The Driving Instructor

I failed my driving test for the fourth time.

Parallel parking. Again. The examiner didn't even bother hiding his contempt as he marked the fail on his clipboard.

Twenty-three years old, college graduate, full-time job, and I still can't park a car without hitting imaginary pedestrians. My roommate suggested I try a different driving school—said the one I was using was a factory, churning out lessons without actually teaching anything.

"Try Marta's," he said. "She taught my mom. Old-school, but she actually makes you learn."

The business card he gave me was faded pink, with a phone number and an address in a part of town I'd never visited.

Marta Kowalczyk - Driving Instruction.

"I teach you right the first time."

I called.

She answered.

And my driving education began.

Marta Kowalczyk drives a 1998 Toyota Camry with a hand-painted "STUDENT DRIVER" sign on the roof.

The car is immaculate—no stains, no damage, clearly maintained with religious devotion. Marta herself matches this energy: precise, deliberate, utterly put-together despite being dressed in what looks like her Sunday best.

She's also fifty-seven years old and easily two-sixty.

Her body fills the passenger seat completely—wide hips pressed against the door, thick thighs spread on the bench seat, breasts resting on her belly beneath a floral blouse. Her hair is dyed auburn, curled in a style that hasn't been fashionable in thirty years, and her makeup is perfect in a way that suggests decades of practice.

"So." She examines me through glasses with rhinestone frames. "Four failures."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Parallel parking."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Do you know why you keep failing?"

I've asked myself this question a thousand times. "No, ma'am."

"Because no one has taught you properly." She pulls a red leather driving glove onto each hand—driving gloves, in this economy, in a Camry. "That changes today. Get in."

I get in.

Marta's teaching style is unlike anything I've experienced.

There's no rushing, no impatience, no sense that she's watching the clock and calculating her hourly rate. She takes me to an empty parking lot and has me practice basic maneuvers for two hours—not to pass a test, but to understand the car.

"Feel the clutch point," she says during hill starts. "Don't watch your feet—feel it. The car is talking to you. Listen."

"I'm trying—"

"Don't try. Do." She places her hand over mine on the gear shift. Her palm is warm, soft. "Feel it through me. Feel when I push, when I release."

We shift together. Her hand guides mine, her voice talks me through each micro-adjustment. And somehow—impossibly—it starts to make sense.

"Better." She almost smiles. "Again."

We do it again. And again. And again, until I can feel the clutch point in my sleep.

Lesson three is parallel parking.

The cause of all my failures, my nemesis, the skill that has cost me hundreds of dollars and countless hours of frustration.

Marta sets up cones in an empty lot—perfectly spaced, perfectly aligned.

"Everyone teaches this wrong," she says. "They tell you to turn when you see things in your mirrors. But mirrors lie. They show you what's beside you, not where you're going."

"Then how—"

"You feel it." She gets out of the car, waddles—there's no other word for how she moves, this massive woman navigating the world—to my window. "You feel where the car is in space. You become the car."

"I don't understand."

"You will." She reaches through my window, adjusts my mirrors. Her breast brushes my shoulder. I try not to notice. Fail. "Now. Put your hand on my hip."

"What?"

"My hip. Now."

I reach out. Place my hand on her hip. It's soft, yielding, barely contained by her skirt.

"This is the car," she says. "Feel where it ends. Feel its width." She moves forward, and my hand slides along her body. "Feel how it changes as I move. This is what you must learn—not to look, but to feel."

Something about the exercise—her body, her voice, the strange intimacy of touch—makes something click.

"Now try."

I try.

I park perfectly on the first attempt.

"How did you do that?"

We're parked now, lesson over, and I'm staring at her in genuine amazement.

"Do what?"

"Teach me in one hour what four driving schools couldn't teach me in two years."

She waves a dismissive hand. "They don't teach. They process. They want your money, so they keep you failing and coming back." She meets my eyes. "I want you to drive. Really drive. To be safe on the roads, confident behind the wheel."

"Why?"

"Because I lost my son to a car accident." She says it matter-of-factly, but her hands tighten on the wheel. "Eighteen years old. New driver. Someone who shouldn't have passed their test ran a red light."

"I'm so sorry—"

"Don't be sorry. Be good." She touches my hand. "Every student I teach, I imagine them out there with my boy. I want them safe. I want them skilled. I want no more mothers to get the call I got."

I look at her—this massive, meticulous woman—and see something I hadn't before. Not just an instructor. A guardian. A protector.

"Same time next week?" I ask.

"Same time next week."

I pass my driving test on the next attempt.

Perfect score. The examiner seemed almost annoyed—like he'd wanted me to fail again, wanted to maintain his streak.

I text Marta the news. She responds with a Polish proverb I don't understand and a rare emoji: a single heart.

That should be the end of it. I can drive now. I don't need lessons anymore.

I call her anyway.

"I want to keep learning," I tell her. "Advanced stuff. Highway driving, night driving, whatever else you can teach."

There's a pause. "You have your license. Why continue?"

"Because you're the best teacher I've ever had." It's true. "And because—I don't know. I like being here. With you."

Another pause. Longer.

"Come tomorrow," she says finally. "We'll see."

Advanced driving is harder than basic driving.

Marta takes me on highways, through construction zones, into situations designed to test my reflexes and judgment. She's demanding—more demanding than before—and I find myself rising to meet her standards.

"Good," she says after a particularly challenging lane merge. "You're learning to anticipate."

"Thanks to you."

"Thanks to yourself. I just show you what you're capable of."

We're parked at a rest stop now, the engine idling. The sun is setting, painting the sky orange and pink.

"Marta?"

"Yes?"

"Why do you wear driving gloves?"

She looks at her hands—the red leather, impeccable as always.

"My husband gave them to me. Forty years ago, when I first learned to drive. Said a lady should always look elegant behind the wheel."

"Where is he now?"

"Gone. Heart attack. Eight years." She flexes her fingers in the gloves. "But I still wear them. I still hear his voice, sometimes, telling me I look elegant."

"You do." The words come out before I can stop them. "You look—incredible. Always."

She turns to face me. Her expression is unreadable.

"You're a strange young man, Nathan."

"So I've been told."

"You spend your free time with a fat old Polish woman learning to drive when you already have your license. You compliment her when you could be chasing girls your own age." She tilts her head. "What do you want?"

"I don't know." It's honest. "I just know I want to be here. With you."

"That's not an answer."

"Then maybe I'm still figuring out the question."

The tension breaks on a rainy Tuesday.

We're practicing emergency stops—Marta yells "STOP" at random moments, and I brake as hard as I can. It's raining, the roads are slick, and my nerves are frayed.

"STOP!"

I brake. The car hydroplanes slightly before catching. My heart is pounding.

"Good." She's gripping the dashboard. "Again."

"I can't—" I pull over, hands shaking. "I need a minute."

"Take your time."

We sit in silence, rain drumming on the roof. My breathing slowly steadies.

"I was scared," I admit.

"Good. Fear keeps you safe."

"Not of the car. Of—" I turn to face her. "Of this. Of whatever this is."

"Nathan—"

"I think about you constantly. I dream about you. I make up excuses to text you about driving questions I could Google in five seconds." I take her hand—her gloved hand. "I know it's crazy. I know you're older, and you're my teacher, and this is probably wildly inappropriate. But I can't keep pretending."

She stares at me. The rain falls.

Then she pulls off her glove, places her bare hand on my cheek, and kisses me.

She tastes like the mints she keeps in her console.

The kiss is tentative at first—hesitant, questioning—and then deeper. Hungrier. Her hand moves from my cheek to my neck to my chest, and I'm pulling her closer across the console, desperate to feel more of her.

"Not here," she breathes. "My apartment. Five minutes."

Longest five minutes of my life.

Her apartment is small and immaculate, like her car.

Photographs everywhere—her son, her husband, family I don't recognize. A crucifix over the door. Lace doilies on every surface.

"I haven't—" She's nervous, fidgeting. "Not since Stanisław. I don't know if I can—"

"We don't have to do anything." I take her hands. "We can just talk. Watch TV. Whatever you want."

"I want—" She takes a breath. "I want you to touch me. Like you mean it."

I touch her like I mean it.

I undress her in her bedroom, surrounded by photos of her late husband.

She apologizes for her body. For the weight, the sag, the stretch marks that map decades of living. I silence each apology with a kiss.

"You're beautiful."

"I'm old—"

"You're beautiful."

"I'm fat—"

"You're beautiful."

I lay her back on her bed—the bed she shared with a man for thirty years—and worship her with my mouth. Her thighs part for me, revealing her—wet, swollen, trembling.

"Nathan—oh—Nathan—"

"I've wanted this for weeks." I lick her slowly, savoring. "Wanted to taste you. Wanted to make you feel good."

"You are—Boże—you are—"

She comes with a prayer on her lips, half-English, half-Polish, and I drink her through it.

She insists on teaching me this, too.

"Your technique is—" She considers. "—enthusiastic but unfocused."

"Then teach me."

She teaches me. Guides my head, adjusts my angle, tells me exactly what she needs in that precise instructor's voice. I'm a good student. I learn fast.

By the third orgasm, she's barely coherent.

"Enough—enough—I need—"

"Tell me."

"I need you inside me. Please."

I climb over her, position myself. She's bigger than any woman I've been with—her body a landscape I have to navigate, her flesh surrounding me on all sides. I push inside, and she gasps.

"Am I hurting—"

"No. God, no. Don't stop."

I don't stop.

I learn her body like I learned to drive—by feel, by instinct, by letting her guide me until the movement becomes natural.

She moans beneath me, her body rippling with each thrust. Her hands grip my ass, pull me deeper. Her legs wrap around my hips as much as they can, and she's chanting something—my name, prayers, Polish words I don't understand.

"Come for me," I tell her. "Show me what it looks like when you let go."

She lets go.

Her whole body seizes, clenching around me, and the sound she makes is raw and primal and perfect. I follow her over, spilling inside her while the rain continues to fall outside.

We lie in her bed, tangled in sheets that smell like her perfume.

"This is improper," she says.

"Probably."

"I'm your teacher."

"You were my teacher. Now you're something else."

"What am I?"

I consider the question. "Someone I want to keep learning from. Someone I want to be with. Someone who makes me feel—"

"Feel what?"

"Safe." I pull her closer. "Like I can make mistakes and you'll help me correct them. Like I'm not alone."

She's quiet for a long moment. When she speaks, her voice is thick.

"Stanisław used to say that. That I made him feel safe."

"Then he was a lucky man."

"He was." She kisses my chest. "And now—perhaps—so am I."

I still take lessons from Marta.

Not driving lessons—life lessons, love lessons, whatever you want to call them. We see each other three times a week. More, when our schedules allow.

"You're dating your driving instructor," my roommate says, disbelieving.

"She's retired from teaching. Mostly."

"She's old enough to be your grandmother."

"She's old enough to know what she wants." I smile. "And so am I."

He shakes his head. But when he meets her—when he sees how she looks at me, how I look at her—he stops questioning.

Some lessons take a lifetime to learn.

Some teachers are worth following forever.

License renewed.

Destination: wherever she's going.