Three hours on the road and Susan was already tired, tense, and almost giddy with fatigue, yet still more than an hour from the hotel and Joanne's big bachelorette weekend. She'd hoped to time her arrival so she'd get there sometime after eleven-- early enough to still make an appearance, but late enough that the girls would be too drunk to notice if she quietly slipped away to the hotel cocktail lounge in search of more interesting companionship--but her departure had been more rushed and harried than she'd counted on and the Friday rush hour traffic particularly bad, and now she was pushing it and tired. She really needed to get some coffee or splash some water on her face or just get out and stretch the cramps out of her body.
Around her was nothing but darkness, the interstate running like a corridor between two blocks of infinite emptiness, and the occasional light in the distance only increased her sense of aloneness. Joanne had given her fastidious and complicated directions on how to get to the hotel while avoiding the numerous construction sites that had popped up over the summer, and Susan glanced at them now as she drove, trying to memorize or at least make sense of them. There was a map included, but Susan wasn't that good with maps, especially when she was tooling along at 70 miles an hour trying to read them by the light of her dashboard, her mind already preoccupied with strongly mixed feelings about this whole affair.
Joanne was a good friend, or had been before she'd gotten engaged. Since then, she'd thrown herself into this whole marriage and wedding thing with alarming eagerness for someone who used to be as cynical and dismissive as Susan herself. They used to make fun of girls who'd get all hysterical about betting married, and now she'd become one herself, milking every party and shower and ritual for all it was worth. It made Susan uncomfortable, especially since she didn't think Joanne's fiancée was any great shakes. A nice guy, but dull. Joanne could have done better. Susan herself would do better, whenever and if ever she finally decided to, and assuming she found a man worthy of that kind of attention. Meanwhile she was content to look and sample occasionally, being every bit as picky and discriminating as she'd always been. She just found this new side of Joanne slightly annoying: her happiness and self-satisfaction came of a little too much as smugness and superiority.
She put down the written directions and picked up Joanne's map and held it against the wheel as she drove, her eyes flicking up and back from road to map, road to map. It was hopeless, though, and frustrating, not to mention dangerous, trying to read a map while driving, and she put it back on the seat to concentrate on driving. The road was surprisingly deserted, almost desolate. She hadn't seen another pair of headlights in a long time.
She wasn't worried though. There should be an oasis or truck stop somewhere not far up ahead, and when she found it she could get some coffee and unkink herself and study the map again, or maybe just ask for directions. People were always happy to give her directions or help her out, and she had no qualms about asking.
That made he think about the trucker she'd met earlier, and that made her smile. Maybe she'd run into him there, and she imagined his reaction if she were to just sidle up to him and ask him for directions --the way his jaw would drop as he looked up from his coffee, after what she'd done to him earlier. She'd been a perfect little bitch and she really did owe him an apology, and that would make a perfect excuse for her to approach him. She could put on her best little-girl-lost act and explain that she'd been upset and in a hurry and hadn't meant to appear so rude and ungrateful. After all, he'd only been trying to help and her behavior had been inexcusable.
She also wanted to see if she could get him to confess to what he's seen in the trunk of her car. That would be an awful thing to do, but it would be awfully interesting too.She felt her face grow warm as she thought of it, and she pulled her rear-view mirror around so she could see if she were blushing and take a look at just what kind of girl would do something like that.
Her face looked good, though, her makeup still perfect. She tried out her innocent face, then smiled and put the mirror back.
It
had
been kind of fun, and certainly the most interesting thing that had happened on this whole, deathly dull trip. Sometimes making men squirm was fun.No. Actually, making men squirm was always fun, and that was the problem. It was too tempting, and sometimes it caused trouble, like with this trucker.
She'd just been leaving an oasis shortly after starting out when she'd heard that sickening flop, flop, flop that could only mean a flat tire. Swearing and impatient, she'd immediately pulled over to the shoulder of the expressway entrance ramp and stopped the car, put on her blinkers and gotten out to look at it.
It was flat alright, almost all the way down to the rim, and all she could do was look at it. She was no mechanic, and she was already dressed for the party in her snug charcoal gray skirt and her femmey ivory silk blouse with the bow at the throat, so that all she'd have to do when she got to the party was slip on her stockings and change her driving sandals for heels and she'd be all set. And she certainly wasn't about to ruin her good clothes trying to change a filthy tire, an operation she had only the vaguest notion about anyhow. She'd stood there in the dark by her crippled Yaris, helpless and frustrated as the cars and trucks lucky enough to have intact tires sped past her without so much as a glance.
It was mostly dark before she finally decided she'd have to suck it up and make the hike back to the oasis service station for help, and that's when she heard the crunch of gravel and looked up to see the big, black, semi rolling to a stop on the shoulder behind her car, engine rumbling and air brakes hissing. She was already in a snit by now, having had ample time to feel ignored and resentful. It was about time, she thought, and she stood there impatiently as his air brakes huffed and squealed and he brought that big behemoth to a stop maybe ten feet away, leaving her standing in the glare of his headlights.
He turned off his brights and now she could see it better. The thing was huge, even overwhelming, and it dwarfed her little Yaris in a way that gave her a strange excited tingle. Except for instinctively pulling her skirt down when one passed her on the highway, she'd never really paid much attention to trucks before, but now one stood only a few steps away, rumbling and threatening, and she looked at the massive chrome grill and huge, dark windows with something like awe, or as much awe as she could muster in her irritation.
The cab was black and decorated with elaborate electric-green pin-striping and festooned with lights so it looked like the demon spawn of an angry whale and a carnival fun house. The escutcheon on the front said "Kenworth," and whatever wasn't painted and pin-striped was chromed and gleaming. Up and toward the back of the cab the roof jogged upwards, and Susan remembered that long-haul trucks often had actual beds in them so the drivers could spell each other without stopping. Apparently, this one had a queen-size.
The door had opened and a man had swung out, a very good-looking man, not too young, just about Susan's fantasy age, the age of natural authority. (Not the age of the men she actually dated, though, who tended to be much younger and easily biddable.) His jaw was dark with stubble and his eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, even though the sun had set and it was dark enough for headlights. He'd paused there leaning out of his cab looking at her, then jumped down and strolled over. He was wearing tight jeans and Western boots and a black tank top that showed off big shoulders, a tight waist, and smoothly muscled arms. His hands were covered by black leather fingerless gloves that looked like they'd seen some use, and Susan noticed them at once. She liked men's hands, and secretly she liked leather, and his hands in those gloves looked wonderfully wicked. He was what Joanne would have called U.S. Choice, Triple A Restaurant Grade back in her pre-engagement days, when they talked about men in such terms.
Susan crossed her arms over her breasts , having absolutely no faith in her gauzy bra's ability to protect her and well aware of her nipples' alarming propensity to stiffen at the most embarrassing times, and tried to strike the right pose between female strength and feminine helplessness. She needed someone's help, but she refused to be intimidated by this man or his truck and she certainly wasn't going to beg or grovel. She wished she hadn't left her jacket in the car.
"Trouble?" he asked, and Susan just nodded toward the tire.
" It went totally flat just like that, just as I was leaving the oasis. And of course it would be now, at the worst possible time, just when I need to be somewhere."
He nodded.
"On business," she added.
He leaned over and looked at the tire and Susan got a good look at his tight, male ass in those snug jeans. A red bandana hung from his back pocket, like a warning flag.
