Mara sits up. “What are you doing?”
“You’re going to drive us home.”
She sputters, holding up her hands. “I don’t even have a learner’s permit.”
“Oh, well in that case, we better not. I don’t want to break any laws.”
Mara snorts, but remains stubbornly seated on the passenger side.
“What if I scratch it? What if I run into a tree? This car probably costs a hundred grand!”
“A hundred and sixty, actually. It’s the performance model.”
Her face blanches, eyes widening.
“No fucking way!”
I reach across her to open the door, unbuckling her seatbelt and shoving her out.
“We’re not negotiating. You need to learn to drive.”
“What if I crash it?”
“Then I’ll buy another one. It’s a hunk of metal, I really don’t give a shit.”
I’m climbing out myself, trading positions with her. We cross paths in front of the headlights, Mara warily eyeing the car as if it’s an animal, crouched and ready to swallow her whole.
“Doesn’t it drive itself?” she asks, slipping behind the wheel.
“You’re gonna do it. Now sit down and buckle up.”
Once we’re both seated, I walk her through the controls, showing her the paddle shifters, the turn signal, the accelerator, and the brake.
Understanding that I’m not going to drop it, there’s no getting out of it, Mara pays attention. She remembers everything I tell her, and asks questions when she doesn’t understand.
“The regenerative brakes will kick in automatically once you lift your foot off the accelerator,” I tell her. “So you won’t even need the brake pedal most of the time.”
“Alright,” Mara sighs. “Let’s get this over with.”
She puts the car in drive, then slowly presses down on the accelerator. The Tesla leaps forward. Mara shrieks, slamming on the brake. We’re both thrown against our seatbelts, faces inches from the dash.
Keeping my voice low and calm so I don’t stress her out worse than she already is, I say, “Take it easy. Light on the accelerator and ease off if you want to stop or slow down.”
“I barely touched it! This thing’s a fucking rocket-powered go-kart.”
“Yeah,” I laugh, “that’s why it’s fun. Now try it again.”
This time, she presses her foot down gingerly. The car surges forward, still jerky at first, but smoothing out as Mara gets the feel of it.
“You don’t need to hug the line like that,” I tell her. “Stay in the middle of your lane.”
“I’m scared I’m gonna hit something on your side.”
“You won’t.”
I tell her where to go, pointing out stop signs she might miss, reminding her to use her turn signal. Mara’s awkward and jumpy to begin with, but she’s getting the hang of it.
I enjoy telling her what to do, correcting her, encouraging her. She has to obey me or risk running someone over.
When I think she can handle it, I turn on the music.
6 Underground – Sneaker Pimps
Spotify → geni.us/no-devil-spotify
Apple Music → geni.us/no-devil-apple
As soon as the first notes fill the car, Mara visibly relaxes. Her shoulders lower, and her turns smooth out.
“There you go,” I growl. “Now you’re getting it.”
Mara shivers with pleasure.
She loves to be praised—she can’t get enough of it. She’d probably take a compliment over a body-shaking orgasm.
I return my hand to her thigh, massaging gently.
“Turn left here. We’ll go down to Skyline Boulevard, and then up along the beach. It’s a prettier drive.”
We pass through Lake Merced Park, water on both sides, the zoo up ahead.
Mara is no longer driving ten under the speed limit, drawing honks and forcing annoyed commuters to speed around us. Now she’s cruising along, sitting up straighter, loosening her death-grip on the wheel. Watching the birds soar low over the lake, and the golfers shank their shots into the hazards. Actually smiling.
“This feels good,” she says. “It’s almost fun.”
She’s doing great until it’s time to exit onto Point Lobos Avenue, and a teenager in a Jeep tries to switch lanes right on top of her. Mara jerks the wheel hard to the right, way overcompensating, almost sending us spinning into the median.
I grab the wheel, wrenching it back to center again.
Mara is shaking so hard her teeth are chattering.
“Help me pull over,” she cries. “I don’t want to drive anymore.”
“No,” I refuse. “You’re doing great and we’re almost home.”
She’s pale and sweating, frightened to an irrational degree.
She knows I see it.
“My mother’s had four DUIs,” she says. “I was in the car for three of them.”
Hot, roiling anger surges up inside of me. I’m really starting to despise this woman I’ve never met.
“She’d pick me up and at first I wouldn’t know—it was hard to tell with her, because she was always some level of buzzed. But she’d start driving faster and faster, missing turns, swerving across lanes. And I’d realize she was not at a normal level, she was fucking blitzed. By then it would be too late, I’d be trapped in the passenger seat. All I could do was make sure my seatbelt was clicked, clinging to the little plastic handle inside the door, hoping to god she’d take us home and not drive around for hours like she sometimes did when she was pissed at Randall, or when she just fucking felt like it.”
Mara grips the wheel tight in both hands, staring at the street in front of her, but probably seeing a different road, one where the painted lines swoop back and forth under the tires of a weaving car piloted by no one.
“Anyway,” she says quietly. “Cars scare me.”
“Everyone should be more careful when they’re in a three-thousand-pound death-machine,” I tell her.
Mara glances at me quickly, her lashes going up and down like the flick of a butterfly’s wing.
“You’re very … understanding,” she says.
“It’s not difficult to understand you. Of course you’re scared of driving if your mother used to careen around like the fucking teacups ride. People drive their cars with one hand, scrolling on their phones like nothing can happen to them. Meanwhile, they’re terrified of some statistically improbable event like a shark attack on their vacation to Hawaii. The real dangers are all around you all the time.”
“Maybe even in the car with you right now,” Mara says, throwing me another quick look, this time with a hint of mischief in it.
“Are you talking about me or about yourself?” I ask her. “You’ve gotten me in more trouble than I’ve caused for you.”
“You think I’m a threat to you?” Mara says, her fingertips lightly caressing the wheel as she turns, already knowing the way to my house.
“You threaten everything I thought I knew, and everything I believed.”
We’ve left all the other cars behind us, alone on the long, winding drive up to Seacliff. She’s speeding up, taking the curves with confidence. She looks sexy behind the wheel of my car, wearing the suede moto jacket I bought for her. Her skin and hair glows with health. Even her nails look less ragged—she hasn’t been biting them as much.