On the Road with Sonia
by Paula Bomer
June 13, 2007
Once Sonia gets going on 95 North, once she is definitely out of the city, it is all she can do not to slam on the brakes and turn back, or hit the gas pedal and go 100 miles an hour. She feels extreme. She's free. Every now and then, she lets out a squeal of delight and fear.
As the day wears on and she drives further and further into the New England countryside, past the suburbs, deep into hilly, tree-laden Massachusetts, she's struck by how gorgeous the world really is. The sun hangs deep and yellow in the painfully clear sky, the trees sparkle every shade of orange and red. Autumn in the country. And she's alone at last. No crying babies demanding she try and stick a bottle in their mouths while she's driving. No toddlers saying, "I'm bored. Are we there yet?" Nobody throwing up from carsickness. No one demanding to stop because they have to pee so badly they're about to wet the car seat.
Except that Sonia has to pee. And even if there are no children in the car — she glances into the rear-view mirror just to make sure; nope, no children — there are their car seats, staring back at her angrily, accusingly empty.
The miles accumulate. The traffic is sparse now. Darkness begins settling in. Sonia turns on the lights, and the road spreads out gray and weakly lit before her. Funny how lights on a car don't feel important until it's deep into the night. She's been listening to CDs and the radio, and now her ears hurt. She turns down the music. A green sign saying "Rest Stop, Three Miles" presents itself. Good, she thinks. She can make it.
And she does. But barely. She parks the Passat as close as possible and rushes into the restroom, which is as nasty and smelly as can be. She sits on the toilet seat without thinking or looking; immediately, her ass feels wet. Her wet, cold butt sticking to the toilet seat fuels the self-hatred festering inside of her. She is disgusting and incompetent. But she is peeing and feels some relief. It dawns on her that this is the first of many public bathrooms she will encounter.
Afterward, she manages a decent clean-up job. There is toilet paper — hallelujah! — and even warm water in the sinks. She stares at
herself in the mirror. She sticks out her chest. She has the pregnancy glow. The moist skin, the Mona Lisa smile all pregnant women get — not a real smile, but it seems like one to the outside world. She sticks her tongue out and leaves the restroom.
It is a beautiful night. Even here, next to the highway. It really is the edge of darkness now. The air is crisp and cool and her nipples harden under her tank top. And even though cars whiz by on the highway occasionally, the rhythmic noises of crickets and birds overwhelm the traffic. Sonia sits on top of her car, delicately though, as it feels a bit warm. She folds her hands in her lap and breathes slowly for a minute, her eyes closed. I'm here now, she thinks, that's all. Nothing else matters.
There are a handful of other cars. A few spots away from her Passat, with no cars in between, is a green Chevy pickup, with a young, dark-haired man leaning against it, holding a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette.
Sonia immediately likes him. His hair is dirty, long but not too long, a haircut gone neglected. His pants are tight, but not painfully so. He has tattoos.
"You're staring at me," he says.
"I'm sorry?" says Sonia.
"You're staring at me." He smiles.
"Can I bum a cigarette?" Sonia hasn't smoked since college.
"Sure."
Sonia walks over to him, and every muscle feels tight and strange, as if walking were something her body had never done before. He taps out a Camel filter. Up close, she notices things about him that weren't evident from two parking spots away. He has that reddish-tan skin that has a bit to do with the sun, and much to do with cigarettes and alcohol. He might not be that young. He seems decadent, reckless, a bit jaded.
"I haven't had a cigarette in a long time," she says.
"Are you pregnant?"
Sonia looks down at her bump. She feigns surprise. "Look! I am pregnant!"
"Whew. For a minute there, I thought I'd made a mistake." He has an accent that Sonia can't place. "That's no good, saying a woman looks pregnant when she's not." He laughs, looking away.
But quickly he's leaning closer, flicking his lighter at the cigarette in her mouth. Sonia doesn't inhale, just holds the dry smoke in her mouth. It's too much. Her hand shakes as she takes the cigarette from her lips.
"Where are you from?" she asks.
"Hingham, the south shore of Boston. I was visiting my dad. He lives in Connecticut. Where are you from?"
"From Brooklyn," she answers, and then wonders if this is the time where she starts lying about where she's from. Or if she's pregnant. Let them think she's fat. Who cares? Guys fuck fat chicks. Some guys do. Or if she's married. The hand with the cigarette, her left hand, sports a wedding ring. She wonders if she should take it off. Hell, guys fuck married women all the time. In fact, Sonia decides, many may prefer to. Perhaps the man Sonia is looking for prefers married women — if she's looking for men, which she's not quite sure about. Is she looking for men? For what? For laughs? She is looking at this man now. He is beautiful to her. The cigarette and his arms and his accent and everything about him, his truck, everything, makes her feel weak, light-headed.
"Where are you heading?" he asks.
"That's a good question. I guess to Boston. I'm on a road trip. And I don't have a strict itinerary."
She's standing so close that she can really smell him: salt, smoke. Like he's been sweating a bit, but not too much. His biceps bulge. His tattoo is of a dragon. His arms are covered with coarse, dark hair.
"Are you okay?" He puts a hand on her arm.
"Yeah, the cigarette just made me dizzy." She's barely smoked; it's his touch that pushes her over the edge. She throws the cigarette on the ground. "Can I sit in your truck for a minute?"
He looks at her strangely.
"Please?" she says, weakly.
"Sure." She can hear a bit of nervousness in his voice. "I do have to be going soon." He starts looking around himself, as if he were waiting for someone.
She wants to scream, Fuck you, pussy! What are you afraid of? Be a man! Instead, she says, "Thanks. Just for a minute."
Then she looks at his face. He's chiseled. It's as if she ran into Colin Farrell here on the side of 95 in deep New England. Except this guy's taller, and smells. And he probably gets his cut arms from doing real work, not hanging out with a personal trainer. Sonia hates actors, the whole concept of them, pretending to be real people. But she loves men — real men.
"Come sit next to me." Her voice comes out smooth, a little deep.
"Are you married?" He's standing in the doorway of the driver's seat. She's already scooted over the bench to the passenger's side. He's got one leg crossed over the other.
"Not really. My husband — my husband died. Just sit next to me." The lie came purring out. This guy could be young, Sonia thinks, really young. He could be nineteen. She can't tell and she doesn't want to ask. All the cigarettes and booze can't kill the hard, strong youthfulness underneath his skin.
"Wow. I'm sorry." He sits next to her. "Was he the father of your child?"
She looks into his eyes, leaning a bit closer. He wants it, too. Or so she hopes. Prays. Dear God, please let this guy want to fuck me. "Don't talk about it. I'm not so pregnant yet," she says, rubbing her hands gently on her smooth, rounded belly. "I'm still toward the beginning. Not yet the middle. But feel this," she says and takes his hand — God, the feel of it, so rough — and places it firmly on her right breast.
He looks away, out the back window. With his free hand he slams the truck door shut. It's dark out now.
She reaches out to his face and kisses him. He tastes sour, stale and dry. She's nervous but keeps at it, and soon he's kissing her and squeezing her breast. She lifts up her tank top and pulls up her bra over her head and takes both of his hands and puts them on her breasts. His mouth goes down on them and she moans — her nipples are so hot and painful, she almost comes right then, bucking her hips up toward him.
Suddenly he pulls back. "I can't do this," he says quietly. Then he grabs her breasts again and she sits on top of him and grinds against his erection. It's a hard stick in his pants. Everything about this guy is thick. His rock-solid arms are around her body now, now around her neck, now grabbing her waist. She hoists herself up and starts the awkward undressing, the ripping, the just a minute, the I got it, I got it, the wait, not yet.
First she's on top and he's inside of her and she can barely get him all in, then he pushes her down on the bench, she stretches one of her legs over the seat, and wham, it's all the way in and he's fucking her. One hand of his on the dashboard, the other underneath her on the bench. It hurts, in the good way fucking hurts. She hates to look in her husband's eyes when she's fucking him, but for some reason, here in the dark with this stranger, she stares. His eyes glow like a cat's in the dark. His mouth is loose and open. He looks right back at her, then pulls his hand out from underneath her and spits on his thumb and puts it on the base of her clit and pushes very, very gently. This man knows pussy. He fucks her hard, his other free hand now on her hipbone. Her breasts start shaking in her face and she comes in that blinded way — she can't see anything but white light, an electric current slamming her head against the door. She's been fucked right out of her own body. Then panting, she's back in the truck again. The vision of it all! Fucked in a truck on the side of a highway by a man who doesn't give a shit about her, about their social life, about how the kids are. It's so awful; it's so right. She looks back at him, moving, working it, his breath getting quick and panicky. He's about to come and she's back now with him, back in the fuck, and she screams, "Don't take it out! I can't get pregnant! I am pregnant! Don't pull out! Come, come inside me!"
He does. A minute later, the liquid drips out of her, immediately cool on her thighs. He's beside her, careful not to put pressure on her stomach, smashed sideways next to the dashboard. She feels a surge of emotion. When she was fourteen, she'd called it love.
After she washes up in the bathroom again — this time, her ass stays dry; she wipes off the seat carefully — she comes back out, and his truck is gone. Which is all fine and well. She heads toward the Passat. After unlocking it, she opens the backseat doors. First one, then the other, she throws her sons' car seats onto the grass. Then she gets back in the car and drives, in her car without children's car seats. The road ahead of her is black with night. For a moment, she is frightened. She can't see clearly, despite her lights, and the road turns and twists abruptly. She grips the wheel of her car too tightly. She leans forward, the acid taste of panic in her mouth. She can't see, and she doesn't know the way to Boston. Then she remembers what to do. She puts on her brights, leans back, exhales. Everything she needs to see is illuminated now. She steps on the gas and goes a little faster.
n°
©2007 Paula Bomer & Nerve.com