Sweet Sinful Nights

Brent plucked the snack foods from a dusty shelf, wiggling each bag in front of his wife.

She crinkled her nose. “I’m not that hungry.”

“Yeah, these might be stale.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I don’t think many people come around here too often.” He peered at the expiration date on the Skittles. “Whoa. These Skittles were past their prime two years ago.”

She laughed half-heartedly as he dropped the unwanted snacks on their shelves.

“I’ll just get a soda,” she said, pointing vaguely in the direction of the fountain drinks at the Lucky Seven Gas & Go somewhere in the middle of the desert. As far as he knew, they were halfway between Hawthorne and Vegas, which meant two and half more hours of cruising south on the highway to home.

“Shan, you need to eat. You haven’t had anything all day.”

“Maybe just some pretzels then,” she said. “Pretzels taste expired anyway.”

He grabbed a pretzel pack with gusto, as if his enthusiasm for potentially out-of-date road trip snacks would somehow buoy her spirits. She walked to the soda fountain, grabbed a cup, and pressed it against the Diet Coke spout. She leaned forward slowly, as if she was starting to tip over, then rested her forehead against the dispenser. She’d slept the whole ride back so far, slumping against the passenger seat with her shades on after she’d left the prison and given Brent the cliff notes as they drove out of Hawthorne.

Crossing the distance in a second, he took the cup from her. “I’ll do it.”

She rested her head against his chest. “Thank you.”

It was only a soda. That was all he was doing. Filling a flimsy paper cup at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. But it was something he alone could do for her right now. And she needed it.

He finished filling the cup and popped a lid on it.

“I’m sorry I made you drive me all the way here for nothing,” she said.

“Hey. You did not make me do anything. I chose to. And it was not nothing.” He set the cup down on the counter, and lifted her chin. “It was not nothing.”

“But you missed your meeting and it’s just the same old stuff with my mom.”

“Then that’s something. That’s exactly what you needed to know.”

“The same old stuff?”

He nodded. “The same old stuff. Because now you know. Now you know that nothing has changed. Now you can stop worrying that something is going to change. This is the same stuff she did to you in college,” he said, ru

* * *

She leaned her cheek into his hand, so strong, and so soft at the same time too. “How did you get to be so wise?” she asked softly.

“My wife taught me how,” he said, planting a kiss on her forehead, then rubbing her belly. “Now I need to go pay for this stale nourishment I’m procuring for you.”

He picked up the soda and pretzels and walked to the cash register to pay. As she watched him, she couldn’t help but feel an unexpected pang of guilt over the day, and what he’d miss tomorrow. The Tribeca club had been his single-minded mission for expansion, and he’d worked his ass off to please the neighborhood. He’d come so close, and she’d even made the video to show them at the meeting this weekend.

Then it hit her. Like a bag of obvious smacking into her. The answer had been under her nose and on her phone the whole time. She didn’t know if it would make a difference to the neighborhood association, but she had to try. As Brent finished paying, she fired off a quick text to James, grateful she still had his number from the first night they’d met.

Ten minutes later, she had an email address for Alan Hughes, and the video she’d made was on its way to him as they pulled back onto the highway.

A few miles down the road, a sign rose into view, the rays of the dipping sun illuminating the battered wooden billboard. Gateway to Death Valley, Beatty, Nevada. Established 1903. Population 1000. It stood proudly amidst the sand and rocks, the dryness and dust.

Twenty feet away, there was a sign for a Motel 6.

Sha

He cut the wheel at the exit, and they checked into a fifty-nine dollar a night room at a hotel that boasted a coin laundry, free local calls, and morning coffee on the house.

As well as a bed that squeaked, she learned as she pushed down on the springs of the mattress inside room number fourteen, on the first floor with a view of the parking lot.

“Are you tired?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“What do you want to do?”

She ran her fingers along the silky fabric of her scarf. “I want you to fuck the day away.”

His lips quirked up. “That is my specialty,” he said, and soon he’d stripped her naked and tied her hands with the scarf, knotting the ends to the headboard of the creaky motel bed. “I knew this gift would come in handy.”

“It’s a multi-use scarf,” she said, squirming, as he began to kiss her.

No, he didn’t just kiss her.

He worshipped her.

He caressed her breasts with his lips. He nipped her throat with his teeth. He adored her belly with his tongue, working his way across the landscape of her body, marking the territory of her with his lips, and his sighs, and his groans. As he traveled across her with his tongue, she let the day fall away. She gave herself over to passion.

Her hips shot up, seeking more of him, begging with her body for him to work his magic.

But it was more than just magic. He was more than just her sweet drug as he consumed her and sent her soaring into a state of ecstatic bliss that had her singing his name to the heavens.

He flipped her over, her wrists still bound to the headboard, and sank into her. She cried out, louder than she’d ever been, more aroused than she’d ever been, there on her hands and knees in a Motel 6.

Yes, it was so much more than mere intoxication. Sex with Brent flooded her brain with endorphins, filled her body with pleasure, and freed the past.

He wasn’t just fucking the day away. This co

There was no more past.

It was done. It was over.

There was only the present, only love, only life. Her life together with her man.

* * *

As he lifted his fork for a final bite of scrambled eggs and hash browns at a truck stop diner an hour outside of Vegas, Brent’s phone rang. It rattled on the table, blinking Ta

Brent groaned. He showed the screen to Sha

“Ha. Ha. Ha. I knew you were fu

Brent slid his thumb across the screen and answered. “Hey Ta

“Congratulations,” the man barked.

Brent narrowed his eyes. Waiting for the sucker to come. You’ve been punked, you jackass.

A waitress in a starchy pink diner uniform stopped at their table, holding up a pot of coffee.

“Thanks. But for what?” Brent asked carefully, holding up his mug for a refill. It was early in the afternoon. They’d slept in late that morning, then extended the shower by a few orgasms, and didn’t hit the road until noon.

“They fucking loved your wife’s video. They loved it,” Ta

“What video?” Brent asked, though the word tickled a distant memory. Sha