The big Ford's engine rumbled sweetly, almost effortlessly pushing the SVU along at a needle-flick below the regulation 55. The air it was carving through was still hot; hot, dry and dusty - though it would be much colder, bitingly so, before this journey was done. But what air there was inside not only had a faint, acrid tang of something mixed with an odd body odour, but was even hotter.
The man; tall, well-built and craggily good-looking, hummed and chatted to himself - and to the vehicle, though from what he said it would have been difficult to sometimes know which was which.
'Well old friend, here we go again - that special trip. Let's hope that this year is as good as the last. That really was something, wasn't it! Truly a trip to remember!' he added with a deep throated chuckle.
Even as his eyes continued scanning the all but empty road before, after and all around him his mind was replaying some of the people and events that had made it so good. The images were as sharp, the voices as clear, and the sensation of the pleasures he'd felt were just as intense as they had been that previous Halloween.
The fact that on this one night of the year people of all ages seemed to set out to play the fool made his life so much easier - though occasionally he admitted the lack of challenge took a little of the edge off the overall excitement. But, he also admitted, that was more than adequately compensated for by the numbers who, on this particular night, seemed all too eager to make themselves available.
The first had been those two muddy blondes who had almost fallen over themselves to bet him that he couldn't fuck the pair of them to a standstill. The look of exhausted amazement on their faces a mere hour or so later proved he'd certainly done that - then of course he took them. Then there was that boy - although he'd protested that he was well over the minimum age limit, he doubted it, but what the hell, he was begging for it, so he gave it - then he took him too.
But the highlight had been that party, and even twelve months later - and after many, many other truly memorable events - he admitted that although it had meant coping with the viciousness of the cold night air, even allowing for that, it had been one well worth remembering.
He'd met the woman in a bar a short way down the street from the one in which he'd met the boy, just a bar he'd picked at random from the others in the area. Even when he'd first walked in from the cold his senses had prickled, alerting him that there was someone special there. Then, because the place was so crowded it had taken him a little longer than usual to find her, but once he had, he moved in. He felt quite sure that many men would have found her attractive; not too tall, neither too skinny nor fat, and with large, soft brown eyes that gleamed with a hint of unspoken promises. But it was the inner characteristics that he'd sensed; unlike the earlier three she had honestly, integrity and, in these times that all too rarely found human quality, pure unalloyed goodness.
Even he, no respecter of the usual niceties, had decided she was not a woman to be taken in dark corners or out the back, in the alley. He'd known she would be so much more cooperatively responsive when taken in more appropriate surroundings, and, he'd anticipated, the effect of the final outcome all the more satisfyingly remarkable. So, using every single tool in his considerable armoury of charms, and recalling the techniques he'd often needed to use in more distant times and places, he'd wooed her; gently, patiently, unobtrusively infiltrating her none too strong line of personal defences.
Some time later she'd mentioned the party, and the yearningly inviting look she gave him as she suggested he might like to go on there with her told him that he had already won her. So, although it meant braving the outside chill again, and without any thought as to what other goodies he might also find there, he'd accepted.
It was at least an hour before the witching time when they'd arrived at a large, clearly affluent house somewhere in a suburb crammed with a host of similar houses, many of which were also filled with noisy swarms of partygoers. Even as she'd led him through to meet the host and hostess he'd known there were many pairs of eyes turning to follow him - and again he'd felt his senses prickling, alerting him to which might prove to be vulnerable to his particular attributes.