Missing Purse

Brandi took another sip of her milkshake before setting the glass back down. She watched the chocolate swirl around the inside for a moment, then smiled to herself. "You know what the weirdest part is?".Jon looked up from his burger. "I actually enjoyed it," she admitted.

He laughed softly. "Believe me, I could tell, and so could that trucker. You're a naughty girl."

"I'm serious." She shook her head. "Not because some random trucker saw me. That part was mortifying. It was..." She searched for the right word. "The adrenaline. Knowing I wasn't supposed to do it. Doing something completely out of character." She looked across the table at him. "I don't think I've ever done anything that reckless."

Jon nodded thoughtfully. "I think I liked it too."

"You did?" She asked.

"I liked seeing you let yourself be spontaneous." He smiled. "And... if I'm being honest... there was something exciting about knowing you were exposed to a complete stranger. It wasn't jealousy. It was..." He shrugged. "I don't know. Just exciting because it was so completely unlike us. Freedom of the road."

Brandi laughed quietly. "We're either having a midlife crisis or discovering something new about ourselves."

"Probably both," Jon winked over his burger. His cock was painfully hard just thinking about it.

She picked another onion ring from the basket. "You know, this is probably how people get into trouble. They do one crazy thing, nothing bad happens, so they convince themselves they're invincible."

Jon nodded. "That's probably true."

She hesitated before asking, "What if... what if he recorded it?"

Jon stopped chewing. "The trucker?"

"What if he had a dashcam or used his phone or something?" she continued. "Truckers have cameras, don't they?"

"Some do," Jon admitted.

"What if he uploaded it somewhere?" she asked, lowering her voice instinctively despite no one paying them the slightest attention. "Or sent it to someone?"

Jon considered it for a moment before shrugging. "Even if he did, what are the odds anyone would recognize you? It was a highway in the middle of nowhere."

Brandi smiled nervously. "My luck, it'd go viral."

"You really think one anonymous orgasm on an interstate is going to become the biggest thing on the internet?" He chuckled and took a sip of his shake.

"When you put it that way..." she admitted.

"And even if somebody somehow saw it," he continued, "they'd have no idea who you are. No name. No license plate. Just... some woman in a blue car."

She let out a slow breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "I guess you're right."

"I know I'm right." He winked.

She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. "It was one crazy thing," she said. "A story we'll laugh about someday."

Jon squeezed back. "A one-time thing."

"A one-time thing," she agreed.

Brandi excused herself to use the restroom while Jon finished the last of his burger. He stole one of the remaining onion rings from the basket, leaned back in the booth, and watched the lunchtime crowd drift in and out of the diner. It was comfortable, ordinary, the kind of quiet afternoon that made the morning's excitement already feel like a funny story from another lifetime.

A few minutes later, Brandi returned, sliding back into the booth opposite him. She reached automatically toward the empty space beside her, froze, then frowned.."...Where's my purse?" She glanced beside her again as though it might somehow appear if she looked twice.

"I thought you had it," Jon said.

"I left it right here." She pointed to the seat beside her. "Didn't you move it?"

Jon blinked. "Why would I move your purse?"

"I don't know." Her voice had already taken on the edge that only mild panic could produce. "Well, did you see anyone who might have taken it while I was gone?"

"Why would I be keeping track of your purse? I figured you grabbed it when you got up."

"I didn't." The color drained from both their faces.

Without another word, they both slid out of the booth. Jon checked beneath the table while Brandi searched every inch of the seat cushions, running her hands into the gap where the vinyl met the wall. She crouched to look underneath the booth, emerging with nothing more than a dust bunny and an old French fry.

"It's not here," mourned Brandi.

Jon searched again anyway, moving their jackets, lifting the basket of onion rings, checking beneath the milkshake glasses, even looking under the neighboring booth in case it had somehow been kicked across the aisle. He found nothing. Brandi's breathing had become noticeably quicker.

"My driver's license, my credit cards, my phone," she whispered. She looked up at Jon, genuine fear replacing the playful embarrassment she'd worn only moments before. "My phone's in my purse."

Outside, traffic flowed steadily along the interstate. Somewhere among it, a black eighteen-wheeler continued west, just another truck disappearing into the afternoon. Neither of them gave it a second thought. Neither imagined they would ever see its driver again.