Stranger in a Strange Land

(STEEL)

“There’s a place up here we can get a coffee at and talk,” Emily says.

“Sounds good to me.”

We carry on driving down the country road, eventually turning left onto a main road. The closed space of the car is filled with her rosy scent. It’s exactly how I remembered it, and each inhale makes me want her more.

“Did you freak too, like your dad?” I ask.

“What do you think?”

“I think you didn’t, not after the way you yelled my name in the bunkie.”

Her cheeks turn bright red and she stares at the road ahead of her.

“I’m just kidding, Goldie, it wasn’t just the way you yelled my name.” She’s the only person I’ve ever talked to, really talked to, instead of just shooting the shit. I’m sure it was the same for her.

“I knew there was something more between us,” she says, her voice quiet and hard to hear over the noise of the car.

I reach over and put my hand on her thigh, the way I did that evening in the Zipper. The warmth from her leg fills me, washing away the freezing cold stuck in my bones from the three days it took to hitch here.

We spend the rest of the twenty-minute drive talking and laughing. It’s like we’ve never been apart. Or like we’ve known each other forever.

The coffee place looks like a truck stop, the kind of place I feel at home in after all the years spent on the road, going from town to town and state to state. I get out of the car and glance down the road, tall signs advertising gas stations, fast food joints and motels line the street.

We each have a drip coffee and sit on opposite sides of a booth. We continue to talk, through three whole cups of coffee.

“What are your plans?” Emily asks, changing the subject.

“My plans?”

“Yeah, how long are you staying in town? Are you still working at the carnival?”

Fuck if I know, I haven’t thought that far ahead. All my focus has been on getting back to her.

“Don’t know. All I was thinking about was finding you.”

“Well, you found me,” she says with a coy smile while tilting her head.

Plans don’t matter much to carnies. I feel like a fish out of water.

“My plan was to find you and now I’ve done that, it’s to be with you.” Emily’s eyes sparkle and she hooks her foot around mine under the table. Her actions cause a huge smile on my face. “And that’s my plan.”

“I like that plan. But where are you going to stay?”

As if I’ve thought that far ahead. Doesn’t she get the way I live? Looking out the window, I see a Motel 6 sign down the road.

“Figure I’ll stay at a motel while I figure out what we’re going to do.”

“Isn’t that going to be expensive? I mean, how long are you going to stay there?”

“Don’t matter how long I have to stay there, as long as it’s near you, I’ll pay the price.”

What am I going to do? Find a nine-to-five job? The same jobs I’ve been criticizing my whole life?

“Shit,” Emily says, pulling her phone out of her purse. “I didn’t text my parents, they’re probably wondering why I’m not back from the coffee shop.”

“What business is it of theirs?”

“I don’t want them to worry. Normally, I would’ve been home hours ago.”

“I hope you’re telling them you won’t be back any time soon.” She’d better not rush off on me.

“I’m telling them I’ve gone shopping at the mall. They won’t expect me back soon.”

“Say you’ve gone with your friends.”

“I don’t do much with my friends anymore. Not since that night.”

“Fuck, seriously?” Am I that hated just because I’m a carny?

“We’re still friends, just not as close. They didn’t support me when I said I was going to find you. All they did was try to stop me.”

I lean back into the booth and look up at the ceiling, Papa Smurf’s words rattling through my head, ‘You’ll find out the hard way that you’re from a different world than her, and the outside world don’t approve of us.’

Maybe no one in her life approves of me, but she does, and that’s all that matters.

Emily sets her phone on the table and says, “What are we going to do?”

“I’m getting real tired of having this table between us. Let’s go check into my motel.”

We get back in her car, and I direct her to the Motel 6. It’s forty bucks a night, and that’s going to add up fast. I don’t want to blow my savings on it. I’m going to have to find another solution.

Sliding the key into the lock, I open the door. The overpowering smell of Lysol hits me, but at least it’s clean. Other than that, it’s your standard two double beds and ugly pictures on the wall motel room.

“Are you finally going to show me the rest of your tattoos?” Emily asks with her killer smile as she goes through the doorway.

It’s all I’ve been thinking about all these months.

“Wait here, I need a quick shower.”

“Okay,” she says, shrugging.

I half expected her to ask to join me, but then I realize this is Emily, the good girl. Who’s still a virgin.

Stepping into the hot flow, I stand still while I let the water wash over me. After three days of hitchhiking in big-rigs, I could stand here all day. But I don’t want to keep her waiting. After ripping the paper off a tiny bar of soap, I thoroughly clean myself and shut off the water.

My clean clothes are in my backpack, which is still in the bedroom area. With only a towel tied around my waist, I leave the bathroom.

Emily is sitting back on the bed, looking at her phone. Good, I’m glad she’s relaxed and not perched on the edge of the bed or something.

When she notices I’ve come back in the room, she looks up. Not very far up — her eyes seem to be stuck on my abs. When I take a step in her direction, her eyes move down to my legs. I realize she’s seeing the tattoos on my lower legs for the first time, and stay still while she examines them. My dick is twitching under the heat of her gaze, the towel shows each little movement.

This wasn’t my plan. I didn’t bring her here expecting anything from her. I just want her. The last thing I want is for her to feel pressured.

The TV remote is on the desk behind me, and I turn and grab it. Turning the TV on, I flip through the channels until I find MTV. Coldplay is playing, which is perfect even if they are old.

“Do you have any more under that towel?” She asks.

Am I going to show her the rest under my towel?

“You’ll find out,” I say, turning to face her. “Now come over here and kiss me.” I stay where I am but hold out my hand, beckoning her.

Emily flies off the bed and into my arms. Exactly the way I’ve been imagining all these nights alone in my bed.

Holding her close to me, I inhale her rose scent and let it soothe the frustration of the time we spent apart.

I kiss her silky hair and down along her cheek. Tilting her head to mine, my mouth connects with her soft lips. Emily gasps and submits to my touch. My tongue probes her mouth, and before long her own tongue is twirling with mine.

All these nights I’ve been thinking how I can make her first time special for her, and now I finally get to. Shit, I almost forgot to show her something.

I pull my lips away from hers and say, “Hold on, Goldie, I did something I want to show you.”

Her brow furrows in puzzlement as I move away from her and to my backpack. I rifle through the papers, my passport and birth certificate until I find the piece of paper I’m looking for and pull it out of the bag. I step back to Emily and place it in her hand.

“What’s this?” She asks, confused.

“It’s a test I did to show you I don’t have any STDs or anything.”

“This is from October.”

“That’s after the last time I was with anyone. The last time I was with you. Now that I know you, I could never look at another woman.”

“What happened to the party every night?”

“The parties were pretty boring without you there,” I say, chuckling.

Emily flings her arms around me. Speaking into my chest, she says, “Thank you for this.” She hesitates before continuing, “I haven’t been with anybody else, either.”

I know that already, Goldie. Your pussy is all mine.