by Eva Vandetuin
(06/08/05)
I like a woman who can drive a stick.
Right now I'm lounging comfortably in the passenger seat of the red truck, one boot propped up on the dash. Her window is rolled down just a bit, and the breeze blows a tendril of her hair free before she tucks it back behind her ear. We're driving through the city bathed in warm afternoon light, but I'm remembering a night not too long ago, crammed in the cab of the truck with my thigh pressed against hers so she can barely shift, the texture of his leather jacket under my fingertips and against my cheek as we hurtle along in a tangled mass of arms and legs.
But imagine instead that he hadn't been tired that night, so when she asks us where we're going now, he says, "I'm wide awake," and I add, "Take us somewhere we can see the stars." And maybe then she drives the mass of too many crammed-in elbows and knees out of town and we're talking and laughing; I switch the radio on and fiddle with the dial until it sounds like home. And maybe, carefully, I lean my head against her shoulder, trying not to distract her from the driving but close enough to smell the henna lingering in her hair.
Maybe that night all of our other loved ones are busy with their own plans, and no one's up waiting for us, and so we drive out down the highway until the traffic disappears, and find a secluded side road where we can pull over and no one will notice or care. There are no clouds that night, and the air is crisp and pleasantly cool, a mild Texas winter under a glittering indigo sky. We tumble out of the truck, rubbing the feeling back into limbs that are pins and needles from being cramped, rubbing each other in pretended helpfulness that is a thin veil over mischief. And we're still laughing, but now I'm thinking how white her skin is in the moonlight, wondering if, without her jacket, it will pucker into goosebumps in the evening chill.
And we notice that the ground too is cool, but we are lucky that night because there's a temporarily forgotten roll of sleeping bag tied in the back of the truck. I lower the tailgate and climb into the bed, and while I fumble to free the bag's strings I remember another night years ago, when in the back of the same truck I lay next to him staring up at the sky, the feeling of his arm pulling me against him still burning around my waist, and him pointing at a planet, saying, "There. Look." -- The loop of string slips free and behind me I hear a giggle, and then a gasp. Ah yes. She's an ear person.
I climb back out of the truck with the bag in tow and take her hand, him on her other side, and I'm remembering a moment earlier in the evening, strolling hand-in-hand along the university's main drag. The sound of our feet makes a triple rhythm on the pavement and it's all so familiar, I feel like I'm surrounded by the ghosts of myself and my friends, shadows of our younger incarnations having intense conversations, getting coffee, hurrying back and forth to class, playing video games, having sex for the first time in tiny dorm rooms, laughing, sometimes crying. It's a past I don't share with the two I'm walking with, but I feel their own similar past floating between them, half-glimpsed in the stories they tell me, old photos, the easy connection they still share. I reach out and let my psychic fingers brush the twisted strand between them. She says, I don't always have to be in the middle, you know, and I exchange a look with him, a little half-smile.
And now, out away from the city and headed up the rise of a hill and through a stand of scrubby trees, she's in the middle again, and I am thinking about the last time being in the middle myself. I can feel myself there, still relaxed and just a bit stupid from the nitrous, and maybe that's what makes it seem so natural to lie there with them, him pressed against my back, my head resting comfortably on her breasts. And I have been thinking about how pretty she is, how pleasantly soft and yielding to the touch, and ever so good at intimacy, so I find myself telling her things I didn't think I'd say. I'd thought of doing this before. Whose plan was this? Who made it happen? And then my glasses disappear somewhere and really it doesn't matter; we are all touching each other and it doesn't matter at all. My hand is pressed between her thighs, his is moving under my skirt, and the chakra in my belly is opening up wide. I feel the gate open from hipbone to hipbone, and there's a strong flow moving from him into me and out again to her and then flowing back, twisting into a braid inside me. Not all of this arousal is mine; some of it is his. I can feel his desire for her inside me, moving up my spine, becoming part of me, and the braid continues to twist and soon I can't tell whose emotions are whose, but really it seems like I should be kissing her. And so I do, tentatively at first, and then with increasing enthusiasm. Whose pleasure am I feeling now? She kisses like him, like the submissive half of the same style, waiting for me in the places he would push forward. And I can hear his satisfied rumble in my ear as I slide my hand under her shirt to lightly flick her nipple, her moan muffled by my mouth on hers.
But it's her that's in the middle tonight, and as we reach a suitable clearing where the stars and the waning crescent moon are visible through the trees, I am wondering how it will feel to her, if she will feel my desire for him wrapped around my desire for her, if I will sense his love for us both moving in her belly and grasp it without ever touching him at all. And we are spreading the sleeping bag on the cool ground but somehow our hands never fully leave each other, lying down together and looking up at the sky, holding each other close because together we are warmer that way and warming and soon to be very hot. I bury my face in her hair, lips moving on the soft skin of her neck beneath, and I am thinking of how it will feel to slide my fingers inside her, wondering how her internal landscape will differ from mine, wondering if I'll recognize the clench of the muscles against my hand. And I feel him move against her other side, shifting closer, and I think, I will put my tongue in her ear, and then we will have begun...
And then she gives me a sidelong glance and smiles shyly, and I blink because I am back in the truck and she's driving through town on a sunny spring afternoon, and I have been so deep in my fantasy that I have forgotten where we are going. Is she taking me home with her to her lover, where with giggles and silly noises they will invite me into their bed? Or are we driving to a room with a jacuzzi tub and a locked door, where we will wait for the one in the black leather jacket and surprise him with flushed faces, disheveled hair, and a noticeable excess of bare skin?
And I don't remember where we're going, because I'm looking at her, riding with a woman who knows how to drive a stick through city streets that still feel like home, and it doesn't matter where we're going, not at all.
