Nix’s sultry breathing is all that keeps him from jamming the brakes and shoving the gear into reverse. He’d drive the entire way home that way. Somehow the road would reshape from how he remembered it. The canopy would open up in all the wrong places. Asphalt would crack and expose roots gnarled enough to pop a tire or scrape the undercarriage.
She’s lush. Cool to the touch on a balmy summer night.
He’d crack the window open were he not afraid of some demonic ectoplasm seeping in and choking them. It would. He’s certain of it.
The desolation’s all too manicured. For every branch that hangs too low, a section of road’s too manicured: freshly painted and paved for a stretch so short, he forgets the Continental glided over it to begin with. Darkness swallows those quiet touches faster than they can register.
Part of him wonders if it’s gotten into her. A chill rolls the length of his spine. Arthur adjusts in a leather seat much too large for him. His frail frame is swallowed by his late father’s toy.
The wheel’s circumference makes his hands look childish. He can hardly see over it. Pushing the seat up until his dark mane almost grazes the roof doesn’t help either.
One shoulder rolls back. Arthur’s thighs straighten, then lengthen just enough for Nix to tuck her spindly fingers further beneath him so the bulge swells in her hand. Werewolf snaps his teeth. Lifts his chin so he doesn’t choke on the drag he just took off his cigarette.
A noxious finger has nowhere to drift. He should crack a window, but won’t. Instead a pale cloud drifts throughout the cabin.
Nix is too used to poison to care. She grins, sinks her teeth into his earlobe where a piercing hole closed up, then nuzzles the shell. Wispy blonde hair slips from her loose style and tickles his throat.
The Beast should turn and kiss her. Needs to, but his heart won’t let him pull his focus from the road.
There is no shoulder to pull over. No maintenance lane. No pullout. No driveway or clearing. Rogue woods encroach on a road that narrows whenever it chooses. The old headlights aren’t meant for this kind of travel. They illuminate what feels like the entire forest, then nothing happens.
Nix is gelid to the touch, yet always runs hot.
The air conditioner’s pumping as cool as the antique can get.
Nix squares her shoulders into that steady reprieve from her wedding gown’s bulk, then rolls her hips over a seam in her thong and kisses a notch beneath her husband’s ear. He tastes of amber. It’s earthy, rich, woody, yet caramelized. Another kiss to that tender patch. She cups him even harder.
Nix grins upon watching his Adam’s apple leap.
Arthur drives with both hands on the wheel. One would think he’s captaining a cruise ship. Arthur probably feels like he is. Out the corner of his eye he notices the trees push closer.
Shadow spills like bridal veils between boles, occluding any wisp of sky until the ceiling’s pure nettle.
The suspension shifting alerts him. This thing doesn’t turn easily.
Arthur vexes his jaw and pans the road for somewhere — anywhere he can pull over and kiss her until she forgets her own name. She’s aching for it. He can’t help shifting his attention to the dip in that Alexander McQueen ivory skirt where she grinds nothing but fabric.
Doubtless the leather under her’s damp and sticky. Nix still drips from lying beneath him before they left Suite 712. The same demons who forced them into manufactured isolation also cloaked the same trap in fine linen and brass. Result’s the same. Nix keens for touch she isn’t presently receiving. She hasn’t the range to bend over the console and unbutton his trousers immediately.
The smallest gravel turnout’s sprayed by high beams.
Arthur grimaces at the prospect of Nix so little as grazing those jagged stones. It’s not even a clearing. Maybe enough for a ranger’s utility Explorer. He still flips on his turn signal.
Nix snorts, then drops her face into her husband’s collar with zero regard for makeup transfer. She doesn’t care if he ends up wearing foundation, bronzer, blush, and contour. Some sparkle from her highlighter might just leave the Parliament guessing.
Watermelon and a thicker, more lactonic note incense him. Werewolf takes a drag off his cigarette even though his hand shakes, then turns and stamps a hard kiss between his wife’s eyes.
“You know,” his crooked smile stretches across her brow, “You’re gonna be the death of me.”
“You love me,” she tucks her hand as far under him as she can manage, ignoring the road’s lazy curve that hides what’s beyond it.
“More than life,” he braces, both hands on the wheel and his left leg restless.
Arthur mars his brow when the Lincoln’s headlights illuminate an embankment.
Gravel protests beneath the ocean liner of a vehicle. Wet leaves cling to the tires. Branches snap — it’s the first sign of life that’s registered beyond the engine’s rumbling.
The brakes need to be babied into halting the car before it's halfway up the embankment with no chance of being able to back out or be rescued by anyone but their captors. Then they wouldn’t be able to drive home.
Nix doesn’t care for the darkness that lacks any contrast. Does the forest sprawl into eternity beyond her window? Is it a clearing? A bog? She lifts her face and grins when her husband shifts gears into park.
Won’t turn off the engine, though.
Nix tucks her bottom lip between her teeth and flicks at her heels to try and kick them off.
He hasn’t removed his hands from the wheel, but turns his head once she bends and adjusts in her seat.
She’s going to impale herself on rocks or step on broken glass. Likely wouldn’t be the first time. Doesn’t mean it’s happening on his watch.
Arthur hasn’t remembered to breathe. One yank and push heaves that driver’s door open. It swings wide enough to creak on its hinges.
A piece of Nix’s soul dies. She’ll fix the hinges.
Arthur’s foot lands on the gravel without a sound — though Whiskey Hollow itself appears to have gone silent.
The Continental’s engine hasn’t stopped humming. Metallic knocks settle once Nix’s door swings open with the same gusto, but doesn’t whine the way his door had.
Arthur curves his right hand over the frame of the roof and faces the asphalt.
Another honeypot for Gotham’s heart.
He swallows ashes. Makes him cough. Arthur grimaces, then notices the road’s no longer painted with double yellow lines.
No one can drive past them — they’d collide head-on if not for the utility pocket allocated to them.
Insects and night birds are too terrified to make their presence known. No rustling. No babbling streams. Not even a sough from the wind. There’s nothing. Perhaps by design. Manufactured silence to terrify him into reciting prayers in Slavonic.
Arthur singes himself while flicking his lit cigarette. His pulse thins to gossamer. His legs won’t carry him at first. Instead his shoulders turn on a diagonal. He inclines his chin to make himself as large as possible.
Arthur’s left hand thrusts behind his blazer to swipe his revolver from his waistband. Safety’s unlatched with one flick. He pivots…to find enormous blue eyes gleaming at him from inside the vehicle.
Her smile’s far too wide for their predicament, yet the Lincoln’s interior lighting is warm against her face.
Arthur rolls his eyes, half-splays a hand over his heart while catching his breath, then mutters, “Bitch,” while rounding the car’s enormous hood.
Nix slings back into her seat and preens herself, slipping one foot outside the vehicle.
He catches her chin. .38 in hand, Arthur lunges inside the cabin until his mouth solders to his wife’s.
Nix keens at first, shoulders relaxed and her thighs turning so they can spread wide enough for him to gather tulle and reveal her to the open woods.
Arthur’s feet remain rooted to the earth, yet his back’s to the open.
Nix grins when the feathered ends of his hair tickle her cheeks. She skims her fingers through them, then tilts her head and eases her lips apart.
His tongue dips past hers in one curve. He’s warm to the touch despite how pale his olive complexion’s become. The edge of his nose drags up her cheek until the first kiss ends in a groan. Arthur latches his left hand to the car’s frame to keep himself supported. The other tucks between his wife’s thighs and teases her inner lips under twelve layers of tulle.
She gasps, wilts into his next kiss, then slings her legs outside the car and reaches for his trousers to start unbuttoning them.
Arthur kisses her again, and again, with little regard for white and red pigment transferring onto her chin.
