They cruised up a couple of country roads, then hit the main highway, and Billy gunned the motorcycle, accelerating up to nearly a hundred miles per hour in a few seconds before backing down to a more sane speed. It was terrifying and exhilarating. It made her glad to be able to cling tightly to Billy's back, to become comfortable and comforted there, to forget for a second how terrifying and exhilarating it was to simply be so close to him, her breasts crushed against him and her thighs open around him.
And the vibrations between her legs! Maxine suddenly understood why some people found motorcycles sexy. What was that song that her son was always singing?
Heavy metal thunder
indeed. She had never thought of herself as Born to Be Wild, but... talk about
Get your motor runnin'...
After a few miles he pulled off the highway, and headed toward a curving road that hugged the bank of the river. Here they rode at a more leisurely pace, although he would still accelerate through curves and make the bike lean frighteningly to one side, making her press her body into his with greater urgency.
Eventually he slowed down and pulled off the road, and parked the bike at a little clearing with a view down to the bank of the river. He suggested they get off and walk down to the pebbly beach and watch the water for a while. Maxine was ready for the break, and surprised at how wobbly she was on her feet.
He actually had a little towel in the storage compartment under the seat, and carried it down to the bank for her to sit on, which she found pleasingly gallant. Whether he was just being polite or something more, it felt like he was courting her. Which was sweet and a little exciting and a whole lot wrong, because Billy was twenty years old and Maxine was thirty-five, and his mother's baby sister. His aunt.
"So, are you looking forward to the new life?" he asked, referring to her impending relocation, her husband's new job.
"I don't know. I suppose. I keep having to make new friends."
"Well, at any rate, it's gotta be better than here."
"I love coming back here," she protested. "I grew up here. This is home."
"You're so smart, though. You'd be bored here."
"You think I'm smart?" she asked, blushing.
"Yeah. Mom says so. And she shows me your letters, or some of them, sometimes. I've never known anyone who could write like that."
"Hmmm," she said. "Well, I have a lot of time to practice."
"And you read a lot, too," he continued. "And not just
Argosy.
" She chuckled. He was right, of course. But she wondered if he imagined that she read
The Sensuous Woman.
.
"Are
you
bored here, Billy?"
"Me? Nah. I like it here. But, you know. The kids who go to college... or even join the Army... never come back."
"Well, the important thing is, if you're happy."
She paused, hoping he wouldn't ask if she was happy.
She wondered what else he might wonder about her life. She didn't really have to wonder about his. She knew it backwards and forwards. You graduate from high school, you get a job, you work fifty weeks a year for fifty years, the men hunt and fish on the weekends; you have kids and watch them play Little League and high school football and then you raise your grandkids. It wasn't the life she wanted for herself, but she realized she didn't really know what kind of life she did want. At least Billy seemed to know what he wanted.
She asked him about work, about his brothers and sisters. She avoided asking him about Roxanne. She was curious, but she realized... she didn't want to remind him of her right now.
He started looking for flat rocks within reach, to skip across the water while still sitting beside her. She watched his powerful muscles ripple under his simple cotton shirt, a size too small, like Li'l Abner. Li'l Abner and Elvis had the same hair. And, she realized when he got up to find more rocks, the same impossibly tight rear end.
How did he get to be so damn handsome, she wondered? He sure didn't get it from his father; she had never found George very attractive, even when Peggy was dating him in high school. Of course, Max had always thought Peggy was prettier than she was herself back then, before Peggy had five kids and twenty years of being worn down. And Peggy's daughters were certainly good looking. Maybe good genes ran in her family. Maybe she wasn't the ugly duckling she had always felt like when she was younger. Maybe she had more going for her than just a comfortable life with a good provider who bought her tennis lessons and salon appointments.
She watched him skip rocks and thought about how much she wanted to see more of the body she had been gripping for the past twenty minutes, how much she had been fantasizing about intimate activities with him. The river bank was private for the moment, but certainly not remote enough for any al fresco sexual encounter. A stolen kiss, perhaps; a brief grope of her breast. She would pretend to act shocked, she knew, but she would accept either. But he didn't seem inclined to pursue it, and she found herself vaguely disappointed at that.
But then, finally, he asked her if she would like to see his house. Ah. She gulped and said yes. And fifteen minutes later, they were back in town, parking in the gravel driveway beside a little gothic frame house, with an oil tank beside it and the broken remains of what had once been gingerbread lattice-work around a sagging front porch.
He held the door open for her and she stepped inside. It was hot, even with the windows open -- no air conditioning, of course -- and she could smell a slight mustiness underneath the sharp smell of cleaning solution.
She looked around the room. The walls were badly in need of paint, the furniture was all second-hand and worn; a small TV with rabbit ears sat on a peach crate. But she could see why a young man two years out of high school would be pleased with it. Anyway, she had grown up in houses like this.
