james rides in vaughan's car. vaughan drives aggressively, rolling the heavy car along the access roads, holding the battered bumpers a few feet behind any smaller vehicle until it moves out of the way.
catherine has half hidden herself behind the passenger seat. her steady eyes follow the skid marks and loops of bloodstained oil that cross the familiar macadam like a battle diagram.
as they drive, james watches catherine in the rear-view mirror. she sits in the center of the back seat, elbows forward on her knees, looking over his shoulder at the speeding lights of the expressway. at the first traffic light, she smiles at james reassuringly.
the car ahead advances a few yards, its brake-lights illuminating the interior of the lincoln, covering the trio with a pink sheen. through the rear-view mirror james sees that catherine is leaning against the back seat, her shoulder pressed tightly into vaughan's. her eyes are fixed on vaughan's chest, on the scars around his injured nipples, shining like points of light.
within their blue grotto, vaughan lies diagonally across the back seat. catherine kneels across him, skirt rolled around her waist. the light refracted through the soap solution jetting across the windows covers their bodies with a luminescent glow, like two semi-metallic human beings of the future making love in a chromium bower.
the street-lamps illuminate vaughan's sleeping face in the rear of the car, scarred mouth lying open like a child's against the sweat-soaked seat.
we are close on the fresh tattoo on james's inner thigh. it looks more like a cartoon version of a wound than a real wound. we can see it because james's trousers are down around his knees.
james and vaughan show their wounds to each other, exposing the scars on their chests and hands to the beckoning injury sites on the interior of the car, to the pointed sills of the chromium ashtrays, to the curtain of wheel covers hanging on a web of twisted wire just outside the car window.
sitting in the rear seat of the lincoln, catherine and james make brief, ritual love, her buttocks held tightly in his hands as she sits across his waist.