Steering Desires

By Lee Cushing

Cathy Yang was the daughter of immigrants who had fled from China to give her a better life in America.

 

Despite being invites to a multitude of parties thrown by her friends, she never felt like she belonged, not to her adopted world or to the heritage of bring an Asiran teenager struggling to find her place in America,

 

Today is her 17th birthday and her friends had chipped in to get her driving lessons with the popular instructor known around town as Mr Daniels. Depite being torn between twoworlds, one of being subject to her heritage and the other trying to act as a natural teenager, she could not help falling in love with her instructir,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lee Cushing
• Release date: Nov 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223491385

Lee Cushing

Lee Cushing is a paranormal thriller author and a lifelong fan of the occult. Having become obsessed with supernatural folklore and the world of horror from an early age, Lee has spent years studying tales of the occult and immersing himself in stories of otherworldly phenomenon. He’s also the owner of a number of vampire and horror-related groups in Facebook, where fellow fans of the supernatural come together to celebrate and discuss all things paranormal.  His debut novel, Voodoo Mambo, blends high-stakes action and shadowy agencies with a dark underworld of demonic creatures and their insidious plots to attack humanity. Lee draws his inspiration from classic horror movies – including Hammer and Universal – as well as beloved TV shows including Doctor Who, Supernatural, The Avengers, and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. 

Book preview

Introduction: The Crossroads of Desire and Duty

In the quiet suburban neighborhood where Cathy Yang grew up, life seemed to move at a measured, predictable pace. The streets were lined with manicured lawns and homes that mirrored each other in design and spirit, a testament to the community’s values of order and tradition. It was a place where the passage of a car, not unlike the one Cathy now sat in with her driving instructor, Mr. Daniels, stirred the stillness of the afternoon and sent ripples through the curtain of normality that draped over her world.

Cathy’s life was a carefully cultivated garden, tended by the hands of her loving but traditional parents. They had come to America with little more than dreams tucked into the corners of their suitcases and had painstakingly built a life rich with the fruits of their labor. They saw in Cathy the continuation of their journey, her every success a bloom in their garden of sacrifice.

For Cathy, whose gaze now lingered on the book of poetry discreetly tucked between the car seat and the door, the road ahead was one of possibility, lined with the whispering voices of poets and writers who spoke to a world beyond the boundaries of her parents’ dreams. Her life was a canvas, and she longed to paint it with strokes of adventure and dashes of the unknown.

The Spark: First Meeting with the Driving Instructor

The first time Cathy met Mr. Daniels, the driving instructor, it was on an unremarkable Tuesday that held no promise of the seismic shift it would cause in her world. The driving school had assigned him randomly—a stroke of fate, as Cathy would later think. He arrived with a punctuality that impressed her parents and a demeanor that seemed to suggest he knew more of the world than the confines of their small town.

As they shook hands, there was an exchange of polite smiles, but beneath the civility, a spark flickered, igniting a curiosity within Cathy. Mr. Daniels carried himself with an ease that contrasted sharply with the tension that often coiled within Cathy—a tension born from straddling two cultures, two sets of expectations, and two lives.

The Clash: Initial Awareness of the Cultural and Familial Expectations

The first few driving lessons were a metaphorical journey as much as they were a literal one. Cathy learned to navigate the roads, yes, but she was also learning to navigate the landscape of her own burgeoning feelings, feelings that seemed at odds with everything she had been taught to value.

Her parents, observant and ever-present, held a vision of their daughter that was rooted in their heritage. This vision included academic excellence, a respectable career, and eventually, a husband who shared their cultural background and values.

Cathy could recite her parents’ lessons by heart: We have given you roots, her mother would say, so that you may stand firm against the storms of life. Her father, in turn, would remind her, And we have given you wings, but do not forget where you have come from when you choose to fly.

Yet as she sat beside Mr. Daniels, his voice a calm timbre against the hum of the engine, Cathy felt the stirrings of a desire to fly on a trajectory that was uniquely her own. She was acutely aware of the duality of her existence—how she was living on the cusp of two worlds, each with its gravity, each with its orbit.

With every lesson, Cathy felt the tenuous threads that bound her to her parents’ expectations stretching, fraying at the edges as she encountered a different perspective through Mr. Daniels’ anecdotes and observations, ones that subtly encouraged her to question, to seek, to yearn for more.

It was this yearning that brought her to the crossroads of desire and duty, where the heart’s compass spun erratically, seeking true north. Here, in the driver’s seat of Mr. Daniels’ car, Cathy found herself at the intersection of the life she was expected to lead and the life she dared to imagine.

As they drove through the arteries of the town, stopping and starting at the command of traffic lights, Cathy’s mind wandered to the path ahead. Each lesson with Mr. Daniels was a step toward freedom, a notch on the timeline of her self-discovery. Yet, the road was lined with caution signs, reminders of the delicate balance she was trying to maintain.

The cultural expectations that shaped her world were not just external pressures; they were woven into the fabric of her identity, threads of a tapestry that were as much a part of her as her own skin. To pull at those threads could unravel the very essence of who she was—or it could free her to become who she might be.

Cathy was no stranger to the pull of duty, the weight of gratitude and loyalty that anchored her to her family. But as she glanced at Mr. Daniels, his profile outlined against the backdrop of a setting sun, she also recognized the pull of desire—the whisper of a question that asked what it might be like to chart a course of her own making.

And so, with each turn of the wheel, each press of the pedal, Cathy inched along the road that would lead her to choose. Would she follow the map drawn by the generations before her, or would she take the wheel firmly in hand and carve a path of her own?

As they approached the end of the lesson, the car slowing to a stop outside her family home, the answer lay unspoken between them. It lingered in the air, a silent promise that the journey was just beginning, and the destination was hers to decide.

Whispers from the Sidelines

It was in the evenings, after her driving lessons, that the weight of Cathy’s two worlds pressed heaviest upon her shoulders. She retreated to her room—a sanctuary of sorts, painted in soft pastels and adorned with remnants of her childhood and aspirational whispers of the woman she was becoming. Amidst a collage of family photos and academic awards, her eyes often fell upon a singular picture: her grandparents in their youth, a black-and-white freeze-frame of traditional garb and hopeful smiles, a silent testament to the legacy she was expected to honor.

Cathy’s parents spoke rarely of their own youth, choosing instead to focus on the present and the future they had meticulously envisioned for their daughter. Yet, their past was a living presence in the Yang household, imbued in the aroma of spices that permeated the kitchen, in the lilting cadences of Mandarin during phone calls with distant relatives, and in the quiet pride that swelled in her father’s chest with every mention of their heritage.

Echoes of the Past

Her parents’ journey to America was a tale of grit and resilience, a narrative Cathy had heard recited in various forms at every family gathering. It was a story that had shaped her upbringing, a story that had instilled in her the values of hard work, respect, and the importance of ‘saving face’ within their community. To them, America was the land of opportunity, but it was also where their cultural identity needed to be safeguarded like the precious gem it was.

These values had been Cathy’s compass, guiding her through public accolades and private doubts, friendships, and fleeting high school romances that had never dared to burn too brightly, extinguished by the unspoken understanding that they were mere distractions from the path laid out for her.

A Flicker of Rebellion

But with Mr. Daniels, a different narrative began to unfold. His stories were slices of life from beyond the borders of Cathy’s experiences. They were tales of road trips through landscapes untamed and cities pulsing with life, of people whose stories were etched not just in the pages of books but upon the canvas of the world itself.

There was a particular story he shared under the guise of making conversation as they waited for a train to pass—an anecdote about a street artist in New Orleans who painted not what he saw but what he felt. It was a story that struck a chord with Cathy, resonating with her own secret scribbles and verses that never saw the light of day.

Reflections in the Rearview Mirror

Driving became more than just a skill to master; it became a metaphor for the journey Cathy found herself on. With each lesson, she navigated more than just the suburban streets; she navigated her own thoughts, her wishes, and the realization that the destination she had always assumed was hers might be but one of many on her map.

As she drove, she often caught sight of Mr. Daniels’ reflection in the rearview mirror, his eyes occasionally meeting hers in that shared space where words were unnecessary. In those fleeting glances, she felt seen—not as the dutiful daughter or the exemplary student, but as Cathy Yang, the individual with dreams untold and desires unexplored.

The Duality of Dusk

The twilight of those driving sessions often found Cathy in a state of quiet contemplation. The sky, awash with the fiery hues of the setting sun, reminded her of the duality of her life—the vibrant colors of her personal aspirations fading into the night of her obligations and duties.

Her drives with Mr. Daniels were brief, the sunset of their time together marking the inevitable return to the reality of her home life. Yet, each goodbye was laced with the unspoken promise of another sunrise, another opportunity to explore the roads less traveled.

Uncharted Territories

It was in the uncharted territories of her heart where Cathy felt the stirrings of a newfound independence. As she gripped the steering wheel, she also grasped the threads of possibility, pondering the weaving of a new tapestry, one of her own design. Each turn, each shift of gears, was an assertion of her agency, a quiet rebellion against the predetermined route she had always assumed she would follow.

As the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months, the rhythms of her driving lessons with Mr. Daniels became the pulse of her newfound courage. The courage to consider the ‘what ifs,’ the courage to entertain the possibility of a life that strayed from the well-trodden path of tradition and expectation—a life that could be messy, unpredictable, and wholly her own.

Chapter One

Lessons in Control

The neighborhood was quiet that morning, the peaceful stillness that comes with the early hours when sleep still clung to the edges of the day. It was in this tranquility that Cathy found herself sitting in the driver’s seat of the instructor’s car for the first time, the fabric of the seat unfamiliar beneath her, the scent of the interior—a mix of clean plastic and the faintest hint of cologne—filling her senses.

Mr. Daniels, her driving instructor, had a way about him that was at once disarming and professional. Adjust the seat and mirrors until you’re comfortable, he instructed, his voice steady and reassuring.

She fumbled with the levers beneath her, pulling and pushing until her feet could reach the pedals comfortably, her line of sight aligning with the rearview mirror. Every adjustment was a declaration of her presence, her intention to master this machine, this essential skill that her peers seemed to have acquired as effortlessly as breathing.

Now, start the car, Mr.