The Ballad Of A Lot Lizard

"Alright, we've got about twenty minutes before we need to set back off to beat the traffic," Donovan Walters explained to his family, "there's a restaurant in that truck stop, so we can grab a quick bite and stretch our legs until then. Is that alright with everyone?"

"I could certainly do with a quick break," Theresa Walters agreed, giving her husband a grateful smile.

Katie and the rest of her family voiced their collective agreement, each just happy to get out of the SUV for the first time in a good few hours. Hopping out, Katie was immediately struck by the pungent scent of diesel and oil, exacerbated by the sheer number of trucks and heavy haulers that lined the rows of truck lots that surrounded the reasonably large diner situated at the direct center. But the smell wasn't unbearable enough to take away from the relief she felt from being able to stretch her legs, shaking off the stiffness she felt deep in her joints.

The Walters family's annual outing started without a hitch, with their extended trip from their enclosed town to one of the national parks playing out as it had done every year since Katie and her sister Anna were kids. Their mother Theresa had packed out the family's SUV with everything they could possibly need for the almost two hour journey to and from the park.

It was a tradition for the family to make the trip, a means of bringing all four members of the Walters family together, even if it was just for a day. Though it had once been a fun little getaway from home, Katie increasingly viewed it as more of a grievance, something that took her away from her friends and her creature comforts, just to visit a national reserve that she knew better than the back of her hand. Spending a day out with her parents and sister was something far from what the eighteen year old considered time well spent.

Her family could comfortably describe themselves as being a part of the upper-middle class, with her mother and father both respectively running and operating their own successful businesses, earning more than enough money to afford all the luxuries in life. Katie and Anna both attended the well renowned St Frances Academy, a private school that catered to families of privilege and wealth. Costing just over thirty thousand dollars a year per student, the academy was certainly out of reach for the typical American family, along with the advantages that came with enrolling, particularly when it came to networking and making connections with its well-connected alumni.

It wasn't lost on Katie just how privileged she was in life. She possessed a wardrobe packed with clothes that would have seemed obscene to anyone outside her social bubble based on the price tags that came with each individual garment. Rather than a modest amount of pocket change, the family credit card was open for use whenever she desired it. Being a daddy's girl came with a number of benefits, letting her acquire whatever she wanted, but unlike her sister Katie never took advantage. It didn't hurt that her academic overachievement earned her a near constant wave of admiration and adoration from her parents.

Her sister received equal treatment, though her use of it couldn't have been any different compared to Katie. Anna had always possessed a rebellious streak, using every opportunity that presented itself to contribute to her party girl nature. On more than one occasion, Katie spotted Anna clambering out of the back of a luxury Uber ride, heels in hand as she attempted to sneak back into their house well after her curfew. Somehow, much to Katie's amusement, Anna always managed to avoid being caught in the act, even when she displayed the signs of a heavy night of drinking.

As much as Katie preferred a quiet day out shopping with her friends, or a night studying in her bedroom, she couldn't help but envy Anna's ability to lay her way out of any situation. Despite Anna not being as academically inclined as Katie, she had always managed to clinch passing grades in her classes, a fact that allowed her frequent nights of partying to fly under the radar.

Katie knew her parents always viewed her as more sweet natured and straight-laced out of the two of them, one that could always be relied upon to not try and sneak a boy up to her room for anything other than a session of tutoring. She more than earned such a reputation, having spent days on end before any upcoming exams with her head firmly planted in textbooks and example essay papers, along with a near perfect attendance record.

There were times where Katie wished that she could have been more like her sister, to allow the stress of school and the expectations that both her parents and teachers had of her to just slip away, to have a night of fun for the sake of it. She had her fair share of experiences with her ex-boyfriend, but nothing that came close to the excitement she envisioned when she imagined slipping out of her bedroom and entering the unknown for just one night. There was a certain thrill in imagining herself being with someone she barely knew, engaging in meaningless sex just for the cheap thrill that came with it.

But no matter how much she wanted to have a night where she could let loose -- forgetting any of the worries she had about maintaining her straight 'A' record and hammering out college applications -- she could never find the courage to go ahead and take the leap.

Even when Anna made the offer to help sneak her out once their parents had settled into bed for the night, Katie still couldn't take the plunge, always finding unconvincing reasons to stay at home. Envy was a constant when she spied on her sister's return, with Anna occasionally arriving back home in the cars belonging to the boys at their school. It didn't help that Katie's free time after the school day was either split between an arduous session of training with the cheerleading squad or engaging with activities she knew would be a good way of padding out her college applications.

Inheriting their looks from their mother, Katie and her sister rarely went a day without hearing one or two comments being directed at them based on their appearance. It was something she had built a thick skin in response to, accepting that she possessed a beauty that could send men wild, viewing it as more of a blessing than a curse. There was always great amusement that came from having a mother that captured attention wherever they went, with Katie being present on a number of occasions where some cocky guy would try his luck, flirting with her mother brazenly despite the gold band wrapped around her finger. Despite her father not being the jealous type, Katie's mother always made sure to keep such encounters a secret, a fond memory between her and her daughters.

Anna shared her feeling of relief, slamming the car door shut behind her. The pair followed their parents as they set off in the direction of the old diner, jogging lightly to find refuge from the chilly air. In the spirit of sisterly competitiveness, Anna and Katie smirked at one another, turning their journey towards the diner into a race of sorts, dashing past their parents, ignoring their amused protestations. Katie grinned as she reached the door and grasped the vertical metal handle, aware that her slightly longer legs provided her with a significant advantage over her sister.

"Not fair, those legs are almost as tall as I am," Anna rolled her eyes, stepping inside as Katie held the door open for her and their parents with a smug grin. "And they're wasted on you."

"I'm sure that if you had legs like these you would spend more time with them in the air with one of your boyfriends lodged between them," Katie whispered, following behind Anna as she searched for an empty booth while their father put in their orders.

"And you wouldn't be wrong," Anna laughed and slid her body into a worn, red leather bench seat tucked inside a vacant booth, with Katie dropping into the one opposite. "If you have them then you should show them off instead of hiding them behind those baggy jeans you always wear. I promise you that if you came to one of my parties you'd have to spend the entire night fending guys off."

"What's this I'm hearing about parties?" Theresa asked light-heartedly, taking the space next to Katie. "Anna, you're not trying to corrupt your sister, are you?"

"That's exactly what I'm trying to do, but she sure as hell isn't making it easy," Anna shared an innocent smirk with her mother, unzipping her jacket as she settled back against the ruined leather seat, "it feels like I'm trying to teach a nun how to gamble."

"And that's exactly what we admire most about her, she keeps her head down and focused on her school work," Theresa said with a playful voice. "Your father and I don't have to worry about her being distracted by a sex-addled boyfriend."

"Boyfriends in Anna's case," Katie snickered, just about avoiding a kick from her sister beneath the table, watching as her father headed back towards them, carrying a tray filled with steaming hamburgers and cartons of fries, along with a set of cokes.

"The waitress was a little more surly than I was expecting, I just hope the food makes up for it," Katie's father explained, setting the tray down on the table as Anna moved the condiments aside for him.

"After the journey we just went through? A stale old sandwich from a vending machine would make up for it if it meant getting out of the car," Anna grumbled, devouring her meal in spite of her self-imposed diet.

"Well, we're only about an hour away from home, it'll just be smooth sailing from here on out," Katie's father replied, taking an innocent sip from his can of coke. "Hopefully."

The Walters family continued their light chatter as they consumed their meals, with any negative memories of the last few hours quickly being forgotten. Katie and Anna in particular looked at one another in mirth whenever they spotted a trucker entering the diner and glancing in the direction of their booth, paying particular attention to their gorgeous mother. The minutes quickly ticked by as the contents of the tray depleted, until the four of them were left with the small scraps that remained.

As Katie drained the last drops of her coke, she took the opportunity glance through the condensation-coated window and assessed the forecourt of the expansive truck stop. Unsurprisingly, she mainly caught sight of the numerous haulers that rolled in and out of the heavily weather-worn old truck stop, illuminated by the floodlights that lined the outer edges of the fencing, along with a red flashing neon arrow advertising the site to those passing by along the highway. Trucks would roll into the sections of the forecourt that were left in virtual darkness, allowing them to reverse into any available spaces and park up for the night.

But looking a little closer, she spotted a number of figures moving along the overnight parking lot, stopping at each truck before being ushered on by its occupant. What caught her attention in particular were those figures who were instead invited into the cabs, temporarily illuminated by the interior lights when they climbed up to the open doors. Though her view of them was brief, it wasn't difficult for her to see just what sort of clothes they were wearing, or the lack thereof. They disappeared into the cabs belonging to interested truckers, hidden from sight once the lights faded away entirely.

Katie's curiosity had been piqued, but a snap of her sister's fingers snapped her back into reality. She continued eating what remained of her food, trading back and forth barbs with her sister. Once they were all done the family tidied their disused baskets back onto the tray and made their departure, hoping that they could beat any traffic before it had the chance to build up.

Her father elected to make the short trip back to the car himself, with the intention of bringing it around for the rest of them to jump into while they waited beneath the heated canopy that extended out from the diner's facade. Katie found herself deeply appreciating her decision to wear jeans and a thin jumper for the trip, unlike her mother and sister, both of whom elected to wear shorts and loose-fitting blouses.

Again, Katie found her gaze wandering back over to the darkened section of the lot. It took her a few moments, but she eventually located the women that were dotted around the parking zone, with a few standing directly beneath the spotlights produced by the aged lamps, putting their salacious outfits on full display. She watched them briefly, wondering to herself what it was the women were waiting for.

"Anna?" Katie said, giving her shivering sister a tap on the shoulder.

"Hmm? What?" Anna turned to face her, taking a slow sip from the straw sticking out from her can of coke.

"What are they doing?" Katie asked. Seeing the confused look on her sister's face, she pointed directly towards the other side of the lot, elaborating further. "Those women over there, I keep seeing them hovering around the trucks."

"C'mon, don't tell me that you're that much of a girl scout?" Anna answered with a shake of her head, tossing her empty can towards the open top of a nearby trashcan. "They're Lizards."

"Lizards?"

"God, I'm really starting to believe that you really are still a virgin," Anna snorted, earning a dark glare from Katie. "They're Lot Lizards. Y'know like the truck stop equivalent of the streetwalkers that work on the bad side of the city. Ladies of the night. Prostitutes."

"Prostitutes?" Katie questioned, until the weight of the word finally dawned on her once she began to make sense of the actions of the women. From their clothing to their overall demeanour, it became clear just who they were and what it was that they were there to do. "Really? Isn't this a strange place to try and do that kind of... business?"

Anna shrugged her shoulders. "Makes sense to me, they've got a constant stream of new potential clients arriving on a nightly basis, and the fact that those clients have to move on by the next day also drops the chances of gaining a stalker. Plus, I think there's less danger involved since they're operating in a monitored area, rather than some rundown old district in the city."

"I guess," Katie replied vacantly, observing yet another scantily-clad woman tapping her hand against the side of a cherry red truck, tapping a transparent heel impatiently as she waited for a response. Within a few moments, the door was pushed open, inviting the woman inside. "Why didn't we see any of them in the diner? It's freezing out here."

"That's why," Anna pointed a manicured finger towards a handwritten sign hanging from the door that read 'NO LIZARDS!'. "Owners probably don't want them trying to ply their trade in there, wouldn't want to tarnish that upmarket aesthetic they've got in there."

Struggling to fully understand why, Katie found the whole practice deeply intriguing. Deep down, Katie knew that she should have been repulsed by it, despising the fact that there were women who had no other options available to them to make a sufficient enough income other than selling themselves to men in such a cold, crumbling location. But the longer she watched, the more she began to imagine standing in their place, envisioning what it would feel like to g from truck to truck until she could find someone willing to purchase an hour of her time for an unfairly cheap price, stepping into the unknown.

It was so unlike her to even conjure up such a twisted fantasy, to put herself in the place of the women across from her. They were there out of desperation, a last resort to make the money they so desperately needed. But there was something so alluring about it, the primal act of engaging in rough intercourse in exchange for monetary payment. It appealed to the part of her that yearned for such danger, in a way that made her feel both deeply uncomfortable, and incredibly excited.

"You have to admire them in a way," Anna spoke up, already turning her interest back to the car park, watching as their father began to guide the car out of its space. "Getting into a random trucker's grimy cot, fucking him in any way he wants, then moving onto the next before they've had time to recover. I love sex more than anyone I know, but even I couldn't keep up with that sort of lifestyle."

"Yeah, it sounds like a tough life," Katie said absent-mindedly, watching closely as one of the cabs in the distance began to rock slightly, leaving no doubt about the act taking place within.

"What are you two whispering about?" Theresa approached the pair, clearly regretting having opted to wear Daisy Dukes and black leather wedge heels on such a cold night. It came as little surprise to her daughters when a grubby-looking trucker exited the diner, blatantly staring at Theresa as he shuffled back to his truck, already in the process of adding her to whatever raunchy fantasies he had to keep him occupied on the lonely nights on the road.

"Just broadening Katie's understanding of the world," Anna laughed, earning a swat to the arm from her sister. "By the way, did you see the way that guy was staring at you, mom? Talk about eye-fucking."

"You get used to it. Besides, trucking can be a hard life from everything I've heard, and a lonely one. It doesn't hurt to give them something to fantasise about," Theresa cocked her hip and shot a subtle wink at the trucker, sharing a delighted grin with Anna and Katie when the man came close to walking into a lamppost as a result.

"Ha! I think you'd be right at home here, mom," Anna exclaimed. "If accountancy ever stops paying the bills, you could always find a job around here. You would be like a goddess to some of these old geezers. What do you think, Katie? Hello, earth to Katie? Can we get those sapphire eyes focused for a second?"

"What? Oh, sorry," Katie responded, having lost herself briefly, with a fantasy quickly forming thanks in part to her sister's joke.

Katie's thoughts were finally broken by the sound of the tyres belonging to the family car rolling along the cracked tarmac, stopping as her father came to a stop beside the curb. The three of them piled into the SUV, glad to be on the last leg of their journey home. As they drove over to the exit, waiting for the gap in traffic to allow them to get back onto the freeway, Katie took one last look back at the shabby lot, letting a fantasy develop that would fester in her mind over the weeks that followed.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~

Life carried on as normal for Katie following the day of her family's wayward day out in the wilderness. She immediately returned back to her endless hours of studying, spending a countless amount of time studying and preparing herself for the waves of exams that would come her way over the course of her final year at school before heading off to college.

It didn't shock her in the least when Anna slipped back into her own routine, spending an inordinate amount of time going from one house party to another, stumbling home well after her curfew. Again, Katie brushed off her sister's best attempts to draw her out of her bubble, far too concerned at the potential risks that came with mingling with the sort of strangers that Anna spent most of her nights partying with.

As much as she didn't like Anna's constant barrage of comments about her being a prude, she knew that her sister wasn't exactly far off the mark. When it came to the raging house parties that were held by the students in her year whenever their parents were out of town, Katie was amongst those who always had to hear about them from someone else, always listening to what had taken place, never having experienced it for herself.

Katie didn't choose to live a boring life, with her mind constantly focused on school and her future college aspirations, being the recipient of a constant stream of accolades and awards gifted by her teachers. But it was a routine she had allowed herself to be consumed by, it became easy for her to concentrate on the future instead of living in the moment. She even found herself thinking beyond college, already planning out her future career years before she was even hired by any firms in the city.