Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 This is a continuation of the story ROXANNE.  If you haven't read that, it
helps.

   This story is protected under international copyrights.  If you have
questions about it or want to get in touch, email me at twylamarie at
ymail.com

   ##########

   So there I was a 100+ miles from my home town in 15 degree weather
dumped unceremoniously at a truck refueling station in rural Iowa.

   I had less than 16 bucks in my pocket, a single change of clothes and a
jacket that wasn't nearly up to the task of battling the elements.  It was
rapidly approaching darkness.  I was an underaged runaway with no place to
go, no phone and no friends to call if I had one.  It was a pretty dire
situation.

   A few hours before, I had thought I was going to California, but it
didn't turn out that way.

   Now I was just one more piece of truck stop trash just like the hookers,
dealers, hustlers, transients and other undesirables mixed with the rare
stranded traveler that broke down or went broke on their way from point A
to B.  With the exception of the hookers and dealers, we were all beneath
contempt to the truckers that passed through.  They treated us as invisible
and unworthy of their time.

   The management saw truckstop trash only as a source of crime, turning a
blind eye to the dealers and prostitutes because they were necessary evils
to attract business, but driving the rest away as fast and as coldheartedly
as was necessary.

   On this day I was lucky in that I could blend with most tolerated of the
undesirables.  It was easy to think that I was a hooker new to the scene or
perhaps a young dealer looking to sell a trucker some speed.  I might have
been both - a lot of hookers did double duty - servicing the needs of the
flesh and the spirit for the professional driver clientele.

   So I sat in the small diner near the parking lot and drank my cup of
coffee.  It had been made clear to me that it wasn't "bottomless" and that
my time in the warmth of the restaurant was growing shorter with every sip.


   I approached trucker after trucker asking the same thing.  "Can you help
me get back to Charles City?" Most gave me the once over and simply shook
their head no.  Others asked "how much?" The twinkle in their eye or
cocking of an eyebrow made to plain they weren't looking for me to pay them
for a ride - they wanted to know what it would cost to ride me.

   As the day turned into night I was getting desperate - but prostitution
was a line I hadn't crossed in my time on the streets.  I'd fucked a few
men at least partially because I wanted what they had - be it drugs or a
clean bed - but I never sold myself out of need.

   I was running out of options though.

   The restaurants patience with my presence disappeared with my last few
sips and I was invited to vacate the premises shortly after the sun went
down.  The waitress knew the score and offered to call a women's shelter if
I needed one, but I was paranoid about such places as I was carrying drugs
I wasn't anxious to stash or trash.  I was underage anyway.

   So I slipped out onto tarmac deciding to try to live by my wits one more
time.

   From practically the moment I stepped into the night I realized I was
feeding myself to the wolves and that the elements were my enemy.  There
wasn't going to be any comfortable little outbuilding I could break into
and sleep overnight here.  No place out of the wind that I could hang.  It
was well below freezing and the death clock started ticking as soon as I
stepped outside.

   I debated going back on the waitresses offer, but pride or stupidity
prevented me from it.  I pointed myself out to the lot where the parked
rigs were concentrated.

   Walking over to the no-mans land, I felt suddenly small.  I'd been in
this kind of environment many a time in "my town" but here in the middle of
nowhere my self-confidence was dropping as fast as the temperature.  I had
about $70 worth of quality crank hidden in my pack - a bargaining chip of
sorts that I would not have mentioned in the crowded diner.  That was about
all that separated me from freezing to death at this point, and I wasn't
going to go down without a fight.

   I had no trouble getting people to talk to.  A young girl walking along
the parked rigs draws attention.  Everyone knows you aren't there on a
casual stroll to buy milk.  There were nods and hellos, and questions about
where various agendas might connect.  With most, need trumped their desire
- they either weren't going my way or didn't want to carry a passenger.  I
found no love - only lust.

   It's hard not to sound like a racist saying it now, but this was no
place for a young white girl.  It didn't take long for a small piece of
shit Ford full of black hooker girls to find me and let me know I wasn't
welcome.  I was working their turf and that could be very damaging to my
health.

   I hadn't expected this complication.  It didn't happen in Charles, but
I'd heard the stories from drifters from other lots about how hard these
women could be.  The beatings - the torn flesh of fingernails dug into both
cheeks that would destroy a pretty face forever.  There was reason to be
scared.  The prostitution at truckstops in Iowa was mostly run out of St.
Louis and they were bad, bad people.

   I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and my savior came in the
form of a rough truck driver with the kinds of tattoos on his arms one only
saw on ex-cons.  Words like Aryan and White Power plainly visible on his
forearms.  He vaguely had a skinhead look.

   When the words "white bitch" came blasting out of the open window of the
hookers car I could tell than in his mind, I became his obligation.  I was
quickly invited into the warm cab of his 18 wheeler.

   At first, the girl gang thought they were witnessing my brazenly pulling
a trick on their property, and stepped out the car and began to advance
towards the doors of our vehicle.  When the trucker stepped out, a crowbar
in one hand and something wrapped in a jacket in the other, the girls
suddenly realized what time it was and turned tail.

   So there I sat alone in this truck - far enough off the ground that no
one outside could see in.  In the short time I had been walking the lot I
had gone almost into a paralysis with the cold, but I sat shivering for
more reasons than the freeze while this big trucker stared me down.

   He introduced himself as Rich and with a grimacing sort of smirk he let
me know that he didn't buy parking lot meat.  When I told him in no
uncertain terms I wasn't selling any, his smile got a little warmer.

   As we talked further, his manner went from suspicion to respect.  He
didn't like hookers or vagrants but didn't mind a girl hard on her luck. 
But he still wanted to know the answer to that age old question - "what a
nice girl like me was doing in a place like this."

   This, in my case, was a tough question to answer - so I gave him the
short version about being dumped on the side of the road like a puppy that
had lost its' cute.  When that didn't do the job, I confessed to holding
rocket powder and found that crank is a language that all truckers
understood.  The young relationship we had established turned up another
notch.  His opinion of me had grown, and if I hadn't exactly warmed to him
that was no big deal.  Something told me he was used to not exactly being
liked.

   We talked for a while and I found out he was from Vegas on his way up to
Minneapolis.  No surprise, he'd been in prison, but the white supremacist
style tats where more about protection than anything he really believed. 
(He did have some choice epitaphs for the hookers who had tried to attack
me though.  It reminded me that this guy was not exactly a charm school
graduate.)

   I offered him a line and he refused saying that he was in lockdown -
meaning he was on a legally enforced rest after too many hours driving -
and had to sleep.

   I looked around the cab and realized the implications.  This truck stop
didn't have a hotel and this was a sleeper cab.  We were here for the night
- or rather he was and I was going to be if I was lucky.  A small heater
whirred somewhere so it wasn't cold, but this was going to be close
quarters for the next 8 hours or so.

   He didn't seem in a hurry to crawl into his bunk, so we sat and talked
for a while.  He had family that was in the trucking business that had
hooked him up when he left prison.  (A bad rap when he wrecked a stolen car
was his explanation, but I knew people who had been popped for stolen cars,
and they didn't do the kind of time he had.) He was single and drove too
much to really have a life and a wife.  Had plans to settle down some day
in Sedona but that was a long way off.  If you could get past the overgrown
muscles and deep scary tattoos, he was just like a normal guy it seemed.

   Eventually he broke out a small whiskey bottle and we sipped on it
together.  He didn't seem concerned I was underage to drink and I didn't
push the point.  Eventually though, it was obvious to both of us he was
practically asleep in his chair.  He had to lie down and the awkward part
of the evening was about to be negotiated.

   Watching his eyes watch me I was tempted to remind him I wasn't a
prostitute, but he knew that.  I wasn't going to be giving anything up for
free either, but I wasn't anxious to take any unnecessary stands given it
was far below freezing, hours until daylight and somewhere out there was a
pack of girls who considered me unfair competition.  (I believe their
racial slur was something about having a "white sale.")

   Eventually I think my predicament sunk in with him and he said he'd be a
good boy but it would be nice if I'd lay with him.  I have him a "don't
bullshit me" look and he put up his fingers and said "Scouts Honor" which
made me laugh in a way.  I finally gave in and lay beside him.  While he
did spoon me pretty good in his sleep (or at least he pretended to be
asleep) I'd say his leisurely trip to first base with his hands was a small
price to pay for my safety and comfort from the cold.

   We woke up the next AM to a fast falling snow.  I don't know if it was
predicted, but Rich seemed surprised.  (I've noticed weather predictions
have gotten better in the last 25 years then they were then, but truckers
always knew the winter weather reports the same way the farmers followed
them Spring thru Fall.) It was daylight, but the freezing cold wind was
blasting and snow was accumulating fast.  Rich climbed out of the car to
inspect his load and consult with other drivers about driving conditions.

   It had never really been settled whether Rich was going to take me with
him when he left the lot in the morning.  I had been his "white sister" to
protect in the dark of night, but by light of day I didn't know if I was on
my own or not.

   Many truckers have a thing about not having strangers in the truck when
they are on the road.  Even if he was going to take me with him, his route
would take him towards my town, but it was still 40 miles or more out of
his way and he probably wouldn't have been able to swing an 80 mile side
trip in a piece of equipment he didn't own.

   Now we were headed out in tough driving conditions or possibly not
headed out at all.  I didn't dare hop out of the truck - a bird in the hand
was worth two in the bush - but decided I'd had enough of the bra and tee
shirt I'd slept in.  The little heater that we had had worked overtime and
it was actually kind of sweltering hot in the cab.  So I took a moment to
change clothes, and fate being what it was Rich opened up the door and
scrambled inside while I was in my jeans and bra.  Though he didn't notice
at all until he'd been in the drivers seat for 30 seconds or so, had
removed his heavy jacket and gloves and had finished delivering a profanity
filled overview of the road conditions, the view had an effect when he saw
it.

   I made a decision then and decided to forget the modesty in my bid to
stay in that truck.  I crawled forward in my bra and denims and took the
right seat.

   If was kind of a spooky move - this guy was scary - but I knew this
devil and he'd behaved, so I did what I needed to do to keep him on the
hook.  If there had been any question that I'd be his co-pilot at least
until Clear Lake, well, I think I settled it.  In the middle of a snow
storm he started his engine and buckled up.  We were on our way doing
perhaps 20 miles an hour once we got to speed.  At this rate it would take
us well more than half a day to do what was usually a 90 minute drive.

   The big truck was cutting through the snow pretty good and the road was
straight, flat and fairly empty of traffic.  There wasn't much to do and so
we didn't do much, just sat and listened to the radio as the weather got
worse and the snow got deeper.  He snuck peeks at me when he could and I
winked at him to let him know this was all part of the fun, and we
generally had a good time together.

   The weather kept getting worse.  If you've never been in a big vehicle
when the wind hits it and pushes it out of the traffic lane, it can be very
frightening and this was happening now every few minutes.  By about 2 hours
in, it was obvious we were never going to make Clear Lake.  Even at slow
speeds in the surefooted vehicle we were odds on favorites to slide into a
ditch if we didn't get off the roads soon.

   We were near the small town of Thornton - a little slice of nowhere
about half-way between our starting point and the highway turnoff where I
had planned to break my ties with Rich - when it was time to give up and we
pulled into a small travel court of rental cabins.  They were small units
in disrepair that looked like they had last been painted in the 60s.  They
had perhaps once had been nice places.

   Rich paid for a room - a little one bedroom, one bed affair that was
like a vacation cabin inside complete with a fireplace.  Rich said a single
bed was all they had available.  They called these "honeymoon" cabins for a
reason.  (My guess is that they were probably used more by the hour than
for honeymoons, and though some of the guests were married it was likely
they weren't married to each other.)

   It was freezing cold and windy but we made a short six block hike into
town and found a grocery and a package (liquor) store still open.  We
loaded up on goodies care of Rich's credit cards.  (He went heavy on both
food and liquor figuring he'd take the extra ahead for meals in Minneapolis
- it was a good thing he did.) By the time we got to the cabin the snow was
deep enough and winds strong enough that we had no doubt that getting off
the road had been the right decision.

   We entered the cabin and settled in.  There was a sexual sort of tension
that developed between us - a byproduct of being alone together in this
little dive motel.

   When you're a teen runaway who sells crank in truck stops and you've
just spent hours that day in the truck cabin wearing a bra but no shirt in
order to keep your driver amused - it is hard to play coy.  I knew where he
thought this was all heading and though he was polite, his eyes were eating
into me.

   At first, I was a little offended by the presumptuousness of it all, but
I couldn't really be offended that he didn't buy me my own cabin - I was
lucky he even thought about me when it was time to buy food.  If there was
only one king sized bed, well that would still be more room than we had
shared when we slept together in the bunk in his truck the night before. 
As for what we did besides sleep, it would be a decision I'd face when the
time came.

   I think Rich sensed that I wasn't comfortable and went into the male
mode of "hunter/hero" in order to make our current situation less awkward.

   He collected wood from a pile near the office and fiddled around with
his truck to make sure everything was tied down, buttoned up or whatever it
is they do to protect their loads.  He called in his location to his
dispatch and got the latest road condition reports.

   When it became obvious that the winds were so strong we might lose power
he bothered the hotel desk person for some candles and extra blankets.  He
even came back with a board game and a deck of cards.  He got us extra
towels, drinking glasses and more, going overboard to make our little place
a "home" while we waited out the storm.

   In return, I loosened up and adopted his attitude of taking care of
business.  I started a fire, made coffee and helped him hang up his frozen
wet jacket and hung his frozen wet clothes by the fire while he showered to
defrost from being outside.  I made him a sandwich and poured him a small
shot of whiskey to help warm him up.  When it was obvious that being
outside in the cold so long had really affected him badly, I covered him
with blankets while I found something he wanted to watch on tv.  (No remote
control- this tv was from the 60s or before.)

   We were like an old married couple in some ways, just making the best of
things and trying to stay out of each others way, which wasn't easy in such
a small cabin.

   By dusk, the place was well warmed and we ate some ham and eggs (just
about all I knew how to cook) The wind was fierce - uncharacteristically so
for this time of the year - and the snow blasts came and went.  We sat at
the small dinette and made small talk and drank beer.  There was still
something unspoken that was making us both uncomfortable - a byproduct of
our being snowed out in our honeymoon cabin.

   About 8PM, I finally relieved some tension for him by getting very
comfortable to show Rich that I wasn't going to let the sleeping
arrangements bug me too much and might even be happy with them.  I only
owned what I was wearing and one change of clothes and so I used the
opportunity of a bathtub to rinse out my things and hung them all on an
impromptu to clothes line I had placed next to the fire.  My clothes all
wet, I pattered around in just a tee-shirt and the one pair of panties that
I owned.  I think that broke the ice.

   We sat at the dinette to play some cards, started doing some whiskey
shots washed down with beer, and shared a joint of some weed he had.  I
offered him a line which he declined as he really wanted to sleep that
night, but we ended up getting fucked up in different ways.

   By 11PM, when the power went out, we were both completely wasted.  He
lit a candle and we played a little more, but it was hard on the eyes so we
decided this was nature's way of telling us it was time for bed.

   I considered dropping the tee and panties when I crawled into bed,
thinking that they would probably be coming off one way or the other and I
was never one for playing "Try to find your laundry in the bed sheets" in
the morning.  I decided against and that turned out to be fine as it was
hot in the cabin and the sheets and blankets were kicked to the ground. 
Rich was very gentle in removing my clothes before we got started, and
since we were both drunk and stoned we went at it sloppily for an more than
an hour.  I was having a good time but was actually kind of grateful when I
felt him pull out and felt the hot drops hitting my lower back and ass.  We
fell into a pile and were asleep in minutes.

   That night the snow gave way first a short, heavy rain than then an
arctic blast of winds that froze everything in a solid 1/4 inch thick
coating of ice.  Trees came down with the weight, landing on power lines
then the highways and streets.  The heavy rain saturated the snow with
water and the quick freeze turned it into a solid pack ice layer that was
more than a foot deep.

   It was the worst ice storm and freeze I had ever been through in my
life. Opening the drapes that morning to view the situation through our
heavily hung over and bloodshot eyes, it was obvious that we wouldn't be
going anywhere soon.  Downed tree branches alone would take hours or maybe
days to remove from the roadway and they layer of ice on the ground would
make driving even with chains a deadly proposition.

   Rich contacted his local dispatch from his radio in the truck since the
phones and power were out and confirmed traffic was at a standstill.  They
were advising all drivers stay off the roadway for at least 24 hours.  He
noted that their advisory was "all drivers" - not just those with
non-perishable loads.  This was serious shit.

   It was perhaps 10 in the morning and we realized we had the whole day to
do nothing.  It was freezing cold outside, no power inside and nothing to
do, so we went back to bed for a while.  (We both had hangovers - it wasn't
about sex.)

   When we woke up again about 3PM, Rich rolled over to extract another
reward for being my provider.  I frankly wasn't very into it - I was still
hungover - but didn't resist.

   He crawled out of bed and made a fire while I dozed.  He made coffee on
the gas stove and tinkered for a while but I waited until the little room
was again good and warm before venturing out of bed on a pilgrimage to the
bathroom.  Neither of us had bothered with clothes so we sat naked and
sipped coffee and watched the fire for a while.

   A little caffeine made me feel so much better so I started moving
around. I made the bed - actually a sneaky way of rescuing my underwear
from the bottom of the bedsheets and since I was wet and leaking a bit I
bent over to put them back in my pack.

   I remember I wished I could take a shower.  The water was still running,
but the water heater was out, so I found a pot and heated some water on the
stove with the intent of giving myself a sponge bath.  I don't know when it
had happened, but I had kind of taken a shine to Rich sometime in the last
24 hours and wanted to look more presentable.

   I asked if he had a razor I could borrow and in addition to washing
myself down I also shaved my legs - something largely unnecessary since I
had very blonde, very thin body hair but I had nothing but time to kill. 
Besides, Rich was enjoying the view.

   My laundry was dry so I packed it away, taking some time to put clothes
back on as I really wanted to go outside as it was stuffy in the cabin and
I was feeling a bit claustrophobic.  (I had been living largely outside for
months.) Stepping out, I almost immediately slipped on the ice and fell on
my ass and it was so cold that I practically couldn't breath.

   I walked around long enough, though, to realize that our deskman wasn't
on duty and we seemed to be the only ones in the whole travel court.  No
other cars - just our big truck.  It was kind of frightening in a way and
made me that much more uncomfortable with the fact that I was shacking up
with this driver with that I didn't really know much about.

   Rich walked out about that time to collect wood for the fire so I
helped, and after a few trips back and forth he went back inside.  I stayed
out, but finally the winds chased me in, and Rich was sitting playing
solitaire.

   I loved cards - I've always been good at them - so I asked him if he
wanted to play.  We dealt some out, smoked a joint and I he asked about
those lines I had been offering for a few days.  We snorted, dealt and
chatted about nothing.  The crank kicked in and the conversations got a
little lighter and more boisterous.  We were having a good time.

   Sometime after dinner we got horny for each other again - I think it was
a combination of boredom and the speed.  He started playing a kind of strip
poker and pretty soon I was under the table undoing his zipper, and we had
sex on the floor of the kitchenette for a while before retiring back to bed
when the cold floor brought us back to our senses.

   About dark time we had heard the first of the road crews with their
chainsaws cutting back downed trees.  Around 8 we had gotten a flicker like
the lights might come back on but it didn't happen, so we had cooked some
soup and made some more sandwiches by candlelight.  (We actually stuck the
food requiring refrigeration and our beer out in truck trailer since we
didn't have any power.  Everything stayed nice and cold out there.)

   If I thought we were relaxed and safe from the intrusion of the outside
world, I was in for a surprise of sorts, as about 11:30 we got a knock at
the door and there stood a roadway worker dressed in his orange slicks. 
His vehicle had lost it coming around a corner about a half mile away and
his partner was still in the truck.  The radio in his truck wasn't working
post crash and the light from the fire in the window was the first light
he'd seen in an hour.

   We invited him in - he looked about to freeze - and you could tell by
the way he was glancing around that he realized we had been partying pretty
hard.  Even from just the light of the fire he could see it.  There was a
whiskey bottle on the table, the cards spread out on the dinette, and a few
empty beers.  Unfortunately, the place also probably reeked of marijuana
since we had had the windows and doors closed.  I had hidden the ashtray
and the little tape case we were using to cut lines on before we had opened
the door, but we were ripped and it showed.

   Rich wasn't very presentable at the best of times given his tats and
skinhead haircut.  I glanced in the mirror and realized I had sex hair and
looked like jailbait.  The road worker was studying us both and his look
was one of disapproval and disgust.

   (Again - realize this was Iowa and more than 30 years ago.  The people
in this part of the world were not very forgiving of anyone who lived
outside the mainstream and even very small quantities of pot would just
about guarantee a prison sentence.)

   He had a partner in the car who was out cold and so he and Rich went to
the truck to call in the problem on the radio.  While they were gone I took
the opportunity to tidy up, pack up my laundry and hide the party supplies
away.

   Rich and the worker came back a few minutes later and said that help
might be a long time coming since everything was iced over.  They decided
to take the walk back to the stranded truck and took blankets with them,
leaving me alone for a while.

   It was hours later when they came back with the downed man, who was
awake but in pain, his ankle having been broken or badly strained in the
wreck.  What seemed like it was going to be a very quiet evening was now
getting quite busy as it inched toward morning.

   I don't know why but as I sat and watched the two road workers, I
started feeling paranoid.  It wasn't that I thought they were going to
attack me or anything - one of them couldn't even stand - but the first one
who had come to the door seemed contemptuous of Rich and eyed me like I was
something that he wanted to spit on.

   I acted on my ill feeling by quietly putting my stuff all in my pack and
my pack next to the door.  I had learned a long time ago to trust my
instincts on these things.

   I did my best to disappear - a hard thing in a small cabin with three
big men - and not many words were spoken.  Rich tried to break the ice by
offering the men a cup of coffee or maybe a sip of whiskey to take the edge
off, but they only requested water.  The one that was hurt also asked if we
had aspirin, but neither of us did.

   There was an uneasy silence in the hours while we waited for the
emergency services people to arrive.  (The roads were still a mess, and a
broken ankle wasn't a priority.) It was dawn when a service truck with four
chained wheels pulled in.  The service guys were gone in minutes.

   It would seem like the drama was over, but I was anything but relaxed
and so when Rich tried to coax me to bed I told him I just wanted to veg
for a while.  He crawled under the covers and I sat down next to the
fireplace, watching morning through the open curtains.  It was deathly
still for a long time - the only thing moving being the shadows that
arrived with the sun, and then I saw the bad news I had been waiting for
off in the distance.  A police vehicle was slowly making its way up the
frozen street.

   I didn't stick around - charging out door, grabbing my pack and running
into the woods behind the motel.  Rich called out and I told him just be
cool and tell them I was from the room next door.  He didn't get it at
first but when I saw the police car arrive and the policeman knock at the
door I knew he would.  They talked at the door for a few minutes and he
invited them in.  (Dumb move.) One of them walked next door a few minutes
later to knock on the door of another cabin and then he wondered over to
the office to find it closed.  He went back to the cabin and closed the
door.

   Over the next half hour while I froze outside in the woods, they must
have tossed the cabin and then explored the inside of Richs truck. 
Eventually they left the cabin with Rich in handcuffs.

   To this day I have no idea what for, though I'd guess it was his pot. 
My guess is that the highway worker told a cop that he doing dope in a
motel room with an under-aged girl.  Iowa was pretty conservative back then
and I guess our having a good time offended him.

   I was freezing to death when they left, and was lucky that I had a key
to the cabin which had been locked.  I wasn't sure when or if they would
come back, so I was glued to the windows overnight.

   The next day, the weather had changed remarkably and shortly after
sunrise AM it was a above freezing.  I could hear traffic from the highway
so I left the cabin, made my way to the top of the onramp, put out my thumb
hoping for a lift.  I was standing there maybe 10 minutes when a silver
sedan pulled up with a single middle aged man inside.

   I looked inside and saw a 50ish man in the driver seat.  He didn't seem
threatening at and it was not freezing but still cold and I could feel the
heater working in his car.  I crawled inside and off we went.

   If I had known then what I know now, I would have gladly gone off in
cuffs.