We were halfway through New Mexico when the car broke down. I told Karin we should have rented one for the cross country trip we were taking to Florida for spring break, but she insisted her old Mazda clunker would be fine.
We found ourselves in the middle of the desert, completely stranded. Luckily, we broke down near this little motel. It didn’t look great, but it was a place to stay for the night. Walking into the office, Karin sat down while I checked us in.
‘We need two rooms, please.’ I told the teenage clerk who looked as though she’d rather be anywhere but where she was.
Sighing as though I had troubled her greatly, she muttered: ‘Only one room left.’ And she jerked her head toward a single key hanging off the wall.
I said, ‘We’ll take it.’ What else could we do?
After signing a few pieces of paperwork and giving her a credit card number, she handed me a worn wooden cactus attached to an equally worn key that I was sure led to an even more worn room. Grabbing the backpacks we brought with us from the car, we headed back out of the office and down the street to a tiny mini-market for dinner.
In the market, we picked up nutritious foods like Twinkies, Cheetos and Snickers bars. To go with all that, I grabbed a couple of bottles of cheap wine and some plastic cups. Just as we were paying for our purchases, the ground rumbled with the sound of thunder and rain began to pour from the sky.
Wrapping our meagre T-shirts around our arms as best we could, we darted back to our little motel and into our shabby room. To no avail, we were both soaked to the bone. Rain dripped from my nose and down my cheek. Flipping a quarter, we decided I got to shower first, while she set up our dinner and drinks. The warm water steamed over the tiny bathroom in no time and I had almost forgotten about being cold when I was done.
By the time I came out, Karin had already eaten her Twinkies, and drank half of the first bottle of wine.
What a sugar rush, I thought.
‘Your turn.’ I said to her, grabbing a cup of wine for myself. She smiled a little crookedly and giggled her way into the bathroom. I poured the rest of the bottle of wine into my cup as I flicked through the channels on the television.
There were only three channels, so I flicked through them a lot while I waited for her to come back out. I finally settled on some cheesy western show.
Sipping my wine, I took in the decoration. The room was painted sea foam green with little dark green cacti everywhere. A wicker chair sat in the corner, looking as though it were a decade old. In the centre of the room sat a sagging king-size bed with a cactus-speckled, tan comforter.
Settling myself on the bed, Karin finally came out of the shower, her long dark hair dripping down the front of her shirt. I couldn’t help but notice that her white top fitted very snugly around her large breasts.
I said, ‘Only one bed. Where should the other one sleep?’
Stopping in her tracks, she looked around the room. She shrugged and said, ‘It’s big enough for both of us. We can share.’
Throwing back the last of my wine, I said, jokingly, ‘OK, but don’t kick me, or I’ll kick you back.’
Giggling, she grabbed the second bottle of wine and jumped into the bed next to me.
‘That shower felt so good,’ she said.
I opened the new bottle and poured two more cups of wine. We sit on the bed, drinking and talking about what movies we wanted to see and what we were going to do in Florida.
We finished off the last of the wine, and the talk turned to our sex lives.
‘You know, Randi, I don’t know if I’ve seen you with a guy for a long time,’ she pointed out.
I simply nodded, not acknowledging that it had been a long time since I’d had a guy around.
Smiling, she said, ‘Maybe you just aren’t into guys anymore. Maybe you bat for the other team?’
I grinned and gave her a good-natured shove.
‘Is that it? You like girls more than guys?’ she went on.
Shrug. ‘Maybe I do. Maybe I think girls are more fun.’
Winking at me, she said in a terribly fake English accent, ‘Do I make you randy, Randi?’
Trying her hardest to give me a seductive look, she leaned in close to me and asked with a bit of a slur, ‘Do you want to fuck me?’
Before I knew what I was doing, my lips were all over hers. A small gasp of pleasure escaped my mouth just when I realised what was going on.
As fast as I had started, I stopped myself and rolled over onto my side. Muttering an apology, I closed my eyes as if to make the room disappear.
There was nothing but silence from her side of the bed. I was too embarrassed to look at her expression.
I buried my head into my pillow.