Billie
Three Days Earlier
Billie stood behind the bar at The Boot Hill Saloon and brushed her auburn hair back seductively, considering the proposition Clem Folsom had just made.
Beneath the red bandana tied around her neck, there was a thin sheen of perspiration on her breasts. The first four buttons of her denim shirt were undone, and she saw Clem's pale blue eyes flickering from her face to her cleavage and back again. The shirt was tied up at the waist, revealing her flat tummy. Her jean shorts were so tiny that the flaps of her flat white pockets were fully visible, resting against her outer thighs.
Clem gulped nervously, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he waited for her answer.
“Okay,” Billie agreed, taking a sip from her beer and wiping her mouth. “How much money have you got?”
Clem grinned nervously, reaching into the pocket of his grass-stained overalls. He pulled out a handful of crumpled bills and counted them out on the bar. “Fifty bucks.”
“Not bad,” Billie commented, nodding. “For how long?”
Clem's smile widened, revealing two rows of small, crooked teeth. “Heck, gal, since it's you? I'd go a whole forty-five seconds.”
Next to him, Big Pete Crabtree let out a wheezing guffaw and slapped his knee with a huge, hairy hand. “Boy, are you kiddin'? This is Billie Rosewood we got here!” Pete pulled out a roll of bills and peeled off five twenties. “I got a hunnert dollars fer the full sixty seconds.”
“Aw, yer a couple a' cheap-ass pikers, both of ya,” Red Hawley sneered, tossing some money on the bar. “I got a hundred an' fifty bucks says we're gonna have ninety seconds of pure goddamn poetry in motion tonight. What do you say, darlin'?” He winked at Billie lasciviously.
“All right, boys, all right,” Billie said, sipping her beer again. “No need to fight. There's plenty of action to go around. Only what if I say anything less than the full two minutes is a waste of this lady's time, huh?”
The men gaped at her, astonished.
“No way,” Pete said, shaking his big head vigorously. Dust and hayseeds drifted down from his shaggy gray hair, settling on the surface of the bar like snow flurries.
“Nuh-uh,” Clem agreed. “Ain't no way a little gal like you is gonna be able to hang on for the full two minutes. Not with somethin' that big an' powerful between yer legs.”
“Ninety seconds,” Red chimed in. “Anythin' more than that an' yer gonna be on the ground lookin' up, feelin' like you just got punched in the pussy by a freight train.”
Billie shrugged mildly. “Well, maybe you're right, and maybe you're wrong. But there's one surefire way to find out, fellas. And in the immortal words of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 'Money talks and bullshit walks.' So are you in, or not?”
The three men exchanged skeptical looks. Finally, Clem said, “Okay, you're on. Show us what you got.”
Billie nodded and finished her beer in three long gulps. “I'll need some tunes to get in the mood,” she said, pushing a button on the bar's stereo. The song switched over to Merle Haggard lamenting about how there ain't no good in an evil-hearted woman.
Satisfied, Billie walked around the bar to the mechanical bull in the center of the room.
“Hey, Carlito,” she called out to the bar's owner.
Carlito was in his early fifties, a short, stocky Mexican with a shaved head and a white handlebar mustache. He looked up from the table he was wiping down, his eyebrows raised.
“I'm gonna ride Bessie,” Billie announced, stepping up to the bull and straddling it. She wrapped her fingers around the fake horns, ready to hold on for dear life. “Make sure you turn 'er all the way up, y'hear? I want to make sure these boys get their money's worth.”
Carlito shook his head and chuckled as he positioned himself next to the control switch for the bull. Billie's entire body tensed up as she prepared for the machine to start moving. She'd never actually managed to stay on for more than one minute and ten seconds, but she felt lucky tonight.
The other bar patrons formed a loose circle around the platform with the bull. All the faces were familiar, especially the men's. They came to the saloon to drink almost every night, swapping the same old stories and dirty jokes. Sometimes it seemed to Billie like she'd either dated, fucked, or rejected every man in Cactus Hollow at one time or another.
Sometimes she fantasized about leaving, but where was there to go? The town was close to where the borders of Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico converged. It seemed like deserts and wheat fields stretched out to infinity in every direction.
Carlito counted down loudly. “Tres...dos...uno!”
He hit the button and the huge machine heaved between Billie's legs. She gripped the horns as hard as she could, her palms already slick with sweat. The hairy bull head rose and fell sharply, its glass eyes reflecting the neon beer signs over the bar.
As the crowd around her cheered and hollered, Billie stole a glance at the clock on the wall.
Only twenty-two seconds. Shit.
She squeezed her legs together with all of her strength as the mechanical beast bucked and lurched. Her head bounced in every direction with such force that she felt like her neck might snap at any moment. With each sudden movement, her crotch slammed against the unforgiving saddle. The sound of the patrons whooping blended into a single constant roar, like the sound of a seashell against her ear.
Another peek at the clock.
Fifty-seven seconds.
Okay. Not bad.
The bull reared up suddenly and Billie was almost thrown backward. Her wrists ached from how tightly she was clinging to the horns, and the bones in her arms felt like tuning forks. She felt herself starting to slip off to the side and tried to hold on tighter, but her fingers were filled with pins and needles and she worried that soon they'd go completely numb. She kept one leg hooked over the back of the machine and threw herself to the other side to counterbalance, straightening out.
The clock again.
One minute and eighteen seconds.
Come on, goddamn it, she thought. Forty more seconds. You can do this. Tonight's the night.
The monstrous machine shifted to one side unexpectedly, and Billie's right hand came loose from the horn it was holding. She flailed, trying to find her grip again but clutching at air instead. The other hand lost its grip a half-second later and she felt her ass rise off of the saddle. She let out a sharp yell and plunged both hands forward, desperately grabbing for the short patches of fake fur on the bull's neck. Her inner thighs connected with the saddle again, but the muscles in them were burning viciously.
She felt her sweaty hands lose their purchase on the brown fur and closed her eyes, preparing to be thrown off...
“Two minutes!” Clem screamed. “Well, I'll be butched. She did it!”
The bull came to an abrupt stop and Billie came down hard on top of it, gasping and panting. Her shirt was soaked with sweat and the space between her legs felt like it had been hit by a wrecking ball.
She rolled over and let herself fall to the floor on her back, sore, exhausted, three hundred bucks richer and laughing triumphantly as the men at the bar drank a toast to her.