Further old fragments.

I used to write erotica. It was arty. Here is a passage from a piece called “Strays”.

—

She supposed she was too young to simply follow him. She hadn’t said this out loud yet, so she couldn’t be sure it was true, but as he slept and she piloted the U-Haul into Texas it started to become something more than a feeling. San Diego wasn’t her home. They could stay together, though, find each other again when she got where she was going. Maybe.

They switched in Amarillo and she sat with her head against the window, suspended between sleep and wakefulness, her imagination populating the hot night with fires, with waters. On the radio a strange man talked about spaceships and the government. Aliens and soldiers waltzed around her fires and swam in her rivers. Her left foot fell asleep, even if the rest of her wouldn’t. She shifted.

You awake? he said.

Yeah, she said, opening her eyes.

The road rushed at them in the headlights. She sensed mountains in the distance. The world rising. She tried not to picture being thrown from the truck to tumble through the countryside, torn apart by the impact. Trying not to caused her to do it, and now she pulled further toward consciousness.

Can’t sleep, she said.

Why?

Nervous.

He glanced at her, which she wished he wouldn’t do, and she straightened.

Can I do something? he said. I think I have some NyQuil in my bag.

I hate that stuff.

He shrugged. She liked his shrug. Liked his shoulders, really, and arms, their topography that rolled over triceps and biceps and flexors and extensors and tapered down to slim wrists, bony hands with their coat of fine blond hairs. She reached a hand out and ran it along his sleeve,  feeling the muscles, big enough to provide his thin sweater with contours, but not big enough to draw anyone’s attention but hers.

Yes? he said.

I think maybe if we, you know, she said, running her hand down to his leg. Maybe that will relax me.

Maybe it would. Or maybe the exercise would just wake her up.

 *

They did it with the truck pulled over at a wide spot of an empty side road, the right tires part way up a dirt embankment. The passenger side door dangled wide, their legs touching the open air. She felt fully aware at every second, not just of him — his heat, his taste, the familiar feel of his cock inside her — but of the pleather seat sticking to her back, the sound of the desert breathing behind the sound of their breathing, the aroma of smoke on the air, which made her wonder: had her fires been real after all? Her spacemen and soldiers? She came suddenly, without quite realizing that she was going to, and as she did, she cried out in surprise and clutched her fingers to the taut muscles of his lower back. For just a moment, there was nothing in her mind, pure, perfect oblivion. But then she slipped back to reality with a metaphor, the same metaphor she always found when feeling these muscles: they were ropes strung too tight between the masts of his body, and she could snap them if she wanted to, perhaps with her fingers even. As he tensed and she could tell he was about to come, she pressed her nails hard into his skin. He didn’t seem to notice.

A moment later, he lay on top of her, spent. The flesh of his back pulsed in the small space between her fingers and fingernails.

I love you, he said, and raised his damp face to press it against hers.

She could see long chocolate strands of her hair clinging to his strawberry blond stubble, and smiled.

Do you think you’ll be able to sleep now? he asked.

She kissed his neck.

No, she said.