Three Weeks on the Road Ch. 01

Author's note:

I hadn't planned to write this. I had only one story in mind - one year in the messy, unfinished life, and the messy, unfinished death of Gary Galloway. The idea for this story started percolating as I read public and private comments after the end of my last novel, and before I knew it, I was writing again.

You don't need to have read my previous story, Messy, in order to read this one. They exist in the same universe, though prior knowledge of it is not required. It can be enjoyed standalone if desired.

It's the story of a man taking a vacation, driving his (rather submissive) beloved and her friend (someone who gets on his final nerve) across the country to a business meeting. The America they visit is stunningly beautiful, but hyper-partisan national tensions can flare into violence in large population centers, and there are other dangers on the road as well, very old, very FOREIGN places not meant to be visited.

Many of the chapters of this novel can be enjoyed standalone. I had it in mind to write much of it as individual fantasies that require no knowledge of a previous chapter to read and understand. There are plot threads that weave through though, and they start to pull together later on.

As with Messy, there may be sequences or topics or behaviors that are disturbing for some readers. Two chapters contain scenes of violence, and several others contain actual or implied threats to the main characters or others. The language used by or towards the characters may similarly offend or disturb some readers. Some chapters may not contain any sexual activity and may exist only to forward the story. I will call these out for readers who do not wish to bother with the plot and simply wish to read for the erotic sequences.

One last note. Every single word of these chapters was written on a large screen phone as I do not possess a computer. I apologize for any spelling/punctuation mistakes or autocorrections that escaped the review process.

As always, all comments public and private are welcome.

Enjoy!

This chapter does not contain any sexual activity. It is written to introduce the characters and plot. If you are reading solely for erotica, please pick up at chapter two.

*****

Friday

7/10/20

I sighed and looked around my office. Wouldn't be coming back here ever again. Wouldn't be coming back to this building for a month.

All my belongings had been taken home, so I locked my computer, grabbed my backpack and walked out, a sense of finality and excitement permeating my being.

It was quittin' time.

Next stop was the doctor's office, and I sat in a waiting room lit by the afternoon sun while I read a magazine and waited for the news. I was ushered back to a room the color of mashed chickpeas, and a harried-looking woman in a lab coat went over the test results. I gave a little Whoop! And she looked at me like she'd never seen anyone react so positively to what she was used to telling them.

The twisting maze of highways was packed with people leaving work, and the traffic jams on the suspended roads didn't feel as aggravating as usual. Off the baking highways, onto city streets, and I drove through residential neighborhoods, the houses growing more dilapidated, the trees and vegetation growing more unkempt the further I drove. Down a dead-end, and I pulled into the driveway of the last house.

I was going to be leaving again soon so I didn't pull into the two-story garage. Instead, I exited the massive Suburban and walked into the narrow alley between the house and the garage. I took a moment to look out on the well-manicured backward, the inground pool sparkling in the hot July sun, the playground equipment I'd never anticipated wanting.

I keyed open the heavy metal door and stepped into the cool of the shadowy kitchen. The kitchen looked out onto the backyard, connected with the massive galley dining room at the center of the first floor, and was one of two access points to the stairways that led to the second and third floors. I splashed water on my face at the kitchen sink, hung my backpack on the hook next to the backdoor, and climbed the steps to the second floor. The third floor was virtually a carbon copy of the second, which was the master.

There was a small kitchen, a weight room, a study, master bedroom and attached master bathroom on this level, and I smiled as I walked through the rooms. I'd put up most of the drywall, framed most of the rooms. Done all the wiring, most of the plumbing.

Hell of a way to go through rehab.

I smiled again at the sight of the unmade metal-frame king bed, the mussed up covers indicating two bodies. That sight, that reminder always brought me joy.

I undressed and threw my clothes in the laundry, redressed in jeans and a button up shirt left untucked. Work didn't start again for another month, and I was going to look as casual as possible until then. I exchanged my dress shoes for heavy boots, and then keyed open my safe. Ring knife on the right pocket, spare mag in the left, full-size Sig 320RX in a holster behind my right hip under my shirt. Now I was ready.

I set the paperwork on the dresser, circled the test results with a smilie face and the word "TONITE!"

Fun times ahead.

On the way out of the bedroom, I jumped up and grabbed the doorframe and did three effortlessly easy pullups with only a slight twinge of pain. I didn't need doorframes since a programmer acquaintance had helped me install voice-activated sliding metal pocket doors in every room of the house, but I kept the molding for just this reason.

The rays of the sun were starting to lengthen and turn the tops of the trees and buildings gold by the time I stepped into the bar. The streets were full of people still shopping, walking to or from dinner, enjoying the early July air. I paused at the door, felt the warm summer breeze ruffle my short hair, caress my face like a lovers lips. The scent of fireworks rode the currents of air and I smiled. What a great day to be alive.

Inside the bar was loud, and I had to elbow through the crowd to get to the bar. I grinned broadly at the bartender. "Hey darlin', how's business tonight?"

I got a shy smile in return. "Busy, as you can see. How are you doing?"

"I've had a good day. Pour me something top shelf."

She thought for a moment, grabbed a spherical bottle that had been collecting dust, and dumped a few fingers over ice in a tumbler. Our fingers touched when she handed me the glass, and she blushed.

Ashley was a gorgeous Indian immigrant who seemed committed to the idea of someday dying exhausted. She owned the corner grocery store a few short blocks from my house, as well as this bar, and most days saw her behind the counter of the store, then speeding over here to pour drinks until bar close. I didn't know when she slept.

It sure wasn't two nights ago, when I had her bent in half with her ankles past her ears. I could still vividly remember her heavily accented shrieks of pleasure, and the way her eyes had rolled back.

"How's she doing?" I asked.

"Nervous. I don't know why, half her life is giving presentations."

I took a sip of the alcohol. Shit, this was good stuff. It tasted like liquid gemstones. I looked up at the faceted orb bottle on the shelf, and flipped my credit card onto the bar. "Can you bring her a single of this, tell her it's from a really hot guy in the crowd? DO NOT tell her it's from me."

Ashley smiled. "Certainly." She poured the drink, ran my card, and left the bar in the hands of a hipster looking guy as she wended her way through the crowd to the stage and backstage rooms.

I sat at the bar and sipped, people-watched. I felt like I could finally breathe. The band eventually took the stage and I watched them assemble in the bar mirror. Maybe I should feel bad about watching them so covertly, but it was the only way to see them perform after I'd been asked not to come.

Ashley cleared her throat into the mic, tapped on it until the electronic buzz quieted the crowd. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen. We have a VERY special band for you tonight. For the first time playing this venue, I present to you The RocketGirls, an all WOMAN band putting a new twist on classic and contemporary rock. So if you like your rock hard, heavy, and HOT, put your hands together for The RocketGirls! And just an eff why eye, this is a very adult show...which I think you'll like. Enjoy!"

When the applause ended, the band launched into what I assumed was their signature song, a gender-swapped cover of Elton John's classic. I had to admit, it was pretty good. They'd spent a long time refining it and it showed.

Next up was The Dolphin's Cry and it suited the lead singers vocals well, a combination of feral growls and cries that matched the energetic ferocity with which she prowled the stage.

The rest of the show was pretty good for an amateur covers band, a few misses here and there, one instance of attempting to hit a note too high, but not bad. Ashley had been right, the band had mostly picked songs with suggestive themes, raunchy classic rock that should've made the lead singer blush.

The crowd clapped at the end of Mobscene, and the lead paused to wipe sweat from her face and take a drink. "This next song," she announced, "Is for the man who loves my body...aggressively, roughly, at times violently, and always the way he wants. Because he knows it's his. I gave it to him, and that's what I need. Hit it!"

The band launched into Alice Cooper's Bed Of Nails, and I watched the woman work the stage as she growled out the vocals, threatening the crowd with a riding crop the way Cooper had done with a sword in the music video thirty years earlier.

"Our love is a Bed Of Nails, Love hurts good on a Bed Of Nails, I'll lay back and I'll spread my legs, And you can drive me like a hammer on a Bed Of Nails!"

I chuckled at her change in lyrics and slid off the barstool, moving through the crowd with a practiced easy glide to get closer to the stage.

The song finished, and she stood there, chest heaving, hair in disarray. Absolutely beautiful. She pulled off the leather jacket she'd been wearing and sat down at the edge of the stage, feet swinging off the edge like a little girl. "And this song is for the man who loves my heart. Gently. Tenderly. Protectively. Possessively. Because he knows it's his. I gave it to him, and that's what I need."

The music was slower as I slipped closer to the stage, and shock registered in her eyes when she saw me, the look becoming a smile. She mouthed "I love you, daddy" to me before raising her voice in a croon that was powerful and soft simultaneously. "Sitting on the beach, the island king of love, deep in Fijian seas, deep in the heart of it all..."

Jessie had been stressing out while I rehabbed and worked on the house, and I encouraged her to take the classic rock she and McKenna were always obsessively singing along to and actually find a band to play with them. They had, and they'd practiced for the last half a year before our friend Ashley has booked them in her bar.

I watched the vampiric girl singing about how much she wanted to dance with me, and marveled at how we'd changed. Surgery - several of them actually - had repaired my arm, and between the insurance on the cabin, the sale of its land and my townhouses, and the very hefty payout I'd received from the college in exchange for not suing their asses off for letting violent extremists abuse their networks and security systems while trying to kill me, I'd been able to relocate to Milwaukee and buy a cheap house to rebuild.

Home renovations while working one-handed are fun, let me tell you. But I had nothing left to live for in Minneapolis, and a woman who wanted me one state over, so the choice was easy.

I'd lived with Jessie while the house was under construction, and the change between now and then was easy to see. She was happier, more confident. Even her appearance was different - she still had the same pale skin, the same black hair she was constantly washing various colors of cheap Halloween dye through, but her almost-emaciated lean frame had added just a hint of what I jokingly referred to as babyfat, and she just plain looked HEALTHIER. She seemed to glow, even though everything about her from clothing to eyes to music ran dark.

The song finished and she rose to applause, thanked the crowd, and introduced the band. McKenna glowered at me past her bass guitar, and I waved brightly. Spending three weeks in a car with her was going to be a real fuckin' treat.

As soon as the band could get off the stage, Jessie pushed her way through the crowd and jumped up into my arms, wrapping herself around me like a spider while burying her face in my neck. "I told you not to come, Gary," she said.

"I wouldn't miss this for the world. You guys sounded great. Congratulations!" I gently pushed her back and looked her over. "And you look fantastic."

She blushed and smiled, shoulders climbing towards her ears. She'd been long and lean for as long as I'd known her, a dancers graceful body even when she seemed to be wasting away from overwork, poor living conditions, and a bit too much alcohol. Her face was intelligent, eyes dancing constantly, a giggle or laugh lurking somewhere in the background, cute but capable of flipping the switch to vampire vixen at a moments notice. Her pale skin and black hair were severe, a look she lightened with pink or blue or green dye on the top and the side of the shoulder-length cut that wasn't shaved. Tonight she was wearing black cargos tucked into black leather boots, a black tanktop slit down between her tiny breasts.

Fuck, she was hot.

"Told you to stay away, asshole." McKenna Krossley was still glowering at me even as she extended her hand, and her voice robbed the words of ire. Almost. She had told me to stay away, just like Jessie.

"Yeah well, I'm here for Jessie. And I think you guys did a fantastic job. Though I'm surprised they let you in. How many times did you get carded?"

McKenna scowled deeper. Jessie's healthier appearance contributed to her looking several years younger - early to mid-twenties instead of just thirty - but her best friend looked younger still. Short and possessed of the same dancers build, the glow of McKenna's perfect skin, her round, youthful face, long, glossy hair, and her constant vacillation between pouty and bratty looks and behavior made her seem a decade younger than her twenty-seven years.

Every guy who thought she looked hot had to be asking themselves when Chris Hansen was going to show up and offer them a seat.

They weren't just pretty faces though. Jessie was a marketing genius who was responsible for a road trip to Denver we'd be taking soon to attempt to pitch her company's product to a prospective investor or buyer, and McKenna was a programming savant. I'd made an Android app a few years ago and stayed up to date with coding challenges online, but that girl could write lines of code that made me scratch my head, and was the lead programmer behind the product Jessie was trying to sell across the country. She was also the mind behind the voice-activated metal doors and shutters in and around my house, a project that was an absolute delight to work on with her.

Not.

I followed Jessie around the bar a half dozen times, politely hanging out in the background as she accepted drinks and accolades and pats on the back from the Friday night crowd, before following the band to a booth where they ate and drank and talked about what came next. With two members of the band out of the picture for a month, the answer to that question was "Not much." Mostly though, they celebrated as people who've performed in public without peeing themselves do - boisterously.

It was midnight when they disbanded, and Jessie was leaning on my arm heavily, looking rather green around the gills. A large amount of Wild Turkey will do that to someone, especially when they weigh less than a hundred and thirty pounds. I held onto her as we navigated the bar tables, and I stopped Ashley as she wiped one down. "I gave you keys for the house?"

She smiled brilliantly. "I'm going to throw raucous parties every night and leave it in disarray."

"Just as long as you water the garden," Jessie mumbled, swaying.

I rolled my eyes. "I've set the shutters and exterior doors to lock at ten every night. You can update that from the console like I showed you, or open and close each one individually with the keys."

"I got it, get your wife home before she throws up on my floor. And drive safe, I'll expect a full debrief when you get back."

"See ya then," I said.

McKenna was standing next to Jessie's car when we got outside, and she helped the raven-haired girl into my Suburban. "Can you drive that home and bring it over tomorrow? We'll take this thing out."

"It's what I live for."

Jessie leaned against the window as we drive through the dark Milwaukee streets, the acidic orange white of the streetlights washing over her face. "You're gonna punish me for getting drunk, aren't you?" she asked after a long while.

I thought about it. "Yeah. But not tonight. Tonight you need to rest."

I helped her up the steps to our second floor living quarters when we got home. Unsteady as she was, she wouldn't have made it past the kitchen. She sat on the edge of the bed while I pulled her boots off, and then slumped to the side. A smile crossed her face as I kissed her hair, and I watched over her for a few moments.

Funny how life could change.

I redressed in workout clothes and headed for the weight room to put in a circuit and boxing routine. Might as well, I wasn't tired.

The pain of my once-near-amputation was minimal with every thundering punch that I threw, rocking the heavy bag with an explosion of dust. I'd been a fucking animal about rehab, plowing through every painful goal just to get back to normal, and then layering strength training on top of that. I was in better shape three years later than I had been before, still honing my body with obsessive martial arts and weightlifting. My goal was simple - I wanted to be able to shoot or beat or stab the fuck out of anyone who threatened me or mine, and not even bodily weakness and traumatic injury would stand in my way.

I excised those thoughts from my mind, and concentrated on my jabs. The memories were more painful than any wound ever could be.

An hour later I found Jessie laying on the bathroom floor, naked, next to a small puddle of vomit. It looked like she'd gotten half of it in the toilet. I sighed and wet a washcloth, wiped up the floor, wet another and wiped her face. The touch of the cool rag roused her from sleep and she propped herself up uneasily on one arm while I stroked her skin clean. "You really do love me, don't you?" she asked, her voice slurred.

I threw the washcloth in the sink and leaned down to kiss her forehead. "Yeah. I do."

I showered and dried off, and Jessie resisted when I tried to carry her back to bed. "'s nice and cool here..."

"Fine."

I set her back down on the floor and she rearranged herself. I thought a moment longer, and then lay down next to her. Eyes closed, she sensed my presence and snuggled close.

I fell asleep with cool tile warming under my back and a warm head on my chest, a sense of peace pervading my being.