* * * * *
Author's Note: All Characters Depicted Herein Are 18 Years Of Age Or Older.
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The Lust Days
"Are you sure this heap of junk can't go any faster?" Daphne asked. "I'm like, feeling myself die by the second in here."
Jerry struggled not to let out a long, shuddering sigh. This road trip was not going as planned.
The plan, he reflected stolidly, staring out across the open wilderness of the Ozarks, was to take his girlfriend Alexis and himself to a small, intimate cabin and enjoy one another's presence.
Be alone. Be comfortable. Maybe have sex that was more romantic and heated than the awkward, fumbling administrations they had managed so far in the back of his car or the upstairs of her parent's house. Such were the payments for banging a girl so much younger than him.
But then Daphne, Alexis's roommate, had caught wind of the trip.
She
had never
been
to the Ozarks before! Wouldn't it be just so fun, so
quaint
to check out like, all those uber-old rustic cabins and shit?
Daphne had what might be termed a "forceful personality." She was forceful, and she personally made sure you knew about it. She brought her friend, Nadine, along; a painfully shy, overweight young blond who was majoring in physics at the local university.
Jerry had known Daphne only through a few get-togethers, and Nadine not at all. All the same, it was easy to see after only five minutes that Nadine shadowed Daphne because the poor girl was terrified of
not
being Daphne's friend; Daphne, of course, abused this position terribly and treated Nadine mostly like a verbal punching bag, constantly making cracks about her weight, her shyness, her chronic stress-eating, or the thick waves of acne riding on her neck and shoulders.
"We're going as fast as we should," said Jerry. "There's a lot of cops on these roads. They like to hide out in the outcroppings, and--"
"I think we're going as fast as you
can
," said Daphne, "in this piece of junk. I thought you were a mechanic?"
"He is a very
good
mechanic," said Alexis, her hand coming down on Jerry's thigh. "And he doesn't need your criticism."
Alexis nodded at him sagely, self-affirmed in the fact that she had solved the dispute for her boyfriend. This, of course, only made Jerry feel more out of sorts. He didn't want his girlfriend solving problems for him; he was perfectly capable of defending himself.
"Is it much longer, though?" asked Nadine, in the backseat with Daphne. "I kind of have to pee."
Daphne rolled her eyes. "You just went, didn't you?"
"Like two hours ago?" Nadine's voice became small; she had not needed to phrase that as a question.
Most of how Nadine presented herself was as an apology. Her sentences were questions, questioning indeed whether they had a right to exist as verbiage at all. Her form--some fifty pounds overweight for a girl of her height--was covered from head to toe in thick layers of clothing--a shirt underneath a sweater underneath a hoodie underneath a larger coat, and so on and on, every part of her feeling sorry she was there. It was not cold outside. Her glasses were thick and dark, the lenses dense as bulletproof glass.
"It's another few hours, Nadine," said Jerry, feeling sorry for the girl. "We can make a stop soon, though. There should be a gas station up ahead."
Alexis patted him on the thigh, appreciative.
That's mostly how Alexis was--appreciative. Respectful. Cordial, even. Sometimes friendly.
But loving? Gracious? Kind? Complimentary? These never seemed to pop into her head, or if they did, they did not happen to Jerry's benefit.
He had little doubt that she was within about three weeks of breaking up with him. She didn't very much seem to enjoy having him around. Alexis was a graduate student in Victorian literature, and she resembled some of the women in those stories: withdrawn, cold, sticking her nose in other people's business.
Their sexual exploits had been unenthusiastic on her part; he was beginning to suspect she was actually frigid (as in, medically so), and that their sex only happened to keep him from complaining while she was able to have a man around.
Alexis was lovely, though. One trait she shared in common with her roommate. They were both rather attractive, though for entirely different reasons. Alexis was like a hot librarian--high cheekbones, cool exterior, dark hair perennially drawn up in a bun, her waifish form usually covered up in a series of smart stockings, sweaters, short skirts, and suit jackets.
Daphne, on the other hand, tried to advertise herself as the vibrant type--blond, cheerleadery (though she hadn't participated in any athletics since she was twelve, and her favorite form of exercise was starving), and painfully, aggressively thin. She was the sort of overdone blonde who had felt good for a week when she fit into a size four at the age of seventeen and now, six years and two failed attempts at college later, still doggedly starved herself to fit into that same dress and relive those same glory days. But the years of malnutrition had taken their toll, and though Daphne still had lovely features, they were dragged down by the acres of make-up used to cover up the sunken circles beneath her eyes, the yellowish tint to her skin, and the slow browning of her teeth from all her purging.
She was the kind of girl who was unbelievable on a club dance floor and unbearable during an intimate dinner date. She made up for her fear of people not liking her by aggressively not liking them first.
"Shouldn't mechanics have like,
nice
cars?" Daphne asked. "I mean I don't know anything about cars, and mine is way, way nicer than this."
Jerry held in his strangled, exasperated cry.
You didn't have to come! You could be disliked at home instead of here!
"This car is a classic," said Alexis. "Right, man?"
"Man" was her pet name for him. She was warmth personified, his girlfriend.
"A classic," he said, shifting in his seat. Busted springs pushed heavily into the muscles of his back; he would be sore later. "Exactly."
The car was a piece of shit and he knew it. But his shop wasn't exactly swimming in money and times had been tough; people would rather drive a busted car than get it repaired. And then, the people who
did
take their cars in often couldn't pay right away; he either had to deal with their shitty credit or put them on installment plans. He kept his interest rates as low as he could, with no interest in being a monster, but a man had to eat, didn't he?
"I mean,
my car
has like, fifteen air conditioner vents," said Daphne. "I'm just glad it's
nice
outside, you know? I keep thinking--what would
happen
if the temperature flares up or drops or something? What if like, god
forbid
, there's some freak blizzard, or like a solar flare--"
"For god's sake, Daphne" said Alexis. "There's not going to be a
solar flare
. We're in the middle of--"
"What's that?"
Nadine pointed to the sky, peering up out the window. It was pink.
The entire sky. It was pink.
