Page 1 of Texas
One
She is a wicked beauty. A matte-black Low Rider S Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and she waits on the showroom floor, seeming to call my name. It’s as if we knew each other in a past life, and I was always meant to ride her.
“So, Ms. Holliday, what do you think?” the young salesman asks from beside me.
In my opinion, he looks a little too clean-cut to sell Harleys but at least he is knowledgeable, taking half the morning walking me through the pros and cons of each model. His outfit doesn’t help. Unlike me, dressed in faded black jeans, a tight black T-shirt, and well-worn jump boots, he has on a pair of pressed khakis and a preppy white dress shirt with a small Harley Davidson logo on the breast. I am unsure what I expected. Maybe a leather vest with angel wings on the back? A long, graying beard and a sleeve of tattoos? Only his shoulder-length blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, much longer than my short brown cut, gives him away. I can imagine him on a cycle not unlike this one, hair down and racing along the highway. A vision I hope will soon come true for me.
“Please, call me Reggie,” I say. “And I think she is gorgeous.” I shouldn’t give away how much I intend to buy this incrediblemachine, but it is impossible to keep the smile from my face. “How much is this going to cost me?”
I really don’t care. I’ll be paying cash. My ten years in the Army have left me well-off, not only from pay but for the damage I sustained while in the Middle East. Damage really is the best word. My wounds are not all visible, but the pain runs deep. Of course, Uncle Sam thought he could take care of it by throwing a bunch of money at the problem. Considering the alternative of getting nothing, it seemed like a good option to me. Adding in the hazard pay bonus that has been piling up in my bank account for almost all the time I was overseas, and I am not going to need to find a job for a while.
Most people would think this is good fortune but I’m not so sure. Not only because of the internal and external scars, but because I miss my regiment and feel somewhat useless now that I am a civilian. I hope buying the motorcycle will help me work through that.
“Twenty-four thousand and change,” the salesman replies. “Depending on what options you select.”
“Deal,” I say and hold out a hand. “Where do I sign?” He looks surprised but quickly accepts my gesture of goodwill and we shake on it.
“Well, then let’s get you going. All I need is to arrange some financing—”
“No,” I say with a grin. “I’ll be paying cash.”
Thirty minutes later, I am sitting on the street at a stoplight with the beauty rumbling between my legs. The sensation is slightly erotic, and I realize riding her will be even more enjoyable than I originally thought. I am a little on the hypersensitive spectrum when it comes to sex. Not that I have had a lot of lovers lately. While I was in the middle of an unofficial war zone, there wasn’t really an opportunity to have a girlfriend. Most of my sex was with my hand. Thankfully, itnever took much. Still, this extra stimulation might require extra attention. Maybe the open road will have something special in store for me.
When the light turns green, I give her some throttle and lift my feet to the pedals before I shoot through the intersection and head for the highway. I merge onto U.S. Route 69 heading south, a fact I find both ironic and perfect. If there’s a road made for riding away from the past and into the unknown, it might as well be one with a name like that. All my immediate possessions are already loaded on the bike. Between the black leather saddlebags and my backpack strapped to the seat, anything that matters travels with me wherever I go. When I left for the military at eighteen, I didn’t have much. Coming out of the foster care system, I’d always learned to travel light. Never get attached. Not that I didn’t have some decent placements as a kid, but I never really connected. I guess someone would say I had an attachment disorder, but it’s actually served me well. Including now, while I roll out of town. I’m only here because it was simply where I ended up after the military shipped me back to the VA Medical Center in Port Arthur, Texas. After a long three-month stay, now all I want is open road and no destination in mind. I can go in any direction, and no one will care. It’s exactly what I want.
As I ride through the July heat, it doesn’t take long for me to realize two things. One, riding the Harley is more physical than I imagined, and it is going to take some getting used to. I’ve only ridden a few times before when I was placed with a family that liked to go out to the sand dunes and ride. Although they mostly had quads, it was always the motorcycle I loved. It was not as big as the Harley I’m riding now, but it made me feel good. Plus, I got to ride it alone, and I remember enough of how it felt to make me able to move my new Harley-Davidson down the road toward absolutely nowhere. Sweat clings to my back, gatheringbeneath my shirt as the wind fails to cool me. I shift in the saddle, adjusting my grip, not only on the handlebars but on the swirl of thoughts bouncing inside my skull. Out here, with the highway a ribbon beneath me, I should feel peace but the silence inside my helmet is loud. Memories press in, unexpected and sharp. The smell of diesel, the weight of a rifle sling, the feeling of sleeping with one eye open. I shake my head, willing it all away.
Two hundred miles later, as the late evening sun starts to dip toward the horizon, I stop at a rundown hotel in a map-dot town in Texas. Not much to look at, but right now I want a shower and a bed. As I park my bike and go in to register, I cannot get the vibration sensation from the bike to stop. My clit is hard as a rock, and I know I will need release soon or explode.
Ringing the bell on the counter to get the clerk’s attention, I am pleasantly surprised when a woman of about thirty answers. The air conditioning, if there is any, is not working and the woman is dressed accordingly. Sleeveless blouse with the top two buttons undone to accommodate her ample breasts, short shorts topping bare and well-toned legs, and her hair pulled up in a messy topknot. My already aching clit cannot help but react. She is incredibly attractive. There’s something about the way she moves. Slow, unhurried, like she knows the effect she has and enjoys it. That confidence is intoxicating. I feel it stir something in me I thought I’d buried. A hunger not only for touch, but for connection, fleeting as it might be. I shouldn’t get caught up. I don’t even know her name. But still, I want her. Right here. Right now. Maybe it’s the long stretch of loneliness catching up to me. Or maybe it’s just her.
“Hey there,” she says in a sweet Texas drawl. “How can I help you?” She has no idea how loaded that question is. There are a number of things she could do to help me. Planting herself onthe counter so I can run my tongue up and down her pussy is a start. Still, I contain myself.
“Just a room,” I murmur. “Preferably one with air conditioning.”
Sliding a strand of sweaty, long blonde hair off her glistening neck, she contemplates the register. I try to contain myself as a long droplet of sweat runs down her chest and disappears between her sweet breasts. I so want to follow it with my tongue. The bike has really riled me up. I am so ready to fuck something I might go crazy.
“Well, darlin’, you have your pick. Isn’t anyone here but the two of us.”
Fuck. She is killing me. “Then just the best you have,” I finally answer, my voice huskier than I intend. If she notices, she doesn’t react. It is wishful thinking she would see me as anything other than a biker chick on the way to nowhere.
“I think room seven is as good as any of them,” she finally answers.
“I’ll take it.”
Ten minutes later, the bike is parked right outside room seven. For the best they have to offer, it isn’t much. The paint on the door is chipped, and the metal handle is hot to the touch from the day’s heat. Still, there is a clean shower and a queen-sized bed with my name on it. The air inside is stale and carries a faint scent of lemon cleaner mixed with something older, maybe mildew. Not great, but I’ve had worse. It’s quiet, at least. Only the hum of a cicada chorus outside and the soft creak of the ceiling fan turning overhead.
After a quick rinse off, I kick back on the bed, still naked and contemplate my future. There isn’t much to it really. Ride and see what I can see. Unable to resist after a day of arousal from the motion of the bike and excitement of the ride, I slide my hand up my body and feel the hardness of my nipple. Runningmy thumb over the tip, I suck in a breath. When is the last time anyone touched me like this? The nipple is hard as a rock and hoping it might calm my ache, I give my nipple a pinch. Hard. Unfortunately, it has the reverse effect as pleasure and pain mixed together shoot straight through me like an electric bolt, straight to my aching clit.
With my other hand, I reach down my flat stomach, only stopping for a moment to graze the puckered scar near my navel that I sometimes still forget is there. For a second the bad memories overwhelm me but then instinctively I refocus. All that can wait. No longer hesitating, I move my hand through my folds, startled by how wet and hot I am, knowing it’s the damn hotel clerk who has me so riled. Moving my hand back and forth, a moan escapes me. This will not take long. If only I had the sexy clerk here with me, this would be more fun.
Slowly, I slide my fingertips up and down the length of my wet, swollen lips, sending intense pleasure through me. Pushing down harder, I cannot keep from bucking my hips in response to my own touch. “Jesus,” I growl. I am incredibly sensitive, and I worry for a brief second that I might go crazy riding the Harley. For now though the need to come is too intense.
I move my hand back and forth against my clit. I can hear my own breath growing ragged as I dip my finger lower inside me to gather the pool of wetness there. As I stroke myself, I feel the muscles in my body start to tense as the first wave of an orgasm ripples through me. And I know this is going to be big. It’s not like I could do this sort of thing much in my hospital room. My two neighbors might not have appreciated me making myself come every night. I imagine her fingers instead of mine. Warm, slick, deliberate. Her mouth at my neck, her breath hot against my skin. The fantasy unspools faster than I can control it, sharp and vivid.
I’m on the verge, about ready to tip, when there is a light knock at the hotel room door. What the fuck? The timing could not be worse. I am ready to yell out I’m busy, when the tap comes again, followed by a sweet southern drawl. “Ms. Holliday?” I hear the sexy desk clerk ask. “Sorry to bother you, sugar, but you left your wallet on the counter.”
Well, that’s a quandary. I’m naked with my clit throbbing, but outside my room stands a woman with a great body and my wallet. With a sigh, I give my body another quick rub but then grab my towel. “One second, ma’am,” I tell her as I get up and wrap the white terrycloth around me. There is barely enough to cover me, but I figure the interaction won’t take long and then I can get back to fucking myself. Perhaps with more visions of the sexy hotel clerk in mind.
