We were half an hour past the Utah-Nevada border when Patton broke a long silence. The road was being repaved and orange and white barrels ran along the center line, forcing us to drive halfway in the emergency lane, right tires grinding on the grooves etched into the side of the road to alert inattentive drivers. It had been this way for at least fifty miles, making it difficult for me to enjoy the scenery: tufts of yellow grass scattered throughout the rocks and sand, with jagged black mountains in every direction and a deep blue sky overhead.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Where did you hide Judy?”
The question threw me off guard, so I hesitated. The hesitation itself proved to him that I had been the one to hide her, but for some reason I still didn’t want to tell him where.
“You need to talk to her or something?”
He smirked. “Playing hardball, huh? You know you can trust me with it.”
“It’s better for you if you don’t know.”
“Or maybe you don’t trust me.”
“Maybe not.”
“But why? What have I done to make you distrust me?”
“You haven’t done anything, Patton. Put yourself in my position. Whether you like it or not, I am your prisoner. You own part of this company. And until I’m free—really, truly free—I can’t fully trust you. It’s nothing personal. I want to trust you. Right now I just can’t.”
More nodding, this time with squinty eyes that looked a little glossy.
Something about the look on his face made me think about his conversation with the eldest non-graduate Flora, her confession of undying love to him, their solitude, his emotional reaction, his refusal of her. I’d been so moved by that moment, I sat through an hour-long dinner with lingerie under my coat and the person I hated the most in the world sitting across the table just so I could jump Patton’s bones.
One thing had never occurred to me: Patton’s rejection wasn’t a choice. She had to remain a virgin. He loved her, yes, because no one could resist loving Flora. That wasn’t the issue.
The issue was sex.
What would he have done if he’d had the option?
These are the thoughts of psycho girlfriends, I know, but it’s not every day a girl finds herself dating an eighty-eight-year-old man who looks thirty. His beautiful face, his rock-hard body, even his erect-on-command penis were all one big lie.
And he’d fucked the original Flora, whose name, conveniently enough, had been Melissa.
Did that mean he’d only developed a crush on me because I reminded him of her?
Did he make that up completely?
Whatever spin I put on it, it sounded bad.
“Well, I hope you’ve got her somewhere safe,” Patton finally said.
“I do.”
“Do you think they’ll find her?”
“Are they even looking anymore?”
“I don’t know.”
“What will they do if they find her?”
“That’s probably up to Brian and how much he needs her for his research.”
The research, the subject that had frightened Judy half to death.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I said.
“Okay.”
“I’ll tell you where Judy is if you tell me about Brian’s research.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing. No one knows. Not even Mr. Shriver.”
“Judy told me Mr. Shriver doesn’t know, but I figured since you and Brian are in cahoots, maybe you were working on something together.”
He shook his head. “He won’t tell me a thing.”
“And yet you trusted him.”
“I never said I trusted him.”
“You don’t conspire with people you don’t trust. I thought you were supposed to be a genius.”
“I couldn’t go at it alone. Brian has power that I lack.”
It wasn’t just that. Brian was his little brother. He loved him. Probably the only one in the family with the capacity for love, and that must be the worst kind of torture, clinging to a familial connection that no one else in your bloodline shares.
I reached over and started massaging his crotch, making him jump from surprise. He said nothing, so I continued until I felt him growing hard. Then I unbuttoned his pants and pulled it out, leaning far over the middle console to put it in my mouth.
“This is illegal, you know. I’m not very coordinated when it comes to road head.”
I raised my head, stroking him.
“Pull over then.”
He did so immediately. I jumped out of the car, shut the door, and stood there undressing while he watched through the tinted window, completely dumbfounded.
I walked around to the driver’s side completely naked, the asphalt warm on my bare feet, a cool breeze providing a nice contrast to the glare of the sun.
“Get out.”
He stepped out of the car, stuffing his penis back in his pants and leaving the door open.
“Lie down.”
“On the road?”
“You prefer the gravel?”
He looked both ways, but the road was empty for miles, and when he lay down, I straddled him, pulled his dick back out, and lowered myself onto it, my shins on the warm pavement, my hands on his shirt, still cool from the car’s air conditioner.
Patton lay there staring up at the sky while I humped him slowly, rotating my pelvis, arching my back, squeezing my breasts and then letting my hand coast down my abdomen to rest on my hip bone, but only for a moment. As I masturbated atop him, he still gazed at the thin tufts of clouds, all motionless, so high you couldn’t see the depth of them. They might as well be painted on a canvas.
I looked out at the endless stretch of road, facing east, and saw a tiny blip on the horizon. A vehicle of some sort, glimmering in the sunlight, still miles away.
“Someone’s coming,” I moaned.
His body vibrated as he laughed. “You or me?”
I pointed, even though from his vantage he wouldn’t be able to see.
“Someone’s coming,” I repeated, increasing my speed but only so much. I didn’t care if anyone saw us. We were anonymous out here, ghosts to the world, just two sweaty, writhing bodies affixed in animalistic lust, as natural as the midair fucking of dragonflies.
I wondered if any other couples in the world were having sex on a road somewhere.
Then I tried to imagine how many people were having sex period.
Millions?
What if you grouped them all together into one massive orgy? Would it be enough people to fill a city? A county? A state? Swarms of glistening legs and arms and midriffs and breasts and asses whose moaning and grunting and screaming all culminate to the sound of a beehive.
It was an RV, close enough now that it wasn’t distorted by heat waves and mirages.
It stopped several hundred yards away and just sat there, waiting.
Probably a family on vacation, the husband in the driver’s seat and the wife coming to ask why he’d stopped. He was probably telling her to keep the kids in the back—or were the husband and wife watching me together, with no children to protect from something they didn’t need to see?
I waved at the RV right before I turned my face up to the sky and came.
─Scoping It Out─
WE ARRIVED in Berkeley after nightfall. Patton checked us into a hotel within walking distance of campus, and before we even took our bags to our room we went to the bar to have a drink, which quickly turned into three our four.
I ordered an appetizer sampler with buffalo popcorn chicken, onion rings, mozzarella sticks, and cheesy potato wedges. Sports bar food, but it was actually really good. All hand-made, not pulled out of a freezer.
I felt pretty tipsy when we got to our room, so I threw my suitcase on the bed and stepped out onto the balcony while Patton poured us each a glass of wine using the complimentary Styrofoam co
ffee cups next to the sink.
It felt wonderful out here, the cool, salty breeze, the soft cushioned chair. The balcony faced campus, where the tall clock tower was bathed in golden lights—the same lighting used in Flora’s display in the Showcase Hall.
Patton appeared with the wine and sat opposite me at the small table. We drank the bottle in no time, making small talk about how beautiful the town was, the old-fashioned town square feel, the old trees.
I fell asleep in the chair. Patton woke me and led me to the bed, where I passed out instantly.
In the morning we had breakfast and then walked around town for a while, spending some time on campus but mostly exploring the various shops, department stores, coffee houses, and bars. Patton treated me to anything I wanted, and by early afternoon I felt like a glutton. I’d had several glasses of wine, a few mixed drinks, a beer from a local brewer, a latte, a piece of chocolate and caramel cheesecake, and even a few puffs off a very tiny and very expensive pack of cigars Patton picked up at a tobacco shop.
He tried to take me shopping a few times, but I refused. I could have anything I wanted back at the company, and I didn’t want either of us to have to lug bags around.
This was the first day of the trip that I was actually enjoying myself. I started to feel strange, nostalgic in a way but not really. Something different. I wanted to live here, to be someone else, to have never existed as Melissa Reed. Maybe a girl who went to business school and opened up a bakery. Or an artist who waited tables to make ends meet between commission work and gallery showings.
In the early evening, we walked down to the place where we would be meeting the professor tomorrow. It was a pizzeria in an old-fashioned building where customers designed their own artisan pizzas, which were then baked in an imported wood-burning oven and ready in three minutes. The interior looked new, clean, and modern: thick granite bar top with black cushioned stools on a freshly waxed hardwood floor. Behind us, matching black tables ran alongside a gray brick wall decorated with soft, vertical lighting.
Neither of us was hungry, so we just sat at the bar and tried a few local wines and beers.
“I feel like we’re going to assassinate this guy tomorrow, the way we’re scoping the place out,” I said, surveying the near-empty restaurant.
“Offering him a job with us isn’t far from it.”
“Why don’t we just skip the interview and tell Brian the guy said no?”
“He won’t believe us.”
“Why not?”
“Because Mr. Harding won’t say no. Not with the money we’re offering.”
“How much?”
“Way more than he makes teaching.”
“Tell me.”
“Five-hundred thousand a year.”
“Jesus, did Judy make that much?”
“No. Not even close.”
“Then why are they making that kind of offer?”
“Beats me,” Patton said. “To attract someone quickly, I guess. I’ve been wondering about it myself.”
To make sure Mr. Harding agreed to the interview. To make sure Patton left the state.
Big flat-screen TVs hung above the bar and on some of the walls, all of them playing the same muted basketball game. A few stools down, two college-age guys clutched beer mugs and stared intently, speaking in low voices about the nuances of the game. Pure gibberish to me, as I knew nothing of sports.
I was getting bored.
“Can we go?”
“Where?”
“Back to the hotel. I’m tired.”
“Sure baby.”
Ugh.
It had been a long day of walking. More walking than I’d done since my days of stalking Ted up and down my neighborhood. I wanted to lie on a bed, ideally with Flora snuggled up next to me and in some alternate reality where I didn’t have an axe hanging over my head.
Patton walked me back to the hotel and I immediately plopped down on the bed.
“I thought we’d go to the beach or take a trip over to San Francisco,” Patton said.
I groaned loudly into my pillow, kicking my feet like a child.
Patton laughed. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m tired!” I cried. “I’m half-drunk, I ate too much, I don’t want to go back to Indianapolis, I want Flora—I hate everything!”
“Do you hate me?”
“Yes!”
“Will you hate me even more if I get in the hot tub?”
I flipped over and propped my head up with my hand, elbow on the pillow.
“Go ahead,” I said, staring at him.
“Okay.”
He turned on the water, loosening his tie as he adjusted the heat level, and then he stripped naked.
“Sure you don’t want to get in?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. “I’ve decided to be an all-out lesbian. I hate men.”
“Don’t blame you,” he said.
“Men are ugly.”
“I agree.”
“All those muscles. You look like you belong in a meat locker.”
He laughed heartily, stepping into the steamy water. I stared at his ass, which for some reason looked funny to me, but I held back my own laughter so I could continue spewing hateful bullshit.
“It sure feels great in here,” he said.
“Jack off then.”
“Maybe I will. Why don’t you take your clothes off and inspire me?”
“Fucking pervert.”
“Didn’t you bang me in the middle of the road yesterday?”
“So?”
“So you’re the pervert.”
“You liked it, didn’t you?”
“Of course. But I’m not the one who showed my tits to a bunch of random guys.”
“Maybe I’m a slut and you just didn’t know it.”
He moved over to the edge of the tub and put his chin on his hands. “Prove it.”
I sighed and fell over on my back unbuttoning my jeans and pulling them off, underwear and all. Sitting up, I ripped off my shirt, undid my bra, and then climbed off the bed.
Patton raised his head, anticipating me coming to him, but instead I went out to the balcony.
“Melissa! People can see you!”
I ignored him, stepping through the sliding glass door and walking over to the rail, holding it with both hands. The heat of the sun with the cool of the breeze on my breasts—there’s no more pleasant a feeling the weather can generate, other than walking naked in the rain.
I heard the splash of Patton getting out of the tub, and then next thing I knew his wet body was pressed up against my back, his dick pressed against my lower back, his big arms wrapped around my chest, covering me.
“Get your ass inside,” he said with a threatening tone. He spun me around and pushed me, smacking me hard on the ass.
I went along, delighted to be back in the cold room but a little unsure how serious he was being. I enjoyed a little playful domination, but I didn’t enjoy being bossed around.
“You told me to prove I’m a slut.”
He pushed me down on the bed, then grabbed me by the hips and pulled me back so my ass hung over the edge. I just lay there, too tired to even decide whether or not I wanted to struggle. The comforter felt soft on my face. I inhaled the sweet fragrance of some high-dollar laundry detergent and closed my eyes, picturing Flora naked and wrapped in flowery vines.
Patton entered me with ease, pushing as deep as he could go. I was more eager for him than I’d thought.
As he pounded away to the rhythm of the headboard knocking against the wall, I bit down on the comforter, grabbing at it with both hands and pulling, like someone hanging off the side of a cliff, clinging desperately to clumps of grass. Occasionally a breeze wafted in through the open balcony door, cooling my sweaty skin, revitalizing me just enough to keep me focused on the moment.
Meanwhile I reached out across the bed, grabbing the comforter and pulling, grabbing and pulling, hoping to catch a smooth, thin ankle or a
soft breast, maybe a strand of vibrant blonde hair.
I pulled on the blanket until it was all bunched up underneath me and there was nothing else to grab.
─Breaking News─
WEDNESDAY. IT’S Wednesday!
We wouldn’t be checking out of the hotel until tomorrow morning, so I could have slept in as long as I wanted, but by eight a.m. I was fully awake, reciting the word “Wednesday” in my mind as though it were my mantra.
This was the first time on the whole trip I’d woken up before Patton, so I made coffee and sat out on the balcony for a while, naked but wrapped in a sheet, glaring at the clock tower, resenting its mocking presence.
The coffee only came with two tiny sugar packets. Not nearly enough for me, so I went inside and quietly ordered room service: pancakes, bacon, milk, and orange juice, with a bowl of sugar on the side.
When they knocked, I took Patton’s wallet from his pants as he stirred in the bed nearby and pulled out a ten to tip the young delivery boy who wheeled in the cart.
He reminded me of Pete. Red hair, skinny, bashful-looking. He seemed afraid when he saw I wasn’t wearing anything—you could probably see my nipples through the sheet, too—but I gave him a warm smile and handed over the ten. He walked away with an awkward gait that gave away his erection, leaving me to wonder if this hotel had a Kate to torment the poor boy.
“Breakfast in bed?” Patton grumbled.
“You wish,” I said, plopping down at the table and forking pancakes onto a plate. As Patton climbed out of bed, I downed a full glass of orange juice and doused my pancakes with warm syrup.
After two, I felt sick.
“Feels like all we’ve done on this whole trip is eat,” I said.
“Travel takes a lot out of you,” said Patton, pulling up his boxer shorts. He sat next to me at the table and ate some bacon. “Today’s the big day. You ready?”
“Am I participating in this interview?”
“No, but I figured we could go early and get a table. Try out one of those artisan pizzas. When Mr. Harding shows up, I’ll sit with him at the bar.”
“What do I do in the meantime?”
“I don’t know. Get drunk?”
I shrugged. “Okay.”
But it wasn’t the interview I was worried about.
Back at Your Favorite Girl, Inc., something bad was going to happen today.
His Favorite Girl Page 16