"Eat the Cookies, Rahne."
You might not have noticed, but I like being out on the road. I enjoy the chance to head off in a direction and let the road take me to new and unfamiliar places. Even roads you've travelled before can show you something new from day to day if you pay attention. And if I'm travelling a road I've never been on before? Well, that's just icing on the cake for me.
"But Max," I hear you saying. "If that's the case, why don't you just chuck it all in, buy a camper and live on the road? After all, you like driving, like seeing new places. Love screwing different women. A camper sounds just your thing!"
Let's just say I like my apartment's creature comforts and library. I'm not quite ready to chuck it all and become a nomad just yet. That was always my father's dream- to see me settled, with a good job and a loving wife, while he and Mom roamed the country in an RV. And Mom was less than enthusiastically on-board with the idea (Meaning she didn't hate it.).
And that's a thing you should really do WITH someone and I hadn't met someone I'd want to share the road with.
Holy fuck. Have you ever done that thing where you're writing and you start typing something at one pace and the idea hits you and suddenly you're being very slow and careful and typing every word with care as though the very thing you just though has extra weight and maybe some sort of profound revelation for you? Some grand truth has been revealed? I just had that. Right up there.
You know where I'm going with this, right?
Right. Right as in 'Right as Rahne'.
Look, I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass that I'm not still hung up on this girl who I slept with once and only briefly heard from since. And you know what? I'm going to tell you flat out that I KNOW her streaming channel is still active. I found it after I got home from St Louis. Ashley verified it with me while we were fucking our way back down the mountain. I keep telling myself to just subscribe. Just connect. Maybe she'll talk to me privately? Maybe she WANTS me to find her and I'm blowing it because she doesn't know I know how to find her?
Here's the thing though- I'm not sure WHY I'm hung up on this woman. Personal connection? I felt there was one but I don't know how she felt. Did I want to know she was okay and if her nightmares were just a one-time thing? Absolutely. Did I want to fu...sleep with her again? Doesn't even need an answer, does it?
Did I want to be another person she spends a month or two with and then moves on? Did I want to be the person she wanted to settle for because she'd 'reached the end of her play-life'?
Did I, in short, LOVE her?
How the fuck should I know? She sat beside me, naked, for ten hours while I drove her to spend time with another stripper/camgirl and we talked about sex and work and what state had the better hot dogs and neither of us were shy about the people we'd been with or the things we'd done (She had, unsurprisingly, more experience than I but... hot, sexually free woman vs. me. Not really a contest I was coming out ahead on. 'On top' once we stopped for the night, yes. (insert rimshot here)). Since then, I've been with *counts on fingers* dozens of women, many of whom I've told you about, including one she WATCHED ME FUCK over the internet. And I have no doubt she's had more than one partner since that night too.
I'm actually okay with that, to be honest. For her, that's a healthy lifestyle and I'm not going to wave the double standard of 'Guys can screw whomever they want, but the women need to stay devoted to the one dude!' because, quite frankly, that's stupid bullshit. As long as she's happy, I'm happy for her.
AND I'D KNOW SHE WAS HAPPY IF I JUST TALKED TO HER!!
I am nothing if not inconsistent.
So, I'm dodging the issue by getting back on the highway and heading to Los Angeles. Four days to clear my head, maybe write some stories. Maybe even make a few. Look, it should be no surprise at this point that I get laid on this trip, otherwise I would have opened in LA crawling out of bed with... know what? I'm gonna save that part for later.
I called Tabitha and Nancy almost immediately after hanging up with Jessica, only to find myself in a conference call with all three of them by the time I got to my apartment door. I had seven days to batter the Baskerville bible into shape (Tabitha and Nancy would be by in the morning to hold my feet to the fire on this one!) and by the end of that week, I would be on the road. In the meantime, the studio offered to fly them both out to join me in LA and we SHOULD be arriving on the same day. The studio would send a car to pick them up and I would join them when I got to town.
Easy-peasy lemon-bullshit.
Nancy took the lead in helping me with the bible, being more familiar with my Baskerville works, while Tabitha focused on getting my car in for a quick tune-up. Believe me, anyone thinks she's a pushover about cars because *cough* "she's a chick' usually gets reamed a new one. And not in the fun way I'm avoiding telling her about. She just about lost her shit when I showed her my tattoo and tongue stud.
No, Albert did not get brought up for discussion.
In the meantime, apartment got atrociously neat- books and magazines were put on the new shelves, Fort Pepperoni toppled to the sudden assault of the Hoover 'Engine' tribe (Which is the ONLY way I will EVER make that joke. Nancy hit the stack with the vacuum.) and I even ended up with three more boxes for sale or trade when I got back. My cactus' corpse even got sent on to the Great Neglected Plant (Forest? Desert? Graveyard?') Location in the dumpster. I just knew there would be a further neatness committed after I left. Nancy kept glowering at the state of my fridge and bedroom.
Does it really surprise anyone that the first time I stopped on this trip West was the same Harrisburg gas station/rest stop I first picked Rahne up in? She wasn't there and it was, sadly, too crowded to do more than hit on Charletta, the clerk we'd both agreed was worth the trip back. Looked like we weren't the only ones to think so either.
I had a reason for not pushing all the way to St Louis that first leg, most of them stemming from not wanting to do another fourteen-hour drive for no reason. I had four days; I was going to take four days. I pushed as far as Springfield, Ohio where I stopped at a place called 'Club Hollywood' for dinner (Mostly because I could send Tabitha a message saying I was 'in Hollywood' already. She was not amused.) before swinging over to Club 425 to leave some money on the stages.
I know what you're hoping for- I hooked up with a dancer through the SI app and got a quickie during a lap dance or something so this story picks up some. Truth is, there was only one girl in the whole place who had the app and I just wasn't into her (Ha!) enough to make the effort. Went back to my hotel, crashed and was back on the road by mid-morning.
Driving straight through, I stopped for the night in St Louis and, if you looked at a map when I said so, you know that it wasn't that long a drive. It was still daylight out. My original plan had been to push as far as Oklahoma City, but I changed my mind. If you've actually been reading and not just skimming looking to references to tits and ass, you know why.
Grabbed some lunch at the mall I'd dropped her off at. Panda Express is Panda Express no matter where you go and I love their orange chicken. I figured that the girlfriend she would be meeting would want someplace familiar to her to meet and any club she worked at would likely also be nearby. Used my hard-won detective skills from TV and books to logic that one out I did.
Nothing opened for a few hours, so I wandered and people-watched and jotted down a few notes here and there. Had a great chat with a six-year-old who wondered what sort of schoolwork I was stuck doing in the mall when she saw my notebook. Even nicer chat with her dad about education and not jumping to any conclusions and what the fuck was he doing letting a six-year-old wander around a mall without supervision anyway? I may not be much for kids personally and all for freedom to explore, but Judas wept man!
Sorry, off topic rant. Made even slightly less creepy (Not really. Just the opposite in fact.) with the knowledge that I was leaving the mall to go find the nearest titty bar and maybe the girl who'd been haunting my wet dreams of late.
I'd dic...procrastinated until the middle of happy hour so I could blend in with the crowd and look around a bit. I wasn't expecting it, but I also didn't want to cause a scene. Plan was- sit down, have a drink, try and get some info out of the waitress, spread some tips around as necessary and, if she wasn't here, then I'd move on to the next nearest club and so forth. I had no plan for if she WAS here. Cross that bear (Or 'Bare that crotch'?) when I get to it.
Not a bad place as strip clubs go. It was still early, so the lights weren't down low yet, nor was the music so loud as to blast the eardrums out of your head. The decor was 'strip club chic'- low stools around the main stage, tall tables scattered throughout, bar, DJ booth, and the low, comfortable chairs arranged in just a way so that you could get a private show but security could still keep an eye on you. Seven early bird customers besides myself, one already a bit too drunk and loud for the other 'before the six o'clock news on a weekday' crowd and a scattering of bored dancers waiting on the evening rush. One dancer going through the motions, not ready to put all her energy into her routine just yet. You know, the usual.
I paid my cover, got a stamp of a hobo on the back of my hand (A 'tramp' stamp for the unenlightened.) and made my way to the back wall where I could sit, observe and be out of the more energetic patrons' way. Show's out there buddy, not in my notebook. I know, I know- not usually the place to sit and scribble story ideas, but you find inspiration where you find it and the notebook is safer than paying attention to your phone when someone's trying to interest you in their boobs.
"Can I help you officer?" the waitress asked suspiciously. At least, I figured she was the waitress since she had on an apron and wore slightly more sensible sneakers than the dancer's regular heels. She was also topless and her bare breasts pushed the unnecessary rainbow suspenders hooked to her bright metallic blue booty shorts off to either side quite attractively.
"Blue Moon please. Or a Shock Top Belgian White if you've got that?"
She brought back a Blue Moon, complete with the orange slice.
"I look like a cop huh?" I asked, peeling off a twenty and waving away change.
"Sitting in the back, writing in a notebook? What do you think?"
"I think a cop would try harder to blend in personally." I peeled off another twenty and set it on the table between us. "Of course, now I'm going to make myself even more suspect by asking a question." She grabbed for the bill, but I kept my hand on it.
"Don't get grabby with most of the girls or Rocko will kick your ass," she recited, running the litany of usual questions. "Destiny will let you play with her tits during a lap dance, but otherwise keep your hands to yourself. Lap dances are a hundred, though Destiny will ask for one-twenty."
"Not what I wanted to ask, but that brings up another question- you really have a bouncer named 'Rocko'?" I gave up the bill when she jutted her chin over to a broad, squat man with rusty hair and beard. Reminded me a little of a Lord of the Rings dwarf to be honest. "Gotcha. Don't mess with Rocko from Moria." That made her smile.
"He gets a lot of that when the game conventions start up." She looked over at him and waved 'hello'. Rocko nodded back, folding his arms and glowering at me. "If you aren't a cop, then what are you?"
"Writer. I take notes on stuff I find interesting in case I want to use it later." I pushed the open notebook over so she could look at it. "People, places, scene settings, that sort of stuff."
