She was late. As always. So what else was new? Kids, work, home everything just seemed a jumble lately. Time was gone before it was thought of. Like so many dangling participles. And he calls. Forgot his lunch. Could I run it down to the shop? Just some message on the answering machine. Like our relationship had become. A phrase here. A passing remark as we moved through our lives. Forget about sex. Or try.
So fuck, what about lunch? No time for anything great. Couple of meatloaf sandwiches. Maybe some soup. Who was she anyway, fucking Julia Childs? Who was she kidding? She’s fucking nobody! And she’s late. Pie, that’s the ticket. Something sweet and wet and sticky. Like her. Or like she could be or was.
Shove everything in a bag. So much to do after she drops this off. Why did he have to call today? Her hair was limp at best. Maybe some more lips to give her face a better look. As if he’ll notice. She tried to remember when he did. It seemed so long ago. He’d get hard just looking. Brushing up against each other.
My god, what’s wrong with her anyway? Just thinking of the past and she’s dripping like some fool. Shaking so bad the steering wheel seems alien. But it feels so good. Gripping it hard she reaches between her legs. My god, to be wet! The electricity leaves her lost. Breath comes in small shudders. It’s not safe. Shit, put on the brakes. A horn behind her blows. Is she nuts?
By the time she pulls into the yard. It’s almost dark. Fog rolls off the river and the tracks are unreadable. What was so familiar feels like a graveyard of trains and shadows of trains? Ghosts. Even the sounds seem muffled. Metal on metal is softened to groaning. The air is thick. She grabs the lunch bag and finds the rock under her feet. And begins to move in the blackness toward what look like the hulking offices across the tracks.
Her heart is pounding. This is ridiculous. How many times have these stones been traversed? But there’s something different. She can feel it and presses her dress to her legs to keep it close to her body. Shielding her from something. It was then she heard it. Just a loose rock rolling. Echoing somewhere from behind. Fog does strange things. The dark is worse. And it’s cold.
It seems like our bodies collide. Or maybe it was an engine ramming into me. Hard and unyielding. The shape found my mouth and stifled my screams. “Don’t hurt me, please! My god, take anything you want but don’t hurt me.” Knees buckle and this hulk seems to support her half drag her over to a row of abandoned cars. Nothing, no words. Just breathing against face and body. And it is so dark. Christ what happened to the lunch?
All the smells are of oil and rust and rain. He slams her hard up against the car scrambling for a door. If she could just see his face but everything is a blur. Trains screech in the distance and time hangs suspended. He is shaking, trembling against her in what seems like a kind of desperation. A cloth wraps around her eyes. Knotted clumsily it is still tight. And what little light she could see is now gone. Just touch and breath and a lunge toward a hard surface underneath.