The small eatery glows under the blanket of night, its light and quiet bustle shining through tall windows and pouring out onto the asphalt below. Paradoxically, it looks like a dream and the only thing that could be real in the dark miasma of this dark night. You're reluctant to leave the warmth of your car but eventually open the door to let in the cold. Unbuckling your seatbelt you climb out of the car and shrug deeply into your jacket. On the walk up to the glass door, you let your legs stretch and crackle as they do.
You're here, yeah, but you're not here for the slimeball food or the riveting company of strung out truckers and elderly staff. You're here for Hannah. That little spitfire, that little bundle of sex and attitude. She makes your blood smoke and boil, the little tease. The little fuckdoll. You've never met face-to-face like this and you're nervous like a virgin in the Playboy Mansion.
It's not like you were complete strangers, no—the two of you were practically lovers. More than. You've shared everything and so much more. From your first 'I love yous' to the first sinful mewlings of 'Daddy' on a late night over the phone. You, tugging at your fat pecker like it owed you money, her, plumbing her slutty little snatch like her life depended on it. You've never met face to face but you already feel like you've known each other for years.
Life had other plans though. You and Hannah were put on different sides of the whole damn country. But the two of you? You weren't going to let that stop you.
Once inside, you slide in a booth and take a look around briefly at the few tired travelers that haunt the joint. Smells like Lysol, you think. Satisfied with your approximation of the diner, you pick up the menu and regard it momentarily without really reading it.
You're not really... paying attention. Just waiting for some bus to rumble up and screech out its stop and bring her to you. This had been a long time in planning, months even. Now that it's actually here—the big moment, the big damn payoff after a long day's work, the delirious nut after who knows how much edging. That final stop is gonna pull up right outside that window and bring her to you. Right where she belongs.
And so you stare off in that direction, just past those dirty glass panels with their sticky smears of grease and condensation and not a damn thing else. Nothing except that billowing sheet of darkness between over here and over there, an invisible, indefinable divide looking like some foreboding, impenetrable barrier.
A sigh sneaks up at you and pulls you out of your reverie, so you resolve to actually read the damn menu, hoping that there'll be something good to pick out when the waitress arrives. And after the endless single minute you spend reading the laminated and cartoon-infested sheet over you realize you're too impatient to eat so you settle on coffee.
The waitress shambles over eventually with a tired and wrinkled smile that leaves you wondering about the economic straits of society that keep this woman from being retired. She gives you the bitter brew that honestly tastes like it was bought at a gas station. But not a good gas station. One of those ones in a bad neighborhood with boarded up windows that steals your credit card number as you buy the can. And the can, you imagine, was sealed with duct tape and had the word "COF-E" written in sharpie on one side.
You sip slowly, looking your half-empty booth, then reflecting on your coffee further. You set it down to pull out your phone to bury your nose in it, the glow dizzying in the contrast of the old yellow light of the diner.
And there was nothing since her last message.
Hannah: "gonna sleep before i get there," she wrote with no capitalization or punctuation. She never used either, instead preferring to just fire off rapid-paced witty little blurts that curl your smirk when you read them.
Scrolling up you see some of your lascivious ongoing dialogue. A real monument to debauchery sprinkled with threats and promises of Dionysian delight colored deeply with your particular shared fetishes. Causes your spine to tingle a bit, honestly. Not in all of your years of living had you ever expected to meet somebody like Hannah.
You couldn't fucking wait. Except... you uh... y'know, had to.
Three cups of coffee and a bathroom run later, that prophesied and foretold of rumbling jars the glass case of muttering thoughts that was your brain. Suddenly, you could see the headlights of a bus. It nearly snuck up on you, you thought.
The door squeezes open and your heart leaps as you hope you'll see her appear from within. Your anticipation stretches the moments and heartbeats into decades almost.
Soon, a silhouette stands on the bus to negotiate the bus's aisle, luggage in tow. The shadowy figure then makes their way down and exchanges a word or two with the driver before—presumably, exiting. Only one, you thought as a sudden icy pit makes its presence known from your gut. 'What if it's not her?' you think in the nervous tone of a school kid you haven't been for almost thirty years.
The bus's door faces away from you, so rather than see her, you have to imagine her trundling out with her luggage, drop-dead gorgeous and everything you'd ever hoped for. Then abruptly, the bus startles itself to life like a big animal shifting from one to another side before it continues on, leaving its cargo in the faint glow of the diner's own illumination. She stands there, looking smaller than you realized, a young woman with a face red from travel, a wool cap with its fuzzy blob of nothing on top, a scarf, and a coat. She carries two large suitcases, both on rollers.
A surge of emotions stuns you. You can actually recognize her and the recognition's fixed you to your seat. She starts toward the diner, lifting the suitcases up the stairs before ascending herself in an almost practiced act—like she's had to do it a few times on this journey. All you can do is watch, frozen. For her sake, she climbs in. The waitress gives her a polite, 'Hello,' and her familiar voice highlighting the 'Hi' in response fills you with warmth.
After the brief exchange, she casts a quick glance around the restaurant then sees you. You consider waving, briefly, but instead you just keep your gaze fixed on her baby blues as she pulls her luggage to herself and rolls the cases down the aisle to your table. She's grinning. God is she grinning like you're the last damn slice of cake. You can feel your heart tremble and your cock go as stiff as a board.
You can already scent the smell of 'different' on her, the thirty-odd hours of travel on the bus having left its impression. The air from outside, which you were no longer accustomed to, the scent of some intimately foreign place you had no reckoning of mingled with it all as she pushed one of her cases into the booth.
You stand, quickly remembering yourself. "Need some help?" you offered. You were hoping that your first words would be different, but... it'd have to do.
Her grin was still so enthusiastic—made you think she must've been nervous. "Yeah, please. Thanks!" she added as you took the remaining case, securing it next to your own seat.
Soon the two of you settled, sat into your respective booths. You watch what must be a million different thoughts cross her mind as the gears turn.
"Hi," you say, smirking with all of your absolutely enormous sense of satisfaction.
Her response came slower, her eyes glancing low, then meeting yours again as some kind of resolve settled on her features. "... Hi, Daddy."
There it was.