have always fascinated her.
She could hear their air horns, even the rumble of their tires, their engines, the whistling of the air as they passed, when she was still in high school.
Gazing out the window toward the distant overpass, she could even see them, now sailing by at incredible speed, now creeping, stuck behind one another, something ahead blocking their way, occluding the arteries of progress, theirs and the commerce of the world in general.
And she would have nothing to do with most of the boys in high school.
Because what were they, compared to whoever was driving one of those babies?
Only one guy would she let touch her, and that because of her accidental discovery that, upon graduation, he intended to go to truck driving school and take to the open road.
And he looked the part, being tall, muscular, handsome in a rugged way.
And he would take her to a truck stop, she remembers, a truck stop just like this one.
And he would make love to her in intimate detail.
But not so much to her as to his own fantasy.
She was not his high school classmate, she knew, not at times like that.
Rather, she was some girl he might never see again or see only at rare, sporadic intervals, a girl in a strange town, a girl he was pausing in mid-transit to fuck because, after all, that, that! is the driving force behind his driving the heavy rigs.
Yes, they are nothing more and nothing less than extensions of himself, of his power, of his masculinity, of his raw sexuality.
And that, that! is why he was choosing to do as he was about to.
She knew this, knew it and was somehow glad of it, glad that he would not turn all romantic and smarmy, would not offend her with professions of love, whatever that meant, means.
Because, if she was but a symbol of all his women, out there on the road, waiting for him, than he was no less to her, was no less the representative of all that mighty cock, of that never-ending parade of sexual partners which awaited her upon graduation.
Never mind that he would, like as not, come up dry on many of his stops.
Never mind as well that, with her looks, her build, he would, like as not, fail to find anything as good as what he was having right at the moment.
Never mind also that things happen, plans change, people change, compromise, so that he might not become a trucker after all.
Never mind any of that.
The fact remained that, for those precious hours, they were, both of them, able to live the dream.
And that, in and of itself, is a kind of power, is it not?
As Shana lay back and closed her eyes, legs raised and spread, fingers gently intertwined in the curly hair at the back of his head as he, eyes closed as well, dreaming, fantasizing as well, ate her.
Not her clit, but the clit of some winsome beauty encountered by chance in a far distant city-that clit was he servicing.
That clit was he strumming with his tongue.
That clit was he polishing with his sweet, fresh, passion-inspired saliva as it became engorged, rubbery.
Yes, not Shana's thighs, large and strong and shapely, but the thighs of another, of one whose face he could not imagine, was he helping to hold high and wide as he shafted his tongue in and out, in and out of the hot, drooling, clinging depths, sliding his wet, strong, long, delving appendage across the now pulsatingly excited clit, back and forth, in and out, as he tongue fucked her, as she moaned in ecstasy, as her voluptuous, ripe body twisted and writhed, as she tugged on her nipples in her excitement.
And cried out, in her mind, Take me, take me, take me!
And he did.
And he did it in such a manner as to completely possess her.
Because he would scoop her thighs up from beneath, first one, as he twisted his body to one side, guiding the head of his cock between the hot, pouting lips of her wet pussy, then the other, doubling her up, even as he shafted in and in and into her with his long, thick cock, his long distance hauler's prick.
So that now, he could knead and fondle her big boobs with both hands, her thighs resting on his arms and shoulders.
So that now, he could suck her tits as he fucked her.
So that now, he was above and below her, all around her, inside and outside her.
So that now, she was immersed in him, combined with him, united with him, doing the deed.
Not some ordinary guy, some everyday jamoke of human dimension and existence was she fucking with, but a knight of the road.
He has no problems but can and does solve the problems of others.
Not for him the worries, the concerns of everyday existence.
No, because he is above such things, existing in a purer, simpler, braver world, right alongside this one.
And she herself?
Well, was she not, at that moment, transported out of her own mundane existence?
Not Shana the high school girl, having homework to do, a room to clean, parents to satisfy, girlfriends before whom to dissemble, pretending that their interests are hers-none of this was Shana, at the moment.
Rather, she was an active participant, an integral part of the romance of the road, of the long haul scene.
She was being part of all that made it all worthwhile.
She was a feature of the justification for the long haul as a way of life.
She was the fulfillment of the dream. As was he to her.
Because she sensed in him all the power, all the importance, the vital essence of the big rigs.
Yes, he controlled that in order to control her, and vice versa.
No question.
No question but that the spirit of the big rigs was right there with them, lending its flavor, its character to what they were doing.
And he was not a truck driver and she was not a perfect stranger and this was not some strange town in mid-route.
And yet, he was and she was and it was.
Because how far from the truth was it, actually?
The will, the intent, the desire and enthusiasm were all there, surely.
So then, why not?
Why not let it be true, for the moment?
Because these are not pie-in-the-sky, undoable things toward which they were aspiring.
On the contrary, they were all, all perfectly realistic, absolutely within their grasp, given but a few more months until graduation for them both.
And in fact, their future seemed to give added impetus, added dimension to what was happening, here in the right place, here, at the right time, but a few months removed.
So that they were confirming the correctness of their decisions respecting their respective futures.
No question.
No question but that, if the rehearsal is this great, then the performance must indeed be something to look forward to.
"Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me," she murmured, gratuitously.
Because he already was.
And not he, but what he stood for, what he represented.
And yes, oh yes! it would be every bit this great.
Maybe, somehow, even greater.
Because a part of them knew, even as they ardently pretended, that this was not the real thing.
Still, real bodies, real action, right atmosphere-it was a reasonable facsimile, no doubt.
It was reasonable, they were reasonable, and they knew it.
No, no clutching at straws here, no wild pretenders they.
As his long, thick, hot, hard prick shafted in and out of her sucking, clinging, drooling pussy.
As she milked him with her snapper.
As both of them felt the surges of lascivious sensation, the exquisite thrills of sexual electricity shooting through them.
As they felt themselves getting hotter and hotter, the future looking closer and closer, merging with the present.
So that yes, hell yes they were going to go for it!
And nothing, nothing, nothing was going to stop them, to get in their way.
And both of them knew it.
And this knowledge, entailing as it did a parting of the ways, seemed to draw them still closer together.
And there was consistency rather than contradiction at work there.
If they were not who and what they were going to be, then they would not be there then, doing as they were.
But he was a truck driver and she one who knew where to go for what she wanted, what she needed.
Which was meaning, fulfillment.
Which was an unending supply of the sensations which made life worth living and, of course, unlimited access to the source of those sensations.
Because, that way, with the long haul truckers, there would be none of the bullshit that goes along with even the best of men.
Because Shana does not want, does not need, their downside.
She doesn't want to know about their quirks, their foibles, their-likes and dislikes.
She doesn't care to learn of their weaknesses, their bad habits.
Excess baggage, that. Bullshit, that.
And nothing she wants any part of.
No, she wants only the best of the best.
Not that they are supermen, but that they are, they can be, for a few hours, superstuds, perfect partners.
And in fact, it could very well be that she will use up the best of them, will take the best of what they have to offer, the best of what they are and, vampire-like, drain them of it and send the empty shell, the dried up husk, on its way.
And that would be all right too.
Because she won't be out there to transform, to enlighten, to change, but to take what is already there.
The best of the best, baby, and the rest can fend for itself, out of her sight, out of her awareness, out of her life.
And in return?
Hey, she knows what she's got to offer.
This, they are not gonna find waiting for them back home, wherever that is.
This is something special, the symbol and essence of what the road is all about.
The best seeking the best.
As she and her schoolmate used each other.
And yes, they were being manipulative, in that sense cool and calculating, even while they were hot, hot, hot.
And perhaps the practice aspect, the training, the learning of their bedroom skills was a part of the manipulation as well.
But so what?
Practice makes perfect, or so they say.
And it seemed to Shana that she was in fact achieving a kind of perfection.
Not, she reminded herself, not that it doesn't get any better than this. '
Because it does, it does, it always does.
If only because memory is inferior to reality, the shadow of sensation paler, less intense than is sensation itself.
And even this she knew, back then.
But now, that awareness, that keeping track of ambient reality began once again to fade, submerged in the ever-mounting floodtide of their shared passion.
Because now, they were climbing the rainbow of their shared arousal.
Now they were being swept away, carried aloft in the whirling eddies of their shared sensation.
Which was a complex composite of sensations, an ever-strengthening thrill, a tingling aggregation of a million messages from a million nerve endings, each stimulating, arousing, titillating, each the promise of more and more pleasure to come.
Because it does get better than this.
And this and this!
It just goes on getting better and better, until the brain cannot assimilate it all, cannot abstractly consider what is happening, but must, willy-nilly, surrender itself to that truth, that knowledge which is of the body, which the body alone can absorb, accept, embrace.
As the mind can only shout, in rapt appreciation, "Yes, yes, yes!"
Higher and higher they ascended, rising inexorably through the rosy, effervescent empyrean of their shared passion.
Gone now the role-playing, the scenarios, the split screen mentality of reality and let's pretend sharing.
No, there was only the pleasure, awakening within them, that incandescent nucleus, that concentration of the pleasure beyond pleasure, flaming into full, vibrant life.
And now expanding to fill them with its scintillating presence.
As every fibre of their beings felt the tingling, vibrating pressure of the pleasure, charging and now overcharging them, filling them with its presence, filling them to greater than their capacity to contain it, filling them in an ever-increasing flow of the unstoppable sensations of rampant sexuality, of raw sensuality, of voluptuous eroticism unleashed. Because they don't have it; it has them. It.
The ultimate pleasure, that which is generated within ourselves but nonetheless greater than ourselves.
Because we control and control until, at a certain point, it convinces us to give up, to surrender to it. And we do.
And they did, Shana and her partner who was but the symbol of her partner.
Who was nameless, faceless.
Who would have many names, many faces, many bodies, many cocks.
Even as Shana was not Shana, not to him, but the representative, the temporary embodiment of all the Shanas who were waiting for him out there on the highway.
And now, they came and came.
Red-faced, sweating and panting, they came together.
So that the powerful contractions of her vaginal muscles, in the throes of her series of multiple orgasms, milked him of his load.
Which discharged in a series of long, thick, hot wads of jism, in and in and into the depths of her streaming cunt.
Even as her orgasmic twinges continued to squeeze him.
Spurt and spasm, again and again, they climaxed together.
Until, at last, they floated from their shared sexual paradise back down to earth.
And he slid off her backwards, releasing her legs, his still tumescent cock oozing wetly from her slimy pussy, the ruddy color of their aroused passion fading from them, the sweat beginning to dry.
And they showered together.
And, with the exuberance of youth, dove back into the bed together, there to resume without pause their marathon fuckathon.
So it went, she recalls, lying there in the darkness, listening to a very busy night up there on the highway, the lateness of the hour not seeming to affect the volume of the traffic, of the passage of the big rigs up and down, back and forth in never-ending circulation.
And it would not be as though she was running away, after all.
After you graduate, after you have carefully packed, after you have told your folks that you are hitting the road for a while, promising to keep in touch-that's hardly running away.
No, that's like doing what you have to do, what an inner voice keeps telling you, you must do.
So that, really, she had no choice, not if her life was to have meaning.
2
Shana thinks back, remembering.
Her parents were, of course, quite worried, concerned lest a young girl, alone and on foot, could long survive out there, especially since hers was not to be a limited exposure, but rather a roaming around, "seeing what's out there".
And they had only too good a notion of just what was in fact "out there".
But she could not reassure them, not in terms that would not simply alarm them all the more.
Because she would not accept a ride from just anyone.
Rather, she would only hold her thumb out to the big rigs.
And the drivers of those babies, even though they were her targets of opportunity, would have their hands full with their equipment and loads.
So that no, she was not really risking any hanky-panky.
But still, she could hardly spell out her plans to her parents.
For one thing, they were still not all that clearly fixed in her own mind. To go to a truck stop and live there. So far, so good. But live on what?
Her funds were limited, very limited, in fact, would not last her beyond, say, two weeks, not if she had to pay for every meal herself, not if she had to pay for her room, even at a reduced (because long term) rate.
And she had no clear-cut plan for replacing, for getting more money.
Get a job?
Easy enough to say.
But what job?
Unless, perhaps, the restaurant at the truck stop could use a waitress.
Or the motel a chambermaid.
Or the filling station an attendant.
So that yes, she could do any of those things, given an opening, but no, she didn't know if such openings would be available at the particular truck stop at which she would find herself.
Still, the adventure was calling her and would not be denied.
*****
How very different was reality from imagination, she recalls.
The detail, for one thing, the sudden intrusion upon awareness of trivial, minute aspects of the real world.
One thing to be riding along mile after mile of concrete highway, a featureless ribbon of greyish white, overpass and underpass, culvert and railing whizzing by, perfect in their blurred, momentary presences.
Quite another, though, to be on foot, walking, heavily burdened with a back pack.
So that the concrete is not smooth, the railings not straight, but bent, corroded with rust, encrusted with layer after layer of paint, silver, yellow, black, but all chipped.
And the footing is not clean, bare concrete, but a mixture of sand, broken glass, bits of metal, assorted debris.
And the sun is not a reflection on the concrete, but an all-pervasive, oppressive presence, a burden added to that she already carries, blinding in its intensity, debilitating in its heat, which seems to sap her strength from her.
And no place to rest, either, the drainage ditches on either side of the highway impassable mini-swamps, infested with noxious weeds, buzzing insects and, no doubt, creepy crawlers of unknown demeanor and vicious intent.
There will be, of course, rest stops along the highway.
So what?
Thirty-six miles to next rest stop? Nothing, when you're riding. But on foot?
Five miles seems a major feat to her.
And her knights of the road?
They seem more intent on seeing how fast they can pass by her, how tremendous a vacuum they can leave in their wake to suck her into the highway, their size making is sound and feel as though they are missing her by mere inches, when in fact most of them are over in one of the middle lanes.
And now, the beeping and the honking begin.
And the traffic is no longer a rapidly changing blur.
Rather, they are going start and stop.
And she knows now what the hurry was. To get beyond the metropolitan area. To make the open highway ahead of the morning rush.
Time is money in trucking; she knows that much about it, at least.
"Hey, bay-bee, wanna lift?"
A low rider, four punks, the stench of the blue exhaust, the noise of the muffler telling her that they can't be going all that far; the car won't let them.
They slow down, matching her gait with their speed, hanging out the windows, all sunglasses, dirty tshirts and long, greasy hair.
She just keeps walking.
Aa-OO-gah!
And they look behind them, doubly annoyed now, that she is not answering them and that the truck behind them is tailgating them, a monster, too big to argue with.
"Fuck you, bitch!"
"Yeah, y'fuckin' cunt, fuck you!"
And they are forced to gun their engine, moving off in a cloud of blue smoke, four arms projecting, bug-like above the roof, middle fingers raised for her and the truck driver.
Whom she cannot even see, because he is high up in his cab and on the other side of it, and because now, impatient at this delay within the mounting general slow-down, he too speeds up, his rig seeming to take forever to pass her with its interminable length, oppressively close to her.
And now, the state police.
Great, she thinks, knowing somehow that she is not supposed to be here like this.
Sure enough, they slow down, the rider looking at her, beginning to roll down his window.
But now, suddenly, she sees the driver snatch his car radio microphone, speak a few words into it, then rack it up, saying something to his partner.
Red and blue lights spring to life atop their unit, and they are suddenly weaving in and out of the traffic, going for the fast lane, siren wailing.
And she watches the flashing lights, listens to the diminishing sound as they disappear into the exhaust fume haze of the distance.
And she knows.
This won't do, not at all.
She is going to get bothered, hassled, killed or injured, or even arrested.
She always thought that, if a person is hitchhiking, they either get ignored or picked up.
When, in fact, they get hot, thirsty, tired, scared several times a minute, and very, very depressed.
And if this is the real world, she wants no part of it.
Really.
She would as soon turn around and go back.
At least, she tells herself, she will be walking in the right direction, against the traffic, as she was taught in grade school.
Which is the other thing about hitchhiking.
If you walk facing traffic, you are going in the reverse of the direction you want to go.
So that, in essence, to hitchhike safely, you must walk in the opposite direction.
Do this long enough, accept short enough rides, and you could well end up where you started.
Ridiculous.
And perhaps this whole thing is ridiculous.
Maybe-
Hoot, hoot, hoot!
An air horn, but being discretely tooted, steadily, and from a distance.
And she turns to see it, slowing down.
And the window coming down on the passenger side, its windshield sporting a NO RIDERS sign, metal, red lettering on white.
"You wanna lift?"
"Yeah!"
"Okay, hop in!"
And he slows, but doesn't stop, so that she must hop onto the broad, corrugated metal step as he cracks the door for her.
And he gives her a hand as he boosts her that large step up, up, up into the cab.
"Thanks!" she exclaims, leaning forward in her seat, wriggling out of one strap while he reaches over, helping her shrug out of the other.
"Toss it over there in the corner!" he instructs.
And she finds that there is plenty of room for it in the space between her feet and the fire wall of the engine.
"Nice rig!" she says, appreciatively, looking around.
"Fancy, too!" she adds, fingering the luxurious satin curtain, draped and pleated, behind them.
"Sleeper unit," he explains. "Pard's in the back there, sleepin'! "
"I see," she says.
Another reality to contend with.
This guy is not going to be spending any time at a truck stop.
She has heard of these rigs.
The whole idea is that one drives while the other sleeps and they go straight through, non-stop, origin to destination.
Some knights of the road never get off their horses.
"Just picked up the load," her host explains. "We goin' straight through to Florida. "Where you headed?"
Damn good question, she thinks. Just what is she supposed to say-nowhere? A truck stop? "Away."
"Uh-huh."
And he falls silent.
Let him think what he-likes, she reflects. Let him think her a runaway, someone running from, rather than going to.
"Teh ya what, kid," he says, "we stop the Carolinas t'top off the tanks, eat, change off, what say we call your parents an' let 'em know you okay, see if we can't git choo headed back here, come mornin' in good company.
"Soun' like a plan t'you?"
She shrugs, frowning.
Looking for a lover, she finds a conderned uncle. Or more likely a father, the father of a girl about her age.
Some knight of the road she picked! But-
"You gonna stop at a truck stop?" she asks.
"Well now, I was thinkin' about the Hilton in Charleston, but the valet parking might be a problem."
And he chuckles at his road humor. Ask a stupid question. "Seriously, don't choo worry none. "Clean place, nice place.
"Gonna git choo fed, take care yer room, see kin I git me a bead on somethin' comin' north in the ayem.
"I mean, I seen you seem' how it is out there, an' you look like a pretty smart girl t'me, so le's see kin we write this one off to experience an' ever'body go they sep'rate ways happy." She shrugs.
"Kin I git me a amen onnat."
"What can I say."
"That's close enough."
At least, she thinks, relieved, he's not going to lecture me.
Suddenly feeling her exhaustion, still depressed by the way things seem to be turning out, she sleeps.
"Breaker, breaker, this here's the Hillbilly callin' the Big Red One, come on."
And she awakens with a start, disoriented for a few seconds before remembering where she is.
"Gotcha in the blue, Hillbilly. What can we do for you, over?"
"Need a room fer one, Big Red, an' underground railway north fer the mornin'.
"You hear fum enny of the followin'?
"Roostertail, Blackjack Eight, Lemonlime, over?"
"You in luck on Lemonlime, Hillbilly.
"Heard from him not five minutes ago t'leave the light on, over."
"Lissen, Big Red, do me a favor, 'cause he's prob'ly outta ma range.
"Tell 'im supper's on me an' we got one goin' north come mornin', okay an' over?"
"That's a Roger, Hillbilly. See you when?"
'"Bout a hour. Out."
"You have you a good rest?" he asks.
"Fine, fine.
"What was all that about."
"Jus' makin' sure you don't git stranded in mid-nowhere.
"Frienda mine gonna take you back north in the mornin'.
"Supper an' room's on me, breakfas' on him."
"That's very kind of you."
"Nuthin' I wouldn't want some other Christian gentleman doin' fer my own little girl, situation like this."
"I'm not little."
"No, but ain't been all that long ago you was."
She shrugs, not pointing out to him that that is irrelevant.
She could use the meal and the room.
As for going back home, the jury is still out on that.
True, things haven't worked out exactly as she thought.
Face it, she corrects herself, things haven't worked out anything like what she thought, to the extent that she thought at all.
She has flung herself on the world and it has responded, first indifferently, then haphazardly.
The main thing being that she wasn't in control, wasn't and isn't.
First she was helpless, now she is dependent on another's plans for her, a smothering benevolence being foisted upon her by a deliberately cultivated false impression.
Her plan now?
First, to rid herself of the fatherly Hillbilly, a thing not all that difficult, considering that he is leaving after supper.
Then?
Leave that open, she instructs herself; play it by ear.
*****
Shana remembers, remembers the thrill in the pit of her stomach at her realization, as they arrived, that here, now, for the very first time, she was at a truck stop, on her own.
Or about to be.
Because, at the moment, she was completely surrounded, physically hemmed in, by others who knew exactly what to do with her.
"Hit the deck, Ralphie-boy!" Hillbilly says, reaching one hand back between the bucket seats, delving behind the curtain.
Then, "Ugh!"
Cackling from behind the curtain, breaking out into guffaws.
"Gotcha!" the unseen Ralph exclaims. "How'd ja like that handful, sport?"
"Ralph, you nuthin' but a dirty old man," Hillbilly says, reprovingly. "You get that ole thing back in yore trousers, boy, 'cause we got us a lady fer company.. "
"We do?"
And Ralph's head appears through the curtains, which he clutches tightly under his chin.
"Oh," he says, "Well how do, how do, how do you do?"
"You jus' cool yer catalytic converter there, Ralphie-boy!" Hillbilly cautions. "Young lady here's young enough t'be yore daughter.
'"Sides which, she don't need you tryna charm 'er with that there dragon breatha yburs.
"We meetin' Lemonlime fer supper, so best you git cherself freshened up over the men's, no sooner we park."
"I could use some freshening up myself," Shana says, vacating her seat, opening the door and dragging her backpack out, as soon as Hillbilly turns the rig off.
Ralph comes out behind her, still tucking his shirt tail in with one hand as he retrieves his toiletry kit from the seat with the other.
"Don't choo worry none," he tells Shana. "Git me a shave an' combed up, you gonna wanna see Miami with me, 'steada goin' back north."
"This way t'the rest rooms, folks," Hillbilly says, a gym bag in his hand, ignoring Ralph's comments to Shana.
He is looking around the parking lot.
"Don't see it," Ralph says. "Might could be ole Lemonlime ain't here jus' yet."
Aa-OO-gah!
And the huge tractor, white with a green pop bottle on the side, hauling cages of oranges on a flat bed, roars into the parking lot.
Shana proceeds to the ladies' room, raucous greetings coming through the cinderblock walls as cackling.
She takes her time, first using the toilet, then washing her face thoroughly, then combing her hair, leaving anything more for later, when she will have the room Hillbilly promised her.
By the time she emerges, they are waiting for her on the curb, the three of them-Hillbilly, Ralph, and Lemonlime.
It has to be him, because he wears a tank top in irridescent yellow-green, with baseball cap to match.
His blue jeans are like those of the others, but on his bare feet, he wears black sandals, their straps that same yellow-green.
"This here's Lemonlime," Hillbilly says. "He'll be takin' you back up north, come mornin'. "
"Pleased," Lemonlime says, removing the cap.
Bingo! Shana thinks. Now this, this! is what a truck driver should look like.
Okay, so he's not as young as she pictured them, most of them, but he's handsome, in a rugged kind of way, or was, before he became a little too craggy.
And he's built, he's built ... a little heavier than she pictured her ideal trucker, could stand to lose a few pounds here and there, but those muscles are still bulging, still in excellent shape.
At least, she tells herself, I got the height right.
Because he's tall, carrying his size well.
"I expect you t'treat this young lady like she was my own daughter," Hillbilly cautions Lemonlime.
"You mean you'd ack-shully let this horny old sumbitch anywheres near your daughter?" Ralph asks.
And the men all laugh.
"C'mon ever'body, le's go spend the meal allowance on some heavy duty grub, okay?" Hillbilly invites.
And they troop into the diner.
And Shana sees at once that she wants no part of the food end of this.
As a weary waitress, dead on her feet, drags herself over to their booth to sigh, "What'll it be, folks?"
"Well now, what's with you, Flo?" Hillbilly asks. "No greetings fer an old friend?"
"Couple old friends," Ralph amends.
"Oh, it's you, Hillbilly. Sorry.
"Short two girls, two days in a row, we are.
"I'm draggin', an' no relief in sight.
"I can barely see t'drive myself home.
"Only good news is, havin' t'work all night, I git daylight fer the road."
Her shift isn't even halfway done, Shana observes, and she's already like this?
Thanks, but no thanks.
This, she doesn't need.
They all order, Ralph and Hillbilly on one side of the table, Lemonlime and herself on the other.
Flo leaves to give the order to the cook.
"B'lieve you have a phone call t'make, young lady," Hillbilly says, sorting through his wallet,searching for his telephone credit card, finding it, handing it to her.
"Jus' folly the instructions on the phone over there now.
"An' hurry up, 'fore it gits too late.
"Don't choo be givin' the folks who raised you up no sleepless night, now."
Shana hadn't thought of that.
The man has a point.
She excuses herself and goes to the telephone. She goes through the credit card bullshit with the operator, and then "Shana!"
Her mother breathes an audible sigh of relief. "Where are you dear? How are you? You're not in any trouble, are you? Do you need any money?
Because, if you do, we can-"
"Ma, ma, ma! I left this morning, not a month ago, remember?
"Yes, dear, but your father and I were so worried about you that-"
"Yes, well, I ran into somebody else's father on the road, and he-"
"Anyone we know?"
"No, but you know the type.
"Anyway, he bought me supper and I'm staying here for the night."
"When are you-I mean, what's next on the, the ... agenda?"
"I'm coming home tomorrow," Shana sighs.
"You see? You see? I told you-I mean, I'm glad you're coming back home, dear.
"And I certainly hope that you've learn-I mean, I won't be completely relieved until you're back.
"Where exactly are you staying, dear?"
She tells her mother the name of the place.
"We're eating now, so I don't have a room number yet," she says.
"That's quite all right, dear, that's a good chain and they're in the directory.
"But this man, dear; he isn't-"
"He's part of a two-man driving team, Mother.
"They're not staying, they're going on in a little while."
Shana hands him his card and he nods to her before saying, '"Lo? This here's Billy Joe McDaniel, father of three from Great Falls, Tennessee, haulin' general merchandise from Connecticut to Florida, cut flowers comin' back t'other way.
"To whom am I speakin', please? ... Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh ... No, no, ma'am, no thanks atall required.
"Young folks t'day take it inta they heads t'do somethin', ain't no help fer it but that it's gotta happen ... Ma'am, ma'am, uh ma'am, if I kin git a word in ... Yes. Right ... No, no, ma'am. Ah b'lieve ya. Got nuthin' t'do with her upbringin' ... No ma'am, ain't no call t'go blamin' yorese'f ... Ma'am, ma'am, oh, please don't go t'blubberin' ... Y'okay? Thass good, real good ... Ma'am, b'lieve me, ifn y'don't let 'em try, they ain't ever gonna know how it is out cheer in the real world ... Nice talkin' t'you too, ma'am ... No, no, ma pleasure, really, only too glad t'be of help ... Yes, you too, ma'am ... You wanna talk t'her agin? Here y'are ... You too, ma'am. Y'all take care, now.
"Here y'go. She wantsa talk at cha some more."
Hillbilly hands Shana the phone and returns to the table.
"Yes, Mother ... No, I won't change my mind ... Very lucky. I know ... No, Mother, I-look. The food is coming and I haven't had a bite all day ... I don't know what time, Mother, but I will be back tomorrow ... Sometime, all right?
"Yes, I love you too, Mom, now I really gotta run before I drool on the phone here, okay?"
3
Shana recalls what happened next, in intimate detail. Sort of.
Because it was like a reaching out with her mind, like lines of force, huge, translucent jaws opening up, hinged on either side of her head.
As, during supper, she thinks, I must, I will get on top of the situation.
I will seize it, I will control it.
Go with the flow, she tells herself. Make events, make reality work for you. And this works.
Because she wills supper to end when it does.
"C'mon, fellers, le's go get this young lady tucked in for the night."
She wills them to get her the promised room, which they do, Hillbilly using a credit card.
"Le's go check it out an' check her in, boys," Hillbilly says.
And the three of them accompany her.
"Okay, we got us this here clock-alarm thing," Hillbilly says, examining the controls on the TV set.
Then, to Lemonlime, "Whut tarn you gonna be headin' out, Lemonlime?"
"Six?" Lemonlime asks, shrugging. "Produce terminal up there's open all night."
"Okay then, we gonna set the young lady's alarm fo' five. An' don't choo f git an' leave without her, okay?"
"My room's right next to this one, Hillbilly," Lemonlime sighs.
To Shana, "Just bang on my door when you're ready, okay?"
Shana nods, as Hillbilly sets the alarm on the TV.
"This oughtta do 'er, then, young lady.
"C'mon, fellers, le's go."
"Thanks for everything, Hillbilly," Shana says.
But he merely waves over his shoulder in dismissal, leading the others out.
And Shana lies there, exerting her will power, intensifying it when, having seen Hillbilly and Ralph off, Lemonlime returns to his room.
She hears the shower running next door, then remembers that she herself is badly in need of a thorough scouring.
Quickly, she strips herself naked and dashes into the bathroom, showering quickly, paying special attention to the parts that count most.
Because her will power is in full force and effect now, and she wants to be ready when Lemonlime answers the call.
As answer it he surely must.
And now, she lies there on the bed, which she has stripped of its covers.
And beams thought waves through the wall at Lemonlime.
Come here, you big, horny truck driver, she wills.
And sure enough, she hears the door of the room next door open and close.
A second, two, and then-
She springs up naked to answer the knock on her door, springs up with full confidence in the power of her will.
And there he is, grinning at her, not in the least surprised at her appearance.
"I knew it," he says, simply.
She stands aside, letting him in, then closes the door behind him.
He drops the six-pack he was carrying on the nightstand.
Wordlessly, not looking at her, turned to one side, he takes his clothes off.
She lies down in the bed, sliding over, making room for him.
And now, he is in bed with her.
And her fantasy is realized.
To be with a man, not as he is, but as he should be, at his very best.
His problems are elsewhere, in abeyance or nonexistent, so that he is free, absolutely free, to give her his essence, the best of himself.
As he turns to face her.
"Trouble with Hillbilly," Lemonlime says, "is that he's always willin' t'give the other guy an even break.
"The man's an incurable optimist."
Shana begins playing with Lemonlime's large, flaccid cock, the great plum of the knob facing down, almost touching the sheet, as he lies there on his side, head propped up with one hand.
Lemonlime ignores her, even though she is looking down, watching her hand, his prick, the action between them.
"Gal decides t'go whorin' on the highway, now, that's somethin' ole Hillbilly doesn't choose t'recog-nize."
Shana stiffens at this. Whoring?
She never particularly thought of this as whoring. Still-never mind.
Let Lemonlime come out with the rest of his bullshit.
"Betchoo play all the games, don't cha?" he asks. "Betchoo real good at it, too."
"Safe bet," she replies.
As an idea begins to form in the back of her mind.
"So tell me," he says, "how much is it gonna cost me for t'nite?"
"Let's not worry about that, okay?" Shana says, playing with his balls, with his cock, which begins to heat up, to twitch to life.
Because she hasn't the foggiest notion.
"Tell you what," she says, "Suppose you just give me whatever you think it's worth, come morning."
"You got a lot t'learn about that end of it, girlie," Lemonlime says, "but I ain't much of a mind t'play perfessor."
"Good. Then let's just have a good time, shall we?"
And, suiting her actions to her words, she slides down in the bed, one hand continuing to cradle Lemonlime's genitals.
With no head to talk to, Lemonlime falls silent, looking down, bemused, at this voluptuous young creature, so obviously headed in the right direction, so obviously hungry for his big lob.
And she proves hungry indeed, her soft, moist lips opening promptly to enfold the bulging head of his half erect cock.
And now, Lemonlime is on his back, head propped up with both bed pillows.
So that he can look down and see the top view of Shana as she nestles between his legs, crouching, bending to her work.
As she sucks the head of his cock like a lollipop.
As he feels her tongue exploring the indentation of the eye, the taut, hot, pulsating, rounded surface, the thickly flared flange at the rear, the juncture of the fish head beneath.
And yes, she is indeed very good at this, knowing exactly what she's doing.
And maybe, just maybe, he was wrong about her, and Hillbilly was right.
At least, that is what Shana wants him to believe.
Because the idea of her peddling her body on the road is entirely his, is something which did not occur to her until he brought it up.
And she wants to show him that her enthusiasm is genuine.
Which is not all that hard to do, because in fact it is.
And she conveys this, with the nervous, vibrant actions of her eager tongue.
And now, with the way she begins to suck his cock in earnest.
As she lowers her head to embrace part of the shaft as well as the head in her soft, moist, working mouth.
As he feels the rhythm she has set up now, her head bobbing up and down, one hand clutching his cock at the base.
And yes, here is an energy, an enthusiasm which is not, cannot be feigned.
She is genuinely feeling it.
It.
Meaning the passion, the desire, what Lemonlime calls the hots for him.
Because he has had this before, gets it all the time, in fact.
A conniver, a planner he is, usually.
Arriving at a truck stop just in time for the change of shift in waitresses, for example.
Or calling from the road to see what's shaking with some local housewife.
Something about Lemonlime attracts the ladies, he knows.
And Shana can tell that he considers himself pretty much a ladies' man.
So that, but for the call from Hillbilly, but for her being here, Lemonlime would have made other arrangements, would in no event have slept alone tonight.
Maybe.
And maybe Lemonlime sleeps alone a lot.
Maybe he even has to jerk himself off because he's got nothing else to do with himself, no other outlet.
And Shana becomes more aroused at the idea, the picture of that, the image of Lemonlime lying on a bed, naked, pumping his prick, getting it harder and harder, and then, red-faced and breathing hard, even sweating a little, writhing, rocking and rolling from side to side as the thick, white jets spurt from his monster, splattering him and the bed.
She can just see him, in her mind's eye now, getting up, his cock still huge in the aftermath, as he goes into the bathroom for toilet paper with which to mop, first himself, then the bed.
She can see him retiring for the night, turned onto his side, naked and alone, muscles bulging, and going to sleep, there to dream about, about-
Her, or someone very much like her, someone he depicted in his mind the whole time he was jerking himself off.
And counting himself lucky that he did not have to go to the time and trouble of making do, of settling for something based on its immediacy, its availability, so that he could stick his cock into it and envision the-likes of Shana on the viewscreen of his mind, behind closed eyelids.
Which is basically just another way of jerking off, Shana reasons.
No, he has the real thing now, has offered to pay for it. Why?
Probably so that she wouldn't have any doubts, she speculates.
So that, knowing where they both stood, they could act without restraint, without the shadow of possible misunderstanding clouding their performance, their good time.
Or maybe it was in order to avoid involvement, entanglement, obligation, lest, in her youth and inexperience, she mistakenly believe she has found the love of her life.
Which, Shana supposes, is true, in a manner of speaking.
Not Lemonlime as an individual, but Lemonlime as example, as representative, as embodiment of the archetype truck driver, fascinates her.
She doesn't want to know Lemonlime himself, doesn't want to know any more about him than she already does, than she can see by looking at him, by touching him.
Because he is adequate, is a worthy standard bearer for his profession, a profession to which she assigns the ultimate sensuality.
As though their journeys were one long erotic experience, now symbolic, now sexual-always sexual, actually.
Because what has more drive than a driver?
What has more raw power subject to its will than the driving force behind the eighteen wheelers?
They fuck the night, they fuck the world with their rigs.
They fuck everything and everybody, penetrating the very air itself.
In and in and into the world they drive, their will prevailing, their minds bent on the act, on its completion.
There is nothing, nothing, nothing to compare with them!
For others the burdens of the workaday world, whether from behind a desk in an office tower or sweating beneath the sun and sky as they dig ditches.
But the driver, ah, the driver!
When she is in bed with Lemonlime, she is in bed with the reality behind the huge rig which sits outside now, quiescent, poised, waiting for the orders, the commands, the physical interplay which he alone can activate.
Because this is not an act isolated, complete in and of itself.
No, this is but a part of a continuous flow, of the flow of his existence, of the flow of the life of the road itself, of that great, arterial network which pumps the life's blood of a nation, pumps it continuously, not without difficulties, perhaps, but most assuredly without letup.
So that this, what she, what they are doing right here and now is part and parcel of a greater whole, of a continuous, vital, ongoing process.
For him-and for her.
Because now, Shana knows.
She knows that she can, she will be a part of all this.
She will become one facet of the living legend which is the highway.
She will become an aspect, an element, a factor in the lives of the drivers.
The right drivers, that is.
The ones who look like what they are, who belong out here on the road, who are truly worthy of their profession, as Shana envisions it.
Big men, strong men, men whose rigs are merely extensions of themselves, men who leave that of themselves which is not part of the task at hand at home, or elsewhere.
Ideally, of course, the drivers would have no home life, no attachments, no problems of any kind.
So that what she sees is truly what she gets.
But this is probably not possible, realistically speaking.
Everybody has attachments, has problems.
And, most likely, those who don't are fucked up in some other way.
Because a man with no roots, a man with no attachments to this world, is incomplete, rather than ideal.
He is never put to the test and his being out here on the road is not a triumph, not a victory, not the end result of successful struggle.
So that, upon due reflection, Shana revises her ideal.
Okay, so he has a family, has problems, has obstacles, opposition to be overcome in his life. So that his being here is in fact a kind of triumph. Except.
Shana doesn't want to know the nature of that struggle, doesn't want to know of the casualties, possibly including himself, in those battles he has had to fight for the right, the privilege of being here.
Yes, she wants her drivers to be real, to be human beings, to be supermen of the highway and no place else.
But of that somewhere else, that someone else, she wants to know nothing.
Because she is here to celebrate.
Yes, she reflects, as she warms to her task, head bobbing up and down faster and faster, mouth drooling with hunger, with desire for this hard, hot, living presence which fills her jaws with its mighty volume, its solidity, its reality, wanting more and more of it inside her, wanting it to satisfy the heat, the excitement which charges her entire body now, that is exactly what she is.
She is the celebration, the reward, the prerogative for their being out here, for their doing what they are, for their being what they are.
And it wasn't some impossible fantasy, some impractical dream, but, on the contrary, a completely doable thing.
She has what she has to offer, they have what they have, and their coming together is therefore entirely reasonable.
They have roots in the mundane world and so does she.
But.
There is nothing, nothing, nothing stopping their coming together in this world, the world of the highway, just like this.
Just exactly like this, in fact.
Yes, this will do nicely, she tells herself.
This is exactly what she had in mind.
The ideal made real, this is, no question.
And no question either, but that she can do this over and over again.
Variety is the spice of life, she has heard it said.
And no reason why variety cannot be a feature of this as well, in fact every reason why it should.
A big man, a big cock.
But now many big men, how much big cock is out there, just waiting for her-waiting for and wanting her?
Hundreds? Thousands, perhaps?
Because this is not some sporadic, on and off thing, the highway.
A separate reality, perhaps, but one very much a part of the real world, this.
As now, having raised him to the point of full rigidity, to that point and well beyond, she raises her head, her lips clearing the ponderous knob of Lemonlime's saliva-polished throbber of an erection.
And Lemonlime rises at once in the bed, sliding over so that she can position herself properly in the middle.
And she does so, lying there, her face red with arousal, raising and spreading her legs.
And he takes her at once.
No preliminaries, not this first round.
She has brought him, him and herself, too far along for such dalliance.
No, there is no delay of game whatever now, as he shafts smoothly into her hot, juicy cunt, all the way.
She wanted him to scoop her legs up, to double her up, to impale him on his prick, to possess her completely.
But he is too far gone for even that, her cock-sucking having raised him to the point of sheer animal lust.
So that he desires only the basic, the fundamental act, unadorned.
Because she has brought the hunger upon him, the lust, the insatiable reaching out for more and more.
Because already, she has awakened within him the pleasure beyond pleasure.
So that he is not in control.
So that he is in the grip, the throes of that driving force, inexorable, irresistible and, at the same time, exquisite in its intensity.
So that yes, it gets better than this.
And this and this and this!
Because the more he gets, the more he wants.
And Shana?
She is the same way right now.
As her snapper of a pussy milks his mighty marauder of sensation after sensation, each more pleasure-filled than the last, each a complex, a myriad of messages, each an intimate, erotic, lascivious message, a promise of more and better to come, all of them combining within her sucking, pulsating, tingling cunt.
And repeating themselves, over and over, with ever-increasing existence.
They will be felt, they will not be delayed, will not be denied.
They are bound and determined to penetrate her, to infiltrate her, to inundate and permeate her, to engulf and absorb the both of them in sexual communication.
So that they have no choice.
They do not have it; it has them. It.
Meaning the ultimate pleasure, meaning the most intense of all human experiences, the driving force of all that moves and acts and hopes and dreams.
Because surely, she reasons, this, this! is the goal of all striving.
To know happiness, to experience luxury.
And what is happier, more luxurious than this feeling which overcomes them at the moment.
The blossoming, the elaborate, multi-faceted unfolding of the flower of their shared passion, its petals exerting an ever-increasing pressure within them.
Demanding space to expand further and further, to blossom out and out and out, to expose more and more of its glorious, glowing inner core, to reveal the next level of pleasure.
And the next and the next.
But their capacity is finite, the pleasure beyond pleasure infinite-a feature it shares with their appetites.
Which are boundless.
Which demand more and more and still more of the ultimate pleasure.
Which reach out, greedy, grasping, drooling for that which they know is out there, up there, just beyond, just a step higher, just a shade more intense, just another thrust farther, and-
They are coming.
They are coming and coming, relief intermingled with the exquisite spasms of their shared climax.
As the twinges of her series of multiple orgasms intermingle with the the injections of his thick, copious jism into the depths of her steaming, streaming pussy.
As they rock and roll, side to side, her legs bicycling at the knees with the reflexes of her body, wracked now by the supreme experience.
Which goes on and on within them, as they zoom and soar together through the realms of their shared sexual paradise.
As, somewhere within the two of them, they know the added satisfaction of the accomplished fact.
What's done is done and cannot be taken back, cannot be taken away from them, cannot be undone.
Until they did it, it was all tentative, all theoretical.
But not now, not any longer. What the mind of man can conceive, the hand of man can execute. And they did.
The concatenation of forces mental and physical, the coincidence of of thought and reality have brought them together thus.
And they have, in every sense of the term, made it.
As here, now, their last spasm passed, they float slowly back down to earth.
And she knows that he is relieved, is glad, is happy, now that he has fucked her all the way.
And he is glad as well that he has pre-programmed his perspective concerning her, for whatever reason.
He has offered to pay her and she has not refused.
Which makes her-the obvious.
She isn't, but she won't bother to correct him, since that is so very obviously how he wants it.
An impersonal relationship, desired by him for one reason, by her for another, and one he cannot possibly suspect.
Yes, this one cannot know that he is but the first of many, of many who are, fundamentally all one and the same.
He cannot know how much this meant to her, this confirmation that reality will support her imagery, her desire.
And now, they shower together, the water roaring against the vinyl curtain of the concrete stall in this rather rudimentary, if wholly satisfactory accommodation.
As they scrub themselves thoroughly.
As Lemonlime, the edge off now, prepares to do for pure pleasure that which, moments ago, he did for relief, so that, having proved himself a man, he can now prove himself an expert bedroom technician as well.
4
I had a good day today, Shana tells herself, lying there in the darkness of the motel room, the silence of the night rendered absolutely still by the blanket of newly fallen snow. Christmas night, it is.
Not Christmas eve, but Christmas night, the holiday over, behind her, behind the world.
Shana has a car now, but she doesn't drive it much-only to go shopping for clothes, the only thing she really spends money on.
Especially, she didn't drive it today, not with the snow falling, thick and soft, the flakes compounding in their heavy wetness as they descended silently in the soft air, warm for this time of year, warm and moist, with the promise of spring already seeming to hang in the air, the faint scent of the nearby ocean adding a tinge, a hint, a promise of the summer yet to come.
She was alone today, alone on Christmas, alone as she usually is every Christmas.
But she-likes it this way.
She could have gone home to her folks, making the drive early, avoiding the holiday rush, no hassle whatever, since, after all, she is always on her own time.
But why?
Why go up there to Connecticut and be uncomfortable, her father unwilling to look her in the eye, her mother frustrated, infuriated by her evasive answers as to exactly what it is she does here at this truck stop?
Because she doesn't want, doesn't need confrontation.
She could tell them some simple, obvious lie, of course.
But she is not that far away from them. And her mother would no doubt want to play detective.
She's a waitress at the diner? Great!
Come on, Dad, let's drive three hundred miles or so for a cup of coffee, She works in the office? Terrific.
Let's go check out her working conditions. So what does she do? She sells.
You sell what and for whom, dear?
Amway, Avon, whoever.
And you live at a truck stop?
Yeah, Mom, I live at a truck stop.
Why not an apartment, dear?
And so it would go, with her giving answers which made no sense, not even to herself, answers which rang untrue, even to her own ears.
Until her mother reached the only conclusion possible-her daughter is a whore.
And that, that is most specifically not true.
That would be as big a lie as any she was feeding them.
True, she accepts money from men. But as gifts.
And not just any men, only long haul drivers.
Managers, even trucking company executives have gotten her number, have tried to hit on her, misunderstanding have even offered her money, quotinig a price over the telephone, but.
No way.
You drive the heavy equipment or you don't.
What does she want with white collars and soft hands pawing her?
What does she want with the pinky ring set?
If she were a whore, it wouldn't matter, now, would it?
Theirs for the price of admission, she'd be.
But that's not at all her scene.
Even the long haulers don't necessarily qualify, not all of them.
They have to have that certain look, have to qualify.
Meaning that they must be big, burly men, muscular and virile.
And the guys have gotten to know this.
So that they don't send, don't recommend anybody who doesn't have the look on which she insists, in no uncertain terms.
Whore?
Far from it, actually.
Just a woman who knows very much what she wants.
And she's got the right answers, the true answers for the men curious enough to ask the obvious.
("So tell me, babe, how's come you don't get cherself a job waitressin', cashierin', whatever around here?")
("What time is it (insert name here)? ")
("Ten thirty in the ayem, babe. Why?")
("Know where the waitresses and the cashiers are right now, while we're in bed here?")
They see the point. Availability is a definite consideration.
And she cannot be available to them whenever, and still have a regularly scheduled job.
They're gonna be here, she's gonna be here.
Just let her know, any hour, day or night.
But a girl's gotta live, so-
And she thinks back, remembering.
*****
"Take it, babe, I wantcha t'have it, okay?" Shana looks at the fifty, then back at him. "G'wan, now, take it.
"You on the road, you on your own, without that you gonna hafta very quickly do just what dumb ole Hillbilly expects ya to.
"That what you want, go back home t'Mommy an' Daddy?"
"No."
And she took it.
"Well, see ya, kiddo."
"Where you going, Lemonlime?"
"On up the line."
"I'm coming with you."
"You not goin' on t'other way?"
"I, I sorta promised my Mom I'd head back her way."
"Okay with me, that's what choo wanna do."
"Can we, can I make it to a truck stop in, say, New Jersey?"
"Why not, that's what cha want?"
"It's what I want-I guess."
"Tell ya what, then, babe.
"You can stay with me, up New Jersey way."
"At a truck stop?"
"Absolutely."
"Will it, will it be one where uh, where Hillbilly never goes?"
"Sure thing, babe!"
"Him an' Ralph don't make but the one stop goin' south, don't make but two stops goin' 'crost the whole country!"
"Good."
He looks at her strangely.
She doesn't want to disappoint Hillbilly, on the one hand; on the other, she has no intention of going back home, not all the way.
Because she has seen the future-her future-and it works.
Lemonlime made it work.
A thousand other Lemonlimes will keep it working.
"Got a swimming pool, does it?" she asks, as they swing back onto the highway.
"Got ever'thang a body could want, cep'n lemonlime soda.
"Stuff s damn hard t'come by, fer some reason.
"Don't none of the big companies bottle it.
"Ten million kindsa cola, or the great taste of Sprite or Seven-up or whatever, tryna be lemonlime.
"Hell, lemonlime ain't clear an' colorless. "Stuffs green or yeller-cloudy, y'know? "Gotta drink me some supermarket brand. "Gotta ack-shully stop at a supermarket t'git it." Shana leans back, not listening as Lemonlime prattles on.
She doesn't even want to know about something as trivial as his favorite soft drink, the one from which he obviously derives his nickname.
Not but one lemonlime interesting to her, and she's seated right next to it.
Good to know, though, that that's his biggest worry.
Good in a way, bad in a way, if it's true.
Because, if it is, then he has overcome nothing, has scored no personal triumph, is celebrating no private victory by being here, on the road, like this.
Still, she doesn't want to know what it is, his personal grief or problem or tragedy.
And she vows never to ride again with a trucker.
Because suppose, just suppose he should open up to her about his troubles?
Suppose he should blow his image? No good, that.
No, if the truck stop to which Lemonlime is taking her is okay, that will be where she sets up housekeeping.
Housekeeping.
She could tell her folks she's a housekeeper at the truck stop.
No, no she couldn't.
Because they'd call the office-her mother would make a point of calling the office, if only to check the line of communication with her daughter-and ask for housekeeping and find out nobody there ever heard of her.
Because she doesn't intend to get that close to the hired help, any of them, lest they get some misimpression of her scene, where she is coming from, lest they mistake her for a, a ... whore.
No, let her be a mystery to them, a mystery woman who simply happens to live there.
The miles go by, and Shana sleeps.
"Here we are," Lemonlime says, pulling off the highway, going down the off ramp.
"Home sweet home," Shana mutters, seeing the clean, well-kept single-storey maze which is the motel, the pool visible from the off ramp, right out front where it will draw the most water-minded truckers.
"If you say so," Lemonlime responds, voice flat, mildly disapproving.
"What's with you, Lemonlime?"
He shrugs, pulling his rig in line with others in the parking area.
"What's with you is more the question, babe."
"How's that?"
"What are you, anyway? I mean, like, what's your scene?
"Fifty bucks for all night?
"Shee-it! Either you ain' no whore at all or you the dumbest one ever lived."
"I'm no whore at all and I'm not stupid," Shana replies, voice level, not offended, understanding his misunderstanding.
"Then what are you?"
"I like truckers," she shrugs, as though this is a most natural, commonplace thing.
"I like 'em too," Lemonlime says, "but that don't mean I sleep with 'em."
"You tryna talk yourself out of a good time tonight?" she asks.
"You one athem nymphomaniacs, right?"
"Don't think so," she replies.
Because she can turn it off, or rather not even have it turn on, if the guy's not a long haul trucker with that certain look.
"So then, that's it?
"I'm s'posed ta b'lieve you got the hots for truckers, just that simple?"
"Believe what you like," she shrugs. He looks at her a long moment, the two of them sitting there in the cab, engine off, lights, all systems shut down, the harsh glare of the floodlights in the parking area painting them in uncompromising shades of black and white.
"I'll go for dinner and the room," he says, "but I ain't payin' fer it again."
"Never asked you to pay the first time."
"You gonna try an' gitchoo some kinda job hereabouts, then."
"No." He sighs.
"Then you sure as hell best be chargin' for it, babe. "One night. That's all the rent I'm cov'rin' fer ya; then you on your own."
"I understand."
"Don't rightly think y'do.
"But you run outta coin an' you gonna, in one helluva hurry."
"Be my problem then, won't it?"
He sighs, shaking his head, lowering it between his arms, resting on the oversized steering wheel.
He raises his head, looking at her sideways.
"Tell ya whut, then," he says, at last. "Lemme get us fed an' bedded down.
"I'll talk t'them at the desk about extended stay rates fer ya, make 'em think I'm stashin' ya here for a while whilst I make a few east-west runs or whatever.
"Be cheaper that way.
"An' see if I cain't gitcha a few good ole boys lined up, guys I know'll treatcha right an' do the right thing by ya.
"But I gotta tell ya, babe, you charge fifty for an all nighter an' you gonna git real broke real fast, you don't gitchoo no job."
"Whatever they wanna give," she shrugs.
"You ain't list'nin' to a word I say, are ya?"
"Yes I am."
"Teh ya whut, then.
"I'll pass the word on the fifty, but it'll be for one pop.
"Might be you could make it that way."
"Whatever," she sighs, gazing away from him, out the window, into the darkness beyond the floodlights.
And knowing that something is beginning here, something she deliberately didn't bother to reach for, to control, content to let it happen, to be part of her destiny.
Going with the flow, she is.
Nothing in this world happens for no reason; she believes this.
If she did not before, did not or had no opinion one way or the other, then she does now.
No question. . .
No question, but that it's all coming together.
First Hillbilly, then Lemonlime, two totally diverse personalities, two outlooks worlds apart, and yet-and yet.
What happens, happens.
Maybe her will is more powerful than she thought.
Maybe she has within herself the means to turn fantasy into reality.
But this can't be true, not entirely.
Her fate, personally or as part of some grand scheme, is at work in the world.
Because she is not deceived on this point.
She may have a strong will, but she controls none of the features of what is happening to her.
She could certainly not have conjured Hillbilly; the elements of him are not present within her.
And, as for Lemonlime, what is there in her will which has compelled him to be saying and doing the things he is?
She would not know how to begin to detail the instructions to him, by thoughtwave or otherwise, to cause him to do for her what he is.
And yet, it's happening.
They are eating, Lemonlime giving and getting greetings from other long haul drivers, members of a confraternity of the road, knit together with a closeness only great, lonely distances can confer.
And Shana can only stare at them, fascinated.
Big men, strong men, heavy equipment men, men such as she has conjured in her mind.
As reality confirms imagination, or perhaps premonition.
"Lemme go over there a sec, talk t'the fellers, okay?" he asks Shana.
And she, in mid-mouthful, nods assent.
He leans over their table, head jerking back toward her, seeing the two truckers look at her, then back at Lemonlime.
The brief conference ended, Lemonlime comes back to their table and his dinner.
"Listen, babe, here's the deal," he says. "See them two over there?"
"Sure."
"They look okay, do they."
"They look okay."
"I'm not gonna stay, uh-what's your name, by the way?" She tells him.
"Well listen, uh, Shana, I'm not gonna stay.
"I can still make the produce terminal in Connecticut tonight, collapse my cages, and pick up some machinery in the ayem.
"Now, I'm gonna getcha the room like I promised, an' then these guys're gonna pay ya a visit.
"They gonna pay ya a visit-and they gonna pay ya, Shana.
"Fifty apiece."
"But I don't-"
"Call it a gift, call it a token of appreciation, call it whatever the hell you want, okay?
"I'll be back this way nex' week sometime fer a date an' you can tell me how ever'thang's goin' fer ya whilst you figger out where the hell you comin' from.
"You young an' you a mite confused, you don't mind my sayin' so.
"But you gonna be okay, sumthin' tells me.
"Leastways, seem like you got good taste in men," he adds, smiling.
And so it goes.
They are no Lemonlimes, Duke and Biff.
And they add a new meaning to togetherness, in Shana's experience.
True, she wanted both of them, but she didn't count on two at once.
Still, they showered, even shaved in their own room, picking up a six pack at the carryout portion of the truck stop complex before showing up at her door.
Wordlessly, Shana looking away from them, they deposit fifty apiece on the long dresser that faces the foot of the bed.
And, as though they have paid the price of admission (and she wonders just what Lemonlime said to them, anyway), they undress.
And do not disappoint.
Shana removes the slip she was wearing and is naked beneath it.
And now, she is surrounded by warm, solid, trucker beef.
As they seat themselves on one side of the bed, the three of them, Shana in the middle, her hands reaching for and grasping the two long, thick cocks with their bare, bulbous heads, already half erect with arousal at the situation.
The six-pack untouched, they quickly develop full hard-ons as, bending over, each of them sucks one tit.
And now, they lie back in the bed, the three of them, aligning themselves properly, the two big men with their major erections flanking Shana like the supporters of an elaborate and erotic coat of arms, a piece of lascivious heraldry.
And now Shana, aroused, suddenly sits up.
Quickly, she reverses herself in the bed and, bridging Duke's body with her own, lowers her crotch on his face, even as she feeds herself his cock with one hand.
So that now, they are eating each other.
And she feels Duke's avid, powerful tongue everywhere at once.
Now he is strumming her clit with the tip, now thrusting the long, thick, salivating appendage in and out of her cunt, tongue-fucking her hot, juicy depths.
And now he is sucking her ass hole, now probing it with his tongue, forcing it in and in and into her ass, deeper and deeper.
She dismounts, only to reverse herself with lightning speed.
She straddles him once more, a knee planted on either side of him, then, athletically, rises to her feet.
She stands above him in the bed, then lowers herself, squatting down, down, down, grabbing his monster from where it lies, stiffly plastered against his stomach, and feeds it up, up, up into her hot, streaming cunt as she settles down on him.
And leans forward so that he can grab her big, hanging breasts, feeding them to himself one at a time.
As Biff crouches between Duke's legs, which are spread inside Shana's, and rims her avidly.
And now, he is on his knees behind them, the hard plum of his knob pressed against her bung, slipping round and round in the lubrication of his saliva.
"You kinda hafta raise up t'give me some room," Biff says.
And Shana complies, feeling Duke's tumescent monster pull out of her until only the head remains between her pussy lips, thus relieving the internal pressure, the compression of her rectum, long enough for Biff to button his knob inside her ass hole, then drill all the way into her ass with his stiff prong, rotating his hips.
Only then does Shana settle back down on Duke's mighty marauder.
And she feels herself filled, fulfilled-and once again overtaken by events, events she has not so much willed as opened herself up to, unknowingly.
So that reality once more excedes imagination.
As now the two burly truckers double-fuck her.
As Biff, the top man, bounces up and down until the bedsprings, taking up his motion, carry the action.
So the three of them ride effortlessly, Shana's cunt now become a two-cylinder engine, the two mighty meat pistons alternating within her, one going halfway in while the other pulls halfway out.
And never has Shana felt so completely alive!
Never has she known such sexual intensity.
As though her entire body were being sexually stimulated, stroked, rubbed, caressed, squeezed by unseen forces devoted exclusively to her voluptuousness, to the heightened awareness of her own sexuality.
And Shana does not know, cannot say exactly what it is that the long haul truckers and their rigs mean to her.
She only knows that they turn her on, and this in the most literal, direct, intimate sense of the phrase.
So that now, the three of them rise together, higher and higher, up, up, up the rainbow of their shared arousal.
Hotter and hotter they become, their sexual sweat lubricating their bodies so that they slip and slide against one another.
Faster and faster go the mighty meat pistons, each thrust and each withdrawal generating a fresh thrill, a surge of sexual electricity which courses through them, from their innermost depths to the outer limits of their being, radiating beyond it, surrounding them with the aura of their own sexuality.
And Shana knows, knows the truth, the Tightness of her chosen path, her way of life, her projected destiny.
Because this, this! is surely the way to go.
If human existence is the search for happiness, then surely here, now, like this, with these men, she has found it.
She has found it and found it in depth.
Two days in her chosen way of life, and three confirmations that reality will sustain, will support her in her peculiar drive, her unique taste?
What further proof is needed here, what possible additional encouragement?
None. None at all, is what.
As she rides with them up, up, up-
And over the top, over the rainbow.
Where she is free, free to milk the two cocks of their copious loads, free to receive them, more and more and to overflowing as the alternating pressure of the two plunging pistons forces rings of pearlescent jism to form at the juncture of cock and orifices, now become smoothly rounded, sucking mouths.
5
Shana recalls that experience, that welcome to this, her home.
Not her home away from home, she reminds herself, but her actual, her true and only home.
Because there is nothing for her back there in Connecticut.
There are only memories, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, above all memories of waiting, waiting for her own future, waiting to begin it, waiting to make it real, whatever its form, waiting as it beckoned to her, nebulous but enticing, exciting, a male figure, the muscular silhouette, the beefy details shimmering against the background of the big rig as it stands, naked, one foot on the running board of the tall cab.
The reality of them, the abundance of them!
And the reality, the abundance of herself as well.
Because never was she so aware of her own extension in reality, her solidity, her aliveness, her validity.
Not herself as she imagined herself, as she imagined others perceiving her, not herself as she might be in some vague and distant future, not herself ideally as opposed to present reality, but herself fully realized, herself arrived at her goal in this world, this here and now, unarguable and triumphant.
To have thus interacted with the world, on her terms, on terms dictated for her by a benevolent and all-powerful fate!
And to feel, to know herself thus fulfilled-well, what more could she ask, not having known enough to ask even this, to request, much less demand what she is in fact receiving.
The earth, the world, the universe has yielded to her of its bounty.
And the strains of a Thanksgiving song from high school ring in her ears.
Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving to-no.
Leave God out of this, she cautions herself. Let Him wait his turn.
Let her play this thing out, see where it leads her, how she ends up.
Time enough to make her peace, to prepare herself for the next world.
Only the good die young, she tells herself; the rest of us need an entire lifetime to work out our salvation.
But first, there is the world, the flesh and, yes, the devil.
Although she feels no impurity, no possession, no bedevilment now, as the last spasm passes through her, as, together, they land softly back on earth.
"You are sumthin' else!" Biff enthuses, sliding back off of her, his cock, still fully tumescent, slimy with fresh jism, bobbling before him as he awkwardly backs off the foot of the bed.
Shana pulls herself up off of Duke's cock, feeling it slide wetly out of her dripping, defiled pussy.
And she too stands, beside the bed, as Duke sits up, smiling and shaking his head, saying, "You sumthin' else, all right, that's fer sure!
"Just let the two of us wash up at cher sink.
"We gonna use one of yer hand towels, so's you don't run outta linens.
"Might could be you could arrange with the management fer extra towels though, fer the long haul.
"Not ever'body's gonna be. as considerate as us, y'know."
"Thanks," Shana replies, slipping her slip back on.
And realizing that they are correct, for the first time considering the mechanics, the sheer physical aspect of what is involved in her chosen mode of existence.
Because, if she is to have one long ball with the truckers, then yes, she is going to need lots and lots of towels and washcloths and soap.
And she is going to have to concern herself with scheduling, even though she has no job.
Because the housekeeping staff does.
And to every task a time of day assigned.
So that she must, willy-nilly, work things out with housekeeping.
But that is a detail, something to be thought about, to be handled tomorrow.
For today, or rather tonight, or, more accurately, these wee hours of the morning, she is okay.
"Uh, Lemonlime said it was okay t'pass the word, whut we got goin' here," Duke says, as he and Biff get dressed.
"Big, good looking, long haul truckers," Shana replies, "no others need apply."
"Gotcha.
'"Course, you do understand now, they ain't all gonna be as good lookin' as me an' Biff here." They all laugh.
"Understood," she says. "I think you know what I'm looking for."
"Got us a purty good idee, yeah.
"Uh, this gonna be yer room permanent-like?"
"More or less, I guess, why?"
'"Cause you can expect a lotta calls."
"Well, maybe not a lotta calls," Biff amends, and he and Duke exchange glances.
"I meant, a lotta good calls, not, like, a great number of calls, know what I'm say in'?
"Oh, by the way, you kin keep the beer, you want."
"No, no, that's okay," she replies, handing him the six-pack.
They leave, Duke telling Biff, on the way out, "You shoulda been a lawyer, you know that?"
"Wouldn't of got me none athat then, would I?" Biff replies.
"True, true," Duke concedes, as he closes the door behind them.
And Shana goes into the shower, taking a long, hot one, scrubbing herself out, fore and aft, and thinking that she will have to go to a drug store and get herself an actual douchebag, complete with hose and attachments.
And she remembers now that she has no transportation, is, more or less, stranded here. A car, she needs.
And she finds herself, for the first time, contemplating the subject of money.
And her gaze automatically wanders to where the hundred dollars lies on the dresser.
Did Lemonlime follow through on his promise to get her a long-term rate? she wonders.
He paid for the room, she knows.
Fuck it, she tells herself, she'll worry about it in the morning.
*****
She remembers now, remembers that very first morning, a bright, sunny day in June.
She remembers thinking about how pleasant it is, waking up on her own time, no pressure, with the whole day of nothing in particular to do before her, a whole day of letting it happen.
It.
Meaning the flow of people and events which, thus far, support her projection of her future to perfection, which uncannily exceed it, in fact.
Shana gets up, knowing that she must make arrangements at the office for her continued stay here.
She must get the cleaning schedule, must concern herself with the details of living here.
Not hard to do, she tells herself, as she puts on shorts and a halter, takes her wallet with her, holding it in her hand (there is no room for it in her shorts) and goes over to the diner for breakfast.
She will take care of the office shit afterward, she tells herself.
*****
"Shana! Hey gal, over here!" Breakfast with friends, she thinks, how nice. She joins Duke and Biff at the counter. "Ennything she wants, put it on mine," Duke says.
And Biff moves over so that she can sit between them.
The waitress takes Shana's order.
"Lemonlime sure knows a good thing when he sees it," Biff observes.
"You can say that again," Duke says.
And he twirls around on his stool, facing outward, elbows against the counter.
"'Ey there, Brad, nice seein' ya!"
"Ed? What's happening, man?
"An' there's ole Joe, from Chick-a-go!
"C'mon over here a minnit, boys!
"Wantcha t'meet Shana here.
"Lady's takin' up permanent residence, rat cheer in this very locay-shun."
"Really."
"I kid joo not.
"Nex' time you boys have occasion t'stop here, don't hesitate t'be sociable-right, Shana?"
Shana looks them up and down.
"Absolutely," she confirms.
"Now y'tell me," Joe groans.
"Yeah," Brad says, "yer intentions may be good an' all that, Duke, but yer timin' leaves a lot t'be desired."
"Oh, I don't know," Ed says, looking directly at Shana, "Listen, uh, Shana, I gotta go pick up a load northa here.
"How's about I stop an' pay a call on ya on the way back, sometime this afternoon?"
"Swell," Shanna replies. "I'll be here, or in my room, or out by the pool."
The waitress puts Shana's food down on the counter.
"You just eat up," Duke says. "I wanna talk at the boys here a minnit."
And Duke goes into the huddle with them.
She sees one of them take out a pad and pencil, writing what has to be her name and room number, after which Duke explains what have to be the finances.
Ignoring them, she eats her breakfast. "Nice meeting ya, Shana," Joe says.
"Me too," Brad adds. "See ya this afternoon, Shana," Ed says. "Ed."
"Yeah?"
"Can you stop by a drugstore for me?" Shana asks, delving into her wallet, taking out a ten, handing it to him.
"Waddaya need."
"Douchebag. Not just the hot water bottle, but the complete set.
"You know-hoses, tubes, the works."
The men look at each other, bemused, as Ed hands the ten back to her.
"Be my pleasure," he says, looking at the others and smiling at the prospect of water sports.
The others look away from him, grinning, Brad muttering, "Shee-it!"
And the three new friends take off.
Duke and Biff say their farewells, promising to call her next time.
Duke handles the tab and Shana finishes eating alone.
*****
Shana realizes that she has no idea if the price quoted is reasonable or unreasonable.
She has seen such rates quoted, she recalls, on TV, at certain motels, for a short time only.
So perhaps that's not all that bad. It works out to sixteen dollars a day, her one hundred twelve a week, complete with maid service. She can live with it. And if the volume of her-no. To think like a whore is to become a whore. And she will not.
Shana buys a newspaper, from the machine outside the restaurant, aelling herself she will read it by the pool.
*****
Shana is alone by the pool.
A very odd sensation, this, at first.
Because the highway is right up there, the frontage road even closer, both of them filled with traffic, noisy, bustling, now whizzing, now stop and go, with much releasing of air brakes, much gunning of engines.
So that it is as though she is in one world, quiet, leisurely, slow-paced, while, right next to her, is that other world, the world of commerce and industry, of hustle and bustle, the world she has rejected out of hand.
Except.
There they are, the big rigs, drivers invisible in their cabs, because she is not that close to them, after all.
So that now, she feels lines of force, contact between herself and them.
The drivers can't see her, except at a distance, from the far side of the cab.
So that they cannot make eye contact, cannot lean over to talk to her.
So near and yet so far, they seem.
Because she knows.
She knows with the power of imagination who, what is driving the big rigs, what they would do with, about her, given the chance.
And they shall have their chance, she knows, they or others very much like them, others exactly like them.
Because she will see to it, is seeing to it, is making it happen by her very presence here.
What they are dreaming of, thinking about, she can, she will turn into reality for them, with them.
Already, it's happening, the word is spreading, the action building up.
Even now, as she sits here in her bikini and sunglasses, it's growing, her, her ... client le.
But she is not a whore.
Her motivation alone precludes this.
She wants to incorporate into herself, to become a part of the mystique of the long haul, of the big rigs.
She wants to, and she is.
As Biff said to Duke only last night, but for his being what he is, he would not have been where he was, could not have done what he, what they did.
Which just proves-something.
Ignoring the traffic now, she opens the newspaper.
Not to the front page, not to any of the news, not to the editorial opinion.
Classifieds, she opens up.
Cars, she turns to-not hard to do, since they are the principal feature of any classified section.
New cars, used cars, and bargains, bargains, bargains galore.
Zero percent down, two percent financing, this weekend only, during our marathon salathon.
Except that she cannot attend their marathon salathon, cannot see Big Ed or Mad Marvin or Crazy Cal.
Because she has no job and no money. Because she has no credit or history of same. No, not for her this once in a lifetime deal. It will simply have to pass her by as she, stranded by the side of the road, looks on in helpless longing. Except.
Eight thousand dollars, this one is.
Eight thousand dollars, or one hundred and sixty lays, at fifty bucks a pop.
Four months at ten tricks a week and no expenses.
Figuring two hundred a week for that, add four lays to the ten, comes to fourteen.
Two a day, seven days a week, or one more or less if she wants a day off, she can make that schedule, can do it standing on her head.
Unless, unless-what the fuck is happening to her?
Can this be Shana, can this be me, she asks herself, talking like a calculator, like a vending machine into which men put fifty dollar tokens before inserting dick in hole A?
I am not a whore! she confirms to herself. Guys give their wives, their girlfriends a lot more than a lousy fifty a piece, one way or another, every day of the week.
And it isn't as though she set out to make money this way.
She's still not looking to get rich off this. Still, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to survive.
And the manner of her survival is dependent upon how it is she's trying to survive, that is, her lifestyle.
Not her fault she has discovered a great, eternal truth, a personal, if not universal fundamental secret of the ages.
Not her fault that she was not born wealthy.
Not her fault that she has no marketable skills.
Not that she would actually exercise them if she did, she reminds herself.
Because even that would call for her being tied up.
Even that would require a schedule.
And that, of course, won't do, not at all.
No, she must be free to exercise skills of quite a different sort.
And, while admittedly, there is a market for such skills, she nonetheless categorically refuses to make the connection between what she does and money.
She read an article about prostitutes once, in which she discovered that they have boyfriends, even husbands and families, some of them.
Asked how they manage to be girlfriends or housewives, they all said about how it's all in the mind, about how they don't let themselves feel anything when they're in their professional mode.
Whereas Shana looks for the feeling, longs for it, dreams about it, welcomes it with open arms, with open-everything.
So none of this bullshit about her being a whore, all right?
She will accept a token of appreciation, but that's about it. Except.
The mathematics of the situation, her situation, seem inescapable.
Because, face it, she has to pay the rent, buy food and clothing-and she does need a damn car.
With a license, a registration, insurance.
With fuel and maintenance.
Even though, really, she cannot see herself driving anywhere much.
To the drugstore for a douchebag?
Ed is taking care of that for her.
But other things can come up.
What if she wants to take in a movie, for example?
You can't take a bus, not from here.
No, she tells herself, face it; in this day and age, a person needs wheels.
She needs wheels, and to get wheels, it takes money, and she has but one way of getting money and that's the bottom line of the whole problem.
The car.
Blame it on the car.
But for the car, she would not be thinking of the money, not like this, not in these, these ... whore's terms.
The trundling of the laundry cart behind her.
The chambermaid is passing by, passing and pausing, pausing and cleaning up and changing bedclothes and towels and putting out fresh soap and she knows that she would never, never want any part of that.
Three tricks, tax free, and she is ahead of that poor, unfortunate woman whom she cannot even see at the moment, because she is inside one of the rooms, whence issues the faint whir of a vacuum cleaner.
No, she tells herself, that wouldn't do, not at all.
And-there she went again.
Not even what the woman does, not what she gets paid per se, but the whole scene, dollar valued, divided by fifty.
What is she-in some kind of a mental rut? The problem, she tells herself, the problem is that she is fighting the problem. Which is not a problem at all, not really. Did she look for Hillbilly, then for Lemonlime, then for Duke and Biff, now for Ed? She did not.
Did she ever, even once, set the fee, the rate, the price? She did not.
So then, why this preoccupation?
Why is she even letting greed rear its ugly head?
There is no need.
As it has been happening with and to and for her, so it will continue on and on, forever and ever, world without end.
Thus it is written, she is certain, somewhere.
Has to be.
So why not simply lie back, relax, and let it happen?
Good advice, she decides.
But the sun is too hot.
She could use a dip in the pool.
Kush!
This is more like it, she thinks, refreshed.
She swims from one end to the other, back and forth, again and again.
Stretching her cramped muscles, toning and relaxing them at one and the same time, as only swimming can do.
She gets out of the pool, mopping the water from her eye sockets, smoothing back her hair, then straightening out the seat of her skimpy bikini with both hands as she heads back to her chair.
And she sees the chambermaid, standing beside the door of a room she has just straightened, looking at her.
Did she just happen to catch her at a passing moment, a coincidence of juxtaposed glances?
But no, the woman stands there, smiling at her.
Tan skin, straight black hair, dark eyes, looking almost aristocratic, but for the unmistakable character of her smock-like uniform, the woman smiles faintly at her.
Shana smiles back.
After all, she has needed to get on good terms with housekeeping.
And does not want to have to be constantly tipping to have, to get things done.
And does not want to be bothered in the least with maintaining her own premises.
She never liked cleaning her room at home and has no intention of cleaning one she pays for now.
The woman comes over.
"Hi! I'm Juanita. Joo are de wan in two oh nine, rl'? "
"That's right, how did you-"
"They tole me this mornin' that joo weel be stayin' weeth us for an eendefinite period of time.
"Me, I jam also here for an eendefinite period of time."
This last said with bitterness and resignation, eyes downcast.
Then, looking at Shana again, "But, that ees my problem, ees eet not?
"Een the old country-never mind.
"I cannot go back there again.
"They say ees all right now, but what's done ees done an' cannot be undone.
"I have lost everything down there an' am not prepare to estart all over again.
"So, I do de rooms."
"You, you live here as well?"
"Oh no. My cousin, chee leeve in de nex' town over an' work een beeling at a truck terminal down de road.
"Chee drop me off an' peeck me op ev'ry work day. "I go' de dooty nine to five, Monday through Friday.
"Wicken's, dey go' de part timers, so I don' even ge' no overtime."
"It must be very discouraging for you."
"Eet has eets moments. "Like what?"
She looks Shana up and down.
"What can I do to make joor stay here more comfortable?" she asks, at last.
"Well, there are a few things, matter-of-fact, that you could do for me.
"For instance, if I could have my bed changed once a day, if I could get some extra-"
"Towels, I know.
"I been through this scene before, joo know."
"This scene?"
"Joo thin' joo de firs' workin' girl ever worked outta here."
"Working girl? "Hey, I-"
"Ees okay. I see joo een joor room, noontime.
6
What a shock! Shana remembers thinking, as Juanita walked away. Still, what could she expect, really?
Difficult to explain, even to herself, her scene, where she was coming from.
On the one hand, wanting nothing except to be on intimate terms with the truck drivers, on the other having to somehow support herself-not a problem, really.
The solution was well in hand, no question. Things seemed to be quite literally taking care of themselves. But.
How does it look?
How can it look, to even the most informed observer, to even the most involved of participants?
Lemonlime, she is convinced, believes her a whore of some warped kind.
Thanks to him, the situation is cut and dried with Duke and Biff.
And now, thanks to Duke and Biff, her status is even more clearly-if falsely-defined with Brad and Joe and Ed.
A mathematical progression this, but one soon to become geometric, unless she misses her guess.
Still, it cannot be helped.
Such misunderstandings are inevitable.
And Juanita wants to see her at noon.
Very well, Shana thinks, see her she will.
But she will not take any crap off the hired help.
She needs Juanita's services, of course, and it is true she requires service above and beyond the call of duty, strictly speaking.
But it isn't, she isn't that much trouble to be worth very much by way of a tip or bribe.
So Juanita had best not push the program.
Juanita, the fallen aristocrat from somewhere in Central America, one who has fallen far, too far, hence one who cannot return there, cannot go back to what she once was.
Tough shit, Juanita; but you had best not try to take it out on me.
Enough sun, enough water, Shana decides.
And returns to her room.
And takes a shower, noticing, in passing through, that hers is not one of the rooms which has been restored to its pristine, uninhabited state, having remained exactly as she left it this morning.
Going to give me a hard time, are you, Juanita? Shana asks, rhetorically. Because, if she is, then Shana will approach the management to live there on an apartment basis.
She'll buy her own damned towels and linens, washing them in the laundromat in the center of the complex.
She'll do her own fucking vacuuming, all the rest of the shit she thought she left behind, along with her family.
Don't threaten me, you bitch, or I'll put you out of business with me altogether.
And in fact, maybe, just maybe-no.
If she's going to have a job, it will be one for which she is paid.
If she's going to have to take the time and trouble to fend for herself, then she might as well resign herself to the fact.
If.
But she seriously doubts that this should be necessary.
Because she knows what she has to offer, knows that she will be paid for-shit!
There I go again, she tells herself.
Can't seem to get away from it.
So she will simply have to accept it.
Face it, she says, looking at herself full length, or as much as can be seen in the mirror above the dresser, turning around, looking over her shoulder at her reflection, this way, that, posing, face it; she is worth far more than what she is ask-ahem!
That is, far more than what they are giving her, she is sure.
She is-
A knock on the door.
Quickly, Shana wraps the towel around herself and opens the door, admitting Juanita.
Juanita looks at her, surprised.
"I was goin' to clean joor room now," she says, "but I can come back letter, if that's more convenient."
Shana glances at the clock beneath the TV.
"You said you wanted to see me at twelve noon and that's what it is," Shana says, seating herself on the unmade bed.
"Jes," Juanita agrees, "eet certainly ees.
"But I din't 'spect to see joo so, so ... ready."
And Juanita seats herself next to Shana, to her surprise.
"Lotta workin' girls say they got no problem weeth themselves handlin' the men because they only like weemen anyways.
"I wassn't choor abou' joo, of course, but I was hopin' I was correct.
"An' I see that I am."
And Juanita puts an arm around Shana's toweled waist.
"I thought we were going to discuss towels and linens," Shana says.
"We can 'scuss any thin' joo want-after, okay?
"I saw joo een de pool an' I knew what I wanted.
"Can we, like, take care of firs' thin's firs'? "
"We could, we could-do that," Shana says, her mind awhirl at this turn of events.
As the practical side of her thinks, Hey, if this is what it takes to get first class room service, why not?
How different is this, after all, from her getting anything else in exchange for giving the only thing she has to give?
The towel comes off, falling backward around her ass, where she sits on the bed.
And Shana doesn't move while Juanita stands up and quickly removes her smock, unsnapping it down the front, revealing herself naked beneath.
Juanita steps out of her flat moccasins, seats herself beside Shana again, puts an arm around her shoulder and, together, they fall back on the bed, big boobs bouncing.
They slide all the way into the unmade bed, fondling each others' breasts.
And Shana thinks, this is what you get into, when you throw yourself into the world.
Everybody is hot for her body.
And what can she do, except to use this phenomenon to her advantage, that is, to get what she wants, wants or needs?
"Scoot down een the bed a little," Juanita says. "Let me do the work the firs' time."
Shana does as she was asked.
And now, Juanita bridges her, reversing herself, planting a knee on either side of Shana's rib cage.
And Shana watches, fascinated, as Juanita's cunt and ass hole descend on her face.
Even as-
"Aah!"
This from a surprised Shana, as Juanita seals her mouth to Shana's cunt, the tip of her tongue strumming Shana's joy buzzer at vibrator speed as Juanita sucks her hot, juicy pussy.
And Shana cannot say what possesses her now.
Because, as though she has been doing it for years, as though it was the most natural thing in the world for her, Shana reaches up with both hands, grasping the belled flare of Juanita's hips.
And lowers her, positions her perfectly, so that
Shana can reach her cunt and her ass hole with her lips and tongue.
Almost at once now, Shana feels it.
It.
The magic of like with like. As above, so below.
Whatever she does to Juanita's big, puffy ass hole, whatever she does to her big gash, to its knob of a clit, to its long, moist, parted lips, the same thing happens to her own.
Stroke for stroke, the tongues work in unison now.
Yes and yes and yes! Shana cries out in her mind, wanting, hungering for that next increment, that next level of arousal, of stimulation, of action and reaction.
And there is no contradiction here.
Because this, this! is a part of it all.
But for her being here, there would be no Juanita.
But for Juanita's being a part of her environment, there is no Juanita.
And right now, Juanita seems to her an extension of herself.
Because there is a merging of self and other, a mirror imaging of like with like, of like servicing like, of like servicing itself by servicing like.
So that there is only one being, only one creature here.
There is a single entity with but a single purpose.
Which, right now, is to extract from the other, from that extension of the self the other has become, that next increment of voluptuous, lascivious pleasure.
And the next and the next.
As they rise together, as they propel themselves by propelling each other onward and upward, through level after level of sexual arousal.
And Shana knows that there is truth to be had through this, with this, in this.
Shana knows that the pleasure is here for her now, is attainable this way, is hers for the asking, the taking.
As she must have known from the moment she laid eyes on Juanita, she tells herself, in retrospect.
As Juanita must have known from the outset as well.
Because, otherwise, how did she have the nerve, the confidence, to have moved on her so quickly?
So that this too is part of the grand plan, of fate, of destiny, of whatever.
This too was meant to be.
This also has happened to her, happened in furtherance of her desires, happened without her picturing it in her mind, it or anything like it.
She predicted, foresaw, accurately imagined the coming of the truckers.
Only the details, the unfolding of actual events surprised her there.
But this?
She didn't have a clue, no premonition of which she was aware.
And yet, it all came together, instantly, naturally, easily.
One thing led to another in a sequence of events the logic of which is inescapable.
And now, the Tightness of it is as complete, as certain as that of her being with the truck drivers.
There is a difference, of course.
She is no lesbian, Shana is certain; her desire for the truck drivers is proof positive against this.
But.
This is special, this is attractive, this is, in a way, introspective, as intimate, as personal as her own reflection in a mirror.
To see in reality the solidity, the extension of one's own actions and reactions.
Action and reaction, blended now, merged so closely, the timing so infinitely simultaneous as to preclude clearly seeing, knowing what is action, what reaction.
Because the natural flow of events continues unabated.
So that Shana senses in what is happening here, now, merely the uninterrupted continuation of the scene back at the pool, her first encounter with Juanita.
Far from her thoughts now is the original purpose of her wanting to talk to Juanita in the first place.
Because this, this! is ecstasy, is rapture, is utter transport into another world, a micro-universe of their own, of which they are the sum and substance.
Naught loves another as itself.
So she read or heard in some English class, when she was in high school.
But only now do the words come back to her.
Only now does she understand, appreciate their meaning, doubtful though it may be that this particular interpretation, this application was the original intent.
And now, as they tongue-fuck each other, as they magically transmit to their own cunts the desired action by performing it on the other.
The desired action, the desired result.
To rise, level upon level, higher and higher, toward sexual paradise.
And to summon from within their own depths by calling forth from within the other the ultimate pleasure.
The pleasure beyond pleasure is theirs for the taking, theirs for the calling.
And now, they have awakened it, have caused the silent nuclear explosion within themselves, within each other, to begin the expansion of the mushroom cloud in slow motion.
And expand within them it does.
Taking them over, it reduces them to sheer reflex, to automatic response.
Oh, Shana is aware enough of who she is, of what she wants, but there is an end to it.
Because now, once again, the foolishness, the incompetence of the mind is revealed.
Because here is truth, truth which is of the body, truth which is of feeling, of sensation, truth absolute and unarguable, truth the body alone can reach out for, can attain, can make real.
What does the brain know, finally?
And where is it now, this seat of all conceit, in the face of the floodtide of exquisite, rapturous sensation which tongue has aroused, her tongue, the tongue of the other, the tongues of the two-headed entity they have become?
Because it requires no thought, no planning, what they are doing to, for, with, within themselves and each other.
Rather, what is called for here is a letting go, a complete, an unconditional surrender, all thought suspended, replaced by sheer sensation, by the influx of raw pleasure.
And now, the floodgates within them are opened.
And they are permeated, inundated by the floodtide of the ultimate pleasure.
They don't have it; it has them.
It has them and will not let go.
There is no turning back now.
Their bodies mindless puppets, manipulated by the pleasure which has absorbed them, they fuck each other's hot, streaming pussies with their ever-working tongues, sliding them back and forth across their joy buzzers as they plunge repeatedly in and in and into their drooling depths.
As they push each other up, up, up-
And over the top.
So that here, now, they are swept hither, thither and yon through the realms of their shared sexual paradise.
They are dizzy, disoriented, not knowing up from down, not knowing, not caring, desiring only that next convulsion, that next contraction of powerful vaginal muscles, that next milking of the exquisitely working tongue to produce that next deep spasm in their series of multiple orgasms.
Again and again, they summon the rapturous twinge, the supreme experience from deep within themselves and each other.
Again and again, they know the pure, mindless joy of orgasm.
And only when that last contraction, that last spurt of power beyond themselves has passed, do they slacken in their efforts.
Only then do they float back down to earth.
Only then do their surroundings once again become real, valid.
Only then does Juanita dismount, Shana watching as the hairy snatch, the puffy pucker rise, then disappear from her field of vision.
And Juanita is in the soiled, unmade bed beside her.
They do not touch, lying there, staring at the ceiling.
. "Joo wan' de bed changed daily, rl'?
"Joo wan' extra towels, lotta extra towels an' washclot's.
"Eef ees no 'DO NO' DEESTURB' sign on de door, joo wan' joor room made up firs' an' fas'.
"That abou' cover eet?"
"I think so."
"An' joo an' me?"
"What can I say?
"You're the only girl for me?"
"Thass good enough."
And Shana makes up her mind.
She will not disillusion Juanita, will not correct her impression, will not try to educate her, to explain herself.
Let her think her a common whore, a play-for-pay girl.
So long as she can get what she wants from Juanita, what difference does it make?
Maybe it's just as well, anyway.
Why fuck up her mind to no good purpose?
"Got no juse for men, myself," Juanita says, adding, after a pause, "but ees okay weeth me, joo wanna make joor leeving from them.
"I figure they owe joo.
"They owe all of us, an' more than they can ever hope to repay, them an' their macho boolchit."
Shana says nothing.
She has no axe to grind with men.
The majority she has already rejected out of hand, anyway.
They do not, never will know her at all. Only the long haul drivers. Only for them will she, does she put out. But of this she says nothing to Juanita. Instead, she gets up off the bed, offering Juanita a hand up, which the other accepts. They shower together.
Juanita puts her smock and shoes back on, waits for Shana to don a bathrobe, and opens the door.
Shana sits there in a chair, watching, as Juanita fixes up the room, first stripping the bed, then taking out the soiled towels.
Juanita dusts, then does the bathroom, swamping it out.
She replaces the towels, smiling at Shana en passant as she stacks them high, ostentatiously giving her extra.
Juanita makes the bed, then brings in the vacuum.
No sooner has she finished running it, backing it out the door, than Ed shows up. Juanita ignores him, eyes downcast, hooking the vacuum cleaner onto the rear of her cart and moving on.
"Got back here as soon as I could," Ed says.
Shana says nothing, closing the door behind him, feeling very much like a whore.
"Listen, uh, Shana, here's a hundred.
"I'd like t'stay all afternoon, if that's okay."
Shana shrugs, not looking at him, not looking at the five twenties he drops on the dresser, not even when he has to chase them because the air conditioning is blowing them away.
He places an ash tray on top of them.
"You uh, you want anything to drink?" he asks. "I could drop the rig an' run up t'the package store, you want."
"Not unless you do," she says. "Might want some ice before we get started, though."
"Good idea," Ed responds. "Be right back."
He takes the ice bucket and leaves, leaving the door ajar.
Shana sits in the chair, still wearing her robe, not moving, not even to recover the money from beneath the ash tray, instead studiously ignoring it.
If only, if only, she thinks. If only there weren't that.
But she needs it.
And besides, what difference would it make, actually?
It would not change Juanita's impression of her; not Juanita's, not her parents'.
And the drivers?
They too would have to wonder.
Or perhaps each would think himself a privileged one, telling himself that she charges others, but not him.
And Shana smiles at the thought of that, of what Juanita would call macho boolchit.
No, she sighs, in the long run, it makes no difference.
The men might desire her, might have the hots for her, might find her irresistible, even, but never, never would they respect her.
But she cares nothing about that.
Because she has no respect for them either, not as individuals.
True, she yearns for them, but as a type.
She doesn't want to even know them personally.
And physically doesn't mean personally; she knows that.
Just as she knows that one person cannot truly know another.
There is always, there is only, perception.
Not people as they are, but people as we see them, people as we choose to see them.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so is everything else.
Sad but true.
We live alone, we die alone and the others are illusions, their reality forever concealed.
Just as well, Shana reflects.
Because that leaves her free to see people as she wants to see them.
Not the truck drivers as drivers, but as symbols, manifestations of the male principle, their power multiplied by many, many horses, their impact upon the physical world multiplied in size and strength, size and strength which is a part of them, their heavy equipment which is, perhaps, actually the best part of them.
Or so she chooses to see them, so she is free to see them.
And if this be fantasy, then all life is no less a fantasy.
Because, in the end, what are we, if not the sum of our hopes and dreams, our longings and ambitions?
To keep the faith, faith in her outlook, her thinking.
To view her life as a work of art, a masterpiece of sorts.
Because what is her life, if not the expression of her tastes, her creativity, of herself as she chooses to see herself, as she chooses to be, to become?
Perhaps, she tells herself, things would be different if she were plain or flat-chested or fat or skinny.
But she is none of these things.
On the contrary, reality, fate, heredity, whatever has gifted her with the means, the wherewithal to make her dreams come true, to render of her fantasies more than mere imaginings.
And events, reality, destiny, whatever has supplemented what she has with an environment which accommodates her as well.
Silly, then, to look back.
Play the game out.
Time enough, if all this is mere coincidence, is a time out in the flow of her existence, an exception masquerading as the grand plan of her life, time enough to say that she was wrong after all and now it's time to get real.
And it could be as well that this is a phase she is going through.
So that, one morning, she will wake up and suddenly find herself disgusted with, revolted by herself, her life, her so-called taste.
And if that happens, hey, no harm done, right?
She need merely re-invent herself.
Because the bod is real, the face is real, and she will deploy them to the same good advantage that others similarly endowed have, and for much greater prizes, intrinsically speaking, than a succession of truck drivers' cocks.
7
Shana is not in the least tired, even though it has turned from quite late at night to quite early in the morning, the morning of the day after Christmas.
But tomorrow, or rather today will be a quiet day as well, she reflects.
As she thinks back to her Christmas.
When she put on boots and a stocking cap and a pair of sweat pants and a fur-collared jacket.
And went crunching through the white snow, went by the parked rigs, cold and silent even as they were huge and powerful, went by them, depicting in her mind the drivers, the drivers who were, at the moment, at home with their wives and children, their parents and girlfriends, celebrating the holiday.
Even as her own parents, she knows, would be over at her aunt's house, stuffing their faces, drinking and talking and laughing and ignoring their wasted, meaningless lives.
Shana has always hated Christmas, has always hated the commercial hype leading up to it, the blatant nothingness of Santa Claus, the miserable, cold weather, the long, long wait for spring.
In fact, she realizes, this is the first Christmas she has really enjoyed.
Even though she will get no presents or give any.
How peaceful, how beautiful it is here! she thinks as, alone in her white world, the soft flakes continuing to fall out of the strangely warm gray sky, she reaches out a gloved hand, patting one of the cold, silent rigs, it too a symbol of the power to which she is drawn, to that force in the world which drives it, which keeps it running.
On the highway, the occasional car, families no doubt, making the rounds, giving and receiving and basking in each others' company, in the sense of belonging.
But she too belongs, she reflects.
She is as surely as much a part of the holiday, of the season to some of the drivers as are, for example, holly wreaths with their dark green, spiky leaves and bright red berries and strings of colored lights.
Because, in the past few days, the message hung in the air-Christmas is coming!
So that the drivers, jockeying for position in the world-all of them have somewhere they specifically want to be for Christmas-would come to see her, happy, red-cheeked ('tis the season to be great, after all, is it not?), somehow sexually aroused that it should be Christmastime once again, that they should be alive, healthy, and still on the road.
So that her gatherings with them in the past week were, to them, celebrations.
She smiles at the recollection of six of them, taking her one at a time, gathered for the occasion-by coincidence, but turned quickly into an impromptu ongoing party-at a restaurant just up the road, a tavern, drinking, toasting one another, and excusing themselves, one at a time, to come see her, to come celebrate with her in the only way she has of celebrating, the only thing she wants to celebrate.
No matter, though; to them, it was a Christmas party, however inappropriate that might have been, from a strictly religious viewpoint.
But then, how long, how many centuries has it been since Christmas was a religious holiday?
She read somewhere that Christmas was actually a continuation, a transformation of a Roman holiday, Saturnalia, which was an ancient feast day, and one celebrated with all the debauchery associated therewith.
So that perhaps it never did take, Christmas.
Rather, it remained forever Saturnalia.
At any rate, she had a good time that evening last week.
Cock and cock and cock, she got.
One after the other, they came knocking on her door.
One after the other, they plunked down their fifty, after which she did her very best to make sure that they got so much pleasure that the fifty was reduced to insignificance.
Another thing a whore would not have done, especially knowing that others were waiting.
So that yes, it took a long time, hours, in fact.
But who cared?
Because it was magic time.
Christmas was coming and they were giving themselves the best present of all.
"It just doesn't get any better than this!"
A direct quote from yet another satisfied, satisfied-no!
Not customer.
Never, never that.
How was he a customer, when he was in her and on her, doubling her up, impaled on his mighty marauder, sucking her tits, feeding them to himself one at a time as he squeezed and manipulated them, all the while humping away, his buttocks clenching and unclenching as he drove himself in and in and into her?
Customer, with her lying there, a living corpse, passively accepting the mechanical motion, a kind of elaborate rubber doll with which the John can masturbate himself?
Nothing of the sort!
Even the money was something with which she was never directly involved.
They always paid, but she never set the rate, never prompted, never reminded.
But then, she never had to.
That was step one.
But the rest?
That was all pure pleasure. Worth it?
Hell, she was off the scale, waddayou, kidding me?
From the sheer physical standpoint, she was, is literally the best! That response!
Their wives, waiting for them at home, glad to see them, even after long absences, will not be as responsive as this!
So that yes, this will be a beautiful Christmas for them!
Basking in the afterglow of throwing a fuck with Shana, they are once more ready to face the world.
They are ready, but instead, they get to go home and eat turkey and exchange presents in the smell of pine needles, amidst the crinkled mess of bright wrapping paper and the shouts and bustle of children underfoot.
So that, calmed down, their pipes cleaned, ashes hauled, frustrations all worked out, they can be model husbands and fathers.
So that, when the house is once more quiet, the children at last asleep, exhausted after a day of playing with their new toys, they can plug into the old lady and, eyes closed, conjure up the image of Shana, reliving the experience, the memory, fucking her once again, and her all warm, responsive, excited.
So it went, and so it goes, she knows.
From the window of her room, on Christmas eve, she saw them, saw the cars, wives or wives and children, picking up daddy, bringing daddy home from the road, daddy's rig all buttoned down and locked up, here at the truck stop.
And she did not envy them, the wives.
Because she knew, she knows that, in their minds, the drivers are back here with their rigs, their rigs and their hot memories of her.
A hiatus, a well earned rest, she told herself.
But soon enough, they would have had enough, would be anxious, yearning to get back to the road, to the road and Shana.
And, perhaps, other Shanas, here and there along the highway.
Which is okay, which is perfectly fine with her.
Because that also is a part of their mystique, the drivers.
The phantom lover.
Here today, but for a brief moment, and then once more gone, perhaps forever.
Housewives, high school girls, unattached women like herself-they are all, all! out there, waiting.
Not last night, of course, or rather this morning.
No, no, nothing of the sort.
Because, for them too, it was Christmas.
And they too had to go through the motions, the ritual called family.
Not as joyously, as joyfully as the drivers, of course, but still putting on a good face, smiling, tolerating if not exactly basking in the domestic atmosphere.
But that's past, that's over and done with .or another year.
Time to shake off the heavy joy, the oppressive, contrived happiness.
Time for everybody to turn normal once again.
And so they shall, the adults, at least.
Because the children, home from school, in the winter, take up space.
They fill the air with their loud voices, their laughter and their tears, their fighting and complaining.
They track mess into the house, their rubber boots leaving trails of gritty, wet chevron patterns on the kitchen tile.
They watch TV, but miraculously manage to turn such spectatorship into an active sport, a contest, vying for channel, for position, for the popcorn bowl, jockeying, punching, munching, happy in the misery they can create for each other.
So that the drivers are only too happy to hit the highway for that sweet haul, that happy time between Christmas and the new year.
Room enough for one good trip, general merchandise, two ways.
And back home in time for New Year's eve.
So that their wives are left alone to go crazy trying to keep the kids happy, to keep them from killing each other in the nightmare week of broken and missing toys and general brattiness.
By no means an umixed blessing, the holidays, Shana realizes.
On balance, Christmas was a very good day for her, she thinks.
She could have dug her car out, of course.
She could have driven down the road to the movies.
She could have sat there in the theatre, staring at the screen, ignoring the coughing of the crowd, the children running up and down the aisles.
But she opted not to do so.
She is alone but not lonesome.
But all that togetherness might have proven too much for her.
Because, on balance, perhaps they are in the right, the mommies, the housewives.
Maybe she would have been better off to have married one of the guys in high school, say, the future truck driver.
So that she would be the one to maintain home and hearth and some other Shana-perhaps several other Shanas-awaits him out here, on the highway.
Because that is where she is, she knows-on the highway.
She is not somewhere; rather, she is between somewheres.
She is between an infinity of points A and a similar plethora of points B.
She is at a point which exists as a facilitation, an expediting of all that moves between points A and B.
A truck stop, so named because, ironically enough, it is its very existence which in fact enables trucks to keep going.
Trucks-and their drivers.
Who require fuel and rest and servicing.
So that Shana is, in essence, a general expediter.
She is part of what makes it worthwhile doing this.
To stop between points A and B for a recharge.
That is her purpose, her function.
Which clearly has nothing to do with being a, ashe cannot bring herself to say it, not even in her own mind.
"The sooner I leave here, the sooner I'll be back, Shana."
That is what several of the drivers have said to her, each thinking himself an original, not realizing that, where Shana is concerned, there is no such thing as an original, not when it comes to truck drivers.
She won't allow it.
The one-of-a-kind driver, she doesn't believe in.
Given certain physical requirements, minimum standards, if you will, then they are all alike, and this by design.
Or so Shana chooses to believe.
Oh, she knows lots of them by name, by sight.
And she permits the drivers their particular show of style.
Lemonlime, for example, with his lemonlime clothes and the pop bottle painted on the side of his cab.
He was back by here when? she asks herself. Three weeks ago.
Three weeks ago, when he proposed to her. Sort of.
*****
"Hey, babe, le's you an' me get outta this here rat race an' re-tar t'the hills of Arkansas."
"And do what?"
"An' fuck our brains out fer the rest of our natural lavs."
"How many nights like this do you think you could take, Lemonlime?" she asks.
"Be fun findin' out now, wouldn't it just?"
"You'd miss the road, Lemonlime," she replies, smoothing her hands over his tanned musculature. "For example, where'd ja get the tan? The all over tan, that is."
"Got this beach in Florida, over by the space place," he replies, as her hands knead his beefy pectorals, then wander down to his cock, its length and thickness emphasized by his shaved pubis.
"What's with the shaved prick?"
"Like the way it looks."
"Who else-likes the way it looks?" she asks, sliding down his body, taking the plum of his knob between her lips, beginning to run her tongue over its taut, round surface.
Because she wants to suck his big cock.
And because she doesn't want to answer him.
Because, like herself, he is narcissistic.
Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.
Therefore, there must be a beholder, must in fact be many beholders.
Insufficient, then, that he fuck her, that, of all her driver lovers, he alone insists upon the all-nighter, the marathon fuckathon.
Insufficient-and she knows it.
Just as she knows that he was not alone on that nude beach in Florida.
Just as she knows that his stops are all, all planned, with something going for himself at any place he stays longer than just for food and refueling.
And yes, he may genuinely think that she can carry the entire load, the task of admiring his body, his prick, his staying power, his technique.
But she knows better, knows that she could never hold him, any more than he could hope to hold her.
Because, already she can see it in him, in the cracks around the eyes, in the smile lines of the mouth, in the silvery sheen of his crewcut, in the hair growing inside his ears.
It.
Time. Time and the tide, which wait for no man, which no man can fend off forever.
And she knows that there will come a time when
Lemonlime can no longer fuck even her four times in a single night, when he can no longer go without sleep, when his muscles are no longer springy, resilient, vibrant with strength and energy.
She knows, and she knows that he knows.
So that, consciously or otherwise, he is clutching at straws.
He is a strong man making a feeble attempt at confronting his own mortality.
Time will not catch up with him tomorrow or next month or even next year.
But.
He will fight it all the way, she knows. But in End, he will lose. It's all a matter of time.
And now, she bends to her task, concentrating on it, focussing on his mighty prick, freezing this moment in time, making time stand still for him, for them.
And yes, she realizes, she has come to know his cock, to know its every irregularity of surface, to know its very pulse as it throbs, hot and thick and vibrant.
And so long that she cannot begin to get all of it into her mouth, not without opening her throat up all the way.
And she does.
And tells him, with her actions, Forget the future, forget the past, forget everything but what is happening, right here and now.
Don't plan, scheme, calculate; don't even think.
Only lose yourself in the moment, lose yourself with me, in me.
Because the feeling can increase, can and will, but overall, it just doesn't get any better than this.
Not for you, not for me.
The two of us, perfect together.
But perfection is not permanent, just as we are not permanent.
There is only the moment of perfection; that is all there can ever be.
That is the way of the world and of the worlds within the world, the worlds of two people together, people and more than people, each to the other a symbol, a representative of some archetype, some immortal image resident within their very consciousness.
He is Trucker; she is Woman.
And now, she is deep throating him, crouching there, hands resting on the beefy muscularity of his thighs, lips touching his shaved pubis and the crowns of his big balls.
As her head bobs up and down, devouring him completely, then pulling back, sucking the long, thick shaft until only the plum of the knob remains between her lips.
Down and up, down and up, again and again, until she can look up to see his mighty rib cage heaving up and down, in his arousal.
And she pulls her head back and he moves over, yielding the middle of the bed to her.
Quickly, cock bobbling huge and stiff before him, he is on her, in her.
And fucking her, fucking her as he scoops her legs up from beneath, doubling her up in what has become her favorite fucking position, foreshortened, impaled on his plunging prick.
So that he envelopes her completely, above and below, all around, inside and out.
And only then drives himself, drives the both of them up, up, up and over the top, over the rainbow.
To take the edge off.
To complete round one.
He showers with her, scrubbing out the parts that count most.
And on to round two, after a beer to restore much needed inner fluids.
Round two, and he is bridged over her, knees on either side of her, body reversed, hands on the backs of her thighs, so that her ass hole is presented to him, even as his descends on her face.
And thus do they rim each other, Lemonlime varying his oral attentions between ass hole and cunt, even as her tongue thrusts easily in and out of his big bung.
And she thinks, Perhaps it isn't only just the women Lemonlime sees in his travels.
But this doesn't turn her off, on the contrary, gives them yet another common bond, a proportional equation.
Shana is to Juanita as Lemonlime is to insert man here.
It could be true or not, but that doesn't matter.
The fact is she thought of it, whether in fact it is a fact of which she thought, she tells herself, lightly, playfully.
As now, Lemonlime dismounts.
And turns her, placing her on knees and elbows.
And crouches behind her, spreading apart the cheeks of her ass.
And, burrowing, wallows his face in the crack of her ass.
As he tongue-fucks her in the bung.
As he shafts smoothly in and out of her ass with his long, thick, powerful tongue.
And now, he takes her in the ass.
She can feel the plum of his knob, buttoned inside her ass hole, her vestibule caressing it, welcoming it.
And now, both hands on the belled flare of her hips, she can feel him drilling, corkscrewing in and in and into her rectum, rotating his hips as he pushes slowly forward.
Until he is fully inserted, his stomach against the cheeks of her ass.
And he fucks her in the ass, varying his technique, now pistoning in and out, now rotating his hips while fully inserted, reaming her rectally. As she gives him her ass.
As she opens up to him completely, unconditionally, holding back nothing of herself.
Accepting, devouring him with her ass, she is.
As he stretches and fills her bowels.
As he activates a million nerve endings in her, in himself, with every thrust, every withdrawal, every rotation.
And she feels within him the full power of his heavy equipment, of his rig, as though somehow he were merged with it, become man and machine all in one, a strange, exotic, erotic, sexually powerful creature.
Man and more than man, he is to her right now.
Embodiment of all the drivers, of all the drivers enhanced by their tractor-trailers, all that energy they use in controlling them freed for the moment, freed to concentrate on servicing her, on giving it to her up the ass.
And now, he releases one of her hips, so that he can reach down and forward, weighing her heavy hanging jugs, one at a time, thumbing the rubbery nipples.
And now, he lets his hand travel back down her centerline, feeling in her bush for her clit. And finding it.
And twiddling it between two fingers, feeling it engorge, feeling it become larger, more solid, even as a coating of pussy juices flows over fingers and knuckles.
And now, he is finger-fucking her, even as he fucks her in the ass.
And she is responding to the double stimulation, matching him now, level for level, as they climb the rainbow together.
Hotter and hotter they both become, his thrusts with cock and fingers faster and faster, more and more intense.
Onward and upward they rise together.
As delight becomes ecstasy.
As ecstasy becomes rapture.
As rapture evolves into utter transport.
So that they are flying together through the rosy empyrean of their shared passion.
And still the pleasure keeps coming on inside them, continues to radiate outward through their entire beings, its origin his every-working cock, the sensations giving added dimension within Shana by his fingers.
And now, they are coming and coming together, his spurts of thick, hot jism into the depths of her bowels alternating with the powerful contractions of her rectum on his discharging monster, even as her pussy milks his fingers as well of all the pleasure they contain for her.
And, when the last spurt and spasm pair has passed, he rides her all the way down, fully inserted, lying atop her as his big baton slowly detumesces, until the reflexive action of her bowels expels him.
8
So it Went, she recalls. Two more times he had to have her before leaving in the wee hours of the morning.
And he did not mention taking her away from here again.
And she is glad of that, glad that he had the good sense not to persist in such foolishness.
That, or, with the slaking of his appetite for her, perspective was restored.
Whatever, the fact remains that he did not mention it to her again.
And probably, hopefully, never will.
Already, she knows more about him than she would like.
She knows, for example, that he is lonely-sometimes-and scared, perhaps more or less all the time.
Up the road and down the road, loading, unloading, hauling, stopping.
So it goes, year in and year out, for the long haulers.
And yet, Shana doesn't find it any less fascinating, for all that it is routine.
How does one become bored with one's own heartbeat, after all?
That would be ridiculous, absurd.
So in like fashion does the road, do the drivers retain their fascination for her.
As for Lemonlime's claiming a special place in her heart, well, okay-but it is only special because he was, is her first, the beginning of a long line of truckers.
And from each of them she has derived the full satisfaction of her goal realized, her destiny fulfilled. Again and again, she has known completeness. And as it has been, so it shall be. Five years now, she has been at this. And each day is to her a day spent as though in paradise, looking down on the world from her vantage point of having no worries, no cares, of being beautiful and built.
Because she rides free above the world, an integral part of that world, so special, so dear to her, which sustains the world at large.
To selected drivers, she is this particular truck stop.
And the management of the facility is aware of this.
So that she is treated with deference and respect by the wait staff at the restaurant where she takes all of her meals.
The word has been passed; Shana is good for business.
Which is why, yesterday, Christmas day, she and the one waitress on duty kept each other company over a lingering brunch, each living her own life, their lives touching for that shared moment, the waitress having spent a most satisfactory Christmas eve with her husband and children, Shana having spent hers alone but with equal satisfaction.
All in all, she reflects, a good holiday, a very good holiday.
And on that note, she sleeps.
*****
The snow is melting, the rigs gone from the yard, having pulled out early that morning, as though the drivers, anxious to make up for lost time, down time, dead time, had run from the cars which dropped them off to the trucks and raced away from the truck stop.
The snow is melting, but the sky is overcast, the promise of more snow hanging, wet and close, in the air.
But the holiday is over, and a sense of release is there as well.
Even now, powerful equipment is wending its way here, to her.
Maybe Lemonlime is due back.
She doesn't know; they never say, the drivers, as though to say for a fact when they will return would be presumptuous, would be tempting fate.
That, or making a promise to her that they might not be able to keep, thus disappointing her.
As though she remembers from one day to the next the comings and goings of the never-ending stream of long haulers.
Yeah, right.
Still, she reflects, she cannot blame them, really.
After all, she gives her all when she is with them.
So that they carry away with them the illusion that, in fact, they were, they are something very special to her.
Which is, in a manner of speaking, true.
But it is what, rather than who they are which is of importance to Shana.
Five years is a long time in modern life, after all.
A lot can happen in five years, even though, in retrospect, it seems but the twinkling of an eye.
In five years, some of the drivers have retired, gone into other work, far, far away from her, never to be seen or heard from again.
In five years, some have died, two of natural causes, one in a fiery accident.
And Shana does not miss the ones or mourn the loss of the other.
As life-her life-goes on.
And the drivers come and the drivers go and the life of the truck stop goes on and on, world without end.
Juanita?
Juanita is no longer active with Shana, sexually speaking, even though she smiles, remains friendly, continues to perform those little extras for her.
Because Juanita has gotten herself a husband, even though he is unworthy of one of her former high station in life.
Still, married life, begun three years ago, agrees with her, perhaps too well.
So that Shana suspects that the contrast between their bodies has become too great for Juanita to be interested in inviting comparison.
Beauty is, after all, in the eye of the beholder, and Juanita is nothing if not narcissistic.
So that she was no doubt the first to see in her gaining of weight a decline from suitable partnership with Shana who, in contrast, maintains herself in peak condition, doing her aerobics daily with the shows on TV, when not otherwise engaged.
So that their rendezvous became less and less frequent, finally ceasing altogether, Juanita apparently preferring the unmitigated adoration of her husband to the company of one who is used to a succession of prime beef with which to disport herself sexually.
The plows are out now, clearing the yard, the warmth of the air, the blackness of the asphalt and the melting properties of the rock salt combining to create a grand concourse ready to receive the monster visitors which are coming closer and closer.
One of the maintenance staff has a small, gas-operated plow, its excretory arc spewing, thick and slushy, against the windows of the diner.
She stands there, gazing at the empty yard as though expecting company, which happens to be exactly the case.
Up on the highway, a few eighteen-wheelers go by, but they look like short-haulers, regular trucking company equipment, possibly even going to heavy local pickups.
Odd, she thinks, how the sight of the big white cab with the soda bottle on the side would cause me to feel the thick-winged butterflies in the pit of her stomach.
But no such thrill comes.
She shrugs off her disappointment and heads into the diner for lunch, the guy operating the small plow turning it to idle to let her pass.
"And what can we do for our best customer this morning?" one of the waitresses asks.
"Whatever you had for lunch," Shana replies.
"I love your taste."
Shana eats at the counter.
She is just finishing up when she feels it.
It.
A faint rumbling, which becomes louder and louder, one of the picture windows of the diner rattling in sympathetic vibration as the three big rigs roll past the diner, parking now in the freshly plowed parking lot, taking advantage of the emptiness to swing around in large, sweeping arcs to park, facing outward, side by side, even backing up in unison, showing off as at a truck rodeo.
Ed, Joe and Brad get out of their cabs.
And Shana must force herself to calm down.
Because she is inordinately glad to see them.
"Well, well, well," Ed says, catching sight of her as they enter the diner, "you talk about cher sight for sore eyes!"
"You guys just passin' through, or what?" Shana asks.
"We're always just passin' through, Shana," Ed says. "Secret of our charm, ain't it boys?
"We never around all that much t'wear out our welcome, seems like.
"Actually, we just stopped fer lunch."
"And now that you're here?"
"An' now that we're here, an' you're here-just a sec, okay?"
Shana shrugs, smiling faintly, watching, elbows on the counter, facing outward, as they go into a huddle in a booth.
Nods all around, the mumbling ceases, and the waitress goes over to them.
"Now, why do I get the feelin' that that wasn't about the menu?" she asks.
"Got that right," Ed replies, motioning around her to Shana.
Shana tosses some money on top of her bill and joins them.
"What'll it be?" the waitress asks.
The three men order.
"Shana?"
"Just tea for me," she replies. The waitress leaves to turn in their order. "What's up, guys?" Shana asks. "Uh, we s'posed t'd'liver these here components up the line a piece," Ed explains. "Triple load?" Shana asks, impressed. "Egg-zackly," Ed replies.
"So what we was thinkin', this bein' okay with you, was that-an' don't go gettin' all bent outta shape, if this won't fly, okay? Promise?"
"Go on," she says, already imagining what's coming.
"You ever take on three at once?
"I mean, I wouldn't ask or nuthin', understand, cep'n we s'posed t'git all this shit t'the fact'ry at one time, annen we got us loadsa general merchandise fum a common carrier all the way up in Bridgeport, so y'see, we got a schedulin' problem won't quit."
"Hey, guys, your problems are mine, right?
"Don't you know that, after all this time?"
"Thanks, Shana!" Joe exclaims. "An' far as the money goes, don't choo worry-"
Brad's iron grip on Joe's wrist silences him.
Shana has never responded well to money talk.
With her, that's something you just do, you don't discuss.
"Sorry."
And Joe looks down until the food comes.
"I'm s'hungry I could eat the ass hole out of a bear!" Joe exclaims, as the waitress sits the plates down in front of them.
"Sorry," the waitress replies, "that's the Wednesday special and this is only Tuesday.
"I'm sure you'll find it tastes about the same, though."
Shana sips her tea as the men laugh.
Then, all is silence as they hastily devour their repast in order to get on with far more important things.
*****
Shana stands in the bed above Ed, a foot on either side of his hips.
She lowers herself down, down, down on him, feeding his stiff cock up, up, up inside herself.
And leans forward, allowing Brad access to her ass hole, to which he immediately seals his lips, sucking and chewing her ass hole, large and protruding now, thanks to the pressure from Ed's heavy equipment which fills her cunt.
It reminds her of her very first double fuck with Duke and Biff, at the truck stop halfway to Florida, where Hillbilly paid for her room, expecting her to head back north, back home next morning with Lemonlime.
When everybody but Hillbilly knew she had no intention of doing so. But now, this is different.
For one thing, she did not have a third man, on his knees now, one on either side of Ed, staring her in the face with the eye of his prick.
Yes, she had nothing to do with her mouth that time, she recalls, as though it were yesterday, as she takes Joe's presented knob into her mouth and begins sucking on it like a lollipop.
Even as she rotates her hips, reaming her pussy with Ed's big boinker.
While Brad continues to rim her.
And now, Brad is holding his tongue steady, out-thrust, the tip pressing on the convergence of her anal segments.
And Shana rotates her hips, pushing back so that the tip of Brad's tongue is forced onto her bulging pucker.
And now, she raises her hips while continuing to rotate them.
And, as Ed's cock evacuates her cunt partially, Brad's tongue goes in and in and into her ass hole, thanks to the relief of pressure against her rectum from the front, where before Ed's huge erection had compressed it.
Quickly-because Shana has been getting a lot of plugging back there over the years-Brad has her loose enough, wet enough for vital entry.
And Shana, feeling him pull his face back from her ass, his tongue out of her ass hole, stops rotating her hips and raises them up, causing all but the knob of Ed's cock to slide out of her cunt.
Leaving Brad all the room in the world to shaft into her, as she continues to avidly suck Joe's cock, not missing a stroke.
Not even when Brad corkscrews the battering ram of his cock head into her rectum, parting the channel as he stretches and fills it, does she pause in her oral efforts.
Not even when she settles back down on Ed's mighty marauder.
Not even when Brad, top man now, begins to bounce up and down, encouraging the bedsprings to do the work.
Not even when Brad and Ed, feeling the undersides of each others' cocks through the narrow wall which separates them, begin their piston action, alternating, one going halfway in as the other slides halfway out as, their movement rendered automatic by the action of the bedsprings, they begin to double fuck her.
So that now, she is settled down, the four of them are conjoined in a common effort, the three-way fuck in force.
Thus do they ride, slowly but surely, up, up, up the rainbow of their shared arousal.
Sex, raised to the power of four.
Powerful sex, implemented and running.
Superbly orchestrated sex, now operating on full automatic.
Because here, now, there is to be no shift, no variation, no plugging and unplugging, no turning of her body into a game, a bagatelle operated by four players.
Rather this, in its own way, is the establishment of a natural act, Shana's sexual potential carried to its logical conclusion.
Because there is no awkwardness, no hesitation, no discomfort.
Rather, there is an aura of sexuality, an atmosphere of completeness, at once physically calm and sexually exciting.
Because the movements of their bodies are not wild, radical.
They are rhythmic, undulating, steady.
The rear view, if there were anyone present to watch it, would show the two long, thick organs, each as though driven by a pair of big balls locked to its base, shafting in and out of two round, smooth orifices, their distortion rendering them identical.
Stretched far enough, filled full enough, converted now to identical functions, cunt and ass hole have come to resemble one another.
But the feeling, ah, the feeling within Shana!
Cock and cock and cock, the right cocks, the right stuff, stretching her, filling her, interacting with her, communicating with her.
And going on and on in its glorious abundance!
Each cock delivering its own separate set of lascivious messages, tingling, intimate, voluptuous, erotic sensations, millions of them, each building upon the last, raising her higher and higher toward the ultimate pleasure, the supreme experience!
Hotter and hotter they become, their sexual sweat breaking out all over their bodies, rendering them polished, living statues of marble, there in the soft glow of the light from the lamp on the nightstand.
As they move without pause, with mechanical perfection.
As they become dizzy, disoriented in the throes of their shared sexual fever.
Which continues unabated as now, writhing on each other, bathed in sweat, their faces and bodies flushed with their ever-mounting passion, they feel within themselves the advent of the pleasure beyond pleasure.
Inexorably now, it advances within them, a slow, blossoming explosion which begins in their abdomens and spreads with an ever-increasing twinge of ineffable delight to the farthest reaches of their bodies and radiates outward beyond them in all directions, as though, were there no light in the room at all, they would glow in the dark.
Driver and driver and driver, they fuck her.
And Shana knows once again the Tightness, for her, of what she is doing, of her way of life, of her existence.
How else, where else, with whom, could she ever feel what she is feeling right now?
How could she ever have known such satisfaction, otherwise?
So that it is all correct, absolutely so, and she stands vindicated.
Let who understands understand and let the rest go fuck themselves! she thinks.
Because this, this! is what it's all about, where it's at.
And beyond this, there is only bullshit, nothingness.
And even these, her studs, her fuckers, have true meaning only in reference to her.
But for her, their lives are pointless, empty shams.
And she knows that what she feels is truth, because it is the truth which is of the body, of sensation, the truth which cannot be argued against, cannot be explained away, cannot be denied.
Let the rest of the world with its religions, its philosophies, its politics, its arts and sciences think and do what it will.
Let the talking heads, whether from the pulpit or the houses of government, whether from the offices of business and industry or the soap box, say what they like.
What are their words, their ideas, their opinions, compared to the reality of this and this and this?
Blah-blah-blah, that's what.
So much noise, so much cackling, so much static, is all.
Because this is solid, this is real, this is what it is, which is the only valid definition of absolute truth.
Her personal truth, perhaps, but truth nonetheless, this is.
And she is self-sustaining, self-supporting, can continue thus for years and years to come, can possibly even rejuvenate herself by it, recharging her batteries forever and ever and so continue on for all eternity.
Ah, but enough of feverish inner ravings, enough prattle within her sexual delirium.
Time now for the body to truly come into its own, to go for the home stretch, the big payoff.
And she does.
As her mind opens itself to the body, listening to it, feeling its own release as it is swept up in the whirlwind of the pleasure beyond pleasure, which carries her away in its whirling updrafts.
And the same thing is happening to the men.
Who even now hover at the summit, the height of their capacity to contain the pleasure which wells up within them, demanding release.
And they hold, hold, hold-
And can hold no longer.
So that now, all four of them are coming, the twin pistons pumping out each others' loads from within her bowels and cunt, even as she milks them of the next wad and the next and the next with the convulsions of her cunt, the contractions of her rectum as her series of multiple orgasms jerks her this way and that, notwithstanding the weight of Brad on top of her.
As she sucks and swallows spurt after thick, hot, copious spurt of Joe's load from him.
Thus do they climax together.
Thus do they complete what they have started.
Joe pulls back when the last spasm has passed through him, through all of them.
Brad slides down her, off her back, lubricated by her sweat and his, his cock oozing from her ass hole.
And Shana, thus released, disconnects herself from Ed.
Ed gets up promptly, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, then rising to his feet, saying, "Would ja mind if we hosed down real quick-like and got going, Shana?"
"Be my guest," she replies.
Quickly, they parade in and out of the bathroom, leaving her a pile of damp washcloths and used towels, which is okay, because Juanita, as usual, has supplied her with extra.
They dress as they emerge, the first two talking with Shana, waiting for the last man, then leaving with him when he has dressed.
Shana takes her shower, remembering only after she has emerged to put the hundred and fifty dollars on the dresser away.
Shana puts on a terry cloth robe, gazing out the window, able to see only one corner of the parking lot from there.
Still, she sees a white flash, then a rear view of a silver trailer, seal intact on the back doors.
There are a lot of white cabs out there on the road, she tells herself.
It doesn't have to be-
A knock on the door.
And Lemonlime stands before her.
"You need a doormat," he says, kicking the toes of his work shoes against the wet sidewalk outside her doorsill.
"Come in, why don't you?" she invites.
He does.
And looks at the bed.
"Saw the three musketeers up the road a piece," he says.
She shrugs, turning away from him. "They were here," she says. "I figured."
He stands there, looking at her back, her hair still damp as it hangs over the terry cloth of the robe.
Don't, Shana thinks, don't say anything, don't offer to take me away from all this, don't ask me if I'm ready to give up ... what I do.
Lemonlime pulls his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans, counts out fifty dollars and puts it on the dresser.
"I can't stay very long," he says.
She drops the robe from her shoulders, back still to him, throwing it onto the chair.
"Of course you can't," she replies, lying down on the bed naked, turning away from him, watching as he undresses.