Reckless You

By Shane Minter

                He drives fast but I can’t even tell. I’m busy in the back seat. I’m drunk and speaking in tongues with some girl we picked up when the cops showed up at the party. The scene was hilarious, it left me in tears but I don’t know why. As soon as the lights flashed from atop the squad cars people scurried away like insects to whatever safe haven might be awaiting them.

                We’re driving at least twenty miles over the speed limit. A half full bottle of So Co dangles loosely from two of the not so designated driver’s fingers rocking back in forth like a pendulum. The wind is funneling through the windows in front numbing my entire body as I run my hands across her smooth form above and beneath her clothes silhouetting her from the waste up with force and thoughts as wild as his driving. We jerk forward as he stops at the stoplight. And for a second the shape I’m making with my hands gets wide and irregular.

                The green and red hues of the stoplight seem to be highlighting our obscenity, as she lifts her head letting out a deep hard breath and he in the front seat chokes back another throat full of whisky. I look up at her with a smirk and notice she looks like a messy glob of flesh and hair. She looks down and bites what I believe to be her lip grabs a handful of my hair and forces her tongue deep into my throat. I can feel her forming vowels and consonants trying to make some drunken comment I’ll forget in tow minutes.

                The car speeds off again. The engine growls and roars while he pounds the gas pedal into the floor of the car trying as hard as he can to push straight through the carpet directly into the disappearing street below. I look behind me and see the bottle of So Co shatter into the a thousand pieces spreading across both lanes on our side of the road. We’re pushed into the back seat. The embers from his cigarette drift slowly into the back seat and explode on my face, yet through the deadening of my senses from cold and alcohol I can’t feel a thing.

                We’re still driving the three of us. His eyes burned into the road in front and us in the back battering each other with lips, teeth, and tongues. I pull back attempting to catch my breath and stare up at the rear view mirror. My chest expands and contracts and I’m panting heavily. His eyes meet mine in the mirror and I can see his face perfectly, every pore is defined and dark, his face looks like the striking pad from a book of matches. His look of utter disgust flows backwards from his chin up until his forehead is creased and wrinkled.

                We run a red and barely beat a car traveling fast from the left side; I feel the shake as it travels behind us. His eyes were on me for the whole episode and he doesn’t even notice. He keeps driving and I look back to see if the other driver had any idea what was going on. I see the driver shake back to consciousness and swerve. I know that if he were driving any slower all of us would be dead. “Wouldn’t be that bad” I think to myself.

                I’m kissing her again, her neck and her shoulders are red and I try to overlap bite marks that already exist, but every time I touch her skin she becomes less and less attractive. Mid grope he shouts back, “hey girl where do you live?” I laugh a little bit because I don’t know her name either.

                “Huh” she spouts, a gaping hole opens up in the middle of her blurred features.

                “Look I don’t want you coming to my house and he certainly can’t be having any company.”

                She looks at me. The whole closes and the blur vibrates harshly. “I live with my parents,” I say, as I look out the window. The appeal is completely gone.

                “How old are you again?” she asks slouching against the opposite side of the back seat.

                “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” I say giving her this degrading look and the blur melts into a frown. She sits up straight against the far end of the car forcing herself up against the window as she’ll fall through into a different dimension.

                I’m tired.” She lets out a big humph and then gives him the directions.

                We get to her house and me and her get out of the car. The cold air freezes my joints slowing my exit and a heavy misty fog hangs throughout the street. I hop in the front seat leaving her standing there on the sidewalk. He looks over and smiles at me with this huge grin. We drive fast and I look back as she disappears into the haze of two am.