THUGLIT Issue Twenty-One

by Rena Robinett

  Finally, she got too heavy, and I remember yelling at her, but she didn't respond. Moments later, she didn't move anymore. And when I stopped, I thought I heard her say thank you again in one final whisper, and I swear I fucking cried.

  They were coming up after us.

  Their feet were heavy, slamming against those iron stairs like the feet of guards on the stairs to death row.

  I looked down at Darla-May, but couldn't see because of the tears. It hurt bad knowing she was gone. I sat down heavy on top of the stairs with her, holding her, and waiting for them, and when they got close enough, I heaved her body with all the strength I had left.

  She hung for moment in midair in front of me. Then she teetered and fell limply back into them, a lolling figure of dead beauty in darkness. I heard one of the guys curse in Spanish, heard the second one cry out in pain, and there was a lot of tumbling as they went all the way back down. One of them fell off the side of the staircase completely. He went over the railing like a see-saw unhinged. The sound of him landing on the concrete below was like a dropped side of meat.

  I went down after them in a rush. I could see now in the light from the open door below that one of them was unconscious, a big puddle of blood spreading under his cracked skull on the floor. The other one, all tangled up with the dead body of my dear Darla-May, had a pistol aimed at me.

  The gunfire was like an exploding mortar shell in the enclosed space.

  I ducked and it missed me. The slug hit a tangle of nearby wires which shot sparks and flames into the air. The sparks kept coming, and I don't know what they caught on, but next there were flames, and I had to get out.

  First, I grabbed the dead one's gun. The dead man was in a blood-stained wifebeater, with teardrop tattoos on his eyes you could bet weren't for his mother. The other Mexican was turning his head around, stretchin' his arm out—looked like his leg broke in the fall with Darla-May on top of him—aiming at me.

  I fired the pistol. It had been a long time, but not somethin' I'd ever forget.

  I got him. Right in the head, above his left eye.

  It did the job.

  The flames jumped, hopped, and I didn't stick around to see if there was a fire extinguisher. I just ran.

  I ran like the devil.

  I ran like a man with everything left to lose.

  But all I had was nothing. Less than nothing.

  I'd had all I'd wanted and now it was gone. All gone.

  Sirens filled the morning air. The sun was up. Big Tex was silhouetted against the sky like a one-armed Jesus burning on the cross. Smoke rose from his legs, and in a matter of minutes it caught in the rest of him and Big Tex was engulfed by flames.

  That's how it went with me, too. The dream came and went that quick. So close, then up in flames and gone. All gone.

  He burned. I watched. His form against the sky, larger than life, signifying everything Texas, everything I ever tried to make of it. Big Tex burned in big black clouds, and all he meant to me burned with it.

  The cops were coming now, but it was done. Too little too late, and all over but the crying.

  I crept off into the new light of day. It was 75 degrees. I had a fistful o' dollars and a pocket full of meth. I didn't want to get high, but I did it anyway, and I found a cheap hotel to make-do.

  A deep ache bored into me that not even the shit could take away. I called downstairs and ordered some whiskey and they laughed at me. I smoked and looked at myself in the grimy mirror from which I inhaled rails, trying not to cry, trying not to give in to the urge to slit my wrists with the same razor I used to cut the lines. I snorted, sniffed with a rolled-up hundred that had been in Darla-May's hand. I let the burn of the drugs water my eyes, sear into the center of my skull, then looked down at the mirror, at the scattered dust and rocks of meth. It was pure, good shit. But I looked pale.

  I looked dead.

  I was dead. The formalities just hadn't been squared away.

  I went out and stood on the balcony of that Shitsville Motel, overlooking the whores of South Dallas. That was when I saw the patrol car in the parking lot, just outside the front office. The cop car was empty.

  I heard the footsteps then. Their feet were as heavy slamming against those iron stairs just like last night in Big Tex.

  I lit a cigarette and waited.

  I closed my eyes and titled my face up to the sun. I could almost imagine myself back in Afghanistan with the guys from our detachment in Mazar-i-Sharif in the last great victory of my life.

  And it was good to finally be done.

  All done.

  Virgin Sacrifice

  by David Rachels

  I knew Jamie was a virgin, because virginity itself was the justification for every refusal. And though I knew the answer would never change—never change, that is, unless desperation finally drove me to propose marriage—I kept coming back for more rejection because every No! made me only more desperate. Within the bounds of the law, I did what I could to make my conquest, applying more pressure every time I repeated the hopeless plea that Jamie would brush off with a toss of the head, a knowing smile, and a laugh of clueless cruelty.

  Always, some variation of this: "But I'm a virgin! Haven't I told you that before?" More laughter that we were having this conversation again. "Silly goose! You know that's not what virgins do!" As if a famine victim would refuse food because famine victims starve. "Silly goose! That's what famine victims do!"

  And I was starving, all right. I was starving to death as sure as any famine victim.

  Every moment apart was torture. Every moment together was torture. Even if we weren't in the back seat of my car with Jamie adding to my tally of rejections, it was torture. The luminous eyes. The lustrous hair. The ebullient laugh. The exquisite body always in tight clothes. The sinuous walk. The…everything. The everything. All of it designed to torture me.

  You can apply three types of pressure to the opposite sex in the back seat of a car, and when you're a horny teenager, those types will come in this order:

  Emotional

  Logical.

  Physical.

  The emotional is the easiest to reject. You say, "Don't you love me? If you love me, you'll prove it."

  And they throw it right back in your face. "If you love me, you'll wait. If you love me, you won't try to make me do something I don't want to do."

  After this, the logical argument stands no chance. You say, "There's no reason to save yourself. There's nothing special about being a virgin. Nobody thinks any less of you if you're not a virgin, not anymore."

  And then you're right back to, "If you love me, you'll wait till I'm ready." After these conversations happen three or four times, each iteration a touch more unpleasant, you begin the physical pressure in spite of yourself. You're a good person—of course you are!—but when you're embracing and tangling tongues and writhing, and there might even be a little rhythm to the writhing, that's when your hands start to move, first in back, then in front, then down in front.

  You find the jeans.

  You find the waistband of the jeans.

  You find that lone button.

  You ease that button through its hole, and you hold your breath, waiting for a beat before you dare to touch the zipper, and then the reaction comes. It could be a yell, or it could be a slapping away of the fingers, or it could just be a hand come to gently remove your hands from the scene of the crime.

  Rejected again.

  There are bad people, of course, and in their cases physical pressure may escalate with regrettable consequences, but I, like you, am a good person, so there was no escalation. There was repetition, of course, but no escalation.

  And so the creeping and peeping started. This was not escalation. This wasn't even a victimless crime because, really, what was criminal about it? For one thing, Jamie was mine. Jamie wasn't interested in anybody else. If anyone had the right to be outside that window, it was me. And what was I there to see?

  I was there
to see what was mine.

  Not that I owned Jamie or anything. You know what I mean. I was doing a good thing in the bushes outside Jamie's window. With this outlet for self-gratification, I could keep my physical needs in check, and things would be less likely to get out of hand in the back seat of my car.

  Jamie and I lived just a few houses apart. We had known each other since first grade. Childhood sweethearts and all that. Idyllic, you might say. I talked to Jamie on the phone before bed every night. That tells you all you need to know about our relationship right there. And depending on how our conversation ended each night, I might run over immediately. I would ask a vaguely leading question: "You have to go? Really?"

  If the answer was, "I have homework to finish," then I wouldn't bother. I would handle matters at home with the pictures I had taken on previous visits. But if the answer was anything like, "I have to go to bed," I would get there as fast as I could.

  The window was on the first floor on the back of the house. It faced a wooded lot, so Jamie never bothered to close the curtains. Sometimes I was just too slow. I would arrive, and Jamie would already be in bed with the lights out. Other times the lights would still be on, but there would be nothing to see. Bedtime preparations would be complete, clothes already off, pajamas already on. Unfortunately, Jamie didn't seem to have anything sexy to sleep in. In these instances, there would be some thrill in the surreptitious watching, but not enough to warrant staying around for long. Maybe I would take some pictures, but they wouldn't be pictures I would ever look at again.

  Then there were the other times. The real times. The times when Jamie would disrobe right there in my full view, peeling off the pants, the shirt, the underwear, sometimes even languorously stretching a time or two at various stages of undress as if for my benefit. Those were the times that kept me going. The moment Jamie started to remove the first article of clothing, even if it was shoes, I would unzip, expose, commence. Sadly, I could never take my time because I had to finish before Jamie was covered again. Sometimes I would pause long enough to take a few pictures, but that was risky. If Jamie finished changing, got into bed, and turned out the lights before I was finished, then I would go home frustrated, angry. Some nights I would go home angry even if I did finish.

  Eventually, I was going home angry every night, and my successes made me even angrier than my failures. When I got to see Jamie fully nude, when I climaxed with Jamie as my partner unawares, I was filled with rage. If we loved each other, if we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, then why was I consigned to the bushes? By refusing me, Jamie degraded me. By refusing me, Jamie diminished us.

  I would go home spent, physically and emotionally. After my anger subsided, I would always vow to change. I still saw my creeping and peeping as a good thing for our relationship, but my anger told me that I needed a break. So I would vow to stop, and I would keep my vow until my next chance to creep and peep, and then I would end up angry again, and I would make the vow again, and on and on. The only thing that would break the cycle, I knew, would be if Jamie finally gave in, but that was not going to happen this side of a church.

  I had been visiting the outside of Jamie's window for about six months when I decided to propose marriage. We were young enough that I feared my proposal would not be taken seriously, but my hours in the bushes had steeled my resolve. Having now seen Jamie in full glory over and over again, I had confirmed that this was how I wanted to spend my life—only, of course, in the same room together. Jamie had driven a hard bargain and won.

  I didn't have money for a ring. I had a part-time, minimum-wage job flipping burgers, and I spent my earnings as fast as I made them because trying to get laid is expensive, even if you fail. Week to week, I burned through all my cash in the build-up to another rejection. Each Saturday night, after I achieved the inevitable result, I wished I had my money back. You've probably heard the old saying that insanity means doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Well, whatever is true for crazy people goes double for horny people.

  Having no money, I tried to see the world as Jamie saw it, and I saw that romance was all that mattered. The depths of my love would mean more than the shallows of my pockets. I would make the ring myself, using things I could find around my house. I started with three paper clips, which, using needle-nosed pliers, I first straightened and then twisted together. Next, imagining the diameter of Jamie's finger, I bent the paper clips into a ring before clipping the excess with wire cutters. The result might have looked like a ring made from paper clips if you knew it was paper clips, but I knew that to Jamie it would look like white gold. Anyone can buy a ring. But make a ring? Make a ring with love? That's something truly special.

  I honestly thought that Jamie would accept my proposal, and I imagined that once we were engaged, we might not have to wait until our wedding night, so I planned to propose in the back seat of my car. That way, we would waste as little time as possible. I knew that once Jamie let me do it for the first time, the floodgates would open. There would be a period, naturally, when we would hardly have time to do anything else. This would be my period of vindication. Jamie, I had no doubt, would issue many apologies once our carnal knowledge was complete.

  How many times would I have to answer the question, "Why did we wait so long?"

  I would say, "You tell me."

  I would say, "I tried to tell you."

  I would say, "Why are we waiting so long right now? Let's do that again."

  I planned to propose on the night of our high school graduation, in small part because the mood would be festive, in large part because Jamie would be drinking. Of course, I would never exploit anyone who was drunk, but if alcohol loosens a few inhibitions, where's the harm in that?

  I prepared the back seat of my car with love. I threw out the trash and vacuumed the floorboards. I shampooed the seat upholstery and spritzed it with rose-scented air freshener. I placed on the seat a blanket (neatly folded) topped with a pillow (king size). I replaced the old box of condoms hidden under the seat with a new box whose expiration date had not passed. Next to the condoms, I added boxes of pre-moistened towelettes and breath mints. I imagined how Jamie would be impressed by my foresight. I felt sure the back seat of my car would seem like a honeymoon suite.

  I wrapped the ring in a small box and tied it with a red ribbon. I would bring along a pocket knife in case Jamie needed me to cut the ribbon. My biggest concern was whether the ring would fit, so in a small toolbox I packed the pliers, the wire cutters, and extra paper clips, just in case I needed to make a new ring on the spot. I knew that I had to be able to get a ring on Jamie's finger if my plan was to succeed.

  Graduation was in the morning. Needless to say, I remember almost nothing about the ceremony. People talked on the stage, people walked across the stage, I did nothing unless someone prodded me. That afternoon, my parents hosted a party, and Jamie's parents hosted a party. That night, half of our friends hosted parties, and Jamie insisted that we had to go to every one. As I drove us from party to party, I was going crazy thinking about the back seat. I had rounded the bases, and now I was standing with my foot hovering an inch above home plate. At the last party, we stayed longer than any of the others because there were no more places to go—other than the back seat of my car.

  On the verge of bursting, I found Jamie filling a cup at the keg. Drinking was good, but it was time to go. I sneaked up from behind and whispered, "You about ready?"

  "What? We just got here."

  "We've stayed here longer than anywhere else."

  "I don't want to leave high school. I don't want to leave our friends."

  Seriously? "But I want you to go away with me. Our friends will be around all summer."

  "Go where?"

  "Codi Point."

  "Where?" Jamie said. The name meant nothing because we had never been there before. I had researched a spot far more romantic than the places we had been before.

  "It's
a scenic overlook," I explained. "It's a beautiful, clear night. It will be very romantic."

  "So you want to go parking?"

  "I want you to go with me to Codi Point."

  "Do we have to go through this again? This has been a great day. Let's not ruin it."

  "What if I promised you the perfect ending to the perfect day?"

  Jamie looked suspicious. "Perfect for me, or perfect for you?"

  "Perfect for us."

  "So you're not going to hit on me?"

  "Not in the way that you mean, no."

  That may have been my first misstep, but it was close enough to the right answer.

  Jamie said, "Please don't ruin this day for me."

  "Not a chance," I said. "I promise to make this the most wonderful day of your life."

  "Okay." Still sounding dubious.

  "Great. Now chug that beer and let's get out of here."

  The only problem with Codi Point was the distance. It was 26 miles outside of town. It seemed perfect in the planning because I needed an appropriate spot for my proposal, and it had to be a place that Jamie would not associate with our past amorous disasters. But now that I had to get us there, I didn't know if I could make it. Try holding your foot one inch above home plate for half an hour, and see how it goes. Five minutes after leaving the party, my legs were shaking, my palms were sweating, my vision was blurring. I thought I was driving in a straight line, but I couldn't be sure, and I hadn't had a thing to drink at any of the parties, not a drop. I knew I had to stay sober for this, but I didn't feel sober.

  There was no small talk as we drove. Jamie sat facing forward, arms folded, staring through the windshield. I couldn't think of anything to say other than the things I was waiting to say in the back seat, so I stayed quiet, and Jamie, I could tell, was just sitting there waiting for me to ruin graduation day. It was, in truth, the longest thirty minutes of my life.