I looked her over carefully.
“Hey babe?”
“Yeah boss?”
“You good for a storm ride?”
“Hell yeah boss!”

I tried. I really did. The weather guys were predicting dire and dour weather. Spring-like storms are supposed to clobber us in the afternoon, probably right about the time I needed to commute home. Rain, hail, winds…the heavy stuff.

Bad weather. Heavy, probably dangerous traffic. Then there’s some needed maintenance that’s been deferred on the big Valkyrie cruiser.

I should take “Big Iron”, the 7000 pounds of steel, Prius-eating, gas-hogging, pavement shredding, pick-em-up truck. A Dallas commute in the rain…the truck was the wise thing to do.

The expected thing.

I even found the keys to the thing, wrestling the dust-bunnies camping out on my dresser and excavating layers of wallet tailings (gas receipts, charge slips, and the like) to gain possession of the almost mythical neglected keychain.

Stepping out to the drive, I was relieved to note the registration and inspection on the big Dodge were current. They only last a year and it seems one or the other is always out of date when I need to use the truck.

As always, the truck started on the first turn. Eager to go. Tired of waiting. We have an abusive relationship, Big Iron and I. She waits patiently and I ignore her. It’s a failing. Or not. It seems to work for us.

Today was different. I was ready to take her downtown. See some sites. Introduce her to my coworkers…

But then I looked at the sky. Clouds racing by in the balmy spring winds. Dark streaks in the distance. Rain nearby. Trees on my street whipping in the wind. Cool and warm breezes intermingle. A deep breath. The sweat starts beading on my forehead. My hands shake.

I turn the truck off, step out, and lock the door. I simply can’t do it.

The Valk is calling me from her dark corner of the garage. A siren’s call. Two wheels and a tank full of kick-ass. She has my soul well within her grasp. It’s not something I struggle hard against.

It was time to fly.

“Okay babe. You win. Let’s ride.”

Arriving at work a coworker crossing the parking-lot looks at me quizzically and asks, “Don’t you know it’s supposed to storm?”

“I do. But it’s too nice not to ride.”

“You’ll probably pay for that this afternoon.”

I just grin.

The ride is the key. The destination is just the excuse. I know the piper will need to be paid, and I know I’ve run up one *hell* of a bill.

But it amuses me that the uninitiated seem to believe getting caught in a storm is the price.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer

It was the most amazing skirt…though ‘skirt’ may be too ample a word. It was really only the suggestion of a skirt, barely reaching from the small of her back to the top of her thighs.

Of smooth black leather with buckles and straps, it defied the laws of physics just staying where it was. An amazing skirt, on spectacular hips. Curves. A woman’s curves.

Only those hips could have held it in place…unless perhaps it’s lined with duct tape. Curves and crevices. Enticements. The stuff of life…and of death. Those curves…those shadows…those have started wars. Pain and pleasure.

Visions in the night. Words and a tune from the Dave Matthews Band surge through my head. ‘Hike up your skirt a little more and show the world to me’.

Passion. Drive. The strength of them often astonishes me. It’s a wonder we ever learn to control those drives…to harness and channel them.

Moving down from the impossible skirt, dark but translucent fishnet hose simultaneously hide and enhance the curves…the mystery…the world. A fascinating contrast…both hiding and revealing the beginning and end of all things.

I shake my head. She was out of place. Not out of place in the night, indeed, I could scarcely visualize her elsewhere, but rather out of place, here, at a lonely fuel stop in small town Texas. But she was here and no reason was needed. It just was. That is the magic to be found running hard in the night.

Lower. Boots…over the calf, heavy leather, heavy buckles, with startling red flames stitched over the top half and at least six-inch-tall, very thick heels. Not dainty. With the skirt and the hose those boots make her legs go on forever. Having looked down, there was no choice but to follow the features back upward.

The same heavy fishnet pattern covers her lower midriff, and the eye catches the lower point of a push-up, leather sculpted, laced corset-style bodice and is drawn inexorably upward. Drawn upward, sliding over the black leather, noting the pair of embossed dragons with jeweled eyes emblazoned on the bodice under her breasts, traveling ever upward to the top of the bodice, only to be captured and held by the luscious curves perfectly revealed there.

I mumble under my breath, “In a boy’s dream.”

She walked…long confident strides…placing one foot directly in front of the other and resulting in all her curves working together in a stunning symmetry of timeless motion. Her hair, in a single, thick braid reaching the small of her back joined in, swaying back in forth inverse to the motion of her hips. An angel. A demon. Perhaps a god.

Maybe all three.

I briefly wonder if she understands the strength and nature of the power she is wielding at that moment…and the sheer relentless drive that power has evolved to awaken. The dark side of the man howls. It’s all I can do not to echo it out loud.

Captured by the vision and the motion, I sat lightly in the saddle of the big cruiser and watched her approach. Shortly she would pass me by on the way to her ride and my world could get started again.

Almost.

At her point of closest approach she paused to give me an anatomy lesson.

“Hey,” she said, “my eyes are up here”.

Not the slightest chagrined, I just grinned. That outfit wasn’t chosen to get me to notice her eyes.

“I believe ya babe. But I wasn’t looking at your eyes.” I looked up slowly, deliberately, and met her gaze.

She laughed as she walked on by with a flourish. “I do like an honest man.”

In answer I thumbed the start button of the big cruiser and smiled in satisfaction as she came instantly and smoothly to life. It was time for me to fly.

Roaring down the highway, burning miles, I settled in the saddle, cranked up the music, and thought about the world.

Passion. Beauty. Drive. Power comes in many forms.

We wield, we awaken, we strive, we taste.

We live.

Steel, muscle, bone, and blood merged into a single entity. Machine and man, at one and howling through the night. There is power in that too.

The wife is a thousand miles away. My thoughts predictably darkly male, I glance at the instruments and bump up the speed.

The night sings. The power at my fingertips cuts through the darkness. A falling star streaks through the heavens ahead of me. Passion and elation surge through the man.

And folks wonder why I ride.

It’s a big damn world.

And I can’t wait to see what awaits me at my next stop.

CUAgain,
Daniel Meyer