Wanderlust (9 page)

“
I’m sorry,” I said
caustically, “I haven’t had a very interesting life so far. That
was what I was trying to do before you—”

“
Fine. What’s the deal
with your book? About Niagara Falls.”

I didn’t want to tell him what it
meant to me, how it had been my goal for so long and how it tore me
up inside to be battered off course.

“
I can tell you a story
from the book,” I offered. “It’s called the Maid of the Myst. A
Native American myth. Have you heard it before?”

“
Why would I have heard it
before?”

“
Right. Well, the people
used to listen to the thunder, and it would teach them about the
world, how to grow food and be kind to each other. But then they
stopped listening, and the god of thunder grew angry and went to
live under the waterfalls.”

“
So he just left them.
Kind of immature for a god, huh?”

I ignored him. “The people suffered
and they decided to sacrifice this girl, but she ran away. She
takes a canoe down the river, but the rapids take over and she
can’t control it. As the boat fell over the waterfall, the god of
thunder caught her in his arms and saved her.”

“
Very
romantic.”

“
Yes, it
was
romantic. They fell
in love and lived together underneath the falls.”

“
Hmm. Happily ever after,
just like that?”

“
Well, not exactly. She
wanted to see her home one last time, so she convinced the god to
let her go. There she realized how much she missed it so she
decided to stay. In his anger, the god of thunder destroyed his
home, flooding it with water from the falls.”

“
Anger issues. He’s really
not much of a catch, is he?”

“
Back with her people, the
girl realized how much she had changed and could no longer live
among them. So she returned to the god of thunder. Since their home
under the falls was destroyed, he carried them up to the sky where
they watched over their people.”

“
And you believe this
bullshit?”

Anger simmered inside me. “Why are you
doing this?”

The words immediately meant more than
his antagonism over the story. They were about taking me, keeping
me. About hurting me when he could have simply walked away. Part of
me wanted the truth, however cruel, while the other part hoped that
my words had been swallowed by the hum of the motor, the quiet rush
of the air outside the window.

“
I don’t know,” he
muttered.

Not much of an answer, but the raw
honesty I heard in his voice felt like an opening, a crack in the
veneer. Not that he would let me go with apologies or anything that
extreme just because he’d displayed a moment of doubt, but that I
could learn something about this man who held me, see around the
thumb that pinned me down, see beyond the walls that always penned
me in. What made someone like him tick? Why did he do something
like this? Had this moral ambiguity always been inside him or was
it learned, evolved—forced upon him just as it was me?

“
Who gave you that?” I
asked softly, gesturing to the beads swaying from the
mirror.

He scowled. “A man who will no longer
speak my name. Does that make you happy?”

“
What did you do before
you became a truck driver?”

He looked at me sharply. “Why would
you ask me that?”

“
I’m curious,” I said
defensively, though not really giving up ground—not yet. “It
doesn’t matter, right? It doesn’t matter what I know. I can’t do
anything to you.”

“
No, you can’t do anything
to me, not a goddamn thing. You think you’re clever, huh? You want
me to open up to you, and then what? Maybe I’ll fall in love with
you? Maybe I’ll let you go? Not gonna happen. You’re mine. I caught
you, and I’m not giving you back.”

My throat stung, but I refused to back
down. Maybe I was goading him. Would it be so bad if he snapped?
Then it would be over. The words tumbled forth, unruly and vehement
along the dashboard.

“
You can keep my body and
you can hurt me and have sex with me, but you’ll never really know
me. You’ll never really
have
me, just like she didn’t.” It became a prayer,
one for each bead on the rosary. “Never, never, never.”

A low growl seemed to emanate from his
chest. “I don’t give a shit about knowing you. I just want to use
you.”

His hand tangled in my hair, dragging
me down to the floorboards. Tears flooded my eyes at the pain—at
the defeat. He unzipped his jeans and shoved inside my mouth, still
guiding my movements with his fist in my hair. I didn’t have time
to consider whether I’d fight. I was already doing it. Not really
sucking, but then I didn’t have to, couldn’t keep up anyway. There
was salt and heat and liquid-coated skin, and then I was gagging,
choking on it, hearing him tell me he still didn’t care as long as
he got what he wanted. He was inflamed, and I had made him that
way.

“
You’re just like them
anyway,” he grunted. “Just like them, just like them.”

Like a prayer of his own.

The body will cope with what it is
given—that was what I learned then. My mind shut off in increments,
until he hit the back of my throat and I didn’t feel like throwing
up anymore. I didn’t feel anything at all, just floating in a sort
of trance while he pulled the truck off on an abandoned weighing
station. Not even when he pushed me back and I sprawled back onto
the floorboard. Not even when he pulled up my skirt. I tensed
slightly, braced against the impact of his invasion, but that was
only physical—it didn’t mean anything. He couldn’t move
me.

Until he bent his head between my
legs. At first there was nothing. What was he doing? Then I felt
it, small wet caresses. Not blinding pleasure or searing pain but
slow licks, sensual caresses, and a little bit of unwelcome
comfort. It felt like an apology, as he knelt between my knees.
Like atonement.

The blissful paralysis I’d been
floating in began to thaw with each wistful swipe of his tongue
until I was making little urgent sounds and rocking my hips up to
meet him and hating myself, just hating that he could draw me out
so easily, disprove my grand denials. He wouldn’t know me? He
already did.

He saw into every corner and every
secret. He gave me exactly the right touch or word that I needed to
submit. There wasn’t anything left to hold back, and he knew that
too. His hands tightened on my ass, spreading me apart, pushing me
up into his face.

He lifted long enough to say, “Come
on, sunshine. Give it to me.”

And I was helpless to
resist, too weak to fight the mounting pleasure, too relieved to
find myself spread and held and
wanted
, oh finally, someone did want
me, and even if it was perverted and dirty, at least it was new. My
stomach tightened first, clenching as I bucked up, seeking more.
Then it spread, the tension. White-hot pleasure slid up my spine.
My mouth fell open but no sounds came out. Nothing but half-cut
gasps and raw groans.

Before I could catch my breath, he
slid inside me. His way was easier this time than before, a smooth
glide from first entry, and he took full advantage, moving at a
brisk pace. He pumped into me quickly, harshly, but I didn’t get
the feeling that he sought his pleasure this way.

Instead, he seemed to be
making a point, saying with thrusts what he couldn’t put into words
and cementing the ones he had.
You’re
mine. Try to understand, I have to do this. I’m as trapped as you
are, can’t you see?
Although it could have
been wishful thinking, wanting to believe that the man lodged
inside me, pulsing and shuddering his way through release, wasn’t a
monster.

He collapsed, breathing hard. His
weight bore down on me, though not unpleasantly. There was safety
in bondage, that much I knew. He turned his head and kissed my
temple, the wisp of sweat above his lip mingling with the dampness
of my skin.

“
You make it bearable,” he
murmured, though his voice was slurred, so I couldn’t be sure. So I
lay there, feeling his chest push into mine and then mine push back
into his. We breathed together, we held each other. There was no
acrimony in that moment, no pleasure either. Just a ship pulled
into port.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The first tightrope walker
to cross the Niagara Falls did so in 1859.

We existed like nomads in the
following weeks. We used deserted truck stops for bathroom breaks
and daily showers. At night we slept in the fold-out bed in his
truck. He would fuck me every night, sometimes tenderly, other
times rough and urgent—though each time felt more like intimacy and
less like coercion.

The hardest part was meals, because
where there was food, there were people. We had a somewhat
painstaking routine where he would stop a few miles out, put me in
the back of the truck, then pull into a diner or restaurant and get
take-out. I always debated banging on the walls, but I would never
know if anyone was there. Hunter could be standing right outside
and punish me for it.

Instead, I would press my ear to the
metal, straining to hear anything. If I had heard voices or thought
there were people, I would have beaten the door for all I was
worth. Instead there was almost complete silence—probably he parked
far away from everyone else—and then eventually, the steady crunch
of gravel as he returned with food.

We were going through mountains now.
The highways were cut into them, sliced straight through like a
butcher knife, leaving a tall, straight wall of striated rock. I
watched the lines bleed together through the window as the truck
rushed past.

My stomach grumbled.

He glanced over. “You
hungry?”

I lifted my shoulder in a shrug. He
turned back to the road, but I watched him scanning the blue
highway signs as we passed each exit, looking for something decent
to eat but sparse enough not to be crowded.

“
What’s the deal with the
book?”

I glanced at him. “What?”

“
You told me the story
from it, about the girl and the canoe. Is that why you keep
it?”

I played at the hem of my dress,
distracted and jittery. “Not really.”

“
So what’s the big deal
with Niagara Fucking Falls?”

Despite myself, I rolled my eyes.
Leave it to Hunter to be irreverent whenever possible. “No big
deal, okay? I’m just curious. Am I not allowed to be
curious?”

He eyed me. “Mouthy, huh?”

I was mouthy, though I wasn’t sure
where the hint of attitude had come from. Was I becoming more
comfortable with him? Was I coming to trust him?

Scary thought.

“
So you want to go there.
Then why were you heading to Little Rock?”

“
Didn’t have enough
money,” I mumbled. Then stronger, “But I guess you know that,
seeing as you already looked through my stuff.”

He snorted. “Okay, so why haven’t you
gone there before this?”

Because of my
mother,
I wanted to cry. But that was a
lie.

“
Too scared, I guess,” I
mumbled. It wasn’t as if I had any pride with him
anyway.

His gaze softened.

A smile turned my lips. “Don’t imagine
you have much experience with that.”

He squinted into the distance.
“Depends on what you’re scared of. Me, I’m scared of standing
still.”

My heart skipped a beat at his
confession. Maybe we could open up to each other after all…and then
what? What as the end goal? Even Niagara had lost some of its
appeal, just another point on the map, a way-station to a true and
unimaginable destination.

I expected us to stop at another fast
food restaurant or a diner. But this time, we didn’t pull off the
road for him to stash me in the back. Instead we exited the freeway
where a large sign had the icons for gas, food, and lodging, and
continued on until we were pulling into a truck stop.

He wasn’t hiding me.

This truck stop was a lot like the
first one, and it made my heart speed up. Maybe it was foolish to
hope, but he could let me go here. I’d served my usefulness. I had
pried into his life. I had opened up about my hopes and dreams. For
whatever reason, he could be finished with me, and now he’d leave
me here in a place where he found me.

So why did I feel
disappointment?

It was premature, I knew, but a spark
of hope could conflagrate a wildfire. If I were freed, I would call
the cops, file a report, and return to my car. Then I would drive
to Little Rock, where hopefully the job was still available, the
one at the camera shop where I had never been. I swallowed thickly.
So why did it feel like a step backward?

Faced with the loss of him, I suddenly
wanted what Hunter could show me. For all that he was a little
unhinged, he saw things—really saw them. I wanted that. Maybe I
even wanted him to keep me.