© Sauce*Box, Spring 1996.
All rights revert to author.
Drive
by Andrew B. O'Brien
1
Before he left he had to tell himself that he knew nothing about himself. Basically it had to do with meaning. He could not allow himself to know the meaning of anything .. . of any action .. because they had been having an ongoing discussion about affairs and she had been saying what's the big deal it's only sex and he had been saying it is a big deal that you would let someone else into your body. It is wasn't a matter of being misunderstood, it was a matter of beliefs, of what was important, it was a matter of background. And the more they discussed this, the more it became so glaringly obvious that they were coming from different places and this brought everything in his life to a level of crisis, because suddenly everything, all the meaning in his life was being challenged. Not that sex accounts for everything in his life, not that an affair would shatter his entire sense of self, but as it remained in the abstract, sex made a good example of how closely he held his notions of what things meant, and there must be meaning or they have no future.
The fact that she had been arguing so adamantly about affairs seemed to indicate that she was indeed interested in having one, or at least interested in keeping that door open. It was a dead end but they did come to an agreement that if and when she did want to have one she would tell him before anything happened.
He knew nothing about how people relate. Nothing about how one relationship can interfere with another. Nothing about what he desired in someone. Nothing about his needs. Nothing about sex. He tried to keep his lack of knowledge isolated to things only as they concerned him. The stops went up when he approached questions of desire which meant that throughout the entire six day trip he would not be able to allow himself to access his motivation for making the trip.
He was not accustomed to love without jealousy. Jealousy had been the telltale of his desire, of care, of attachment.
He had made the decision for the trip when she had moved away from him. He had said, "I'll be there in a month." But over the course of that month the nature of their connection changed from the intimate one on one conversations in which a facial expression or a gesture from from her body could reassure him that everything was fine, that he was still being seen and understood . . . to phones and e-mail in which they had to rely on words to carry all the hidden messages they were accustomed to receiving in person. He was not prepared for this change. Or specifically, he felt they were moving in a direction that he did not want to go.
He did not drive very far the first day. Maybe six hours. He was exhausted from not eating, from not sleeping, from the mental and emotional effort it took for him to simply get out the door and onto the interstate. And when he stopped for the night he told himself that he could have been there by now if he had flown. And he was surprised to realize that he was glad not to have been with her at that moment. There was not a trace of sexual longing in his body. There was nothing but indifference. And if he thought back on the day, he had retained almost nothing from the drive. He had the sense of having passed through nothing to arrive nowhere. The hotel he was in was a Best Western and from the inside, he could have been anywhere. As if he had removed himself from context. And anything is possible out of context.
In light of his indifference, he found it necessary to determine whether or not there was at least the possibility for sexual attraction.
2
In the fantasy he is sitting on the couch in the living room of a two room suite in an upscale hotel. There is an oriental carpet on the floor and prints of hunting scenes on the wall. Over the fire place is an oil painting of a horse. The fixtures and other furniture are Victorian and Baroque. He is wearing a dark suit and tie, legs crossed. She comes in from the bedroom wearing a fitted black dress that comes down to mid-thigh. Black lace stockings with seams up the back of the leg. Two inch heels. A tight string of pearls around her neck. She stands in front of him and he tells her to turn around and lift her dress up slowly. She turns and then grabs the hem pulling it inch by inch up her thighs revealing the elastic tops of her stockings, then bare flesh, then the black silk of her underwear curving tightly along the shape of her ass. He tells her to remove the underwear. She loops her thumbs under the waistband and bending over slightly pushes the underwear down over her hips revealing the crack of her ass, the pale flesh of her cheeks, a tuft of hair between her thighs, and lets the underwear fall tangled to her ankles. He tells her to give him the underwear. She delicately bends over accentuating her movements, arching her back, revealing her cunt, then reaching down she removes the underwear from first her right foot then her left, then standing up she turns around and hands him the piece of silk by simply leaning forward and reaching out to him. He takes the underwear and holds it to his face feeling the warmth of her body, inhaling her scent deeply. He tells her to remove her dress. She reaches behind her and pulls the zipper down, then pushes each strap off her shoulders, first the right then the left, then moving her hips from side to side works the dress down, revealing her breasts, her nipples, her pale stomach, the perfect dark triangle of pubic hair, then lets the dress fall down her legs to the floor. She steps out of the dress then slides it away with the toe of her shoe. He tells her to touch her nipples. She traces circles around her breasts, then pinches her right nipple between her thumb and forefinger, her nipples become hard. He tells her to touch her cunt. She lets her hands slide down her torso, over her stomach, over her pubic hair, her right hand curves under, between her legs, her middle finger slides over the slit between her cuntlips. He tells her to turn around and bend over. She turns around and bends over accentuating her movements, arching her back, revealing her cunt, her finger touching her clit. He tells her to put her finger inside her. She slides her middle finger into her cunt. He tells her to close her eyes. She closes her eyes. A man enters the room. He is completely naked and has an erection. The man walks up behind her and presses his penis against her asshole. And this is where the fantasy breaks down because this is where she protests. She says, "no." The man disappears as if he were never there. She stands and faces the man on the couch. She tells him to get undressed. And this is where the fantasy reveals much more then he would like. He stands and removes his tie and jacket, then unbuttons his pants and pushes them down with his underwear revealing his erect cock, then he unbuttons his shirt and lets it fall off his shoulders and arms to the floor, he then bends over accentuating his movements, revealing his ass, his balls and unties his shoes and removes his socks. She tells him to stroke himself. He wets his hand with his own saliva and slides his cock into the loose fist of his right hand. She kneels in front of him and tells him to put his cock in her mouth. He presses his penis against her lips which part and let him inside her. She sucks his cock then she licks his balls, then takes him in her mouth again and lets his cock reach into her throat. She tells him to lie down on the floor. He lies flat on his back. She stands over him and then squats down, then grabs hold of his cock and guides it into her cunt. She tells him to close his eyes. He closes his eyes. She touches her clit with her middle finger and rocks her hips forward and back. She tells him to remain perfectly still. He does not move his hips with her, he does not touch her with his hands. She comes. He comes.
The room disappears as if it were never there.
He disappears as if he were never there.
It is only her, naked, satisfied, surrounded by a seamless void.
3
He awoke early, before the sun even came up. And if he had thought for instant about what it meant to be up at five in the morning, about how he liked to sleep in, about the type of person he was, he would have stayed in bed trying to recapture his dreams, trying to postpone his consciousness of the situation. While he was in the shower he did not allow himself an awareness of anything outside of the facts: that he was in a shower in a hotel in Barstow, that he was cleaning his body. And he paid particular attention to his cleaning; he scrubbed every inch of his skin with the hotel washcloth; he lathered his hair with the complimentary shampoo and rinsed and lathered again. He brushed his teeth with a consciousness he had never had, each tooth, each gap. And he shaved until there was nothing but smooth flesh. He even made the bed and returned the key to the front counter. There was only satisfaction in his doing these actions, there was no hope or idea that they would lead him out of his depression which he knew lay hidden just below the facts, just beyond what he knew.
While driving he paid particular attention to the changes of light in the desert. There was a moment just before the sun came up over the horizon when everything glowed with what seemed to be its true color. There were no harsh shadows. The colors were not washed out by the sun. There was no blinding reflection off the pale rocks. He played no music. He only listened to the sound of the engine, concentrating on the rhythm of the tires on the road, the sound of wind and cars passing. He could not ask himself what he wanted. He could not question the necessity of the images he was receiving. And he could not derive any joy from what he was witnessing. Nor was there any resistance. He had fallen subject to the whims of chance.
Why is it so tempting to stare into the sun? It was all he could do to prevent himself from blinding himself. He stared at the road in front of him and the sun remained just to his right, just out of his direct line of sight, glaring off the hood of the car, flashing off pieces of broken glass on the side of the road. He tested himself by not putting on sunglasses, by not shielding the glare with his right hand, by not dropping the visor or positioning his eyes in the shadow of the rear-view mirror. He drove well but he felt as if he could die at any minute. It was more the knowledge and acceptance that he would die at any minute despite his driving well. Despite the use of his peripheral vision. Despite his awareness of other vehicles. It was the sense that something just out of sight was waiting for him. And it was an effort not to indulge in this feeling, not to imagine what it could be, how it would happen or when. And it was an effort not to stop in Flagstaff after only five hours of driving. He had had this feeling before although he could not remember when. It seemed to be about change.
There was another moment during the day, just after the sun set behind him when everything glowed with what seemed to be the color it wanted to be. The rocks had turned from pale to bright red. The desert growth had become verdant green. The sky was a perfect radiant blue. There were no clouds. The road became black as if it had been freshly laid. And then the air itself seemed to take on a color like pink mist growing denser in the distance. Rocky hills lost their sharp edges. It was as if he was surrounded by untruth. That nothing could be trusted anymore. That what he had seen through the course of the day had to be forgotten because it no longer existed. And when he stopped for the night at a Motel 6 just outside of Albuquerque, there was nothing to fall back on, no memory that pertained to this new situation he found himself in. Nothing was useful to him anymore when not even facts remain unchanging.
4
"Hello?"
"What are you wearing?"
"Jeans. A white tee shirt with that little black sweater over it. And you?"
"Nothing."
"Oh, I like that. Are you in bed?"
"Yes. I'm on top of the covers. It's a little scratchy, you know those cheap polyester bedspreads. But I have the lights off. It's incredibly dark here. Nothings even getting through the curtains. And you? Where are you?"
I'm in my bedroom. Lights are on. Sitting up in bed. With my knees up. Couple of pillows behind me."
"I was thinking about you all day today. I just couldn't get you out of my head. Everywhere I looked I saw you . . . standing on hills, leaning against billboards, mostly you were naked . . . sometimes I'd just catch a glimpse of you before you disappeared . . other times you seemed to be moving with me . . . you know, the way the moon moves with you when you're driving."
"Tell me more."
"Well, this one time I was driving through this really foggy area and I kept seeing you appear on the side of the road coming out of the fog. You were naked and hitchhiking. Sometimes I would stop for you and you would get in and we'd drive for awhile. I kept imagining you sitting naked next to me. You reach over and unzip me and fondle me . . . or you'd lean over and go down on me with your mouth. Other times, when I would stop, another car would stop with me and you'd get in that car, giving me a glance over your shoulder as you got in. I would follow you and try to see what you were doing with the other person."
"Yes, I'd be doing it to get your attention,
to make sure that you followed me so that when we stopped, you'd be there
and I could get in your car and go down on you. Hold on."
"What are you doing?"
"I'm unbuttoning my jeans."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah . . . now I'm taking them off."
"Are you wearing underwear?"
"Yes. And I'm taking off my top too."
"Bra?"
"No bra."
"So, you're sitting up in your bed in nothing but your underwear with the lights on."
"Actually, I'm sort of on my side right now, my left side with my left leg out straight and my right leg brought up."
"Are you touching yourself?"
"Yes . . .I've got my right hand under my underwear."
"What are you touching?"
"My um . .. clit."
"Are you wet?"
"Yes, very."
"So, you want to go down on me?"
"Yeah, I think about it all the time . . . you know you've never come in my mouth."
"I know. . . it's because I'd rather be in your pussy."
"Are you touching yourself?"
"Yeah . . I've wet my hand and I'm stroking myself with my right hand. I'm on my back. Legs out straight. Hold on."
"What did you do?"
"I turned on the lights so I could see myself."
"What do you see?"
"Well . . . there's a mirror at the end of the bed . . . someone must have been thinking when they designed these rooms . .. and I can see my legs and my cock with my hand stroking it and my balls between my legs . . . which look really red from this angle. Wow. It's sort of like I'm seeing myself as you would see me right now if you were standing at the foot of the bed."
I'd love to see you right now."
"What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall in your room. I think if I were anything but a fly I couldn't help myself from fucking you."
"I'm thinking of the scene in the car."
"Of going down on me."
"Yes . . . of taking you in my mouth and maybe rubbing myself against the door handle or something."
"I'd put the seat back . . . maybe angle the rear-view to get a good look at your lips as they wrap around me."
"Taking you deep into my throat."
"I can feel you . . . I reach around to your ass, to your thighs and pussy and rub your clit just like you're rubbing it now."
"Right there."
There is the sound of strenuous breathing coming from both ends of the line for several seconds followed by nearly a minute of silence.
I'll be there soon."
"I know."
"Can you wait?"
"Of course."
"We can do this, can't we?"
"I think so."
5
When he found himself on the road for the third morning in a row, he suddenly wanted it to be over with, there seemed to be no point in his being in a car anymore. The distance he had to go was still well over two thousand miles; he was still in New Mexico. He didn't like anything about the place not the landscape, not the buildings he passed. There was the sense that the land was haunted, that too many people had died here on the frozen lava flows outside of Albuquerque. And he thought of Texas and Oklahoma and Arkansas and Tennessee where he would turn north through Virginia and West Virginia and Maryland and Pennsylvania and finally he would reach New York.
He was still out of context. Nothing really existed to him anymore except for the woman he was going to see, except for his desire to be with her. And he allowed his mind to wonder for the next few days. He allowed himself to fixate and imagine the greeting he would get when he finally arrived. He thought of their hello kiss, of their hello fuck. He thought of sitting up in bed with her. He brought desire to the forefront of his mind and was surprised to find that jealousy was gone. That even if she were hurriedly saying good-bye to her lover as he drove up to her house, that even if his juices were still inside her when he arrived, that even if he could smell her lover's sex on her breath, he would still desire her. Perhaps even more because of it. In fact the image, or images that arose from this particular situation proved to be a wealth of distraction from his predicament. But the fear arose that without a jealous thought there could be no love. He panicked and desperately began searching his imagination for a situation that would spark some jealousy. And every scenario he found was answered by this: "If that is the case, it must have been what she needed." And where jealousy used to rest, all he could find was the potential for disappointment. So that if he arrived and she was having sex with a man and introduced him to that man as her fiance, he could only feel let down that he could no longer be that to her.
He drove well into the night. Making up for lost time. Or so he thought. Stopping only when his eyes were too tired to focus on what was before him.
And he slept exhausted.
And he awoke rested, with a purpose, which was to arrive as quickly as possible, to make this time in-between end.
Another day.
And then weather. It started in Tennessee with ice. Cars slipping off the road. Tow trucks. Road flares. Semi's blistering pass him throwing clouds of dusty snow in front of him. It slowed him down. It kept his mind busy on what was in front of him, on his immediate situation, the situation he no longer wanted to be in. It prevented him from letting his imagination wonder.
He could still move though traffic would sometimes be backed up for several miles behind an over-turned truck or some pile up.
He had never seen so much weather. And it never ended. He drove an entire day in the snow. He followed plows. He followed policemen in four wheel drive vehicles. He followed trucks as they climbed up slippery hills. It was absurd. Surreal. Beyond his everyday experiences. Until finally, everything stopped.
It was noon in Maryland on I-81 and Pennsylvania was closed. He heard on the radio that it was deemed by the governor illegal to drive in Pennsylvania. He was six hours away stuck in a traffic jam ten miles long on a freeway that had only one lane open. There was no turning around. There was no getting off. There was nothing to do but wait.
It is a strange circumstance to find yourself
stopped on an interstate. Roads are built for motion. Cars are designed
to be travelling. Over-passes and bridges are meant to be passed, and the
ones in front of him were meant to passed at approximately sixty five miles
an hour, they were not designed to be stared at for hours. This was not
where he wanted to be.
The sun set and in the darkness with nothing to see something hit him, a
thought, a gesture. Simply this: "I have no choice." This made
absolutely no logical sense to him because his entire sense of self was
based on choice, that he could chose where he wanted to be, who he wanted
to be with, and what he wanted to be doing. And he didn't know if he had
ever experienced a complete denial of all of these things at once. So much
of his life had been a question of what he wanted, of whether something
or someone was desirable to him. If not, he would leave. Which is why he
left his home. Which was why he was going where he was going and seeing
whom he was going to see. And it has always been such an effort to hold
himself up to his desires, to always know what he wanted and to never to
act until he knew exactly what it was he hoped to get.
There was no leaving. No question of going somewhere. No escaping. Both physically and mentally. His mind was stuck there with him and he could not hope for anything other than what was there. And this he liked.
6
She stands in the open doorway to her parents house in a hat, boots and parka.
They meet halfway embracing on the snow covered walkway leading to the house.
She pulls away before they kiss and takes him by the hand leading him inside.
She takes her jacket off and removes her boots and hat, he does the same.
She leads him to the couch where they sit down closely and gaze at each other.
There is a sense of disbelief between them and no words have been spoken.
Finally they kiss, feeling each other's warmth, allowing for a sense of release.
Their bodies become heavy as they fall into each other without restraint.
His hands try to reacquaint themselves with her shoulders and back and breasts.
Her fingers unzip his pants, unbutton his shirt, exploring his stomach.
He lifts off her shirt, unbuttons her jeans and pulls them down to the floor.
They fall back onto the couch together and suddenly he is inside her, connected.
There is nothing between them.
7
Something must be spoken. Certain questions cannot go unanswered. But certain questions cannot be asked without judging. To live with not knowing. This is no longer a possibility. To live without caring. This has never been a possibility. But he fears if he opens his mouth, that simple act will ruin what he has created in his mind, which is a place he can rest, which is something he must hold onto, tightly.
* * * * *
Your critique of this work is appreciated.
Please e-mail the author.