I'm not the sort of person who buys a car simply because it's that time of year again. And I don't buy to impress others; a car doesn't fill that particular void in my life. I buy simply because I need a new one, because my old one is just... too old and unroadworthy... er... illegal. And it's nearly my birthday so this will be a gift to myself: a present to me from me.

I'm not interested in cars for their own sake, so I don't drool over bhp, rpm, mph... I suppose mpg has a passing interest for me and that's all. But I don't want to look an idiot, tootling around in some sad pathetic little French thing that will disintegrate at the slightest impact. So I look for something sturdy, big enough to offer me some protection. And something reliable. Japanese then, I hear you say. A Japanese saloon - Toyota, Honda? Dead right. So that's what I went for. I searched the internet and found:

Honda Executive 2.0 SE, Petrol, 90K, Silver, 8 years old, alloys, all mod cons - £2500.

Luxury at a price I can afford. 90K? No problem. It will go forever. And it's only 55 miles away. Plus part-exchange is available. That's what I needed. The ad goes on to say it has CD, air-con, electrically adjustable and heated leather seats, electric everything - it even has a sun roof which most new cars don't have. Oh, and sat nav:

'...not fitted as standard on this particular model, but very professionally added later'.

Not that I need it because I think that map reading is fun and a great skill, a pastime that keeps you 'connected' to your journey - an active driver rather than a passive passenger. We're constantly reminded that 'it's not the destination, it's the journey that's important', and I generally agree, but sometimes it's hard to justify that outlook as I face my repetitive reality and my tedious terminus - well, ultimately speaking, I suppose death could be exciting... but today, both journey and destination will be brimming with good stuff. So, back to the the 'sat nav' - I'll just switch it off and keep a bit of sponteneity in my everyday life and do a bit of orienteering -  I don't need a dull woman's voice telling me what to do at every turn... well, not when I'm supposed to be single, anyway.

I'd worked all night, gone home for a bacon sarnie and a cuppa and, at the appointed hour, driven down here, to a quiet, modern cul-de-sac in a mainly quaint, rather remote village. Andy is a dealer but works from home, said he only needed a lock-up to store his stock in, which saved him on forecourt overheads. That's why his cars are so cheap. Sounded clever to me. I'd been to view over the weekend and would have driven it away there and then, but he said it needed a couple of things doing, plus a valet. So I'd given him a few days, looking in on his website once in a while just to remind me what I was getting for my hard-earned money.

I had one last look over my old car. He said that even though it wasn't viable to repair it, he had a taxi-driver friend who'd run it into the ground in the three months that were left on the MOT. I was glad it was going to be driven a little longer before being broken up. I took the tax disc with eleven months left on it - that pissed him off as he said he'd included that when he valued it - then checked the boot and glove-box. I handed over the documents, filled in a few more, paid for it by Switch... then switched keys, shook hands... He said he couldn't find the HPI certificate - the one that tells you your new vehicle isn't stolen or has been a write-off - but he'd post it on when it turned up. After one last, almost emotional, look at the old boy - well I'd had him for 10 years - I climbed inside my new purchase and shut the door. There's always that moment of silence at a moment like this, well there is for me, like the pause between the movements in a symphony. Something has ended, something new is beginning, so let's have a moment's silence. So, like a good conductor, I glanced around, looked what instruments were at my disposal, took stock and assumed control. The key will do for a baton. I turn it, the engine section strikes up a deep, distant ostinato... which responds to my foot and builds to a crescendo... clutch bites and off we go; not following the score at all, making it up as we go along... out of the cul-de-sac... rum-ti-tum... indicator... tic, tic, tic... squeal onto the narrow main road... now the main theme: homeward bound.

I love driving on a day like this when everyone else is at work. The roads are dry, the sky is blue, there's not a cloud... The morning sun is beaming through the windscreen to my left and I pull down the sun-visor.. mmm, it's got a mirror with a flip-open cover on it, nice touch... The leather wheel feels good, the engine responds to my every suggestion. I suddenly get the very distinct impression there is someone sitting beside me, but no more than a shadow; someone rather than something. I look quickly, stupidly... how could there be? A trick of the light, maybe the tinted strip across the top of the screen casting blue shadows, confusing me in my new environment. The sun punches me in the eye as we leave the line of trees I was passing, so I pull down the visor on the passenger side too, blinded for a moment. Another, almost audible sequence of alternate light and solid dark stripes rattles me, as I used to rattle a stick down iron railings. I pass by the copse with the sun streaming through it, then out of the village and onto the open country road.

It's about an hour's drive home so I search the radio for some good chat. I can't stand the inane drivel that DJ's spout - even the cleverer ones like Jonathan what's-his-name annoy me - so BBC Radio 4 it will be. 'Woman's hour'. That will do. An interview with the author of a new book - she's a voice-coach too - about 'presence': what gives a great actor or politician 'presence', the quality that makes them the centre of attention whenever they enter a room?

'Presence is the ability to be in the 'present'. That's why actors can have problems performing with a child.. because a child isn't acting, is just 'present', and so will always overshadow one who is not...'

That will do nicely and is right up my esoteric street. I hit a pothole, or maybe even just a cat's-eye in the road and the radio suddenly switches to a loud, repetitive beat, something that Fat Boy Slim would eat for breakfast. It makes me jump with both the surprise and the volume of it. I fumble to turn it back. Surely not a bloody fault! I've only been going two minutes. What next? The wheels part company? If it's only the radio/CD then a new one will only set me back fifty quid, so I'm not heart-broken because I made more than that with the tax disc. I aim for another hole in the road and there's a double thud as both front and back wheels hit it.

'What current politicians do you feel best display this quality?'

The radio is fine. Phew.

But again I feel the other type of presence, and I feel a shiver despite the sun and the growing stuffiness in here. It's there if I don't look. If I concentrate on the road I see it in my eye corner as just a patch of darkness, but if I turn my head even slightly it is gone. Relax. Soon I turn on the air-con - the sun's rays are really heating up the black trim - set it to eighteen degrees, and settle back into the plush seat. Again the shadow is besides me but not when I turn my head. The air is getting cooler and the slightest sweet smell of perfume pervades the sun-drenched interior too - remnants of its last owner? The roar of a bike engine suddenly drowns the radio and it passes me, swerving back into its lane just before an approaching car hits it head-on, quickly diminishing in volume as it heads for the vanishing point. Damn! I never saw it coming. I look in the rear-view mirror, but the road I'd just driven over isn't there... the mirror has moved and there's the headrest of the passenger seat centred in it. I blink and - I swear -  a pair of women's eyes are looking back at me, blonde hair falling like curtains from her brow. I slam on the brakes and the car skids and I can barely keep control. A horn sounds behind and I take control of the car once. Another glance. The mirror contains just the headrest again now. I turn it back into position, wave apologetically to the blue Ford behind and, shaking, I turn into the lay-by I'd seen sign-posted about a mile back. I'm out in an instant, slamming the door behind me, prowling around, stooping and staring into the interior, eyes wild, heart banging. Nothing. Of course. The engine purrs, 'Get back in and drive me... the sun is out, the road is all but empty... take me... Let's go somewhere quiet...come on, it's our day off'.

The machine talks to me, soothes me and I immediately, inexplicably, overcome my fear - I'm not really a car person, but boyish enthusiasm is a powerful thing and must have taken me over... and she is new; well, new to me. So I'm inside her again, grasping her wheel, revving her up. I say 'she' and 'her' because that's how it feels. My last car was certainly a bloke. We were mates and I miss him already; but this is definitely a girl: the feel, the perfume, the eyes. No, not the eyes... there were no eyes, just my tired brain. I need sleep. I'd once seen a deer - a real one like Santa employs - in the middle of the road, drinking from a lake, when I was very tired once; I drove straight through it and the image evaporated into moonlit splashes and shadows. That scared me too and I pulled in at the next services for a coffee and some star-jumps to get the blood pumping again. I don't need star-jumps today. My heart is doing fine by itself and I am wide awake now. Still, I promise myself a coffee and a sugar boost if I come across a garage - which is a little unlikely out here.

So where are we then? I'm slightly elevated at this spot, but everywhere around is virtually flat, green or golden, with low hedges around every field, and deep, wide drainage ditches beside every road... I see a distant steeple through the haze. Again a whiff of sweetness as I turn the air-con down... it's getting cold in here and I fancy I can see my breath. On a day like this I can see my breath? That makes me laugh. Where am I? God knows. Certainly not on the road I came on, the one I planned for. Sat nav! I suddenly feel like I'm piloting Thuderbird II. I recline my seat a little, accompanied by a mechanical whirr. This is great. I punch in my post-code, check and adjust - whirr - the door-mirror, pull back onto the road with a crunch of gravel and I'm away. Thunderbirds are go!

It's a woman's voice. I knew it! For some reason I christen her 'Rose'.

'At the next roundabout take the second exit.'

'What, you mean straight on, Rose?'

That's me. I can even argue with one of these. If it was a bloke directing I'd keep quiet, merely nod my head in silent gratitude, but her tone of voice had just a hint of 'I told you I was right' about it which winds me up. Still, I need her now, so I'm not going to upset her.

'OK. But where now?'

'Don't know... we've never come this way... come on, let's just drive!'

I think that's what she said. Again I hit the brakes and they squeal, I lose it for a second but straighten up and now I'm driving almost as if I'm on automatic, like a mannequin with only eyes and arms that move.

'Yeah, why not', I hear myself saying. Then I sing a song I've never heard:

'Life is an open road,

Fill her up and foot to the floor;

Life is a one way street,

There's no going back for more...'

... and find it's playing on the CD player. I have a distant feeling this is some kind of dealer's joke, a repayment for nicking the tax-disc, but it's only fleeting. I can see her now if I don't look directly at her. She's blonde,,just as I saw in the mirror; about seventeen... eighteen... not much more than a child. Her eyes are big and heavily made-up and she's wearing blue, but what exactly I can't tell.

'This is great... what a gorgeous beast she is... I love her already... music blasting, air con... heated leather seats... mmmm like the feel of that.'. She has a broad local accent and her voice is hoarse in a very sexy way.

'It's warm enough today, you don't need that switched on!', like I'm reading from a script.

She wriggles deeper into the black leather and giggles and I can see her legs are bare and her short dark-blue denim skirt has ridden up.

I must have slowed because a car zooms past me, something else I didn't see coming. My heart bangs once against my ribs, and I'm squeezing the wheel hard, breathing heavily, waking from a tiredness-induced black-out. Simultaneously the sounds around me slam into my ears, starting in reverse then turning inside out and I'm back in the present.

She moves her arm and I can see she's touching herself between her legs. Still here! She's still here in the car! I turn, horrified, but she doesn't vanish. Her bra-less breasts are barely covered by her light-blue vest top and her free hand sweeps up to tease the nipple that is rising through the material. She looks up at me, coyly, through her hair. I panic inside but it's not reflected in her eyes and she snuggles up to my shoulder.

'Let's go somewhere quiet. Come on... it's our day off'.

Again, I'm here, but I'm not. Present but absent. It is now, and I'm awake. But I'm somewhere else, sometime else. And she is here, she is real. I see her and she sees me too, though I'm sure she thinks I'm someone else.

I drive. It's all I can do. The roads are very quiet, with long straights and, at the speed I'm going now, sudden sharp bends. The car handles beautifully and I feel so confident, bordering on arrogant, indestructible.

The hand between her legs in moving rhythmically and her legs are rubbing against the leather. I watch her slowly take off her knickers - they are lacy, white and snag for a moment on her left heel. She dangles them over the gearstick, and massages the leather knob with them. Her hand returns between her legs and then my lips are opened by her fingers. They are warm and soft, fleshy and sticky and I taste her, I really taste her.

'I know what you want...', playing with the knickers on the gear knob again. And I know what I want.

Now her hand is on my leg and it crawls, it inches, like a tarantula onto my crotch, then rubs me through my jeans. I am frozen and still all I can do is drive.

'Give us a blow job.'

Did I say that?

'That's a bit rude! What do you say?'

'Give us a blow job, please. Let's christen her while I drive her.'

Yes, I said that, though not in my voice, and anyway, I barely know the girl. She giggles and squirms some more in her heated seat.

She is very dextrous. Her left hand comes away from her breast, reaches over and pulls my jeans undone. A motor whirrs again and my seat slides back a little, then my right hand returns to the wheel. Mmm, I did that.

'That's better', she whispers, 'You said it had good headroom...' and she laughs at her own joke, and I do too.

She yanks at the faded denim and methodically pops the buttons one by one. Then she reaches to the floor for her handbag, searches, takes out a very red lipstick and, as seductively as possible, smears it on her lips, requisitioning the rear-view mirror to do so. I catch a glimpse of her - identical to the one I had before - all eyes and hair. Then she pouts so I can see her lips in the reflection, retracts the lipstick, puts it away. I straighten the mirror up.

'Oi! I might need that!' I growl indignantly.

'Not as much as you need this...'

She gently pecks me on the cheek then undoes her seatbelt. Leaning over, she pushes her head under my left arm and kisses me through my pants. Goes straight there and kisses me, long and lovingly. Then she bites me hard. She bites me hard in both senses of the term, then she pulls the damp material aside, takes out my cock and licks the tip. Her tongue is so soft, the touch so light, that I can barely feel it. It stirs a deep, distant memory and I want to be inside her... again. I reach round with my left arm and stroke her bare left thigh, edging closer and closer to the naked wetness between her legs.

'You're gonna cum in my mouth, so keep your eyes on the road, hands on the wheel. And concentrate on where we're going. You'll be in my mouth, but I'll be in your hands.' Again the laugh. 'This is my treat... enjoy...'

Her tongue is still playing on me, pushing into the hole. I feel her left hand close around me and pull the foreskin back a little. Her movements are constricted by my clothing and I need to feel her pull it right back. This is so frustrating, but wonderfully exciting. I take my right hand off the wheel now and try to ease my jeans a little lower. As I raise myself up she helps me, and soon they are around my knees. Still I drive. Hedges blur past. The odd farm building appears in the distance, grows larger, more detailed, and then quickly joins the past in the rear view mirror.

I can hear her now, slurping and sucking. She spits on me and can feel her saliva running down my shaft and onto my balls. Then she rubs it in, hand moving quickly, almost frictionless; then licks it off and wanks me rhythmically and beautifully... so sweetly and lovingly. Now she takes me deep and bites the base of my cock, my full length is somehow down her throat. And she sucks... sucks really hard. Making a circle with her thumb and forefinger which she wraps around me just below where her teeth and lips are clamped on me, she pushes down as hard as she can.

'God... Rose...uh... I'm coming Rose, I'm coming... uh... uh...'

Her name is Rose.

She doesn't pull away, just keeps on sucking and pulling back as hard as she can, her breath coming in a series of little squeaks and gasps. I hold back till the very last moment. The waves of pleasure build. It's like riding ripples on a pond... but from the edge to the middle. The outer ones are small and spaced out, lapping gently against my stomach; slowly the height and depth increase and more of my body feels the pleasure; as we approach the epicentre the waves toss me higher and my head begins to fill, the frequency increases and the end is in sight. I hold on and on till I can suspend myself above the pond no longer, then plunge down into the depths, into the sweet, syrupy blackness. Again a submerged memory starts to surface, but like a mythical big fish it is gone with just a flash of silver.

I pump my cum into her mouth. She chokes on it and her head comes up quickly, too quickly, pushing my left arm - and the car - to the right. Simultaneously I feel the car hit another deep pothole and something gives, pulling it to the right and across road. Something is wrong. My foot hits the brakes instinctively but I'm on the verge at the wrong side of the road, still in control though only just. I hear a bang and the tearing of metal and I lose the ability to steer. The rear end slews round over the edge of the ditch, loses contact with the earth, and we start to spin and fall. The car turns over onto its roof and slams into the water. There are no sickening screeches or screams between the flip and the impact, just the 'Crash Symphony Overture' that in reflective moments I still hear: a series of dull thuds; a long rattle; a huge splash; a loud crack; a final thud - end of movement. Pause. Silence. Then as my mind focusses, goes into survival mode. I hear water lapping against the doors like applause, and a burgeoning trickle, like laughter, but all else is eerily quiet; a dense, padded, compact quietness. I'm hanging upside down. Rose's face is pushing down against the sunroof next to me, her bum against the door and legs across the windscreen. A deep gash splits her once beautiful face. The impossible angle of her neck tells me she is probably dead. Water is seeping in through the edge of the screen which has shattered and distorted slightly. Blood - is it mine, hers? is splashed across it. The interior is getting darker and colder, as if the sun is setting, but it is the car not the sun that is slowly sinking.

I scrabble to undo my seatbelt, desperately trying to orientate myself in this inverted world. The catch gives and my head hits the glass roof beside her face, smears the marbled blood and cum that oozes from her mouth. I free my legs and do a sort of sideways roll onto her. Then, because they are now restricting me around my knees, I feverishly pull my jeans up over my thighs. I try to push Rose aside so I can kick at the screen, but she is a dead weight. I wriggle so that I'm between the two front seats, use my almost useless arms and the headreasts for leverage, and try to kick the screen out. Now the water rises faster inside the upturned car and her hair is floating as the roof - our new floor - is submerged. I've lost a shoe but I kick against the screen with the other foot... harder... again with all my might, panic taking over me. I'm thinking that the thing I need to do to save me will probably kill me. The water comes in faster, the cold shocks me and I shiver uncontrollably. I'm shouting and swearing.

'Come on you bastard... fucking hell...Unghnn!', kicking with every syllable. I kick again with just a grunt. It moves outwards a little, starts to crumple. Escaping bubbles are replaced by cold, dirty water.

'Come on!'  I kick one more time, nearly spent. I'm crying. Water is pouring in now, like a tap on full. One more kick. It will go with just one more. But I haven't strength for another. I raise my foot but the pain starts to take over. No, it's useless. Useless. But it's OK. I'm OK here. It's quiet and calm... so calm. I give up. I look at this once beautiful young girl, now twisted, defaced and dead beside me, and sob for us both.

Her eyes snap open, one of them now just below the icy surface.

'Again. Try again!'

Her screams mobilise me but I'm crying and shaking. I gather myself for one more kick... at the second one the screen finally gives and floats noiselessly away. I take my last breath. The inpouring flow pins me down, and for an age I cannot move against it. I can move her now that the water bears her weight but her right arm is somehow wedged between the buckled door and her seat. The liquid ballast makes the car roll a little as it sinks; it pitches backwards, and through the gaping hole that was the screen I can see the sunlight on the surface. I force my feet through first,  push with exhausted arms, and I'm out... lungs burning I break the surface, gasping, and somehow get to the edge. A car has stopped, then another screeches to a halt. I call to them, breathlessly, to get the girl out. I'm delirious with cold, fear and exhaustion. Strong hands haul me a little way up the bank. Pain sears through my upper body. I hear a splash behind me, feel the waves hit me. Then there is blackness.

I come round suddenly and try to sit up in the stark sunshine, but I can barely move.

'Rose! Rose!'

'There was no-one else in there mate. You were on your own.'

'Poor bugger, he's lost it.'

'Everything's OK pal, ambulance is coming. Come on, settle back... let me cover you up, keep you warm, you're shaking...'

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That was six months ago. I was in hospital for quite a few days - smashed shoulder, wrist, ribs and ankle; oh, and cuts, bruises, concussion. I've been back a lot too, operations for this and that, physio. They said I had so many broken bones it was a wonder I'd got out, most people would just have given up. The car had no HPI certificate, had simply started to disintegrate when I hit that final pothole. Andy, the dealer, was sent down. He'd bought the Honda locally for the scrap value, but had done a bit of welding, then a lot of welding, adding bits from other vehicles; then sold it on illegally as second-hand. Andy made a good living from doing that - no wonder his cars were so cheap. Poor old girl -she'd had more work done than Anne Robinson; she was an oxy-acetylened illusion, a motorised sleight of hand, and her welds were her weakest links.

I found Rose's accident, like I found their car, on the internet. They'd crashed on that same stretch of road where I'd finally written her off. The report said that the young blonde had been 'performing a sexual act on her lover', a now disgraced local man who had been in business with her father. So she'd lost control, then he'd lost control... and had spun into the ditch. He'd miraculously escaped unharmed bar a few scratches, but she broke her neck and so couldn't move, and as the car slowly sank she drowned before he could get her out. But he tried. Many times, till he was exhausted. Though she couldn't move, she was conscious and he could hear her screaming:

'Again! Try again!'

She was called Rose and I have a pair of underpants with her kiss imprinted on them.

© Copyright 2008 Amalova Notarita

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