Jan Springer: The Pleasure Girl

“Where were you when it happened?”

She knew he was talking about the Catastrophe. She wondered why he would ask such a question at a time like this. Maybe he was trying to find out a connection they shared? Heck, everybody who survived shared the same connections. Losing their loved ones, the shift in the weather, the fear of city-dwelling cannibals and apparent poverty. Or maybe it was just small talk on his part?

Whatever his reason, The Catastrophe, as everyone called it, was something she tried really hard not to think about. It was still very painful. Yet, Logan’s question brought it all back in vivid detail, and suddenly she ached to tell him.

She needed to tell someone who seemed to care at least a little about her. Maybe because he was the first guy who actually thought about her pleasure instead of just his own. Maybe that’s why she sensed he cared. Or maybe it was because he was her first client that she didn’t have to fake an orgasm with?

“The day started just like any other,” she began. “The sun was shining brightly…”

Excitement pummeled Teyla as she drove out of the town’s only mall parking lot with the truck cab full of two weeks groceries and the early pregnancy test kit sitting in the paper bag right beside her on the seat. Glancing at herself in the rear-view mirror, she couldn’t help but smile at her flushed pink cheeks or her windblown, shoulder-length wavy brown hair. Not one for wearing makeup, she looked a mess, but at the moment, she didn’t care because she just might be pregnant. For real.

When she’d stepped out of the farmhouse this morning, that same weird, nauseous kind of feeling was anchored in the pit of her stomach. She’d been feeling a bit sick intermittently over the past week. At first, she thought she had a touch of the flu, but then she’d had a lightbulb moment. Morning sickness?

As she watched her husband of eleven years working in the lush lavender fields, she’d barely been able to contain the bubbling happiness of what she suspected. She dare not raise Max’s hopes again only to find out it was a false alarm. It had happened three times over the past two years since they began trying to get pregnant.

The look of devastation on his face depressed her for weeks, and it made her feel like a failure as a wife because she knew he wanted a lot of kids and so did she. This time around, though, she was playing it nice and cool, at least in front of him. That is, until she found out for sure whether the early pregnancy kit gave her a positive reading or not. If it did, she would go to the doctor and have it confirmed this time before she so much as uttered a peep.

Trying to keep her mind off her excitement, she forced herself to gaze at her prairie surroundings. As always, the sparse dots of farmhouses, silver silos, and fields of round hay bales baking in the sunshine soothed her rattled nerves.

Heart Creek was a bustling farm town of five thousand people nestled in the foothills of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. It had a main street with a bakery, a hardware store, two restaurants, and one mall. It also boasted the only drive-in theatre for miles. This area was her home, and despite having a three-year stint as a grocery cashier in the busy Canadian city of Calgary, Alberta, after finishing high school, she’d come back home to marry her high school sweetheart, Max Sutton.

She’d never regretted her decision, but she sometimes wondered if Max did, especially when she caught him gazing longingly at their relatives’ endless stream of kids.

Since their lavender farm was around fifteen miles from town, it didn’t take long for her to swing her truck off the paved highway onto the dusty road that bordered their five hundred acres.

They’d named their place Heart Pond Farm due to the huge man-made pond her husband had created about half a mile from their two-story, three-bedroom farmhouse. She could hardly wait to get home and hoped Max was still out in the fields so she could sneak into the house and take the test.

With her excitement rising, her fingers tightened on the steering wheel and she gazed over the sparkling purple fields on both sides of the dusty road. They’d planted lavender over the last five years, finding it an extremely profitable venture compared to the mustard, corn, and hay they’d grown before. The crop was ready to harvest and the sweet smell drifted into the open windows teasing her nostrils. She thought she saw a trail of dust in the east field and spotted a metallic glint. Slowing her truck, she braked and let the engine idle while she listened.

Birds chirped cheerfully, the wind whispered through the lavender plants, and she smiled as she heard the grumbling purr of the tractor. Yep, he was definitely in the east field. Good, now she could sneak into the house and take that pregnancy test. With renewed urgency, she pressed the gas pedal.

Soon, she spotted her white clapboard farmhouse huddled between a handful of huge pine trees, and a moment later she’d pulled the truck into their parking lot. She was just about to shut off the engine when the bright flash of orange light sliced through the otherwise light blue noon sky, almost blinding her. Intense heat rocked her, and the truck stalled.

She could only sit there on the bench seat and stare out the windshield, stunned, as she swore she saw the sky waver momentarily. What the hell had that bright light been? Lightning? Why had the sky wavered like that?

She shook her head, her heart racing like it had never done before. She thought about twisting the key in her ignition but had this really bad urge to just get out of the truck. But if the truck had been hit by lightning, how would she get out?

Frig it! What did one do to get out of a vehicle hit by lightning? One thing she did remember was to make sure she jumped out of the truck with both feet leaving at the same time. The rubber on her tires was preventing the electricity from parting, so she couldn’t be touching the truck and the ground at the same time, right? If she did, she would be the lightning rod.

Adrenaline snapped through her, and she grabbed the bag off the seat, popped open the driver’s side, and maneuvered herself so both her feet were firmly on the edge of the door opening. Wouldn’t this just be great if she died of electrocution? And what if she was finally pregnant?

Emotions, thick and raw welled inside her, and she held back a sob. Her eyes blurred, and she wanted to cry. Oh, crap. What rotten luck. Maybe she should just sit here and wait for Max? Oh, heck, he could be out there in the fields for hours. He always got lost in his work, especially during harvest time. Maybe she could call him on her cell phone?

Sighing in relief, she dug the cell out of her back pocket and hit the End button. Nothing happened.

“Oh, come on!” She hit the button several more times. Nothing. Did the cell phone have a dead battery? She’d just charged it a couple of days ago, for Pete’s sake!

Okay, so she was on her own. All she needed to do was jump and not touch the truck and ground at the same time. She could do that. Simple. Yeah. Right.

And what if she was wrong about how to leave the truck? No, she wasn’t. She had to be right.

She held her breath, stared at the ground. The ground was safety. Yeah, she was right. She had to be.

She didn’t know how long she stood there, perched to jump. She prayed Max would come to her rescue. Even shouted into the eerily silent air a few times. He didn’t come. Come to think of it, she didn’t hear his tractor motor anymore, either. Nor any birds singing. And what was with the wind? It was getting very cold. Creepy weird.

Anxiety mounted. She felt sick to her stomach. Nausea. Distinctive and gut wrenching. Chills took hold of her and the frosty wind wrapping around her wasn’t helping. Oh, man, she was gonna be sick if she didn’t get out of this truck.