When we met he was addicted to crashing cars.
It’s the adrenaline. You can’t blame him—there’s nothing like it. It is a temple, a sanctuary, a blissful nothing.
After he met me, he started holding my hand as he spiraled out. Call me a hopeless romantic. I know we’re guilty.
The first time he brought me with him, he was driving his first car, the Porsche 911. The whole thing was pure black, windows blacked out. We were in Arizona, I think. Some straight shot of desert highway with cacti and an animal skull on the side of the road. He didn’t look at me, because he’s a good and focused driver when he wants to be but I do remember the sound of my screaming laughter, I yell myself hoarse, louder than the sound of the wind shrieking against the car saying to go faster. Take it to its limit. Don’t ever stop.
I don’t know what will be the death of me, my obsession with him or his obsession with crashing cars.
We were hooked. It took some convincing for my grandfather to let us take his Z4 out for a ride. When we did, we took the top off. It’s harder to talk in a convertible like that, so he took his time before he redlined
it. He said I was all the beauty he needed next to him for now. He zigzagged over the surface streets, precise and dependable, and I leaned over the center console to ghost my lips to his ear just to see if I
could shake him. I accidentally touched my teeth to him when he cut in front of a tortoise of a Benz—they could have caught up to us if they had any sort of appreciation for that car—but all the Benz did was honk
at him, a quiet, distant sound to meet my ears, when he was already flying, a half a mile down the road ahead by the time the driver could reach to hit the horn.
I know his secrets, and I know what he needs, even when he never says a word.
He’s a damn showoff and pretends not to know I like it. Blue jeans like he’s James Dean and tight black tank cutting over the angles of his body. So I can watch his arms tighten as he corners the car, so I can think about his shoulders glistening with sweat when he fucks me. It’s a turquoise Avanti, a sister to the gray one I know he totaled
long before we met. All I want is for him to bring this one to the same end.
He curves onto the off-ramp, too fast to stop, and takes a hard left running the red light at the intersection. There’s headlights incoming, a beat Camaro, a hundred yards away, now ten feet in front of us in the same instant. I feel my muscles going rigid, my heartbeat turning liquid. He throws the car hard, a near miss that somehow doesn’t sideswipe them. We careened up the bank of the underpass and into the concrete wall that jolts the car into a metallic, crumpling impact.
There’s a net of electricity poised under my skin. I pull my gaze to look at him and he’s already meeting my eyes. One hand on the wheel, his other hand palming himself through his jeans. All I hear is two seatbelts clicking open. Somehow the airbags didn’t deploy—my head is still thrown back from the harsh turn, an open invitation; I arch myself to emphasize it. He seizes me, kisses me, filling my blood like an engine’s hum until my nerves spark and start working again. I shove his
hand away to touch him like I want to.
I am very, very bad at ever denying myself the things I want. I tell myself I don’t fear death, but if that were true I would never meet the climax of sweet insanity that I need so desperately now.
When he finally lets me drive it’s more about the sex than any of the sex ever was. I take the Shelby GT500 across Nevada’s Highway 50. The loneliest highway in the world, and it is loneliness that rules our hearts. I’m driving due west. His lips are on my collarbone with his hand on my throat, gentle indistinguishable pressure from the way my heart is thrumming in my neck. Out of the corner of my eye I can only see the speedometer climbing.
If this road didn’t stop when it met California I’d keep going until we spun out into the Pacific.
When I’m under him, gasping in abandon and feeling his lats tense under my hand splayed across his back, we’re both safe enough here. Baby, take me to my limit, and please, oh fuck, don’t stop. The fire of his body encloses me like the cabin of a car. I have four dreams in a row and we die in each one. We’re still addicted to crashing. I feel untouchable. ▲
