I
Even Ruby had to admit that the Subaru lacked comfort and felt cramped in the long drive out West. Ivy had long since kicked off her pink flip flops, scooted the seat back as far as it would go, stretched her legs out, rubbed her toes, and flopped her bare feet on the dashboard, just above the glove compartment.
Ruby took her eyes off the long expanse of flat landscape cut by a long straight highway to glance at Ivy's little toes wiggling their tiny pink polished nails.
"Do you have you to?"
"Do I have to what?"
"Put your stinky feet on my dash?"
"They're not stinky."
"Are to."
"Are not.
"Are to."
That went on for another twenty-five miles.
Ruby looked at her fuel gauge, getting worried. She hated it any time the needle dropped below the quarter line. She kept her eyes peeled for any sign of a station, but nothing interrupted the continuous flat landscape.
"I knew we should've stopped in Clayton. Why the hell didn't we take the Interstate?"
"Something will turn up."
"We'll run out of gas first."
"Something will turn up."
"Not if we die first."
"Something will. I promise."
Ruby eyed Ivy from the corner of her eye. Her best friend curled nonchalantly against the car door, her bare feet now snuggle against her slim butt. She looked for all the world like a big cat curled on an armchair.
How could anybody curl up like that?
Ruby knew she'd never be able to pull of that kind of contortion.
The Subaru rolled through the endlessly unchanging landscape. A few white clouds dotted the big sky, a few stray cirrus floated higher above. Nothing moved in the big sky, nothing moved on the ground, the car itself did not move. Stray peaks of ragged rock lined the horizon, threatening to bloom into mountains. Ruby wondered how far off the Rockies were.
Everything seemed stuck, motionless, but when she looked at her speedometer, Ruby saw the needle pushing past 90.
The conversation eased into that steady rhythm of banter good friends, friends who've known each other for long years, fall into. Silly words without meaning caused sudden fits of laughter to the point of gasping for breath. Hand gestures meant entire libraries accompanied by silences of the deepest import. Mostly, though, they just shot the shit.
But the fuel gage dropped below an eighth of a tank, and the landscape remained empty.
Ruby bit her thumbnail and hummed.
Something pink flashed in the sunlight lowering in the west.
All at once, Ivy sat up and pointed towards the right of the highway.
"What's that? It could be a gas station. I bet it's a gas station."
It wasn't.
II
As they neared the pink spot, they both realized that they were driving towards a roadside motel of some kind, done up entirely in pink.
A lighted sign, a large trapezoidal board with the narrow end pointing down and below said Pink Venus Inn. The sign beneath the name of the inn said Vacancy, and large, round lightbulb surrounded the entire trapezoid.
"We should at least stop and ask where the nearest gas is," Ruby said.
Ivy nodded.
Less than an eighth of a tank worried even her typically unruffled nature.
The parking lot was clean and well-painted, parking slots clearly delineated by broad yellow stripes showing brightly against the black tar. To their relief, two pumps, again in pink, stood in front of the motel, a long low single-story adobe with a long wood covered deck running the length of the front.
Ruby pulled up to the pumps and stopped.
Ivy opened the door and flung her legs out.
"Might as well stretch our legs, take a look around. They probably have vending machines around here."
The check-in office was at what Ivy assumed to be the front of the long building, jutting out a little from the rest of the adobe.
On the far side of the motel, all the way at the end of the parking lot stood a little outbuilding, also done up in pink. A tall, narrow adobe with a steep roof accented with a tall steeple.
It looked for all the world like a small chapel, and that in fact is what it was: a small pink chapel with a little rainbow arching above two pink doors, richly ornate and paneled with a heavy iron ring hanging from each door.
The shadows lengthened in the setting sun, and the tip of the shadow of the chapel spire fall at the feet of Ivy as she stared around her.
"You know. I was thinking."
Ruby felt the same way. She didn't need Ivy to finish her thought.
"We've been driving all day long, and I'm pooped," she said, holding the fuel handle. The pump numbers clicked off behind her, pink digital numerals somehow easy to read for all that.
"Think we should just crash here?"
"I don't think we're likely to find anywhere else."
III
Ivy waited for Ruby to fill the tank up and move the car to one of the many empty spaces, then the two friends walked into the office, with Ruby holding the door open.
"You just going to stand there?" she asked Ivy, who hesitated on the sidewalk in front of the aluminum, steel, and glass door of the check-in office. Ivy stared at the chapel and at the emptiness of the parking lot.
"It's all a little surreal, don't you think? I mean, no one's here."
"Relax. I'm the worrywart, and everything seems pretty okay to me. I mean, it's all pretty vacant, but still. Besides, I'm with you. We'll be okay."
Ivy glanced at the can of spray mace attached to Ruby's belt, a perennial and inevitable accoutrement whenever the young woman traveled. A suggestion from Tom, her boyfriend of two years. Not that she needed much prodding.
Ivy grinned at her Ruby's outfit.
Khaki shorts, red tennis shoes, pale green ankle-length socks, a pale green tee with a faded rose in black and white print. She pulled her long, light strawberry blond hair into a loose tail she draped over her right shoulder to hang over her chest. Ruby was larger and taller than Ivy, who stood at 5'1" and wore a loose yellow sundress which swirled around her waifish figure, so different from Ruby's curvy body with her wide, round hips and wide, round chest.
With her pink flip-flops and dark auburn, almost red hair styled in a spreading bob of naturally wavey hair, Ivy looked ready to hit the beach. But any beach lay thousands of mile away, and here where they stood, only vast stretches of prickly pear and scrub brush showed itself to the eye.
Ivy swished her hips suddenly and jumped up, clapping.
"Oh, you're right. This will be fun!"
IV
The office interior matched the pink theme. The welcome slash check-in counter and walls, all painted a bright pink, were festooned in patterns of red hearts in pairs, along with words in purple cursive letters spelling Love, Happiness, Temptation, Joy, Desire, Lust. It was all very, well, Valentinesy.
Behind the counter, a very attractive and spritely woman, who must have been in her mid-to-late thirties but hummed and vibrated like a girl of eight, busied herself dropping cellophane wrapped boxes of bottled water on the countertop. She broke the wrap and arranged the bottles in neat little rows. The woman's hair was a deep auburn color, similar in color to Ivy's hair, but shinier, longer, far more luxurious. Two long, narrow strands of tightly braided hair hung from each side of her head, just in front of her ears.
The woman looked somewhat taller than Ivy, but her body promised a voluptuosity of hip and bosom that Ruby herself envied.
She smiled happily at the two girls when they entered, and her hazel green eyes sparkled with a mischief of raw sexual prowess. She spoke from full lips glistening and gleaming in the glossiest of pinks, lips which drew the eyes of the two travelers in, who just stared as she spoke, captivated and enraptured.
"Oh my," the woman said. "Just look at how cute you two are. I haven't had guests in ages, and I'm just so. Well. I'm just so happy to have you. It's so romantic, don't you think?"
Ruby stared, and Ivy stared, beguiled, perplexed and mildly alarmed.
Did that woman just wink at them?
"Romantic?" Ruby asked.
"Of course, sweetie. Everything can be romantic if you let it."
Ruby frowned, slumped by that remark, and chose to let it slide.
Whatever, she thought.
"These are complimentary. The company's been promoting them. They're new. Kind of. They're new around here."
Ivy's ears pricked up. The way the strange woman said "around here" sounded a little off. Strange. But the woman behind the counter just smiled, and Ivy smiled back. It was impossible not to.
The woman wore a name tag above the swell of her left breast.
Sara Craft.
Sara grabbed a short bottle of Pink Water, twisted the top, and handed one to Ivy, then she performed the same action and handed a bottle to Ruby.
Both girls shrugged, took a slow sip of the drink, paused, smiled, and followed the slow sip with several longer gulps.
Sara giggled.
"They're just so yummy, aren't they?"
Ivy and Ruby returned her giggle, suddenly feeling like little schoolgirls set free in a garden of secrets and magic hopscotch.
Soon the two girls emptied their bottles, almost at the same time, and set the bottles on the counter, where Sara winked, smiled, and tossed the containers into a recycling bin behind her.
"It's weird around here," she said. "It's like you're only now just starting to think."
Sara shrugged.
"I've seen worse."
She stepped behind her monitor, tapped her keyboard, and squinted.
"You two are so lucky. We have lots of vacancy, and I just so much want to treat you. What do you say to the honeymoon suite?"
Ivy and Ruby turned to each other, an expression of alarm or something like it spreading rapidly across each other's faces.
"Honeymoon suite it is," Sara continued. "Don't worry. The bed's huge."
Sara grinned broadly.
"Plenty of room for fun!"
Ivy shifted her feet uncomfortably, and Ruby stared, visibly perturbed, at the strange woman.
"But. We're not. We're just. Our boyfriends."
Sara slid the key to the honeymoon suite towards Ruby, who took it with hesitation, not knowing what else to do or whether she should do anything else, too surprised to notice the key was a real key, not a card.
On a huge pink fob with Pink Venus Inn in gold letters embossed on it.
