Boosted (In The Fast Lane)

by Arya Cole

  Brody rolled the Porsche past where some of the kids in his school liked to hang out on those hot summer nights. He had not originally planned on stopping. He didn’t even want to be seen. He only wanted to drive by them so he could feel in his own heart that he was doing something more interesting, more exciting than they could ever hope to. But then he saw her. Lucinda. Sitting on top of a table, lording over her friends like a queen bee, sipping a strawberry milkshake slowly through a straw. She had just graduated and was likely leaving town forever within the next few weeks. This might be his last chance.

  Brody stopped beside her and lowered the window. “You want to go for a drive?”

  Lucinda looked over at her friends. They all seemed shocked and confused that the quiet younger boy from school was driving around in a brand new Porsche all the sudden. But Lucinda wasn’t shocked and confused at all. She made her decision immediately. Without a word she hopped off the table and got into the car with Brody.

  “Nice car,” she said. They were the first words she had ever actually spoken to him. “Where’d you get it?”

  “I found it.”

  “Lost the keys though, huh?” She tilted her chin in the direction of where Brody had stripped and tangled the wires of the starter.

  “Something like that.”

  “I was wondering when you’d get up the nerve to talk to me,” Lucinda said.

  Brody didn’t answered. He thought it would make him more cool and mysterious to remain silent. In later years it would become his regular state of existence. His only response to her was to press down further on the gas pedal.

  “You know I always thought there was something cute about you. I didn’t know you were capable of doing something like this though.”

  “There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”

  “Find a place to park and tell me about it,” Lucinda instructed.

  Brody, however, didn’t slow down just yet. “I know a place.”

  That is to say that he vaguely knew of a place. He’d never actually been there himself. It was an old lover’s lane up in the hills that had been largely abandoned as parents became more permissive and liaisons of this sort were done from the comfort of a basement couch. Brody navigated them there as he pushed the car as fast as it would go. Lucinda seemed thrilled by the sense of danger that came with the raw speed of the Porsche. As the lights streaked by she took her eyes from the road and instead used them to stare at Brody. They arrived about twenty minutes later and by then Lucinda was fully primed.

  “Not a very big back seat, is it?”

  Brody smiled. “I think we’ll manage.”

  They climbed into the narrow back seat together. They started by making out, as eighteen year olds tend to do. They groped and pawed at each other over their closed as their lips locked in a sloppy French kiss. Lucinda was not shy about sticking her tongue in his mouth and Brody was happy to return the favor. Even though she was very popular it soon became clear to Brody that she didn’t have much more experience with this kind of thing than he did. They awkwardly removed each other’s shirts and she unhooked her bra for him. She had small but very perky breasts with large brown nipples. Brody cupped her breast and gently suckled on her nipple.

  Brody then took down her shorts and panties. He rubbed his finger along the lips of her pussy and it was wetter than he expected. He’d always heard that a woman’s pussy got wet during sex but he didn’t know that it would be like this. He then slipped his finger inside of her and found that it was even wetter. He dipped his finger in and out of her as the intensity of her kisses increased. Her hand ran from the top of his back all the way down and around to his fly. She unzipped him and reached inside of his jeans. She roughly took hold of his bulging cock through his underwear and squeezed. Brody shifted in his seat. Her dainty hand felt nothing like his own when he’d indulged in masturbation.

  He shimmied out of his shoes and his pants. His cock swung free and Lucinda grabbed a hold of it. She jerked it back and forth a few time and then laid down across the back seat so that Brody was on top of her. She moved the head of his cock to the opening of her pussy with one hand and pushed away Brody’s now wet finger with the other.

  “I want you to fuck me,” she whispered.

  He didn’t tell her that it was his first time. She probably knew anyway. He rocked his hips forward. Despite her natural lubrication, he still had trouble easing his thick cock into her tight pussy. He thought he might be hurting her but she urged him on.

  “Go ahead. Keep going. It hurts but it hurts good.”

  Brody forged on. He eventually slipped past the tight initial barrier and had the head of his cock inside of her warm, welcoming pussy. It felt incredible. It always felt good, of course, but there’s nothing like that first time. When he was all the way inside of her he left it for a moment to relish the feeling. He then slowly removed himself from her. He took his cock all the way out so that he could experience that first entry once again. She let out a squeak of pleasure as he reentered her.

  He now pumped his hips up and down on top of her. She encouraged him with soft moans and nibbles on his bottom lip. Her hands clasped across his back. She rubbed her legs against his waist, spurring him on. He started fucking her faster now. The friction of his cock against the confines of her pussy was the best feeling he’d ever experienced, even better than stealing cars. His endurance improved greatly over the years, but this first time he was sure that he wouldn’t last long. He knew he had to savor it while it lasted. Lucinda was openly crying out now. She seemed to be enjoying it just as much as Brody.

  “Don’t cum inside me,” she said. “I can’t get pregnant.”

  Brody followed her orders. Just as he was about to burst he lifted his cock out of her and shot ropes of cum onto her flat, taut stomach. She rubbed it into her skin and lay back with a smile on her face.

  “That was amazing,” she said. Brody couldn’t agree more.

  He dropped her off at home that night. She kissed him goodbye and went inside. It was the last time he would ever see her. He had no idea what ended up happening to her. She had gone off to college somewhere back east. Every summer for a few years Brody would drive past the place where he saw her that night. There were always attractive women there. Some were even similar in looks and attitude. But it was never Lucinda.

  Brody didn’t go straight into stealing cars as a profession, of course. He tried a few other things first. He was a short order cook for a summer. He dabbled in carpentry, tried his hand as an electrician, and even filled out an application for the police academy. When none of those worked out, he tried his hand as a mechanic. As it turned out though, he was much better at driving car than he was at understanding their inner workings.

  It was in his brief time as a mechanic that he learned about chop shops. He found that there was profit to be made from delivering the goods of the rich to these under the radar places of business. From there he worked his way up the ladder until he crossed paths with some low-level Russian mafia types. They took him away from the world of petty crime and into more high-class pursuits. He learned which cars fetched the best value, how to beat alarm systems, and how to gain access to places that seemed as if they were impenetrable.

  After his first job with Sergei he never worked for anyone else again. The money was one thing. It was easy to give up his other gigs when he knew that Sergei would provide as much cash as he could ever want. It was also that Sergei didn’t like his guys to have many entanglements. The more exclusive they were to him, the better. Brody never wanted to find out what would have happened if he’d tried to move on to another employer. Sergei would have been very upset.

  Maybe he’d overestimated Sergei these past three years. By the look of his corpse he hadn’t been tortured all that much. That could only mean that he’d rolled over and told the colonel everything he knew right away. And yet he must not have told him about the boat. Perhaps Sergei was more worried about his own bosses than he wa
s of what the colonel would do to him. Easier to give up the guy who took the car, the guy who didn’t pose much of a threat. After all, shit rolls downhill. It was a bit cowardly, sure. But Brody didn’t really blame him for it. The guy had to do what he had to do. It was worth a shot. Just didn’t work out for him.

  The road that they travelled on felt more rough with each passing mile. They had left the highway a long time before. Brody now found that being jostled around violently was the natural state of things. Soon it felt like they weren’t even on a road at all, just a bed of weeds and bumpy rocks. The heat was growing unbearable. Brody’s breaths were little more than chokes. It took him four or five inhalations in these close confines to get the oxygen of one under normal circumstances. His eyelids felt heavy and his eyes stung with sweat. Every time he blinked they hurt more. He felt fatigued and beat up. Little did he know his trials had just begun.

  The car finally came to a stop. He heard the doors open and shut though the engine remained on. He heard their voices outside the trunk. They were speaking another language in casual tones. One of them even belted out a hearty laugh.

  When they opened the trunk Brody’s eyes instantly snapped shut. The rays of the sun burned his retinas, made sensitive by his time in the pitch black trunk. In the half second that his eyes were open he saw that they were, in fact, somewhere out in the vast desert of inland Southern California.

  “Come on out of there,” the colonel said. When Brody didn’t move immediately he turned to the two goons standing with him. “Go on. Help him out of there.”

  They grabbed him roughly and forcibly removed him from the trunk, dumping him unceremoniously on the ground. One of them gave him a sharp kick in the ribs.

  “Now, now,” the colonel said. “There is no need for that. He came along with us willingly. He’s been a very good little boy so far.”

  Brody made it up to his feet while still holding his ribs. He was surprised to find that none of them was holding a gun on him. Then again, he probably wasn’t deemed much of a threat against three of them.

  “Let me ask you something, my friend. Did you know who I am or what I have done when you decided to steal from me? I suspect not or else you wouldn’t have done it.”

  “A little,” Brody said warily.

  The colonel seemed determined to tell him his story one way or another. “I came of age in the Iranian military. Just in time to serve in our war with Iraq. You’ve had your own troubles with them. Yes indeed. So you know what these people are like. It was a terrible war full of unspeakable acts of inhumanity. I admit that I contributed to these. But only after witnessing what was being done by the other side. This was not a gentleman’s war that you read about in storybooks. Of course, what war is? You must know by now that we live in an age where the concept of a civilian in war no longer exists. They all fought against us. The women had guns. The children planted bombs. I am at peace with the things I did. Others are not. Make no mistake though, it was because of jealousy on their part. Not any moral conviction. You see, I managed to profit from the war. Everybody was trying, on both sides, but I was able to actually do it. That’s why I had to leave my country, the place of my birth. Those jackals would never have let me live. So I left. Most of my loyal men did as well. Those who stayed did not come to a good end. I decided to come to Los Angeles. Hollywood, you know? And my first possession, even before I had a house, was that car. And now it is gone. Sent to the one place where I can never reach it. You can see why I am upset.”

  Brody looked the colonel in the eye. “Are you gonna kill me?”

  The colonel laughed. “Kill you? For stealing a car? No. I’m not going to kill you. Not if I don’t have to, that is. You will follow my instructions and then we will see what we will do with you. You want to live, right? Huh? You want to see your girlfriend again. Yes?”

  Brody nodded.

  “Say it. Go on. Say that you want to live.”

  Brody steeled his gaze. “I want to live.”

  “That’s very good. I like you. I want you to live. I hope you make it. I really do. You took something from me. You did it right in front of me. You have balls. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Have you heard of Hammurabi’s Code? It’s not from my homeland but it is a wise law nonetheless. I’m sure you’ve heard the basics without knowing what it was called. ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ You took my car. I could take your car, but that would hardly be fair justice, would it? I know what kind of car you drive. I don’t want your shitty fucking car. So here is my proposed solution. I want you to experience life without a car. The Los Angeles nightmare, huh?”

  The goons laughed at his joke. Brody didn’t get it, finding neither the humor in it nor the logic of his punishment.

  “You’re going to walk,” the colonel continued. “The town is back that way. We’ll drive slightly ahead of you and stop at certain places to make sure that you’re still going in the right direction. If you stray from the right path, we will simply catch up with you and shoot you. We’ll give you, oh let’s say, two hours to make it back. If you don’t make it back in two hours. We will shoot you. I don’t know the exact mileage, but I would recommend that you jog. You clock starts now. Go.”

  Brody hesitated for a moment. Was this guy serious?

  “Go on. Go! Go!”

  Apparently he was. Brody moved his feet in the direction of the town and eventually began to lengthen his stride into a jog. The car drove past him, nearly sideswiping him in the process. It also kicked up a cloud of dust that hung in the windless desert air. He coughed and closed his eyes once again. He was already exhausted from the stress of the last seven days. From the moment Sergei had awakened him with an early phone call until the trunk popped open he felt as if there had been no respite. He had slept little in that time. His head felt heavy on his shoulders. His legs already felt like rubber and he had barely started. He couldn’t remember the last time he had run for any extended period of time.

  The sun beat down on him. Brody removed his sweat soaked shirt. The wet denim of his jeans was beginning to chafe his legs. Soon these were stripped and left on the desert floor as well. Down to his underwear and free from his heavy, wet clothes Brody felt significantly better. He ran a little freer and even felt like he was picking up speed.

  The car was an ever present speck on the horizon that moved further along whenever he began to grow close to it. There was still no sight of the town itself. He had no way of telling how much time was passing. He tried to count out the seconds at first but found that it was actually slowing down his pace. Better to concentrate on the task at hand. He would know when two hours had passed when he felt a bullet lodge itself in his chest cavity.

  He thought of Hannah again. He pictured her standing before him, always just out of his reach as he ran. She became his beacon of light. He pressed on if only for the dim hope that he would make it and the colonel would allow him to live so that he might one day be able to see her again in the flesh. He trudged forward, one foot in front of the other. His feet ached, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. His joints were on fire. His stomach was twisted with fiery cramps. His mouth was dry and his brain spun from dehydration. Without the image of Hannah in front of him he was sure that he would have dropped to his knees, passed out, and fallen to the ground face first to await his fate.

  Brody was able to tap on sources of strength that he never knew he possessed. His lungs felt like they were constantly on the verge of collapsing but still they provided him with the oxygen he needed to fuel his journey. His muscles fought against the lactic acid that was permeating through them. He ignored the pain that shot through his body every time his blistered feet slapped against the ground. He shrugged off the sunburn that now covered every part of his exposed skin.

  When the town came into view Brody felt first relief and then a renewed sense of urgency. If he was growing close to the town it must also mean that his time was growing short. He tried to push himself to go faster but
his legs were uncooperative. It felt as if he was wading through quicksand. For a long while his eyes played a trick on him of making the town seem farther away after each step he took to get closer, like trying to go up a down escalator.

  The town car had stopped on the edge of town. When Brody grew closer the colonel and his men stepped out and watched his approach. They seemed to be enjoying the show. They drank in his suffering. The colonel had probably used this same tactic before. Brody could only guess how many Iraqi prisoners he had forced into this same scenario during the war. He had probably done even worse. It was very likely that he had even grown soft in his advanced age and his years away from open conflict.

  Brody had come within a quarter mile of them. This last stretch was the most difficult of all. He had nothing left. He had never run for this long in his life. His chest felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. His legs were numb. The town car and the colonel were silhouetted against the setting sun. He was more sweat than man at this point.

  The colonel and his men started a sarcastic round of applause as Brody came down the final stretch. They beckoned him forward. The colonel glanced down at his watch. Brody gave it one final push to cover the remaining distance. He threw himself forward and crossed the nonexistent finish line. The next thing he knew he was laying face down on the ground, sucking in the desert dust into his lungs with each desperate breath.

  “You made it,” the colonel said. “With three minutes to spare too. Very well done.”

  Brody was too exhausted to respond. His chest heaved against the hard-packed earth below him. He felt as if he was about to vomit.