After Sooner took her swan dive into the after-life, I entered into a new phase of my life. For awhile, I wondered why Hollywood had haunted my dreams so badly leading up to the event, and then appeared to urge me to get rid of the girl. Unfortunately, she had not returned since the incident that she had inspired for me to be able to ask her for clarification, so I was forced to draw my own conclusions. The only answers that I could come to in my mind were inconclusive and often contradictory. For awhile, I simply thought that she could not rest in peace thinking that I had killed her and her alone, as if the thought of being one of several was more akin to her liking than the thought of being the only. Yet this contradicted her philosophy in life, and her religious beliefs, so it could not be that. I entertained the notion that perhaps I had simply imagined some significance to the dreams that wasn’t really there, but that didn’t fit me. I dreamed frequently without looking for meaning in the jumbled pictures, so why would I do that in just this specific instance?
About two years removed from my first kill, I seemed to be able to develop a much clearer picture of what had happened. Hollywood had pushed all of her chips forward on a single bet, and she had lost. The whole incident had been a gamble for both of us. She would push me to kill again, and if I got caught I would pay for what I had done to her. If I did not, I would ride free. It had been merely a case of a postmortem double-down, and lady luck had smiled on the house that night. I had played my hand well, and walked away with the spoils. Being a woman of honor, she had kept her deal. She had left me to my own devices, while she had crossed over to whatever may have been awaiting her on the other side.
It’s best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the Phoenix bird in you so you rise from the ashes.
Anne Baxter
The arrival at this conclusion was followed by a very peaceful time in my life. For the next two years, I did my job much like any other trucker on the road. I came and went largely unnoticed, and had little impact on those around me. I was at peace with myself and with my past, so I didn’t look for a relationship with others. Occasionally, I would pick up a hooker and satisfy my sexual needs, but I avoided any type of friendship or companionship. I didn’t realize right away that the feelings of ease were fading away, and laving behind a methodical boredom and loneliness. I was only fully aware of this fact once Hollywood began to enter my thoughts again on a regular basis. I had come full circle to the place where I found myself backed into a corner of my own mind, and forced to accept a reality that I didn’t want to face. I missed her.
I don’t particularly have a problem with the notion of missing someone. After all, I have missed my mother for years since I lost her. But in the case of a maternal figure, this is perfectly natural. It is bizarre to miss someone that you found annoying when their presence was available to you, but miss her I did. I began to have feelings of guilt, as if somehow my longing for her was a betrayal of my mother. When the thought’s of Hollywood would come to mind, I would try to push them out with thoughts of my mom, but it wasn’t the same. Had I allowed this girl that I barely knew to take a more significant role in my life than the only woman who had ever loved me?
My day to day emotional state became very similar to my physical existence. Much as I might sit in El Paso waiting for a load without knowing if it would take me across the border into New Mexico, or keep me there in the State where I sat waiting, small events threatened my state of mind. A dirty look from a waitress, or a snappy reply from the girl in the shipping office would trigger an inner anger that would grip me and not release me until it had drug me down into a spiral of depression that would last for a few days. As time progressed, I began to find myself talking to Hollywood as I drove, as if she were really there. I would point out scenery, or tell stories of things that had happened at “that truck stop right over there”. My life had become a West Virginia highway. There was little joy in the peaks, because each one brought me into a lower valley with an even steeper climb back to the next high. It was on one of these peaks that I met Ashley.
I had just delivered a load of paper in Austin, Texas. It was a holiday weekend, and I knew there would be no freight to be found before Tuesday so I found a Motel and prepared to settle in for the weekend. I was feeling good and the place had a little Country and Western Bar, which really wasn’t my bag but it would work in a clutch. I just wanted to relax and enjoy myself for a few days before I slipped back into a worse place.
Behind the motel was a little shit hole truck stop, but it afforded me the luxury of parking my rig nearby so I couldn’t bitch about it too much. It’s close locale turned out to be a good thing when I got out of the shower and realized I had forgotten to put clean underwear in my bag. Not wanting to put the old ones back on, I just slipped on my jeans and free-balled it over to my truck. I was a bit distracted by the roughness of the fabric as it rubbed directly against my skin, when I came around the corner and saw her standing there looking about as comfortable as a bastard child at a family reunion. Her designer jeans clung tightly to her round ass, and the black casual suit coat that rode over-top of her red v neck shirt made no attempt to cover the cleavage that was poking out in a sexy yet classy way. She startled me a bit out of my thoughts, and I startled her worse.

Once the initial shock of the chance encounter had passed, she began to giggle in a way that made her look young and vibrant. The thin lines across her forehead and around her eyes told me she was probably in her mid forty’s, but the way she swiveled on her curvy hips when she turned towards me spoke to a youthfulness that she had managed to capture and hold prisoner, even as age had left it’s mark on her pretty face. “Hey, you wouldn’t want a blowjob or anything, would you?” she asked. Accustomed to the typical slang of the girls of the night that frequented the truck stops, the sound of her direct approach even embarrassed me a bit, and I felt myself blush and my voice hinted at a nervous laugh when I replied “No, I’m good”.
Despite the rejection, she walked alongside me as I headed towards my truck. “My God, this is so embarrassing to be out her like this, but I really have no other choice. I lost my job a few months back, and I have no family or anything. I just need to get some money to get off the streets and try to start over.” Now she had my attention.
Every hooker has a sob story. Let’s face it. In an industry where competition is slim, and desperation is high, the price of the transaction can be affected greatly by things like sympathy. If a guy feels like he is exploiting her hard luck, he might pay her more than he was willing to pay otherwise. Plus, there are some suckers out there that will fork some dough out to the girl, thinking he is sparing her from the act she will perform anyhow with the guy three rigs down on the row behind him. There is a sucker born every day, but I wasn’t one of them. Idiots like that need to be shot. You wouldn’t pay a grocer for a weeks worth of food without receiving it just because he would rather be a doctor, so why would you pay a prostitute for not having sex with you just because she would rather be a nurse? No, I would not be that sucker, but I have never minded playing an angle, so I developed a plan as we walked and set it in motion. I invited her to come back with me to my room, and she followed willingly.
Once inside, I was able to get a clear look at her without either of us squinting out the sun that had been in the middle of baking the dirt parking lot into a cracked white, blinding mirror when we so rudely interrupted it. As my eyes began to slowly adjust to the dim light of the motel room, I was taken back a bit by her beauty. She stood about 5’7” in her cowgirl boots, and her curves would have elicited a warning sign to truckers if they had been on the back side of a steep downgrade. She had taken off her coat, and her arms were thin and amazingly toned for her age. Her face was also very slim, and the wrinkles that had stood out against her squinting eyes seemed to fade away in her new environment leaving behind a beautifully tanned face with piercing blue eyes. The freckles on her chest reminded me of a girl from my distant past, and I began to feel myself becoming aroused against the fabric of my jeans that suddenly felt rough again. I excused myself to the restroom by telling her to make herself comfortable while I freshened up.
When I came back out, I had cleared the sexual thoughts from my mind, and set out to uncover who this girl really was. I’ll start with the easy part. Her name was Ashley. She was 15 years my senior, weighing in at 46 years of age. She was alone in this world, and I saw genuine tears fighting to escape and trickle out over the slightest sign of crows feet at the corner of her eyes as she told me her story. Her mouth would remember to smile from time to time, but her eyes were too honest to allow the gesture to spread that far up her face. She was truly in a desperate spot, and I was inclined to offer her a way out. How well it would end for her would depend on her level of honesty. But first things first, I offered to allow her to stay with me “rent free” over the course of the weekend, which would get her off of the streets. She passed her first test when she accepted.
The weekend with Ashley flew by, as we got along famously. The first night we didn’t even have sex. This irritated me a bit, but I had made the offer without strings, and it was more important to test her honesty than it was to get my rocks off so I didn’t press the issue. After all, I found myself almost routing for her and her pushing me away as I tried to take our first kiss a step further gave her a passing grade on the second test. The third would be over in an hour or so, and if she failed that one the long weekend would come in handy, as it would afford me the opportunity to hunt her down and cut her fucking throat.
Earlier that evening, we had gone to the bar and had a few drinks together. Not enough to get drunk, but we each had a good buzz when we got back to the room. While we were enjoying the simple taste of the night life that this worn out establishment had to offer, I had gone to great lengths to flash the $2,500 and change that was in my pocket. I wanted to be sure that she knew it was tucked away in my jeans when I hung them casually across the back of the chair that set in the corner of the room. I headed into the bathroom and turned on the shower full blast, allowing her the audible cover she would need to steal my cash and head off into the night.

Once in the shower, I decided to relieve a little of the sexual pressure that was building inside of me. As the warm water ran over my body, my mind was filled with images of her in the bar. The way her hips moved so freely as we danced… the way her breasts seemed to fight at the fabric of her shirt when she would lean forward to be heard over the music… the way her eyes sparkled with life as she offered up a flirtatious laugh at my cheesy jokes… the playful yet stern look she had shot me when my hands went a little too low down her back as we danced. It wasn’t until we were laying in bed that night watching the best show we could find on the 6 or 7 channels that the tv could access that it hit me. When I was glazing a knuckle in the shower, that was my first orgasm without thoughts of Hollywood in some time. But it was immediately after getting out of the shower and slipping on my pants to get a couple of Cokes from the vending machine down the hall that I knew for sure that she had past the 3rd test. Every penny was still there.
By the time that conditions had arrived that would allow the fourth test to play out, I was relatively sure that she would pass it. Although we went to bed that first night with a rather mild kiss and no sex, we fucked like savages in the morning. When I awoke to her gaze from the pillow next to me, the sun was barely beginning to creep over the eastern horizon and our window was to the west. It was still pretty dark in our room, but the long shadows of the Motel sign that loomed high above the structure of the building seemed to stretch out all the way to Odessa. It took me a minute to take in the scene outside before looking back at her and realizing that her eyes were penetrating mine as they had wandered and come back. I didn’t say a word, and she didn’t either. For a minute or two, we just held each others eyes. It wasn’t until she began to smile and point down into the bed that I realized what had awakened her. I was full on erect, and the head of my cock was trying to pry it’s way in between her thighs. I started to pull away in embarrassment, but she threw her arm over my shoulders and pulled me to her, kissing me passionately.
I’m typically not comfortable with a woman taking control like that, but it was such a reversal of roles from the night before when she had thwarted my advance that I laid there and basked in the passion. She began to move her head down my body, kissing my neck, shoulders, and chest. She kissed her way down until her chin had rested atop my erect penis, and she paused there, nibbling my stomach tickling me in sharp contrast to the pleasurable feel of her warm flesh against my throbbing member. Slowly, she moved her head down and took me into her mouth. She was on her hands and knees below me, crouched down like a cat about to leap on its prey. Her bra was struggling to contain her breasts, and her hair fell into her face as she moved her tongue slowly up and down the shaft making her look like a crazed woman wild with passion.
She worked me with her tongue for a minute before taking the head into her mouth, and tickling the back of it with her tongue. Each time she would slowly work her magic, my body would quiver in ecstasy. Ever so slowly, she took me deeper and deeper into her mouth. Each time I though she had gone as far as she could, she would take in more with the next thrust. Her eyes began to water from the corners, smearing the remnants of the makeup that had adorned her face the night before, yet further she went. Her throat tightened, and an audible gargle escaped her, but still she didn’t stop. She took the whole thing, all the way to the back of her throat, and all the while looking up at me with that sex crazed look in her eyes.
Just when I thought that I was not going to be able to hold myself back anymore, she moved her mouth back up my body while crawling over top of me in the bed. As she kissed me, I could taste the mucus in her mouth that had built as she fought back the urge to gag. She put her hands on my cheeks, and looked deep into my eyes as she worked her hips back and forth on top of me, massaging her clit with my meat. I was letting her have control, and she was reading me like a book. It was like she could hear my thoughts begging her to take me into her tight fuckhole, and she opened herself to me and slowly slid her pussy down the length of my manhood.
Once I was deep inside her, she sat upright on top of me with her back arched and her head tilted back, looking down at me from her high perch. She reached back and undid the straps of her bra, allowing me my first look at her breasts. Her hips remained motionless, but my cock was throbbing inside her pussy, giving me the sensation of a slow grind.
The freckles on her chest pretty much stopped above her breasts, although a few smaller ones that were so faint in color that they were hard to see had managed to sneak down below her tan line. Although her breasts had begun to show the signs of gravity pulling on them, they were remarkably firm and full for her age. They didn’t sag, so much as they filled out at the bottom, taking a bit of a pear shape with the nipples set high towards the top of the plump lower portion. They began to move up and down on her chest as she began to grind against me, the slightest moan escaping her lips at first, and growing as she began to move faster.
All of a sudden, she dropped down on top of me. Her face was inches from mine, as she bit her lip to stifle the groans that were coming from her mouth. I could feel her getting wetter as the orgasm started, then rushed through her body. Her eyes rolled slightly back into her head, which had tilted back as her hips moved up and down on my rock hard dick. She was a sight of pure unbridled passion. Her moans became higher and quicker, and I began to groan with her as my dick became sensitive to her wetness. Her orgasm seemed to be falling off as my cock began to pulse in the throes of mine. The growing and throbbing inside of her pushed her back into a full out moan, and we climaxed together.
She gradually slowed her hips, and eventually came to a stop with my dick still inside of her. She leaned down kissing me, and feeling my chest and neck with her hands. I had planned to wait until the weekend was over to ask her, but I got caught in the passion of the moment. “Can I take you with me when I leave here?” I asked her. She leaned down and whispered in my ear, “You fucking well better”.
Time lost it’s power over us that weekend. It was as if we had found a rift that allowed us to escape to a parallel universe, where the current paradigm had no control. When we wanted to stay in the room and fuck til 2pm, we did. Then we would go order breakfast. The next morning, it seemed like a good idea to go to the bar and drink til we were drunk, laughing obnoxiously and dancing to the jukebox. It took a little coaxing to get the manager to open it early, but at 10am that is where we could be found. Though the plan was to leave on Tuesday, that got pushed out until Friday when the money began to run a little low. Over the course of the week, the senorita from the front desk had to come knock on the door three times and tell us to keep the noise down. Apparently, our neighbors were not impressed with our sexual prowess. The third time, I flung the door open and stood there stark naked in full view of the horrified desk clerk with a towel hanging from my hard-on, and Ashley laid on the bed laughing so hard there were tears streaming down her face.
In a weeks time, we had grown thick as thieves. Our talkative moments would last for hours, and our silent ones were broken up by smiling glances at each other. When we left there, she passed the 4th test without either of us really noticing that it had happened. I had told her that when we got on the road, she could sell her body to make her own money if she wanted. Apparently she didn’t want to, as there was never a moment where she even mentioned it again, even on those times when the money was tight. For the first time in my life, I had a girl who was all mine. For the moment, it was all I needed to drive Hollywood completely from my mind. How long that would last remained to be seen.