Randy was a born hustler - at least in his own mind. He seemed to spring, like many myths do, out of nowhere—even though his birth certificate clearly said Enid, a town renowned through the ages for its suitably mythic wheat output. Randy liked to think of himself as an outlaw, and it is true that he fled the mean, chaff-laden streets of Enid as a teenager to tour up and down the length of Southern California during the height of the 60s with the newly found air of freedom congealing in a thin incense cloud of outré mysticism, free love and abundant drugs. But within a matter of years, he found himself out of money, patience and tolerant souls willing to put up with his frequently churlish machismo. So, concocting a back story of being on the run from the law, he found himself at the dawn of the 70s skulking around the parking lots of Tulsa cafeterias and bus stations, and eventually into the heart of a naive and admittedly fetching seventeen year-old Samantha Linder.
Randy had never seen eyes that supernaturally green before. To him, they seemed like perpetual laughter - joyful but impractical. To her, they were just two orbs that bulged far too large for her delicate, fragile face. Even at her tender age she should have been able to see right through Randy’s transparent air of pithy disaffection. Or at least had her hands on her wallet. But drunk on the very idea of romance itself, to say nothing of his sharp, jutting cheekbones, she succumbed to Randy’s belligerent aura in less time than it took to comb her long, chestnut hair.
Technically, Randy was her first lover. Though she had a healthy share of admirers, and even a small string of boyfriends growing up (even so far as deigning to let the last one dry hump her thighs one drunken night under the bleachers of Union High School,) it was Randy who was the first to truly captivate her. So when she finally conceded to his constant advances after just five weeks of casually dating, it was as if he had woven a prayer which trapped her so firmly and inexplicably in its potent snare that she was powerless to resist, regardless of the setting—the backseat of Randy’s rusted ‘64 Olds at the edge of Owen Park on a breath-fogged November night—hardly had the ambience from which epic ballads are born of - at least not in 1970.
There was no denying it, though. Randy was an amazing lover, even to Samantha’s inexperienced mind. He writhed with a tender urgency that suffused every pore of her lithe body, spreading from the base of her spine to the crown of her head. It was the only delicacy Randy had. It was the only way he knew how to give of himself.
But a lot can change in four years. These days, Randy’s virility had largely withered under the bitter gaze of heavy drinking and the amphetamines he was transporting from Dallas on a monthly basis in bulky knapsacks, plastic bags, plain brown envelope - any and all form of packaging he could lay his grimy, trembling hands upon. At first, Randy’s career as a speed courier was a novel—and even profitable—diversion during the down times he was waiting for his next big break, some sudden windfall of an unlocked condo in Jenks or Owasso practically crying out to be robbed. But soon, he began using as much as he was distributing, often spending whatever meager savings Samantha had allotted for rent for Ziploc bags full of red and black pills whose purity and authenticity—thanks to ever-tightening restrictions in national drug laws—was anyone’s guess. Many were the night Samantha would come home only to find the bathroom door locked, with the now familiar and toxic fumes of Randy’s experiments in bathtub alchemy permeating the cramped Florence Park two bedroom. And to make matters even worse, Samantha soon found herself developing a taste for the resulting crystalline flakes.
Her fingernails. Chewed raw, well past their cuticles. Her jaw. Perpetually rocking, teeth grinding in an off-kilter soundtrack. Her eyes: dilating and blinking as furiously as a pinball machine. Her body, once thin but enviable, now skeletal, coated by skin that seemed brittle and transparent as wax paper. It was clear, even to the fourteen year-old girls piling into Sandy’s for burgers and Cokes after school—the little sisters of Samantha’s former classmates. It was clear to the belching, grunting and grease-splattered truckers who took one look at Samantha and began to rethink their own complicity in widespread chemical usage. It was even clear to the priests piling in after 2 o’clock Mass from St. Joseph’s for massive piles of three day old fried fish, their own faces ringed by whiskey and existential loneliness. Samantha Linder was an amp head in palpitating heart and soul. And one who didn’t even bother trying to hide it anymore.
It was unrelenting boredom that led Samantha to amphetamines; and if the powdery haze littered with scorched bottle caps, ammonia and the endless dance of flickering white lights zipping through her optic nerves didn’t quite staunch the hollow pit in her soul, they at least gave her the impetus to get up in the morning—or night, depending on what time she chose to crash. Tulsa had always drawn its own mortal veil of dread for generations of youth, even stretching as far back as the Dust Bowl; only now instead of uninhabitable farms and tuberculosis, Tulsan kids had the quiet desperation of closed factories, massage parlors and the hypoallergenic grins of Donny & Marie each Friday night. Something had to give; and in that dust-spattered, ionized air, that something was amphetamine.
But if it was simply boredom that brought Samantha to the lye-drenched edges of amphetamine logic, it was utter apathy that made her unhesitant to resign herself to Randy’s suggestion of an “open relationship.”
Free love may have been embedded as an incontrovertible facet of reality for much of America for the past eight years; but this was still the Bible belt. Old traditions died hard. Prostitution, the burgeoning adult entertainment industry and mud wrestling may have been considered perfectly acceptable Saturday night diversions; but they were strictly for the boys. Old traditions die hard. Ritual protocol demanded a strict ratio of X to Y chromosome in order to observe the upheaval of unspoken sexual laws in Tulsa, even among the fringe heads that hovered around Florence Park in granny glasses and roach clip necklaces. Free love was an exclusively male right. Woe be to the imprudent maiden who dare broach the very thought without express permission of her man. For Randy and Samantha, it was a blind parachute jump into the landmines of emotional apathy.
It’s a myth that amphetamine usage dwindles the sex drive. Unlike its similarly excitable cousin cocaine, the livid and discernibly sensitive nerves practically scream underneath their netting for friction; a collision of skin, sinew and cell that only the torpid sweat of two bodies—any bodies—can quell. Randy showed—at least, for him—a unique sympathy and understanding of this phenomenon, particularly when it came to the female occurrence. He just chose to disregard it in Samantha altogether.
The few trysts she had enjoyed outside of Randy’s frequently glazed over eyes weren’t without their own unique intrigues. But at the end of the day it was strictly physical, based on the need to strip layer after layer of skin in the fumes of a rather dull passion, hoping that underneath might be found one remaining vestige of substance, of some reaffirming meaning to whole charade of sexual conquest, even of sensation itself. Instead, all she wound up with was dead air, chafing and restless snoring to the hum of a transistor radio.
It was 4:15, and Samantha Linder was trying to balance a plate of steak and eggs in one hand and a fresh pot of coffee in the other.
CHAPTER TWO
Samantha walked home through the drizzle of the streets that night from E. 15th all the way back to Florence Park. Even though the walk was almost two miles, she didn’t mind. There was something invigorating about the early nighttime rain in April, a sense of affirmation from the thin mists that cascaded around her. She could be alone with her thoughts. Not even the truck loads of drunken good ol’ boys offering her a lift home with promises of “a real good time”, or the sight of Randy’s beat-up Olds parked haphazardly in the lot of A’s Tavern like a calling card was enough to dissuade her from the solitude. Not even the rain-licked streets soaking through her cheap Mary Janes were enough to refrain her from understanding the luxury and privilege of silence.
She wondered why it scared the hell out
of her.
Samantha’s entire life had been marked by tumultuous upheaval followed by brief periods of methodical silence. It was all she had ever known. It had begun with her father—one of the surliest, meanest, snarling shit-kickers the likes of which Tulsa had ever seen. He was bred beneath the looming shadow of the Philtower; and his family stayed there—despite the Great Depression—simply out of spite. He had married relatively late in life at the age of 34 for the simple fact that he was too much of a drunken wretch for anyone but Samantha’s timid, mealy-mouthed mother. Samantha was born only three weeks later.
Cal Linder spent most of his daughter’s early years in and out of the bars and pool halls dotting East 3rd St., gambling away much of the family’s threadbare savings and only rarely gaining it back. A six month stint at Tulsa County Jail for Attempted Grand Theft and Disorderly Conduct after an incident involving a three-day bender, a gas station and a crowbar when Samantha was 4 was enough to dry him out sufficiently for the better part of a year; only to hit the bottle with a vengeance when Samantha was 6 to make up for lost time. He continued this on again/off again pattern for the next eight years, embellishing Samantha’s childhood with violence, threats of suicide and bankruptcy until he finally decided to dry out at a county detox for good. But by that time, it was too late. He died only three months later of acute cirrhosis.
Samantha drifted through her teenage years the same way she drifted through her childhood, detached and alone. In the absence of happy mediums, withdrawal was the only alternative left. It was the only lesson her mother ever taught her.
Still, the streetlights off East 15th seemed to flicker on and off with the unison of Samantha’s steps. She knew enough to discern between her mind playing tricks on her and playing tricks with her mind. She picked up the pace, hoping to make it back to the apartment by 7:30, so she could take a bath undisturbed.
She stumbled through the wreckage of the front yard; an unkempt mess consisting of dead grass, discarded mufflers and assorted bric-a-brac from Halloweens, Thanksgivings and Christmases long past. It was a 2-family house she rented from the property owner, a senile grand dame from Tulsa’s more illustrious past who sent out her son to collect rent dutifully every two weeks. At $25 a week, Samantha knew better than to demand anything more than basic amenities; and considering that more often than not, she was behind she wasn’t about to ask for repairs to the crumbling two-family ranch house anytime soon. She knew virtually nothing about her neighbors on the other side, other than their alcoholism, and she wanted to keep it that way.
“Thank god you’re home… Listen, I know that we’re on a budget, but you gotta let me borrow at least a couple dollars…” Samantha had barely stepped through the front door when she heard her cousin’s elliptical whine. “Me and Clark… We been livin’ off of nothing but crackers and Cheerios the past couple days… We need food, Sam… At least try to smuggle us somethin’ from Sandy’s when you come home…”
“You ask Randy?” Samantha replied, fishing through her purse for some loose change.
“Aw, you know how he is…”
“That I do, Jill. Clark find a job yet?”
“We been lookin’, Sam… Honest we have….”
Though barely 16, Samantha’s cousin Jill had the sort of face and figure that seemed straight out of a Playboy magazine. Even if Jill herself wasn’t aware of it, Randy certainly was. And so was Samantha. It was why she took her in after the death of her parents. She knew that downtown Tulsa was the worst place to be for a vulnerable, sweet but none too bright teenage girl. Nor was it any place for Clark, Jill’s boyfriend. Though two years her senior and considerably brighter, Clark was an over pampered Mama’s boy at heart whose lack of worldliness could have easily been preyed upon. Even as her grasp on the outside world was slowly being stripped away, Samantha still maintained one flimsy shred of sympathy towards them both.
There was something endearing about Clark’s shyness that attracted Samantha. Though she’d never act upon it, his feeble, butter-like chin, frizzy afro and desperate determination to seem “with it” aroused a sort of maternal instinct in her; an instinct that was shot through with less innocent curiosity. It was an Oedipal complex in reverse, and Samantha secretly cherished the way in which his eyes would linger on her behind when she bent down to fiddle with the frequently clogged air ducts, or his bashful stutter when she’d ask the most innocent of questions about his life late at night when they were alone in the smokiest, most seductive tone she could muster. Though there may have been a mere three-year difference between them, Samantha’s affection for the timid teenager was somewhat less than pure in intent.
But Clark was the farthest thing from her mind as she made her way to the bathroom, keeping the track lighting low as she lit a soft pink pillar candle and turned on the tub. She reached into her blouse as she unbuttoned it, and withdrew three Valiums. She slid them on her tongue as she washed them down with a palm of warm water, shuddering at the metallic tang of the water. She lit a cigarette as the tub filled up, and slid out of the demure skirt she was forced to wear as part of her uniform. Her legs, once athletic and rippled, seemed like two brittle sticks. She saw her ribs jutting out the still buoyant skin of her torso. She squeezed to try to grasp on to some bit of flesh—anything that would make her feel less naked. More human. More whole. As the small centimeter of flesh slipped away from her fingers, revealing only a slight pink welt, she sighed. She may as well have been thin air.
Much like her flesh, Samantha wanted to disappear. She simply didn’t have the energy.
She took one last puff off her cigarette, before stubbing it out in a seashell ashtray. She shut the water off the faucet, and slipped into the tub. She closed her eyes.
It was 7:39 in the evening, and gravity was a bitch for Samantha Linder.
CHAPTER THREE
Samantha had only been asleep for half an hour when she woke up, though it felt considerably longer. The once tepid water had turned room temperature, and Samantha’s skin greeted the difference by shriveling like a raisin.
But it wasn’t merely the change in temperature which had jolted her awake. It began with a loud thump that reverberated through the cheap wood paneling, but merely stumbled through Samantha’s half-sleep like an old North Midtown wino. It changed into a staccato rhythm of loud pounding, followed by the unmistakable and bloodcurdling shriek of Jill’s voice, followed by a series of loud poundings that shattered any illusion of relaxation. Samantha leaped out of the tub and brushed herself off quickly with a towel, reaching for the t-shirt and jeans she laid on the nearby radiator. She dressed quickly, her heart panic-struck. She could hear a strange and raspy voice growling through the flimsy door.
“Where is he?”
She stayed put. Though she could tell there was a disturbance the likes of which she couldn’t imagine, she hesitated walking out the door. As much as she knew Jill needed her help, as much as she knew she had to confront whatever lurked behind that wobbly barrier, there was something compelling her to stay; an instinct of gravity, weighing her down beyond her conscious control.
“Where… the… fuck… IS HE?” the voice growled again, this time forcing an answer.
“I… I swear to god… I don’t know,” Jill’s voice proffered. Samantha could practically see the tears running down her face. She heard a loud crash, and a stomping of feet.
“I’m gonna look in the backyard. I’m gonna tear this fuckin’ dump to pieces, if need be….”
“J-j-just… leave us… alone… I-i-it’s R-r-randy you’re looking for,” Jill’s voice pleaded. “N-n-not us…”
“If y’all live together, you know how valuable money can be.”
“B-b-but… we d-d-don’t have any… I-I s-swear….”
Samantha crouched in the corner of the bathroom, not wanting to be heard. Her knees creaked as she squatted, a sound that in her paranoid state she was certain could be heard from behind the door. Was her mind simply playing tricks on her? Or
was there a confrontation going on elsewhere in the apartment? She couldn’t tell anymore. Her senses had been so stretched out over the past three months that her psyche felt like silly putty dispensed from a can and left to harden in the noonday heat.
“Jesus Christ, Jack,” Samantha heard another voice, nasal and insistent. “How old you think this chick is? 16? They obviously don’t have the fuckin’ money… Let’s split and track down the son of a bitch later. It ain’t worth the risk of assault on a fuckin’ minor…”
“I frankly don’t give a shit. I came for what’s mine, god fucking dammit. One way or another. So, let me ask you again. And I want a legitimate answer this time. Where is the son of a bitch?”
“I d-d-don’t… know. He g-g-goes out drinking a-a-and none of us… k-k-know where—”
“I said, where the fuck IS the son of a bitch?”
It had always been a habit of Samantha’s to hiccup uncontrollably when facing times of stress. It was a reaction stemming from her childhood she could never quite break. She wondered sometimes if it was due to her fear of silence; a non-voluntary need to interject, no matter how minor, no matter how visceral, no matter how nonsensical. It overcame her like a plague at the worst possible time; and as it reverberated beyond the confines of the door, she knew she had been caught out.
“The fuck was that?” the once gruff voice asked in bemusement. “Reg, you wait right here. Keep an eye on the teenybopper. I’m gonna have a looksie around…” His voice took on almost a forced affectation, like something out of an old James Cagney movie, but if there was anything unintentionally humorous about his delivery, Samantha wasn’t laughing.
She could hear him rustling around in the cramped apartment, and she tried to stifle her hiccups by placing her hand over her mouth. She was so aghast it was the only thing to remind her she was still breathing. But it was futile. She knew any second the door would burst open, and she’d be able to put a face to the grave and impatient voice. She wondered why that would have made any difference whatsoever.
ROMANCE: THREESOME : Billionaire Brothers' Party (MFM Menage Romance) (New Adult Contemporary Threesome Short Stories) Page 98