Gas or Ass
Authors: Eden Connor
Gas or Ass
Eden Connor
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
GAS OR ASS
First edition. March 28, 2015.
Copyright © 2015 Eden Connor.
Written by Eden Connor.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Further Reading: Wildly Inappropriate
The odometer on my sex life was stuck at zero the day my mother came home with a husband I’d never met. Dale brought his two grown sons to help us pack and move into their home. Both were hard-bodied and handsome, but Caine didn’t speak to me. Colt, on the other hand, said crude stuff like, “Wanna ride with me? Then I’m gonna need gas or ass,” but I couldn’t take my eyes off his rippling muscles and challenging blue eyes.
When Colt offered me a ride to school, I thought the ‘gas or ass’ thing was a joke, but he wasn’t kidding. Though he barely touched me, he shattered the innocence I couldn’t wait to shed, and even then, I sensed I’d never be the same.
He and Caine soon upped the stakes, putting me behind the wheel of cars that could reach insane speeds. They kept challenging me to find my inner wild child, pairing illegal drag races with high-octane sex games. It wasn’t long before I was hooked, but I always planned to walk away.
Then everything spun out of control and walking wasn’t an option.
I had to run.
**Disclaimer: This is a tale of a young girl’s crush that turns to hatred and back to love.
Gas and Ass
is the crush-to-hate part of the story. There’s no HEA inside these pages, so if that’s a must, this isn’t the story for you. If you can delay gratification, however, the hatred-to-love part is the basis of the sequel,
Turn and Burn
.
I
’ve gotten into the habit of telling my readers where my head was at when I write my stories. I want to do no less here. But, fasten your seat belts, because my notes, like the tale within, ain’t necessarily a smooth ride.
I scan my Facebook feed probably more than I should. In my defense, what I see there suffices as my only adult interaction on too many days. I have a lot of authors in my feed, so, I see a lot of the phenomenon I call author drama. One day it’s a flap about censorship, the next, it’s an outcry about the meanness of reviewers who can’t string four words together with the correct punctuation, but have the nerve to knock an author’s latest release. The following week it’ll be m/m writers all atwitter because some guy dared asked why the hell a straight woman wrote a gay romance—or stated that she shouldn’t.
And lately, it’s been fiction shaming.
What’s fiction shaming? Most of you know, but for the insulated, it’s that nasty habit some authors have of finger wagging at their fellow writers on their choice of subject matter.
Like dino porn.
And rape fantasy.
And pseudo-incest.
Well, here’s the bumpy part of this ride.
This story? It’s pseudo-incest. Stepbrother porn.
It’s not even a romance, not this part of the tale, anyway. It’s...drum roll, please... New Adult, coming-of-age contemporary erotica.
Wag those fingers if you must. You’re welcome to knock this story as just ‘another one of those nasty, badly-written porn stories trying to sneak under the radar and be about incest to make a quick buck.’
I’ll make it easier for you.
The main characters are blue-collar—mechanics and forklift drivers. And, just to lower the bar some more, I set the tale in a small North Carolina town where the only place one hears proper English is in English class. A place where everyone says ‘aint’. And ‘gonna’. And fixin’ to. A place where I spent my teenage years.
Yep. This story is about rednecks.
Good old boys who like NASCAR and drive souped-up vintage cars. Guys who live for Friday night so they can put the nose of those cars on a line spray-painted on the road, drop the hammer, and fly for ten seconds or less. And the win or the loss will eat away at them until Friday night rolls around and they get another shot at ten seconds of glory.
And did I mention, it’s not a romance?
Nope. It’s contemporary erotic fiction. Think
Fast and Furious
meets
Girl, Interrupted
.
Why’d I write it?
Well, to be honest, the story began as satire—a protest of sorts.
Because I don’t think anyone calling themselves an author has any business finger wagging at any other writer on their choice of subject matter. Save that shit for something that does matter, like the Oxford comma and the unfortunate fact that so few seem to know that paintings are hung, but people are always hanged.
But come at me for the pseudo-incest at your own risk, because baby, I ain’t ashamed. I’ll say here what I’ve said elsewhere:
No fictional characters were harmed in the writing of this story. I put my heroine through emotional hell. She has more orgasms to her credit than a smuggled copy of
Hustler
in a Supermax. And I make no apologies. It’s fiction, yo.
I think that those who write for any reason should be the standard-bearers, the front line fighters, in the war against censorship. Because it’s not the things we write about that define us. It’s the things we fear writing about. The things we think that ‘other people’ cannot handle and should therefore not be allowed to read? Those things define, not the reader, but the society who seeks to ban them.
I don’t think it matters what that author’s motivations are. Frankly, I’ve never made what anyone could call a ‘fast buck’ with my writing. I write to eat, but in a vastly different way, I write to live. I can tackle thorny problem via a fictional character that I cannot defeat in real life. And inside the story, I can beat the odds and sleep okay for a couple of nights. And maybe, a couple of my readers can, too.
But this nasty habit of pointing and saying, “No one should write that shit,” has to stop. We have to accept that the biggest sex organ in the body is also the most convoluted, in every sense of the word. Taboo topics are the very ones that some readers crave. Can my shaming sisters not see that those readers lurk in their fan base? Can’t they understand that, while their loyal fan might read their shiny new YA or sweet romance one night, they can’t resist taking a peek at some monster porn the next? Reading fiction is an escape. And, frankly, erotic romance is shaky ground indeed to pick as the place to draw a line in the sand and try to say that one fantasy is fine but the next is dirty or wrong. Because that’s too damn close to the line of thought that says a rape victim had it coming because of what she chose to wear, isn’t it?
So, here it is. My entry into the stepbrother porn craze.
And baby, I’ll say it one more time.
I ain’t ashamed.
In fact, I think, in many ways, this is one of the best stories I’ve ever written. The sex is habanero-hot. The setting? I lived this scene in my youth and I busted my ass to make sure you can smell the gasoline fumes.
As I said, this tale began as satire. But after I set it in the place where something very taboo happened to me, it turned into something far different. I will say, my personal story is not the same as the one I put on the page, but all the characters within are based on people I met at the time.
And one in particular, I never could decide if I loved or hated, but that person scarred me and I tried my damndest to return the favor.
I bear those scars to this day. And I’ll be goddamned if I’ll let anyone make me ashamed of them. So, underneath the story lurks a fictional victory over a dragon I never could slay when it was alive, and tonight, I expect to sleep. And this sleep has been a long time coming.
So, to those singing the chorus of
Shame on You
, let me sum this up.
It took me 60,000 plus words to find the courage to write the five paragraphs that were me, slaying that dragon. Most readers will skim right past them and never see the real monster here. But I see it. And this story is the place, the only place, where I ever came close to beating it. So fuck you. The rest? Pure stepbrother, pseudo-incest.
Enjoy.
To those who can spot the real monster with no trouble at all, despite its camo clothing, I say, take my hand. I grew up in an era where women realized that tearing each other down was the real devil’s handiwork, not sex, or sex books, or sex thoughts, however taboo.
What the fuck happened to the rest of you?
~E
I
re-read the college application with a sigh. Eyeing the clock, I set the laptop aside and jumped off the couch, leaving the browser window open. Stalking to the front door, I jerked it open and peered outside. A car I’d never seen pulled into a parking space in front of our apartment building.
“Dammit, Mom,” I grumbled, dismissing the unfamiliar vehicle. Turning to scan the street again, I prayed I’d see our faded gold Kia. No luck there, but a glimpse of auburn hair drew my attention to the strange car at the foot of the stairs again.
“Mom?”
My mother opened the door and jumped out, waving me down the stairs with an excited squeal. “Come see the new car!”
Relief swept through me. A new car meant no more anxious moments after work, jiggling the ignition and praying the ten-year-old vehicle would start.
“What kind is it?” We’d been hoping to trade for a newer model Kia. This was definitely no Kia.
“Volkswagen Passat.”
The luxurious interior smelled so good, my head swam when I slid behind the wheel. We’d never had leather seats before, but the flashy two-tone gray seemed out of character for her. “Why’re there two brake pedals?” I caressed the top of the leather-wrapped steering wheel, eying accessories we’d never been able to afford. The interior looked better than any used car we’d ever had. I didn’t see a cigarette burn. No stains on the carpet floor mats. Not a single scratch marred the plastic parts.
She laughed. “It’s a manual transmission, Shelby. That’s a clutch, not a brake pedal.”
I blinked and turned to peer at her. “But... I don’t know how to drive a stick.”
“Dale will teach you.” Her smug smile made me want to slap her.
Anger shut off my breath. Some kids have mothers who drink or who eat Valium like candy. My mother got off on staring into the eyes of a beautiful liar and thinking she’d be the one to tame his wild ways. Bad boys were her drug of choice. This latest one was no different from the rest, I was sure. I hadn’t met him yet, but they’d taken off for parts unknown two weekends in a row. Every time she brought him up, I changed the topic. He’d last the same six months as all the rest before she’d OD on all the broken promises and ‘loans till payday’ that never got repaid. Why bother?
I glared at the extra pedal in the floorboard. Did the asshole sell Volkswagens? Why else would she buy a damn car I couldn’t drive? Jerking around to peer into the back seat, my heart nearly stopped when I caught sight of the sticker affixed to the side window. Even reading through the translucent paper, I had no trouble making out the hefty sticker price. Who was this guy? Why had she let him talk her into something she’d regret?
How was she going to help me with college expenses if she’d gone over the amount we’d budgeted for a car payment?