Wanderlust Part 14 "...what the falling would feel like."

Wanderlust
Part 14
by Sommer Marsden

Belair road runs through the belly of Baltimore city and up into the county where, for long stretches, there's nothing to see but windy roads and a few horses in an open field.

Johnny turned his ugly car onto Belair and I sipped from a travel mug of hot coffee.

"How did things go with the husband?"

"As good as can be expected."

On the radio, Cat Stevens sang about a father and son. The song made my throat feel tight so I blocked it out.

"That good?"

"That fucking good."

He put his hand on my leg and the feel of it was nice. There was no sexual tension in that touch. Just a comforting kind of kinship that made my belly feel calm and my mind feel clean and white. I lived with a constant chatter of shoulds. I should leave Jackson. I should leave town. I should tell off my father. I should invest the money my mother allocated for me before she died. I should be a wife, a mother, a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker. I should be perfect. I should get drunk. I should say fuck it all and go into hiding.

"What's going on in there?" he asked, heading straight out toward the overpass that crossed over the branch of Gunpowder State Park where I often hiked when I wanted to run off for the day.

"Too much to fucking comprehend," I laughed.

"Smokes are in the glove compartment, "he said.

"No thinks. Only when I drink.:"

"Want a drink?" He chuckled.

"Soon," I said, but I was joking.

I watched the populated stretch of road bleed into gorgeous desolation in spots. He drove in silence, letting the radio sounds fill the car. It was a comfortable silence—something I wasn't used to. I was accustomed to silences pregnant with discomfort, anger and discontent.

I was not accustomed to silences that I sank into and reveled in. But that's what I did with this silence. When he put his hand on my thigh again, I covered it with mine.

Johnny passed a small convenience store that was the last stop-off before things got really sparse. I watched it whiz past, a small spike-haired woman climbing into a jacked-up Jeep was my last sight as the road opened up a bit wider.

"Wanna see a horse?" he said. He cocked his head to this window.

"Or four," I said.

"Five. There's a stray in the back."

I saw it finally, a gray mare with white spots. She looked like a toy horse from my perspective. Like I could stick her in my purse. The Chevy hurtled down road, gulping down faded yellow lines.

"I spied with my little eye, five horses."

It had started to snow-big fat flakes that flew like kamikazes at the windshield. I rolled down the window and stuck my hand out, the cold wafers of snow melting on my skin.

"You like the road," he said. It wasn't a question.

"I do. I like to drive. I like to ride. I like the way the car feels speeding down an open road. Especially this car. Damn, it's ugly but it really is like a sofa on wheels."

He smiled, nodding. "That's pretty accurate."

"But yes. My favorite thing when I feel all tight and claustrophobic and panicky is drive. It's freedom," I said.

"Ever think of just going?"

"Going where?" We had come full circle to this question from the night before. It must be something he saw in me, or smelled on me. A secret he could read off of my skin like invisible script.

"Going." Johnny shrugged.l

"I think the thought of considering that is too big for me."

"You've never had the urge to just keep driving? Go as far as you could go and stop somewhere and bed down for the night?"

"I think I have. That irrational urge to just move forward at all costs. Like the thoughts I have when I hold a sharp knife," I said softly. I had never admitted this to anyone in my life before. Had never spoken the words aloud. "Sometimes when I hold them I wonder what it would be like if I ran my finger along the edge. Or if I ran the blade along my skin."

He nodded. Not judging me and seeming to understand. It made me feel warm all over, the look on his face.

"Or the urge sometimes when I'm on something high. The top of a staircase, a roof of a building, an escalator at the mall, a cliff when I go hiking. That urge to just see what would happen if…" I shook my head. Afraid he'd turn the car around, take me back. Maybe drive me to the fucking psych ward.

"If you just stepped off? Jumped? What the falling would feel like?"

I nodded. "Yes, what the falling would feel like."

He pulled over onto the shoulder of the road so we were nose-in to an old leaning wooden fence. In the field beyond, two white horses nuzzled each other and then tossed their unkempt manes in the wind.

Johnny pulled me in, I slid across the bench seat with very little resistance. He turned my face up to his and kissed me. It was a boyfriend kiss. Gentle and kind and unassuming. Until I parted my lips and let his tongue slide into my mouth. I was the one to turn the kiss by putting my hand on his jeans, squeezing his cock gently in my hand. I wanted him all over again. It seemed I fucking always wanted him.

"Do you want to fall with me, Really?" he growled against my throat.

I undid my jeans and moved away from him. shimmying my hips, I got them down but the oversized tails of his flannel that I still wore shielded me.

"Yes," I muttered, working his belt. He helped me patiently—his hands calm where my were hurried "I want to."

"Just get in this ugly car and go? Go wherever. Follow the road and the snow and the horses until there are other things to see and do."

I climbed into his lap, facing him as I had the night before. This time, though, he was bare under me. His cock hard and ready, his face sober and intent.

"Yes." I bit his lower lip and he seized my hips in his hands. My wet opening was pressed to the hard ridge of his sex and I moved just enough to hear his heart speed up under my palm that I kept pressed to his chest to feel the life in him.

"Diners and hotels and roadside attractions," he said, nipping me back.

"Yes," I said, putting him in me, holding his hard length straight and true and sinking down onto him so slowly that I thought I might scream and I was the one in control. My thighs shook, my hands too. I anchored myself to him by gripping his shoulder. He held my hips and thrust up hard and filled me.

We both stilled, eye to eye. I could see his pulse jumping at his throat. I was sure he could see mine. Snow had started to cover the windshield—had started to gray out the world beyond. Big wet lacy bits of it clung to the side windows. I could hear that mysterious hushed hiss that always came with snow.

"Fall with me," I said this time. I was the one to ask it. "Will you run your finger over the blade?"

"You know it, Snowflake," he said. And then he started to move. I was on top but he was in control, pulling me down even as he moved up under me. His teeth, sharp and even, sliding along my collar bone so that I shivered with the possible pain he could inflict. He released my hips for just a second to cup my breasts. He lulled me in with the warmth of his palms and when I leaned into him, he pinched my nipples through my tee. The pain that shot through me was sudden and perfect and I came, my cunt gripping up around him making the friction almost unbearable, his cock stretching me, filling me up..

"Again," I said.

So he hauled me in by my shirt collar and kissed me, his hips still thrusting up forcefully beneath me, his cock plunging deep every time. "You want to come again?

"Yes."

"Let's see what we can do about that."