It was just approaching dusk when Luke pulled into the tiny roadside gas station. He'd been driving for hours through the desert, hoping, as the tank neared empty, that he would happen upon a small outpost among the dust and sand. As he slowed the jeep and pulled up next to one of the pumps, he peered inside the small convenience store to see if anyone was still inside. Through the dirty old windows, he thought he could make out a small light coming from another room in the back of the store.
Getting out of the jeep, he could see that the station was cash-only as the pumps looked like they had been installed sometime during the Nixon administration. Luke walked toward the store and found, much to his surprise, that the double pane door was unlocked. As he entered, a small bell positioned over the door chimed and he heard someone moving in the back room. Luke walked toward the counter and looked back toward the open door that led into the other room.
"Just a second. I'll be right out." He heard a female voice call out.
Luke suddenly felt relieved, realizing that he wouldn't end up sleeping in his car in the desert tonight. As it turns out, that couldn't have been further from the truth.
As he stood waiting, he saw the door swing open, and she walked out toward the counter. She moved quickly, her nubile body bouncing in time with her stride. Luke took notice of her long legs, wrapped up in tight, dark blue denim which cut off just above her hips. Moving up her shapely figure, he stopped on the exposed area of beautifully tanned skin above her jeans and just below the tight, white cotton tank top that he noticed barely held in her firm ample breasts.
"Hi. Can I help you?" she asked as she approached him.
"Yeah, I'm, um, just about out of gas and wanted to fill up." Luke could barely get the words out as he continued his attempt to look her in the eyes.
"Well, I'd love to help you out, but the storage tanks were emptied three days ago and I'm still waiting for a fill."
"Seriously?" Luke responded in disbelief.
"Sorry. We're not exactly first on the delivery schedule out here."
Disappointed, Luke thanked her and slowly turned to leave. Realizing, though, that he wouldn't get far on what remained in his gas tank and wondering how in the hell the only thing on this stretch of highway was a gas station with a beautiful woman and no gas, he thought he'd try his luck.
"I hate to ask this, but I'm not going to make it to a town on what's left in my tank. Is there any way it would be possible to park here for the night and sleep in my car?"
"Well, you seem nice enough and trust me, you're not the first person to get stuck out here," she said with a bit of a smile. "You don't have to sleep in your car though. There's an extra cot in the back room I can bring out for you. I'm Katie by the way."
Luke thanked Katie for her generosity and she invited him to join her for dinner. As he saw more of the small store, he realized the light he had seen wasn't coming from just a small room but from an apartment built into the back of the store. As the night wore on, the two finished their dinner and talked over a few beers about everything from relationships to politics to what, if anything else, existed between Palm Springs and LA. Slowly, the beer bottles piled up and their inhibitions slowly broke down. Right around midnight, the conversation had fully swung from generic small talk to stories about past relationships and everything that went with them.
"So what happened, did the proverbial fire just die out?" Katie inquired, interrupting Luke's story about his last girlfriend.
"No, no. The sex was phenomenal. It wasn't that at all."
"Oh really?" she said. "If the sex was that good, what could have gone wrong?"