1
Salem
No Names
T oday was my wedding day. But tonight, I wasn’t married.
I’d biked nearly a hundred miles since noon, through long stretches of Pacific Coast forest. My back and legs were sore as I ate a quiet dinner of fish and chips, sitting in the bar across the street from my motel, alone.
When I went to bed later, I wouldn’t find my loving fiancé waiting for me.
There was no fiancé. There was no country club wedding or honeymoon in Las Vegas.
There was me, my bike, and every single hour of vacation time I had remaining for the year.
Just me and my desperate attempt to take back control when it felt like my life was falling apart.
My companions were the bartender, a few grizzled strangers, and my ever-present anxiety—sitting like a cold, heavy block of ice on my chest.
The bar wasn’t busy, despite being the only thing around that could pass for a restaurant. There were a few dockworkers hunched over their beers, engaged in quiet conversation. The bartender had been wordlessly wiping down glasses for the past thirty minutes, staring blankly at the bartop.
This was a liminal space. Between lives, between dreams.
But when she walked in, suddenly everything felt real again.
Her baseball cap hid her face as she strode inside, long brown hair dripping from the rain.
She brought a gust of cold night air in with her, and her presence made the room shrink.
When she turned her cap around, the neon lights hit her face and made her light brown skin shine like gold, revealing a long, thin cut on her cheek.
A fresh wound, cherry red.
The bartender gave her a nod and she gave him one back before he turned and grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the dusty top shelf.
Her dark green eyes darted around the room, searching like a hawk, touching everyone but me.
The sharp edge of her jaw made me stare, following the contours of her throat down across her strong shoulders to the soft curves of her chest.
As I sipped my drink, her gaze found me. I sharply inhaled, but instead of air it was beer, and instantly I was sputtering. Coughing frantically into my hand, I tried to hide my near choking from concerned onlookers and hustled to the restroom.
After coughing the beer out of my lungs in the privacy of a stall, I made my awkward return, only to find the seat next to mine was no longer empty. Oh, God. It was her. Her back was to me, but I couldn’t doubt the strong shoulders, the way she leaned forward against the bar as if she owned it.
Sliding back onto the stool beside her, I clutched my beer with both hands and took a shaky sip. She dominated my peripheral vision. Her head was moving slightly, bobbing to the beat of the music emanating from her earbuds.
Listening closer, I recognized the song as “Talk to Me” by Stevie Nicks. Maybe it was just the beer catching up with me, but a ripple of excitement ran over me to hear one of my favorite artists, and my lips started moving silently to the lyrics.
At least, I thought I was being silent. But as I murmured along, there was movement beside me and a deep voice suddenly said, “Do you want to share?”
The woman had removed one of her earbuds and held it out in her hand, offering it to me. But I couldn’t focus on the earbud, not when she was looking straight at me with those forest--green eyes, warm and gently amused at my expense.
“I, uh—yeah—”
Barely got a word out, but she understood. She exhaled sharply—a laugh?—and electricity shot through me when she pressed the bud into my ear, filling my head with Stevie’s ethereal voice. The touch was so quick but it lingered in my nerves, imprinted on my cheek.
“I’ve been telling these guys to get the sound system fixed,” she said, hooking her thumb toward the bartender. “I can’t stand the silence, so I always come prepared.”
She leaned toward me, slowly resting her arm on the bartop. She smelled like clover, burnt hash, and the salty ocean air.
Hastily, I said, “Sorry, I should have introduced myself. My name is—”
“Wait.” Her hand shot out, and she pressed her finger against my lips. Sparks flew from that touch, and in a single instant, she had me. “No names. Let’s keep it interesting.”
She smiled, and my stomach fluttered. But this was no gentle smile; it wasn’t an offering of friendship.
It was an invitation.
“You’re not from around here?” I said. The rest of the room seemed far away. The neon lights danced in her eyes, and I was suddenly transported to the feeling of being at a county fair in summertime. The churning anticipation, the heat and desire.
“No,” she said. “You’re not either.”
“Nope. I’m from San Francisco. I’ve been cycling for the past few days, that’s why I look like this.” I chuckled nervously, certain that my short hair had a serious case of helmet head and my face was sunburned.
But she wasn’t looking at my bad hair or reddened skin. She hadn’t looked away from my eyes, not even once.
“Damn, that’s dedication.” She scratched at the cut on her face, then seemed to catch herself, abruptly lowering her hand. “You must make good money to afford living there.”
“Well, instead of going into tech like everyone else, I decided to pursue a dream and ended up working as an animator for a small video game studio, so...”
She nodded knowingly. “Got it, so you’re a starving artist from San Francisco, you like Stevie Nicks, and you’re gorgeous. You really were blessed with the whole Manic Pixie Dream Girl package, huh?”
It had been ages since someone made me laugh so easily. “The whole package and plenty of baggage,” I quipped. The song changed, and we swayed together to the beat, simultaneously mouthing the lyrics.
She asked for my drink of choice, then ordered my gin and tonic, and a beer for herself. She tapped her glass against mine in a toast and said, “To new friends.”
“To new friends.” I took a long swig, hoping the butterflies in my stomach would settle. “I’m only here for the night.”
“So am I.” She took my hand, her thumb brushing over my palm. “So let’s make it a night to remember.”
“You’re mine now, pretty girl. You’ll never forget this, will you?”
Kneeling between my legs, she looked like she was praying. Knees on the grimy tile floor, eyes closed, skin bathed red in the neon glow of the Rainier Brewing Company sign hung on the graffitied wall.
A sinner in supplication, a priestess in worship, her tongue inscribing litanies on my flesh.
She was on her knees, but I was the one who felt small. Shrunken in her hands, legs shaking as she controlled my breath with her own mouth.
Sitting at the bar felt like a lifetime ago, now that we were crowded together into the single-stall restroom. We’d danced together, an earbud in each year, singing the lyrics in hushed tones into imaginary microphones. People stared and I didn’t care. For once in my life, finally...
Her eyes opened, pulling me into their depths. My hand slipped as I tried to brace myself on the sink, but she held me up. She was drowning me and I didn’t care.
That was what I wanted, wasn’t it?
That was why I’d ridden my bike up the coast, every mile bringing me closer to the isolation I craved. Isolation, or obliteration. Feeling nothing, or feeling too much, was the eternal problem I faced. I cared too much about being careless.
I didn’t even know her name. Was that careless enough? Was it enough distance to protect me from disappointment again?
Her tongue flattened and stroked, and my internal monologue became only a static tone. An emergency alert flatline that made my eyes roll back. Her fingers dug into my thighs, and with that deep, husky voice, she said, “Look at me. Let me see those beautiful eyes.”
She was gorgeous in a way that was terrifying. Lean and muscular, with rough hands that made me shiver as they spread my thighs. She lifted my leg, hooking it onto her shoulder, and I had to tangle my fingers in her long hair for balance.
“Please—oh my God, don’t stop!”
My fingers knotted in her hair and she groaned, grasping my hips as she murmured, “Pull harder. Show me how good it feels.”
For a few moments, I wasn’t thinking about the miles behind me or the miles ahead. I wasn’t thinking about my ex-fiancé or the indent his ring left on my finger. I wasn’t hearing the endless echo of him saying, “It’s all too much. I’m sorry.”
No, in that moment, I was entirely hers. Every tense muscle, every shuddering nerve, every inch of shivering skin. She possessed me with tongue, lips, and fingers.
I wanted to call her name, if only I knew what it was.
Standing in the parking lot outside the bar, we shared a joint. The night was desolate and cold, the air sticky with ocean salt. We couldn’t see the waves beyond the towering pines, but we could hear them.
“Do you come here often?” I wanted to seem suave and disinterested, but I sounded too hopeful. Too invested.
She took a long, slow drag. She was close to my age, somewhere in her late twenties, but there was a seriousness about her face that made her seem older. A hollowness to her cheekbones that looked tired and grim.
She was a closed book but I couldn’t stop staring at the cover, tormented by the unreadable words within.
“You won’t see me again,” she said, winking at me as she exhaled. Like it was a reassurance, not a regret.
It wasn’t until we said our good-byes and she walked away that I realized she never answered a single question I asked her. She was a nameless stranger, coming from nowhere and headed toward nothing. By morning, she’d seem like a dream.
She was the first person I’d been with since Colin, which meant...
Nothing. It meant nothing.
As I stood outside my motel room at 2 a.m., my mind was churning too much to sleep.
I reached for my ring finger, momentarily filled with alarm when I felt the naked indent of missing jewelry.
It had been a month since Colin called off our wedding.
Twenty-eight days since he packed up all his things and left.
Twenty-five days since he said he “just wasn’t ready.
” Twenty-two days since I found out there was someone else.
Sniffling from the cold, I swiped my hand across my nose before inhaling another lungful of skunky smoke from my vape.
The thought of going inside and lying in an empty bed, staring at the ceiling until sleep offered deliverance, made my chest tight.
But so too did the thought of sitting out here until dawn burned through the clouds and the sun rose on a new day while I still clung to the last one.
Dry leaves rattled in the trees. The road was empty, traveled only by the fog. The bright blinking VACANCY sign, hanging in the front office window, tinted the damp air blue.
A sudden cry split the night, but it was only the shriek of a bobcat.
Bloodcurdling, yes, but after a lifetime of camping trips, I’d heard it before.
Still, my paranoia was exacerbated by the weed.
I felt exposed, watched. A predator lurked somewhere out there in the trees, and I couldn’t even see it.
But it could probably see me.
“Chill out, Salem,” I whispered, hoping the sound of my own voice would make it feel less lonely out here. Spooky feelings aside, I needed to go to bed.
I had a ferry to catch in the morning.