New Deirdre Story - Happy Highways. Complete

[Peter]

So - after the three previous stories here's a brand-new one.

In case you haven't read The Study Window, The Nursery and On The Town, here's a brief synopsis:

Deirdre is a witch, living in present-day England with her young children Ashley and Mitchell. She welcomes people, especially if they're lost and lonely, to her house where she does what she can to help them. In The Study Window, she gives the widowed Ted a few precious hours of happiness.

But she has enemies, and in The Nursery two demonic visitors torture her in an attempt to make her give up her vocation. They are defeated in an unexpected manner, leaving Deirdre physically unhurt but psychically scarred.

She seeks succour from another witch in On The Town, and for a while it looks as if she has found peace and healing. But has she?

Perhaps she has, perhaps not. Perhaps she needs to go travelling to find it:


Happy Highways


La route est dure, la vie est morne.
Mon âme est sûre d'aucune borne.
Que dois-je faire avec ma vie
Quand toute la terre s'est endurcie?


The house was unnervingly quiet. Deirdre stood in the hall, door-key in her hand, and listened to the silence. The traffic noise from outside had ceased immediately she shut the front door. All the sounds that every ordinary house makes were stilled. No creaking of floorboards, no hissing of pipes, no rattling of windows, no whirring of computer fans, no swooshing of washing-machine or dishwasher. No distant radio or television. Not even the underlying hum of mains electricity pulsing in the house's conduits and sockets.

That silence demanded respect. 'Deirdre, old girl,' the witch said to herself. 'I don't think we're wanted here.'

It was as if, with the twins Ashley and Mitchell staying with their Nana Annie in Liverpool, the house wanted to be left alone for a while. It had nothing against Deirdre; there was nothing personal in it. It just needed - its own space. Deirdre giggled at the thought of her house appearing on a daytime TV show, talking to Oprah or Jeremy about how its needs weren't being met by its occupiers. How does that make you feel, house?

'Sorry,' she said. 'I'm going in a minute. Just let me pack, eh?'



Deirdre liked to use public transport as much as possible; in the mortal world at least. She was perfectly happy to take a bus to the Meadows shopping centre or a train to Guildford. But generally she used different ways of getting around, involving the use of doors other than the one which opened out onto Blackwater High Street. And so, although she had a car, it was rarely used. Most of the time it sat in a timber garage at the bottom of the garden, where the oil drained from its cylinder head and its tyres slowly went flat. She was neglecting the poor thing.

The rusty padlock securing the garage doors didn't give up without a fight. Deirdre coaxed it apart, pulled the doors wide open, and looked at the car. Its dusty headlights looked reproachfully back at her. Perhaps they blinked in the unaccustomed sunlight. Deirdre started the car, drove it out of the garage and parked it by the back door. She went back into the house and collected her things. There wasn't much to pick up - just a holdall, three-quarters full. Returning to the car, she put her bag in the boot, got back in the driver's seat, shut the door, slotted the key into the ignition... And stopped. Something was wrong. She got out and looked at the car once more.

There was absolutely nothing the matter with it. It was compact, fuel-efficient, reasonably comfortable, fast enough for her needs. Its MOT was up to date, it was comprehensively insured, she had had it serviced only six months ago. There it stood, four-square on its wheels, painted a not unattractive shade of metallic green, waiting for her to jump in and set off.

Set off on what?

Adventures. That was what. She was going off on adventures and a mid-range five-door hatchback was not exactly an adventurous choice of transport, was it?

'What would you like to be?' Deirdre asked the car. 'A limousine? A Land Rover? A Morris Minor? How about a Bugatti? That'd be something, wouldn't it?'

What kind of petrol-steel-oil-and-rubber dreams did this child of Swindon enjoy? The freedom of the roads? The companionship of the car park? The voluptuous caress of the polishing mitt? How would they be related to human dreams? Or to her dreams? Was that the key to her question? Were her needs and the car's needs connected in some way she had not considered before?

Deirdre rested her chin in her hand and thought. 'I think... I think you should be a... a...' Yes! Of course! There wouldn't be much space for her luggage, but wasn't that the whole point of the exercise? To travel light? Deirdre looked at the car in a particular way and moved her right hand just so.

The growl of the bike’s exhaust followed Deirdre down the A30 as she sliced through the morning commuter traffic and headed westward. It seemed to her that it was in the west that she would find the adventures she sought.



Westward... Across the sunlit southern counties of England Deirdre sped, at one with the machine that carried her. She was aware of the admiring glances from the men she passed; half of them for her and half for the vintage motorcycle she was riding.

She could have made it as far as Land's End if she had kept going until the end of the day, but she was in no particular hurry and the sun was getting in her eyes. So she stopped outside a pub somewhere in Devon, put the bike on its side-stand, took off her helmet, and walked into the bar. It was six o'clock, and the room was almost empty.

'Have you got any rooms for the night?' she asked, putting the helmet on a table.

The man behind the bar put aside the glass he was polishing. He looked Deirdre up and down.

'Are you a biker?' he asked.

'Yes... I mean no, I'm not a biker, but I am riding a bike.'

'We don't care much for bikers around here.' He turned and shouted into the gloom behind the bar.

'Doris!'

A heavy-set, middle-aged woman appeared, presumably the landlady. She also looked Deirdre up and down.

'Yes?'

'Young lady wants a room.'

'Please,’ said Deirdre. 'I'm tired and a little hungry.'

The woman crossed her arms. 'Come far?'

'I've come from Camberley. It's near London.'

'Anyone with you?'

'No. I'm all by myself.'

The woman paused for thought. She obviously had her doubts about this attractive, unaccompanied young woman. Deirdre was tempted to reach into her mind to help her decide, but no. That would not be fair.

'What are you riding?' the barman asked.

'A Vincent,' Deirdre replied.

The man's face lit up. 'A Black Shadow?'

'Black Lightning, actually.'

'You are? You're having me on! It's outside?'

'Yes.'

'Can I… I mean…'

'Yes, of course you may.'

The man turned to the woman. 'She's staying.' And then to Deirdre, 'Come on, then. What are we waiting for?' He led the way out into the yard.

It was all engine, wheels, pipes, spokes and tubing. Built in 1951 and capable of nearly 150 miles per hour in standard road-going trim it had been, in its time, the fastest production motorcycle you could buy and even now it was a formidable machine. The man whistled as he saw it. He walked up to it slowly. 'This is yours?' he asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

'All mine.'

The man rested his hand on the tank’s gleaming paintwork. The engine was still hot, and it was making little ticking sounds as it cooled down. The exhaust pipes were blued by the fires that had burned inside them.

'My dad had one of these. A Black Shadow it was, actually. He loved it more than… more than anything.' He shook his head again. 'He used to take me for rides - up to Exeter, down to Bideford. It was like flying, only faster. Do you think I could…?'

'Yes, go on.'

He sat on the bike and pushed it upright with his left leg. The side-stand retracted. He gave Deirdre a strange, yearning look and she nodded. 'It's all right. I don't mind.' She had guessed what he wanted.

Later, Deirdre sat in the saloon bar and ate mutton pie and mash. She had changed out of her riding kit and was wearing an unexceptionable outfit of cotton skirt, t-shirt and cord jacket. The woman's suspicions had been quieted by her husband's evident delight after he returned from his ride around the nearby lanes. Deirdre could hear him now, in the public bar, talking about it.

'Tell me something,' said the woman, bringing Deidre a cup of Irish coffee. 'Are you famous?'

'No, not so far as I know.'

'But you must have a lot of money, to own a bike like that.'

'I've got enough.'

'Hmmm. I hope you don't mind my asking, but why did you let George borrow your bike? How did you know he'd bring it back? He might have stolen it, taken it anywhere.'

'Oh, that was easy.' Deirdre gave the woman an entrancing smile. 'Can't you guess?'

'No.'

'Yes you can. He came back to you. He always will. You know that.'

The landlady looked directly at her. 'You're… different, aren't you?'

'Why do you say that?'

'I thought you were… at first, I mean...'

'A tart?'

The woman blushed. 'No!'

'I don't mind,' said Deirdre. 'It's what I do. I help people, if I can. However I can.'



Deirdre had thought that she would fall asleep very quickly. She was physically very tired from riding the Vincent and had had quite a lot to eat - and drink - in the bar that evening. But she had forgotten that travellers sleep lightly and that they dream vividly. This day had been so different from the norm. The recent norm, at least. It was not just the hurt she had suffered at the hands of her unwanted visitors, nor that her mind was busy absorbing the sensations of the day just past - the rush of air over her leathers, the deep throb of the engine, the swish of rubber on tarmac. It was change. Overdue change. And something else as well, which she identified some time around dawn as the light grew behind thin curtains. It was uncertainty. Essential uncertainty.

'Deirdre, old girl,' she said to herself. 'You've been getting into a rut. You need to take a step into the unknown for once.' And the dreams agreed with her.



It was twelve o'clock the following day, and the weather had changed. Deirdre had ridden for three hours down slow, twisting country roads and had finally reached the very end of the mainland. Through the raindrops that dashed themselves against her visor she could see nothing but more water; the grey Atlantic, stretched out before her all the way to America. 'Oh, well,' she said to herself, 'we won't get anywhere just standing here. Come on, let's get on with it!' She twisted the throttle grip over as far as it would go. The engine roared and earth spattered behind her rear wheel. The Black Lightning was doing over ninety miles per hour when it cleared the cliff-top. It hit the surface of the sea like a stone and was instantly swallowed up by the water, before returning to the surface, sleek and chine-hulled.

It left a wake a hundred yards long.


To Be Continued


-----------------------------------------

Here's a Vincent Black Lightning:



And Richard Thompson singing about motorcycles, love and death:

[Peter]

I'm putting this part in spoiler tags. It's rated 15 for reason of:

Spoiler:

Explicit sex, pro-ana and suicide themes

Spoiler:

Les mains se tendent de tous côtés
Les chaînes sont lourdes, puis-je les ôter?
Un seul pas contre la tyrannie;
Une raison d'être dans toute ma vie.


There was this boy; firm-muscled, lithe and beautiful. Deirdre sat under a white parasol on the harbour side of the café, sipped at her weak Campari and orange, and watched him.

He was working on the deck of a sardine-boat, hosing down the scuppers, pulling on ropes and coiling them up, stopping from time to time to take a drag on a cigarette. 'Tut-tut,' said Deirdre to herself and took another sip of her long cool drink. She might have to do something about his smoking, if she decided to take him under her wing. She returned to her examination of the boy. He was stripped to the waist, wearing a pair of cut-down jeans and dirty sneakers. Whenever he took a break from his work he stopped and turned himself towards the sun. It glinted on his skin.

His skin... Deirdre felt the blood begin to rush with increased energy through her body as she gazed at his fabulous skin. It was a rich brown, polished perfectly smooth with glossy highlights of perspiration on shoulders and back. She thought she could smell him from where she sat, although in this busy, noisy port where the lambent afternoon air was already richly scented with fish, drains and diesel smoke, that must have been impossible. All the same, she could already taste his sweat on her tongue and feel, if only in her imagination, the touch of his skin against hers and the pressure of his fingertips on her body.

He was whistling a tune she had heard booming up to her hotel bedroom from the club in the basement. Everyone was playing it this year. Its simple refrain was quite inescapable. As she watched the boy move and turn, as she began to feel his jet-black hair bunching up between her fingers, as he pressed himself against her, as she began to respond to his rhythm with an urgent beat of her own... She opened her eyes.

He was looking directly at her. He knew he had her. He could take her whenever he wanted, for she was already his. Presently he would skip across the row of boats, come up to the café table and ask her to go with him. There would be a place he knew... But why wait? She got up and walked over to him. 'Hi,' she said, smiling.

'Pah! American!' He spat his cigarette-end into the harbour and turned away contemptuously. She was easy meat - too easy for him. Too vanilla-white. There was nothing she could offer him, Deirdre reflected and, anyway, she had been concentrating too hard on her own needs and neglecting his. That was not what the witches did. Her Annie-mother would not approve of her lusting after a carefree, attractive boy who doubtless had plenty of notches carved on his bedpost already. There would be others who needed her more.

Deirdre finished her coffee and returned to her hotel room. It took no more than five minutes to pack her things and only another five to check out. Her boat waited by the harbour wall. She threw her bag into the cockpit and jumped in after it. The diesels fired up at the first press of the starter. Deirdre cast off fore and aft and steered the black-hulled cruiser through the harbour and out onto the open sea, where she gunned the throttle hard.



There was this girl, lost and pale, huddled over a screen in a library cubicle. If she wasn't reading Baudelaire or Rimbaud, Deirdre thought, she should have been. But no.

Deirdre had never bothered much with the Internet, although the study at home contained an up-to-date computer which she used to fill in her tax returns. It was not that she was a Luddite, more that the Web offered her nothing she wanted. The Light Programme and the Home Service, Tit-Bits and the Manchester Guardian gave her all the news she wanted. The twins Ashley and Mitchell had a big plasma screen in their room, but she only watched it with them, never by herself. If she needed information there was a perfectly good public library in Camberley and if she wanted to talk to someone she would go round and see them or - and this happened remarkably often - they would come round and see her.

But she knew about the Internet all the same. Many of her visitors would sit with her in the kitchen and ask if they could check their email or they'd take out their iPhones or their Blackberries and scan them for new messages. Deirdre observed that they consulted their gadgets almost subconsciously, as if making sure they were still connected with the electronic world had become as necessary as breathing.

'I'm terribly sorry,' she would say, 'but the signal's absolutely dreadful around here. We must be in a dip, you know? But look, it'll wait, won't it?'

Her visitor would look forlorn and Deirdre would have to find something to distract him. It was nearly always a man, she'd noticed. Some of them became quite twitchy - they were the ones who needed her help the most. But this was not a man, it was a girl and she was not looking at Google or Amazon or Facebook or Twitter but something much darker. Not porn; Deidre was often visited by users of pornography. They were usually men too. But it was clear from a short glimpse that she needed help.

But how? Deidre's home was thousands of miles from this East Coast university town, so it wasn't very likely that this girl - darkly pretty, wearing a long-sleeved white blouse over a blue mid-length skirt - would pop in and see her any time soon. And Deirdre did not know if there were any of her sisters living nearby. The witches had been terribly persecuted here in the past; hunted down, branded, flogged and burned. The memory of their torments lived on, scorched into the fabric of the land. The witches forgave - that was their nature - but they found it hard to forget Salem.

Deirdre watched the girl. It was not part of the witches' credo to offer help directly. The needy ones had to find their way to them as a rule although, like most rules, this one was open to negotiation.



There was this man, late forties, grizzled hair, Stetson hat, sitting by himself in a Midwest diner marooned in a sea of cornfields and missile silos. She should have known better, but Deidre could see his unhappiness and loss the moment she walked into the brightly-lit room, so she took a seat in the booth next to his. It had been a long day's drive; she needed a break and somebody to talk to.

'Coffee, please,' she said to the waitress.

'Pastry with that, miss? We have great Danish, pancakes also.'

They would be mass-produced, stodgy and bland, made in a factory back East and shipped in frozen. But anything would do.

'Pancakes would be lovely,' Deirdre said. She was wearing blue jeans, a denim jacket and a John Deere baseball cap over her long dark hair. Her truck was parked outside.

'Maple syrup, strawberry sauce, raspberry sauce, chocolate sauce, pecans, hazelnuts...?'

'Maple syrup, please.'

'Thank you, miss. Coming right up.'

'You have a ladies' room?'

'Left of the counter and through to the back, miss.' Deirdre found the restroom and made a few necessary changes to her appearance.

He was still there when she returned. His eyes followed her as she took her seat at the table where her coffee and pancakes were waiting. Soon, as Deirdre had planned, they were talking. They left the diner together.

'That your truck?'

'Sure is.' What was it about men and motor vehicles, anyway?

'It's a ‘54 F-100, right?'

'55 actually. Belonged to my grandpappy. I had it restored. You want a look?'

'Sure.'

It was, as Deirdre had said, a 1955 Ford F-100 truck, with a 239 cubic inch Y-block V8 engine developing a modest 130 horsepower. The man opened and closed the doors and admired its shiny black paintwork and all-original interior.

'Like a look under the hood?' Deirdre asked.

'Sure. Say, my place isn't far from here. We could...'

'Why not? You could have a real good look...'



Deirdre wanted to help the girl if she could. But how? Would it be a good idea to meet her online and talk to her there? Or should she find her in real life? Either way would be difficult. If the girl thought Deirdre was stalking her she would reject her help instantly. Online or in real life; it would make little difference. But Deirdre had seen the marks, despite the long sleeves of the blouse the girl wore. She knew about her unhappiness.



'Do you want to have me now?' Deidre was standing at exactly the right distance from the man. He could put his hands on any part of her body with no trouble. He could, if he wanted, stand up and kiss her. 'I wish you would,' she added. 'I'm getting awful wet - I've not had a real man for ages.' Deirdre turned and slowly, button by button, undid her checked shirt and dropped it on the floor of the barn. She was wearing a black, lace-trimmed bra underneath. The man breathed in audibly. He was interested, then.

Deirdre wished she had chosen to wear a skirt rather than jeans. She was sure the man would have enjoyed slipping his hand inside a gingham skirt, belled out with frothy layers of petticoats, and discovering smooth, soft thighs and a warm sex within. Instead, she took his left hand and placed it on her denim-clad leg. She reached behind her back and unclipped the bra, lowering her arms so that it slipped from her shoulders and released her breasts from their confinement. They were larger than she usually wore them and their nipples were tall and erect. The man took in another deep breath.

'What would you like to do with me?' Deirdre said. 'I'll do anything you like. Just a minute.' She kicked off her boots, undid the belt of her jeans and wriggled out of them. 'There. That's better.' She put his hand against her panties so he could feel how damp she'd made them. 'Why don't you pull them off me?'

All this time, while Deirdre performed her striptease, the man sat silent and motionless on a hay bale, his face expressionless. The only clue to his arousal was his shallow, rapid breathing. Deirdre knelt down in front of him, allowing her breasts to brush against his face while she undid the zipper of his trousers and carefully drew out his member. She leaned forward and took it into her mouth, rolling her tongue around it, sucking it and letting her teeth nip it. The man panted and gasped. He grabbed her hair and pulled her head over his crotch, forcing his sex deep into the back of her mouth.

He came almost immediately. It was as Deirdre had guessed in the diner - he had not been with a woman for a very long time. That pent-up hunger she thought she had seen in him had been real. He was just like so many of the sad, abandoned men she had received in her house.

'There,' she said, lifting her head and swallowing. 'That's better, isn't it? Now, why don't you take those unnecessary clothes off? And why don't you show this girl what you can really do? Take your time, hey?' Deidre pulled her panties down and tossed them on top of the rest of her things. She knelt down in front of the man once more and removed his shirt with a few deft movements. She dug her nails into his back. He flinched and put his hands to either side to steady himself. His member was becoming stiff once more, so she straddled him where he sat, impaling herself on him.

'Mmm. That feels nice.' She put her hands on his shoulders, lifted herself slightly and let go suddenly, so that he penetrated her more deeply.

'Ahhh...'



Deirdre returned to the library often. She made a point of being in the vicinity when the girl spoke, so that she learned her name, which was Ella, and where she lived, which was in an all-girl dorm on the east side of the campus. But it was hard to discover more. She didn't know how to reach her. And although she said hello and goodbye when they passed, Deirdre never saw Ella eat. And she never saw when she cut herself.

She began to lose weight.



The man stood up suddenly, pushing Deirdre away. She rose to her feet. Was she doing something wrong? The answer was not long in coming. 'Down,' he said, pointing to the earth floor of the barn. Deirdre took two steps back. Which way did he want her? Taking a wild guess, she got to her hands and knees and lifted her rear, presenting her sex to him.

'Hell, no! What do you think I am; an animal? Do it like a Christian, for God's sake!'

Deirdre turned over onto her back and opened her legs wide. The man tore off his pants and threw himself onto her, forcing himself deep inside and pushing hard. Ah... So he liked to be on top. Right.

It was Deirdre's duty to take care of her visitors, to maximise their enjoyment. So, while letting the man think that it was he who was in control, she subtly manipulated him, gasping and crying when he seemed to be becoming less firm, and slackening off when he started to approach his climax. She had skills and muscle control that most mortals had never heard of. The ground was hard and scratched her back, but she could deal with that quickly and easily enough.

Eventually, with him thrusting above her and she bucking beneath him, he reached the point of little-death, as the witches called it among themselves. She cried out to make it appear that her orgasm had coincided with his. Except, of course, that she had no orgasm.

Good, she thought. That was well done. True, the man was still a widower and his children still lived with his sister Jean in another state. But she had brought something to him, had she not, even though it was fleeting. She was sure he would not forget their encounter in a hurry. And... there must be some of her sisters living nearby, even in such a God-fearing part of the country as this. When she got home she would do a little research.



A week passed, and then ten days. Deirdre and Ella discovered they took some of the same classes and covered many of the same assignments. Deirdre confessed that she was having difficulty with her essays, and Ella volunteered to help her. And Deirdre always made sure that there was never any doubt which was the prettier girl, although it went against her instincts. She enjoyed being beautiful.

But, even with all the hanging out together that they did, she could get no closer to Ella. And despite her best endeavours, Deirdre still attracted attention where Ella did not. At parties, in the cafeteria (where Ella chose little and ate less) despite being pretty Ella's plain friend, it was Deirdre who had to shake off the boys at the end of the evening or when it was time to return to classes. And Ella went back to the dorm or the library and hung out on the pro-ana and pro-suicide forums and found people in chatrooms whose feelings meshed with her own. Deirdre could only stand by and watch. She did not dare press the girl or ask questions that could not be answered for fear of tipping her over the edge.

All the same, they had this conversation one day while taking a coffee break between lectures:

'You know what a con this all is.' Ella, waving a hand at the cafeteria counter.

'What do you mean?'

'All this food, all this stuff.'

'It's just food.'

'It's not. Oh, it is, but it's more than that. It's a trick.'

Deirdre took a sip of coffee. 'Go on, tell me.'

Ella leaned forward. 'Go back in time. Two hundred years or so. What did people eat?'

Deidre knew the answer to this question from direct experience. 'Whatever they could.'

'That's right. No refrigerators. No bulk transport. No out-of-season food. No raspberries in December.'

Deirdre nodded.

'And we evolved to deal with it. When there was plenty to eat we ate it, before it could go rotten. We stored what we could for the winter. It was a survival thing. When winter came, we were fat. Come spring we were thin. But now...'

'Yes?'

'Now there are no seasons. You can get anything you want, any time. But our bodies, our hindbrains, they don't know that. They say eat now, while you can. Eat as much as you can stuff down yourself. Supersize it. And those bastards know it, don't they? They sell us cheap fatty processed trash that blocks us up and kills us and they know all the artificial flavours to add and all the sales tricks to use to keep us coming back for more.'

'But you don't have to eat it...'

'No! You don't! We know that! But look... it's operating below the conscious level. And it's all a lot of us can afford.'

'That's true.' Deirdre had been shocked to see so many poor and malnourished people in such a rich country.

'And they don't want the people to know how much they're being taken in.'

'It's a conspiracy, you mean.' Deirdre smiled.

Ella's eyes flared. 'Don't ~*iguana*~ with me. It's not funny. This isn't Mulder and Scully. This isn't Fox News. This is big business destroying people's lives for profit. This is real.'



'Have you had enough of screwing me yet, you bitch? You whore?'

The man stood above her, pulling his pants back on.

'Sorry?' Oh no.

'You heard me.'

'Don't you like me?' Deirdre put a little-girl note in her voice.

'I like you fine, harlot. Now get the hell off my property.'

'I thought we could go inside. I'll fix you something to eat. I'm a real good cook.' Deirdre got to her feet.

The man came up to her. His face was red with anger. 'I wouldn't allow you anywhere near my house. That's for decent folk. Not for whores like you. Now - get out! Before I set my dog on you!'

Deirdre picked up her things. 'You'll let me get dressed?'

'You can do what the hell you like. I don't care.' The man turned his back on her and stamped out of the barn. Deirdre left not long afterwards.



They found Ella in the Connecticut River two day later. The marks were fresh on her body, but she had a history and no third party was suspected, not even her new friend.

I couldn't let anyone see me - I'm so fat, it said in her last status update. Look - I'm absolutely bulging!

But oh! Why hadn't she stayed and fought?

Deirdre wore a red bracelet in Ella's memory and continued on her westward journey. The road was hard and strewn with broken lives.

-------------------------------

Deirdre's truck:

To Be Continued

[Peter]

Some sex and strong language here, but nothing worth spoilerising. If you've got this far, you know how it goes:


La route est dure mais je suis forte.
Mon âme est sûre, la peur est morte.
Je sais quoi faire avec la vie
Quand toute la terre sera affranchie.


Deirdre parked the Clarity next to a row of Winnebagos at the Marin County end of the bridge. It was a popular viewing point. She got out of the car, walked up to the fence and looked out across the bay. There it all was – the island of Alcatraz, the Coit Tower, the Transamerica Pyramid and, to her right, the red ochre piers of the Golden Gate. The City, they called it - as if it were the only city in the world - and today it was fog-free.

She had reached the West. Not the extreme West - that would mean a journey north through Oregon, Washington, Canada and Alaska to the Bering Strait. But the deep-blue Pacific lay just on the other side of the bridge just as only a few weeks ago - or however long it had been - the Atlantic Ocean had waited for her at Land's End.

A small girl came up to her. 'Hello,' she said. 'My name's Annabel. What's yours?'

'That's such a pretty name. I'm Deirdre. Pleased to meet you. Isn't it a lovely view?'

The girl started to reply, but her mother called out from the driver's seat of her van, 'Belle! Come here! Don't bother the lady.'

'It's no bother,' Deirdre began, but Annabel had gone. Oh well. Time to move on.

Deirdre drew out onto Highway One. The northern coast road turned off to the left after a mile and she was tempted to take it. But no... She took the first exit to the right and followed it. She was going back east.



The boy was standing next to the city limits sign, wearing cowboy boots over Wranglers and a Jack Daniels tee under a vintage flying jacket. He raised his thumb as Deirdre passed and, wanting company after a lonely night spent in a Motel Six, she pulled over. Perhaps this boy would help her with what she needed to do.

You don't run, you don't ride. That's the rule. The boy jogged up to her, hitched his holdall to the bike's cissy bar, and swung his right leg over the pillion seat. There was a spare helmet hanging off the pannier bar. He unclipped it, pulled it over his springy bush of ginger hair and fastened the chinstrap. He was nineteen or twenty years old with freckles and a scruffy beard. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of Aviators.

'Grab rail's behind you,' said Deirdre. 'Hang on.' She twisted the throttle and the Indian grabbed tarmac and pointed itself down an infinitely straight, undulating desert blacktop.

Deirdre drove a steady fifty-five. The big four didn't appreciate being revved. 'Where're you headed?' she called over her shoulder.

'East,' the boy replied.

'Ok.' They rode east, past telegraph poles and gas stations, across a wide landscape of stumpy mesas, yellow grass, billboards and scattered settlements. The boy sat back and enjoyed the ride. He kept his hands to himself. That night, after two hundred miles of blue highways, they stopped in a small wooden town and ate in a family restaurant - steakburger, Coke, fries, apple pie with ice cream, coffee - at a red Formica table under glaring tube lights.

'Do you have money for a hotel?' the boy asked. This came not long after, 'You're English, right? I'd know that accent anywhere. I love Monty Python, don't you?' Deirdre had smiled and nodded.

'Yes, I can afford a room. Can you?'

'No, but that's OK. I'll find somewhere.'

Is he angling for a bed? 'You're sure? I'll lend you fifty if you want.'

'I'm sure. I don't need the money. I'll be OK. See you tomorrow?'

'I'm leaving at eight.'

'I'll be there.'

And he was, leaning against the Speed Twin with a sideways smile on his face. The bike had decided to be a Triumph today, it seemed. It must have decided to reflect the boy's anglophilia. 'If we're travelling again today I guess it's time we swapped names. I'm Charles Foster.' He held out his hand.

'Deirdre.' They shook and for the first time she noticed the smell of him - dry and dusty, sweet and corrupt, redolent of sage-brush and roadkill. There were, she noticed, bird-feathers stuck to his jacket and traces of blood on his stubbly beard.

'Had breakfast?' she asked.

'Yes, thanks.'

Deirdre kicked the Twin into life and they followed the telegraph lines eastwards. The road stretched on, never-ending. And as they rode, and Deirdre settled into the automatic routine of throttle-brake-clutch-shift she had time to think. And time to see signs and read what they said. And time to realise. And to make a decision.



They lay side by side on top of a mesa, unspeaking, surrounded by ultramarine sky, under a brilliant sun that scorched the rock but did them no harm. Time passed - quick-slow-quick - and sun gave way to stars and blue to black.

'Coyote?' said Deirdre at last.

'Ah, so you know me.'

'Yes, of course I do. How could you imagine I would not?'

The god turned onto his side and smiled. 'How indeed? I'm Mister Notorious, no? But go on; what did you want to ask me?'

'I think,' and Deirdre looked directly towards the stars, 'I think I would rather like to die.'

'That is a grave request.'

'Trickster!'

'Sorry.'

'No, you're not.'

'And if I were, how could you tell?' Coyote waved his left hand and they were both naked under the heavens. 'Like this?' He smiled.

And it was all for her.



'You think I'm going to change my mind just because you're a great ~*iguana*~?'

'Don't be coarse, dear. Instead… follow me.' Coyote was uncovered except for a loincloth. Deirdre wore white cotton overalls.

They had left the Speed Twin at the foot of the mesa, but it was not there when they climbed back down. Instead... Deirdre gasped. She had rarely seen an object so full of purpose.

'This is the trainer version. Dual cockpits. You're in front. Jump in.'

The Blackbird stank of JP-7 fuel. It was leaking visibly onto the desert floor. 'Don't worry,' said Coyote. 'It's by design. By the time we reach Mach 3 air friction will have closed up the joints.'

They took off on a wave of rolling thunder. Somewhere around the fifty-mile line that separates air from space the plane became an Ares-1 second stage, lit its J-2X engine and accelerated further. And as they entered orbit it transformed itself into a General Products #3 hull, with external antigravity thrusters and a warp driver embedded in the floor.

'Black is so last year, don't you think?' said Coyote. The hull was as transparent as optical glass.

'Have you brought me here so we can do it in zero-g?' asked Deirdre. The idea tickled her.

'It's overrated,' said Coyote. 'Nothing to push against. All thrash and no thrust. But, if you're curious...?'

'Presently,' she said.

'You said you wanted to die.'

'Yes.'

'Why? For the novelty of it?'

'Don't be facetious. Look - how old are you?'

'As old as...' Coyote pointed downwards. The nacreous Earth rotated below them.

'Billions of years.'

'Yes.'

'And how old do you think I am?'

'Not a year over ninety-nine, and looking good!'

Something splintered inside Deirdre and she back-slapped Coyote hard across the side of the face. His head jerked to the left and his right foot swung up, driven by instinct. Its claws missed ripping a huge gash in her side by a mere quarter of an inch.

'Don't try that again! I'll kill you next time. Or is that what you want?'

'Then take me seriously, damn you!'

'I take nothing seriously.'

'Then why are you here?'

'To offer help.'

'Then help me!'

'By killing you?'

'Yes.'

'You didn't want to be killed just now. You dodged me very neatly.'

'I am too old. I want to die, not live maimed.'

'But you can heal yourself. You did so before, when the demons and the witch-hunters came. It is an uncomfortable thing, this power we have.' Coyote's form flickered before Deirdre's eyes. 'It doesn't always work for us, does it?'

'A demon or human can only hurt me. They cannot kill me. A god can. Will you give me a swift, clean death?'

'I would need a very good reason. For a start, can't you kill yourself?'

'No.'

'Have you tried?'

'Yes. I was willing myself to die the day I met you.'

'But it didn't work. Can you guess why not?'

'Because it's not allowed, I suppose. It's so unfair! That girl in Amherst… Ella. She was able to end herself.'

'It that why you want to die? Because you failed to save her? Because, you know, we fail all the time. You, me, all of us. Even the demons. They failed with you, didn't they? They could not make you one of them.'

'I want to end the pain.'

'Look down there.' The ship was passing over Europe. On one side, sunlight, on the other, darkness, dotted with sodium and mercury. It was l'heure bleue in Paris, zwielicht in Berlin. 'Look at all those people, in all those cities. And all of them failing. Every day, in thousands of ways, great and small. A misstep here, a false word there. A momentary slip, and the consequences may be terrible. Everywhere you look, people are wounded; they're damaged, hurt and unfulfilled. There's pain - they all suffer pain, every one of them, even when there's no need for it. They are mortal. That is what it means to be mortal - to feel pain. We who are old, but immortal, should not forget that.'

'Of course I don't forget it! What do you think I spend all my time doing? You've no idea, have you? They have needs that I have to try to succour as best I can. I have the power to help their pain - I've got to use it. You have the power to do nothing at all, except mess things up.'

'Because I'm Coyote. Of course, that's what I'm for. But look, Deirdre, you were talking about power.'

'I mentioned it. Don't say you've actually been listening to me.'

'I have. But look; what is power?'

‘I don’t know. Why are you asking me?'

'Because I want to hear what you think. We're both pretty powerful, wouldn't you say?'

'You are. That's probably because you're a god.'

'And you're a witch. God, witch, witch, god - there's not much difference when you think about it. Hey - come here. Come on.' Deirdre floated free of the spacecraft's floor and drifted weightless into Coyote's arms.

'That's better.' They hung in mid-air, entangled. 'Now - are all mortal prayers answered? Reasonable ones, I mean.'

'No.'

'Why not? Why do we gods - who have infinite power - allow mortals to suffer? Is it because we're such mean bastards?'

'You certainly are.'

'If you say so. But let's put it another way. What happens when a mortal acquires power? Don't bother - I'll tell you - he uses it. However appalling the consequences may be, however much he fears them, in the end he uses it. Give him a gun, a knife or a bomb - he'll use it to kill someone. Give him economic power - he'll use it to starve someone. They can't help it. It's just the way they are, poor dears. Not to say they don’t occasionally use it to do good, of course.

'And that's why they can't understand why we don't spend all our time fixing their problems. We have the power - why don't we use it? They would. But we know that the true essence of power lies in not using it.'

'What a philosopher you are, Coyote.'

'So I am. Now if you'll just put your hands down here and here... and pull... Right! Hold on! I told you zero-g was tricky stuff!'

There was a lengthy hiatus in their conversation, while perspiration formed a small cloud around them. Then:

'You see? Novel, yes, but ultimately satisfying? I'm not sure.'

'You're too modest.'

'It's not often I'm told that. But after all, I am the Charlatan God.' His skull-necklace rattled as he spoke. 'Now then; you were talking about pain, I about power. I am Coyote - I cannot feel pain. I can only see it. I understand it, but it does not reach my heart. That…' and he looked directly into Deirdre's eyes, 'is your job. But you should only take it so far.'

'Are you telling me what to do?'

'I'm reminding you of something. It's time you behaved more like a god and less like a mortal. Look, we've got a starship here. Why don't we spin up the warp engine and take a holiday somewhere more interesting?'

'Like where?'

'I don't know. How about Terminus, or Glory, or the Kefahuchi Tract?'

'Would it make any difference if we did? Wherever you go, there you are, you know.'

'Platitudes from you, Deirdre? I thought you'd have more originality than that. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.'

'I'm not. And you know I'm right. Don't you?'

Coyote sighed. 'Ok. Whatever. You win. Shall we go home then?'

'That's a much better idea. And... you are a great ~*iguana*~!'

'I know.'



Deirdre bustled by the Aga while Coyote sat at the kitchen table and tried to talk to Ashley and Mitchell, who were drinking Baileys and blackcurrant and reading webcomics on their Vaios. They had chosen to be fifteen years old today. It was funny, Deirdre thought, how the Internet always seemed to work perfectly for them when it was so unreliable fro her visitors. Coyote was dressed in a suit from Top Man, with a white shirt and a blue tie, and his hair was short and gelled back. It made him look like a junior estate agent.

Deirdre gave him a cup of tea.

'Do you really want to settle here?' she asked, pulling back a Windsor chair and sitting next to him.

'Yes, why not? It'll do me good to become a bit more serious for a while. And it'll do you no harm to cut loose and have some fun. Real sod-the-consequences fun. Express your power.'

'I don't know if you'll run the place properly. I can't trust you.'

'Of course you can't trust me. That's the beauty of it.'

'I'd better leave you my phone number. Me, I don't think you'll make it past two weeks. When did you last go shopping? Or pay your Council Tax or your gas bill? Or catch a bus? Are you going to be male or female? You must be the least adult immortal I've ever met!'

'And you're the most grown-up. Now bog off and leave me to it. This pair will soon let me know if I'm getting it wrong. And you…'

'Yes?'

'Let go! Screw your way around the world. Join the circus and learn to juggle. Trip elder statesmen as they get out of planes. Plant bugs in the code, and gremlins in the operators. Live wild in the woods and ~*pineapples*~ on the tourists as they walk under the trees. Untwist their DNA when they're not looking. Play neu-guitar in a hash-soviet band. ~*iguana*~ a professor or two. Design a new mathematics. Do nude yoga on TV. Become a porn star or join a girl group - it makes little difference. Go seetee. Have great sex wherever you go. Help people out if you think they deserve it, or even if you don't. Be Coyote-girl, or Coyote-boy if you prefer. Be a legend. Be free.

'And when you're ready, come home. We'll be waiting for you.'

'I still don't trust you.'

'Then you must become untrustworthy yourself. Now, vamoose! There's a world of Twelfth Nights and Winter Carnivals and Fat Tuesdays and Days of the Dead out there and they'll fall flat without a really good party organiser behind them. What? You didn't think you were going to have nothing to do?'

Deirdre smiled lop-sidedly. 'No, I suppose not. Goodbye, children.' A silent pause. 'I said, goodbye.'

The twins put down their glasses and looked up reluctantly from their screens. Ashley belched loudly. 'Goodbye, Mummy.'

'Be good for Uncle Coyote.'

'We won't.' They poured themselves another shot each and returned to their comics.



Deirdre shut the front door behind her and walked down the garden path. She stopped at the gate and turned for a last look at the house. There it stood, set back from the main road, stone-solid and secure but blurred and insubstantial too; ready for her homecoming and yet indifferent to it. Behind her the traffic crawled up and down the London Road in a hushed, foggy haze. A deep breath; and the desert perfume of herbs and carrion washed through her. She clicked the fingers of her right hand twice.

She felt a curious lightness beneath her feet.


------------------------

Here's an SR-71 Blackbird:

[Aletheia Dolorosa]

Sorry it's taken me so long to read and comment on this new story, Peter. My comments are kind of incoherent, but I really enjoyed this story.

It's really different to your other writing, I think, but not in a bad way. There's a dreamlike quality about it, whereas a lot of your earlier writing is more...crisp, I guess (sorry, I'm not making much sense, blame the not many hours of sleep). It's sort of hazy, like a dream.

I love the running motif of the vehicles and the roads.

I was really startled by how dark this story was, too.

What is the song/poem you're quoting throughout the story?

[Peter]

Sorry it's taken me so long to read and comment on this new story, Peter. My comments are kind of incoherent, but I really enjoyed this story.

Thank you, Ronni

What is the song/poem you're quoting throughout the story?

Roads To Freedom