Don't Look Back by Candice Owen Page B

joint tucked into one pocket of his worn-out jeans, and no plans.

    Those bastards had kept him on the inside for eight years. It was long enough for him to pretend to be rehabilitated and long enough for them to be satisfied that the best part of his life was behind him. He had gone in barely old enough to drink. Now, he was damn near thirty with no prospects and no clue as to what the hell he was supposed to do.

    There was a mid-sized city a few miles up the highway. The driver had refused to stop there because he had more stops to make, and he did not get overtime. His job was to, as he put it , truck ‘em and dump ‘em , and it seemed he was satisfied with dumping Blaine out there in the middle of the emptiness.

    Blaine did not blame him. Hell, if it had been him, he probably would have barely touched the brakes as they approached the highway. A determined man could tuck and roll after all.

    He stood there, contemplating the possibilities. The mid-sized city lay one way. The other way would take him to a larger city, but it was nearly fifty miles away. There were no options really, so he started to walk toward the closest one.

    They had given him a yellow envelope, holding all of his possessions: the battered jeans, the washed out t-shirt, socks, and a pair of underwear that had faded from black to a non-descript gray over the years. The boots had been issued to him in jail, and he knew better than to ask where the extremely expensive biker boots he’d worn the night he’d gone to prison had disappeared to.

    He started walking. There was nothing else to do anyway. His shadow stretched out long and lonely beside him. A few jet-black crows cawed at him from the telephone poles that tilted sideways along the sandy desert and the endless loop of gray ribbon that was the highway.

    How far have I come? That wasn’t the real question though, was it? The real question was, where am I going? His misspent youth had wound him up in prison, caged up like a common animal. Now that he was free, he found that just walking along the highway — the long empty spaces and the ability to answer to nobody — was exactly what he needed.

    In prison, he had to ask for everything, even the right to take a piss when he was not in his cell. He stopped, unzipped his fly, pulled out his enormous cock and began to water a tall, green cactus. Too late he heard the rumble of an approaching engine; but, before he could zip up and put it away, a scarlet-red Mustang convertible flew past him.

    The woman behind the wheel looked like a late-night dream. Her long blonde hair fluttered behind her like a flag. He stared at her over his shoulder, getting just enough of a glimpse to know that she was wearing a pretty white top that showed-off her abundant breasts and gloriously tanned skin. Then, she was gone, and he was alone again with only the crows for company.

    Her car left a long plume of dust hanging in the air, and he had to pull his shirt up over his mouth as he walked along to keep from sucking it into his already scorching lungs. As he walked, he allowed himself a brief fantasy about the woman in the car, dreaming about her coming back and picking him up. Maybe she had a fetish for convicts and no strings attached sex with total strangers. She never turned around, but it was a pleasant way to pass the half hour between when he saw her and when he spotted the outskirts of the city.

    There were a few guys in lockup who’d come from that city; so, he knew that the bar that he was walking up to was not a great place for a fresh-out con to stop for a beer, but be damned if he wasn’t going to stop anyway.

    There was a row of gleaming bikes parked out front, chromed out beauties that made his gut squeeze with longing. He spotted a ’74 Panhead, a ’47 Chief, and a few custom jobs in and among the mix. Rolling thunder, highway dynamite.

    He thought, What happened to my bike? Some fat-assed cop is probably riding it around his suburb with