by Julia Dumont
Cynthia burst into laughter. It startled her a bit because it sounded exactly like her eighteen-year-old laugh.
“Book it, baby,” she giggled. “God knows I’d like to bleep your brains out.” She hoped the cab driver didn’t gather what she was referring to, but he did. She could see him smiling in the mirror.
“I’m on it,” said Pete in clipped military fashion. “Your final destination coordinates will be texted to you shortly.”
“Very well,” smiled Cynthia, slipping her phone into her purse and sliding deeper into the seat.
She gazed out the window and happened to see a young couple in a funky VW Beetle traveling alongside her. The adorable girl was driving and the adorable boy leaned over, first caressing the nape of her neck, then her arm, then nibbling at the flimsy strap of her translucent tank top. She smiled, staring straight ahead, wide-eyed, hands steady at 10:00 and 2:00, as he tugged the strap down over her shoulder with his teeth.
Cynthia was that girl.
She closed her eyes again.
She was behind the wheel, cruising quite a bit more than slightly over the speed limit toward her very specific predetermined destination while the hungry boy tugged and nibbled mercilessly at her defenses. He tasted her in places she didn’t know she had places. He had an instinctual understanding of the geography of her longing . . . the topography of her desire. His eyes seemed custom designed to decipher the map of her heart. He pleaded for her to pull over, because he’d pinpointed his destination and it was her. They shared their champagne-soaked tongues as he wielded his hard wanderlust upon her between the soft sheets of a secluded hotel. His warm mouth melted away miles of wrong turns and dead-end streets. Back on the road, now he took his turn at the wheel and she was driven to distraction by the hungry hands of this romantic boy——a romantic boy with a big, proud, throbbing, loving hard-on with her name on it.
Maybe his name is Pete. And maybe against all odds their divergent highways were somehow merging. Maybe they had always been each others’ destinations. Maybe not. Maybe she still wasn’t quite ready to share the wheel with anyone at all. Too early to tell.
She recalled the wild parrot outside his window, the bright California landscape interrupted by this brighter flash of furious motion and sound. No matter what happened next there was something very special about the Cynthia-Pete equation . . . something familiar, like home, but with a mysterious spark, a thrilling flame caused by just the right kind of erotic and intellectual alchemy, just the right music floating on a warm breeze in a lush canyon at just the right time of day. Something like coming to an earthshattering mutual climax with a gorgeous time traveler in the bed you grew up in. Right there, on the very spot you dreamed those desires into existence for the very first time, when the world was new.
And here she was now. She opened her eyes.
“Driver,” said Cynthia, sitting up a bit, “doesn’t this thing go any faster?”
The End
