Reckless Lust

The bedside clock glowed 2:17 A.M. The motel room was silent except for the rhythmic hum of the air conditioner and the distant hiss of tires on the interstate. Then the telephone rang. Brandi stirred first, confused by the unfamiliar sound. For a few groggy seconds she couldn't remember where she was. Then the events of the day rushed back all at once, the diner, the missing purse, the note. The phone rang again.

Jon rolled over, blinking against the darkness. "Who in the world..."

"I've got it." Brandi reached across the nightstand and lifted the receiver. "...Hello?"

For a moment there was only static. Then came the low rumble of a man's voice. "I was wondering if you'd answer, Wildflower."

Every muscle in Brandi's body went rigid. "Who is this?"

Another pause. "I saw you today. I saw you shoving your fingers in that greedy little twat of yours. You're a dirty girl, Wildflower." The words landed like ice water. She didn't answer. "You looked real pretty out there. I could give you something big to fill up that loose cunt."

Jon pushed himself upright in bed. Even without hearing the other side of the conversation, he could tell something was wrong. "Brandi?" She held up a trembling hand, unable to take her eyes off the wall in front of her.

The voice continued, calm and conversational. "I've been thinking about you ever since."

Her throat tightened. "Who is this?" She felt the blood drain from her face.

A quiet chuckle drifted through the receiver. "You know who." Her pulse hammered in her ears as the realization crashed over her.

Every strange moment from the afternoon suddenly snapped together with terrifying clarity. The truck that had blasted its horn as it passed them. The purse that had vanished without a trace before inexplicably reappearing in the back seat. The crumpled note hidden inside it. None of it had been random. The man on the other end of the line wasn't guessing. He knew.

"You've got the wrong number," she whispered, though she already knew he didn't.

"No," the man replied. "I've got exactly the right one. I've got your number, you dumb slut."

"What is it?" Jon asked again. She could only shake her head.

The trucker's voice was a low, amused chuckle, a sound like rocks grinding together. "Yeah, you remember me. Lookin' down from my king cab. Saw that nasty little cunt of yours glistening in the sun. Looked like a split peach, all ripe and ready for eatin'."

"Speechless, huh?" he rumbled on. "That's alright. Your cunt was doin' plenty of talkin' for you. Sloppy, wet thing. You were churnin' butter with them fingers. Bet it's still stretched out, leakin' all over that cheap motel bedspread. Bet your husband's got a real loose sleeve to fuck tonight after you got yourself all opened up for the whole world to see."

Brandi was frozen, her knuckles white where she gripped the phone. She couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. It was him. The shadow from above. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, hot and humiliating. Jon could hear the distorted, booming voice leaking from the receiver.

The caller continued speaking in a slow, unnervingly familiar cadence. He described the afternoon in just enough detail to make it unmistakable that he had been there. Every sentence confirmed what they had both feared, that whoever had taken the purse had also been watching them. Brandi's fingers tightened around the receiver.

Everything inside her screamed to hang up. Instead she found herself frozen. It wasn't curiosity so much as disbelief. Her mind refused to accept that this was really happening, and so she kept listening, hoping he would say something that made sense, something that explained how a complete stranger had crossed so effortlessly into their lives.

"I'd have handled you different," the trucker continued, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial, venomous whisper. Every sentence only deepened the unease.

Jon rose to her side and gently took hold of her shoulder. "Brandi." She looked up at him as if waking from a trance. His expression said everything.

She heard another soft chuckle on the other end of the line. "You still there, Wildflower?" Brandi's lips parted, but nothing came out. "I think that name suits you."

"...Don't call me that," she pleaded. "How do you know where we are?" she whispered. Her fingers tightened around the receiver. "What do you want?"

"Conversation," he said. "You looked awful happy today, Wildflower." His voice remained calm, almost friendly, which somehow made it worse. "I saw your face afterward. I saw you laughing with your husband. I saw the two of you at the diner. You looked like a couple sharing a secret." Brandi's grip on the receiver tightened until her knuckles turned white.

Jon moved behind her without a word, slipping an arm gently around her shoulders in an instinctive attempt to steady her. She leaned into him, trembling, but she couldn't bring herself to hang up. She felt a desperate need to understand what this man wanted from her. She kept the receiver pressed to her ear.

A low chuckle drifted through the receiver. "Most folks on the highway know me as Wide Load," the man said, as though introducing himself to a new neighbor instead of calling a stranger in the middle of the night. "Seems to fit. I've got a wide load to give you, right up that filthy little fuck hole. You can call me that too, Wildflower."

Close enough to hear the voice bleeding from the earpiece, Jon caught the nickname, Wide Load, and felt a cold weight settle in his stomach. As Brandi trembled against him, unable to bring herself to hang up, Jon felt adread settle over them both, made all the more disturbing by the shameful realization that the day's confusion, fear, and reckless lust had become hopelessly intertwined.