"Just a few more minutes and maybe I can get there," Kat muttered to herself. But tonight would be like the previous two nights. She had Bert flat on his back on the Fort Stockton, Texas, motel bed, and she was riding his cock as he just lay there. Light filtering in through the inadequate curtains from the headlights of passing cars sent the silhouette of her rotating body swirling around the bare walls of the room. But just like the previous night and the night before that, Bert came in three jerks and a satisfied little "Ooof." He pushed her off of him and spooned her into his body in a possessive bear hug, told her he'd been "oh so" good to her, and promptly went into a snoring sleep with his hand on one of her tits.
She'd picked Bert up in Kerrville because he'd come on to her when she stopped in a diner there on her way from San Antonio to what she hoped was a new life in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She supposed that most women couldn't have been seduced by raunchy talk about how big her hips and butt and tits were, but Kat took what compliments she could where she could find them—it wasn't often that these attributes were cited as come-ons. And Bert hadn't lied to her about how big his cock was. She certainly hadn't rejected the idea of hot nights in the sack while she was traveling up highway 285, and, as an added benefit, Bert looked like he might help keep her barely chugging Malibu together until she could get to Santa Fe.
Just her luck, Kat thought, as she lay there in the dark in the Fort Stockton motel, listening to Bert snoring, watching the lights from passing cars play across the walls and ceiling of the room, rubbing her clit to her own half-satisfied conclusion, and feeling very sorry for herself. This was the way her life was going—nothing going right and no full satisfaction. She didn't even know why she was going to Santa Fe. No one expected her there, and she had only half-baked ideas of what she would do there—or why she even was headed there. But then there had been no one to see her off in San Antonio, either. No one to regret her absence or to weep at her departure.
One thing she knew as she laid there, still tense, still wanting something Bert hadn't given her. Bert would be history as soon as she could be rid of him. Having a big cock did her no good if he wasn't interested in giving her satisfaction with it.
By the next afternoon they'd reached just south of Carlsbad, New Mexico, and the Malibu needed gas. The Malibu needed much more help than gas, but that's all Kat was going to give it until it actually broke down. She planned on ditching it as soon as she got to Santa Fe and buying herself a nice little Miata convertible. She'd put entirely too much money into the old Malibu already.
She pulled off 285 at a filling station with a convenience store. As she rolled up to the pumps, a Greyhound bus pulled over to the side of the store and several people got off and went into the store. She handed Bert a credit card and asked him to pump the gas while she went in and bought some cold Cokes for the dry run up the road. She hoped to make it to Artesia before dark. Bert grumbled at her, but she ignored him. They'd been borderline fighting all the way up from Fort Stockton, and she was just about at her breaking point. It mattered not that he was too. If he couldn't pump her right, he could at least pump gas in the car for her.
As she was coming to the register with the Cokes, two of young women who'd come off the bus were there. While one was putting her purchases down on the counter and waiting for the cashier to get off the phone with her boyfriend, the other one was picking a tabloid magazine off the rack in front of the counter.
"Oh, look at this, Massie. This story's about Roswell, just up the road from here."
"Roswell," the other one said. "Ain't that the place famous for the space ship sightings fifty years ago?"
"Yeah, and this article goes along with that. Look here. The headline says 'Escaped from Alien Breeding.' Some woman claimed she was abducted and raped by an alien outside Roswell and that she was carrying its baby. She got an abortion, though."
"Of course she got rid of it before anyone could check her story out. No limit to what they will put in these rags, is there?" Massie said with a giggle. "Just a load of crap."
"Yeah, right," the other young woman agreed. But her laugh wasn't quite as genuine, and when she put the tabloid down, she put it on the counter to buy, not back in the rack.
The cashier got another call while Kat was checking out—and, of course, gave that call priority—so it was a few minutes before Kat got out of the store. The Greyhound bus was gone—or at least chugging up the road toward Roswell.
And Bert was gone too. The gas nozzle was still hanging out of the Malibu's tank—having finished filling the car—and when Kat looked into the backseat, she saw that Bert's duffel bag was gone as well. Kat set her gaze on the back of the disappearing bus and thought, "Good riddance." But then it hit her that Bert and his duffel weren't the only things gone. Her credit card was gone too. So what she actually said out loud was "Oh, Shit. Fuckin' bastard." And then she turned and trudged back into the convenience store in search of a telephone so she could cancel her card.
"Not only isn't this my day," she muttered. "This isn't even my life."
Worse, the Malibu choked up and died just short of Artesia when she was stopping at a diner next to a service station for dinner. The only saving grace was that the service station was there and still open and the mechanic owner was still on duty.
When the Malibu died, she got out of it and gave it a good kick. Then she practically melted in embarrassment, because not thirty feet from her, leaning up against a new, gleaming Lincoln Town Car, was the hunkiest man she'd ever seen. Dark, curly hair, a well-worked build of someone who could model clothes for Abercrombie & Fitch, and a handsome face—wearing a little smile at the moment. At her expense, probably.
"Having car trouble?" he asked. The smile remained on his face and looked more friendly and sympathetic now that she thought about it.
"Yes. If I had a gun, I'd shoot it," Kat answered. "Just my luck. I was going to ditch it, but not before it got me to Santa Fe."
"Got folks in Santa Fe?" he asked.
"Not in Santa Fe or anywhere else," Kat answered in an exasperated voice, and then she just sort of collapsed against the fender of her car. "Oh, shit," she said.
"That about covers it, I'd say," the hunky stranger said. But the smile and voice were still sympathetic. "Why don't you try the service station? I think it's still open."
"Thanks," Kat answered. But she didn't move.
"And I'd be happy to stay around until you find out what can be done and to give you a lift if the car can't be saved. I'm on my way to Santa Fe too. Delivering this car to some rich guy up there."
Kat's day was suddenly looking up. A ride into Santa Fe in a luxury car with a luxury hunk. What could be better than that?
The service station owner looked the Malibu over and said he could fix it, given time and delivery of parts, but if she wanted to just junk it, he'd pay her $250 for it.
Kat had already made up her mind, but she was on a roll in the late afternoon, so she countered with, "It's more than half full of gas."
"OK," the station owner said, with a little laugh. "Let's say $260 then."
Another hour and Kat was luxuriating in the leather seat of the Town Car and gliding up the road in the gathering gloom. There had been one moment when Cliff seemed to flash a bit of pique—when Kat set her suitcase down by the trunk of the Town Car—but he recovered quickly and said that they weren't to use the trunk and she could put her case in the backseat with his. After this, though, Cliff was as charming and easy to talk to as he could be. And he threw in a little flirting that got Kat's juices going, although she was sure that he was just being polite.
But maybe not.
Cliff suggested they stop at the lone motel in Hagerman, saying that the annual Pecos Valley Horse Show very likely would have all of the accommodations booked in Roswell, and that it was getting late anyway.
"You're just about in luck," the motel clerk said. "We just have one room left. But the way it's going, that might not be available in ten more minutes."
"Umm, we really would need two rooms," Cliff was saying.
"We'll take it," Kat interjected.
"Well, OK, I guess one room is better than none," Cliff said, with an engaging smile. "But I'll sleep out in the Town Car."
"I wouldn't hear of it. We'll share the room," Kat said. But then she blushed and stammered. "I . . . I . . . mean I'm sure we can make some arrangements. I'm sure even the floor would be more comfortable for you than the backseat of the Lincoln."
Cliff smiled a little enigmatic smile at her. It was a smile that Kat thought could earn him a couple of million dollars in the movies—and that would work on any woman he used it on, if that's what he wanted. It certainly worked with her.
After bringing their suitcases into the motel room, Cliff went back to the car. Kat caught a glimpse of him back at the trunk of the car, and she thought he was unlatching it, but then she thought this wasn't any of her business—that she was probably unfulfilled partially because she didn't just accept what came her way. Cliff was all smiles when he returned and wondering if they would be able to find any decent wine in this town.