The Forever Girl Ch. 01

This is a work of fiction and any resemblance by any character or situation to any actual person or event is purely coincidental. All characters presented in this narrative are over the age of 18.

The Forever Girl

By Royce F. Houton

Chapter One

Seriously, does she never shut up?

"Nobody can tell me that Kim and Kanye are really splitting up and that this isn't some scheme to get publicity. I mean Pete Davidson? Would you date Pete Davidson?"

I just faked a smile intended to show fatigue and disinterest and said nothing to Lisa, holding my tongue from its burning desire to tell her No, I wouldn't date Pete Fucking Davidson because he's a guy, I'm a guy, I'm straight, and I don't fancy penis.

But because Lisa Muldoon was my twin sister's best friend and roommate, I was trapped with her on this drive from a New Year's weekend trip to Georgia where we spent the last four days of the holiday with her family in a large lodge overlooking a private lake in the hilly woods at the southern terminus of the Appalachians an hour north of Atlanta, I practiced restraint.

But Lisa prattled on, pursuing an endless, stream-of-consciousness soliloquy about everything from her take on the origin of the universe (if you think about it, Genesis just condenses into a week what God actually did over billions of years), COVID (she'd read where humans had no immunity because it made its way to earth inside a meteorite from a civilization light years away and crashed into China), and more palaver about celebrities and reality TV than I ever knew existed.

At one point, she described her most humiliating moment in college: her college roommate her junior year had brought some random guy she had met at a club on the way to getting drunk to their dormitory room and, in the single bed not seven feet from her, had sex but foolishly tried to muffle themselves, thinking Lisa was asleep.

"Melissa was just riding this guy, right in front of me with the bathroom sink light on so I could see ..." she said. "It was disgusting. They were both shitfaced drunk, and he didn't pull out even though Melissa made him promise that he would. I got so pissed that I got up while they're still doing it, go into the bathroom, slam and lock the door and sort of disrupt everything. Seven weeks later, Melissa's missed two periods, she's pregnant, she drops out of school. Never even knew his name. He knocks her up and vanishes, and I haven't seen Melissa since. She was stupid, but you guys -- you ... just ... suuuuck!"

For more than seven hours now, I had listened to Lisa as we motored up Interstate 85 toward Washington, D.C., where we both lived and worked. She was a graphics and video associate in a prominent K Street lobbying and public affairs firm who shared a compact, two-bedroom apartment in Georgetown with my sister, Janine. I work on Capitol Hill as a senior staffer on a major Senate committee. (I'd rather not say which one, but it's heavily involved in national security.)

Lisa, a native Pennsylvanian and an alumnus of the University of Pittsburgh, had scored four 50-yard-line tickets to the Peach Bowl which Lisa had shared with Janine and me as well as Peter, Lisa's priggish Ivy Leaguer boyfriend who works for a government contractor. Because Michigan State whipped Pitt in the New Year's Eve bowl game in Atlanta, it turned into a bummer of an early evening for Lisa.

Janine and Peter had to be back at work on Monday, Jan. 3, so they flew back on New Year's Day, allowing a day to decompress before returning to work. Truth is, for Janine anyway, she wanted some alone time with Marcus, her D.C. firefighter boyfriend, before he left Monday for four days of Army Reserve training at Fort Drum in upstate New York.

Lisa had a family gathering on New Year's Day that she didn't want to miss, and I had planned to connect with an old college friend and his wife in Atlanta that night, so we booked flights home for Sunday night, January 2^nd.

A combination of the surge in COVID-19 infections and a storm that had swept across the Midwest barreling toward the Mid-Atlantic canceled our flights, so we had no choice: we rented a roomy Ford Expedition and set out from her parents' lodge near Tate, Georgia, at first light Monday morning, January 3rd. Not once, from the point she hugged her parents goodbye and shut her passenger seat door, was Lisa silent. No naps, no moments of introspection, no audiobooks. Nothing. I treasured our gas and piss stops so I could at enjoy a few moments of peace in the relative solitude of a urinal stall.

I took some comfort in seeing the sign along I-85 welcoming us into Virginia. Just a few more hours -- depending on traffic after I-85 merges into I-95 just south of Richmond. The occasion allowed me to mentally tune Lisa out by indulging myself in Travis Tritt's song "Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde" that opens with the words: "Well it's a long way to Richmond, rollin' north on 95. With a redhead ridin' shotgun and a pistol by my side."

Don't get me wrong: I really like Lisa. She's a genuinely beautiful girl with a sweet soul who had become like a younger sister to Janine and thus, to a lesser degree, me. But eight unbroken hours of her monologue now grated like fingernails on a chalkboard. The sight of the Washington Monument could not be more welcomed or come too soon.

"I say we stop for one last bathroom break in Emporia next exit up the road. That sound OK?" I asked Lisa. A fierce piss-boner was already bending uncomfortably in my jeans.

"Sure. So have you been keeping up with The Real Housewives of Atlanta?'" she said, not even pausing for a breath between the two sentences.

"I have not," I said through a weary, forced smile, "but I'm sure I'm about to find out everything there is to know."

I toyed with the notion of popping in earbuds and cranking up my country music playlist to drown her out, but aside from being blatantly rude as well as illegal, it would keep me from hearing other motorists' horns or emergency vehicle sirens. Or something I just noticed -- sleet pellets intermingled with the blustery rain clicking against our windshield.

When we left Georgia, the temperature was 63 degrees. Fifty miles behind us, the outside temperature reading on the dash of the Expedition registered 56. Now, it had plunged to 38 and falling. And we were at the southern extremity of Virginia.

We stopped to fill our tank and empty our bladders at the intersection of I-85 and U.S. 58. I was checking the forecast on my phone and did a doubletake: what had been a forecast for rain followed by a light mix of snow with little or no accumulation farther north had abruptly changed to a winter storm warning. The Virginia Department of Transportation had issued a traveler's alert for areas of east central and northern Virginia with forecasts now calling for an inch-and-a-half to three inches of snow per hour farther up the line, particularly north of Richmond.

We had to put some miles under us fast before the roads get dangerous, I told Lisa. She agreed and launched into a long-winded dissertation on climate change.

By the time we crossed the James River, fat, wet snowflakes the size of quarters were splattering against the Expedition's windshield and the automatic wipers increased their tempo to keep up. By the time we were 30 miles farther north, traffic had slowed to a crawl and cars that had spun off the road were marooned in the median. By then, the landscape was white and visibility was down to 200 feet or less. What had been two reasonably clear, narrow strips of blacktop where vehicle tires had kept snow from accumulating had now disappeared and the road was a compressed snowpack.

It wasn't until the snow let up and we slowly crested a prominent hill on I-95 in Spotsylvania County that the spectacle before us chilled me: an unbroken string of red, unmoving brake lights stretching to the horizon in the gray, snowy dusk. Interspersed in the queue of cars ahead were at least two big rigs, one halfway into the median with its ass in the left lane and another jackknifed across both northbound lanes.

"Ohhhh ... shit shit shit," I muttered.

It even silenced Lisa.

I looked in my rearview as a semi mercifully skidded to a full stop barely two feet from our bumper. Somewhere in the snowstorm behind the semi, I heard a sickening, muffled metallic thud that could only mean a car had slid into another in this fast-worsening winter horrorland.

My mind raced. Pulling onto the berm was out, as was turning around in the median and reversing course. Plowed snow was piled up in places a couple of feet deep. Vehicles that had attempted it were now hopelessly mired. It was also complicated by trees, particularly the plentiful spindly pines, bordering the right of way that were snapping under the weight of the wet snow right before our eyes and falling onto the road in places.

Backing up was out of the question, too. And the notion that cops or other emergency vehicles would be able to make their way through miles and miles this iced-in gridlock was highly unlikely if not physically impossible.

When Lisa went silent, she really went silent.

Her head was swiveling, her eyes wide with fear. She had unbuckled her seatbelt and was turning around in the passenger seat in hopes she would spot something more encouraging to our rear. She didn't.

Now she perched there in the seat on her knees facing me, tears tricking from her wide, brown eyes, her hands hiding her quivering chin.

"Jake ... what are we going to do? How long are we going to be here?" she said.

A pang of panic briefly slithered through me, too. Here we were with night closing in, stuck in the largest traffic jam I had ever seen on the East Coast's primary traffic artery, one that connects Miami to Boston through Washington and New York City. And now, the dashboard readout showed the temperature outside the Expedition at 30 degrees Fahrenheit and falling, freezing the already slick, slushy mess beneath us. The blue lights of police cruisers were nowhere to be seen. They were unable to get through, either.

OK, Jacob Connor, I told myself, this is no time to lose your shit. Think. Help is hours away at best. What do we have? What do we need to survive? How do we best use what we have to get through this until help arrives? Stay strong for both of you. Lisa needs to see calm and confidence right now. Both our lives depend on it.

"Well, Lees, I think we're here for a while," I said with a shrug. "But we'll be OK 'til they get to us. I'm sure they'll have somebody come by before too long to help get us out. I'm guessing the state's all over this and the governor's already called out the National Guard."

"First, let's figure out what we've got. What did your mom pack into that sack of goodies she handed you? I know she never lets you head out on a road trip without food," I said.

Lisa nimbly crawled into the back seat of the SUV and rooted around in a canvas bag behind the driver's seat.

"OK, here's ... a Ziploc full of those ham biscuits we didn't eat yesterday. Yuck. There's a ... sixpack of Diet Coke. Double yuck. There's -- what's this, heavy as hell -- a melon? A whole cantaloupe? How are we going to cut up a freakin' cantaloupe? Jeez," she said.

She was tossing the items into the front seat where she had sat after pulling each out of the bag. Whatever reason she had for it eluded me, but she did it.

"Oh and this: a bag of Tostitos," she said as the unopened cellophane bag plopped onto the shotgun seat alongside the sixpack of Cokes and the cantaloupe. The bag of ham biscuits had skittered off into the front floorboard. "Thanks, Mom," she added sarcastically.

"Well, Lees, it might not be a candlelight dinner at The Palm, but it's enough to keep us from starving if we're stuck here overnight," I said, my exasperation at her attitude now more evident. "By morning, you may view the world -- and your mother -- in a more appreciative light."

"I'm just in a shit mood right now, Jake," she replied, seeming on the verge of crying. "I'm very stressed out. We're stuck out here on a frozen freeway somewhere in Virginia for God knows how long. I'm due at work in the morning and it appears we're not going to make it. And I can't get Peter to return my damn texts."

I unbuckled my seatbelt and turned around to face Lisa as she sat cross-legged in the back seat, her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, looking every bit like an insolent seven-year-old who's not getting her way.

"Long as you're back there, Lees, can you reach our luggage in the back compartment? We need to identify everything we brought with us to help us keep warm," I said.

"Why? Heater in this thing works great," she said.

"We've got a little over a half a tank of gas right now. And at the rate this engine burns it, that leaves us with four, maybe five hours just sitting here idling. And if you haven't noticed, there's not a gas station around the corner. So we're going to have to shut this engine off and turn it on for short intervals as needed to avoid hypothermia," I said.

A look of horror froze her face.

"You don't think we'll be here all night? I mean ... you can't be serious," she said, that look of fear back in her eyes.

I patiently explained the situation again. Nothing at all is moving in either direction as far as the eye can see -- a long cordon of bright red in front of us trailing off into the blackness. Barring a miracle, we're trapped for a good long while, so let's do what we must to avoid frostbite.

Now she was somewhere between pouting and crying, but at least her lithe, blue-jeaned form was crawling over the back seat into the rear compartment where she found our luggage. Her heavy coat, draped over the headrest of the passenger seat, was a clear asset in our quest for warmth, as was my woolen, knee-length topcoat. Now she was digging in her rollaboard, sending items flying out of it.

"My Pitt sweatshirt: Needs washing, but check," she said. A sheer pink brassiere flew onto the console between the driver's seat and hers. A fuzzy slipper. Socks. A stretch-knit stocking cap. Within a minute, like a tornado she had strewn the entire contents of her luggage all over the interior of the SUV. "Yoga bottoms and top, Pajama bottoms: check and check."

Then she hoisted my rollaboard into the seat behind me and began to unzip it.

"Just ... leave it there and I'll go through it, thanks," I said.

I quickly found my long thermal underwear I brought for a duck hunting outing that got canceled, my University of North Carolina Tarheels hoodie plus a pair of heavy woolen socks. Those plus my heavy topcoat should be a good start.

"Lees, in the far back, there is a blue blanket. It's sort of coarse and not the most comfortable thing in the world, but it's water resistant and it is something we can throw over us to help hold the heat in. Can you see it?"

I heard her rummaging around in the rear compartment and muttering to herself. She activated her iPhone flashlight and then chirped, "Found it." She tossed it forward. And then began to climb back toward the front of the cabin.

"What? You some Boy Scout or something?" she asked, sarcastically.

"Yes. I was. Eagle Scout in fact," I said. She paused for a second, a bit chastened but also somewhat comforted.

"Oh. Well, ... um ... good to know," she said.

I pulled the UNC hoodie on over the flannel shirt I wore over a T-shirt.

"I recommend you do the same, Lees. Go ahead and put your warmest stuff on while this cabin's still heated because I'll have to kill the engine shortly," I said.

Behind me, I could hear unzipping, unbuttoning, shifting, pulling and grunting as she shed her jeans and shirt.

"Don't look," she said. "I'm down to my panties."

"I won't. Scout's honor," I said.

While my head was trained straight ahead, my eyes furtively darted to the rearview mirror. Not only was she down to her panties, she was also down to her bra, both undergarments lacy, tight and designed for sex appeal more than comfort. Her thin cotton button-down shirt was now gone with no undershirt. Then, to my utter amazement, off came the bra and, in the dim glow of the instrument console and the reflection of our parking lights off the semi in front of us, I saw her perfectly proportioned though not huge breasts crowned by darkish, prominent nipples that seemed to bounce merrily with her every move.

For a few seconds, there she was, on her knees in the middle of the back seat clad only in knee socks, a pair of bikini briefs and nothing else as she searched for something warm to wear underneath her Pitt sweatshirt. In the jumble, she found her Under Armour long-sleeved yoga top (wise choice; holds heat well and wicks away moisture) to wear beneath her sweatshirt. I had to suppress a sigh as her nipples and the swell of her tits disappeared, first beneath the yoga shirt and then the slouchy sweatshirt.

"You're not looking, right?" she said.

"Right," I lied. Again.

She stunned me by peeling off her panties, revealing a neat vee of wispy, dark pubic hair. My cock stiffened as though it were spring loaded. In the dim light, Lisa struggled to determine which was the left leg of the yoga pants, and which was the right, her indecision giving me maybe a good minute to study her womanhood, including the prominent cleft discernible beneath her downy nether hair.

Finally, she slipped the form-fitting yoga pants onto her legs and pulled them up, lying on her back to raise her bare bottom and pull the waistband up to her hips. After that, she pulled on a pair of baggy, yellow flannel pajamas covered with the trademarked cursive blue "Pitt" logo. She put on a heavier pair of socks over her knee socks and slid back into the passenger seat after ridding it of the food she had tossed there earlier.

"Well, you look ... cozy," I said. "Now you have to look away while I put on my thermal underwear and pull my jeans back on over it."

"No problem," she said, staring directly ahead.

"Maybe you want to gaze out the passenger window for a minute or two?"

She rolled her eyes and shifted in her seat so that her back was toward me.

I tugged off my jeans. The considerable erection I had mustered from my surreptitious glimpses of Lisa naked would have been plain for her to see straining against my tighty-whities as I reached backward for the insulated undergarment.

Once I grabbed it from the backseat, I bent forward trying to push my feet into the legs of the thermals only to have the steering wheel restrain me. So I pulled a lever to partially lower the backrest, pulled another to raise the steering column, and turned onto my right side, facing the center console, and curled my legs upward so I could reach my feet and put my legs into the appropriate openings. I pulled the garment up and then repeated the process for my jeans, then one last contortion to slip my wool socks on over my white cotton crew socks. Lisa heard me zip my jeans back up and turned back toward me.

"All done. You warm enough?" I asked her.

"For the moment," she said.

I killed the engine. The console lights dimmed and went black. Without the heater blowing warm air onto us, two things became apparent: the sound of the icy gales outside against the silence inside was unsettling; and we would get cold fast if we didn't find a way to conserve heat.

"You hear anything from Peter?" I asked. For eight hours, I had cursed the unabated yammering from Lisa, but now here I was trying to fill the quiet.

"No." she said, almost spitting the answer. "Nothing."