The birthday party had been a lot of fun, but it felt like I'd been driving all day. My car crested another hill, and I was greeted by more rolling fields, indistinguishable from the pastures I'd passed on the last rise. Dull grey asphalt stretched straight ahead of me, stretching infinitely into the rural distance.
My morning trip from the city to the remote farm had passed in a flurry of errands and a rush to get there to help my friends with setting up for the party. This afternoon though, after hours of children's games and forced socializing with parents, the scorched blacktop stretched eastward into plodding eternity. The two-lane rural road didn't have mile markers to tell me how far it was back to civilization; for stretches it felt fortunate that the road was paved at all.
Deb and Jesse's son, Mason, had turned six last week. His birthday party was held at the farm where Jesse's parents had retired, beyond the city's western exurbs. Mason's enthusiasm for animals, and the expansive property which provided adequate space for the energy of twenty kindergartners, made the setting ideal even if the location was remote. Thursday night, Deb had apologetically told me that they'd decided to stay at her in-laws' farm all weekend, so I couldn't catch a ride to the farm with them in their 4Runner. Even though I had reservations about making the long, desolate drive by myself, I told her 'No problem' and reserved a carshare for the day.
As I passed another empty field, barren of livestock or even haybales, a peculiar grinding whirred from the rental car's engine for five seconds. I held my breath and stared wide-eyed at the dash but the sound faded. The car held its speed and the dials in the dashboard seemed to perform normally, so I returned my eyes to the road.
The party did have an awkward moment. Mason's best friends, twin black girls named Michelle and Theresa, ran up to hug my legs while shouting "Aunt Sarah!" In their wake, instead of their father (a doctor named Mark with whom I'd 'become acquainted'), followed their curious mother, Mark's ex-wife.
"My girls seem to know you very well..." she noted after introductions. Her eyes focused distrustfully on the prominent swell of my bust behind the flowered orange fabric of my sundress.
I stammered to explain that I'd met Mark at the pool while babysitting, and he'd helpfully invited Mason over for a playdate when I confessed to being somewhat overwhelmed with my unfamiliar childcare duties. I left out the part where I had sucked her ex-husband's cock until he came so hard his ears rang. Or how, while the kids napped upstairs, Mark had fucked me in his home office then cum all over those same tits she was resentfully staring at. And I certainly didn't tell her that on evenings when she had the girls, I was a frequent overnight guest of Mark's, sucking and fucking him until his balls coughed powder.
Now as I drove home, the expanding, pleasant warmth of those steamy memories was interrupted by a clanking from under the hood. On the dash, the RPM gauge spiked, and the engine seized in mechanical cardiac arrest for a terrifying moment. Same as earlier, the noise subsided, and instruments normalized. I scanned the barren horizon for any clue to how much farther the increasingly fickle rental car had to make it before I was safely home.
I didn't mean to complain about the party, of course. Deb and Jesse were dear friends. And, while I wasn't typically big on kids, Mason was growing into a cool little dude. But the unfamiliar drive and a long day baking in the late summer sun were making me impatient with the monotonous pastures stretching between myself and a long hot shower to wash off the afternoon's dust and sweat.
A cheering thought crossed my mind: if the twins were with Mark's ex, that meant the handsome black doctor was likely available tonight for a rendezvous. As soon as I got back to civilization and regained cell service -- I mean, come on! Jesse's parents might as well live on the fucking moon! -- I'd give him a call.
My mood rebounded as I tried on outfits in my mind; I decided that a black corset and garter set that I hadn't worn for him yet would do nicely. I pressed my thighs together, panting excitedly as I squeezed the spreading warmth between my legs. My lips parted subconsciously as I imagined taking him into my mouth for a passionate blowjob in his living room, then gulped as my mental-mouth filled with his hot, creamy cum. Mmm, and after swallowing his first load, I'd let him have me as often and however he wanted me, fucking away the exhaustion of my drive as my screams filled his empty house.
Propelled by the carnal daydream, my foot pressed harder on the accelerator to take me home to Mark faster. The orange check-engine icon lit on the dash seconds before a ghastly metallic CLUNK rung under the hood. The car immediately slowed. No matter how hard I stomped my white canvas sneaker on the impotent gas pedal, the car glided lifelessly across the hot pavement. Glancing frantically at the empty highway around me, I steered the drifting junkpile onto the shoulder. Gravel crunched under the tires as the car settled to an involuntary, catatonic stop.
"Fuck!" I screamed helplessly, still buckled into the motionless driver's seat. I grabbed my phone from the cupholder. The corner of the screen displayed only an 'X' where there should be network bars. "Fuck..." this time my curse was barely a whisper, an admission of hopelessness.
I rested my forehead on the steering wheel and racked my brain for a plan. Between my two trips on this road today, I saw a total of one dump truck this morning, and I hadn't passed through a town since I left the farm. Jesse and Deb were staying for a weekend visit, and all the other guests had left the farm before me while I helped with cleaning up. I was miles from nowhere, with no cell service and no reason to believe anyone would drive this way anytime soon.
The temperature in the closed, disabled car was rising rapidly. I took inventory of my purse. Make-up, wallet, moisturizer, housekeys -- all unhelpful in my predicament -- but then I found treasure: an unopened bottle of water! Arming sweat off my chin, I zipped my inoperable phone into a side compartment of my purse as I opened the door, reassured that I could stave off dying of thirst for a little while. And how far could it really be to a gas station or roadside shop with a landline?
Outside the car, the air felt deceptively cooler compared to the greenhouse effect inside the sealed windows. I stepped out onto the sizzling asphalt, feeling the heat wafting off the road and up my skirt as I slung my purse crossbody and slammed the door with an extra point of force. It felt like the closest I would come to revenge against the mutinous machine.
I shielded my eyes with my hand and first looked back the way I'd come, then up the road home. The featureless countryside in all directions betrayed no landmarks; no indicator of how far I'd come or had left to go. I took a careful sip of water, replaced the bottle in the bag, and walked onward, past the front of the car and -- I hoped -- toward help.
The rubber soles of my shoes were almost silent on the asphalt as I marched. It was a fleeting bit of good fortune that the party's rustic outdoor setting had convinced me to wear sneakers instead of the impractical strappy heels I'd tried on with this dress last night.
Shimmering heat mirages waved over the highway ahead of me, but the liquid illusions bore no vehicles or other sign of human life. I paused and pulled out my phone, and for a cruel second saw a flicker of a signal bar. But the 'X' returned to my screen, taunting me with its isolating finality. With a sigh, I replaced the glass brick in my purse. I took the handy black elastic from my wrist, then gathered the dampening locks of red hair away from my neck into a high ponytail. After wetting my mouth with another small sip of water and taking a quick check over my shoulder to confirm the way behind me was equally empty, I trudged on toward the horizon.
The broken-down rental had long ago disappeared behind the countless rolling hills I'd climbed. An hour into my hike, the scenery hadn't changed. Every couple hilltops a silo or barn would appear in the roadside distance, but the far-off buildings were never accessible from the highway. In passing, I considered hopping the fence and hiking across the fields to ask for a phone, but the abundant 'no trespassing' signs kept me on the road. Besides, from a distance, I didn't know how much my orange dress might resemble a deer.
I paused again twenty minutes later for another drink. Despite the relative practicality of my shoes, two of my toes had blistered and broken during the walk. I looked down at my feet; dots of red were spreading through the white canvas. "Great, one more thing..." I muttered as I shielded my eyes and scanned the road in front of me for signs of human development. Not a church steeple or convenience store pylon to be seen. I half turned as I stuck the water back in my purse.
Out of the corner of my eye, I detected movement. I whipped around, back the way I'd come, and spotted a pickup truck cresting a hill in the middle distance. Shielding my vision from the sun and blinking one eye at a time and then both to make sure it wasn't a hallucination, my ears picked up the drone of the motor as the red and white truck neared.
