Juicy Secrets Forbidden Tales of Lesbian Love

By Sunnybunny

The road wound in and around the dunes, little more than a black ribbon threading through white wrapping, utterly devoid of organic life, just miles and miles of rock and sand and sediment. In the distance a range of mountains danced in the lines of heat rising from the pavement.

The wind had transformed her thick head of long, dark hair into streamers, billowing out the back of the convertible. She depressed the accelerator, revving the engine and climbing the needle back into the upper seventies. The car lurched forward, bellowing out through the exhaust and racing through the sand canyons that flanked her on either side. The noise echoed endlessly all around but nothing stirred. There was nothing TO stir for miles still. In the barren wastes of the Nevada desert, it was easy to imagine she was the last woman on earth, totally free with nothing between herself and eternity but a stretch of highway.

She saw a battered road sign up ahead, spiked into the side of the road and long abandoned. It was eaten through with rusty holes but the intent was clear. There were no words left but this sign spoke in an international tongue. Two golden arches and a distance counter detailing how far away you were from the only fast food chain for days. After a few days’ drive and sleeping in the back, even the greasy concoctions that only barely passed as food in her book sounded pretty choice.

“A pit stop it is, then!” she thought out loud.

She lowered the visor at her brow and scrutinized the wrist watch wound over the mirror, calculating she would be there before the afternoon was gone. With any luck, she’d be able to find a good motel with basic Wi-Fi access but she would settle for a clean bed. She loved her Mustang, with its worn canvas drop top and seat belts that barely worked, but the bench seats were a pain to sleep across. That is, ‘sleep’ in its loosest sense. Mostly she just tossed and turned beneath her leather bomber, trying to get comfortable enough to snatch a few minutes before the sun rose and it became unbearably hot.

She flipped her shades down over her eyes. The occasional tree came next, little more than twigs at first and clusters of cacti before swelling to bolder and more prominent breeds.

The town itself was small but larger than she would have guessed. It seemed to spring up out of the sand as if dug out of the earth, making her think of King Solomon’s mines but she couldn’t say why.

She paused at a traffic light (the only one in town as it would turn out) and idled for a beat to take in her surroundings. Most of the buildings had long been shuttered and were little more than brick husks. The glass in most was smashed out, no doubt from bored kids with too much time and too many rocks to throw. The elements had done the rest, weathering the signs and advertising away until blank white triangles remained suspended along their sides and store fronts. What remained was a quiet diner tucked into a corner with a handful of late model cars parked out front. A gas station was across the street from that, shutters wide open with an old sedan cranked up high, all four wheels missing. There was nobody in sight.

More distressing, there was no sign of those telltale golden arches anywhere around. Not even a sign to point her in the right direction. She drummed her fingers over the wheel, weighing her directional options. It wasn’t like she was pressed for time. There were no other cars on the road and besides that, the traffic light wasn’t working. The diner seemed like the most immediate place to gather information and sate the gnawing hunger but through the haze she spied something that changed her mind mid-turn. She cut the wheel harder, staying on the road and nosing past the diner and crept up toward the large, grey MOTEL sign leaning precariously over the street. On a windier day, it might have been lost in the haze of sand.

She yanked the emergency brake up and climbed out, blinking in the sunlight, surprised to find the heat nowhere near as oppressive as she anticipated. It was still hot but not unbearably so. The double doors of the motel hung open, stopped by a couple of heavy chairs with a healthy pile of desert sand out like a doormat.

She stepped over it and into the gloom of the reception area, following the static-laced tune of some golden oldies to the front desk. a heavy-set man with thinning hair leaned back in a rocking chair, feet up on the counter and crossed at the ankle. They were hairy and bare, sun-tanned as the rest of him. He glanced up just then, meeting her gaze and it was hard to say whose expression bore more bewilderment. A heartbeat passed then another before either reacted.

He sat up so suddenly, as if the chair had suddenly goaded him with a Taser, that the back of the chair banged against the wall with a crash. She couldn’t help but jump in surprise. “Hi-hi!” he bellowed, too loudly. “Welcome! Please, come in!” he gestured with his hand as though he was offering a seat, but there was nowhere to be seated.

“Did you need a room?” He asked before shaking his head. She spied grey wisps trailing through his dark mat of hair and she upgraded his age calculations to the upper fifties. “Of course, you do! Why else would you come knocking!” He paused again, screwing his face up in afterthought. “’Less you need directions…? Do you need directions or a room? We get both in here but…not too often.” He blushed sheepishly, realizing he was talking too much but unable to help himself. She doubted he got many visitors one way or the other.

She smiled automatically, slipping right into her flirtatious role as if it were a favorite t-shirt. “It’s okay, really. I need a room, yea, for a couple of days maybe. Is that alright?”

He was nodding his head before her question was even asked. “Course it is! We got plenty of rooms with all the ane….enema…enamines!” He paused again, unsure of the word before clarifying, “We got your basic satellite TV, hot n cold running water, internet access.”

She waited a beat for him to continue before she realized that those were about it and more than she should have expected from the place. “That sounds great, thank you so much Mister….?”

“Walter,” he bowed. “Walter Gates.” He set his things down onto the desk (a dog-eared crossword dated sometime during the Reagan administration and pencil) and came around to shake her hand. “Can I get you to just sign in here?” He fished out a worn, laminated guest book and flipped open to the first page…the only page in the book. Inside were a handful of dates and signatures, the most recent being six or seven months back. “The rates are listed here,” he pointed out helpfully to the opposite page taped to the inside of the book. “Is it…just you?” He sounded hopeful.

“Just me,” she clarified with a nod, scribbling a few zigzagging designs that would pass for a signature. He spun the book around to study it, looking hesitant. “And you are…?”

“Freemantle,” she replied coolly. “Heather Freemantle.” Not her real name but it would do for now.

He fished a pair of keys from the wall and handed them over. They were worn, marked with a heavy brass ring bearing the numbers 01. “Need help with your bags?”

Something must have shown on her face because Walter faltered, offered a bemused smile. “I really don’t mind.”

Heather shook her head, offering a fresh smile that flashed her dazzling white teeth. “Thanks but I travel light, I can manage. You can help me one way though…”

She let the question hang in the air, baiting him to ask. “Anything!”

“Just where the heck AM I?”

He roared with laughter, slapping his beefy, spotted hand down onto the counter top. “Girlie, drove all this way, into the middle of nowhere and…” he waved the thought off. “Shouldn’t be surprised. Nobody comes here on purpose anymore. But this town here is Oasis. Oasis, Nevada. Allow me to be the first to say welcome! We don’t have much here, the world largely ignores us but we have hospitality. We have hospitality in spades!”

“I sure hope so…” She was referring more to the outside being oblivious to their existence rather than the latter but no need to tell HIM that…

“Just down the road there is the diner if you wanna bite to eat.” Just the diner, she thought. No name, just like the motel because it didn’t need one. “There is a filling station just down yonder ‘s well. General store down the way a-piece. Don’t reckon you’ll get lost here. You gotta try pretty hard to get lost here.” He roared with another fit of laughter.

“I plan to get very lost here,” she chuckled and left him, twirling the key around her index finger.

Outside the air felt a touch cooler, as if she had been inside for hours rather than minutes. She shrugged out of her jacket and slung it over one shoulder, winding her way back through the barren parking lot toward her convertible. the sun was beginning to nestle down amongst the water-color mountains for the evening and would be winking out in a while longer. Probably by the time she polished off her dinner it would be full dark and she could mosey back to her room in the cover of night without risking another encounter with Walter. The last thing she wanted was him to nose around her room while she was away, so instead of taking her bags inside right away, she left them latched inside her trunk, safe and sound. She doubted his intent would be malicious or perverse, but simple curiosity could make her stay here a whole lot more bothersome.

She was partway back to her car before Heather noticed she wasn’t alone. She had been so distracted ruminating on her situation that it took her aback to see someone, ANYone about. Already she was finding that it was easy to forget there were perhaps other people living here besides Walter in the eerie silence of Oasis.

The girl was pedaling her bicycle lazily around her car in a wide circle, standing on the pedals as she went, eyes fixated on the cherry-red body of the Mustang in a mix of admiration and curiosity. Her hair was shoulder length, the same color as the sand dunes piling haphazardly in the lot, lifting gently in the light breeze. She wore a checkered sundress that looked a half-size too large for her skinny frame, clinging to her body and shoulders. The hem was too short too, hitting her at mid-thigh rather than the more conservative knee-length the dress might have reached when it was new. Now it was just as worn and frayed as the town itself.

Heather watched her turn those circles around her car like a predatory shark with one hand shading her eyes for another moment before she called out. “If you’re thinking about rooting around in the seats for loose change, spare yourself the trouble. There isn’t any.”

The brakes on the bike wheezed, throttling to a stop so suddenly she nearly pitched over the handlebars. Her hair wiped around to face Heather, her hair tussling around her reddening cheeks. “I wasn’t gonna steal nothin’!” she cried. “I just like the car is all!”

“Uh huh…” Heather let the patronizing words of disbelief hang in the air between them. She folded her arms across her belly, smirking across the tarmac at the girl. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

The girl stepped off her bike in an almost defiant gesture, standing beside it with hands locked across the handlebars and bare feet planted. Her nose was wrinkled up in a hard frown that Heather couldn’t help but smile at. True, the little urchin was likely out to rob her, if she hadn’t already but she was sure making a fun show of playing the outraged victim at the wrong place at the wrong time.

“It’s true, look!” She plucked at her dress, tenting it out with her fingertips. “I don’t have no pockets anyhow! Where would I put it if I stole something?”

Heather shrugged noncommittally, strolling a few paces closer, wondering if the girl would back away. When she didn’t, Heather gave her a few brownie points. She was either brave or stupid and the woman couldn’t help but try and find out.

“You could have stuffed it down the front, into the band of your underwear maybe or just ridden off carrying it, one-handed.”

She came into the shadow of the road sign, at least shielded from the dazzling afternoon sun and got her first good look at the child. Her skin was bronzed the same dark shade as Walters, no doubt a mark of living in Oasis all their lives rather than being any relation, that would no doubt be shared by the entire small population. A dust of freckles played across her small, slightly upturned nose, above a full pair of bright red lips. For such a young thing, she was strikingly beautiful. Yes, that was the word that came to mind when looking at her. Not cute or lovely but beautiful, the kind of face that should be selling cereal or drinks to kids in television commercials, not ripping off peoples’ loose change.

“What’s…your name?” Heather asked, flustered by the girl and not quite understanding why. Her voice came out in a dry rush of air.

The girl seemed to be studying her in the same intense manner but her expression had softened somewhat. “Angie. Angie Lawrence. My daddy runs the service station up the road, there.” She pointed vaguely over her shoulder, eyes never leaving Heather’s. She spoke very matter-of-factly, not showing the slightest reservation at all about speaking with a total stranger. It occurred to Heather suddenly that the girl had likely never even MET an outsider before, likely knew everyone in town from the day she was born.

“What about you? You got a name?”

Heather faltered, frantically searching her mind for the name she had used at the motel. “Heather,” she replied perhaps too quickly. She had very nearly revealed her real name. “My name is Heather Freemantle.”

The girl squinted up at her suspiciously. “You don’t sound too sure,” she replied warily.

“You calling me a liar?” Heather arched a daring eyebrow.

Angie shrugged her thin shoulders, clearly not believing Heather but decided not to press the matter. At last she looked away, trailing her gaze casually back up the road toward the diner. “What’re you doin’ here Heather Freemantle?”

“It’s a free country, isn’t it?” Heather asked but didn’t like how harshly it came out and decided to try again. “I’m just passing through, might be around for a bit.”

Angie didn’t seem to notice, didn’t even seem to be paying attention. Heather appraised the girl anew, pegging her age somewhere in the preteen range by the way the dress hung about her. Her hips and bust were yet to fill out, the dress looking more like a circus tent around her body than any clothing. When she turned back around to face Heather, she noticed the neck line plunging dangerously low to show off a flat swatch of bare chest, barely covering the tops of the child’s nipples. The sight made Heather’s breath hitch.

If Angie noticed, she did not give any indication. She screwed her face up again at Angie, fixing her in a fresh gaze that was older than her years. “Guess I’ll be seeing you around, Heather Freemantle.” She climbed back about, swinging a slender leg over the seat, the color of polished bronze, and began to pedal away. She paused half way down the road and turned, craning her long, swan-like neck around to call back to Heather. In the stillness, she didn’t have to shout to be heard. “Maybe I thought about takin’ some.” It took Heather a moment to figure out the girl was talking about the car, loose change. “But I couldn’t. I ain’t no thief and it’s a really pretty car. I’m sorry for even thinkin’ about it.” She was speaking in the same matter of fact tone of a much older girl.

It took guts to admit that, Heather reasoned and couldn’t help but be a little taken with her right then and there. Plus, her accent was the cutest thing she had ever heard. “What would you have done with it, had you found any cash?”

Angie gave the question a quiet mulling over, casting her gaze to her foot, perched up on one of the pedals. “I would buy an ice cream at the shop,” she confessed at last.

Heather had no idea what she had expected as an answer but ice cream hadn’t been it. It doubled her over in a fit of laughter until she was wiping tears away from her eyes. “You got priorities, kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” Angie retorted without any of the anger befitting a child of her age after being referred to as ‘kid’. “I’m almost eleven years old!”

“How about I treat you to that ice cream?” Heather asked before she could talk herself out of it.

“You mean it?” Angie asked, a look of surprise breaking the carefully constructed mask of an older child she worked so hard to maintain.

Heather raised a hand as if in surrender, tracing an X over her chest. “Cross my heart.”

For the first time, Angie seemed to show a bit of hesitation, gazing up and down the empty road around them, as if she were searching for something or, more likely, if anyone was watching them. “What about my bike?”

“We’ll toss it in back or leave it parked here. Won’t be gone long, right?”

“I guess not,” she reasoned aloud, sounding like she was trying to convince herself more than Heather. “It’s just right up the road there.”

Heather fished the set of car keys free from the back pocket of her jeans. “Climb on board, Kid. I think we’ve both earned ourselves a little treat.”

Continue on to Chapter 2