DRAG STRIP DATE, (second installment)

Here is the second installment of Drag Strip Date.  I’m strongly influenced by pulp fiction writing.  The story’s a little “R” rated, but there it is.  Maybe it’s not for everyone, but it’s all I’ve got!

Synopsis:

Darla Rigs is a freshly minted medical doctor with a bright future.  She’s escaped a bad relationship and moved to Victoria, British Columbia.  But now she’s met Luke Bertolucci, a philosopher/stone mason.  Darla likes Luke a lot, but will she be able to put the past behind her and start fresh?

Drag Strip Date (second installment)

by Jerry Donaldson

about 2000 words

*      *      *

Darla slid her arm around his neck and pulled his blond head close to her lips.  She whispered in his ear, “You were about to tell me about your university adventures.” And then her tongue darted into his ear and he caught up his breath.

“Whoa, doll,” he said, “Don’t be writing cheques you can’t cash.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said, straightening the collar on his paid shirt and sitting back. “I am very liquid.  Financially, that is.”

“Oh,” he said. “That’s a very good thing.”

Darla was surprising herself with her flirty behaviour. His violet eyes captivated her, and the words just ran off her tongue as if spoken by someone else. But, there’d been no man in her life for quite a while, and maybe the time was just right.

“So,” she said, “what about that dissertation?  You’ve been holding back on me.”

He opened his mouth to speak, and at that moment the waitress came by for their drink orders.  Darla ordered a Singapore Sling, a real old-timey cocktail. Luke ordered a ginger ale, as he always did.  Darla had not yet asked him whether he avoided alcohol altogether.  After living with a problem drinker she’d come to see abstinence as a plus.

Drinks ordered, Luke said, “I’m a doctoral candidate at the University of Victoria. I’m almost done.  Now I guess I’ll be looking for a job.”

“Not stone masonry?”  Darla said.

Luke chuckled and his violet eyes flashed. Gawd, he’s hot, she thought, again.  “I come from a long line of stone masons,” he said.  I started in the trade when I was in middle school back in Toronto, working for my Grampa Gene in the summers and after school. My dad Big Luke also worked for Gene, it’s a family business.  Gene retired five years ago and moved to Florida, and Dad took over the business.”

“Big Luke?” she said, “So you’re Little Luke?”

“No,” he replied, “I’m ‘Lukey’ to my family.”

“I like it,” she said.

“Well,” he said, “just don’t get too used to it. After I graduate it’ll be ‘Doctor Lucas Bertolucci, BA, MA, PhD’”.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I like a man with a lot of letters after his name.”

Their drinks arrived, and there was a pause in the conversation.  She slid closer to him and their legs touched under the table. After a moment she felt his hand on her knee, and her breath caught in her throat.  His hand twitched away.

“Too forward?” he asked.

“No,” she said. She took his hand in hers and returned it to her knee.  She felt the hand slide under the hem of her skirt and slip north on the inside of her thigh. She felt her insides turn to warm mush as his work-hardened paw stroked, and stroked, sliding higher and higher.  There was a mischievous smile on his face.

“Too rough, missy?” he said.

“Just right,” she responded.  “You have a philosopher’s hands.  I hadn’t noticed.”

She struggled to maintain composure.  She was breathing harder.  She was sure every eye in the place was on them.  As if he could read her mind, he said:

“Not to worry, everyone knows we’re just sitting here talking, having a drink.  You know, chilling.” His eyes smiled at her and the stroking continued, persistent, gentle, and hot, so fucking hot, she thought, what he must think of me, why don’t I stop him?

As if reading her mind, he said, “Want me to stop?”

“No. I mean, yes, you have to,” she said. Or I’m gonna come right here and now, it’s so good, how the fuck long has it been, anyhow? How long?  Too long! So she was ready, apparently more than ready.  And then he removed his hand and the room come back into focus.  It was a minute or so before she spoke.

“Oh boy,” she said, “I don’t know about this, you seem to be able to press the right buttons.  I hope you don’t think I’m some sort of slut, or whatever.”

“What I think,” he said, “is that you are the best.”

“I guess,” she replied.

“And there’s something else I need to know,” he said, all serious now.

“And that is?”

He took a pull of ginger ale and dabbed his full sexy, pouty, kissable, lips with a napkin before continuing.

“Darla,” he said, “what do you know about drag racing?”

*

The noise was unbelievable, the air was full of smoke and the smell of burning rubber was strong. And a feeling of urgency surged through the Friday night crowd.  Sure, Darla knew about drag racing, everybody does.  But she’d never seen the sport live, only on television, and the experience was like night and day.  Pairs of cars lined up behind the starting line. The lead pair waited for the starting lights, flashing red, red, red, red, GREEN, and then they leapt into motion together.  The spinning rear tires expanded as they fought for traction, and tongues of flame shot six feet out of the wide-open, unmuffled exhausts. Seven or eight seconds later, a quarter-mile down the track, the dragsters went over the finish line at well over 200 mile per hour, and a parachute was deployed through a hatch in the rear of each car.  Seconds later the next pair of competitors left the line.

“I said, ‘do you want a hot dog?’”  Luke shouted into her ear a second time.  Their seats were a few rows from the edge of the track, and right beside the starting line.

No, what I want is to feel your hands all over my body, she thought.  Or maybe we could ride together down the strip in the back of a 1,000 horsepower dragster, with your member securely tucked inside me, you and I rocking in unison with flames and smoke all around.  What she said, however, was “Yuck, no thanks.” Darla was not a big meat eater at the best of times, and a hot dog sounded vile.  “But you can buy me some popcorn.”

“I’m on it,” he said, standing up.  Or at least, those were the word-shapes his lips formed.  The words themselves were lost in the roar and hellfire as the latest pair of cars left the start line.  She gave Luke the thumbs-up in response, and he headed for the snack bar.

Drag-racing, she thought, sure, why not?  Motor sports of any sort had never interested her, and Darla’s taste in entertainment leaned more toward old movies, stimulating conversation and live music, especially the symphony.  She liked to read, and she played classical guitar, once thinking that music would be her career. She’d practised hard and played recitals.  But when she turned 18 her guitar teacher, Mr. Cushing, told her the truth:  “Darla,” he’d said, “you are technically extremely proficient, and it’s clear you practice religiously and you are very motivated, but you don’t have talent.  Best to think about a different career.”  At the time she had been crushed, but of course Mr. Cushing was right.  She still played guitar for her own amusement, and if anything she felt better about the instrument and enjoyed it more now that the pressure to succeed professionally had been lifted.

But, here she was at West Coast Speedway on a Friday evening along with a few hundred cheering drag-racing fans in colorful nylon windbreakers and baseball hats.  Feeling, as much as hearing and seeing, the noisy rush of power on the strip as each pair of cars blasted away from the start line.  The flash of pure horniness she experienced back at Nick’s Café with Luke stroking her had only abated to a low boil. I’m going to fuck him¸ she thought.  Fuck him until his eyes roll back in his head.  But what would he think? Was he under any illusion that Darla was a prim and proper “nice” girl?  She flipped through her memories of the past five days.  Nothing suggested to her that she might upset his sense of the right and proper if she took the opportunity later on to rip his clothes off and fuck him silly.  So there it was.  Onwards and upwards, as they say.

Then he returned with his hot dog, popcorn for her and diet Cokes for both of them.  She watch him push along the row of seats, past cheering, excited race fans all moving in the opposite direction.  Over the P.A. system the half-time announcement had just been made and everyone, it seemed, was headed for the restrooms and the snack bar. He arrived at his seat and dropped into it in a small shower of popcorn.

“There you go, cookie,” he said. “Popcorn and a coke, a drag-strip dinner.”

“Thank you, sir.  It’s the finest meal I’ve had in a while.”

“Really?  Clearly you don’t get out enough.  I’ve got an invitation to the Faculty Club dining room with Professor McDougall and his wife for tomorrow.  I’d planned to go stag, but maybe you’d like to join me.  We will be discussing my dissertation for part of the time, but the Prof and Evelyn are pretty good fun.”

“A real date, you mean,” she said.

Now, that seemed to take him aback.  He took a bit of hot dog and chewed.  He took a sip of soda, then he spoke.

“Yeeeeah, I guess so,” he said.

Why the hesitation? He’s feeling it just like I am, we do well together. But then he put both of his arms around her and kissed her neck, and the fire within her flared up, again.  And all doubts vanished from her mind. Just do me, I’m burning up!  One night, one week, an hour, whatever.  It’s good now, there is only now, and I am moving forward with this!  But she knew she would re-visit the matter later on, in the quiet of her little condo, with her orange cat Sparks purring in her lap, and the lights down low.

It was full dark now, and with the crowd mainly out of the stands and off buying hot dogs and beer, and the dragsters out of sight somewhere getting ready for the second half, it was possible to talk without shouting.  The night was warm and clear, and Darla snuggled up close to Luke, warm and secure in the circle of his arms.

“Yes, dinner at the Faculty Club sounds yummy,” she said.  “And I really like Professor MacDougall.  He seems so . . . well . . . professorial.”

“His wife Evelyn is great too,” Luke said.  “She plays first violin in the symphony.”

“Really?”  Oh shit, really? She probably knows Dave, Carol’s ex, Darla thought in a panic.  No, she must surely know Dave.  Do the violins sit near the violas on-stage? Of course they do, dammit.  Do members of the symphony party together? Does Dave go to symphony parties? And so on, down the rabbit hole, until Darla’s inner voice finally spoke up:

“So what?” said the Inner Voice.  “Dave’s okay. Stop panicking and let’s just wait and see.”

So, Darla put the matter out of her mind, and re-focused on Luke.  She snuggled a little closer, and then both of then stood up to allow a very fat race fan in a lurid pink tee shirt to pass in front of them on the way to his seat.  He was carrying a giant tub of popcorn and a huge paper cup of soda.  Then they sat back down and the conversation resumed.

“So,” she ventured, “why is a philosopher/stone mason/race fan like you still single?”

“I guess I’m just picky,” he said.  “And all my spare time’s been consumed by school for years now.  But you know how that works, don’t you Doctor Darla Riggs, MD?  You’ve just come out of the wringer yourself”

“I do indeed.  School is a tough go.”

“Or maybe I just haven’t met the right woman,” he added.  “And what about you?  We haven’t spoken much about past relationships, mine or yours, have we?”

“We’ve only known each other a week, so maybe that’s the way it’s done,” she said.  “I don’t know much about dating these days.  I was in a relationship from undergrad up until about 18 months ago, and I haven’t dated since then.”

“Really?”

No, not really.  She immediately hated herself for lying to him, but it was just too painful and embarrassing to get into.  Because about a year ago, for about a month, there had been Brad.  There was no getting around acknowledging the fact of Conor.  He and Darla had been an item for too large a chunk of her history, and the day would come when she would share with Luke the details of the horror show her relationship with Conor became.  But, “the Brad Business” (as she thought of it) she had not shared with either Lily or Carol, her closest confidantes.  It was just too sordid and out-of-character.  A mistake she hoped would never be repeated.  A period of her life she would never share.  And, for now, she pushed the Brad Business away from her mind.

“Yes, really,” she said. “Med school just about ate me alive, and then during my internship I barely had time to sleep, let alone do anything else.”

“I see.”

“Luke, surely you’ve had a steady girlfriend.”

After a short pause, Luke said “Yeah, I did.  We were together for three years. We lived with my parents in Toronto before I left to move here.”

“Did it end badly?” she said. “And, am I being intrusive?” He’s entitled to his secrets, she thought. But on the other hand, if I don’t ask he won’t tell me.

“No, you’re not being intrusive,” Luke said. “And, yes, it sort of ended badly, I guess.”

Emboldened, Darla plowed ahead. “How so?” she asked.

Now he looked up at her sheepishly. “I don’t tell the story much out here, but here’s the short version. My family are Italians, very traditional. Rita and I’ve known each other since childhood, and our parents sort of, well, pushed us together.  Rita’s my first cousin, my aunt Maria’s daughter.”

“Is that legal?” Ouch!  She’d blurted it without thinking. Nice going, dumbbell. “Sorry, that sounded a little harsh.”

“Hey, don’t worry,” he said.  “I’ve heard it all.  And, yes, sex with a first cousin is legal in Canada.”  He took a slug of his pop, and continued. “And, if I may be frank, sex with Rita was something else.  There was a whole, hot, forbidden fruit thing going on, completely aside from the fact that she is a wonderful woman.  But, in the end, it was not to be, we split up, and then my parents would not let me alone about it.  So I moved out here.”

“Wow,” Darla said, “That’s a first for me.”

He grinned at her, and she knew it was okay.  They’d gotten through what could have been an awkward moment. “Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it,” he said.

She thought briefly about her own gawky male cousin Kevin, but her mind recoiled. “No,” she said, “I’m pretty sure I’ll be dating further down the chain of consanguinity.”

“Good thing we’re not related,” he said.

“Amen to that,” she replied.  And then the second half of the drag meet began, as two dragsters tore down the strip in an apocalyptic riot of noise, smoke and flame.

(to be continued)