It was early morning, and the sky was vast and quiet. Everywhere was the sun, with pure hot white stretching in all directions. Everything waited, bleached and vulnerable.
He sat in the driver’s seat squinting at the map and jumped,
startled, when the trunk lid slammed shut. She walked over and stood next
to the passenger window. Somewhere a thermometer read 120 degrees only because
that was the highest a thermometer could read.
Too bad I don’t know how to read a map, she said. She opened the
door and sat down next to him.
He tried to keep his gaze steady on the scrawling blue highways and
red interstates. He’d let her sleep all the way through Nebraska. What a perfect gentleman he’d been. Mostly perfect.
Fuck it! What were we thinking? She sounded as though she
might cry. You can’t even hear me right now, can you?
We just need to be more careful, he said. But he knew he was
thinking of how her eyes had gone quiet when he had joked with that waitress
back in Reno.
Get us out of here, she said.
She kept it ready, always, tucked in her back pocket because there it would wait until needed. She crossed her arms and turned her head,
pretending to study the blinding expanse.
He didn’t make any sign of turning the key in the ignition.
Instead he looked at her and ran his fingernail along the crease of the map. He
knew about her other speechless cowboys, but where were they to rescue her now?
She needed him.
Give it here, he said finally.
I want to go home. She was crying now.
No, hand it over. He unclasped his seat belt, and twisting at the
waist, stretched over the console.
We were too ambitious, we weren’t thinking. Now it’s ruined. We are
ruined, she gasped. The waitress’s name had been Beverly and not once had she
offered to refill her coffee. It seemed
it was always a waitress. Or a convenience store attendant.
He moved towards her. But he was worried she might slap him.
For fuck’s sake! She turned away and hid her face in her
hands.
He took in a deep breath, and began to settle back into his seat
when suddenly, he dove completely over the console, as much as one could in a
compact hatchback. He straddled her to hold her down. They both felt him strong
against her hips.
Get off! She kicked at him. Her face was contorted and veined as she
threw out her knees and fists, thrashing more, thrashing harder.
But with two fingers he was just able to reach into her back jean
pocket. He fished at it, trying to grasp its slimness between his ring and
middle finger. Her knees were hitting the dash now, and she’d struck him
in the chest and now the jaw. His fingers slipped.
No tumbleweeds skirted past them, and no clouds shifted over the
blinding totality of the sky. They were frozen, locked in struggle. With his
other hand, he worked his fingernails deeper and deeper into her side, where the
flesh was softer. He knew the marks under his nails were purple and deep.
Let go of me, she seethed, hot in his ear.
Not until you hand it over, he said.
She heard the map crinkle upwards and rip against the edge of car
before it whipped past in the wind, gone forever.
No! she sobbed. She fought for control of his wrists but he
wouldn’t let go of hers.
She would have to use her teeth.
He felt her tense even more then, before her eyes going quiet like they had back at the diner. Even so, he knew he
would always be the best man he could for her.
She spit and felt the wet across her face.
I cut yours out so you couldn’t use for anyone else. Like the
others had, in her lap lay his tongue.
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