Eighteen Wheels & A Denim Miniskirt

“Why’d you come back?”

“I got another load after Peoria, down to St. Louis. I’ll have to go down I-55, and I thought it’d be nice having company for a change. I can drop you off in Springfield on my way. Oh, there is one thing. I have to lay over in Peoria for a day to stay legal, but we can find you another motel room. You’re welcome to ride along if you still want to.”

“Why are you doing this? You don’t even really know me.”

“Because I couldn’t sleep last night, and I won’t be able to sleep until I know you’re safe with somebody who can help you work through this thing. Now, get dressed and checked out if you want to come along.”

We rolled into Peoria with a little time to spare and dropped the load. The St. Louis load wouldn’t be ready until seven AM, day after tomorrow. I usually spent these layovers sleeping and doing laundry. If’ there was something interesting close by, I might go have a look, but most parking lots can’t accommodate sixty feet of tractor and trailer. I usually had a book I hadn’t yet read, and if I was lucky and the antenna worked, I might catch something decent on the little nine-inch TV.

I found Amanda another cheap room. At least it was clean and they allowed rigs to park overnight. We ate dinner at a nearby steak house. I dropped her at her room door at eight, and then parked in the back of the motel lot. Unlike last night, thoughts of Amanda’s problems didn’t keep me awake. Instead, I fell asleep thinking about how much fun it had been having her along.

When I sleep, I’m pretty much dead to the world, and I have no trouble putting in ten or eleven hours of sack time if I’m tired. The banging on the truck door didn’t really register for a while. It was more like a thumping way off in the distance, and it took some time to realize it was just outside the sleeper. After my eyes opened wide enough to see, the little red blurs on the alarm read ten-thirty. I stumbled out of the bed and peered around the entry to the sleeper.

Framed in the side window was that beautiful hair, an even more beautiful smile, and her flashing eyes.

“Wake up. It’s time for breakfast. This time it’s my treat. I know you’ve got a frying pan in there.”

Amanda had walked down the block to a convenience store and bought a few things. She cooked while I rearranged the bed back into a dinette. I don’t know if it was the way she cooked them, or the fact that she cooked them just for me, but the bacon and eggs were delicious. For some reason, her coffee was better than mine, too. She finished before I did, again, and just sat there smiling as I ate.

I left the trailer at the motel after the manager said it would be OK. We drove down by the river and watched the boats go by. Well, she watched the boats. I watched her.

“Mark, you keep staring at me. I know I couldn’t do much with my hair this morning, but is it that bad?

“No, nothing like that. It’s just that I haven’t, uh…, well…, been around many women since my divorce, and it’s kinda nice.”

“That sounds like a pickup line to me. I know about you truckers. A waitress in every truckstop just aching for you to come through again.”

I shrugged.

“Sure, they’re out there if I was interested. Lot of guys do that. I can’t just hit and run, if you know what I mean, and since my divorce, I haven’t found one that made me want to stay.”

‘What about one that would come with you?”

“I couldn’t ask a woman to do that. The closest thing I have to a home is a post office box in Louisville and I only get there once or twice a month to collect the bills and junk mail. The rest of the time, I’m either on the road or sacking out here, in the sleeper.”

“Sounds kind of exciting in a way, like being an explorer or something. Some women would love to trade a house in the suburbs for the adventure.”

We ate dinner and then I took her back to the motel. Tomorrow morning, we’d pick up the load of dozer parts in Peoria and head to St. Louis. Sometime before lunch, I’d drop Amanda in Springfield, and get on with the rest of my life, whatever that was going to be. I knew it wouldn’t be quite the same as before.

It occurred to me that I was going to miss her, but there really wasn’t anything I could do about that. She was married. Yes, it was to an asshole who beat the hell out of her, but she was still married. It wasn’t my place to convince her to keep running from him. Sooner or later, she was going to have to face up to him to either get a divorce or to go back. I shuddered at the last thought, but I knew some abused women do go back. Surely Amanda was smarter than that. I fell asleep thinking about how it would be if she did come with me.

We pulled into the factory gate at six thirty and I waited in the guardshack while the guard checked with his shipping department. There was a frown on his face when he hung up the phone.

“Mister, they’re not ready for you. They say it’ll be tomorrow morning about five AM. The shipping manager says he’ll pay you for the layover if you’ll wait.”

There wasn’t really much choice. It would take until tomorrow to find another load anyway. I got back in the cab and told Amanda we’d be a day late getting her to her mother’s.

“That’s OK, but I should let her know I’ll be late or she’ll worry. Can I use your phone to call her?”

Amanda had picked up some of those tourist brochures in the motel lobby, and we decided the wildlife park looked like a good way to spend the day. She asked me to stop by a grocery store on the way. She came out with a sack full of sandwiches, potato salad, and sodas.

“I thought we’d have a picnic while we’re there. Jake never liked picnics so I haven’t done this in years. This way, we won’t have to spend a fortune at the concession stand, and the food’ll be better.”

We walked through the park until about five, just watching the animals and talking. Amanda was just easy to be with, if you can understand that – no pretense of anything, no expectations - she was just herself and it was great. Sometimes, she was a little girl, all wide-eyed in wonder at the bison herd. At the pioneer center, where volunteers spent the day living as they would have years ago, she questioned the women about how they did this or that. During lunch, she joked about how those same women were able to have kids.

“Well, how would you like carrying water and washing clothes by hand all day? I’d just fall into a coma as soon as I hit the bed. I don’t think I’d even know if my husband was doing it. That’d be hell, wouldn’t it – finding out you’re expecting and not even remembering the good part?”

“If you didn’t know about it, he wouldn’t be doing it right.”

Amanda chuckled.

“That’s so old, but you’re right. Hey! Do you suppose pioneer women got horny? I never thought of that before now. Did they walk around in those long dresses all day, being good cooks and milking the cows and taking care of the kids, and then get naked and jump their husbands at night?”

“I never thought about it either. I doubt they did. I mean, the whole family lived in a tiny little cabin. It would be hard to do anything after the first was old enough to know something was up.”

“Well, one of the actors said the women had about six kids apiece, so I’d say something was up quite a bit.” She shot me a devilish grin. “That would be the husbands – who were up, I mean.”

It was on the way back to the truck that she slipped her arm around my waist. If felt like it was meant to be there, and I slipped my arm around her shoulders. Amanda looked up at me with her sparkling eyes. She didn’t say anything. She just smiled and gave me a little hug. I remembered she needed a place to stay that night.

“Well, we have to get you another place to sleep. That same motel alright with you, Amanda?”

“Well…, actually…, no. After I checked out this morning, I had fourteen dollars left. Can’t I just sleep in the truck? That’s what you do.”

“There’s only the one bed. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of the room, and you can pay me back at your mother’s.”

“Mom…, well, she lives on Social Security. She doesn’t have much extra money.” Amanda’s

eyes had a warm sparkle. “I know there’s only one bed, and don’t look at me like that. I see it in your face and I don’t want you to think of me that way. I wouldn’t sleep with you to pay you back or anything.” She put her hand on my shoulder and kissed me softly. “Maybe I just want to do this because I want to.”

“But you’re married.”

“I know. I thought about that when I talked to those women today. Know what I decided? I decided I’m not really married, at least not like those pioneer women were. My marriage is just a piece of paper at the courthouse and some words we said to the preacher. There’s no love, no wanting to be with him, no wanting him to be with me. I’m afraid when he’s around, and when he’s gone, I’m afraid of what’ll happen when he comes back. That’s not being married; that’s like being in a concentration camp.

“The last two days have been so wonderful. You’ve been good to me, and you’ve also been good for me. I would probably have gone back to Jake if you hadn’t come along. I always thought somehow he might change if I just acted right, but now, I know he never will. You took me in and didn’t ask anything in return. Last night, I thought about how nice it was to not be afraid, to just be with somebody and have fun. You listen to me and you don’t tell me I’m dumb. I don’t really want to get off in Springfield. I’d rather just run away with you and live in the sleeper. I think I’ve found that man you talked about.”

“What man?”

“The man who’ll keep me safe and help me work through this thing. I know I don’t have any right to ask for that, and it’s a lot more than you’re probably willing to give, but that’s how I feel.” She laughed. “Last night, I tried to remember how love feels. I don’t think I never really knew. I’m not sure yet, but I think I’m starting to get there. I was praying you felt the same way.”

“Amanda, I don’t want you to leave either, but –“

“Then I won’t until you say I have to.”

I took her in my arms and kissed her. I understood exactly how she felt. Since Gloria left, I’d forgotten how it felt to need somebody and to be needed in return. Instead, my life revolved around needing nobody, unless I counted my load service and the bank. I’d been driving this rig away from everything and everybody just as fast as I could, only to run into a woman I desperately needed to stay with me.

We were both a little nervous when I parked the rig in back lot of the truckstop. I killed the engine and locked everything up for the night while Amanda went to the sleeper to wash up. When she turned out the light, I stepped through the entry, took off my clothes, and slipped between the sheets beside her.

Amanda’s body was lean and soft. I’d forgotten just how soft a woman’s breasts and tummy are. Her nipples pressed into my chest, and when I kissed her, she held me like she was afraid I’d leave. I rubbed her back gently and then slipped my hand around to the side of her breast. She flinched.

“Sorry. It’s still sore there, a little.”

“I won’t let anybody hurt you ever again.”

She covered my mouth with hers and inhaled my lips. Her hands slipped around my neck and pulled me to her tightly. She flinched again as she mashed her breasts into me, but maintained her embrace. I felt her smooth thigh slip over mine, and then the soft brush of the patch of hair below her belly. She released one hand from my neck and moved it to my chest. Her fingertips roamed everywhere as if she were blind and trying to see me by touch. The hand moved down to my belly and stroked the muscles there, then moved lower. I felt her fingers swirl through the hair around my cock.

Her hips were round and firm, and I cupped them each in turn. Amanda seemed to like that. Her tongue licked over my top lip slowly and then forced its way inside to find mine. It was warm and wet, and a jolt went through me when I touched it with my own. She moaned a tiny little sound and slipped her fingers around my cock. The gentle touch was almost unbearable. I hadn’t felt a woman against me in a long time, and I’d never been with any woman like Amanda.

She was ravenous for my touch, and exquisitely gentle with her own. I slipped my hand over the curve of her hip and she spread her thighs wide. The soft curls around her lips were moist against my fingertips. The satin-soft lips themselves were wet when I slowly slipped a fingertip over them. With just a few more caresses, they parted and my fingers touched the even softer lips that lay just inside. Amanda pulled away from my mouth and groaned.

“God, I’ve never felt this way before. He never…, Ohhhh “ Amanda cried out because I’d just slipped my finger past the side of her little clit. She jerked her hips into my thigh, and then pushed back against my hand. I felt her stroking my cock, slowly and gently, just moving the skin over the rigid shaft. She bucked again when I slipped my finger through her lips and just inside her passage. I massaged there gently and felt her try to find my rhythm. She kissed me again, open-mouthed and with her tongue searching for mine.

The kiss lasted until I rubbed her little button again. Amanda gasped and moved herself on top of me. I felt her reaching between us for my cock. She found it, lifted it up, and rubbed it between her thighs. I felt those soft inner lips against the head, and then the sensation of being clasped in their satin embrace as she pushed herself down. I’d barely entered her when she started breathing hard and stopped. She pulled herself off me, then pushed back down again. My cock slipped deeper into her wet warmth and Amanda moaned.

“It’s been so long. I’d almost forgotten what it feels like.”

She lifted herself again, breathed deeply, and lowered herself until her hips rested on my thighs. Her breath came in little short gasps. The light from the parking lot lamp lit the interior of the sleeper and I saw her head was thrown back and her eyes were closed. Her lips parted when she moved up a little.

“Ummm.”

Amanda’s breasts hung down slightly above me and begged to be fondled. I cupped them and gently squeezed, then lightly brushed her nipples with my fingertips. It was as if I’d pushed some sort of control switch. Her passage rippled around my cock and then squeezed its base. Amanda gasped and bent to kiss me. Her lips were insistent and incredibly soft.

She began to rock slowly and the motion caused me to slip in and out of her body just a little. I’m not big by any measure, but Amanda was a very snug fit. I’d not felt such sensations from so little movement before. She was feeling those sensations, too. Her lips nibbled at mine, then mashed against me. The nipples that had been small and soft in my hands became taut and ridged with wrinkles. Just a slight touch of my fingertip caused Amanda to moan into my mouth and jerk her hips to drive me deeper into her body.

By rolling my hips down into the mattress, I pulled my cock most of the way out of her passage, and then slowly slipped it back in. The second time I did this, Amanda mashed her breasts into my hands and groaned.

“Oh God, I knew it could feel like this. Don’t stop, please don’t stop.”

She didn’t have to worry about that. I was trying for all I was worth to keep from lifting her off the bed with the long, fast strokes my body was demanding. I settled into a slow rhythm that Amanda quickly matched. Her stiff nipples dragged across my chest with each stroke and her tongue played with mine as if our mouths were making love too. She spread her thighs wider and pushed herself over me until each stroke pressed the head of my cock against the warm, wet end of her passage.

I slipped my hand around her small butt and felt beside my cock for her little clit. It was extended slightly and when I moved my fingertip over it, Amanda cried out. I bushed over it again and she began to rock against me more quickly. My little circular massage forced her to break our kiss. She was breathing hard and making tiny little mewing sounds with every thrust.

We didn’t last long after that. I felt Amanda’s body stiffen, then relax, then stiffen again. She pushed her mound down against me and began to shudder. Suddenly, she lifted her hips and pushed down over me hard, cried out, then lifted herself and pushed back down again. I felt her whole body shaking around my cock, and that was all I could take. I shot the first stream of seed deep into her body just as she began making little cries of ecstasy. She started pumping herself over me, driving my cock into her body as deeply as possible while she shook and moaned a continuous stream of little “ooh” sounds. I shot twice more before she collapsed on top of me and covered my mouth with hers. The wet, sticky kiss was incredibly sensuous.

After a minute, I tried to pull out of her, but she held me tight and whispered, “No, please…, I need you to stay inside me.” With that, she laid her cheek against my neck. I felt her panting breath on my shoulder, and felt her heart pounding against my chest. Both gradually returned to something close to normal as I held her in my arms. She fell asleep there, a little later, cradled against my chest. I carefully rolled her beside me, covered us with the sheet, and went to sleep with her head on my shoulder.

The voice startled me out of the daydream.

“Mark, Honey, it’s time for lunch. How ‘bout finding us a place to park? After we eat, I’ll drive for a while.”

I looked over at Mandy. It was hard to imagine how I’d gotten along without her. Hell, it was hard to imagine how I’d ever managed to live without her.

“OK. There’s a rest stop about five miles from here.”

‘You’ve been pretty quiet this morning. Something wrong?”

“Nope. I was just thinking. Everything’s perfect, Sweetheart.”

I’d dropped her in Springfield at her mom’s and promised to call as soon as I got to St. Louis. Over the next few months, I arranged my loads so I got to Springfield at least once every couple weeks. We’d agreed she’d stay at her mother’s until the day she was rid of Jake. That day took

almost three months, and she had to threaten to have him arrested for abuse before he agreed to the divorce. His lawyer advised him to give her anything she wanted if he wanted to stay out of jail, and Jake was smart enough to accept. Mandy let him keep that little red pickup, but sold everything else including his bass boat.

We were married that March, and I picked up a load to Miami for our honeymoon. Mandy said we might as well earn some money on the way down. We had a week layover, and then hauled a load of oranges and grapefruit to Chicago.

About six months later, Mandy insisted she could learn to drive and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I dropped her in Louisville at Reynolds for a while, and picked her back up with a shiny new CDL in her purse. I’ll admit I was a little tense for the first thousand miles or so, and the floorboard on the passenger side has a dent from me stomping on the brake pedal that was supposed to be there. Really, it was all just me. She’s a great driver. It does piss me off that she can back better than I can, and that she won’t let me forget it.

I stuffed the last bite of cheeseburger down and leaned back against the dinette cushion.

“Mandy, you sure you’re OK to drive? You’re getting pretty big.”

Mandy stuck out her little pink tongue.

“I can still reach the pedals. Besides, we have to get to St. Louis so we can pick up the next load. We need the money. I called the factory this morning. They’ll have the sleeper on our new tractor next Thursday so I scheduled a load for Elkhart on Wednesday. It’ll be nice having the extra room, especially after the baby comes.”

I don’t know what I’m going to do while Mandy’s in Springfield at her mother’s. The doctor says she’ll have to stay off the road the last month and for at least a couple more afterward. I’ll be lost without her. She’s the one who got the laptop to work with the cell phone so we can schedule loads on-line. She does the books, keeps up the logbook, and schedules all the maintenance.