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- Herausgeber: Wildside Press
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
Sometimes the road gets in your head, when you're driving an 18-wheeler for hours. But sometimes the sound of your wheels drives out the rest of the world, leaving you mercifully empty inside. The only time you're vulnerable is when you stop.
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Seitenzahl: 22
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
ROADSONG, by Cynthia Ward
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2018 by Cynthia Ward.
Originally published in Pulp Modern 2.3.
Published by Wildside Press, LLC.
wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com
ROADSONG,by Cynthia Ward
Central Maine, Summer 2001
The song of the open road was all he needed, the moan of highway under his eighteen wheels, the rumbleroar of the diesel engine devouring hundreds of miles. When he heard that song, he was alone. Alone in his head, and almost at peace.
You could snort speed and piss in a Dunkin’ Donuts cup, but sooner or later you had to stop, blocked by an accident, forced by the schedule to load or unload, coerced by an empty tank, compelled by exhaustion or cramping gut. Then the roadsong faded and the world rushed in: the rage of frustrated drivers, the scorn of warehouse supervisors, the resentment of convenience-store clerks, the contempt and anxiety of dealers. But sometimes even a man who needed the road like life-saving medicine got sick of eating Humpty Dumpty potato chips and Slim Jims and McDonald’s Quarter Pounders with cheese in the driver’s seat.
Ethan Wentworth hadn’t finished swinging down from his Mack cab before a lot lizard was clinging to him, pushing her scrawny tits against his chest, asking, “Baby, would you like a ride?”
One more blowjob and I’m going home, the thought, accompanied by warm, almost glowing images of her ten-month-old baby boy, a yearning that soured as the sun-burned seventeen-year-old envisioned her mother glaring at them through cigarette smoke and the shrieks of a Jerry Springer cable broadcast. Why’s she always down on me? She ain’t ever tried to make anything of herself, the Christless welfare cheat. And buried under this thought, Don’t swear, and the feeling of bad.
Young, skinny, smelly, the girl’s mind finally settling on Ethan, filling with an exaggerated stale-sweat stink, and then an image of sex, hopes of a fast finish, and I’m outta here!
Ethan shoved her away with his empty hand. “Not interested,” he said, striding away fast despite the stiff muscles of twelve hours straight at the wheel, the unwanted ache of desire.
He hadn’t had a woman in a long time (four years, his mind whispered). He’d hoped quick, impersonal encounters would spare him what he didn’t want to feel, but the intensity of climax meant he felt emotions even more strongly than he did otherwise. And the whores’ disdain and boredom, and their loathing for their customer and themselves, made him abandon that idea.
