The Prize Rules Ch. 03

"I'm not concerned about breaking habits," Eden laughed a little, "I am worried about breaking bones."

So with their praise and best wishes, Eden left the office armed with a preliminary operations manual and a set of military transit tickets for the railway. In effect, she was gaining the benefit of learning two trades, as it were.

––––––––––––––––––

Well, it was green, Eden decided.

Green and dull and loud.

At times, it purred and at others, it barked and if one wasn't careful during the starting procedure, it could grow short-tempered and kick back viciously through the kickstarter. The result was a very sore foot and leg which usually caused a limp for the rest of the day. She hadn't mentioned it, but Cora-leen had given her a few lessons in riding, just not very many, and her friend's old bike was a far cry from something as serious as what she was looking at now.

Eden memorised the starting sequence and part and parcel with that was maintaining a ready supply of curses for the beast on those mornings when it seemed to want to be particularly recalcitrant, refusing to be goaded into beginning the day.

That was when the rider needed to be the most wary, because those times were the ones where the beast lay in wait, patiently biding its time until the moment when the rider - frustrated and on the verge of being late might begin to kick and kick and kick in almost a frenzied rage.

And somewhere in it, one would lose one's place over just where in its operating cycle the engine really was, kicking the pedal in an almost blind fury while muttering epithets through clenched teeth.

One time in all of that, the sound would change from -

DUH-Duh- duh .. DUH-Duh- duh .. DUH-Duh- duh to –

DUH-Duh- duh .. DUH-Duh- duh.. DUH – PAFF!" and the rider would stand there, transfixed by the flash of pain, and swearing to the gods that just as soon as this present agony was past, there would be a hopefully short search for a suitable sort of cudgel with which to bash the thing to pieces.

But on the whole, Eden loved 'Thumper', her name for her two-wheeled iron horse. Much later, it became the name for any motorcycle with a single-cylinder four-stroke engine.

As much of a bitch as she could be, Thumper was freedom to Eden and she took to riding straight off, learning everything that she could about riding well in general and most especially just what and how much she could ask of the green terror.

She did her preliminary riding studies and trials on one of the older pigs in the school stable, transitioning to the one which she was to take back with her during the second half of the course and having to put in some extra hours to break Thumper's motor in properly.

All of the other bikes had lettering on both sides of the fuel tank; small characters in cream-colored paint which read 'RN' and then usually a four digit number identifying which machine this was.

But Thumper wore something different on her tank. Eden's classmates on this course had sweet-talked the mechanic who applied the lettering and hers read ...

'Trinidad -1'.

At last, she thought as she rode off on her route, she felt a bit of acceptance while doing something which she loved doing while the wind and the North Yorkshire scenery flashed by her.

And, she discovered, if she got the engine RPMs just right and pressed herself forward so that she was just barely sitting on the rear portion of the fuel tank, Thumper would send her the most delicious sensations.

She spent the second-last month shadowing an actual despatch rider and the last month of the course was spent riding the routes alone.

Her very last week in England was spent in packing up and getting the two of them down to the port, Eden on her feet and Thumper in her wooden shipping crate, along with a second crate full of parts and tools.

She sailed home directly this time and with the constant reminders to her in the style of her surroundings, Eden remembered the last time that she'd truly been happy and it opened some of her wounds once more. She spent a fair amount of time standing at the rail looking at the sea, just remembering.

Her six month stay had turned into a year-long odyssey and sojourn and she took stock. She was equipped with new sets of skills far different from the few that she'd possessed back then. She didn't know just what she felt that she was ready for, but Eden was ready – or, as ready as she guessed that one girl could ever be.

She'd forced her memory of him down and for the most part, she'd held it there, though it was feeling to her as though it now wanted to rear up in her once again.

Every now and then.

Because, every now and then, she'd almost expect to hear his quiet and polite knock on her cabin door and at those times, she found herself looking at it and praying that just once ... just one time more ...

She'd see that face again and feel those arms around her.

Sometimes, she'd set about finding some way to get herself a cup of tea to hold onto as she remembered.

Sometimes, she'd want to find herself a bottle, maybe get wailing drunk just once to see if it helped any.

Almost always – at some point, Eden would lie in the bed and masturbate, now that she wasn't in a four-girl-to-a-room setting. The other difference was that now, Eden found that she liked to taste herself, after all of those times when it had happened somehow in their lovemaking. It helped her and it hurt her at the same time, because what was really missing was Hans-Joachim.

And always, at some point, what always came back to her now were her tears once more. She was just better now at stopping them after a while, that was all.