© Sauce*Box, Spring 1996.
All rights revert to author.
martin drives the fury
by T.L. Kelly
martin can't sleep so he wakes me up and says "let's go for a drive." lately he's been a real pain about his new plymouth fury, which he strokes and fondles and mauls more than he ever does me anymore. and now martin longs for her smooth gray leather seats so he drags me along for a menage a trois in the middle of the fucking night: martin, his beloved fury, and me. martin grabs his black leather jacket as he hurries me along and nearly pushes me down the stairs before i have the chance to wipe the sleep off my face and notice that i'm barely dressed so i protest, but he wants none of that, he throws a pillow in the front seat and scoots me in and mumbles something about the moon, the moon being ripe. i whine feebly and grab the pillow and rest my head against the door and stretch out a little. one nice thing about the fury: she has a big lap. martin does his 'hello fury' ritual. he doesn't just get into the car, he stalks her, rubs up against her, eases into her, grips her tight black steering wheel firmly but tenderly and then squeezes her ignition till she finally moans. i close my eyes. just before sleep takes me i open one eye and watch martin's face change in a disturbing way as he drives his mistress fury slow and easy westward, towards the sea, the swollen moon ahead, luring him. a dream bubbles up from my childhood. my friend jeannie and i hike into the desert across lively avenue looking for signs that the bad people may have left during their gang fights and acts of vandalism and dark orgies overnight. jeannie stops at the place in the desert where her sister defecated once in broad daylight. jeannie checks to see if it is still there, to see if the bad people have once again overlooked it. they always do, because the hardened mound is never disturbed. jeannie says, "look, it's still here." we have a moment of silence and then move on, a little farther into the desert where other wonders that we have named and visited, await us. but we don't go beyond sierra highway because that is the edge of the world. the dream shifts and the bad people drive down our street. the colognas, a band of renegade teenage boys estranged from their absent parents, drive down our street in their big loud plymouth fury, and make all us little girls stop our innocent game of hide n seek and fear them. they have smudged tattoos and wear long torn trenchcoats and steel-toed boots and their hair is black and wild and they have scabs on their knuckles. their mouths curl from ear to ear. a silver tooth flashes. they carry knives with snakes curled around them and they have just come from eating fresh road kill. psychedelic music about whores in fairy tales blare out of the fury's broken windows~~heh heh hey there little red riding hood~~we step out of our secret hiding places to watch the dark parade. we are all very quiet and afraid and wonder, for the moment, what the world might look like through the colognas' eyes. it would be red. they leer at us, grinning fiendishly. they whistle through broken teeth and say dirty things about our little budding bodies. we wait to hear sirens--surely the police will come! the fury finally passes and we step back into our hiding places and touch ourselves, touch the little buds and nubs, because some sudden fervor in each one of us has been stirred. i am aroused out of the dream for just a moment, long enough to open one eye and note that my bare feet are in martin's lap and he is protecting them with one hand, driving with the other. the stereo is blaring: the damned. the speedometer reads 75 mph. my eyelids fall. the dream resumes. jeannie's older sister--the one who defecated in the desert--plays hide n seek with us one night when the colognas turn down our street, the stereo blaring: the doors. we step out of our hiding places once again and line up at the curb to watch and listen. jeannie's sister breaks the ritual silence: "let's all stand in the road so they have to stop or run us over." none of us virgins want to do this, fearing knives and snakes. but we follow jeannie's sister into the road and let her place us side by side, linking arms, while the colognas barrel down at us in their black fury, a huge hairy spider with white sidewall tires. i hear the stolen change from beggars tinkling in the deep pockets of their trenchcoats. it is clear to me that we are about to lose a shred of our collective virginity right then and there. we will become road kill, they will see our red eyes in the headlights and they will steer straight for us. i squirm in my sleep and martin squeezes my ankles, anchors me. as the colognas approach, they look confused for a moment and then annoyed and then they screech to a halt, jump out of the car through broken windows and howl at us, howl like wolves. the chase is on. i see a flash off the edge of a knife and the snake's tongue slithering out as i run to the front door of my house, run to my bedroom, into my closet, my clothes melting off me as i run. a mad grinning renegade wolf is clawing at the closet door. i hear jeannie outside, sounding very far away, as far as the edge of the world, crying out, "olly olly oxen free!" i wake up a little. martin stops the car and gently pulls on my toes. he turns off the motor and the damned stops. "we're here," he announces. i open one eye. martin has changed, he is a cologna. no mistaking those eyes, they are eyes that have seen the world beyond sierra highway. "where are we?" i whisper. martin looks around and says "i'm not sure. somewhere by the river." i scoot up and look around and sure enough, we are nowhere familiar. the moon is melting into the sea. martin's face is lit up orange. red eyes. the colognas have finally dragged me out of the closet and martin gets to go first. "you can go back to sleep now," martin says, rubbing my feet. "i just want to sit here awhile and watch the moon go down." i feel somewhat comforted but then he says, "when it's finally gone and it's really dark, i'll fuck your brains out." my eyelids fall down slowly at the sight of martin grinning from ear to ear. a silver tooth flashes. jeannie rips the closet door off its hinges and pulls me out. "hurry!" she says. "come see! my sister is with a boy and they're naked!" jeannie pulls me through the house and into the street and past lively avenue and through the desert. we leap over the place of the hardened mound but it's not there anymore. it is midnight and the moon is full, lighting us up like orange flames licking across the desert. we run barefoot. we get to the edge of sierra highway and we stop cold. parked across the street is the colognas' plymouth fury and jeannie's sister and a cologna are in the front seat, mauling each other. jeannie's sister moans. the cologna pushes her down and climbs on top of her. jeannie's sister feet press against the window. Her toes curl. jeannie and I are holding each other, wide-eyed, lurking behind a joshua tree. the colognas' fury rocks and groans. jeannie's sister yelps. the cologna howls. jeannie and i are breathing hard and touching ourselves. the car door flings open and the cologna and jeannie's sister spill out, knotted together. they roll across the street and end up at our feet. they fuck furiously in front of us. they don't see us. they see something else with other eyes, something red. they melt into each other and the new animal that is formed leaps up and stares at jeannie and i with red eyes. it growls. i turn to jeannie in order to say, "we should go back now, it's getting dark" but jeannie is foaming at the mouth and pumping her fingers into herself. she begins to melt and turns into a hardened mound on the pavement. i realize that i am no longer on the edge but have stepped into the highway itself. the new animal growls behind me, leaps, and knocks me down on my back. the animal gnaws at my ankles, anchors my left ankle in its teeth and begins to drag me into the dark new world that stretches beyond the ragged edge of sierra highway. i squirm a little and wake up because martin is kissing my feet, taking my toes into his mouth. i open my eyes and he smiles. "hello," he says softly. "you were moaning in your sleep." the moon is nearly gone. a small sliver of moonlight silhouette's Martin's face. no mistaking those sad brooding eyes. vintage martin. so much tenderness there but behind them, in deep ragged layers, are new animals evolving. he stretches out and lays his head just below my belly. i open my legs and wrap them around his hard shoulders. it occurs to me that my foot is within reach to squeeze the beloved fury's ignition and kick the gear shift and set her rolling over the lip of the road into the river while holding martin down with my other leg. then we will drown and start evolving all over again--in a few million years we'll be one creature--me, martin and his mistress fury. the blood rushes from my chaotic brain to my inner thighs, which martin has invaded with his mouth. the fury pushes her lap against my ass, nudging my legs farther apart. i finger her leather lip on the edge of the seat, to tease her, as if to say, "see? he likes to ride me too." my foot roams, a gentle squeeze of his mistress fury's ignition, to feel what she feels when martin squeezes her that way, when he makes her moan. martin makes me moan and rolls my hips up. the fury rocks gently and sighs. i put my arms behind my head and try to resist closing my eyes, resist running into the closet. martin rises up, his face glistening, and strips. martin's evil grin, ear to ear, but not on his face. on mine. mistress fury creaks a little under the pressure of her severe jealousy, licking at martin's flesh with her leather tongues. martin crawls up on me, the big black hairy spider with its swollen fang eases into me. i grip the fury's love handle. martin glares at my white knuckles for a moment. he worries i will pull her precious door handle off the door. i might. the evil grin feels good on my face. headlights down the road, coming at us. we are potential roadkill. martin pushes me down, to conceal my red eyes. hide n seek. find me, martin, find the spot to ride up against. martin finds it and anchors me there, riding. my legs shoot straight up just as the headlights pass. i want a smudged tattoo on my ankle for moments like these, ankles lit up by headlights. slam-dancing music blaring from the passing car. mistress fury sways in the backlash of the sudden wind. from far away, we hear the driver's horn, in celebration or retaliation? i hold martin's face in my hands for a moment to look at him, but not to see him, but so that he sees me. the waves start coming and they push the evil grin on my face to a deeper level behind my eyes, changing my face into more of myself. my right leg bends a little, my foot toys with the gear shift. the little death rises up in the wake of flirting with Death Herself. martin grows impossibly larger. i let go of the fury's love handle and dig my claws into her grey thighs. martin comes with me, unconcerned for a moment if i puncture the seat and make his beloved fury bleed. the waves roll through me and crest on the yelps and the howls, mine and his, and the squeals from mistress fury. something else from far away, a new animal, out there in the dark, joins in with a deep-throated growl. martin rises up and grabs my ankles to bring them down, to conceal me again, realizing finally that we are being watched by something barely there. something tangible once you close your eyes and let it out of its cage. i swirl my finger in the hot come spilling out of me and rub it in the fury's leather piping, making her lips slick. she likes that. martin pulls on his jeans and squeezes the fury's ignition until she moans--it's her turn now--and then he starts back for home, finally ready to sleep and dream up new animals of his own. he passes me his leather jacket and says, "sit up darlin. watch for red eyes. don't want to mess up my car with road kill."
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