She puts her hand on her other breast and squeezes it, massages it, pinches that nipple. She loves loves loves her pregnant tits. Loves them. She thinks of the Almodovar movie, where one of his female characters says of women: “We’re all assholes. And a bit lesbo.” Anyone who’s ever masturbated is a bit homosexual, no? But just a bit. Because mostly, while she enjoys touching her body, she has to think of men fucking her to get to the end. She usually closes her eyes tight and thinks of men in and on and around her pussy.
But she can’t close her eyes, unless she were to pull over, which it looks like she might have to do. Grinding, grinding, lifting her ass a bit higher so her pussy is barely grazing the donut, teasing it, and then slamming it down and grinding it hard. Oh, God! It’s a car. A red light glows on top of it. Oh shit, it’s a police car behind her! Maybe he’s driving past? To get some speeding villain? She’s not driving fast at all! Please Mister Policeman, don’t pull me over. His lights glare at her and she looks at him through the side view mirror. She’s right there … she’s so close. She slaps her breasts. Bad, bad, bad. She is a very bad lady. She pinches hard. Ah, ah, not yet. He flashes his lights at her. Fuck, fuck, he’ll see her pussy! He’ll know! He’ll smell her in the car! He’ll … fuck her. Come and fuck her. Through the loudspeaker comes the “pull over your car.” And she puts both hands on the wheel and pulls over, grinding on her donut all the more quickly. She’s sweating now, her face is all red, her hair damp. She stops the car, she knows she has a minute or two, before the cop comes out of the car, she’s been pulled over before, she knows the drill, he’s doing a check on her license plate number, or at least writing it down, it’s exciting, shaming, shameful and exciting, and now that she’s pulled over, she has both hands free and she puts a finger inside of herself and with the other hands rubs herself and yes, yes! He’s coming out of the car to get her! Ravel has reached his crescendo, her heart is flying with the music and, and yes! He’s walking this way, and maybe he’s young, and mean, and strong and yes, yes!
Sonia slumps forward and her hands come out of her dress. She wipes them on her thigh. She’s shaking, red-faced, her hair glued to her forehead in dark, wet clumps. Her lips are dry from the hot breath coming out of her mouth. There is a cop shining a light at her. She rolls down her window. “Can I see your license and registration, ma’am?”
18
The room is dark, but it must be morning. Only the thinnest sliver of light can be seen through the motel’s shades. Blackout shades, and Sonia is grateful. It feels as if she has slept late. After a humiliating show of walking a straight line, which wasn’t easy, (without underwear, and her legs were jelly from her orgasm and when she’s pregnant her balance is off) and a breathalyzer test, the trooper finally understood that she was just tired and distracted. One good thing that pregnancy does is occasionally evoke sympathy. It took a while in this case, took a while for the cop to trust her. In the beginning, he had flashed a light into her car and she wondered if he saw her sticky panties. He most certainly saw the donut. Anyway, he escorted her to a nearby motel and that was the end of that.
The next morning, she sends Dick a postcard from the motel, one that came in the stationery of the motel, a sad photograph of the motel itself, low lying and generically white, door after door leading all to the same rooms. She writes, “I’m OK, just so you know.” She leaves it at the front desk when she checks out for the clerk to mail. And then she gets in her car and keeps driving.
In Boulder, she uses her credit card and is happy it works. Dick didn’t cancel it. She splurges even more than usual and stays at the St. Julien Hotel in downtown Boulder. It’s positively elegant, posh, full of fancy nuts in the minibar and plush robes and a fluffy bed with no less than six absurdly large pillows.
She calls Nicky’s house and her husband Steve answers the phone.
“Wow, Sonia, what a surprise.” Steve had always been friendly, ignoring the obvious lack of closeness between Nicky and Sonia. Sonia likes this about him, his laid-back character, his ability to tune out tension and pretty much anything else that’s irritating.
“Yes, I’ve been surprising a lot of people lately.”
“Nicky’s out right now, but I’m sure she’ll be excited to know you’re in town.”
Sonia’s not so sure about this. She expects her sister might be perplexed, even annoyed. At best, she’ll be indifferent. She has no memory of Nicky being excited to see her. Probably at her birth, she wasn’t excited to see her, and things continued from there.
“Well, I’d love to come over and see you guys. Unless it’s a bad time.”
“No, no. It’s fine.”
“I’m staying at a hotel so I won’t really impose.”
“Don’t worry about it. Come by. Nicky should be home soon.”
Sonia drives out to the new house Nicky and Steve moved into a few years ago. It’s just outside of Boulder, a twenty-minute drive from Sonia’s hotel where the land begins its endless dry, beige flatness. As beautiful as the mountains around Boulder are, the flat barren foreverness of the rest of the landscape strikes Sonia as ugly. She arrives at the house, a nice-sized house in a development that abuts a nature preserve, with mountains sprouting in the distance. Nicky and Steve are both there, as is their boy, Nathan, who appears to be seven or eight. They look alike to a creepy degree. Now, Sonia is very aware that married couples often begin to look alike, act alike, hell, even their dogs start to look like them. The power of living together for years? Who knows. But Nicky and Steve are special. They are both the same height, around five feet nine; they both have ropey muscular builds; they both have almond-shaped blue eyes; blond hair down to their shoulders; and petite mouths in their oval, sun-worn faces. And they dress the same — athletic gear, for the most part, outdoorsy athletic gear. Their son also looks just like them, which Sonia thinks lucky. The lack of genetic cross-breeding could easily have produced a mutant child with serious health problems. Good lord, she thinks as she walks up to the door where they all stand waiting to greet her, they could be identical twins if they only had the same genitalia.
Hugs are exchanged, Sonia’s belly getting in the way. Cheek kisses are mistimed — Sonia ends up banging her nose into her sister’s ear.
“Sonia, you didn’t tell me you were pregnant.”
“I’m pregnant.”
“Congratulations,” says Steve.
“It was an accident. But thank you,” Sonia says as they enter the house.
“Accidents can be a blessing. Your first was an accident and look how great that was,” Nicky says. “We’re just about to have lunch. Come join us.”
“I’ll sit with you guys but I had an enormous breakfast delivered to my room not long ago,” says Sonia, who can always eat more, but she examines the spread in front of her and decides against it. “May I ask what all this is?”
“This is quinoa bread with a bean spread. That’s a dandelion salad and this here is my homemade venison sausage,” Steve says. “We try to eat local plants, mostly from our garden, and meat that Nathan and I kill ourselves. You’re not still eating wheat, are you?”
“You really should not eat wheat,” Nicky says.
The lectures begin. Well that was quick, thinks Sonia. Usually it takes at least a half hour before they start, not that she’s seen her sister recently. It was all a distant memory but wow, how fast it all comes back to her now. Nicky and Steve, both oldest siblings, both bossy as all hell. “I pretty much eat everything that tastes good. That’s my diet.” She changes the subject. “Nathan hunts?” Sonia asks.