The Last JoyRide

Part 29

Saturday 2:28 AM

Joy never left me; she simply laid on top of me, nestled her head into the nape of my neck, and went to sleep. It wasn't until my shoulder blades began to go numb that I had to move her. I held her tight and simply shifted to the right, gently rolling her off onto the cool mattress next to me. I pulled the covers tight around her and brushed the hair back away from her face. She never stirred. She was a good fit. I knew I could get used to that in a hurry. I breathed in her hair's green apple scent, rested my palm on her hip, and comfortably fell back asleep.

Saturday 640 AM

I woke up suddenly from a strange dream. I don't know why I have such vivid dreams, but I will explore some of them one day and see if they have any applicable meaning. At any rate, I sat up in bed and was alone. The morning light was peeking, creeping into the curtained room from the kitchen window and even ambiently through the painted windows of the warehouse. I stretched and felt good. I slept like a rock. After calling her name several times and getting no response, I decided to get out of bed. I found my clean jeans and blood-stained shirt Joy had washed and folded on the end of the bed. I slipped into the jeans but couldn't put the stained shirt back on; too creepy. I put on my tee-shirt from the night before. Then I could hear the faint sound of music coming from the warehouse.

I found Joy in her office with music blaring. She was sitting cross-legged in her desk chair, writing on a spiral-bound steno pad.

"Mornin'," she said with a sweet smile.

"Good morning,"

"You noticed your shirt didn't come clean, huh? It's clean, though, even though it's stained. You can use it for working around the shop or something."

"Yeah, maybe Halloween. What are you up to?"

She turned down the music on the computer and motioned me around. I stood next to her. She pointed out where we had been the night before on some map program on the screen. Then proceeded to show me several pictures she had linked from articles about Mystic.

"It's his place, or was his place, or who the hell knows, but it's where he is currently. So it's likely that the other cars are also there. It would be a stroke of good luck, but there's plenty of room there."

I studied the photos, and sure enough, it was the old estate home on Peachtree Battle.

"Well, that explains you being able to just waltz onto the property, no guards or security or anything."

"Yeah," she agreed, putting her hand on my back and letting it fall, catching on my center belt loop.

"I guess the rap with a silent C isn't paying what it used to."

I looked down at her; she was still scrolling through the pictures of Mystic and the estate, presumably looking for evidence of the cars. She must have been up for a while. There were hundreds of photos she had saved to her desktop. Her grip tightened on the back of my pants as she drew me one step closer. She rested her head on my hip. I brushed her unkempt hair back away from her face, running the fingers of my right hand through it and down her neck.

That was it, too, the familiar touch. Joy was comfortable with it. I even daresay she liked it. I certainly did. It felt like I was touching a live wire but was somehow insulated. At times I could feel her tension, electrically charged particles of neuro-matter, bolt through me on the way to the ground. Like when she kissed me in the hotel bar, that extra energy had to go somewhere, had to discharge. The universe shined upon me in making me the right person at the right time and place.

It was the same way when she made love to me only hours earlier. Pent up energy that needed to be released. She was boiling to the touch before and during. Her mind was so spooled up she was moving on instinct rather than intellect. Afterward, she cooled, her body still lightly coated with perspiration, a sensual conductor, and drifted to sleep. Her mind finally settled enough to forget expelling excess energy. I watched her face, soft and enchanting as it was in her time of rest, eyes fluttering with activity only she could see in that incomprehensible universe inside her head. I had, once out of surrender, kissed her resting lips. They responded in an imitation of a kind, more reflex than reason. There was no excess energy to expel; she remained asleep.