Empty Mile by Matthew Stokoe

existed. His hand was between his legs, squeezing his crotch.
    “Do you want us to, like, just start?”
    Bill nodded. “Yes, please. And take all your clothes off.”
    I stepped close to Marla and held her. For a moment she didn’t respond, then she lifted her head and looked at me sadly and whispered, “This shouldn’t have been our first time.”
    I kissed her. And with that kiss I tried to pull us into a dark cocoon that would hide us from the man who sat watching. For a moment it worked, for a moment we were lost in each other. But then his voice came again.
    “Take her clothes off.”
    I knew, even as I began undoing her bikini top, that I should stop this, that she was uncomfortable, unhappy, that the honorable thing to do would be to just give Bill his money back and tell him we’d changed our minds. But I didn’t. I couldn’t let go of this opportunity. I wanted sex, there was no doubt about that, but what drove me more to peel away Marla’s swimsuit was a raging emotional greed, the need to be close enough to her again to begin fixing the piece of my past that belonged to her.
    We got down to it, there in that warm hollow that like a lens seemed to capture the heat and concentrate it about us. When I entered her, despite being watched, despite the tawdry circumstances of the act, I felt an immediate and overpowering sense of relief. She had let me close to her. And if she could do that then surely there could be no further barrier to becoming a couple again. In Marla, too, I sensed a relaxation of spirit, as though she had wanted to clear this hurdle every bit as much as I.
    This letting-go of hers, though, didn’t last long. At some point she shifted under me and I saw that she was looking over my shoulder at Bill. I turned my head. He was standing, pants around his ankles, masturbating as he watched us. It didn’t surprise me. In fact I had assumed he’d do exactly that, but it seemed to disgust Marla and she went stiff and kept her eyes closed until we were finished.
    Bill left as soon as it was over, just buttoned his pants and walked quickly away. I thought about yelling after him to look out for bears, but I didn’t. Marla and I sat there silent and naked and watched him go. When he was out of sight I turned to her and forced a laugh.
    “Well …”
    I wanted her to laugh too, but she did not.
    We got dressed and made our way back through the forest holding hands and not saying anything.
    In the parking lot Bill Prentice was waiting beside his SUV. He waved for me to come over. Marla let go of my hand and went to wait by the pickup. Bill had the lease papers for the warehouse ready for me to sign—one year with the option to renew for two more, a reasonable yearly fee, three months up front, the rest in monthly installments. I signed them against the metal of the car’s hood and prayed that this venture with Stan would not turn out to be too disastrous.

CHAPTER 9
    I stayed the rest of the weekend at Marla’s place and by the end of it she had agreed to a permanent relationship again. Even though our exhibition in the forest had played a role in this reconnection Marla seemed haunted by the episode.
    “Sometimes, I can’t believe what we’re capable of. The things we do … it seems like we’re programmed to destroy ourselves.”
    “Forget about it. It was a crazy afternoon, that’s all. We’ve got to leave the past behind us.”
    Marla looked at me skeptically. “I really don’t think you’re made that way, Johnny. But what choice do we have? You want to be with me and I can’t live without you. We’ll have to go through it until it all falls apart again.”
    “It’s not going to fall apart. There’s nothing to say we can’t have a great life together.”
    She smiled sadly. “We’ll see.”
    About eleven o’clock on Monday morning I got home to find Stan in the kitchen sitting at the table eating a large bowl of cereal and reading a comic book.
    “How come you’re not at