Sapphic Voices Erotica

Montana

This Story is rated 'Adults Only' for its sexual content.

For the record, Ellen Berger had never intended to stop in Montana. The plan had originally been for her and Gretch to get an early start on the morning of December 22nd, the day after last class for both of them, fill up on some unleaded and hit the road by dawn. They’d take turns driving down US 93, hop onto 90, skip through Wyoming and land in Rapid City for a few hours’ shut-eye. Then after loading up on coffee and chocolate in their system they could make it to Chi-town by Christmas Eve.

But right before finals they had gotten into a wicked fight which ended in Gretch leaving a voicemail from the airport terminal. “…I got my parents to catch a ticket for me. I know, I know, I’m being such a bitch doing this. But like I told you, I just can’t drive all the way there in your car. I mean, could we be anymore obvious?”

Ellen, who was listening to her cell while walking out of the gas station with a fresh cup of coffee in hand, glanced at the used Subaru patiently waiting for her at the pumps. Even from here she could make out all the bumper stickers - The Indigo Girls touching a MARRIAGE EQUALITY NOW! which rode just riding just above NATIVE AMERICANS, THE ORIGINAL PILGRIMS rectangle that was just rubbing noses with VEGETARIANS TASTE BETTER which in turn was bedding down with DYKE – JUST DO IT! pink triangle.

“I know you don’t think so but trust me, you can be too much out,” Gretch’s voice said in her ear. “Just be careful and give me a call when you get into town, okay?”

Six hours and hundreds of miles later Ellen crossed the border into God’s Country. A heavy blanket of twilight had already been draped across the Montana landscape, the first guiding stars winking to life overhead. Despite the hot cup of joe between her legs a jaw cracking yawn slipped out of Ellen’s mouth. Gloved fingers stabbed the radio in search of company but all she could find were twangy slide guitars and God-fearin’ rants.

“Shit,” Ellen said to the universe. She tried opening the window but whether from age, the cold outside, or just plain obstinacy the glass refused to budge. Eyelids drooped, weighed down with exhaustion. There was no way she was going to make Rapid City, let alone the state line. If she kept pushing on in this condition she was going to end up on top of a guardrail or wrapped around a telephone pole.

Rubbing her eyes, she fished a map out of the glove compartment and shook it out across the steering wheel. Lines squiggled about the page. Oh, great. She looked up at the endless road and decided, fuck it, one exit was just as good as another when you had no idea where you were.

On went the blinker.

The sign standing sentinel at the end of the ramp pointed off to the right for FOOD, GAS, or LODGINGS. Some wit had spray painted “Salvation” underneath the rest of the words.

“God help me,” Ellen earnestly prayed, and made the turn.

Headlights cut through the cold gloom. Out her window she saw the dark silhouette of The Bitterroot Mountains, dressed in fresh snow. Imagine having that for your backyard, she thought. Would it inspire me every morning when I woke up or would I simply go pee without thinking twice? She thought of her cousins who had lived all their lives in Brooklyn and had yet to visit the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty. Like Ani sings, it’s funny how you never think about the water when you’re swimming in the fishbowl.

Up ahead red neon beckoned like a campfire. Ellen squinted, making out the Vacancy sign and row of rooms strung out along the side of the road. Just beyond the last unit squatted a small, homey-looking building that just had to be the local diner.

“Sold,” Ellen said, putting pressure down on the brake.

The main office was open, the front counter manned by an iron-haired woman who introduced herself simply as May. “That’s fifty a night, cash or credit,” she explained while Ellen filled out a registry card. “No smoking or drinking in the rooms, no loud music after eight no matter who you got on the radio, no excessive cussing, and no overnight guests.”

“Well, good, ‘cause I gave those up for Lent,” Ellen said.

May made a noise in the back of her throat that probably meant something like That doesn’t pass for funny in this town, missy, took her money and handed over a key on a cow-shaped fob.

The room was on the low side of expectations – a single bed, a TV chained to a stand off in the corner, a dog-eared Gideon tucked away in the drawer. It’s not like I’m moving in, Ellen reminded herself. All she needed was a few hours on a pillow.

And food, her growling stomach reminded her. For the last hundred miles she had ingested nothing but stale potato chips, some candy bars and half a soda her roommate had left in the car the other night.

Ellen pulled back the curtain and eyed the distant diner. “Man, do I really want to do this?”

Her stomach assured her that she did - why were they still here talking?

Without a ready answer, she zippered up her hoodie, threw back on her denim jacket, pulled the White Sox cap down further on her head, and headed out into the frozen night. Sneakers crunched across the parking lot. Ellen tried to ignore the hard-packed chill coming off the ground and turned her collar up against the steady wind.

Save for the pair of muddied pick-ups and a single truck the parking lot was deserted. Neon buzzed from the windows: OPEN RANGE. Ha ha, she thought, jogging up the front steps. The hand carved sign over the door promised that “All welcomed here.”

Elvis was waiting for her on the other side of the door, asking for a little less conversation, if you please. Off to the right sat a couple of empty booths; to the left, a coat-rack and some more empty tables. A pair of truckers occupied the far end of the counter, their asses slopping over the sides of the stools like a slow motion lava flow.

A young woman in a pink apron waved a laminated menu before her. “Hiya! My name’s Lizzie and I’ll be your waitress tonight. Here for dinner? Stupid question, huh? Like, why else would you be here for in the middle of the night? Not that it’s midnight or anything, but gosh, tell me this shift ain’t just crawling, huh? I got the table off in the corner of you like.”

“That would be great, thanks,” Ellen said.

Lizzie led the way to a back corner booth. Ellen declined the menu. She just wanted a bowl of soup, burger and fries. “Can we make that cheese fries?”

“Sure can!” Lizzie sang. “You want American or Swiss or…?”

“American, please.”

“I love it when a customer knows what she wants,” Lizzie declared. She hurried away to fill the order.

Ellen peeled off her mittens, shrugged off her denim and surveyed the lay of the land. From the wall stared Gene Autrey and Annie Oakley, John Wayne and Ronald Reagan. Their smiles seemed strained, their gazes lingering just a tad too long. Even Trigger eyeballed her with suspicion. She flipped through the table-top jukebox and found only country chart toppers or twangy classics. A rock-and-roll girl born of hair band parents, she knew little of the genre – Shania, Martina McBride, a little Johnny Cash (Gretch had turned her onto ‘Hurt’ and ‘Ring of Fire’ back in freshmen year.). All they had on here was ‘Folsom Prison Blues’. Fishing out a couple of quarters from her pocket she settled on some Dixie Chicks, ‘Wide Open Spaces’.

Lizzie brought over her plates just as the song ended. “Here ya go! Cook was fast tonight, wasn’t he? Usually he’s as slow as a dead turtle.” She lingered off the corner of the table. “I, I couldn’t help but notice your jacket.”

Ellen, busy drowning her French fries in ketchup, glanced up and thought, shit. She had totally forgotten about all the buttons hanging off her pockets - LICK BUSH and MY KARMA RAN OVER YOUR DOGMA and THREE FINGERS, PLEASE. “Am I going to catch shit for this?” she asked in a low, careful voice.
“Oh no, no! People around here don’t care,” Lizzie said.

Ellen doubted that – the Duke’s one-dimensional stare from the wall seemed to warn that didn’t put up with that kind of nonsense around here – but let it slide. She wasn’t buying property in this zip code, right? Just eating a burger and passing through.

A thin scream of air brakes interrupted the conversation. Everyone in the diner looked outside to see a trio of massive buses pulling up to the motel. Even the cook popped his head out of the kitchen.

Lizzie shuffled across the bench across from Ellen, pressing her face against the glass. Her breath suddenly tripped over itself “Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod! Do you know who that is, do you know?”

Ellen picked at her cole slaw. “No…”

“That’s Jayne Cartwright!”

Ellen shrugged: Uh, nothing coming.

Lizzie’s eyes bulged. “She’s only like the biggest country star in the whole wide world right now. They play her all over the radio, hel-lo! She just put out a brand new album, she sells out concerts everywhere she goes, she’s on all the award shows. Don’t you eve watch the TV? She’s got like, three songs on the radio right now, they play them all the time!”

“Oh,” Ellen said, spooning out some steamy goodness from her bowl. “Ok.”

Lizzie rolled her eyes high enough to scrape the ceiling and returned to the frosted glass. With a hydraulic hiss the bus doors opened, freeing the huddled inhabitants. They mulled around outside for a bit, finishing off the errant smoke, and then one by one filed into the office, filing one by one into the motel’s lobby. The buses revved their engines, sounding like dinosaurs talking to each other. After a minute or so of discussion they rumbled back onto the road.

The third, however, rolled up to the diner’s front door.

Lizzie swooned a little – well, a lot – and made a noise that sounded something like a mouse orgasming. Munching on her burger, Ellen leaned over to get a better view. She could clearly make out the name “Jayne Cartwright” written in giant gilded script across the side of the bus. Below the signature was a mural of horses galloping across a windswept plateau. According to the legend the name of Jayne Cartwright’s new album and current tour was “Wild Mustangs (Running Wild)”.
Of course it is, Ellen thought, returning to her fries.

The vehicle’s door shushed open and out poured a tightly knitted group, all huddled together against the sparkling chill of the night.

“Ohmigodohmigodohmigod…” Lizzie jumped up so fast she bounced off a couple of stools and nearly took down the coat rack. Trailing squeaks, she hit the swinging doors headlong and disappeared into the kitchen.

A second later the bell over chimed, announcing guests. Dusty boots gathered inside the doorway, stomping the cold away. Before the old man behind the register could offer up a howdy Lizzie popped back out of the kitchen. In the interim she had not only touched up her hair and make-up but managed to open a couple of buttons at the top of her shirt. Snatching up a handful of menus she greeted the posse with a polished smile and motioned them to follow her to the far end of the diner - away from everyone else.

The kitchen doors swung open again and another waitress, an older woman with crow-footed eyes and a sway of braided silver hair, emerged. She snagged a fresh pot of coffee on her way over to Ellen’s table. “Hi. My name’s Jolene. Apparently I’m your waitress now. Freshen up that cup for you?”

Ellen, who felt bad for the woman, nodded.

The very last of the group entered on the heels of a pair of burnished cowboy boots. Pink fingernails turned down the collar of the black leather duster, freeing a cascade of loose dirty blond curls. Shockingly blue eyes looked out from beneath the brim of the black studded cowboy hat to survey the rest of the diner. They alighted upon Ellen, who tingled from the touch, and then the owner sauntered away to join the rest at the entourage at the opposite end of the diner.

“How’s the food?”

For a moment Ellen had forgotten there was even a human standing next to her. Her mouth full of cooked steer, she gave a thumbs up.

“I’ll let the cook know,” Jolene said in studied monotone. “He’ll be ecstatic.”

She withdrew, leaving Ellen to contemplate the greasiness of her fries and coffee, not to mention the way her nipples stirred in their cups. A sharpened voice inside her head poked her in the eyes and reminded her she was no country fan, that she actively hating the underlying homophobia of the genre and the fans’ slavish (if not brain-dead) espousal of said politics even more. Oversized Stetsons and belt buckles did nothing for her, muddied 4X4’s made her want to break out a sponge and hose and she saw rodeos as nothing more than the cruelest form of animal abuse…

So why then was her pubic hairs stirring? “Fuck,” she whispered.

“Okay,” Jayne Cartwright said, slipping into the seat across from her. “Mind if I join you?”

Ellen gave a heart skipping start. Yes! she thought. Then, No! Then: Please!

The singer smiled as though amused by all the mental commotion she knew her presence was causing. She reached over and plucked some fries off the plate. “I love ‘em with cheese and ketchup, too. So where you all from?”

Ellen squirmed on her seat. “What makes you think I’m not from here?”

Jayne Cartwright leaned over with a easy smile leading the way. “I don’t know. Your aura…?Wait, why are laughing?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was just wondering how you’d rhyme ‘aura’ in a country song?”

Jayne laughed. “Good question, there. Tell you what, let me sleep on that and get back to you.”

Ellen blushed. Even all the way out here she recognized a pick-up line when she heard one.

Then her eyes leapt over the singer’s shoulder to the opposite end of the diner where Lizzie was fuming over her order pad.

“Is anyone looking?” Jayne Cartwright suddenly whispered.

“Nah,” Ellen lied, “but I’d definitely check your sandwich before eating it.”

Her eyes returned to the woman facing her. Up this close she could make out Jane’s delicate crow’s feet, the faint laugh lines around the mouth that bled through the carefully applied foundation. Ellen wondered if anyone ever told Miss Jayne Cartwright what a turn-on her road-worn look was. After hanging out with all the polished lipstick lesbians it was a refreshing change, like leaving the concrete canyons of the city to come across a lone desert rose on the side of the road.

The woman plucked away another fry. “God, I so miss these! My trainer’s got me on this protein and fruit diet for the entire tour. I swear, he’s determined to kill me with soy.”

“I’ve seen it happen,” Ellen said. “It’s not pretty.”

“And we’re all about being pretty, aren’t we,” Jayne Cartwright lamented. Then she laughed, although it struck Ellen as the saddest sound she’d ever heard. “Anyways, I’d bet all my ponies you’re the used Subaru back at the motel, right? I like matching people up with their horses.”

“Too easy,” Ellen declared.

Jayne nodded. “Fair enough. Maybe the real question is, if it means you all are staying for the night.”

Ellen’s belly fluttered with a hundred thousand butterflies taking wing. “Number 14,” she heard herself say.

“Cool,” Jayne Cartwright said, stealing one last fry before finding her feet. “By the way, if anyone asks…”

“…I’m your biggest fan and just had to have your autograph,” Ellen finished the sentence. “You know, no one is going to believe that.”
Jayne replied with a wink.

Ellen sat back to find a sour-faced Jolene standing there, the corners of her mouth touching the floor. Not bothering to ask if she wanted any desert, the waitress wrote out the bill and slapped the chit beside the half-empty soup bowl.

Ellen debated foregoing the tip but asked herself how reacting would make her any better than them and kicked in an extra dollar.

A stiff wind was tumbling off the dark mountains to keep her company as she walked back to the motel. Once inside Ellen kicked off her sneaks and dumped the hoodie off in the corner chair. A second later she added her jeans to the pile and clomped off to the bathroom. She took a long overdue pee, wondering if the last half hour had actually happened or if she was suffering from road delusions…

A knock on the door answered her question.

Ellen flushed, washed her hands and hurried over to the peephole. Outside blond hair swirled, the night sky filled with twinkling blue stars.

She opened the door. “Hi. Or do I say howdy around here?”

A telltale smile formed under the brim of the hat. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure!”

The singer spared one last cautious look over her shoulder before stepping inside. She looked about, summing up the room in a single snort. “Man, when you’ve seen one you really have seen them all.”


“Sounds like you’ve spent a night in a few,” Ellen remarked. Don’t stare, don’t stare, don’t stare…

But god, it was oh so hard not to. Even with the benefit of a Stetson, Jayne Cartwright stood just over six commanding feet, her shoulders looking like they could hold up the world.

She ran fingers through her tangled mane. “I just found out from my manager that one of the buses has some bad engine trouble so looks like we’re all staying the night here, too.”

“Really?”

“Actually, it was my idea,” said Jayne Cartwright.

Her eyes traveled up Ellen’s naked legs. “I am so surprised.”

“Ha, I kinda doubt that. So, do you always answer the door in your panties?”

“Depends on who’s knocking.”

“Was I interrupting?”

“No, I was just undressing….” She laughed. “God, is it me or are we starting to sound like some bad porno. Not that I would know what bad porno sounds like.”

Jayne Cartwright tentatively raised a hand. “Guilty, your honor.”

“Oh my god, you’ve done bad porno?”

“God, no!” the singer quickly said. “I meant, I’ve watched it.”

Ellen frowned. “Too bad. I was hoping you’d teach me something new…”

“Are you always so forward?”

“You should see me after a couple of margaritas…”

“I’d like to,” Jayne Cartwright admitted, “although I doubt we’d bump into each other. Something tells me we’d be on different dance floors.”

The silence between them suddenly threatened to fill up the room. Ellen decided she had to say something before they were both pushed right out. “Well, we’re both on this floor right now.” As threadbare as the carpet was… “I’d offer you a drink but the bar’s kinda low around here.”

“Ha, you’d be lucky to find anyplace worth stopping by for the next hundred miles…”

“Not that you’d know, right?”

Jayne Cartwright forced a shrug. “I guess I have this image to live up to, or so my record company keeps telling me.”

Ellen plopped onto the edge of the bed. “C’mon, you’re telling me they only let hetero teetotalers into The Grand Ole Opry?”

Jayne took her hat over to the mattress and found a free spot beside her. “Well, these days that’s who they give the mike to. And the contracts…”

“You’re a long way from Tennessee,” Ellen reminded her, leaning over until she was all but hanging off Jayne’s lips.

The temptation proved too much. Something got shoved aside in Jayne Cartwright’s eyes and the singer closed the gap between them. Their lips met and between them something hot flowed, setting fire to any lingering inhibitions. Tongues reached out to dance on the pyre.

Then Miss Cartwright was throwing an arm on either side of Ellen and lovingly forcing her down to the mattress. Guitar calloused fingertips slipped under the sweatshirt and made warm circles. Ellen’s belly trembled but that was okay. So did Jayne Cartwright’s fingers.

Then those hands burrowed upwards to cup bra-encased tits.

Ellen automatically lifted her arms, allowing Jayne to drag the sweatshirt off. Then she arched her back to let those hands reach around to unsnap the bra. She fell back onto the bed with a laugh. “I think you’ve done this before.”

Jayne fell on top of her. “My answer would solely depend on whether or not you’re a member of the press.”

Ellen stuck out her tongue. “I’m not even going to tell you where I hid my mike then.”

Jayne laughed and laid warm kisses around the pebbly areolas. “God, it’s been too long…”

Which, as far as Ellen knew, was the lament of every lesbian.

Jayne’s tongue whipped across each risen nipple and then that beautiful mouth slid southbound. Ellen‘s hips rose in response. Her thoughts lost coherency as Jayne began breathing hotly against the front of her panties. Adept fingers hooked the waistband and pulled. Ellen offered no resistance.

Jayne crawled back on top of her, sans the plaid flannel and her own bra. Ellen purred. In her experience there was no more delicious a heat than the friction of skin and skin, tits over belly, nipples on nipples. In the next heartbeat they were sharing the same breath again, hungry noises leaking out between them. Fingers cruised over curves, clutching flesh. They rolled back and forth across the bed until it cried out in protest.

“Open up for me,” Jayne Cartwright sang.

Jesus, are we trying to beat a stopwatch here? Ellen thought, letting her thighs fall apart.

Jayne rolled on top of her again, laying a hand over Ellen’s pussy. Those knowing fingers fanned out, foraging through the dewy curls to the swollen lips underneath. The singer stroked and coaxed those petals, eyeing the woman below as if she was some rare exotic find under a microscope’s lens. God, when’s the last time you’ve seen an actual out lesbian? Ellen wanted to ask. Have you ever?

Only when she opened her mouth simmering gasps fell out. Jayne smiled; like any musician she was pleased at the sounds she made. She slipped a finger inside, leaning over to flick a dark nipple with her tongue, to nibble, to kiss and bite. Ellen rocked and reeled across the pillows: Hadn’t they been making pre-requisite small talk just a few minutes ago? This was speed limit-breaking, even by college standards.

Now Jayne added a second finger to the first, then sensing needs unspoken, a third. Ellen rose up and crashed down against them, ass slamming back into the mattress which in turn beat the headboard against the back wall. The neighbors pounded back in protest? She laughed wickedly. What, you’ve never heard this beat before in Montana?

Sweat flew from her pursed lips and Jayne Cartwright covered her mouth with hungry kisses as though needing to catch every precious drop. Ellen felt herself heading to the waterfall now, spinning around and around in the whitewater currents, then in a single breath flying out over the merry edge, the wind snatching words from her mouth and air from her lungs until there was nothing but warm sunlight and blue horizons…

“Oh, oh my,” she heard Jayne wondrously from a thousand miles below.

Ellen opened her eyes. “Oh, uh, yeah. That.”

“I’ve never seen a woman, um, er…”

“…flood the bed? Yeah, I should have warned you to break out a life jacket.” Wondering to herself what else this country star hadn’t witnessed before in her travels. I tend to kinda flood the beds I come in.

Smiling rather deliciously, she rolled onto her belly and burrowed deep into the pillows. Fingers trickled down her spine, admiring all the curves and clefts of her ass.

A sweet breeze tickle her left ear, a soft shower of delicate notes. “Oh my god, what is that? It’s beautiful…”

“You like?,” Jayne asked. “It’s called Kiss an Angel Good Morning. Kinda the unplugged version.”

“It’s very pretty,” Ellen said.

Jayne sang through the chorus, each word dipped in honey. “It’s one of my favorite songs. I only ever sing it when I’m happy.”

“And how often is that?” Ellen asked.

Jayne Cartwright’s voice took on a sad note. “Nowhere near as often as I’d like. I only tend to feel this way when I’m with someone…”

Ellen turned her head. “But wait, you were married, weren’t you?”

Jayne sighed. “I mean someone I actually cared about.”

“Like a woman?”

Jayne blinked. “Yeah,” she softly admitted to the universe.

The sudden twang of a slide guitar sounded from the floor. Ellen looked around.

“My cell,” Jayne said. She rolled over and scrabbled through her clothes, fishing the phone from her jeans. She flipped it open, a cold blue light slicing open the dark. “Hel-lo? Billy, what the…what? What? You mean now, as in right now?”

Ellen sat up, letting the sheets fall away. Headlights suddenly splashed across the windows, throwing hungry shadows across the walls. Tires grumbled over gravel, spitting stones as brakes were hastily applied. Doors slid back, slammed shut. A chorus of voices sang cacophonously.

WTF, man? She looked over at Jayne, who eyes had popped out of their sockets. “What? What’s happening?”

“That was my manager,” the singer whispered. “He said someone called up all the local TV stations to say I was over here, in this motel. With you.”

“I bet it was Lizzie,” Ellen said. She met Jayne’s puzzled eyes. “You know, you’re number one fan back at the diner?”

“Shit, that waitress?”

“That would be her,” Ellen confirmed. “She nearly creamed her apron when you guys pulled up…hey, what are you doing?”

“Jesus, why didn’t you say anything?” Jayne Cartwright snapped, scrambling about for her clothes.

“Um, because I didn’t know we were going to be having sex for dessert?”

Jayne jumped up to hit the light switch, plunge them into semi-darkness. “Hey, hey hey hey, we did not have sex!”

Ellen laughed. “What? You’re kidding, right?”

“Does it sound like I’m kidding? Shit, where’s my bra?”

“Um, in case you forget, we kissed. Made out. You had at least three fingers inside of me.”

“No, no I didn’t!”

Hands pounded on neighboring doors. “Miss Cartwright? Jayne Cartwright, are you in there? It’s Channel 12 News! Miss Cartwright, we’d like to ask you some questions. Are you a gay? How long have you been a les’bin? What are your thoughts on same-sex marriage? Queers in country music? Do you know anyone else who’s gay in Nashville?””

Ah, the subtly of the fourth estate, Ellen thought. If only they were this eager for answers before we invaded Iraq…

“For god’s sake, put some clothes on!” Jayne croaked.

“What for? It’s not like we’re inviting them in. Unless, of course, you want to make a statement…”

Jayne, busy buttoning up her shirt, stopped cold.

“You know,” Ellen prompted, “the obligatory I’m-gay-and-there’s-nothing-wrong-with-that speech. Every celebrity says that when they come out…”

The knockings grew louder. “Out? Why would I come out?” Jayne Cartwright asked.

Ellen swung her legs off the bed. “Um, I dunno. Because you like girls?”

“No…what? I’m not queer! Jesus God, I’m not even here!”

Ellen was about to suggest otherwise but the sight before her turned any retort to ash in her mouth. Gone was the statuesque goddess from just a few minutes before; in her cowboy boots now stood a wild haired wide eyed stranger muttering to herself in a panicked tongue. Where was the woman who just had skillful fingers inside of her…

Outside a female voice had now joined the choir, demanding to know just what in the good lord’s name was going on out here? Didn’t any of ‘em realize decent folk were trying to sleep? If they didn’t pipe down and behave she was either gonna get the phone to call the sheriff and just get the shotgun from her truck. This was Montana, don’t you know!

One of the reporters apologized and asked if she could confirm that country singer Jayne Cartwright was here. They had heard from a reliable source she was in one of these very rooms…

“Now you know I can’t confirm that,” May said.

…with another woman, a youngish girl not from the area…

“Oh, really?” May replied, stretching out that last word all the way to the door of Room 14.

“Uh-oh,” Ellen said. She turned from the door just in time to hear the bathroom slam shut. Shucking on her own jeans she padded across the shag rug and knocked on the door. “What are you doing?”

“Hiding – what the hell does it look like?” a voice hissed from the other side.

“C’mon, this is crazy…”

“Tell me about it!”

“You’ve got to come out!” Ellen said. Behind her a pair of knuckles rapped righteously at the door.

“You don’t understand,” Jayne Cartwright moaned.

“Are you kidding me?” Ellen laughed. “There isn’t a queer person on the face of the earth that doesn’t know how you’re feeling. Coming out is huge, right? It’s scary, right? I get that. We all get that. But it’s also freeing. It’s like stepping out of a jail cell for the first time.”

“A jail cell, exactly! That’s where they’re going to put us tonight,” Jayne Cartwright whispered.

More poundings at the door. “Hello, hello?” May cawed. “Who’s in there? Who do you have with you?”

Ellen glanced over her shoulder, wondering if the old bat had gotten her rifle after all. “Be right there…!” She turned back to the bathroom door, placing a hand against the wood. “Look, I’ll stand by you, ‘kay? It’s going to be all right.”

“You’re so naïve,” the singer spat. “I played at over two hundred shows last year, gave more interviews than I know and cleared nearly 5 mil! You get what I’m saying, Little Miss Sunshine? I have a crew, roadies, people relying on me.”

Ellen pressed up against the door, ignoring the banging at her back. “Yeah, you’re right, you’re absolutely right. I don’t have a clue what it means to be a big country star, I don’t know what it means to earn millions of dollars a year, to be on the road month after month, to have like a ga-zillion fans who wouldn’t understand if I stepped up to a mike and said other women turn me on.

“But I do know what you’re going through. There isn’t a dyke in this world who doesn’t. You’re scared. You’re frightened. You’ve been living in the dark of the closet for so long you’re afraid of the light, afraid it’s going to burn you up. But it won’t, believe me! I survived. All my friends have. Can I tell you, it’s like breaking the surface, finally breathing again. The world opens up, the horizon just expands.”

She laid her cheek against the wood. “Jayne, come on out. Just come out and breathe. Just breathe, okay?”

Her hand fell on the doorknob which turned easily. She opened the door at the exact same moment May fitted her master key into the outer door’s lock and turned it open. A bevy of expectant eyes looked in on the tableau as Ellen gazed into the bathroom. Bright florescence bounced off the tiles, gleaming off of polished chrome. The shower curtains buffeted from the chilled breeze blowing in from the opened back window. Outside true night had fallen, an all encompassing dark.

Something sad touched Ellen’s lips. They parted, ever so slightly, to form a single word, blown with a kiss to that open screen.

Then, still topless and without a trace of shame (although with a good deal of goosepimples rising up on her arms and chest) she turned around to face the doorway full of faces. “Can I help you?”

* * *

Although no guest, country singer or otherwise, was found inside her room Ellen Berger was asked to vacate the Rest Stop due to “a disturbance of the peace.” She did so, but only after demanding a full refund, which she received. By that time Jayne Cartwright had found her spot on the lead bus, which pulled out without issuing any formal reply to the rumors that had come swirling about like so many snowflakes on a blizzard’s winds.

Two days later Ellen told Gretch what had happened and was not at all surprised the roommate did not believe her. She herself was never quite sure it really happened – at least, not until the following summer when country superstar Jayne Cartwright issued her next album, “Unplugged from the Dark Mountaintop” which featured an acoustic version of the classic “Kiss an Angel Good Morning.” The single won her three C.M.A. awards and is now a standard at every show she plays.

If you have enjoyed Stephanie Alexis Bonvissuto's "Montana", then please be certain to e-mail her at  stephaniealexis8[at]hotmail.com  and thank her for posting this Story.

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