I stayed still. Cringing in silence, living in pain and plea sure, Karl filling me up so damn good.

"Sorry about that." The man was yelling through the door. "Take your time."

That voice was old and Southern. The outside bathroom door didn't open and close again.

The old man wasn't leaving.

Karl pumped into me. Made me cover my mouth to muffle my scream. I tried to stop him, but I gave in, moved with him. He was switching gears again, each gear sending me to faraway places. I was making the crying face, not coming, but plea sure was galloping on the horizon. It was too much. Had to end the madness. I tried to get up, but Karl pulled me back down. Slammed me down hard. I shivered with plea sure. Right then I couldn't imagine my life before Karl and Mark. Couldn't imagine what my life would be like after. Had all sorts of crazy thoughts. Needed to come. Orgasm brought clarity, and now I was going insane. Orgasm brought reality, now I was fucking deep inside a fantasy.

Outside the door, the old man coughed. That cough brought me back to reality.

Orgasm was the great deceiver. It was the master illusionist.

I tried to free myself, but Karl wouldn't let go.

Karl and I kissed, labored breathing, manly grunts and kittenish cries. Sweat dripped from my face, landed in the river that was already streaming down his neck. I needed to release a thousand voluptuous moans. Needed to moan so goddamn loud. My right hand moved by Karl, flushed the toilet to hide my sounds. When the water filled, I flushed the toilet again, did that over and over.

I stopped devouring him, stopped moving, this feeling too good.

Karl grabbed my hips, tried to raise me, tried to force me up and down. Sweat rose on his face, on his neck; liquid flowers in a garden of lust. His plea sure rose and what was hard became harder, elongated as if it had a life of its own. I moved his hands away from me, stood up, my vagina open, wanting more.

His erection stood strong, like a pole, his vulnerable expression a flag of surrender.

I stumbled in the small room, too stimulated to move with any real control, fell against the wall, pulled my shorts back up, pulled my T-shirt down over my breasts, my nipples sensitive to the cotton as it glided down.

Karl remained on the toilet, pants at his ankles, erection reaching up like I was a bandit and he was being robbed with an invisible gun. Robbed of plea sure. Robbed of his release.

I pulled my hair back, the loose strands that had come free and glued to my sweat.

I leaned into Karl, my tongue easing out of my mouth, and kissed him again.

He moaned and tried to yank me back on him; with urgency he reached for my shorts.

As I kissed him I flushed the toilet. With the noise at its peak, I moved his hands from my body.

He reached for his erection, his expression saying he needed to get this voluptuous orgasm out of his body before he went insane. I slapped his hand out of the way, watched him struggle.

He gritted his teeth, his chest rising and falling.

I opened the cheap wooden door, faced an old man with liver-spotted skin.

A man who was rocking side to side like his insides were about to explode.

Behind me Karl was doing the same thing, rocking and trying not to explode.

I spoke to that Southern-fried Christian with a smile and hurried out the door.

I didn't know if he heard me, his flesh-colored hearing aid might not have been turned up to the proper volume. Outside in the hallway was an older woman dressed in pink, her neck slipping, her marsupial features in need of a facelift, wrinkly knees, body ravaged by sun damage, age spots. She saw me come out of the men's toilet, then her mouth opened, she looked at the sign on the door again, then tried to understand why I was coming out of that water closet.

She was the wife of the man who needed to ease his troubled bowels.

Desire and arousal ravaged me, and I passed by her without speaking.

I stopped halfway down the stairs, fanned myself, adjusted my clothes, my body tingling like fire.

Only a few seconds went by before Karl appeared. Skin damp. T-shirt soaked and wrinkled. His lingam thick and long inside his wrinkled khakis. Bet the old woman got a kick out of seeing his potency.

Karl stared at me. His stare intense, like he was about to lose control.

I felt like a woman who made her own rules; the woman desired.

I moved ahead of Karl, motivated by the mean look in his eyes. He hurried after me, the darkness in his beautiful eyes saying if he caught me he would fuck me on the dingy tile floors in the lobby of the rug ware house. He would fuck me, then grab my hair and drag me back inside and fuck and sodomize me on each of the fifty thousand rugs, would abuse me until my body was covered in rug burns.

Hands over my top to stop my breasts from bouncing, I ran hard, laughing.

Unfulfilled desire motivated his chase while blue balls slowed his stride.

He could've caught me if he wanted to, could've caught me the way a parent caught a child, but he let me stay just out of his reach, every now and then speeding up like he wanted to capture me and make me his P.O.W. Each time he sped up I jogged a few feet, laughing, refusing to be trapped.

He chased me because that was the way it was designed.

The sperm always chased the egg.

FIFTEEN.

Sexual scents rising from heated bodies, we continued our journey on I-85 north toward Greensboro. Karl was on his cellular talking to a relative in Barbados, giving directions.

"They live on Golf Club Road...yeah, mon. Where you? Quayside Center...okay you're by Accura Beach...go toward St. Lawrence Gap...toward not to...turn left at the Shell station...after Cave Shepherd...yeah, mon...and before you leave the area run in Chevettes and buy me a roti."

He laughed.

I checked my messages.

I had six missed calls, all from the area code 901. Memphis. Shelby County. Logan.

Karl ended his call and looked at me. "You okay?"

"Why did you do that to your brother?"

"Because he's my brother."

"Has he ever done that to you?"

"Ask him."

My phone flashed. This call from DNA: LOGAN. Just like that, I saw a flash from my nightmare again. Logan banging on my door. Telling me he wanted to abuse me like I was his whore.

Karl said, "Was that Mark calling up to give me some hate?"

I shook that nightmare from my head. "Not Mark."

"Uh-huh. Boyfriend?"

"Getting personal, are we?"

He chuckled. "My bad."

"Hey, you wouldn't happen to know where I can find some paramethoxyamphetamine."

"What the hell is that?"

"From what I hear, it's better than Ecstasy. Maybe just pull over and get me a forty ounce."

He asked, "What's the problem?"

I waved my cellular to indicate what the problem was. "Just this jerk up in Memphis."

"Giving you grief?"

"Some men have a problem with women being free thinkers and being equal."

"So he has a problem with the good old concept of egalitarianism."

I laughed. "Egalitarianism."

"More house, baby. I might not read the books Karl reads, but I read."

He put his hand back between my legs. Tingles rose again. My problems vanished.

I embraced this libertine sensation.

Soon I saw signs welcoming us to North Carolina. Signs for Kings Mountain National Military Park. Black billboards with white letters: NEED DIRECTIONS? was the message. In the bottom right corner it was signed: GOD. I put the towel back in the window as we crossed Dixon School Road. Another sign came up that said the cigarette outlet was at exit 3. We passed a river basin, moved into Gaston County, Bessemer City, Cox Road, South Fork River, Sam Wilson Road, Little Rock Road, Beatties Road.

I kept having flashbacks of three in a bed. Then my imagination created different scenarios. Imagined Karl's passion taking me from one end, Mark's fervor taking me from the other. My hands moved up my neck, through my hair, down my T-shirt, across my breasts, eased down my belly. Again I patted my fire, touched myself. Touched myself from exit 49 and Speedway Boulevard until exit 54 at Kannapolis Parkway, then I leaned over and took Karl in my mouth again, tasted myself on his flesh as I suckled him, tasted and licked him until we crossed Dale Earnhardt Boulevard and entered Rowan County, now close to three hundred miles from Atlanta, the entire journey made on one tank of gas.

I stopped sucking him, sat back, smiled, licked my lips, and chuckled.

His smile was broad.

I stared at Boyles Distinctive Furniture. Fell quiet as we passed exit 11, didn't laugh at Mo'Nique's jokes on Foxxhole, held the roll bar as if the Jeep might lose control or flip without warning. Guilford County, Cape Fear River Basin, Deed River. We came up on exit 119, Groometown Road, made a left at the top of the off-ramp, went over the interstate and pulled into Citgo. It looked like a great place for truckers to buy Preparation H by the case. Karl took out his American Express, swiped it at the pump, spent over sixty-five dollars on premium fuel, went inside, came back and handed me a blue Gatorade.

We'd been riding over five hours. Three hundred and thirty-two miles of excruciating foreplay.

He asked, "You okay?"

I smiled a painful smile. "I want to come so bad."

After he filled up, he moved his Jeep, parked on the side of the building that housed the newspaper racks for The Charlotte Observer, USA Today, and News and Record. I sipped my blue Gatorade as I looked out at the lot, the far edges of the lot gravel and rocks, the cabs of eighteen-wheelers and older cars parked in that area. All around were signs encouraging blue-collar workers to play the lottery. Neon signs for beer were placed in the windows, positioned like they were bright lights to pot-bellied bugs. I'd bet my town house that inside that gas station, condoms and stay-hard pills were sold behind the counter, probably in plain sight, right by the Marlboros and jarred pig's feet.

I twisted the cap back on my Gatorade, made sure it was on tight before I sat it down at my feet.

I asked, "Where is your client?"

"She should be here."

"She?"

"Problem?"

"Just didn't know it was a she. I mean, I figured it was a she, just wasn't sure."

"You do makeup?"

"I can."

"You're hired."

"Who said I was looking for a job?"

"I'll pay you in orgasms."

"Will I be allowed to work overtime?"

After we exchanged soft chuckles, again I fell quiet.

On satellite another black female comedian was on, at some point they all started to sound the same, all of their jokes having the same rhythm and subject matter, this one loud and doing a routine about fucking white men, talking about a white man she had fucked, described how his pink dick curved to the right, described its huge mushroom head. So much laughter from the black crowd. She talked about how hard he fucked her, how he fucked her like he hated her. She screamed how she loved it.

The audience laughed so damn hard. The women could relate.

I asked Karl to tell me about one of his sexual experiences. One that stood out in his mind. Didn't expect him to respond. Expected him to shut down. But he chuckled, made a thinking sound, like his mind was going through its Rolodex, picking out a sexual adventure, then he nodded and played along. He told me that once he had made love to a woman. He was in a bed with a white comforter and white sheets. And when his lover came, she came so hard her bowels loosened and messed up the party.

I said, "Oh shit."

"Exactly."

"White sheets and comforter?"

I laughed so hard at that one. After I wiped the tears of laughter from my eyes, I told him about the time I was with this guy, things were going great, then I took out a vibrator, wanted him to take the toy and get freaky, please me to a brand-new level, and while I lay there waiting, the guy freaked me out.

He asked, "What did he do?"