Steamy Dorm

by Kristine Robinson

  “Come on,” I whisper to Cory. “We’re getting out of here.”

  He nods to Michelle. “What about her? Aren’t you going to wake her up?”

  “Not right now.”

  He watches wide-eyed while I pick her up in my arms. That whiplike body doesn’t weight very much, and she’s totally out of it. I hoist her into my arms like a sleeping child and carry her downstairs. I settle her in the passenger seat and point Cory to the back. “Keep your head down. Don’t let anyone see you.”

  He stretches out on the seat, and I gun the engine. I don’t spare the horses until we hit the main highway headed west. Then I drop to the speed limit and chew up the miles.

  Chapter 4

  It’s a long, hard road across empty, barren country. As soon as we leave Wisconsin, the Bad Lands swallow us up. Michelle sleeps most of the morning. She wakes up when we stop for lunch, but late in the afternoon, the withdrawals take her again. I pull over at a rest stop and haul her out of the car. I hold her on the grass and try to encourage her anyway I can.

  She can understand me better now. She recognizes me and begs me to help her fight off her demons. She wants to leave the drugs behind her. She doesn’t ask me to get them for her anymore.

  She passes out again afterwards and sleeps into the night. I stop for gas outside Fargo and get me and Cory a sandwich. I load up on supplies for the road. I’m out of cash, so I put it on my credit card. I’ll figure out how to pay it off later. This is a different life than the one I had when I bought those Symbiosis concert tickets. I’m only twenty-five, and now I’ve got two people depending on me.

  I drive as long as I can, but I can’t keep my eyes open anymore. I pull into a motel and tell Cory to stay hidden while I check in. I get one room for Cory and another for Michelle and me. If she wakes up with the horrors in the night, I don’t want her waking him up.

  She perks up again. When she’s not suffering withdrawals or passed out, she’s cheerful and talkative. I take her and Cory to a truck stop, where we stuff ourselves with everything we want. Michelle keeps up the conversation, but halfway through the meal, I catch her looking around for something. She clasps her hands in her lap to stop Cory seeing them shake.

  Cory goes straight to bed while Michelle and I go back to our room. She sits down on the bed and starts chewing her fingernails. I have to distract her. “So what did you study in college?”

  She smiles. “I was going to be a medical researcher. Isn’t that crazy?”

  “Not so crazy,” I reply. “I bet you were good at it.”

  “I was, while it lasted.”

  “So what will you do once you get these drugs licked?”

  She spins around to stare at me. Then her shoulders slump. “I won’t get them licked. I appreciate everything you’re doing, but it’s hopeless. They always win in the end.”

  “They will win, if you talk like that. You have to believe in yourself, or we’re both wasting our time.”

  She shrugs and turns away. “You should concentrate on helping people who actually want to be helped.”

  “You want to be helped, don’t you? You’ve held out for three days. That’s pretty good, considering what you’ve been through. Just a little longer, and the worst will be over.”

  “How do you know? Are you some kind of drug counselor or something?”

  I don’t say anything. I pull the curtains and check out the TV schedule.

  All of a sudden, she takes my hand. “Talk to me, Aimee. You know all there is to know about me, and then some. Tell me what’s bothering you and let me help you.”

  “You think it’s crazy that you wanted to be a medical researcher,” I reply, “but I wanted to be a teacher. Isn’t that silly? I spent three years in college, and then I dropped out to become a teller in a bank. I hate the banking industry. I’m an idiot. I should have my head examined.”

  She won’t let go of my hand. “You’re not an idiot. You’ve helped me more than anyone else in my life. I’m sure you would make a good teacher. Why don’t you go back to it and give it another try? If you finished three years, you don’t have much more to do.”

  “When this all over, you mean?”

  She chuckles. “Yeah, when this is all over.”

  “I’m not cut out to be teacher. I tried to seduce Cory’s dad into giving me a promotion I didn’t deserve. You wouldn’t want someone like that teaching your children.”

  “That only proves you didn’t belong at the bank in the first place. You missed your calling. You should go back to school and become a teacher.”

  “What about you?” I ask. “Why don’t you go back to medical research after this is all over?”

  “I’ve got a lot longer to go than you do before this is all over. I have to get through these withdrawals, and then I’ve got a long road to recovery before I can think about going back to school.”

  “So what’s stopping you?” I ask. “You’ll get through these withdrawals, and you’ll walk the long road to recovery, and then you’ll go back to school. You can do it. Nothing would stop you if you set your mind to it.”

  She squeezes my hand. “Nothing would stop me if I had someone like you helping me.”

  “I already told you I would help you,” I reply. “I’ve been helping you all along. Why would I stop now?”

  She draws nearer on the bed. “I’ve never met anyone like you before, Aimee. You’re special. You care about people, and you’ve helped me more than I expected anyone to. I don’t want to let you go.”

  I open my mouth to say something when she leans in and kisses me. I start back in surprise, but she’s not sorry she did it. She gazes back at me with her clear grey eyes. I recognize a deeper understanding in her than I saw before. When I first saw her coughing in the alley, and even when I held her that first night in the warehouse, she was nothing to me but a junkie in need of help.

  Now she’s so much more than that. Beyond the drugs, beyond the wasted years, she’s a part of me. I know that now, and I’m a part of her. I wasted myself and my years as much as she did, only I wasted them on married men who didn’t respect me. I wasted them on jobs I hated, and I wasted them not respecting myself. Can she bring me back from that the way she wants me to bring her back? Can we rescue each other, simply by holding hands?

  I already know the answers to all those questions. Without a moment’s hesitation, our lips fly back together, and this time, they won’t come apart again. We devour each other’s lips, and our hands can’t get enough of each other. I’m holding her against me and kissing and tugging while she tugs at me with equal ardor.

  We fall over on the bed in a tangle of bodies. How did I know this was going to happen? Is this why I got two rooms? It doesn’t matter now. Every shred of clothing disappears and gives our hands free range to explore and discover our bodies. My mouth caresses every inch of her gorgeous length, but it’s not enough. I need more. I need to possess her in her entirety before I can rest.

  Her body stretches hard and tough, but I find her gentleness in her kiss and her touch. I’ve never experienced the delicious rapture of her skin against mine, of her legs entwining through mine and nuzzling forgotten places to quivering life again. Where was I before I met her? Was I alive before she touched me?

  Her mouth gobbles down my neck to my breasts and beyond. She dives under the covers into the dark hot river where dreams become reality. Her soft warm tongue delves into my soul, and her quick attention ignites my passion to a burning inferno. She awakens my flesh with her tongue and fingers, and I can’t hold back from reciprocating.

  I push her legs apart and explore the wonder of undiscovered territory. She falls back against the pillows in a swoon. Her skin glows with inner vitality, and her eyes sparkle with long-lost knowing. She’s everything I admire and worship, spread out before me in majestic glory. She is pure woman, with a strong light glowing from her heart.

  Her hands probe my body while I guide her to the heights of rapture. She fingers and
stimulates every crevice until I can’t hold still to take her. I thrash in wild abandon, but she pins me to the bed to drive me to my limit. She owns me and completes me as no one ever has. I could swim in this water of bliss forever and never return.

  I drink her fullness and draw the pleasure from her while my own ecstatic cries rise higher and higher. In a moment, they crash over me and sweep us away in a sea of oblivion. In the throbbing torrent of climax, she succumbs to a fit of coughing, but neither of us will stop until the tempest passes and subsides. Our joining heals her cough, and her breath rides in and out through her lungs on a smooth tide as we both drift off to sleep in each other’s arms.

  Chapter 5

  As soon as I wake up the next morning, I notice Michelle is gone. She isn’t in bed next to me and she isn’t in the room. Well, that was nice while it lasted.

  I get dressed and head out to collect Cory from the next room. Maybe Michelle caved in the night and went out to get herself a score. She can’t have gone far since she doesn’t have a car, and if that’s where she did go, I’m better off without her. Still, I can’t help kicking myself for falling for her. What was I thinking? She was never anything more than a junkie with a hard luck story.

  The minute I stick my head out the door, though, I catch sight of Cory and Michelle standing next to my car. What the dickens is going on? Is Michelle trying to make off with my car?

  At that moment, the red Honda Civic screeches around the corner and barrels into the motel parking lot. I scream for Michelle, but the noise of screeching tires already catches her attention. She grabs Cory by the scruff of the neck and hurls him onto the ground as the first spray of bullets rips across the side of my car.

  I’m halfway across the parking lot when the Civic skids to a stop and the two meatheads jump out. They start toward Cory and Michelle with automatic rifles at the ready. I put on fresh speed, but there’s no way I can get there in time.

  Michelle leaps to her feet and launches herself at the men. She grabs the barrel of one rifle just as Meathead #1 raises it to fire at Cory. She tilts it up into the air, and a shower of bullets flies over our heads and over the motel roof.

  Meathead #2 gets ready to fire, but Meathead #1 wrestling with Michelle blocks his way. I see my chance and yell at Cory to get up and get in the car. He stares at Michelle. My voice doesn’t penetrate his mind. He’s frozen stiff.

  Michelle hears me, though, and looks back at me over her shoulder. She sees me dive behind the steering wheel and fire that mother up. Meathead #2 tries again to get a clear shot, but Michelle throws Meathead #1 between herself and him again so he can’t gun us down.

  I throw open the passenger door, and it hits Cory in the head where he cowers on the ground. That wakes him up, and he hears me screaming at him to get in the blinking car. He jumps in the back. I drop it into Drive and burn rubber away from those two meatheads. Meathead #2 swings his rifle around and aims at us, but Michelle shoves Meathead #1 into him and runs for it. Meathead #1 staggers back and collides with Meathead #2, and Michelle gets away in the confusion.

  She meets me at the parking lot entrance and hops in through the open passenger door just as the two meatheads recover from their tussle. Bullets pepper the car. Michelle ducks for cover and protects her head with her arms as the passenger window rains shards of broken glass into the car.

  Cory screams, but I drop my foot onto the accelerator and peal out of the parking lot. The two meatheads get smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror.

  Michelle lets out a maniacal laugh. “That was great! We showed them, didn’t we?”

  “Not so fast,” I tell her. “They’ve got a car, too, you know.”

  She looks in the side mirror, and the smile vanishes from her face when she sees what I see. The Civic swings out of the parking lot onto the highway after us. You wouldn’t believe a Civic could go that fast, but my car isn’t exactly is a dinosaur. The Civic looks like a rental in top working order.

  They have no trouble closing the gap. Cory hides on the back seat and keeps his eyes shut tight. He’s too scared to think about what might happen. Michelle sits silent and drawn on the passenger seat. She doesn’t gloat anymore, and I’m fresh out of ideas.

  There’s nothing I can do but floor it, but the Civic overtakes us with no problem. It weaves back and forth behind us for a minute before the driver (don’t ask me if it’s Meathead #1 or Meathead #2) yanks out into the oncoming lane. Good thing there’s not a lot of traffic in the middle of North Dakota. He’s got the whole lane to himself and all the time in the world for his friend to take careful aim at you know who.

  Could my life really end this way? I never had a chance to help Cory or Michelle, but at least I got one night to love her. It was a nice idea, but it came to nothing like most of my nice ideas.

  The shooter’s finger tightens on the trigger, and at the last second, I jerk the wheel sideways. He shoots, and the bullets miss my head and skitter along the front fender. The driver’s side tire blows out, and the steering wheel flips in my hands. The car teeters and tilts sideways.

  I can’t keep the car on the road. No matter how hard I wrestle the wheel, the car leans left. I fight it all the way, but it veers behind the Meathead Mobile and cuts across the other lane, where it bounces over the shoulder and into the ditch.

  We’re going too fast to stop. The car leaps up out of the ditch and plows through a fence. It bumps into a field and rides through rough grass. A farm house sticks up out of the field beyond some trees, and I head for it. Maybe the people there can help us, but the car breaks through the bushes and plunges into a stream I didn’t see. It collides nose first into the bank and fizzes to a stop. A cloud of steam rises from the hood. That car isn’t going anywhere anymore.

  Michelle kicks the passenger door open. “Run for it! Get to the house. It’s our only chance.”

  We drag petrified Cory out of the car and haul him toward the house. I spot the Civic on the highway. It turns up the farm house driveway. They’re heading for the house, too, to cut us off. Michelle and I won’t let Cory slow down. We have to reach the house first.

  The meatheads get out of their car as we run up the steps. I grab the knob and give it a tug, but it doesn’t budge. It’s locked. Meathead #1 levels his rifle at us. Michelle seizes Cory in one hand and me in the other. She throws us off the porch as the first bullets hammer the door.

  Michelle dives into the dirt on top of us. “There must be a way in.”

  “Look, Michelle,” I exclaim. “Over there.”

  I point to a window in the foundation. It’s propped open, and Michelle gives it a hard wrench. It opens wide enough for her to slither through. “Come on. It’s all clear.”

  I belly flop through the window into the basement with Cory right behind me. Michelle looks around when we hear a blow above our heads. Wood splinters and gives way. The meatheads are kicking in the front door.

  Michelle heads across the basement. “Get upstairs. We might find a gun or something.”

  We come out in a nice living room full of very clean, almost new furniture. The people who own this place must have just stepped out. They haven’t been away long. Maybe they could have a gun. This is North Dakota, after all.

  The front door caves in, and the two men rush into the front hall. One says to the other, “Fan out and find them. They went into the basement, so find a way down there.”

  Michelle holds her finger to her lips, and we sneak out of the living room on tiptoe while they search the basement for us. She guides us to the house stairs leading up to the second story. If there’s a gun in this house, it will be in or near the bedrooms.

  At the top of the stairs, she signals me to go one way while she goes another. We don’t have time to make more than a hasty search, but these must be the only people in North Dakota without a firearm. We find nothing, not even a gun safe.

  We meet back on the landing when the two men come into the living room. They decide to head upstairs, and w
e don’t have anything to fight them with but our bare hands.

  Michelle herds us into the master bedroom. She keeps backing up until we’re huddled in the bathroom corner with nowhere else to go. Cory clings to me with shaking hands.

  Michelle tears open the cabinet under the sink and finds a bottle of vinegar. Then she rips open the medicine cabinet and brings out a box of baking soda. Before I can ask what she’s doing, she opens a shampoo bottle and dumps it down the sink. She fills it part way with vinegar. Then she dumps in the baking soda and screws down the lid.

  She shakes the bottle good and hard. Then she holds up her hand to signal me to stay in the bathroom. I don’t want to let her leave. I don’t know where she’s going or what she’s doing, but when I try to hold her back, she pushes me back into the corner. She peeks around the door to make sure the men aren’t in the master bedroom yet. Then she steps across and scoots under the bed.

  All of a sudden, the master bedroom door flies open. It crashes back and the knob sticks in the sheet rock wall. The first man sweeps the room with his rifle, but sees nothing. I watch through the crack in the bathroom door, but my heart sticks in my throat. I can hardly breathe.

  The first man moves into the room with his comrade behind him. They pass the bed, and Michelle pulls her head farther under it to stay hidden. What has she got planned? They cross the room and make for the bathroom.

  They stand on either side of the bathroom door with their rifles poised. They get ready to make their last big explosive entrance, and that will be the end of us. Then, through the door crack, I see Michelle ease out from under the bed. The men don’t notice her. They leap around and kick the bathroom door open.

  Lucky I saw the whole thing and moved out of the way in time, or I would have had a broken nose. I put my arms around Cory and cover him with my body between the wall and the shower stall. At least he won’t have to see them gun him down.

  I can’t resist watching, though. The two men barge into the bathroom. They know they’ve got us cornered and defenseless, when Michelle charges into the bathroom with a war whoop to stand your hair on end. The men spin around to fight, but Michelle opens her shampoo bottle and points it in their faces. The lid flies off, and a powerful stream of foamy liquid shoots into their eyes.