The Next Ride

It was a small regional airport, slightly elevated in the valley. From there, you could see the cluster of buildings that formed the town lying below, surrounded by dried-out fields and patches of sullen-green forest. The valley was closed off on all sides by tall, barren mountains that showed their grey skin of stone in summer and were covered in a thick sheet of snow in winter.

It was past midday. The sun was a cold, faraway circle in the sky, and it hadn't been able to warm the air all day. There was a sad, desperate note in the sense of stagnation that permeated the landscape. It was a note that had been ringing out in vain since the first settlers decided they could trudge no further in their march West.

The airport was mostly used for refuelling. I could see no real sense for it, otherwise. The region was carved up into large farms, owned and tended to by people who saw no reason to leave, even for a brief holiday. And tourists rarely ventured into this side of the country, preferring better served slopes for their winter holidays.

When business was slow, the boss would point to half a dozen of similar places on the map. The towns were so small the name was rarely printed.

He would then give me a look:

'Maybe you can move a couple of tractors.'

I would give him a look too.

'So help me God.'

I was the guy who could move a couple of tractors in small forgotten towns when business was slow. I had made a name for myself as that guy, and I think they liked to send me on these trips to see if I could do it once again. To amuse themselves.

Yes, I had been able to get some orders this time around too, and I knew that by the time I visited all the other towns and reached the end of my trip, I would have enough to walk back into the office with a smirk on my face: see, I told you I could do it.

It was not hard work: you just had to hit the bars and strike up a conversation over a beer. People soon told you whose machine had broken down, and the next day you showed up at their doorstep with a catalogue.

It was not hard work, just tedious.

The taxi had driven me out of town and to the airport.

The driver had talked all the way, going over his worries for a daughter who could not find employment and a wife who was addicted to gambling, and finally dropped me a good minute away from the airport entrance.

'It's hard to U-turn, if I go all the way. Do you mind if I drop you off here, boss?'

I felt no need to tell him that was not my concern, that he should drive me all the effing way. I would have done that back at home, or somewhere else, I was happy to let this guy go back to his unemployed daughter moping about the house with nothing to do, and to his wife who snuck in at the crack of dawn, red rims circling her eyes and a mouth that smelled of bad teeth and stale beer, with a panicked face for the losses of the night before.

The air was cold. From the mountains came a wind that hit you like a thousand needles. It came down from the mountains and had nowhere to go: it stayed in the valley and swirled around, making you permanently cold. So much for summer, I thought. The West Coast was in the grip of a heat wave, and I knew that I would soon be complaining about the heat instead of the cold.

I felt morose, and I was glad I didn't have to talk to anyone for the next few hours.

I noticed a woman, resting against a large suitcase, right outside the airport main door. I noticed that, despite the cold, she was wearing open-toe shoes and a t-shirt.

You get bored as you go from town to town, and the sight of a pretty face is a well-known tonic. I gave her a quick glance to see what I was dealing with.

I stopped, frozen. I recognised her immediately and knew exactly who this woman was.

She was a brunette, with a long mane of thick hair. Even if she was leaning against her suitcase, you could tell she was a tall woman. She had the athletic body, with big bones and long limbs, typical of the Danes migrants you often see toiling the ground in the Mid-West. She had an oval face with the rather large and aquiline nose of the Mediterranean. Her eyes were long, almost Oriental, and reminded you ancient frescoes of lost civilisations. She had a striking look that made you pause to make sense of these various traits: even in the American Melting Pot, this mixture of Nordic and Southern seemed unusual.

The woman was staring into the distance, but I was sure she had a sense that I was watching her.

I couldn't help myself:

'You are Mystica Black?'

As I spoke, I regretted it. Maybe she didn't want to be disturbed: who knew how many people harassed her with the same question. Maybe she didn't want to be recognised with that name. After all, it must have been a good decade ago; maybe it was all behind her.

She turned her long neck and widened her eyes.

'Why? Yes. You know me?'

I said I did; of course, I did.

She seemed surprised and pleased at the same time. She raised a hand, and she stretched it out to me to shake. It was cold. I noticed the long, strong fingers. The nails were not varnished but were long and buffed.

'Nice to meet you,' she said. Then, after a pause that I couldn't fill, she said, 'You know my name, but I don't know yours.' Her voice was deep and smooth, and she spoke with calm, almost enunciating each word for clarity.

'Yes. Of course,' I said. 'I'm Sandy.'

I was plagued with a female name. Kids in school made fun of it; colleagues at work, even after years, would bring it up; strangers would be amused by it when they heard it. Even my wife, would tease me about it.

Mystica just smiled and very politely told me it was a pleasure to meet me.

Another pause.

I glanced at the large suitcase, a scuffed piece that once was dark red.

'Are you waiting for a ride?' I asked.

'I have time.'

'Would you like to get a coffee together, it's so cold out here?' I said, once again regretting of having spoken.

What was I doing here, asking this woman for a coffee? My profession had taught me to be friendly with everyone: I would talk to my customers about the crops; I would enquire with their wives about that herb I could not place in their roast and listen to all their gossiping; I would even chat to the kids when I was invited to their houses for meals. But I was not the type to get friendly with a woman outside the boundaries of business.

Once again, she seemed at ease with my discomfort.

'Of course, Sandy,' she said.

Her deep voice was soothing and warm.

She stood up, and I saw she was taller than me by a good ten inches. She looked broader than a normal person, and more imposing. It was strange seeing her in real life: the proportions of her body and the shape of her face seemed slightly different to the way I had imagined, as if I had been looking at her through an imperfect lens. I tried to take her figure in, in full, without seeming to be staring impolitely. And my heart was beating fast, which made it hard to think clearly, or act without awkwardness.

We walked into the airport and looked for a place to order our drinks.

'So, what do you do, Sandy?' she asked.

'I'm -- ' I stuttered. I was reluctant to tell her too much of myself. Part of me was intrigued, obviously attracted to this woman, but part of me was weary of who she was. If she knew too much, I felt I was compromising myself.

'I'm a salesman,' I said, finally.

She smiled. She was calm and polite. And so beautiful.

Boom -- Boom - Boom! My heart kept pounding.

It was hard to think straight. Even though she was merely reacting to what I was saying and was in no way trying to guide the conversation, I was not in control of the situation: she seemed to be a magnet that, without any effort, can drag about all the metal objects within its range.

We sat down, and I nervously drank my coffee in one quick gulp, scorching my tongue. She smiled even wider, revealing a wide row of white teeth.

'Do you live here?' I asked.

'No,' she replied with a little snort, that made me think she found it odd anyone could associate her with a place like this.

'So, Sandy. Why are you in town?'

Despite myself, I told her everything: I was a salesman, many years on the job, never a promotion, but nothing to complain about. I sold machinery for agriculture. The cheaper kind. Easier to move. I was in town to sell what I could.

'Then, what?'

'Then a few more places like this. And then, back home,' I said, trying the burnt surface of my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

'Home?' she asked, like it was a foreign word.

'Yes, I have -- a wife,' I said. I was almost ashamed of the fact. I couldn't explain why I struggled to get the word out of my mouth. After all, there was no possibility that this conversation could extend much further. I had my flight. She had her own affairs...

'Is she nice?'

'Very. We have two children.'

I showed her the pictures. I spied her as she looked at the pictures I dutifully produced.

I knew nothing of her life, but I had the sense that she was peering into a type of existence that was unfamiliar to her. She gently ran the edge of a fingernail on the features of the two boys on the screen, as if to caress them and then to take them in.

As she did so, I closed my eyes a moment, breathing in her perfume of white flowers and feeling a tingling sensation running through my body, as if she was touching me and not the laminated picture in my hand.

'They look so sweet.'

She looked genuinely interested. I told her some anecdotes, silly stories all parents carry with them and are able to recite almost at command. The odd comment a child would make that would reduce adults to tears of laughter, the sweet expression they would make when you brought a puppy home, the tales of the long nights when they were young.

Her eyes looked intently at the pictures, trying to place the various characters in each story I told her.

I was lost in thought too. I was thinking about her, Mystica Black.

She was an adult actress. I knew about her. In fact, I had seen many of the scenes she had been in. I could picture her naked body underneath her clothes. Her shoulders, her breasts, her areolas and the nipples, her beautiful ass, her strong, long legs...

And here she was, looking at my family pictures.

I pictured her naked, her pink body moving against the darker, firmer skin of a man. I thought of her mouth open, her eyes rolled up, her moaning.

Boom -- Boom - Boom!

She was not what you would call a naturalistic actress: her pleasure, as portrayed on the screen, was not believable. It was always exaggerated, almost comical. She would silently mouth 'Oh, my God!', while rolling up her eyes, as she went up and down on her partner.

Even her body was not perfect. Many other women in her profession were more well-proportioned, and their features were more conventionally beautiful, with the small pouty mouths, the big blue eyes, the petite frames and the small round hips. Their skin was smooth and flawless.

Mystica seemed at times too big for her partners. Her breasts too small for her tall frame, while her ass too big.

And yet, she was very alluring.

There was something very human about her imperfections. The silicon could have made her breasts bigger. The scalpel could have made her nose smaller. But she had resisted all this, while almost all her colleagues had slowly become almost too perfect, and almost too identical to one another.

Many times, I had found myself alone in a hotel room, trying to relieve the stress of the day, jumping from video to video on my computer, trying to find something that would excite me. It was easy enough to find beautiful women. It was easy enough to find them doing things I liked. And yet, it was not easy to find someone who could really get my blood going.

I I would start a video, jump forward, then move on to the next one, bored.

Finally, I would go back to Mystica.

With her, it would almost get the opposite reaction: I would have to pause so that I wouldn't come too soon, so I could watch her engage in a new position, and the watch more and more. As I delayed my gratification, I felt more and more drawn in by her: she was one of the few who could never do any wrong. Every new image brought nothing but more joy.

I was talking incessantly now, trying to cover my insecurity. Mystica was listening politely. She reminded me of a cat, perched on a shelf, observing the scene. You couldn't fathom what was really in her mind, and yet she was there, available.

There were not many people around. It was a small airport after all, but I could hear the speakers announcing the various flights. How long did I have? Was it another few hours, or was it minutes? I couldn't remember what time my flight was, but I could not hold that future worry in my mind. Every time I looked at Mystica, I would be pulled back into the present conversation.

Her light makeup highlighted the long lines of the eyes, which gave her that look that reminded me of an ancient idol. Every time I lifted my eyes to look at her, I saw she was looking at me, and our eyes met. My heart would beat even faster, and I would get all confused, and I would forget what I was talking about.

Rather than laugh at my clumsiness, she just waited until I composed myself and I could speak once again.

There was something absurd about her. She looked so remarkable, with her statuesque body and her calm manners, as if she was sitting in the comfort of her home talking to an old friend, rather than in a small, grey airport in the middle of nowhere. She was polite to the point of aloofness, and yet she came across as warm and engaged. I couldn't tell whether she was engaged in the conversation or merely pretending. Was it her profession that had taught her to act this way? Was she acting with me?

Behind us, travellers were ordering sandwiches, drinks, then rushing to their flight.

Then, out of the blue, she asked me, 'Would you like to spend an extra night in town before you go to your next destination?'

I had cynically thought that this was the reason for her interest in me: I had heard before that adult performers would also moonlight as sex workers, escorts, prostitutes.

I rushed to say, 'I have no money, you know?'

Mystica laughed and held my hand. It was a sad, disillusioned laugh because she had guessed what was on my mind, and what I thought she did, and what she was after.

'So, do you?' she asked again.

'Well -- '

If it wasn't money she was after, then what?

'Yes,' I said, finding no other possible objection.

I could have told her I was married. I could have told her I had to catch my flight to reach the next town to find more desperate farmers looking for a cheap tractor. I could have told her many things. I just couldn't think of them at the time: nothing seemed plausible. Or relevant.

The cold air hit me in the face.

We walked out of the airport, pulling our suitcases behind us.

Mystica looked around.

'Taxis don't come all the way here. They can't U-turn,' I explained. 'We should walk to the road there.'

I felt proud, walking in the company of a woman so beautiful, knowing she was trustingly following, not doubting me for a second.

The taxi brought us back to my hotel. It was the only hotel in town.

The man behind the desk looked at me. Then at Mystica. Had I forgotten anything? Had I changed my mind and I wanted to stay a bit longer? Was this woman with me?

I asked for an extra night, spying Mystica to see if she demanded longer. As usual, she seemed calm, as if whatever was going on around her didn't really concern her.

We walked to the lift, onto the seventh floor, along the corridor. The carpet under our feet was orange with grey stripes. It made our steps soundless. Our images were reproduced in tones of dark brown in a long row of poorly lit mirrors on the wall.

We arrived at the door.

Now what? I thought.

I raised my card-key and paused before sliding it into the reader.

'You know I don't --?'

I wanted to say, I don't have money. I can't pay you for whatever you might have in mind to offer. Or if your intention is to rob me, I have nothing on me. But I paused. What if this was not what she was after. What if she gave me again that sad, heartbreaking laughter?

She smiled and put her hand on mine. With her gentle pressure, the card went down, and the little light on the lock turned green. I heard the click of the latch inside the frame, like the curtain rising on a play.

The door was open.

I never thought of myself as a good-looking man. I practically stumbled my way into a marriage. Physical attraction was not the main driver behind that event. In fact, it had happened despite a total lack of it: it was a practical arrangement, although not devoid of love and trust.

We both could depend on each other, and this stability was a reason to keep things going. A sort of perpetual motion that nothing could disturb or stop.

But now I was here, in a hotel room, trembling and excited, not knowing what would happen next, unable to think of what was waiting for me back at home.

The door behind me closed with a gentle woosh and a click. I turned around. Mystica had come up to me. Her face was close to mine. Her big eyes were staring into mine. She smiled quizzically, and I knew she was wondering, why wasn't I smiling?

My heart was pounding in my chest. I was only aware of how beautiful she was, and how much I desired her.

Boom -- Boom - Boom!

Then her expression softened a little. She ran her hand along my cheek, reassuring me: You know who I am. You know how nice I can be. You have known me for a long time, and now I'm here. I'm not a stranger, and you have nothing to fear.

Instead, she just said, 'I'm going to freshen up. Wait for me, will you?'

She disappeared into the bathroom.

I sat on the bed, not quite understanding what was happening and why it was happening so fast. I was thankful for this pause in the conversation, for this gap in her presence: having her near me was intoxicating.

If it was true that she accepted I was penniless, that she didn't want to take my money, what was she after?

I thought it over, and all these stories came up, and nothing added up. Then, I realised that she had listened to me blabbing since we had met, and she hadn't told me anything about her.

Mystica Black... Who was she, really?

I had the vague notion that she wasn't from there. I knew she had done many porn movies -- it must have been now ten, maybe fifteen years ago. Hadn't I notice that she had aged?

But what else?

I heard the sound of the water in the shower abruptly stopping. She must have undressed and washed: I had been lost in thoughts that meandered and went nowhere like rings of smoke, coiling one into another, disappearing and reappearing in different form, and I hadn't paid attention to what was happening in the next room.

Then, the sound of the bathroom door open jerked me out of my stupor. My thoughts quickly evaporated, and I couldn't remember what it was it I had been trying to figure out while she was away. What was it? It seemed so important.

Then, I saw her. I inhaled, and I found that I was calmer. I was shocked to realise that I was calm because she felt like a part of my life.

I watched her, as she slowly walked towards me. A sense of joy rose inside me. I felt present to the situation: I was no longer stuck in my own head, trying to wrangle fears I couldn't name. I felt no fear, no sense that there was a yesterday haunting me or a tomorrow to be afraid of. The World outside that rented bedroom didn't exist, and, like Mystica, I had no past, and I had plenty of time for the future to come my way.

It was just me and her.

She was naked.