Seeds of Fear

She didn't say much. For a Lot Lizard, she sure didn't fit the stereotype. She was much too pretty, for one thing. All the curves were in the right places, her clothes were of good quality, and she wasn't too heavily made-up. She didn't look like any Lot Lizards he'd met before. This girl didn't need to waste herself on truck drivers.

'What's your name?' he asked, lighting her cigarette, fantasizing about taking it slowly from her sensuous lips and taking a puff, one puff, then placing it back in her lips.

'Shaw.'

'Oh. Nice name. How'd you get a handle like that or is it a professional secret?'

'You could call it a secret if you want to.'

She was intriguing, the type who liked to play games with him. All the dark sweaty games.

'You free tonight, Shaw? Want to keep a lonely trucker company?'

'I wouldn't mind spending some time with you.' She blew out a cloud of blue smoke that he leaned over and inhaled as if it were exotic perfume. He closed his eyes as he did this, and when he opened them again, she displayed a mysterious smile playing around her satiny lips. 'You like it different, don't you?' she asked.

'Not so much,' he said. Blood thudded in his temples so hard, his vision blurred. To think he hadn't wanted to take this load of chemicals to Tallulah, Louisiana, for his dispatcher. What if he'd missed this opportunity? It made him sickly faint to consider it.

God. He had to get her outside now. He had to have her immediately. He'd explode if he didn't. He said in a voice gruff with lust, 'Come with me.'

Shaw shrugged and let him move her along to the glass exit door. Outside in the neon night of the truck parking lot she crooned his name. 'Bastine. Bastine. Don't hurry so. We have all night, Bastine.'

This only served to make him hustle her faster across the macadam to his idling truck. Diesel fumes filled the air. Noise from the dozens of truck engines created a thumping roar that echoed in his head. 'I have to hurry,' he said, unlocking the driver's door. 'I'm so nuts for you, I can't wait.'

Her laugh tinkled around his head like silver dimes falling onto a metal counter. Bastine climbed down again and lifted Shaw onto the first step to the open cab. 'C'mon, baby, I'm serious now. You can't keep a guy like me waiting. I might get dangerous.'

By the time Bastine entered the cab with her, he saw she had pulled the tank top over her head, the sunglasses tumbling behind her. He caught his breath. She was fleecy white as a sheet washed until it is see- through-thin, even her nipples hardly discernible because they were soft pink and small. She wasn't scared, she wasn't the least bit anxious.

'How you want to do it?' she asked.

'Any old way is fine with me, girl. Just anything at all.' He fumbled, unbuckling his belt and stripping off the faded Lee jeans into a heap that he had to fight off his feet. His organ tapped at his belly when he leaned way over to push the clothes into the front of the cab. He almost laughed, giddy with excitement.

'Whatever you want, sweetcakes. I've been waiting a long time for it, Bastine. I won't give you any trouble.'

Bastine mulled over her confession and found it tasted of the truth. 'Want to tell me what this is gonna cost me?'

'Nothing. Absolutely nothing.'

But Bastine didn't believe that. He knew the lay of the land, and in that land nothing came free, not life or pretty women either. He'd settle with her later. If she squawked on her pay, that was her own damn fault for not getting the matter over with in the beginning.

All thought of money fled once he was completely nude and had climbed into the sleeper with her. It smelled like old socks and dirty sheets and nights of unfulfilled passion back there, but he didn't want to think about that. The one small reading light above and to the left of them inset into the cab gleamed down onto her marble flesh. She looked as bright to him as a sunny beach resort billboard caught in the glare of headlights.

He kneeled between her upraised knees. His hands clenched and unclenched. To mold and manipulate that perfect skin. That's what drove through his mind. To make her want him as much as he wanted her. To make her cry out and plead with him never to stop, never to release her.

'Go ahead,' she whispered. 'Don't hold back. Don't think about it. Make love to me, I want it, Bastine, I've saved myself for it, I really have.'

He didn't know what she meant. She was not a «saved» kind of woman. Not a virgin by any means. Not inexperienced.

Suddenly he lowered himself and the warmth of her thighs embraced his hips like clamps and then fury came, possessing him, robbing him of all sense. She wept silently in climax, and then again, her tears rolling past tightly closed black lashes. She begged, but not for him to stop. She prayed for more, More, Bastine, until exhausted, he fell across her sweat-drenched body. She cursed and said, 'You're not done, I'm not finished, I require this just once more, you can try. Once more.'

'I'm sorry,' he said, panting and trying to still his breath.

'Use your hand,' she whispered into his ear. 'You must do it. With. Your. Hand.'

Bastine roused himself throughout the night to take her brutally and then fell dead each time into mindless sleep, something akin to unconsciousness. Each time he woke to her proddings and began again until morning came when they both collapsed into sleep as still as corpses in the dark coffin of the sleeper.

The next morning Bastine, more fatigued than ever before in his life, eyes gritty as ground glass, body weak and bruised-feeling, wanted only to be rid of Shaw. She might protest. She had been special, they both knew that, but this was the part he truly loved the most, his leaving. He planned to unhitch his load and drive into Tallulah for a movie.

'Shaw, baby, what do I owe you?' He was dressed and had his wallet out. Shaw still lay in the bunk, naked, glowing, sleepy-eyed.

'I told you. Nothing. My treat.'

Man, she must have really liked it. 'Fine. Then how 'bout I buy you breakfast before you go.'

'Hmmmmm.' She stretched and sat up, her breasts bobbing like frosted apples. There were blue marks that tracked her arms where he'd held her down. He was sorry about that. 'Where am I going?'

Bastine turned slowly in the truck seat. 'Well. uh.. wherever you go to, I guess. Home. On down the road. Wherever.'

'I'm not going anywhere.' She gave him the smile, the one that had so fascinated him when they first met.

'But you have to.'

'Why?'

'Well, I sure as hell can't take you with me. I drive all the time. I don't even have a house! I live in this truck. I can't take you with me.' She had him repeating himself. It wasn't like she was stupid. What was wrong with her thinking he'd want her along permanently? That wasn't in the game plan. He hated explaining these things to women. She didn't seem bothered that he wanted her gone because she wasn't going. This wasn't how it was played.

'I'm yours now, Bastine. I belong to you. The thing is, it's always been meant for us to be together.'

'Hey, wait a minute, wait one goddamn minute. What kind of horseshit is this? I don't own nobody. I don't want to own nobody. You don't belong to me, okay? I'm perfectly willing to give you a couple hundred to help you out, but no way do you go with me. I don't have meaningful relationships and all that silly yuppie shit. This was just a one-night stand, you understand? Shaw?'

She was dressing, pretending to ignore him.

'Shaw? Did you hear what I said? You can't go.'

'I can't go, you can't go,' she said conversationally. She pulled on black suede slippers and crawled into the passenger seat. She looked at him and there wasn't a trace of humor on her face now. 'I'm yours, Bastine. I'm yours forever.'

Bastine mumbled, 'I can't talk to the bitch,' and flung open the cab door. He jumped down to the pavement and stalked to the cafe for breakfast. He'd deal with her later when he had a full stomach and four aspirin for the headache she'd caused to bloom over his temples. Crazy woman. Forever? Nothing was forever, and if she was old