Chapter Eight - Tyler & Maddie
TYLER
Well, that’s some shit you don’t see every day.
A devil in a strip club, at eight in the morning, beating the fuck out of the bag man for a Mexican drug lord with a pitchfork.
Huh.
One of her shoes has come off, so she’s sorta limping toward him, swinging her pitchfork, as he scrambles backwards to get away. Everything else in the club has come to a dead stop, save for the song still playing. Maddie’s song. The one that plays when she does her stage dance. The song I had Shazam identify for me as Angel by Massive Attack, and then downloaded and put on a playlist called “Maddie,” which currently consists of just the one song that I play over and over, so, y’know, it’s an easy track for me to recognize.
It’s funny to watch a dude get his ass kicked to a soundtrack.
(And is it wrong that I think it’s insanely sexy? Whatever. I do.)
Before I can take another step, she’s cast off her other shoe, tossed her pitchfork down and is going full fuckin’ Ronda Rousey on old boy. The daytime door guy is trying to hold her back, but she’s off the chain.
Holy shit, I’m so fucking hard right now.
I’m hanging back, partially because she’s got this and partially because I’m enjoying the show. The handful of other sad sacks in the joint are hanging back too, but I’m guessing that’s because they’re afraid of getting their dicks kicked in.
Maddie’s yelling, “Fuck you, motherfucker! Fuck you, and fuck Carlos, and fuck all of you bitches!” The door guy is not small, but he’s trying to hold onto an out-of-control wildfire that’s scorching the earth. She shoots out of his hands and is on top of Logan again in a flash, like an escaping lick of flame.
“You tell him that his daughter is the fucking whore who’s responsible for paying him his money back! And tell him that if he thinks he’s gonna stick his rotten cock inside me, he’s living in fantasy land! If he, or you, ever touch me again, I will feed both of you your fucking hearts!”
Jesus. I swear to God, I’m gonna come in my pants. This is the hottest shit I’ve ever seen.
Pete’s on the scene now. One of the girls must’ve gone up to his office to get him because he’s rumbled down the stairs with purpose in his ambling stride.
“Hey!” he shouts. “Hey! Scarlett! Maddie! Knock it off!”
He comes up from behind and as he bends over to reach for her, the short sleeves on his button-down Aloha shirt rise up his biceps enough that I can just make out a faded tattoo. It’s the tip of a spear with a sword inside and three lightning bolts crisscrossing the blade. A Special Forces tattoo. Shit, good old grandfatherly Pete was a Green Beret. I knew I liked the guy.
He wraps Maddie in a bear hug and pulls her off Logan, lifts her up, and holds her in the air, her bare feet still thrashing about untameably.
Red hair sprays across her face with the shaking of her head and Pete grips her tighter as she rips one arm free, points at Logan and bellows, “I don’t give a fuck! I don’t give a FUCK! Come at me, motherfucker! Let’s go! Let’s fucking go!”
Yep. A little bit just slipped out of the tip of my dick, I’m pretty sure.
This Logan asshole is bleeding from the nose, mouth, eye, and—I think—ear? Jesus, she covered all the bases. He stumbles to his feet and backwards, spitting blood on the floor.
“Hey!” Pete shouts. “Not on the carpet!”
(In fairness to Logan, it’s a pretty dumb idea to have carpet in a fucking strip club. Like a goddamn Petri dish.)
Logan’s panting in and out heavily, trying to catch his breath. An ass-kicking’ll do that to you. I fade back into the far corner. I’m clearly not needed here, but I don’t wanna duck out yet, just in case.
Unlucky Logan (which is what I’ve decided to call him) is teetering, trying to find his feet against the floor, and I’m just about to laugh when he whips out a gun from his jacket, points it at Maddie, and says, “You’re dead, bitch.”
If you asked me to tell you the story of how I covered the space between me and him and rammed the barrel of the pistol I’m carrying against the side of his temple before he had a chance to pull the trigger on his, there’s no fucking way I could tell it. I have no idea. But it’s what happens.
“Hey, Logan!” I say brightly. “I’ve missed you. How’s things? Eating enough? You look thin.”
His shoulders drop. Because of course they do. Because I don’t know whose fucking nephew or cousin this jackass is, but he is shitty at being a bad guy.
“Tyler?” Maddie shouts, as she allows herself to go a little more still against the broad barrel of Pete’s chest.
“Hey, Maddie. What’s up?” I ask it as casually as I can. Given the present situation, that’s not really all that fucking casual.
“What the fuck?” she yells as Pete releases his hold and lets her stand on the ground. “Why are you here right now?”
“I, um…” I’m not sure how to answer, so I just say, “Hi, Pete.”
“Tyler.” He nods to me.
Maddie starts after Logan again. Or it’s possible she’s coming after me. Either way, both of us flinch before Pete grabs her by the arm and stops her.
“Scarlett?” he says.
“What?” She spins on him and her hair kind of hits him in the face.
“Why don’t you go on and head home?”
“I’m not going fu—”
“It’s not a request, Maddie.”
She stares at Pete. She turns and stares at Logan. Then she stares at me. Then she starts to say something to me. Then she stops. Then she turns away. Then she turns back. Then she starts to speak again. Then she stops. Then she shakes her head. Then she picks up one of her shoes. Then she looks for the other one. Then one of the other girls finds it and hands it to her. Then she picks up her pitchfork. Then she holds her pitchfork in one hand and her shoes in the other and stares at me. Then she starts to say something. Then she stops.
And then she leaves.
“Uh, Pete?” That’s the bartender. “Should I call the cops?”
Pete waves him off. “Nah, nah, don’t worry about it.” He steps over to me and Unlucky Logan. I’ve still got Unlucky’s old gun pressed against his unlucky head when Pete wrenches the gun Unlucky’s currently holding away from his grip. Unlucky (I really like this nickname) looks like he’s about to spontaneously combust.
“You work for Castillo?” Pete asks.
Unlucky doesn’t answer right away so I tap him on the noggin with the barrel.
“Answer Pete. He’s your elder.”
Pete looks at me with a ‘what the fuck are you doing’ glance, but I don’t care. I’m having fun. I shrug.
Logan closes his eyes and bites out, “He’s my uncle.”
“I fuckin’ knew it!” I shout out. (Which I don’t mean to do, but I really did know it.)
“Figures,” says Pete, “Like uncle, like nephew, huh?”
“Fuck does that mean?” asks Unlucky. Which I would’ve asked too. Fuck does that mean?
“OK,” Pete says. “Well, look, I don’t really give two shits what goes on out there.” He nods toward the door. “They’re grownups and what they do out in the world is their responsibility. But in here… these girls are my responsibility. So, if you’ve got some kinda deal you need to sort out with Scarlett, you do it somewhere else. You get me?”
Fucking Pete, man!
Unlucky Logan must feel like pushing his luck a little bit more to see just how unlucky he is, because he squares up and gets in Pete’s face. Which, if I’m being honest, I’m real impressed by. He’s either even dumber than I thought or the guy really does have brass balls. (Or cojones, I guess, since it turns out he must be at least part Mexican. I wonder if it’s his mom or dad that’s Carlos’ sibling. “Logan” is not a terribly Mexican name. I wonder if he’s adopted? Whatever. Not the time. Rambling.)
Unlucky is almost nose to nose with Pete now. He leans in and he whispers, “No. I don’t get you. Is this a shitty, second-rate tit-bar you’re running, or a fucking day care, old man?”
Pete doesn’t say shit. Just stares at him.
“So tell me… What if I decide I do need to come back here again to get what’s ours? What the fuck are you gonna do about it?”
Shit. This is intense. I love it!
Pete still doesn’t blink, and he doesn’t look away. The only thing that might change in his expression at all is that his eyelids may droop a little, giving him a sleepy look that suggests he’s kind of bored by the whole thing and would rather just be back in his office doing… accounting or whatever the fuck. And then, like he’s asking someone to pick up milk at the store, he says…
“I’ll fuckin’ kill ya.”
I bow my head slightly, entirely by accident. I have heard some cold-blooded shit in my day, spoken by some cold-blooded motherfuckers, but that shit right there was so cold it would make a rattlesnake crawl backwards into its hole.
And that’s clearly how it lands on Unlucky Logan, too, because he gets like an inch shorter all of a sudden.
“Now go on,” Pete says. “Get outta here.”
There’s a filled beat while Unlucky tries to decide how much it’s worth to him to try to save face, but then he concludes wisely that today just ain’t his day.
He backs away from both of us, me and Pete, who are now each holding a gun that used to be his, and I can only guess how much that has to suck for him. But what’re you gonna do? Guy makes bad choices.
As he gets to the exit, he pauses and then he says, “I’ll see you again,” to Pete, and then to me he goes, “You too… Tyler.” He puts a little something extra on my name like I’m supposed to be all impressed or scared or whatever that the dummy knows my first name. It’s like the silliest threat I’ve ever gotten. For less than a second, I have the same feeling I had before, when I fucked up him and his boy in the alley. Like I almost feel bad for him. But then I remember… I don’t.
And with that, he pushes out of the club and into the morning sunshine.
I open my mouth to speak, but before I get any words out, Pete just says, “Go on,” waving me in the direction where Maddie just left and closing his eyes and nodding his head. There’s this instant where I think about asking him if he’ll adopt me. But that’d be weird. As opposed to everything else that’s happening which is completely normal.
I just nod my head in response and hand the gun I’m holding to Pete. I don’t fucking want it. He takes it from me, nods at me in return, and I head towards the back of the club where I saw Maddie exit.
As I get there, just before I push through the door, I turn back to see the few customers take their seats again as some chick takes the stage. (Now HER, I do feel bad for, having to try to get dudes to think about anything other than what just happened—but then again… She has huge tits and they all have dicks, so it probably won’t take long before equilibrium returns.) The song changes to some new thing, and Pete’s wide back and shoulders lumber up the stairs and out of sight.
MADDIE
As I storm out the back door into the alley, the sun hits me in the eyes and I squint. I almost forgot it was daylight out. It’s easy to lose time when you’re inside there.
A homeless guy going through the dumpster to my left sees me, shouts, “Devil!” and runs away.
I stomp over to the car. Annie’s car, which I’m still fucking borrowing. It’s a candy-apple-red Audi S5 convertible. Basically, Annie’s drone. Something she bought because she thought it would give her freedom but has become just another albatross.
I grabbed my bag before walking out, but I’m holding my shoes and pitch-fucking-fork and fumbling in my purse for my keys, which is when I stop paying attention to where the pitchfork is pointing and hear “screeeeeech.” I don’t even need to look to know that I have royally fucked up Annie’s car. But I do.
“FUCK!”
I toss everything in my hands to the ground and the keys spill out. I snatch ’em up, press the button to unlock the door, and am about to jump in, peel away from here and drive into a phone pole on purpose when the scuffed-up door of Pete’s opens and… he… comes running out.
“Maddie,” he calls after me.
“Fuck you, dude. I asked you for one thing. One thing and you can’t give me that?”
“I was trying, but—”
“Shit! I asked you to be there for me seven years ago and you couldn’t do that, now I’m just asking you to stay the hell away and you can’t do that either. What’s it take?”
“Maddie, stop. You’re in trouble and that’s painfully obvious and I’m just trying to be there if you need my help.”
“I don’t need anything from you. Not anymore. Thanks for playing.” I sit down in the driver’s seat and press the starter button, but before I can get away, he yanks the door open and grabs my arm, pulling me out of the car.
“What. The. Fuck. Are you doing?” I spit the words in his face. “If you value anything about your life, you will take your hand off me right the fuck now.”
He does. I bend down, grab up my pitchfork, and press the tines into his chest.
“OK, now…” he says.
“Yeah? What? That hurt?” I ask, pushing it a little harder. “Like there? Around your heart? That feel shitty? ’Cause I know what that’s like.”
“Maddie, stop!” He pushes it away and yanks it from my hand.
“Give it back. It’s mine. I got it at Tractor Supply.”
And then he does the most infuriating thing he can possibly do. He laughs.
“What? What’s so funny?” I spew at him. He laughs harder. “Stop! Stop! Dick!”
I slap him on the chest, then I ball up my fist and strike him, then I ball up the other one and hit him again, and then, next thing I know, I’m wailing on him hard, pounding without restraint, and he’s letting me. He takes it. Every blow I offer. And then I stop.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask. “Fight back, you pussy.” I hit him again. This time across the face. A hard slap.
He twists his head back to face me. “No,” he says.
So I slap him again. And again. And again. Each time his head snaps and then he turns back to me, allowing me to do it again. I pull back a step to take him in. Because I can’t believe this fucking guy.
And that’s when I notice the massive hard-on he’s got going.
“Really?” I say with astonishment. He shrugs in that fucking way he does.
And I grab a handful of that scraggily-ass beard, pull him face to face with me, look into those stupid blue eyes, say, “Fuck,” and jump up into his arms, my legs around his waist, my mouth pressed against his lips.
“I hate you,” I breathe out in between kisses.
TYLER
Shit. I have so much I want to say and to ask her. I want to know what the hell is going on with this Carlos asshole exactly. I want to explain that I have been trying to stay away and that I’m only here now because I want to make sure she’s okay. Because I owe her. Because I love her. Because I loved her back when she was just a kid and Scotty’s little sister and now I’ve fallen in love with the woman she is.
But her bare ass in my hands, tongue in my mouth, and thighs wrapped around my waist convince me that I can table that shit for a later date.
I walk her back to the trunk of the car and slam her down on it. She throws her legs open and that’s when I notice two things:
One: Her devil costume has a little red devil tail hanging off the back of the panties and it’s dangling down on the trunk of the car between her open thighs. Which is adorable and hot as shit at the same time. And…
Two: The panties themselves have a zipper on the crotch.
And I’m done.
And then I’m undone.
Two zippers go down in quick succession.
I slide her to the edge of the trunk where my cock is waiting to receive her. The morning sunshine creates an incredibly different atmosphere than we had the last time we were back here together. It’s strange. The night we fucked back here we were secret, hidden, protected, glancing furtively to make sure no one saw us.
Now, today, we couldn’t be more exposed, but neither one of us seems to notice or care. And I realize suddenly that the last time we fucked in this very alley, it was also after some drama created by Unlucky Logan. The difference is last time, I kind of stepped in and saved Scarlett, and this time Maddie sure as shit saved herself. And thinking about that again pushes hot, boiling blood into my dick and I thrust myself inside her with the same kind of reckless force that she defended herself with.
“More,” she grunts out, tightening the grip of her calves around my hips and dragging me into her further.
The teeth of the zippers on both her panties and my jeans rub against the skin on my shaft as I pound in and out, and the scraping, lacerating feeling makes me harder, which causes me to want to fuck her just that much more fiercely. Because I deserve to be punished. I owe her that. I can take it.
I’ve taken worse.
And then I pull out without warning.
“The fuck are you going?” she asks.
I bend down and when I stand back up, I’m holding the pitchfork. I hand it to her.
“Here,” I say, pulling my t-shirt over my head. The look on her face lets me know that it’s one thing to see the scars in the darkened seclusion of a strip club, or the black of an alley at night, or even my place or hers after the sun has taken its rest. It’s an entirely other matter confronting them in the bright light of day.
I force the pitchfork into her hand as I slip my dick back inside her again.
“Use it,” I say.
“Fuck are you talking about?” she says.
“Press it into me. My chest. While I’m inside you,” I say as I begin pumping in and out again.
“I don’t—” she starts. But I know what’s right. What I want. What she needs.
“Just do it,” I wheeze, as I fuck her sweet pussy. I just want to pleasure her. I want to make her feel good.
And I want her to punish me.
Now.
“Do it,” I urge again.
Her eyes narrow and she gets (appropriately) a devilish grin. And then without another word, she rocks her hips back and forth with the thrusting of mine, while at the same time pressing the sharp prongs of the tool into the scarred flesh on my chest. I can feel it ripping and tearing, but I don’t feel pain. Not in a conventional sense. Not even when she drags the edges down to my waist. I just know that she needs to hurt me, and this seems like a good start.
I watch her forearm tense. I can see her trying to stop herself from just fucking impaling me right here, which is what she wants to do. And if she does, she does. But as long as she doesn’t, I’m going to keep sliding this big cock in and out of her until she comes.
And even though I know it’s just my imagination, I could swear that from somewhere I hear a voice yelling, “Watch out, man! She’s a devil!”
MADDIE
My angel is gone.
It’s the devil who has a hold of me now. Complete control over me in this moment. My smile is his smile. The pressure of the pitchfork tines against the sensitive skin of Tyler’s lower abdomen is his doing. The scratches I’m leaving on Tyler’s scarred body—
Tyler’s scarred body.
I glance up at him. He’s breathing hard, his eyes fixed on mine. “Don’t stop,” he says, his voice urging me to resume the punishment. “Do it again.”
I close my eyes for one long second, make a decision, then open them and keep the pressure constant, forcing myself to forget about the scars.
Tyler groans, but he fucks me harder, his cock crashing into my pussy like this is the last time he’ll ever get this chance. And he’s taking it. Embracing it, leaning down to kiss my mouth, until the tines puncture his skin and little pin-pricks of red appear on his flesh.
It’s not fair, I decide. It’s not fair that all his damage is visible and my tragic past is hidden inside.
“You hurt me,” I growl into his kiss. He’s got my knees up to my chin, spreading me open as he slams his body against mine. His cock fully inside me. His balls slapping against my ass, which feels so good. But all wrong. And it makes me sick for a second.
“Hurt me back,” he whispers, still kissing me. Like he can’t stop himself. Like the kiss makes what we’re doing—what he wants me to do—all right. “Get even,” he says. “Take whatever you need from me.”
Selfishness isn’t part of my true nature. I’m a giver. But right now I’m not myself. I’m the devil. I’m pissed off. So angry that I always have to fight for everything. So sick of the struggle. So tired of losing.
And right now all I want to do is take.
I want to take everything from him.
I want to wipe him off this fucking planet.
I want to make him sorry he ever came back to Vegas.
I want to make him leave me, and this city, and never fucking come back.
“Please,” he says. He nips at my lip, gently first, then harder. Insistent. Unyielding. Trying to keep me on task. “Harder,” he says.
I wanna hurt him the way he hurt me, only worse.
I never want to stop hurting him.
I want to lose my temper the way I did with Logan. And just… damage him. Forever. Make him stay down here in purgatory with me. Stuck in an unwinnable existence, caught in the eternal penance he owes me, trapped in the nightmare I’ve been living in since—
“Maddie,” he says. “I said do it!”
I throw the pitchfork aside, dig my fingernails into the tight flesh of his shoulders, and scrape them down his arms until the scratches bleed.
“Yeah,” he groans. “Just like that.”
But then he’s just fucking me harder. And the slap of his balls against my ass just feels better. And his tongue seeks me out, twists us together as I lift my legs a little higher, and spread my knees a little wider. Until he grits his teeth, his body stiff. Like he’s about to come.
And I think—for like half a second—Good. Let’s get this over with. Just come, get off me and—
But his fingers are between my legs. Strumming my clit the way I like it. The way I told him I liked it the last time we were fucking in this alley. And all that bullshit I was just spewing in my head just… floats there. Waiting. Like some ethereal mist that fuels my hate and rage. A cloud of poison that, if I let it, might just dissipate and let the engine die.
And then it does.
Leaving me alone with my self-loathing. And all my losses. The ones I’ve been stacking one on top of another until they became a tower so tall it reaches past heaven. And when the tower wobbles, like it’s gonna fall and crash back to Earth in a pile of rubble that never gets put back together again…I come.
Lying on the trunk of Annie’s car. With Tyler Morgan on top of me. Blood under my fingernails like evidence. Sun shining down on us, illuminating our filthy, sinful souls.
Or maybe… or maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s our shared contrition. Maybe we’re both sorry. Maybe we can let the hurt and anger go and make something new. Something better to take their place. Something beautiful. Maybe we’re both looking for a way out of this fucked-up purgatory we put ourselves in since—
I close my eyes and wish it to be true, just as Tyler pulls out and comes on the front of my devil costume.
My hope dies like the manic desperation after climax.
Because nothing about what we just did was beautiful.
TYLER
As I look down to watch the vibrant red of her little devil negligee get painted with streaks of my cream-colored come, I notice the blood winding its way down my chest, along the ridges and valleys of my scarred flesh, and I feel nothing. No pain, I mean.
Unsurprising. I’ve never really had to endure physical pain. Which would probably sound weird to someone if they heard me say that, especially if they knew I’d been stabbed and set on fire and blown up and all that crap. But I just don’t really feel pain. Not like other people do, anyway. And that’s not something I’m, like, y’know, proud of, or think makes me cool or tough or anything. It’s just true.
My threshold for corporal suffering has always been incredibly high. Ever since I was a kid. Used to drive my dad crazy when he’d smack me around and I’d just smile at him. One time, after I said, “Aw, Pops, is that the best you can do?” he went ape shit and damn near took my head off. It fucked me up, definitely, but I never really hurt from it. Not sure why. Maybe my nerves are wired differently than other people’s.
I dunno.
Point is, I realize that this is a good start, but if Maddie’s going to get satisfaction in the form of punishing me for my sins, we’re gonna have to work a lot harder.
Speaking of Maddie…
“What the fuck?” she yells at me.
“What?” I ask back as the last bits of come stream from my cock onto the flowy fabric she’s wearing.
“Why did you just fucking do that to my costume?”
“Wha—? I—What do you mean?”
“You coulda come fucking anywhere, dude, why there?”
“I dunno. Just… Fuck. I dunno.”
My erection now does a double-time retreat and I shove my softening and still leaking dick back inside my pants.
She slides off the trunk of the car, pulling the come-covered material off, over her head, careful not to let it touch her hair. Suddenly, I feel like a fucking twat, so I look around for my t-shirt, grab it up and put it back on.
She zips up the crotch of her panties and is now standing in front of me in the morning sunshine wearing nothing but a red bra, red panties, red stockings with a fucking devil tail hanging off the back, and two little horns on her head.
And my dick catches a second wind.
She throws her little dress in my face, which I assume she intends as an act of further punishment, but when I smell her and me mixed up together like that, all it does is make me hotter.
“You coulda come over there”—she points—“or there”—she points somewhere else—“shit, you coulda just fucking come inside me, but—”
“Really?” I ask, a bit surprised at that sentence.
“Yeah, whatever. You know I’m on the pill. You saw that shit when you went rummaging through my bathroom. Jesus. But you had to fuck up my costume. And now I gotta go buy another one. Christ.”
She open-hand smacks me against the chest, and when she pulls her hand away, she looks taken aback. I glance down to see that my white t-shirt is weeping with blood from where she dug into me.
And for a moment, I mean like maybe the tiniest parcel of time, I see something in her eyes that looks like… forgiveness. Which makes no sense and maybe I imagined it, but I could swear it was there.
“Fuck, I’m sorry.” I say. “I’ll buy you a new one.”
“No. No goddamn way. I’m not taking your money.”
“Yeah, OK, but speaking of,” I begin as she grabs up her shit from the ground, her unbelievable ass bent to the sky, begging me to shove my tongue inside it. I try to shake off the distraction, because what I want to say feels important. “Uh, yeah, so speaking of money…what’s the deal? How much do you owe those fuckholes?”
She continues scooping up her shit. “Nothing. I don’t. Whatever. Don’t worry ’bout it.”
I’m gonna worry about it. There’s no way I’m not gonna worry about it. Because if it’s just money she owes these shitlickers, then I’ll take care of it for her. Whatever it is. That’s the easiest thing in the world. Well, when you have it, I guess. But I do, so fuck it.
“Maddie, please, just… fuckin’… let me help you! Shit! Even if you still hate me or whatever, that’s no goddamn reason not to let me give you a hand.”
“I got two hands of my own, and they’re doing just fine, thanks.” She throws her shit in the car, kind of ripping the leather seats with her pitchfork as she does. “Fuck! Me!” she shouts.
“What about your parents?” I offer up.
She spins on me, hard. “What about my parents? What do you mean, ‘what about my parents?’ Fuck are you trying to say, ‘what about my parents’?”
I choose not to point out that she just asked the same question three different ways. “Like, OK, fine, don’t take my fuckin’ help, but do they know what’s going on? I mean, shit, surely they can help bail you out of whatever the hell—”
“No one is bailing me out of a goddamn thing, you get that?” She’s poking me now, right in the places I’m bleeding. “I don’t need a fucking bailout. I can only trust one person, and that’s me, and so that’s who I trust, and I’m fucking fine. Get it?”
I take a breath, trying to understand and to be patient, when suddenly it occurs to me that I don’t. Understand. And I’m out. Of fucking patience.
“Yeah. Yeah, I fuckin’ get it.” There’s a little more heat in that than I actually intended, but fuck it.
Sure, I did something wrong once, but I’m trying to make up for it now.
And she fucks me and then tells me to take a hike like I’m… I don’t even know what. And then she fucks me again, and… So, no. No. Fuck that. I’m done. I’m done sitting in the penalty box on this shit. I’ll do whatever in the world I can for this chick, but if she won’t let me, then fuck her. And you know what? If Scotty was here, that’s exactly what he’d tell me to do too.
I know he would.
Seriously.
He would.
I know it.
She stares at me like she’s surprised that I got a little terse with her.
So I do it again.
“What?” I say. “I said I get it. So… I fuckin’ get it. You’re fine. You’re dynamite. Super. You’ve got a handle on fuckin’ everything, so… Great. Good for you. Run with it. Do you, boo. I won’t ask another time. Good luck. See ya. Bye.”
She blinks a couple of times with heat behind her eyes. I keep going.
“Seriously. I’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want. Shit, I mean it must really be, because Evan told me that he tried to reach out to you back in the day, back when Scotty…” I stop short because I’m trying to make a fucking point, not be a goddamn asshole. “And he says you just ghosted on him. Wouldn’t return his calls. He’d invite you out and you’d never show. Or swing by and your mom would tell him you weren’t there, when you almost certainly were. And so it hit the point that when your parents moved away, he just assumed you moved with them. That’s how much you fucking disappeared. I mean… ain’t it?”
She looks like she wants to rip my goddamn head off. And so again, I keep going.
“So, yeah, you really must wanna be all the fuck alone. Because Evan’s like the best dude on the planet, and if you were doing that shit with him to… I don’t even know what. Like, make some kinda fucking statement to me? Well, that didn’t work, but you sure as shit did wall yourself away. So brava, girlie. Bra-fucking-va.”
I give her a slow, sarcastic hand clap, and ready myself for the kick to the nuts that I anticipate happening any second.
But it doesn’t.
Instead, her face goes blank. Not sad. Not angry. Not…anything. Blank.
And then—“Fuck,” she sighs out. “Man, you’ve done so much in the world, seen, I’m assuming, so much, and still… the sheer volume of what you don’t know could fill an encyclopedia.”
“Oh, yeah? Really? Who the fuck still reads an encyclopedia?”
I dunno why I said it. Just where my brain went.
“You’re fucking impossible,” she says, and gets in the car. I can hear the squeak of leather as her bare ass makes contact with the seat and I have a hard time…
No. That’s it. A hard time.
She turns on the ignition and presses a button. The convertible top lowers. She puts on her sunglasses, looks over her shoulder at me standing there, bleeding through my clothes, and says, “Fuckin’ dumbass. Next time just come inside me.”
And then she peels off down the alley, around the corner, and out of sight.
NEXT TIME just come INSIDE ME.
Fuck, fucking yeah.
I look around to see if anyone is nearby and if we—unknown to us at the time—have been giving away a free Vegas show, and see no one. Except…
I look up and in the window above the club, looking down onto the alley, stands Pete. Coffee mug and bagel in hand.
He takes a bite of his bagel, a sip of his coffee, and then shakes his head back and forth at me, slowly, like he’s not quite sure what the fuck to do with me.
I smile at him, raise both arms out to the sides, palms up, and, bloody, sleep-deprived, and still rocking a bit of an erection, I raise my left eyebrow, and shrug.