It started out innocently enough, but when I stepped on that bus that would take me 1600 miles over the border and through several states, I wondered what I had gotten myself into this time.
"Make sure you have your birth certificate and some form of picture ID." The bus driver reminded his passengers, but to me it was a reminder I was about to embark on a brand new adventure. "I'm handing out your declaration forms. Please read them over and have them filled out before the border to expedite the customs process." Rehearsed and regurgitated 1000 times.
I looked over the declaration card the bus driver gave me and checked off everything pertaining to me until I reached a line regarding fruits, vegetables, and meat. Shit. Of the items I packed were some oranges and plumbs and guess what? They're not allowing those items across the border. By the time we reached the border I had eaten two plumbs and an orange and had to trash the rest. What a waste.
It was a 55 hour trip to my destination. More than enough time to reflect on what had happened to get me this far. Looking into the endless prairie of North Dakota my mind wandered back a further six months.
After I split with my fiancée of 4 years my life had fallen apart. We were so much into each other's lives that when I finally pulled the plug on that so called relationship, I felt empty and directionless. Not only was the plug pulled on my future marriage, it was also pulled on my then career of choice, engineering. I moved in with some family in a small town to pull myself together. To look inward to find out where I wanted to be and to at least try to regain some baring on whom I was. My family in that small backward town had offered me all the time I needed to get back on my feet and with the help of some new friends I'd met through the internet, that's just what I did.
While checking up on my email in that little town hoping to see some job offer or other, I kept running into some spam invite to an online community. Finally, after what seemed like weekly invites, I accepted. I put some junk in my profile about being a college student and about being spiritual and some other crap along with pictures and things. The pictures I uploaded were no more than comical gifs as I had no digital images of me, but within a day or two a girl from the Deep South called Nyx sent me a note. Soon I started chatting with her and her friend. I became instantly close to her friend whom I'll call Athena.
Over the next few months we sent daily emails about everything from where we grew up, to what we like to eat. This email chore was no easy task for me since I didn't actually stay with my family too long. I had myself enrolled in a private college in no time and I'd moved back to the city. Finding places to check my email and responding to my new long distance correspondent was an adventure in itself for my broke studious self. I did not have an internet connection at home or a computer for that matter so I had to use my uncle's, or stay after class, or use the library's. But what could I do? This girl seemed like my only friend in the world at that time as my real world seemed to have gone through Armageddon. I was a wreck. Athena was my homely goddess and closest friend.
Nearing my departure day Athena sent me new pictures of her self. I had already seen other pictures of her but these were different. These were nudes of the classy sort. The sort that leaves more to the imagination. I didn't know how to feel as the other images of her that I'd seen were not of this naked variety. Email correspondence was a brave new world at the time and even though we had started talking on the phone as well, I was still too naive to see the attraction in our chemistry. As a joke I sent her a set of very blurry scanned pictures of myself. She replied saying she thought that was a nice tease, but that it didn't matter what I looked like.
Naive. Nervous. Excited. And fueled by a thirst for adventure.
The cross country ride on the big grey dog was an experience I won't soon forget. I saw landscapes and cityscapes, I saw loners and families, I saw students, bums and business people alike. To keep my mind off the butterflies in my stomach I focused on the subtle differences in the American culture. The stop-over in Chicago was over several hours during the day so I had the opportunity to take a wild wander throughout downtown Chicago. I marveled at its blend of old and new architecture. At the human manipulated Chicago River complete with huge garbage barges and endless raising bridges. And I was mildly surprised at how windy it was in this Windy City as the wind literally pushed me down the cavernous concrete canyons of this monolithic metropolis. And this, this was just the first 30 hours of my journey.
The next 25 hours or so was as blurry as a three day drunken binge as I had not been able to sleep a wink aboard those wheeled dogs. Kids crying, dead Discman batteries, cell phones at 3am and people sleeping on my shoulder are what I had to contend with. Plus, the butterflies had grown into full grown pterodactyls and they were totally messing with me. I could hear my cousin's taunting as I left for the bus depot back home.
"What if they're 40 year old toothless men Clay? Can you say Deliverance?" The thought had crossed my mind, but fun, explorative adventure was leading my thoughts.
As our coach hit the Deep South it was apparent we would be late, a good three hours, for my final destination. All I really wanted at that point was sleep but worry hit me. I kept thinking about what if they didn't know the bus was late? What if they were waiting out there and just left because they thought I'd ditched them? But alas, I was just too tired to realize any well rested human being would have called to see what time the bus would arrive, and so, my ride was in fact waiting for me at the end of the line.
Athena was not quite as I'd imagined her, as would be the case for many people I'd eventually meet from the internet world. Athena was a little bit shorter and perhaps carrying a little more weight than I was expecting to see, although she carried it quite well in all the right places. But that didn't stop me from recognizing her immediately. And just as immediately I hugged her, possibly more out of exhaustion than seeing a familiar face.
Accompanying Athena was her little sister as Nyx could not make it to the bus depot at the time. Athena informed me we were to meet Nyx back at Athena's apartment. And so, the first thing we did after loading up my luggage into an old beater of a car she borrowed from her father was got lost. Yes, in Athena's own excitement she struggled in finding her own home. Albeit, this Deep South town was laid out peculiarly and maybe she was really excited to see me as words flew back and forth between us, I still laughed. And her sister laughed as well until Athena nearly threw a fit that she couldn't find home, so the little one pointed us in the right direction.
Athena had a one room studio loft in what she called the Hood of her town. Looked nothing like the ravenous hoodlums of my city, but I took her word for it, after all this was a different country.
The single room apartment was not spotless as she had promised, and her paint job was not completed either. Furniture consisted of a single futon mattress on the floor, a shelf pieced together low on a wall, some dirty dishes in an overflowed sink, a fridge completely loaded head to foot in picture magnets and a Mac laptop on the floor. Three cats of the full range of shapes, sizes and colours raced around the place, curious of the new visitor. I mentioned her promised cleanliness and we laughed at our mutual procrastination skills.
Having a shower was first on the agenda as I probably smelled a lot like a well used bus seat. Her bathroom was off the main room. It had a tub with a shower hose and nozzle, but no shower curtain. Ah yes, the stories of poor perverted young adults. This 'shower' situation was somewhat awkward with the hairdo I had at the time. My hair was thick, wavy and ass length, no word of a lie. So instead of showering I did what the tub was designed for. I bathed while the girls were outside that lockless door chit chatting as they'd normally do I imagined. Nyx had arrived while I was in the midst of bathing as I heard her mild southern belle accent. Athena had no accent to speak of which was odd considering she was submersed in the Deep South her whole life.
After a few minutes, and clean clothed Clay later, the four of us hung out in this lofty apartment for a while longer.
The slender Bettie Page-esque Nyx was also very beautiful but the vibe between the three of us was not quite right. As mentioned before, Nyx met me first, but I hit it off better with Athena. What I didn't mention was these two used to see each other romantically, so what we had here was an attention seeking circle. Discomfort swept the room but the little sister seemed adept at diffusing such awkward situations as we were all laughing and joking in no time. However, traveling two and a half days on a bus does wonders for insomnia as yawns began to captivate me. The girls took note and Nyx suggested she drive Athena's little sister home so we could get some rest. They agreed and I blinked. Slowly.
Nyx and the little one left and Athena went to put on something more comfortable to go to bed in. I could barely move and changing into something else myself was not on the thought radar. I laid down on that small yet oh so comfortable futon mattress on top of the thick plush comforter still wearing my jeans and a t-shirt. Athena came out of her bathroom a moment later in a short sundress and her mid back length reddish-brown hair was freed from its bun. She set some deep house play list up on her Mac, something she called Northern Exposure (Sasha&John Digweed) and then she lay down next to me, propped up on her elbow.
"You're not going to sleep in your jeans are you?" ‘
Here we go
’ I thought to myself. I wasn't wearing underwear under those jeans; I knew full well what taking them off meant.
I looked into her eyes and closed the gap between our soft lips with a kiss that would sink our eyelids and send us deep into the house music playing softly in the background. Our hands wandered over our respective bodies as our tongues cautiously explored one another. My hand skimmed the smooth surface up her thigh and over the thin material that comprised her dress. Its path was not interrupted by those annoying panty lines you sometimes find on women who wish to wear those emotional barriers. Upon this discovery my flaccid member woke up and as I felt blood pouring into it, I felt her fingers twisting and pulling at those hairs one might call the treasure trail.
Her hair tugging fingers meandered further south, over my jeans and over the growing hump that cried for escape. My hand continued upward covering as much new ground possible as my fingers stretched. My thumb found that familiar swollen erectile tissue over soft mammaries. At that moment the explorative kiss turned into a nibble of my lower lip and the exasperating sigh of my wanton hostess' desires. Somehow, without my noticing, she had unbuttoned, and unzipped my tightening jeans. The kiss stopped all together and she looked at me in the eyes.
The music paused briefly between tracks and I could hear our heavy breathing. Her hand skimmed over my abdomen and her index finger dropped, trailing a line down my treasure trail. Slowly, a new baseline crept in to keep us company.
