Marsha wasn't your ordinary middle-aged biker chick. Oh no, she was the Queen of the Road and she didn't let you forget it either. Her younger female rivals called her a bitch. And the men called her a tigress. Her cohorts called her Queenie and they always saluted her when they greeted her--half seriously, half in jest.
On an August afternoon, in the hot sun and sweltering heat, she and her gang saddled up on gleaming Harleys to head north. Chuck's BBQ Shack was hosting the annual motorcycle show, an event that she wouldn't miss for the world.
The highway was a long stretch of gray and freedom. Amidst the growling motors and the wind whipping through her hair, Marsha was an element of nature with the lightness and ferociousness of fire. She loved the humming of the Harley beneath her, better (she often mused) than riding astride her younger lover Jed or binging on chocolate. At that moment, she passed a green mini-van driven by a harried soccer mom shouting at the three kids in the back. A pity, she thought, and she gunned the gas, speeding up three car-lengths.
But there were few other cars on the road so she took to the center and eyed the road that thinned on the horizon to a dot as a dartboard target. The engine noise became nothing more than static and she concentrated on the feeling of the blacktop racing underneath the tires. She felt every bump, crack, and imperfection and for that time, she was not merely a queen of the road, but a goddess--flying, in control.
