Susan Phillips - The Great Escape

He stared at her blankly. “Why’d you think that?”

She gave up.

A few minutes later as she set her meager purchases by the register, she experienced a stab of yearning for her pearls and headbands, her slim summer dresses and neat little sandals. They were the objects that anchored her. In her ballet flats and cashmere sweaters, a cell phone tucked to her ear, she knew who she was, not only the adopted daughter of the former president of the United States but a crackerjack lobbyist and first-rate fund-raiser for important causes that help children. Her stomach started to hurt again.

Panda shot her a sullen look as he paid for their purchases. Once they were outside, he shoved everything into the cheap gray nylon duffel he’d bought, wadding up her neon panties with his charcoal gray boxer briefs, and secured the duffel to the Yamaha with a bungee.

Panda didn’t like interstate highways, she’d discovered, and they rode east on dusty secondary roads that ran through dying towns and past run-down ranches. She didn’t know where they were going. Didn’t care. As evening began to fall, he stopped at a twelve-unit motel next to an abandoned driving range. The first thing she spotted when he came out of the motel’s tiny office was the single key dangling from his big hand. “I’d like my own room,” she said.

“Then you pay for it.” He tossed his leg over the bike and, without waiting for her, rode toward the last motel unit. She walked, her legs wobbly. At least straddling that big leather vibrating seat had made her feel nominally alive—right up to the moment she remembered those broad shoulders she was forced to stare at all day belonged to a man who communicated with grunts, ate with his mouth open, and was only putting up with her for the money. A man she was about to share a seedy motel room with.

All she had to do was make a phone call. One phone call and this insanity would be over.

She kept walking.

He was unfastening the bungee cord from the back of the bike when she reached their motel unit. He freed the duffel that held their recent purchases, then flipped open one of the saddlebags. As he pulled out that night’s six-pack, she spotted another bumper sticker, this one plastered to the inside of the flap.

The message was so over-the-top vile, it took her a moment to absorb what it said.

NEVER TRUST ANYTHING THAT BLEEDS 5 DAYS A MONTH AND DOESN’T DIE.

He slapped the flap shut and raked her with those half-lidded eyes. “Are you ready to call Mommy and Daddy yet?”

THE SPACE BETWEEN THE TWO double beds was no wider than the battered nightstand that separated them. Lucy chose the bed closest to the door in case she needed to run screaming into the night.

The room smelled of cigarette smoke and cheap pine air freshener. Panda plunked the six-pack on what passed for a desk. He had a bad habit of looking at her as if he could see through her clothes, and he did it now. No one ever looked at her like that. They had too much respect. But he was a primitive life-form. He scratched, belched, grunted. Focused on food when he was hungry, on beer when he wanted to drink. And when he wanted sex, he focused on her.

She tried to watch him without his noticing. He grabbed a beer. She waited for him to snap off the bottle cap with his teeth, but he found an opener somewhere. His jeans fit a lot better than hers. If he weren’t gross, stupid, and scary, he’d be hot. What would it be like to have sex with someone like him? There’d be no finesse. No courtesy or consideration. No insecurities over whether she was as good in bed as her Texas beauty queen predecessors.

She’d nearly forgotten what sex felt like. Three months ago, she’d told Ted she didn’t want them to sleep together again until their wedding night so it would be more special. Ted said he’d go along with them not sleeping together—as long as it didn’t interfere with their sex life. But in the end, he’d done as she’d asked with only a minimum of complaining. Now she wondered whether she’d put him off out of sentimentality or because her subconscious was sending her a message.

She took her things from the duffel. Panda kicked off his boots, carried the beer to his bed, and picked up the remote. “I hope they’ve got some porn.”

Her head shot up. “Tell me more about your life in prison.”

“Why?”

“Because … I’m interested,” she said in a rush. “I used to be a social worker.”

“I did my time,” he said. “I don’t believe in looking back.”

Surely he was lying. “Has … your prison record impeded your career goals?”

“Not so as you’d notice.” He flicked through the channels. Fortunately, the motel didn’t seem to offer porn—the cross on the wall might explain why—and he settled for NASCAR.

All day she’d been looking forward to a shower, but the idea of stripping naked behind that flimsy bathroom door with him on the other side wasn’t appealing. She grabbed her things anyway, carried them into the bathroom, and shot the flimsy lock.

She’d never appreciated a shower so much, despite her uneasiness over sharing a room with him. She shampooed her hair and brushed her teeth, reveling in the sensation of being clean again. Since she hadn’t thought to buy pajamas, she dressed in her new T-shirt and shorts, both of which fit her better than the clothes he’d bought for her. As she came out Panda shoved something in his pocket. “TV here sucks.” He flipped to a show about monster trucks.

I’m sure life without porn is challenging for a man with your vast intellect. “Sorry about that,” she said.

He scratched his chest and nodded.

He was exactly the kind of guy her biological mother would have gone for. Sandy had drunk too much, slept with too many men, and ended up dead when she was only a few years older than Lucy. They had the same green-flecked brown eyes, the same delicate features, and now the same irresponsibility.

She needed to prove to herself that wasn’t entirely true. “Could I use your phone?”

His eyes stayed glued to the monster truck rally as he leaned on one hip and pulled his phone out of the same pocket she’d seem him slip it into moments before. She took it from him. “Were you talking to someone?”

His eyes didn’t leave the screen. “What do you care?”

“Just wondering.”

“Ted.”

“You talked to Ted?”

He glanced up at her. “Figured the poor son of a bitch deserved to know you’re still alive.” His attention returned to the trucks. “Sorry to break the bad news, but he didn’t say anything about wanting you back.”

Her treacherous stomach did its customary death spiral at the thought of Ted, but if she started picturing what he was going through, she wouldn’t be able to function, not that she was functioning all that well now. And then another thought struck her. What if Panda was lying? What if he’d been calling the tabloids instead of Ted? Her story would bring him more money than he could make in a year. Years.

She itched to check the call record on his phone, but she couldn’t do it with him watching. The moment he went into the bathroom, she’d check. In the meantime, she had to let Meg know she was still alive, but when she started to carry the phone outside, Panda growled at her. “Stay here. Unless you don’t care about making friends with some of those characters I saw hanging around in the parking lot.”

“A problem decent hotels never seem to have,” she couldn’t help but point out.

“Wouldn’t know about that.”

She punched in Meg’s number and kept the call brief. “I’m fine.” “Not sure what I’m going to do.” “Rather not say.” “Tell my folks.” And finally, “I’ve got to go.”

Over the years, she and Meg had talked about so many things, but she couldn’t do that now. Fortunately, Meg seemed preoccupied and didn’t press.

It wasn’t even nine o’clock when she hung up. She had nothing to read. Nothing to do. When she’d returned from her honeymoon, she’d planned to start work on the writing project about Nealy that her father was spearheading, but she couldn’t concentrate on anything like that now, and she definitely couldn’t think about the lobbying work she intended to resume in the fall.

She moved to the far side of the unoccupied bed and pushed the pillows against the wobbly headboard. The truck show finally ended. She jumped as the springs squeaked next to her. Panda grabbed some of his things and disappeared into the bathroom. She got up to look for his phone but couldn’t find it. It must still be in his pocket.

The shower went on. She hadn’t noticed him buying pajamas either. Viper, the biker girl she wished she could be, would take something like that in stride, but the idea of a naked Panda made Lucy nervous.

Sleep offered an escape from her enforced confinement. She rearranged the covers and sandwiched her head between the pillows. As she told herself to go to sleep, she heard the bathroom door open. Once again, she thought about how much Sandy would have loved Panda. He was swarthy, surly, and dense. Guys like Panda explained how her mother had ended up with two daughters by different fathers.

Sandy’s vague memories of Lucy’s sperm donor had included the words “stoned frat boy.” Tracy’s jerk of a father had died in the same car accident that had killed Sandy.

A hand curled around her shoulder. She shot up, the pillow falling off her head. “What?”

He stood over her, wearing nothing but a splash of shower water and a clean pair of jeans. Her heart pounded. His bare chest was rock hard—too hard. He hadn’t bothered to fasten the snap on his jeans, and they barely clung to his hip bones. She saw a flat abdomen, a narrow arrow of dark hair, and a sizable bulge.

He rubbed his thumb on her shoulder. “So … You want to get it on or what?”

She jerked back. “No.”

“You’ve been acting like you do.”

“I have not!”

He ran the flat of his hand over one pectoral and glanced toward the TV. “Just as well, I guess.”

The crazy part of her wanted to know why it was “just as well.” She clenched her teeth.

He returned his attention to her. “I like it rough, and you don’t seem the type.” He snapped her thigh with his thumb and second finger. “You sure you don’t want to change your mind?”

She wrenched her leg away and rubbed the sting he’d inflicted. “Positive.”

“How do you know you won’t like it?”

He was still looming over her, and her heart was thudding. Nine years of Secret Service protection had allowed her to take her safety for granted, but there was no friendly agent stationed outside the motel room door now. She was on her own. “I just know, that’s all.”

His thin lips twisted. “You’re fucking up my vacation. You understand that, right?”

“I’m paying you.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve decided you’re not paying me enough. I was straight with you from the start. I told you I wanted to get laid.” He reached for the sheet she’d twisted around her body.

She grabbed at it. “Stop right there! Back off.”

Something disturbing flickered in his eyes. “You’ll like it. I’ll make you like it.”

It sounded like a line from a bad movie, but he looked as though he’d thought it up all by himself. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She hauled herself up against the headboard, frightened and furious. “You’re not going to touch me, and you know why? Because if you do, the full power of the United States justice system is going to come crashing down on you.”

“Your word against mine.” He curled his lip.

“Exactly. An ex-con and the president’s daughter. You figure it out.”

She’d finally penetrated that thick skull. With a dark mutter, he shot her a sneer and retreated to his cave.

She stayed upright, her spine pressed to the headboard, her blood still racing. She clutched the sheet to her chest, as if that would protect her if he changed his mind.

It was over. He’d made the choice for her. She couldn’t spend another day with him, not after this. First thing tomorrow, she’d call her family, find an airport, and fly home. Her adventures as Viper, the biker girl, were over.

Fly back home to what? Her family’s disappointment? The job she’d started to hate?

She tucked the sheet around her body, feeble armor. Why couldn’t he be a harmless drifter who’d let her hitch a ride without giving her any trouble? She pressed her head between the pillows again, trepidation and resentment churning inside her. Through the slit of light, she watched him across the narrow space that separated their beds. The walls were thin. She was afraid to shut her eyes. If he made another move, she’d scream. Surely even in this seedy motel, someone would hear her.