Journey to the Unknown

by Jacqueline Francis

  He carried their bags inside. The beds were clean. The bathroom was stained, but clean. It would have to do. Besides, the sun was already setting and he wasn’t going to let Jazz drive around at night in an unknown town looking for another place.

  Dropping the bags, he walked across the room and fell onto one of the single beds. The coarse, dark green sheets could cause serious chafing if he moved too suddenly. He had just begun to relax when something caught his attention, a quick movement at the corner of his eye. He sat up and looked around, but could see nothing. It could very well be a rat.

  Another slight movement to his right took his eyes to the little table between the two beds. He waited and waited, preparing to see a huge rat run across the room. But what he saw…He could’ve in no way prepared himself for what he saw.

  Two long, hairy legs came over the edge of the table. As another two gangly legs came up, he saw its face and then its entire brown, hairy body came into view. It wasn’t a rat. There was no rat. The rat had probably been hunted and eaten by this monster. Eight legs. Eight eyes. And a big, hairy behind.

  That was a huge motherfucking spider!

  So big that Kevin already knew that a rolled up newspaper would be an inadequate defense. Its long legs moved as it slowly inched its way across the surface of the table.

  “Oh, hell no!”

  He scrambled to his feet, but in his frantic attempt to scurry away, he kicked over the table and now that fucker was on the loose. He hopped onto the bed, hoping he could spot it easily with an aerial view of the room. Panic was gushing through him. His fear-stricken eyes were wide, searching the room manically. Where did it go? What did it plan on doing? Did it like the taste of humans?

  As an attempt to lure the beast out of hiding, he grabbed the remote control and tossed it at the toppled table. The noise must have shocked it because it came running out. Despite himself, he screamed, a high-pitched scream that could probably be heard by every guest at the motel.

  “Fuck, no!” He hopped from one bed to the other. “Fuck! No!” He took a giant leap, slid into the bathroom, and shut the door.

  “Was that you screaming?” Jasmin asked.

  Maybe he should have felt embarrassed, but he didn’t. There was a goliath spider lurking in the room and self-preservation was key. No shame in that. He opened the door just a crack. “Pssst! Jasmin, get in here. There’s a big-ass spider in the room.”

  “So why are we whispering?”

  Didn’t she know that spiders had an acute sense of hearing? “Just get in here!”

  “Where is it?” She must have had a death wish because she walked into the room and started searching for it, lifting their bags and checking under the bed. “There you are.”

  He watched her gently lift it up, using both hands to cradle it. Shivers ran down his spine and he had suppress a gag.

  “Look at this little guy.”

  “He’s not little!” Kevin spat. “Do you not see that it’s the size of both your hands?”

  “Isn’t he adorable?” she cooed, petting it like it was a poodle.

  “I think that’s a relative term. My nieces are adorable. That thing is disgusting! And this is just my own personal rule, but anything with compound eyes doesn’t feature on my cute radar.”

  “I don’t know why you’re freaking out. He’s more scared of you than you are of him.”

  He cringed, watching how she let it crawl all over her hands. “I hate it when people say that. Did you see him screaming like a girl and running into the bathroom? No, Jasmin. That was me. Now can you get it out of here?”

  She seemed too smitten with its grotesqueness to focus on his request. “He’s a giant crab spider, Olios Giganteus. They’re native to Arizona. He’s not poisonous, so you don’t have to worry.”

  She went on to give him an entire biology lesson about its habitat, what it ate and even how it mated. Kevin found it fascinating how she could sound so smart while doing something so stupid.

  She was completely captivated as she watched its thick, hairy legs hook over two of her fingers. “He really is a beautiful specimen, isn’t he?”

  “Aw, Jazz. How touching, and I really hate to be the one to ruin this sentimental moment with common sense, but…there’s a motherfucking SPIDER in your hand!”

  She walked closer to the bathroom and he had to fight the urge to slam the door shut again. “Do you want to touch it?”

  “No! Get it away from me!”

  “Grouch!”

  She disappeared for a good few minutes. Saying goodbye was probably heart-wrenching for her. He only came out of the bathroom when he saw her return empty handed.

  “Are you happy now?” she asked, glaring at him like he was the bad one. “Scared of a defenseless, little spider.”

  “It wasn’t little.” He didn’t know why it was necessary to point that out to her again. It was called a Giant crab spider. There was a reason for that. “And yes, I was scared. I’m man enough to admit it. Your problem is that you’re too naïve to sense danger. You see me, on the other hand, I know how to not get dead, and I do that by avoiding big-ass fucking spiders.”

  “Pansy!” She smiled and his lips tilted up in return.

  “You wanna order pizza tonight?” he asked. “I could use some comfort food.”

  “Yeah.”

  She unpacked her toiletries while he made the call to place the order. It was a rather uneventful evening. The sockets sparked every time they plugged something in, so no movies tonight, and the electrical issues became a real problem when the temperature started to drop. The lack of heat didn’t bother him, but Jasmin was a shivering mess.

  Her teeth chattered as she ate her pizza, and a hot shower after dinner didn’t seem to help her either. The complaints had not stopped and Kevin was a tad irritable when they finally decided to call it a night.

  Her bed was only a few feet away from his, which made it impossible to drown out every annoying sound she made. The knocking of her teeth. The constant shuffling of the sheets as she tossed and turned. He was exhausted and he just wanted some peace and quiet.

  “Jasmin, can you please settle down and go to sleep?”

  “I’m trying.”

  She was still for all of two minutes and then the shuffling started again.

  “It’s really not that cold.”

  “It’s freezing, Kevin.”

  More tossing. More turning. More complaints.

  “Fuck, Jasmin. Go. To. Sleep!”

  “My toes are frozen and my fingers are blue. I can’t even feel them.”

  “If you can’t sleep, at least stop moving and stop talking. Just lay there quietly.”

  She pulled the covers over her head, but he could still hear her muffled moans of distress. “I can feel my heart rate slowing down. I’m already starting shrivel.”

  “Shut up.”

  “When your body gets too cold, your enzymes become inactive. It’s only a matter of time before all my organs stop functioning. Goodbye, cruel world.” She coughed dramatically, as if she were really dying. “Jack,” she croaked. “Jack!”

  “Are you reenacting Titanic?”

  “Jack…I’m so cold.” From there she broke into song. “I’m so cold. I’m so cold…wahoo-ooo. I’ve got this ice-box where my heart—”

  “Jasmin, shut up!” He didn’t know whether to laugh or scream in frustration. “You’re so fucking annoying. I can’t deal with you anymore.”

  He got out of bed and took his blankets with him. Shaking it out, he laid it neatly over her bed. She popped her head out from under the covers. “What are you doing?”

  “Move over.” He lifted the covers and she was still looking at him in utter confusion. “If I have to listen to you for one more second, I’m gonna punch you in the throat. So. Move. Over.”

  “There’s your Triple S aggression again.”

  She didn’t argue further and shifted as much as she could. It was a single bed so there wasn’t much space once he
climbed in behind her.

  “Oh, this is nice.” She shifted until her back was flush against his chest, trying to steal as much warmth from him as possible. “This is what my pick-up line was all about, Kevin. You are now sharing your hotness with me. Heat is naturally flowing from a warm body to a cold one. I love thermodynamics.”

  “Me too. Now will you shut up and go to sleep?”

  “Yes.” She pulled his arm around her, letting out a small sigh, and he could feel her melting against him.

  She was starting to relax, but he…he was starting to stiffen in not so discreet places. Her juicy ass was pressed against his pelvis and he exhaled slow breaths, willing himself to not get hard. It didn’t work. He should have maybe put more thought into this before he jumped into bed with her. It didn’t matter that she was wearing the most unenticing pajamas in the world, he knew what was underneath them. And it didn’t help that every breath he inhaled was soaked in strawberries. For a minute he thought she didn’t notice, but then he felt her stiffen too.

  “What…what is that?” She reached behind her and took hold of the rigidness poking her in the back.

  “Fuck,” he murmured. He shut his eyes, pulling his lips in to stop a groan. “It’s my dick, Jazz.”

  “Oh.” She sounded surprised, like she’d never felt a hard cock before.

  Did she not feel it while they were making out, or when he had her pinned against the bathroom basin? Then again, he’d been hard before he even touched her. Maybe she thought that’s how he felt all the time. A normal person’s reaction would be to immediately remove the offending hand, but this was Jasmin.

  If the moment wasn’t awkward enough already, she rubbed her palm up and down the length of him. “It doesn’t feel…small…or even…” She rubbed a little more and this time he couldn’t stop a groan. “I don’t even think it’s…average. And I’m an expert now. I’ve seen stripper dick.”

  She was so casual about it, not having a clue what she was doing to him.

  “Thanks.” It came out as a soft pant. His fingers twisted in the pillowcase for no other reason but to keep his hand restrained. “Can you stop playing with it now?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure.” She moved her hand, placing it over his arm that was still around her waist. He didn’t have to see her face to know that questions were coming. “Why…why does it do that? Like…what does it mean? Does it mean you…wanna have sex?”

  “No!” He needed to douse that curiosity before it led to something more. “A penis has a life of its own. Right now my dick knows that there’s a luscious, female ass pressed against it, so…he’s just saying hello. Nothing to get excited about.”

  “How courteous,” she teased. “Is this a flirtatious hello? Does he…like me?”

  “It’s not you. Guys get boners for anything. If he watches a gum commercial and the girl has a nice mouth, he’s hard. If the fucking wind blows in the right direction, he’s hard. All right? It’s really nothing to get excited about.”

  “Hmmm.” She pensively looked around the room. “Well…I don’t see…a gum commercial.”

  He rolled his eyes and tried not to smile. “Please just be quiet and go to sleep.”

  After sucking her finger, she stuck it above her head to test the air. “And I don’t feel…a draft.”

  “Would you just drop it?” he snickered, muffling the sound in her hair.

  “So I’m guessing that…it’s all me.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I did that,” she stated proudly. “I got your dick on H, Kevin.”

  Laughter came rolling out of him. “God, can you make this any more awkward? Fine. Fuck! It was you, okay? Yes, Jasmin. You got my dick on H. Are you happy now? Can we go to sleep?”

  She shifted around in the small space until she was facing him. “Told you this twelve-year old boy body turns you on.”

  He brushed her hair out of her face and smiled. “You’re so…”

  “Annoying.”

  “Cute.”

  In the dim light he couldn’t see her blush, but she was close enough for him to feel her face heat up. She still played it cool, though. “I achieved something great today, so I think I’m ready to go to sleep now.” She snuggled up against his chest. “Goodnight, Kevin.”

  “Goodnight, Jazz.”

  She fell asleep within minutes, but he had to wait for his dick to go down before sleep was even an option. He took that time to reflect on everything that had happened, everything that was happening. These intimate moments were happening far too often and he was enjoying them way too much. He needed to put some boundaries in place. If he didn’t, this whole situation was going to steamroll and turn into a big mess. Given his past track record with girls, it would get ugly and he didn’t want that.

  It would be so much easier if it was just physical. It was easy to have sex with no emotional attachments, but there was a small problem when it came to Jasmin: he actually liked her, and emotionally, she was fragile. They both were. Nothing was going to happen beyond this road trip and she would end up feeling like another person had abandoned her. So no. He wasn’t going to mess around with that heart. Anything physical was bound to translate into something emotional.

  He was feeling too much already, and he shouldn’t. Happiness wasn’t something he deserved to feel. The longer he was around her, the more he felt it. That happiness walked hand in hand with guilt. How could he feel happy when his best friend was gone, taken away so tragically?

  He’d seen the same happiness in Perry’s eyes just minutes before he died. He should have been the one who was still here. He should be the one going to Florida. He should be living a long, happy life with the woman he loved. But for some inexplicable reason, Kevin was the one who survived.

  Boundaries were needed because the only thing he should be allowed to feel…was guilt.

  Newton’s First Law of Motion: an object will continue at a state of rest, or uniform motion, unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

  That was him just two weeks ago, coasting along aimlessly on a steady path to nowhere. He preferred that. He had even reached the point where he was quite content being miserable. But then Jasmin came along and fucked up everything. The unbalanced force that threw his whole world into disarray. Now he was smiling all the time, laughing much more than he should.

  He needed to put a stop to it. He didn’t deserve to feel what he was feeling. He didn’t deserve her.

  Part Two

  Newton’s Second Law of Motion:

  The acceleration produced by a particular force acting on a body is directly proportional to the magnitude of the force and inversely proportional to the mass of the body

  Layman’s terms: Force = Mass x acceleration

  November, 19

  Holbrook, Arizona

  “What can I get for you?” the waitress asked.

  Kevin set down the menu and looked up at the middle-aged woman. “I’ll have a waffle and the traditional breakfast.”

  A warm smile lit up her face. “You’re hungry this morning?”

  Jasmin was in the bathroom so he could understand why she made that assumption. “It’s not all for me,” he clarified. “And can you add extra bacon to mine? I have a plate picker.”

  “Coming right up, handsome.”

  “Thanks…” He looked down to her nametag. “…Connie.”

  She walked back to the kitchen of the small diner and not more than a minute later, Jasmin emerged from the bathroom with a thick black jacket slung over her arm. It was one of his jackets, but he let her wear it so she would quit complaining about the cold. He had no idea how they’d gotten to the point where they were sharing so much.

  “So I’ve been thinking,” she said as she sat down on the other side of the table. “I’ll take you all the way to Florida. I wouldn’t mind seeing Disney World and Universal Studios and all that.”

  Like the trip to Georgia wasn’t going to be long and hard enough, now she wanted to extend it. “That’s
not a good idea. And I’ve inconvenienced you enough.”

  “It’s not an inconvenience. Besides…” She shrugged. “We’re in this together, right?”

  That was exactly the kind of emotional attachment he was trying to avoid. It proved that she wanted something he wasn’t willing to give her.

  He leaned forward and crossed his arms on the table, ready to give it to her straight. “Jasmin, you’ve got your storm to face and I’ve got mine. You’re going to meet your mother and I have my own shit to deal with. Each of us will do that alone. The concept of we doesn’t exist…There’s no together. You don’t even know what’s gonna happen after you meet your mom. You may want to stay in Georgia, catch up, bond, whatever. Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that, at that point, we’re gonna part ways and never see each other again, okay?”

  One small brain-drain twitch followed by a perky smile. She was clearly expecting a different response after they’d shared a bed last night which was all the more reason why it needed to be said. Boundaries.

  “Okay, Kevin.”

  They sat in silence until Connie came to the table carrying their food. She handed him his breakfast, but an odd expression crossed her face as she placed Jasmin’s waffles on the table. “Hey, I know you. You’re that girl from TV…you were on that talk show.”

  Jasmin tensed, glancing nervously between him and Connie. “I think you’re mistaking me for someone else.”

  “Nonsense. I never forget a face. Hey, Beth,” she hollered to the other waitress. “Get over here.” She waited for Beth, who was a younger version of Connie, to cross the diner to their table. “Look who we have here.”

  “Oh, wow!” Beth exclaimed. “You’re the girl from TV. The human calculator.”