Road Trip 1 (Patreon)

I had to suppress my annoyance as I pulled my RV in front of my childhood home, which I lived there as the only child of an ex-marine and a housewife, the same place I had abandoned when I was sixteen after a particularly bad fight with my father. It was hard to believe that it had already been a decade. 

Looking back, it was inevitable. Both my father and I were dominant characters, though it reflected itself differently. As a retired marine, my father was obsessed with discipline and control. His home was his fiefdom, and he wanted to have the last rule on everything, raising me to follow the same disciplined lifestyle. He wanted to control everything in his fiefdom, the contents of our diet, exercise schedule, hobbies, even friends… 

His reaction wasn’t hard to imagine when I declared that I wanted to be a painter, ruining his dreams of starting a military dynasty in the house. He tried to change my mind, I pushed back, which even devolved into fistfights on occasion, where I managed not to keep it from devolving into one-sided beatings, the strict exercise regime he forced on me working wonders in combination with my early growth-spurt. My mother’s meekness didn’t help any, and at the tender age of sixteen, I abandoned my home. 

I disliked him, but didn’t hate him, because, ironically, it was the skills and discipline that was ingrained over me that allowed me to successfully fend myself. Thanks to his strict exercise routine, helped by my early growth spurt and chiseled chin, I looked like I was in my early twenties rather than like a minor, allowing me to get a gig as a bouncer in a seedy strip club, allowing me to get enough money for my living expenses and my art school—and a rather nasty knife wound. 

The fact that his ridiculous discipline allowed me to draw my path was the only reason I started talking with him once more after he became a widow, though our contact was sporadic and rather cold. As a widow, however, his social contacts were limited mostly to his neighbors. 

And our relatively mended relationship was the only reason I had agreed to his ridiculous request, take Anna —daughter of one our neighbors— with me to my cross-country trip after he decided to take a cruise trip with his neighbors. To be fair, not the only reason, three-grand they promised me as the rent for the month-long just to babysit her also played quite a bit of role. 

What could I say? Painting was a costly career, especially in the beginning. 

As I expected, I wasn’t a model of enthusiasm as I pulled to the empty driveway and honked. The driveway was empty, because my father and his friends had already departed for their cruise. I chose that moment, because just because our relationship was mended enough to ask for monthly calls didn’t mean that I wanted to start my inspirational journey with a useless fight. 

When I honked, the curtain of the kitchen moved, revealing a blonde girl with thick glasses, waving panickedly before closing the curtain. At first glance, she was truly a nerd, not surprising considering I remembered her even when she was a little girl, buried under the books. In our brief call, she managed to squeeze in her impressive academic achievements and debate team victories.  

With a sigh, I stepped out of the car. I might be only allowing her to join me because of the rent I required, but I wasn’t asshole enough to make her carry all the stuff she required. Thanks to some of my previous girlfriends, I had a good idea about the humongous amount of clothing they would require in a month-long trip, though the potential loss of space annoyed me greatly. 

I was already at the door, about to ring, when it opened, allowing me to take the first real look at my temporary roommate. She had a lovely face, I had to admit, but it was only my experience as a painter that allowed me to catch that, because of her absolute lack of makeup, combined with her stocky glasses that clashed horribly with the round, elegant lines of her face while also hiding the blue of her eyes. Her blonde hair was gathered in a tight ponytail, ruining the impact even more.  

Her clothes were in the same vein, a loose shirt and even looser sweatpants hid her figure. I remembered her as a little chubby thing, but it seemed that she lost a bit of weight, enough to make her need for a wardrobe change a true urgency, because the current ones reminded me of a sack. 

Pity I had no intention of playing the generous roommate for her urgent need of a makeover.  

“Hello, Michael. Thanks for allowing me to come with you,” she said, quick enough to make me fear that her words were running away from a band of murderous marauders. “I can’t believe that I’m going camping with you for a whole month,” she continued after taking a deep breath. 

She took another breath, but this time, I cut in, trying to ignore the sudden realization that my trip wasn’t going to be as calm as I was hoping. “Breathe, Anna,” I said, though still smiled a bit to blunt the damage, not wanting to break her before the trip started. The last thing I needed was her to suddenly change her mind, depriving me of the money that was promised to me. “How about you bring that to the RV, and I pick up the rest of your luggage,” I added, pointing at the medium-sized luggage that was standing on the side of the car, the only piece of luggage other than the oversized backpack on her back. 

“That’s all of it,” she said, surprising me pleasantly, making me think that it might not be as bad as I feared. Then, unfortunately, she continued to speak. “Why? Do you think that’s not enough? But mom said that would be more than sufficient. Should I pack another one-” she spat rapidly until I raised my hand. 

“No, that’s perfect,” I said. “It’s just that in my experience, girls tend to bring a lot of unnecessary stuff even for a short trip. Nice to see that you don’t.” 

“I’m not most girls,” she said, surprisingly stiff and challenging as she spoke. Nobody reacted like that unless words touched a vulnerable spot. I decided to ignore the subtext, as I wasn’t paid enough to play the therapist as well as the driver and the landlord. 

“Good,” I said with a smile, like I hadn’t heard an impressive number of girls claiming to be different confrontationally, thinking that insulting the rest of their gender would put them into a better position. Then, I grabbed her luggage, and started walking toward the car. 

“Just a minute, I need to make sure everything is turned down!” she exclaimed before dashing inside, and came out three minutes later, breathing hard. I was already at the driver’s seat, engine running. “Sorry,” she said, and I waved it off. 

“You can use the small cabinet next to the couch,” I said, pointing at the burgundy monstrosity that took most of the living area once opened. The RV wasn’t small, but it wasn’t exactly huge either. With the small bedroom on the back, separated from the rest with only by a thin curtain, and a miniature bathroom and a tiny shower, there was not enough room to move, especially when a corner held a large cabinet that I had installed specially to hold my painting supplies, especially the fragile ones like my canvases. 

The road was empty as I drove out of the town, so, from the corner of my eyes, I watched Anna unpacking her luggage, which consisted of a lot of t-shirts and baggy sweatpants, as well as several white sets that she pushed deep into a separate section of the cabinet with a surprising hurry. Likely her underwear, the boring kind… 

“It’s so exciting, a cross country trip with a real painter,” she murmured excitedly after finishing her organizational challenges, unaware that I was able to hear her. I had to bite my tongue not to remind her that I was a babysitter more than a friend. Still, I let it slip, slowly driving forward. 

“So, what’s the first stop,” she asked with a smile as she sat next to me, an e-book reader in her hand. As a classical painter in an age where more and more artists were moving to digital space, I never enjoyed working on a screen, something that also affected my reading habits. Though, if that prevented her from filling my limited space with books, I was more than happy with it.  

“I don’t know,” I answered, and when she quirked her eyebrow, I explained. “I’m traveling to get away from the cities and to get inspired, so there’ll be a lot of long stops. I hope you have enough books on your little device.” 

“Don’t worry, I have,” she said. 

For the next few hours, nothing much was said. We talked, of course, but it was an idle chat that avoided anything substantial, mostly focusing on her excitement about her college life, which was about to start in two months. But there was a certain tone in her words, like she was about to visit a magical place that would solve her problems. Combined with her phone’s suspicious silence, it didn’t take a genius to understand that she had a rather shitty social life back in high school, and was hoping that college would solve a lot of it. 

Too bad for her that the college would be more of the shit, but she would learn that soon enough. 

It was supposed to be the end of the issue. I certainly had no intention of bothering to explain the reality to her. But things changed when I decided to take a little pit stop in an abandoned section of the forest, impressed by the way the red light of sunset spilling on the leaves. And just to make things perfect, it was far away from the civilization that we could spend the night without being bothered by anyone —and I did have a nice nine-millimeter pistol on the car, just in case I run into trouble that my fist wouldn’t be enough to resolve. 

The complication that occurred, however, had nothing to do with threats. I was sitting on a nearby stone with a notebook in my hand, idly sketching the sight, pencils dancing in my fingers, my back against the trailer. For the majority of it, Anna sat next to me, idly watching me while she read, until she decided to stand up. 

I didn’t pay attention to her, but soon, the sunlight dimmed enough to ruin my sketching, so I stood up, only to catch Anna’s reflection from the rearview mirror. At that moment, I faced two problems. First, I managed to do that the exact moment she was she was changing. Her shirt was thrown against the couch, and she was holding her bra in her hands, leaving her torso naked.  

Second, she had an amazing body. 

I couldn’t help but lick my lips, feeling like a dirty old man —ridiculous considering I wasn’t even twenty-five yet—, while Anna raised her bra to her chest, stuffing her perfectly-shaped breasts in her bra’s tight grip. She must be bordering D cup range, so her bra couldn’t be exactly comfortable, I noted absentmindedly even as I felt my lips dry with a sudden onset of arousal. With her breasts hidden, my gaze slipped down to her waist, surprisingly smooth. 

Apparently, her growth spurt worked wonders… 

It was a pity that she pulled her shirt on a moment later, leaving with an urgent boner and a completely renewed view against my roommate…