Adult-FanFiction.org : Cartoons

Freeriding	By : DodgeSuperBee Category: +1 through F > Cars Views: 1717 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Cars, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
- 10
December 1979
Rachel leaned against Tommy Joe, the glow of his black-and-white television bathing them in a grayish light as they nestled close together on the couch. While watching the first few hundred laps of the race, they’d emptied quite a few ethanol cans, and when those ran out they’d switched to passing a large bottle back and forth. She knew she would have done herself a favor by calling it quits a hundred laps ago, but now she felt warm and relaxed, watching her boyfriend about to make his first qualifying win. Looking around the room with its modern furniture and classy decorations that were Chrissi’s touch, she was again grateful that Curtis’s racing buddy had invited her over. It would have been unbearably lonely viewing the crucial race from the solitude of her own living room.
She bit her lower lip as Curtis swung around the turn for the last stretch, and her anticipation only grew as the gap between him and the other racers increased.
“He’s amazing,” admitted Tommy Joe, appreciation for his friend evident in his voice. “When do ya think he’s going to ask ya’ll to marry him?”
“Who knows,” laughed Rachel as Curtis sailed over the finish line. She and Tommy Joe leapt up unsteadily, cheering wildly and caught up in exhilaration. When she sank back onto the couch, she impulsively gave the racecar a hug and landed a kiss on his fender.
“He’s going to be so caught up in this win that he might forget altogether about proposing,” she said. “This qualified him for the pros like he always wanted.” Rachel reached across Tommy Joe for the bottle, but in her current state she slipped and the next thing she knew, she was tight against his frame. Unconcerned, she nuzzled him, continuing, “he’s worked years for this. We both wanted it, but now he’s going to be away even longer unless I travel with him.” In her state of inebriation, she barely realized that her tires and his were moving to places where they shouldn’t. The pain of Curtis’s absence was so acute she could take it no longer.
This ain’t right, Tommy Joe’s besotted mind registered, even as he moved over her on the couch. I just can’t stop myself though, and it’s plain to see she’s so lonely with him gone. What can one time together possibly hurt?
…Plenty, he told himself the next morning, nursing a hangover and watching glumly as she left after mumbling a quick apology, her eyes reddened with guilty tears.
* * *
Summer 2006
Chrissi lay on her side, not her usual sleeping position but one she’d adjusted to so she could rest with her back against Curtis’s underbelly. He was among the small population of vehicles that preferred sleeping off their wheels and she was trying her best to accommodate him. The pickup’s tires occasionally scrabbled against her as he stirred and his deep snores vibrated on her canvas roof, but tonight she was finding sleep elusive. Wriggling free, she crossed his spartan sleeping quarters and watched from the window as tiny lights traversed the Interstate far off in the distance. Somewhere, one of the steady beams dotting the landscape was the porch light of her own house. Tommy Joe liked to leave it on at night, and she realized that she was unable to push thoughts of him from her mind.
Studying Curtis behind her, she swallowed hard. He did not love her, that much was now certain. She had hoped, maybe even assumed, that he would respond in kind when she told him she’d fallen for him, but there was something about him that she couldn’t quite pin down, something that had always distracted the pickup from giving her everything she needed from him.
As their nights together had turned into weeks, she’d found he was fascinated by her, which was no surprise, but the attraction ended with the physical pull that had brought their frames together so many times. Once he’d had enough, he typically withdrew and was never up for talking or cuddling afterward, though he often clung to her at night as he did now.
Returning to his side, Chrissi settled down, trying to ignore the hollow feeling that had crept over her. I’ve made my bed and now I must lie in it unless I’m really prepared to move on, she reminded herself. She’d gambled and lost, and only now did she realize that she’d had love with Tommy Joe, while everything else had been a mere fling. Although he was just as entranced by her as Curtis, her longtime lover had a stubborn sense of pride and would be unlikely to take her back without some fervent begging. She wasn’t sure she could force herself to stoop low enough to not only admit to him she’d made a mistake in leaving him, but implore him to accept her again. And that was provided he hadn’t found someone new… She was unworried that he would find Doreen terribly appealing, but there were always more attractive girls following him around and while she figured he’d already kept himself busy with several of them, she now worried he just might find one of them enticing enough to become her replacement.
* * *
“Mater,” warned Doreen, feeling his caress as he settled beside her, “it ain’t even close to bein’ the best time to try.” Her husband looked at her quizzically.
“What, I kin’t love ya fer pure enjoyment?” he asked, sounding hurt and unwittingly using the words Chrissi had used in her attempt to seduce him. Doreen blinked, starting to feel bad and knowing they were long overdue for a talk. She wheeled out of the tent they’d set up outside the empty grounds of the Rustbucket Arena and drove very slowly along the battered fence that encircled the stadium. Mater followed patiently, gazing down at the track he’d be racing over tomorrow.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered, “I didn’t want ya to get yer hopes up fer nothin’.” The El Camino looked at the ground and kicked up some dust with her tire, knowing her pitiful excuse hadn’t described how she really felt. “Gaw…I’m screwin’ everythin’ up between us, ain’t I? It’s just that…well, I always thought that we were gonna live happily ever after, soon as I found my way back to ya after bein’ gone fer so long. An’ while I couldn’t be more thankful bein’ by yer side agin’, just lookit us. I kin’t give ya any babies, I slept with yer cousin outta desperation an’ our closest friends are broken up with one of ‘em in grave danger.” She slumped on her tires, looking defeated. “But most of all, I’m still feelin’ like I betrayed ya when I was with Tommy Joe.”
“Yeah, I knowed that was upsettin’ ya more than anythin’ else, so I talked to him about it.” Mater caught a look of alarm on Doreen’s face.
“He told ya everythin’?”
“Naw,” said Mater mischievously, “he spared me the details but he said he sent ya over the edge an’ ya felt bad ‘bout it, an’ then…” his eyes flashed as they roved over her frame, “he told me how to make things real good between us, and he said above all, we both gotta relax. It’s only been a year since we got back together, so we’re still practically newlyweds, an’ we done spent the whole year tryin’ fer babies but not connectin’ as much as we coulda.”
Doreen’s face was positively burning as he continued. Mater had evidently received some pretty explicit advice from his cousin. “So forget ‘bout those other problems and ‘bout conceivin’, just fer tonight. I think it done happened already, anyway. Maybe we was both so uptight ‘bout whether it was the right time for it that we forgot it’s s’posed to be fun, too. Now, I got a whole lotta things I wanna try tonight, if yer willin’.” They had returned to their tent and he was slowly backing her inside.
“Ya bet I am,” Doreen began, relieved that what had seemed like a terrible secret was now out in the open and yet he still wanted her. Then she fixed him with a seductive grin, for she had a few long-dormant ideas of her own. Moving to his side, she silently challenged him and didn’t take her eyes off his until she had bumped her way roughly under his frame.
“What the—I outweigh ya by at least a quarter-ton an’ ya just lifted my tires clean off the ground…” Mater inhaled sharply, surprised at her strength and the new kind of contact she had just initiated while he’d been distracted. Damn, she’s determined…
“I tried to do this to ya not so long ago, an’ ya just nudged me away, sayin, ‘That won’t git ya pregnant,’” she said with amusement from underneath him. He laughed at her imitation of his deep voice.
“Yeah, dunno what I was thinkin’, but I guess I got caught up too. There won’t be any nudgin’ ya away tonight,” he promised, for once all thought of conception far from his mind.
* * *
Chrissi returned to Curtis’s side and settled down against him, purposely brushing against him in a gentle attempt to awaken him. Her efforts were met with success, and he stirred, pulling her roof tighter against his frame. Moments later, he fully awoke and nuzzled her onto her wheels, hungry for some comforting attention. In one sweeping movement, he rolled onto his roof and pulled her with him so their bellies were tight against each other.
“Ready to work off the pre-race jitters?” she purred softly near his grille. Just give me some sign afterwards that you care…
“I’m always ready for you,” he said, smiling for her sake but suddenly finding himself wishing that he could fully concentrate on being with his lover instead of on the containers of tainted fuel additive sitting in his locker at the racetrack a few miles away. She had no clue as to his plans, but ever since he’d bought the mild poison, it had been weighing heavily on his conscience. Slashing a passing opponent’s tire in a moment of fury had been one thing, but planning ahead to disable an opponent during a race was quite another.
That stuff’s far from lethal and I sure don’t want to kill Tommy Joe, just humiliate him in front of everyone the same way he let me down, Curtis rationalized as he and Chrissi kissed intently. His thoughts strayed to the memory of deflecting questions from his former racing team when they had called to ask about his son’s upcoming birth. When he’d refused to answer, even after months had passed, they had probably assumed he and Rachel hadn’t been able to make things work between them, even after their first child had been born. After an abysmal attempt at a comeback and the realization that his mind just wasn’t on racing anymore, they’d stopped asking, as well as calling altogether, and he’d faded into the relative obscurity of the local mud drag circuit.
Curtis had never seen the boy, for Rachel had moved from Carburetor County after leaving the home they’d shared together. She’d been too mortified, or perhaps fearful for their safety, to give him any hint as to where she’d moved. As much as he tried to banish thoughts of them both from his mind, Curtis often thought of the life he imagined they were living far from his world and he wondered if Rachel’s son had ever questioned his mother about the man he would have called his father. There was no doubt Tommy Joe would have had little influence in raising him, if he even knew he’d fathered the car. As he had done many times before, Curtis found himself wondering if he’d truly made the right decision when he’d stood by idly as Rachel had left.
That’s in the past anyway, and I have Chrissi – his girl – now, so what does it matter? he asked himself, trying to keep his thoughts from straying.
“I’ll bet you hardly miss Tommy Joe on nights like this,” he said as he held the Jaguar behind her front tires. Even in the midst of her quickened breathing, she stiffened her frame, pulling higher on her wheels and away from him.
“Curtis,” she began anxiously, “I don’t want to think about him right now.” The insistence in her voice was enough to freeze her lover, and after several uncomfortable seconds passed, she drew him back to herself.
* * *
“Doreen…” Mater gasped, repositioning his tires. Her response was to withdraw from beneath him, a look of concern on her face.
“What, am I doin’ somethin’ wrong?”
“Naw, I was just tryin’ to tell ya yer doin’ everythin’ right,” he assured her, giving her a sudden swat across the tailgate with his tow cable. “Quit worryin’ so much an’, uh, don’t quit now…” More than a little shocked but not offended, she flashed him a grin and returned to what she had been doing.
* * *
As their frames rocked together, Chrissi willingly lost herself in the moment, letting Curtis take her where he wanted. After she sprawled, trembling, on his frame, he caressed the ridge of her headlight gently with a tire, something he’d never taken the time to do before. After the unexpected gesture, he slowly rolled away as usual, withdrawing into seclusion for the rest of the night. Taking one last look at the beautiful car he’d won over, the pickup closed his eyes and drifted back to a troubled sleep. Chrissi’s sudden, choking sob startled him to alertness.
“Wha—what’s wrong?” he asked, eyeing her at the window.
“You can’t bring yourself to love me,” she whimpered, shocking herself at her sudden rush of emotion. Why was she, who had broken so many hearts over the last few decades, who had always been more than happy to leave one partner for someone better, now crying like a young woman who had lost her first lover?
Equally surprised, Curtis couldn’t find words to comfort her. He helplessly watched as the most desirable female car in the county stood at his window, her heart broken.
Rachel parked right in that spot before she told me about our son…
Chrissi turned to him, as if reading his thoughts. “You never stopped loving her, did you?” she asked quietly. She took a deep breath and her eyes glistened. Then, though she was the one practically bawling and he was somewhere far away in his own world of hurt, she put out a tire and caressed his fender in what she hoped was a reassuring way.
“I know what happened. Rachel was my friend, too, a fellow racer’s wife, and she told me about getting pregnant by Tommy Joe. I remember that day very clearly. She was crying when she told me and said she understood it’d be the end of our friendship. Maybe the type of relationship Tommy and I had made it easier for me not to hold a grudge, because I was able to tell her things would be okay.”
Trying to read any emotion in Curtis’s eyes, she continued, “I figured she told you the day she left town, and when you broke off contact with Tommy Joe that all but confirmed it. I felt bad for you, really, but I never knew what to say and I thought I’d only make things worse. After all, I’d given him permission to sleep around. When you sent him to the hospital I hated you, but over time I realized the hell you must have been going through and the sympathy developed into something more.”
“So the night I, um, seduced you in the locker room, you might have been feeling a little abandoned by Tommy Joe?” Curtis asked. And I only forced Mater to see what we were doing to prove to someone else I’m still virile.
“That’s exactly it,” sighed Chrissi. “And though you’ve told me you’re committed to me, there’s no love here, is there?”
Curtis stroked her fender. “No,” he said, sadly but honestly. “I’m…sorry. I’m not a liar, though, I did commit and there hasn’t been anyone else since we got together. But love’s another thing, and though I tried to recreate what I had with Rachel with all the women I’ve been with since, there was never anything there. Each time I’d wait for the feelings to come and they never did.”
“I wish I’d never led you to leave Tommy Joe and everything you ever had.” No longer the confident, swaggering truck who had bragged to his friends about having bedded the Jaguar, Curtis found himself cautiously pulling Chrissi down to the sleeping mat. She allowed him to hold her, hoping sleep would overtake them both.
“I’ll make things right, one way or another,” Curtis suddenly declared. “Tommy Joe might not want to listen to me, but he’s going to take you back, one way or another. I had no right to break you two up and I’m going to fix what I broke.”
“That’d be nice,” sighed Chrissi, feeling secure and protected even if she’d given up on turning Curtis into her lover. “I miss him terribly.” She thought for a time before speaking again, so long that she feared Curtis may have fallen asleep.
“One good turn deserves another,” she said in a half-whisper. “I know someone who’d love to meet you.” He didn’t answer.
- 8
- 9
- 10
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Freeriding