Twisted

The Ford Explorer rocked as it took the hump of some railroad tracks at twice the legal speed limit.

"Could we get to the tornado in one piece please?" complained Benny, from the back seats. I knew he was catching hell with the bumps, camera equipment bags have a tendency to want to bounce after all.

"Bitch, bitch, nag, nag. Has she ever not gotten us to a tornado in one piece?" said Stephanie the seat next to me.

Swearing the SUV to avoid a downed limb I stomped the gas. Ahead of us, through some trees, I could see the big black as pitch area that was hiding a rain wrapped tornado. Sorry, possible tornado. Always have to call them "possible" till you can confirm them visually. Something we can almost never do here in Alabama since all the tornadoes come with rain gift wrapping.

Another set of train tracks. Da da Bump!

"Jessica!"

"What?" I asked, not taking my eyes off the road.

"I would like to live to see ... tomorrow." In the rearview I saw him removing a tripod from his lap.

"So you became a storm chaser? Good planning there, Benny," said Stephanie, chuckling. "Nice safe occupation."

"I'll take the storms over her driving any day."

"What's wrong with her driving? Jess, nearly drove in NASCAR after all." Stephanie shot me a grin and turned to look back at our field meteorologist. "Can you say the same?"

"Well, no but this isn't Talladega and that white rain on black asphalt isn't the checker flag!"

"This tornado is not moving like it's your grandmother going for groceries!" She fired back.

I tuned them both out after that and concentrated on my driving. Not that I had to pay them any mind anyway, it was an argument I had heard a dozen times before across a dozen states. I checked my six just to be sure that the "Weather Van" was still back there, with all of its sensitive tracking gear the they had to take it a bit easier than I did. I knew the driver, Timmothy, had groaned when he saw me and Stephanie but he was no slouch when it came to vehicle handling himself. Yep, there he was. Headlights, on a road anyone else would have to be mad to be on right now.

Speaking of madness.

"Guys? GUYS! We've got damage path." That shut them up ... or maybe it was me stomping the breaks to keep from hitting a downed tree across the road. "Steph' plot me away around. There was a road we just passed, will that do?"

"Checking." She had her tablet in her lap and was whizzing through digital maps.

I hit the

hazards

to give the van coming up behind me more lights to see. Three point turning the Explorer, I drove past him and watched him do the same turn around behind me. "Steph?"

"Yeah. Take it, and then take the next right after that and you'll be on the other side of the tree." She glanced back to see if Benny wanted to continue their row but he must be busy with his laptop.

"Still tracking East/Northeast," he said after a few.

"On it."

Ahead of me I saw lightning flash, heard the rumble of the monster, and felt again that thrill-chill up my spine. The one I have loved since I was a little girl sitting on my Grana's screen porch, watching storms coming at us. Daddy and Grandpa would be out in the garage tearing down, or building back up, an engine for the next short track race. All my sisters would be huddled in the bed, scared to death, and I would be the one sitting out there watching the storm.

When the storm got too close Grana would come to the screen door and call out to the men "You two fools get in here for you get lightning struck!" then look at me and say something similar with the promise of a switching if I didn't do it fast enough.

I remember always being disappointed that I never got to see the storm arrive. Never got to see more than the first heavy drops before I would be shooed into the "safety" of the house. With their motor oil slicked hair beading water, Daddy would come into the house following his daddy--a gray haired copy of himself--and the two of them would sit at the dining table talking cars, racing, motors, and if it was the right time of year football. All the while outside the storm would be hammering the small midland Alabama farm. Watering the dry pumpkin fields, scaring our chickens and chasing the umpteen dozen farm cats into dry hidey holes. Then, when the rumbles faded, and the winds died down Daddy would walk back out on the porch to "take a look see" and I would follow.

He would pick me up and hold me in his arms, till I got too big for him to hold, and we would watch the distant lightning together. And laugh, when it popped one, not-so-distant, and scared us.

As the storm in front of me rumbled again I smiled and accelerated. Now I get to go out into the storm. And there is no promised "switchin" if I stay out in it too long. Hell, that was encouraged and I was paid for doing it. Not too well, but then I didn't do this for the money. No. With rain lashing the windshield till the wipers couldn't keep up, I was chasing after a storm that was pulling oak trees out the ground like they were twigs. There was no amount of money that was worth insanity on this level. You had to love it.

And I do.

But I hate it at the same time.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

"Three singles rooms and a single room with a king, please" My voice was drenched in fatigue poisons. They leached out from my pores like sweat. The clerk at the Super 8 Motel gave me a sympathetic smile and started the process to get us the rooms. I placed my credit card where she could get it. Behind me the TV in the lobby is turned to the news and is telling me the things I already knew. That five tornados had touched down last night across seven different counties. Damn to hell long track storms. I've been driving since lunch yesterday, with pauses only long enough for Benny to get out, double check the monitors in the back of the "Weather Van" or to make his

Live

video reports. To get on tape the damage we saw, have it ready for the morning news.

As exhausted as I was, I didn't envy Benny tonight. He would be awake for most of it, sending video and computer data files to his station, via the Motels Wi-Fi or the Van's antenna (which ever gave him the best signal strength) His camera man was already asleep in the passenger seat of the van, catching a cat nap. When the clerk passed me the room keys, and I walked back outside, I saw that so was Stephanie.

I tapped the window next to her with the card, her eyes snapped open and she rolled the window down.

"Room 221. Pull the truck around and get our stuff in. I'm going to walk over there and get us food." I pointed to the What-A-Burger across the street. "I know, no onions."

"Yeah, no onions. Almost too tired to eat." She opened the door and took the SUV's keys from me. I reached in and grabbed my phone out the cup holder while she walked around. She gave me a tired smile. "Dibs on the first shower."

"Only if you're not in it before I get back."

The Super 8 Motel was sitting on a slight hill so the walk down the parking lot pulled at my calf muscles, and then it was a short sprint across the empty road to the orange roofed burger place. I saw the normal odd mixture of people you see in a place like this at 3:40 in the morning. And like in the motel, the TV here was on the weather. I was at this point so sick of

weather

I couldn't stand it. I placed my order and went to the bathroom to take care of necessity. Thankfully my food was ready when I came back out, or I might have left without it. I was that tired of weather. Every bit of it.

Seeing so many homes turned into piles of broken wood and shattered dreams tend to do that to me.

The street was just as empty when I walked back across it. I could have danced a jig in the middle, hell you could have put on a performance of River Dance in the middle, and there not be a car. Benny was at the door of the van and I noticed the big broadcast antenna was raised. So much for Wi-Fi signals, but then with towers crumpled and power lines down in all directions across the state, that the power was even on here was a small miracle.

Stephanie was in the shower when I got back. I left the food on the table, my door key on the table, latched the hook into place and stripped. Stepping into the steamy bathroom, I opened the cheap plastic curtain just enough to slip in behind her and gave her a worn smile. She returned it and began to soap up my shoulders and breasts. I let the scalding water strike the back of my neck while she lathered up my short hair. Then stood with warm rivulets pouring across me as it rinsed clean. I could have stood in that shower for hours, but familiarity had taught me that the water had a shocking tendency in these roadside motels to change temperatures, and I was in no mood to find out if this one was like that or not.

Besides my food was getting cold.

Shutting off the shower, I took the offered towel from Steph when she stepped out and began to dry off. I dried her back for her and then stood in warm comfort enwrapped bliss as she did the same for me. Naked we both moved out the humid warmth of the bathroom to the cold chill of the room. I pulled a long, washed-to-death, T-shirt out my bag and called that good enough. I looked over my shoulder and smiled seeing that she had a mouthful of fries and was still naked trying to make a decision on what she was going to wear to sleep in. That simple combination was so her. Naked, mouth packed with food, and can't make up her mind between simple choices.

"Wear the pajama top." I told her, performing the function that made us such a good couple. I help her make simple choices she helps me made difficult ones. And tonight ... pajama over blue silk teddy was the appropriate choice. We were both too tired for a "Teddy" night.

She nodded, but looked a bit disappointed.

That look told me more than she probably ever wanted me to learn, that she needed an "itch" scratched, but didn't want to push me since she knew I was exhausted from fourteen hours behind a wheel. As we pulled the burgers out the bags and ate in comfortable silence, the TV on an HBO movie we had both seen, just playing for ambient noise, I found myself looking at her more and more. As always I had to wonder how I had earned the luck to catch a woman as beautiful as her. Not only physically, although she was stunningly beautiful ... at least to me, but mentally. She was sharp. Book smart, street smart, world wise in a way that on one under thirty had a right to be. She would always be the first one to answer a difficult question. Always ready to step up and argue a point, when I would have backed down and ignored the speaker, till the other person gave in under a logical-submission-hold of pure irrefutable facts. That was my Stephanie.

"I love you." I told her simply. She looked up at me, smiled and chewed quicker to clear her mouth of food. I waved off her words before she spoke them. "I know. Put on the teddy. We'll get some sleep and I'll wake you up with breakfast in bed."

She smiled and licked salt form her lips. "My favorite, right?"

"Anything for you."

We finished our food in that comfortable silence.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

My dreams that night were not pleasant, but then they never are when I chase. I live and relive hundreds of human tragedies in the hours between when my eyes close and when they open again. Seeing again the awesome power of Mother Nature to turn simple human lives into Greek tragedies, over and over, I never dream easy. And this night, in that motel, was no exception. I awoke, midmorning, with the sunlight hidden behind those heavy draped curtains, sure that the pillow I was holding was an injured German Shepard in my arms.

An old memory that comes back to haunt me far too often.

Looking around me, till my thoughts caught up and told me where I was, I took a few more shallow breathes then leaned back into the too hard pillows. Next to me Stephanie slept on, undisturbed by my sudden awakening. But then it would take a lot more than that to awaken her.

Especially after a day like yesterday.

Outside there was a rumble of thunder.

Sliding out the bed I walked to the window to discover that it was not the curtains keeping out the light but some pretty unimpressive Nimbostratus clouds. The rain they held promised a wet, to drenching wet, soaking for someone, but poor chances of anything for me to need to drive like mad after. Closing the curtains, grabbing up the remote I hit mute before it made a peep and flipped to the Weather Channel. Their

Local on the Eights

radar showed me the same thing the clouds outside just had. Lots of rain, nothing severe. Flipping it off, I looked back to the sprawled out angel in the middle of the hotel King-size bed. She had not even blinked when the TV had come on. My little sleeping dove, in her nest of pillows and comforter, woke for only one thing. Seeing her ass peeking out from under the edge of that blue teddy I was suddenly very glad I had asked her to put it on.

Not that I wouldn't enjoy her just as quickly in flannel, but there was always someone more sensual about her in azure silk.

I tugged my T-shirt off and crawled naked back into the bed. My eyes went to the door and I visually double checked the hook lock, just to be sure.

Settling in, with my head at her slightly parted thighs, I rubbed my face against that soft skin. Following my nose, I placed soft kisses on her inner thighs and, with a hand against her knee, opened her legs just enough for my face to reach her pussy. I nuzzled that trimmed patch of thick curls, glad as always for a woman that would listen to me when I told her that I liked her unshaved. Trimmed up yes, but not

bare

had been my preference since I developed a preference ... at about woman-in-my-bed number three ... and Stephanie was so very sexy when she was like this. Pussy like a thatched house she had once joked. To which I had answered by licking the front door of her "house" open.

As I was doing right now in fact.

Her nether lips parted under a little pressure from my tongue and I tasted her in my mouth, loving again that crisp, slightly tart, "appley" taste I had never found in another woman before her. That taste was the first major surprise in our relationship. That, and that two women thrown together in an insane "boys club" trade like storm chasing, would both be lesbians. She was so girly girl! And till that night in Montgomery, when the hotel had been full of Louisiana evacuee's fleeing hurricane Katrina, and we had shared a room for the first time. Then a bed, shower, bed again and so many other things during that insane week-long, hurricane-spawned, twister chase across five states back in 2005.

"How quickly ten years can pass when you're having fun," I thought as she moaned and opened her legs for me. When my tongue sank into her, I felt her hand move onto the back of my head holding me in place, not that I had any intentions of going anywhere. Not any time soon anyway. I was in a gourmet heaven of taste and such succulent pleasures.

"Oh, Jess ... oh, yes."

Long licks, slow licks, hard pushes inside, and my mouthful of her labia, is there any better way to start the morning. I'm sure at this moment she would argue that yeah, to be woke up with a woman doing that to you is better. But then I might agree, if the roles were reversed here, which they have been on many mornings.

Easing a finger into her, I licked around the whole of her, letting my tongue rake through those curly hairs like a gardener tending her rows.

Her pleasure moan, when I let my lips graze her clit, meant more to me at that moment than any orgasm I had ever experienced. To give her so much pleasure she begged me to stop, or to never stop, that was my goal in life now. When her hand moved to the side of my head, I felt the slick metal of her wedding ring against my ear. I wondered if she could feel my own gold band against her labia. If that metal touch gave her the same feeling of completeness her ring touching me did.

My mind tumbled through such thoughts, worries, doubts, moments of greedy pleasure and more often that the rest moments of sinfully vane pride that I was making Steph enjoy herself this much. Eating her pussy was a skill I took pride in and ...

~"Bang! Bang! Bang!"~

"Oh, for fuck sake! If that's housekeeping she's joining in." Stephanie threw her head back into the pillow pile in exasperation. "Please, please, please make them go away."

~"Bang! Bang! Bang!"~

Sitting up, I wiped my face on the sheet and grabbed my shirt from off the floor. I pulled on a pair of pants--the same ones I had worn yesterday--on my way to the door. The view through the peep hole was the last one I wanted to see. A maid I would have tolerated, I hadn't place out the do not disturb sign after all. But nope not a maid ...

... Benny.

He at least had the courtesy to not try to look past me when I cracked the door. I probably would have kicked his ass for doing that. Not that I could have blamed him if he had caught a glimpse of Stephanie spread out on our bed like a Playmate cover spread.

"Yeah?" I asked, looking at him in annoyance.

He handed me a pulpwood paper cup holder with two cups of coffee. My heart fell at that. I knew what he was going to say before he even opened his mouth.

"Confirmed in Saint Clair County." He gave an apologetic shrug. "We've got to roll."

I nodded hating the job with everything I had at the moment. "Ready in five."

"Sorry."

Not trusting myself to speak I closed the door. Behind me Steph was already up out the bed and throwing things into our bags. She stopped long enough to give me a quick kiss, to jokingly complain about my "morning pussy breath" and then disappear into the bathroom. Sitting down on the bed, I picked up my shoes with a resignation I hated. I love storms. Love seeing them at their most powerful. Always have. But this ... this insanity of a job, was both a dream and a curse.

Tossing our travel shower kit next the bags, Steph, stopped in front of me and held my head against her chest, my face pillowed between her breasts. A place of comfort, and love where I could hear her heart, beating just for me.

"I'll make it up to you tonight," she promised.

"I know."

She opened the motel room door to find Benny standing there his hand raised about to knock again. The argument between them started at that very point and continued, with brief pauses for moments of absolute terror when a tornado didn't go the direction it was shown to be going on radar, for the next seven hours.

That night I slept with restless dreams, curled up to warm flannel.