Trucker Ch. 07: Sacramento 02

Cody was hung over again, and Hal dared not rouse her. She lay curled against Hal, her warm, soft body pressing into his, but with her head sandwiched between two pillows.

"Not again," he thought. He checked the clock, and looked around the room. The laptop and hard drive sat on the table across the room. Cody's cheergirl skirt and top lay on the floor. The bed was a mess from Hal and Cody fucking for an hour.

Hal grew hard as he recalled how roughly he'd fucked Cody. He held himself back from cumming as she let him jerk himself off against her bare wrinkled soles while she kept her toes pointed and teased him mercilessly about his fetish. When she wouldn't stop teasing him, Hal had surprised himself with the dark part of him that came out in response. The memory played in his mind: of him suddenly dropping her foot and flipping her onto her stomach, pinning her head to the mattress, and holding her down as he entered her from behind without warning. Cody squealed. Hal fucked her hard from behind, with her butt in the air, thrusting into her puffy pussy, still sopping from how turned on she'd become on the dance floor. Cody sucked in her breath as he impaled her, and then went "Unh... unh... unh" with each thrust.

Most surprising of all was that he'd choked Cody as he fucked her. Hal's hands had slid to her throat as he thrust into her. Cody's hands went to his and held them there. He'd hesitated, confused, as he felt her hands gently squeeze his against her throat. A switch inside his mind flipped, and he began to thrust into her harder and squeezed his hands firmly, compressing her elongated neck. Cody's hips had risen in response.

"Daddy! Ah-a-"

Her voice was suddenly cut off.

Then silence.

"Kggh... kggh..." she croaked. Her hips bucked.

Hal felt Cody's vagina grab him from deep inside her as she began to cum.

"Kh- kgh..."

More silence. She arched her back and pointed her toes hard, her exposed, bare soles wrinkling, and her body taut and quivering as she was asphyxiated.

"Kgh..."

Cody's choking noises sent Hal over the edge and he came hard.

Then he collapsed on her, and his hands slid away from her neck. Cody sucked in her breath audibly and coughed. Then she began panting raggedly. Hal scooped her in his arms in a flash.

"Oh God Princess, I'm so sorry! Are you okay? I... I don't know what happened. I just..."

Her hand reached up and covered his mouth."It's okay Daddy," she rasped. "I liked it."

They had held each other in the half-light, for what seemed like forever, before Hal heard Cody's drunk snoring. He'd kissed her softly on her brow, listened to her for a while, and let himself fall asleep.

Now, with the morning light coming through the crack in the curtains, she lay suffering with her hangover. Hal needed to get up and get to Oakland. He stroked the golden curls of her hair softly while pondering the situation. It was at least 90 minutes to Oakland, plus offload time. His time off began after that.

Hal slipped out of bed and showered with the bathroom door open. He jerked himself off in the shower thinking about Cody teasing him as she jerked him off with her bare feet, and then about choking Cody as she came. He exploded on the shower tiles and moaned. Cody snored through it.

Dressing and rustling around with his bag did not rouse Cody. She kept softly snoring. He sat down on a chair and pondered some more. Then he reached for the memo pad and pen on the table with the motel logo and scribbled out a message.

"Dear Princess,

I've gone to Oakland to meet my deadline. I will be back for you later today

and drive you to L.A.

Please wait for me. I love y"

Hal stopped writing.

"Shit," he thought. He scribbled out "I love y" until it wasn't legible, and signed the note. He left it on the night table with a wad of money, left his laptop set up on the table, kissed Cody on the forehead, and slipped out the door.

Hal stopped in at the motel office and booked the room for another night before climbing into the rig and setting off for Oakland. He drove as fast as he could, being mindful of his GPS tracker. His empty stomach growled and he pulled briefly off the highway to grab a bagel and coffee.

The depot in Oakland was in the docklands and Hal knew it from previous hauls. He rolled up to the chain-link gate after about two hours, with a hiss of air brakes. The agent at the gate recognized him as he checked Hal in.

"You get delayed this run?" he asked, as Hal signed his clipboard. Hal shrugged nonchalantly and trundled the rig into the compund. He waited an excruciating 90 minutes for the trailer to be uncoupled and free the cab. The cab was his, and the trailer was an intermodal unit belonging to the client. Hal phoned the company office, clocked out and switched off his GPS with a sigh of relief. The time was finally his. He ignored his growling stomach and turned the truck back towards Sacramento.

The drive back was worse, both with traffic and with Hal mind-fucking himself. There was nothing stopping Cody from letting herself out of the motel room and hitching a new ride south to L.A. on her own. Cody was a free spirit who didn't seem to have any difficulty leaving everything behind in Buffalo, nor did she seem to have a knack for concrete planning. There wasn't any solid way Hal could ever track her down if she wandered off on her own. Besides, Cody had been very drunk again last night and had completely displayed herself on the dance floor before getting unusually kinky and dark in bed. This morning, she probably felt like a little binge-drinking whore, and would slink off in self-judging shame, seeking penance. Like joining a convent, or something.

Half of Hal knew that this was the part where he was supposed to be headed back to Macon. The other half of Hal reached for his mobile and scrolled through his contacts, keeping one eye on the road. It was was stupid and dangerous with a rig, but Hal wanted currency if he got back and found Cody. Rob answered and Hal put him on speakerphone.

"My god, Hal, how the hell are you?"

"I'm great. Long time Rob, how are you?"

"Just the same."

And so on. Hal waited an appropriate time before broaching the subject.

"How's the restaurant business?"

"Never been better. I've expanded to three locations in Pasadena, Culver City and Rialto."

"Whoa sounds great. You need any wait staff?"

"Always."

"I have one for you, she's young, energetic and could use the gig."

"Sure, send me her resume. How old is she?"

"Eighteen."

Rob was silent for a short moment. "Oh," he said. "Well, we need 'em 21-and-up here, you know that right."

"Thought legal serving age was 18?"

"Yeah it is, but I need my staff to work bartending as well, which is 21. So they need to have the training on their resume and be 21. Besides, Hal, geez, 18 is a bit young don't you think? Who is this, your niece?" Rob laughed. Hal fake-laughed back and tried to hide the disappointment in his voice.

"Yeah, yeah, my niece. Oh well, no worries, I'll get back to you in three years again, then." They did a bro laugh, made empty bro promises and Hal hung up. He fingered the mysterious Blair's business card, which he'd tucked away on the dash and kept driving resolutely eastward.

Hal made it back to the motel by late afternoon, and rolled the truck right up to the parking space outside the motel door. He took up the spot plus slices of the ones on either side, but he didn't care. There wasn't a trailer hooked to the back, and Hal felt light and nimble. He jumped out of the cab and jimmied the keys in the door. The curtains were mostly drawn over the window and he couldn't see inside. He opened the door and stepped in, holding his breath.

"What took you so long?"

She was a heavenly sight and Hal burst with relief. "Princess!"

She was perched on the chair at the table with her knees drawn up to her chest, arching her bare feet as her toes dipped over the edge of the chair. She had rifled through Hal's bag and pulled out his big, grey hoodie, and was wearing it with the hood up. The laptop screen glowed, and her hand was working the mouse. Hal dumped his stuff, strode over and swiped the hood off her brow. She had washed her hair and done it up in a bun, and she had obviously showered. Her smelled wonderful and she smelled fresh. He kissed her forehead and embraced her. She kissed him on the cheek.

"How are you doing? Are you feeling okay?"

"Yes Daddy," she said. She pointed to the screen. "Been doing some editing."

Hal pulled up the other chair and sat down beside her. Her bare legs looked gorgeous in the dim, afternoon light. "What's that?" Hal asked.

"Retouching. With the software," she said. She clicked through eight of the photos Hal had taken over the past days. Hal's images were beginner's images, but Cody made them pop.

"Whoa..." breathed Hal. "How do you do this?"

"Lots of practice. I pre-tweak them in Lightroom." She flipped to a different program and a bank of photos filled the screen. "These are the RAW files from the card. I adjust them and then retouch my skin in Photoshop." She flipped back to the ones she had selected. Hal noticed they were all sexy, but not too revealing.

"What next? Can I get copies of those?"

"Yeah, they're on your hard drive. Next I upload the best to my ModelMayhem account." She flipped to a webpage. Hal saw the ModelMayhem logo, and a wall of models and photographers posting updates underneath a section titled "Announcements," entreating visitors to check out their profile page. Cody clicked to her own profile and Hal's heart leapt into his throat. There was her modelling profile, which until now he'd never seen.

The profile was titled, Cody Alexis, with a short bio, and her location listed as Los Angeles. His eyes swept across the thumbnail gallery of her images. A few he didn't recognize. They looked like they might have been taken in Buffalo, and had an amateurish low-fashion quality about them. Hal reached for the mouse and clicked on one of them. It showed her striking a standing pose in a pair of white slacks, sandals, red tank top and floppy hat in a park.

"When was this?"

"A year ago. It was a practice fashion shoot."

Hal nodded. The rest of the gallery was his images, and they stood out because of Cody's skimpy wardrobe and bare feet. Hal clicked on each one, one after the other.

"You look so hot," he breathed. Cody giggled.

"I picked the tame ones," she said. "But they're already getting tons of comments."

"I see that," said Hal. "Who are these guys?"

"Other photographers."

"Really? Are you sure?" Hal scanned down the comments under the photo of Cody in her tiny jean mini skirt posing at the motel in Lakepoint. It was a shot where her bum cheeks were not showing, nor her breasts, but she was tantalizingly close to showing something. The comments included,

"Oh my god!!"

"You are a heavenly angel!"

"So damn sexy!"

"Lovely legs!"

Along with,

"Would love to work with you."

"Come to Tampa and let's shoot at my condo!"

Cody laughed. "They're guys with cameras, but some of them are pro."

"Uh-huh," Hal nodded. He clicked on others and read through the comments. Between looking at Cody wearing his hoodie, and reading the comments from horny "photographers," Hal was hard. The sound of Cody's choking noises came to him in a flashback and he closed his eyes momentarily to calm himself.

"Don't be jealous, Daddy," she said softly. Hal opened his eyes.

"I'm not jealous baby girl." He took the mouse and clicked back to Lightroom. He scrolled to their latest motel shoot from the previous day, and stopped at the series of Cody kneeling on the patio chair, looking over her shoulder as her little cheer skirt popped up above her bare bum cheeks. He found a selection that had the best of her pointed toes and wrinkled soles combined with a slice of her pert little bare cheeks peeking out, and double-clicked it. "Edit that one," he said.

Cody looked at him with wide eyes. "Oh Hal, I couldn't. It's super-revealing!"

"Please? For me?" They looked at each other.

"Hmmm. Just this one," she said.

Hal watched her as her expert fingers flew the cursor over the photo. He watched it brighten, sharpen, straighten and change in colour temperature. She exported the file with a swift couple of mouse clicks and it magically opened up into Photoshop. He watched in awe as she zoomed in on her angelic face, somehow zapping out tiny blemishes and making her skin look like a china doll's. She worked her way down the body, touching up her exposed midsection, the cheeks of her bum and the backs of her thighs. When she got to the wrinkled soles of her bare feet, Hal reached out and stilled her hand. "Just leave that the way it is."

Cody looked at him. "Huh? There's dirt on my soles that I need to retouch away."

"Nah leave it," he said.

Cody slowly shook her head and moved on. "Okies," she said, bemused. She zoomed out and then somehow, as if by magic, tweaked the curve of her butt. "Just making it a little more juicy," she murmured. "With the liquify tool."

"Dear God," breathed Hal. Cody reached out and put her hand over Hal's mouth.

"Sssh, you," she giggled. Hal kissed her palm. She brought her hand away, exported the file and saved it to the external drive.

"You're going to upload that right?"

"Um, no?"

They looked at each other. Hal reached out and took the mouse, flipping back to ModelMayhem. He clicked on "Upload."

"Omigod, Hal, no," Cody hissed. "If you upload that to my profile, I'm going to get a hundred horny guys wanting to photograph me wearing the same little skirt and doing the same pose for them with my bare ass cheeks showing."

Hal didn't say anything. The photo came up on the screen with a blank box for the caption. He typed in "Cheeky Cody by Hal the Trucker," then checked a box saying "Make this my profile photo," and hit "Return." Cody watched in stunned silence and then covered her hands with her face as Hal went to the Announcement wall and posted an update: Come check out my new pic!

"Jesus Hal," she squeaked. "You're being evil daddy again."

"I got this," he said quietly, concentrating on the screen.

Within a minute, her mobile started pinging with email notifications as her new photo received comments. Cody covered her eyes and pushed her phone away.

"Aah! Okay, enough. Hal, take me to the vending machine across the parking lot. I want some chips." She got up from the table and went over to her side of the bed where her heels and clothes lay. Hal watched her from behind. For Cody, Hal's hoodie was oversize. On her, it effectively became a baggy but short mini dress that barely cleared her tush. Hal got up and followed her over.

"Chips..." He repeated. Cody's phone vibrated again in the background.

"Yeah, chips. Where's my underwear?"

"You're not wearing panties?" Hal croaked.

"No, I've been indoors all day."

Hal tried to keep his voice calm. "Do you really need panties for such a short trip?" Cody crossed her arms and looked at Hal as if to say, really? Hal shrugged and nonchalantly handed her one of the g-strings, while quietly kicking a pair of full panties underneath the bed, out of sight. Cody looked at it dubiously and then sighed heavily and took it, and pulled it up her legs and underneath the baggy top. She pushed her bare feet into her heeled sandals.

Once outside Hal hung back to let Cody walk ahead as they crossed the parking lot to the motel office. The top kept riding up and exposing the cheeks of her bum as she walked, and Cody kept pulling it back down. Her heels sounded sexy on the asphalt, and her long bare legs seemed to go on for ages. The sleeves of the oversize top were too long for Cody's arms and she kept them scrunched up her forearms and held the cuffs in her fingers. She kept the hoodie up over her head.

The shop door ding-a-linged as they stepped into the motel office. Two vending machines in the corner sold soft drinks and snacks, next to a small selection of road maps and a rack of brochures for local attractions. Hal and Cody were surprised to see Matt the Waiter behind the front desk. Matt was just as surprised to see them. It was an awkward moment. His eyes roamed up and down Cody, and his mouth all but hung open.

"Hey..." they all said awkwardly.

"You do more than work in the lounge I guess," Hal said.

"Yeah, I pitch in for other staff. Jack-of-all-trades. I'm holding the front desk down this afternoon. Hey, look, I'm really very sorry about last night. I didn't want to tell you to leave but my manager made me do it."

Cody had pushed her hoodie down off her head and was shaking her long, golden hair out, combing it with her fingers. "Shit, so we really did get kicked out?" She turned to Hal and hid her face in his chest in shame. It was the first Cody had acknowledged the events of the previous evening. Hal smiled apologetically. He pushed some coins into Cody's hand for the vending machine.

"Well..." he said, his voice trailing off. "She's a model."

Cody snapped her head up and put her fingers to Hal's lips. "Sssh! Hal!"

"Huh?" Matt said. "You're a model? Really?"

Cody turned and went over to the vending machine. As she stooped to retrieve the chips, the top popped up exposing her bare bum. Her free hand immediately tugged it down, but Matt had seen everything. His eyes visibly widened. Cody shuffled back with the chips, looking around. "What's back there?" she asked, pointing to an adjoining area.

"Convenience items," said Matt. "What do you model for?" Cody ignored his eager question and handed Hal the chips.

"Be right back," she said and went into the adjoining room.

"She models for sexy pics," said Hal, shrugging.

"Who takes them?" Matt asked, clearly engrossed by the prospect of being in the presence of a real model.

"I do," said Hal nonchalantly.

"Whoa, seriously? Does she have them online?"

"Yup. ModelMayhem one word dot com forward slash Cody Alexis one word." Hal spoke quietly and slowly and Matt scribbled down the URL on a slip of paper. Cody shuffled back carrying a box of Oreos and a six pack of cold Coors. She put them up on the counter for Matt to ring up.

"Daddy...?" She looked at Hal expectantly. Hal and Matt looked at the beer and looked at each other. Hal cleared his throat and brought out his wallet. No one said a word while Matt rang up the items. Cody wandered over to a key-cutting display and a small rack of cheap, plastic, imitation jewellery. "Daddy...?" She called Hal over.

"Yes Princess?"

Cody picked out a black, lace choker with a tiny silver buckle and encircled it around her slender throat. It was cheap, and made of cheap material meant for kids play, but around her throat it looked alluring. "Buy me this?" She looked at Hal again, expectantly.

"You want me to buy you that, Princess?"

"Yes please, Daddy."

"You like that?"

She spoke quietly. "Yes, I want to wear it."

"Why?"

"So that it reminds us both about how you choked me when you were fucking me last night."

Hal opened his mouth but nothing came out.

Cody stood on her tiptoes and put her lips to Hal's ear. "And thank you for still taking me to L.A." Hal tried not to pant, and took the choker back to the front counter.

"This too," he said to Matt, handing him a twenty dollar bill.

"Hey, do you think I could get a picture with her? Just to prove I met a real model?" Matt offered his smart phone to Hal with the camera already opened. Hal shrugged and took the camera before Cody had a chance to protest.

"Yup!" Hal said. He didn't wait for Cody's approval. They both looked at Cody, who looked back like a doe frozen in headlights.

"Fuck, Hal. Okay. Hang on." Cody frantically fluffed her hair in the security mirror while Matt came out from behind the counter. Cody went over to stand awkwardly beside Matt. Matt put his arm around Cody's shoulder and smiled, pulling her into him. Cody picked up a knee coquettishly, cocked her head to one side, faked a smile, and flashed a V sign. Hal snapped a couple of pictures and then stepped back to get them full length.