Free Access Unlimited by Alice Severin Page A

understand.”
    He looked at me, quizzically. “Do you? Maybe you do. Well, nothing like a couple of
     weeks in a bus to really get to know someone.” He whispered in my ear. “Think you’re
     up for it?”
    I laughed. “Going to find out.”
    “Yes, we are. First, soap and hot water. Dirt needs clean to land on properly. I think.”
     He kissed me, and stripping off all his clothes and dropping them on the floor, headed
     to the shower.
    * * *
    When we woke up again, Tristan decided we needed to walk around some. So we slipped
     out the back service entrance of the hotel without being spotted. Tristan seemed to
     know where all the possible exits could be, and had no worries about pushing open
     doors that said “Authorized Personnel Only.” I told him about a park down by the lake
     that I’d read about in the guidebook. So we headed in that direction, and wound up
     walking out to the end of the park, by the old dry dock area. Out here, on the edge
     by the water, you could see what it really was—industrial waste land with the wet
     dreams of a few developers half a mile away, a Miami on the river that was so out
     of place next to the low-level brick buildings that had once housed factories and
     businesses, that you had to wonder. The wind-blown trash stuck to the barbed wire
     fences. This was the only accessory. The bits of plastic and Styrofoam that would
     eventually wind up in the picturesquely named off-shoot of the lake that was doing
     its best to hide its heritage as a glorified sewage runoff, and making it hard for
     people to remember what it had once been, the resting and nesting place for shorebirds
     and fish, a wild and beautiful land.
    Tristan leaned against the wire fence, his leather jacket protecting him from the
     worst of it, and beckoned me to come closer. I’d been taking pictures—I thought they
     would go with the article, and maybe the eventual documentary. Naturally, I wouldn’t
     be filming it, but I’d be amused if they used some of my angles to set up the background
     shots. I kept snapping away as I approached him, watching his face go from confused
     to delighted. It was hard to describe the feeling that was running through me watching
     him, suddenly enjoying the illicit pleasure of being on the fringes, the metal storage
     tanks and the grey-green water of what used to be an inlet before mankind had the
     idea to pour tar down right up to the edges, and suffocate everything green and growing,
     so different to his skin, golden and dewy, shimmering in the fading light of the afternoon,
     in sharp contrast to the roller-skate silver metal color of the chain link fence,
     the tiny stones coming up through the uneven pavement. Tristan laughed, a carefree
     musical sound that drifted on the air, wrapping around me, tickling, until I had to
     laugh with him, my finger on the button, snapping away, every angle he threw at me.
    “You’re too good at this.”
    “What do they say? ‘You’ve got to love the camera?’ Give it up for a piece of metal,
     a blank eye. A little like music. Fuck me with that thing…like taking the guitar and
     pointing it at the crowd.” And he started to bend his knees, leaning backwards, mimicking
     pointing his guitar at me. I kept getting closer, snapping away, until he was nearly
     to the ground, and I found myself straddling him, a leg on either side of his thighs,
     closer, a straight line between the two of us.
    He lifted himself up, the muscles in his thighs visibly straining against his jeans
     with the effort as he raised himself higher and finally threw an arm around me, steadying
     himself, his body tight against mine. He had all his weight pulling against me, and
     I was struggling a bit with the effort to keep all six whatever feet of him from dropping
     to the pavement.
    “Yeah, babe, why haven’t we done this before? Where do you want me?” He started posing.
     A hand on his hip and one out, a little like Mick Jagger, he thrust