Summer Visit Pt 01

I'm ready to leave my home in Las Vegas at 8am, having packed my truck last night. My camping gear and a few changes of clothes are loaded up, and I'm ready for my yearly summer drive to Pittsburgh. It's 112 degrees already, and I straighten my black Steelers jersey over my camo cargo shorts as I walk around my truck and review my mental checklist. It doesn't matter, I'll feel like I forgot something the entire drive. I move my sunglasses from the top of my head to my eyes, straighten my long brown hair with my fingers, pull out my keys, and hop in my four-cylinder Ranger. The bed is empty: I've managed to cram all my stuff behind the seats, and since the Brown (James Brown, my rottweiler, who was my navigator and best friend) died, there's room on the front seat too. I back out of the driveway, shift to drive, and check all the gauges across the dash to make sure they're working. Everything is operating as it should, and I put a little more weight on the gas pedal, tranquilly cruising out of my neighborhood.

Once I'm on the main road, I grab a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit with no cheese, a hash brown and coffee, then head for the highway with another scan of the gauges. As I accelerate up the ramp to I-15, I calculate the time and distance to Denver, my first stop. With some apprehension, I try to picture how it'll go in about ten hours when I pull up to your house.

We just reconnected a few months ago when I sent a random "hey" on social media, and with surprising ease we picked right up where we left off, though circumstances have definitely changed. Settling my truck into a steady cruise at 80mph, I replay a few of our text conversations in my imagination. They always leave me wondering if you were dropping hints or whether I was just looking for them.

It wasn't long after that first text that we began to discover how much more we had in common. Our conversations always flowed naturally from one topic to the next, and one of the things we found we have most in common is our affinity for sensuality. Of course, this led to some conversations in which we artfully employed ambiguity to learn just how alike we were. It was so much fun trying to use benign language to hint at mutual attraction. The reason for our caution made it more exciting still. Dancing a spiral around the unspoken matriculation of the desires we're hinting at is so much hotter than clumsily plowing straight to the center.

In fact, it was arousing to restrain my flirtatiousness while trying to bait yours. I'd think of things I would say if I were unrestrained, then imagine your reaction. Then I'd picture the same exchange in person. Soon enough, those musings would turn into bedtime fantasies, even if we hadn't messaged one another recently. Then, I'd think back to the few provocatively forbidden ones I'd had when we saw each other more often. The danger and impropriety still excites me like nine years later.

That's why I'll probably be awkward when I get there. I'm really good at that. As I'm picturing walking up to you and stepping on your foot while you open your arms to greet me with a hug, my phone buzzes. I put my knee on the wheel to steer while I read your message wishing me a safe trip and telling me you can't wait to see me. The little wink emoji after the period (you always punctuate your texts) encourages my speculation and I mentally review my favorite pictures of you that have been contributing to my fantasies in the days approaching my trip.

I finish my breakfast and put the wrappers and used napkins back in the bag and toss it on the floor of the passenger side. The bulk of my overnight bag on the seat makes me wish it was Brown and I could reach over and scratch behind his ears. "At least I'm thinking of something else," I quip as I light a cigarette and let the window down. The sun is directly in front of me and the sunglasses offer little solace from its insistent hot, yellow glow. I have at least an hour and a half until I get to Utah where it'll be to my right and a little higher in the sky. I turn up the radio and set the cruise control. There's not too much traffic in the desert this early, mostly semis. I read their patterns and join the convoy, passing safely and respectfully, using speed and vehicle position to communicate with my temporary companions.

A ten hour drive ain't shit when you have good tunes, a couple joints, and an active mind. I've done this stretch at least a dozen times and I always enjoy it. The ranches and prairies of southern Utah stretch out both windows. On the left, they yield to the barren, wind-swept desert while on the right they stretch to graceful mountains that never seem to change for 150 miles. I manage to occupy my mind with benign thoughts, musings, and memories until I reach I-70, where I exit and head east through the mountains.

Maybe seeing the sign that says "Denver" triggers the gravity of the situation, and I feel a pang of anxiety. I start reasoning, which is a terrible idea. I'm on my way to stay at my former best friend's ex-wife's house. I was the best man at their wedding. When I started making these trips, I'd stay with them and they came to visit me in Vegas once or twice.

At that time, I hadn't even had too many stirrings of impropriety, except for a few standout moments my mind steered its own course uncontrollably. I wondered if you'd ever had a similar experience, or whether you even were attracted to me in the first place. And now I wonder when it started and what you did about it.

As the green trees and white limestone of the mountains give way to the red, orange, and copper beauty of the Utah desert, I let my mind replay my favorite scenario from a visit I made years ago. One night the three of us had a few beers at the kitchen table, and I think as time passed and decorum faded you and I got a little cautiously flirtatious. We started stealing looks at each other, waiting for the other to notice, we locked eyes when we addressed each other in conversation, and our chairs inched closer to each other imperceptibly. Every once in a while, we'd exchange a conspiratorial raise of the eyebrows like kids enjoying the candy they nicked when their mother's back was turned, then checking to make sure it went undetected.

I'm a natural flirt anyway, so nothing I did or said appeared inconsistent. But of course my body started to contribute its own chemical cocktail to the show and I knew I couldn't settle for a wink or two. With hormones coursing through my system and heightening my tactile awareness, I found myself surveying the environment, looking for potential places of concealment and inventing little libidinous, but not quite erotic, scenarios. I was a little worried about getting caught, and knowing the impropriety of it actually made it all the more intriguing. Another shot of adrenaline coursed through my system, nesting just behind my sternum, directly above an even more suggestive sensation that arises just enough to make itself known and hijack some of my attention.

A little spark ignited in the recesses of my mind when I felt your light, soft hand settle on my shoulder and your warm breath roll down my neck as you whispered a corny joke in my ear, leaning in close and taking your time. You kept your hand outspread on my shoulder, ostensibly balancing yourself with it. But even though it wasn't moving visibly, you dexterously exercised it with tiny motions along every point of contact with my shoulder. With my tactile senses in stimulated mode already, I felt my blood being rerouted through my body. I looked across the table, knowing I had an audience for this, and the intrigue made my heart echo in my chest.

As you pulled away, you let your hand slide lightly down my arm before you leaned back into your chair. I let my eyes wander over your body as you did, noting the way your pajamas showed me exactly enough to fan that spark that's been dancing around my head. In the short time I had, I was able to take in enough of you to give my dirty mind a blueprint to complete. As soon as I looked away, you nonchalantly brought up some trivial topic of conversation, and I was able to shake my mind back to seemliness for the uneventful rest of the night. I thought.

We all decided to go to bed at the same time (thankfully), but you joined me on the deck for a cigarette first. We sat at the glass patio table, and I checked you out the entire time. We were alone in the dark, which was exciting enough, but the potential for either incredible passion or complete disaster germinated a lump in my throat and made my body levitate. I felt my heartbeat accelerate as we lit our smokes and shared a casual, unhurried silence, looking from one another to the stars, to the shed in the corner of the yard; lost in thought or apprehension or self-discipline or scheming or a calculus problem.

Every time you leaned forward to tap your cigarette on the ashtray, your shirt collar opened just enough to tease me with a glimpse of the tops of your tiny, perky breasts. You sat cradling your legs in their pink yoga pants that mocked my growing appetite as my eyes traced every curve that they flaunted. Each time I caught myself appreciating something new I felt lust lunge, sword drawn, at propriety; with danger casting a spell to triple the blade's power. I quickly dismissed the image my mind created of my former friend standing, watching at the sliding glass door, catching lust and danger triumph. He'd have been my former friend much earlier. I looked from the door to you and that terrifying but entirely plausible scenario was replaced in my mind by wondering what you were thinking.

The idea that maybe you knew it and liked it was how I chose to interpret every move you made. First, when you put your hands on your knees, then stroked your thighs too slowly to have been simply warming them up. Then, gliding them all the way to your butt, and leaving them there when you stood up to ash. Pulling your shirt down from the back so that the front tightened to your petite form, revealing taut nipples and framing the entirety of your bra-less, deliciously small breasts. I'm a complete sucker for small, perky tits, and that did it.

My pulse and my lungs were racing, and it had to be obvious. I took a huge drag as you sat back down, freeing your thick, black hair from its bundle at the top of your head and letting it fall over your shoulders. I wondered whether you were turned on by the danger and whether it would turn you on even more if you knew that I was too. That idea kindled the spark into a conflagration. I had to finish my cigarette before I lost control. The last remaining shred of reason triumphed miraculously and I stood up, pressed the butt of my cigarette alongside yours already resting extinguished in the ashtray, and started towards the door. I don't even think we looked at each other as we went inside to retire, thankfully free of guilt.

When I got to my room I immediately stripped down to my boxers and climbed into the inflatable mattress. I had to lay down gingerly because my imagination wasn't the only thing animated by the experience. Closing my eyes was an exercise in futility, I was too full of hormones and trepidation. I tried a few times to take deep breaths and change positions, but I was insistently rock hard. I figured, "what the hell," and slid my hand into my boxers. Since I was alone, there was no harm in concocting an alternate ending to tonight; and maybe it would quell the irreverent compulsions that caused my insomnia in the first place.

Luckily my mind cleared as my pulse and breathing settled. When logic and reason finally resurrected from their induced coma, I paused and wryly laughed at myself. Shortly thereafter, I was sound asleep. The night ended safely, but it would frequently replay itself in my musings, often ornamented and expanded as my mood dictated.

Internally debating whether it's a good idea to create yet another alternate ending to that night while I'm on my way to see you in person, I approach the most gorgeous part of my drive. The stretch of I-70 that cuts through the Canyonlands region of Utah may be the most beautiful stretch of highway in America. The rugged, yet elegant landscape is a welcome distraction and I turn the entirety of my consciousness (minus autopilot) to appreciating the sweeping views, the stark emptiness, the wisps of clouds above that seem to mirror the brush-strokes of weathered sandstone below.