Trial Trip

"Cheese!"

"Cheese!"

"Yogurt!"

"What?"

"What? I thought we were supposed to smile and then name our favorite dairy product?"

"Rolls eyes, Robert. Let me see the picture."

"Did you just actually say 'rolls eyes?' How lame!"

"Where are we again?"

"Knoxville. You said we should stop here."

"Well, I was wrong. How long till Memphis?"

"'Bout five hours. You want to drive?"

"Hell no! Let's go check in."

"Whoa, this picture looks like a postcard for diversity. All we need is a Swede and a kid in a wheelchair."

The three made their way from the motel parking lot with its 12-foot guitar effigy to the bathroom-sized room that served as an office. "You want to get this one?" Rob asked Will. "I got the last one."

"Sigh. I guess. We gonna let Shorty get Memphis then?" Will retorted.

"Dude, did you actually just say 'sigh?' We're six hundred miles away from your computers – enough with the internet lingo," Chandra retorted. "And I'm not short. I just slouch."

"Brb, I gotta find a bathroom."

"ROBERT!"

"Lol!"

"Lol!"

"Hello, can I help you three?"

August 12th, Knoxville, TN. The three roommates were ending the third day of their tri-state expedition, and luckily, the fun hadn't worn off yet.

"So remind me again, Shorty," Rob asked as the three were seated in the low-lit 60s-era diner later that night, "do you partake in the consumption of animal flesh, or have you snubbed that as well?"

She sighed. This was never an easy conversation. "I am indeed a vegetarian."

"Why's that again? You don't like the taste of charred animal muscle in your mouth? Or you're morally opposed to the idea of consuming other creatures?"

"You're closer on the second option. Trust me, I didn't give up eating meat because I don't like the taste of it."

"Heh heh, so she likes the taste of meat Willy boy." Rob reached over and nudged his grinning counterpart. "What was your favorite kind of meat before you became a veg head?" he pushed, humor gleaming in his eyes.

Chandra blushed slightly and a thin, quirky smile stretched across her face. "I don't know. Dark meat."

"Oh ho!" Will chortled, slapping Rob on the back. "There's hope for you yet!"

The entirety of their road trip had consisted of this innocent, back-and-forth sexual banter. The guys were embarking on their second year as roommates, and had invited Chandra, the newcomer, on the road trip as a way for the three to get to know each other better. They immediately fell into comfortable, open dialogue about their past exploits and experiences, for which Chandra was grateful. She despised the superficial innocence and sweetness expected of her with past roommates – she didn't bring home men every night, toke up in the living room or eat her boogers, but she just hadn't felt comfortable enough with the last bunch to talk freely about sex, sexual health, flatulence, or flatulence during sex. She looked forward to sharing, among playful banter, her philosophy on many previously taboo topics with these new roommates.

"Hmm, too bad she didn't say red meat, huh Will?" Rob asked, holding up his hands as though to defend an oncoming blow.

Chandra lowered her eyes to her soupy linguine. She hadn't known the roommates long enough to know just how far she could go. She'd already assessed that 'dark meat' jokes wouldn't offend Robert, but didn't dare venture into the realm of Native American jokes.

Will detected Chandra's discomfort, and shrugged his big shoulders. "I'm like a meaty candy cane. Half red meat, half white meat."

Chandra chuckled, relieved that her embarrassment hadn't compounded to make Will embarrassed for her. Intrigued, she prompted "So tell me about your family, then. As long as we're all living together, I should know who the pictures on the walls are of."

"Lame! Let's talk about sex some more," Rob said, and took a huge bite of hamburger.

"You just keep stuffing your face with that dark meat, and I'll just go ahead and ask questions about y'alls family," Chandra countered, feeling comfortable enough to let her accent slide.

Rob blinked, and Will had to lean back in his chair with the force of his laughter. He giggled surprisingly shrilly for such a large person. "You'll fit in just fine, Chan," he assured her. "Never be afraid of insulting Rob. He can dish it out, but he has to learn how to take it."

Rob slowly set down his burger, finished chewing, and said, "How dare you compare this lovely meal to a black man's penis. Only black men may compare black things to their penises. And they do not put those things in their mouths afterwards," he finished and sat back, sulking.

"What's the matter, Robert? Is that a teensy bit of homophobia I see coming out?" Chan teased.

"Only toward black johnsons. Besides, I've got enough to go around. But give me all the hot Indian you got," he said with a wink at Will. "And call me Rob."

"Don't be greedy Rob. There's plenty of me for both of you," Will countered gracefully. "So to answer your question, I've got a brother and a sister, both older, and they live with my parents in Michigan."

"And I'm assuming that one is white?"

Will rolled his eyes. "Was it the 'candy-cane' remark that gave it away?"

"So did you get questions from other people in the community about whether both your parents were Native American?" she asked.

Will's lips puckered and his eyebrows shot up in a gesture of surprise. "Yeah, actually. People hear my last name, but see my light skin and get confused. How'd you figure that?"

Chandra shrugged. "I get it too."

Both Will and Rob furrowed their brows and looked at her in silence. Enjoying their puzzlement, she pretended not to notice and took a languished bite of linguine. Halfway through chewing, she finally took note the silence and smiled. After drawing out their confusion for as long as she could, she spoke up. "People of color never seem to acknowledge that there are subsets of the white population that get identified and targeted, too."

The guys mused over that for a moment, until Rob sat up straight in his chair and blurted out " 'Chandra Stein!' You're a Jew!"

She smiled and looked back at her plate. "Half, anyway. And not the right half, as far as the Orthodox community is concerned. Not that there's a large community in Louisville, anyway."

"So does that mean you're circumcised?" Rob asked her.

"Very funny."

"See, me, people don't ever ask what I am, or what my heritage is. They see black, and that's all they need to see. It doesn't matter that my grandmother was white, because you don't see that, do you? Even brothers with light skin, no cop ever stops to think 'Hey, maybe his dad was white' before he pulls the guy over and busts him for DWB."

Will set his fork down. "You know, that's the most I've ever heard you talk about race, Rob."

"Yeah, well, I'm from the 'burbs. Blacks from the 'burbs aren't supposed to get angry, are they?"

Sensing tension where before there had only been lightheartedness, Chandra pointed her fork at Rob and said "Yeah, but y'all got big cocks, don't you?"

Slowly, a smile grew across Rob's face. He bobbed his head in agreement, grabbed his cooling hamburger, and said "You bet your Hassidic ass we do."

***

"Two pair. King high."

"Two pair. Ace high."

"Straight."

"God dammit!" Rob and Will yelled in unison. Chandra grinned and joined them in a reconciliatory shot. "We've got a card shark on the lease," Rob sputtered after downing the thimble of Bacardi.

"It's all in being able to hold one's liquor," she countered. "I believe I've matched you both shot-for-shot, and I'm the only one at this table with any chips left."

"Why couldn't we have brought a more family-suitable game on this trip, one easier to play under the influence, like checkers or...Chinese checkers?" Rob lamented.

"Because," Will said slowly, careful not to slur his words, "it's not as fun to play strip checkers."

"Oh ho! Is the next round a nudie round?" Rob's eyes lit up. "Count me in. Do you two mind if I run down the block to grab some beer first?"

"Beer? You just had six shots of Bacardi!"

"Oh come on, don't fear a little bite of the Beast."

"You're seriously going to pause our game to buy that piss water, Milwaukee's Best? Dude, how far will your misguided allegiance to that industrial wasteland of a city go?"

"Hey, it's my alma mater. And besides, if you get the Beast Ice, it's got a whopping six percent alcohol! Now who's in?"

"I'll stick with the Captain, thank you very much," Chandra said.

"That's Bacardi you're drinking, babushka. Sounds like it's starting to kick in, too." And with that, Rob grabbed his wallet and left.

Chandra and Will mused in the silence that ensued. Will was the first to break it by gathering the cards in a pile and shuffling them. "I don't think he realizes that the liquor store we stopped at earlier is more than just a block away."

"Good, that'll give me a chance to pee," Chandra replied, and sprinted to the bathroom.

When she returned, she saw that Will had moved to the window, and was studying the illuminated concrete guitar in the parking lot below. "You're more thoughtful than you let on," he said with his back to her.

She moved to stand next to him. Her head came up to his shoulders, but something in his stance made her feel at ease, and not at all overshadowed. "I wasn't counting the cards, if that's what you're implying."

"No...during our conversation at the restaurant, it was pretty clear to me that you've given the topic of race a lot of thought."

Chandra took a deep breath, and tried to steady herself against the windowsill without her tipsiness becoming apparent. "All you have to do is put yourself in someone else's position to realize that there's more to the world than just yourself." She took her time and chose her words carefully. "I've had it pretty easy, I guess, being white. I can be quiet and fit in one day, and adamantly proclaim myself a victimized minority the next. But not everyone can hide behind the mask of white privilege."

Her eyes traced the gaudiness of the scene in the parking lot below her, taking note of the pink and green neon light reflected in the windows of cars parked around it, until she realized silence was hanging in the room. Worrying that she had just overstepped her bounds, she glanced up at Will, who had turned and was staring her in the face. His brown eyes bored into hers with an intensity that made her heart jump nervously. He really was quite handsome – did he know that? Chandra hoped she hadn't drunk her senses under the table.

The staring match continued. Not wanting to be the one to break the gaze, Chandra blinked and watched his eyes watching hers. She wondered what was up.

"You really are quite pretty," he said to her after a solid minute of silence. Taken aback, she opened her mouth to reply, though she had nothing to say. Acting on her immobility, Will took her face in his hands and leaned down to kiss her.

Chandra was frozen. His lips were warm and full and gentle, and his hands held her head in place as the moment in time stretched like a diver suspended in the air over a sea-green pool. With his next breath, he moved one hand behind her head to push her more forcefully into his delicious mouth, and the other slid down her spine to the small of her back, exposed by her rumpled shirt, and he pressed her into his jean-clad hips.

Chandra's mind dissolved. He was taller, but bent his body to match hers. The pressure on her lips and hips thrilled her, and without thinking, she pressed her torso into him and uttered something low and guttural in the back of her throat.

In an instant, though, her heart raced to catch up, and with a quick draw of breath, she withdrew from his body, uttering a more purposeful moan of surprise and protest. His hands remained gentle yet held her in an iron grasp. She reached her hands to his shoulders to try to push a couple inches between their mouths, but the moment she shifted her attention, he bent his torso and stepped forward, sending her helplessly backwards into the wall where he pressed his body and mouth into hers, sending up another unconscious moan from deep within her throat.

Her entire body had, within a few moments, grown astonishingly more sensitive. Her lips relished in Will's full, relentless kiss. Her jaw and teeth registered the intense pressure of his face meshing with hers. The small of her back tingled and grew warm with his strong hand's presence. An intense flutter in her belly grew into a fiery ball and stretched from her groin into her chest. And her breasts – her breasts grew so sensitive. She wanted him to reach for them, to squeeze them in his large hands, to pinch them. And as though he could read her mind, his hand followed the pulsing of her hips – when did she start pulsing her hips? – and moved to her belly, sliding up her rumpled shirt an inch at a time as his lips drove into hers and his hips began undulating to her rhythm. She wanted him to close her hand around her breast, to knead it and pinch it and –

Her eyes flew open, and she realized that she was passionately embracing...her future roommate. With a strength that surprised him, she shoved at his shoulders, hard and fast enough to throw him off balance. He stumbled backwards, but slid his hands along her arms until they reached her wrists, and then he yanked. She flew at him, the strength of his tug pulling him back to his feet, and she hit his chest hard. Not missing a beat, he grabbed her shoulders, held her strong and fell, with her underneath him, onto the nearest bed.