This series is a companion to my story Truth & Admiration.
My intent is not to offend, but this is a d/s lesbian romance with strong themes of nonconsent and reluctance. If that's not your bag, I understand and hope you will find another story to enjoy.
As always I hope you will enjoy the story, and that if you do you will leave a comment.
XOSNS
Night Train
Leethie's drive to El Paso had been long and hard. The hotel her mother had booked was a new glass and steel tower; soulless but clean. Her room was on the 20th floor, but she didn't even look out at the view. There was a king-sized bed, and that's all she saw. For a long time, she just lay on it, fully dressed in the brightly lit room looking at the ceiling.
She had left home at sunrise. Her mom had come out in her robe to kiss her goodbye. They stood in the driveway squeezing each other tight.
"I love you, baby," she whispered in Leethie's ear, her breath smelling strong with sleep. "Everything is going to be OK."
She had avoided the big interstates a much as she could, driving two-lane highways almost the whole way. And while she'd tried to enjoy the landscape Leethie's mind had attacked itself the whole day; for trusting Linda, for losing her job, for fantasizing about Miranda, for losing Miranda. She had tried not to think of her father's stony silence, of the hurt angry expression on Linda's wet face, of her own longings. When she had thought of those things, she found herself unconsciously speeding up - as if by going 90 she could escape the memories.
'You're going to get yourself pulled over,' she'd thought, as she caught herself doing it for the umpteenth time.
The drive took her nine hours, stopping only at gas stations for fuel and food. She stood watching old Mexican women make burritos from scratch, cooking raw tortillas at little counters next to the register while dusty cowboys bought scratchers and loosies, taking guilty looks at her chest and ass.
'Only in Texas,' she thought.
Miranda's final care package had been a small padded envelope that had arrived as she was packing up her apartment. It was filled with dry flower petals, a mixtape, and a card in Miranda's curling script. All it said was "CAN'T WAIT!"
Miranda had sent almost a dozen tapes since Leethie and her father had gotten home from the East Coast. The tapes had everything from Chris and Cosey's "Walking in Heaven" to Mr. Rogers singing "girls are fancy on the inside." Each tape seemed constructed like a story or a poem, one that Leethie was meant to decode. She had listened to very little else for the past seven months.
For the first hour or so of the drive, however, she had resisted listening to Miranda's tapes, too caught up in her guilt and regret; too afraid to think about where she was going, and why. Instead she struggled to find stations playing good songs on the radio, then to find stations playing songs, then to find stations. finally she'd given up and reached for the case holding Miranda's tapes. She'd begun cycling through them, reaching blindly for a new one each time one came to an end. By the time she reached El Paso her passenger seat was piled with tapes and their cases.
The last couple of hours she'd just played the same tape over and over. It was the first tape Miranda had made her, the one she found waiting for her in the apartment. The last song on it was "Smoke and Mirrors," by the Magnetic Fields. As she got closer to El Paso she'd started rewinding that song and replaying it, again and again. Leethie loved it so much she wanted to grind her teeth whenever it was on. She had listened to it so often for the past eight months she knew the words by heart; had memorized every shift and peculiarity of Stephin Merritt's dark bass, until he seemed to be whispering in her ear.
"Smoke and mirrors," he crooned, "special effects. A little fear, a little sex"
Laying on the giant bed all the miles of racing away from home seemed to collapse and pile up on top of her; as if her soul had been stretched all day and was now contacting with explosive force.
Leethie wept.
She didn't sob or gasp at first, but the tears slid down her cheeks and her chest shook with the pain of it all. She held her torso tight, bearing down with all her strength on her ribcage and abdomen, on her sorrow; swaddling it, holding it as still as she could while the sadness and anger writhed and clawed inside her.
"That's all love is behind the tears," Merritt explained. "Smoke and mirrors."
She looked at the ceiling through a blur of tears wondering at the pain. It felt like a thick iron bar passing through her heart.