She got up and opened the curtains
again and stark winter sun filled the room with a seemingly much brighter glow
than moments ago. She stood in front of
the sliding door, looking out at the muddy courtyard and bare trees.
“Ya’ know, this is a pretty shitty
place,” she remarked to the glass.
“It’s not that bad. Got heat and AC and four walls. Hell, you could even cook. If you ever ate,” he replied through a haze
of smoke and a buzzing brain.
“I eat, sometimes” she snapped back
defensively.
“Yeah, I know. When Amy manages to steal some sandwiches
from that fuckin’ Chik-Fil-A she works at,” he conceded. Amy was her sometimes roommate.
“Got a whole goddamn freezer full
of ‘em, if you can eat right now.
Besides, that’s not what I meant.
I mean this whole town. It’s
shit. The whole world is shit. Sometimes it doesn’t fuckin’ seem worth the
effort it takes to deal with the all the shit it throws out,” she exhaled
shadow smoke into sunlight.
“Yeah, but what ya’ gonna’ do? We have fun, get high. And what choices we got anyway?” he said
lighting each of them another smoke from the butt of the one he’d just
smoked.
She turned
and looked him hard in the eye for a moment as she took the cigarette.
“Some of us
got no choices,” she finally said, her voice suddenly flat.
“That’s the
damn truth,” he commiserated.
“Fuck
you. I said SOME of us. But you do.
You got choices. You got a decent
job. You’re good with your hands. You’re the smartest loser that hangs out
around here. You know how to talk to the
fuckin’ straight world, how they think.
And you still got family that doesn’t hate you. They’d take you in, help you out, ya’
know. Shit, you quit carrying that
goddamn .45, stop spending all night selling crank at every fucking Waffle
House in Atlanta and you could probably still do something normal. Maybe even go to college”. She stopped to take a drag from her cigarette
and pointed at the crank on the table.
Her words were tumbling out now.
“You don’t quit though? You keep doing this shit…and robbing people
at gun point and fighting whoever pisses you off and all that other crazy shit
you do and, and…well, in five years you’re dead or sitting in a cell down at
Jackson waiting for the goddamn state to make you dead. That’s that piece of shit Rat. That’s Virgil or most of those assholes down
at the Keg. But that ain’t you. You aren’t like them. Or me.
What the fuck you doing here, anyway?” she finished. Her face had flushed and her eyes flashed.
“Huh? Family?
College? What’s your goddamn
problem? I like what I’m doing. It’s who I am, anyway,” he asked stunned.
She stood looking down at him, her
breath slowing and color returning to her cheeks. She stubbed out her smoke and sat down beside
him. She looked long at him again, but
different this time, softer. Then she
looked down at her hands.
“That’s just it. I know it’s not who you are. And you won’t say it, but you know it too,”
she sighed.
“What are you…” he started.
“Just shut up for a little
while. OK?” she interrupted.
Then she turned, moving down and
laid her head in his lap facing away from him.
He was truly confused by this
move. She’d never even really touched
him before, and now this simple and intimate gesture. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. As if in answer, she took his hand, held it
between hers and clutched it to her chest.
She sighed deeply and seemed to settle that way. After a moment, he put out his cigarette and
began tentatively to stroke her hair with his free hand. He stayed that way, feeling the softness of
her hair, the movement of her chest with each breath, the small warmth of her
hands. They remained that way as Tom
Petty’s “Refugee” played.
After the song ended, she stirred,
rolled over and locked her eyes onto his again.
But this time there was something different in hers. They were moist, soft.
Not speaking, she softly pressed
her lips to his, as if asking a question.
Surprised, not by the question but in how small she seemed in asking, he
returned the kiss. Finding her
confirmation, she pressed her body to his, her tongue probing his mouth.
She took gentle control and made
love to him wildly, passionately demanding.
Then her demeanor changed and she was now the gentle giver, seeking out
what she sensed pleased him and taking her pleasure in that too. At those moments, though he appeared to be
dominant, he sensed that this was not the case, that this was a dance that she
alone choreographed for her own purposes.
And he didn’t really care.
She finally collapsed on top of
him, gasping for breath with her dark hair a tangle in both of their
faces. She giggled lightly and pulled
back enough to look at him. They were
still joined together as she asked “Little bump, baby?” and ground into him.
“Why not?” he smiled up at her.
Holding on, she reached back and
grabbed the baggie. Opening it she
dipped her little finger into the powder, scooped some in her fingernail and
held it beneath his nostril. He snorted
sharply and felt the crystals edge into his brain. He watched as she snorted. He saw her drop the baggie behind her onto
the coffee table without breaking eye contact with him. The tingle was all over his body now and she
was apparently experiencing the same thing.
This time they feasted, each
devouring the other with no thought, no time, no anything. All was here and now and no one was in
control of anything.
They finally collapsed, sweaty and
struggling for breath.
“Goddamn. If I’d known you could do that we would’ve a
long time ago,” she gasped, eyes closed.
He didn’t answer, just lit the last
smoke from the pack and sat appreciating the smooth look of her skin. He held the cigarette to her lips and she
opened one eye to see to take a drag.
“What you lookin’ at?” she asked
exhaling.
“You,” he replied as his eyes
wandered over her body, trying to memorize the details that he knew he’d lose
all too quickly.
Suddenly shy, she pulled her
panties on and slipped into an old oversized flannel shirt that she fished off
the floor.
He handed her the cigarette and stood
to pull his jeans back on. Springsteen’s
“Born to Run” teased his ears as sat back into the sofa and contemplated her
sudden demure shift.
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