Why did she find herself caring less and less about whether or not Randy even lived or died?
The bartender and two of his own compadres strolled over just in time to allow the larger brawler to get in one final punch before hustling the offenders into the parking lot. Hank Williams’ wistful yodeling repeated ad infinitum on the skipped record as the two rolled into the parking lot still tearing at one another’s clothes.
“That, my young friend, was some quality entertainment,” retorted Samantha’s companion.
“So what now?” she continued.
“We order another drink.”
“For some reason, I suppose I don’t have any choice in the matter.”
“And you’d be right.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
For close to an hour, the two men sat at the end of the bar, staring silently at their tumblers of whiskey, peering up only to order another round and glare at the attractive if dissolute young woman and her emaciated, feeble, and—in their minds, purely “faggot”—companion who clearly had nothing to do with Vinita; or Oklahoma for that matter. Hell, these two drugged up yo-yos likely had nothing to do with the America they knew and loved that was built by their fathers and grandfathers; the America that was being transformed into a plastic cesspool suitable only for pantywaists and savages. The America now being bought and sold by liars and figureheads with capped teeth and fake tans. The America of low fat diets and The Great Unwashed, where a “self respecting white girl” could walk the streets arm in arm with “niggers and Injuns” in absolute impunity – a neutered America. A critically wounded America - an America they no longer recognized. Their own country that no longer recognized them had evolved to have no boundaries. An America so distorted, so intentionally malign, so optimistically corrupt that they felt their very marrow chewed up and spat out like chewing tobacco at the very sight of the young couple.
They didn’t take drugs. They only prayed for money. They could get by without drastic measures. They were men. They were secure and virile men. They knew nothing of a television dream. They were men to whom the future was appalling. To them, neutrality was impotent. They took no shit. They were men who were drinking themselves into oblivion at the same bar of their fathers and their blood turned to fluid pits of spleen and disgust merely glancing over at the opposite end of the bar.
If there were ghosts that lurked in the heart of Chester’s, these men were their children. To watch these men would be like watching a bone slowly emerge from their flesh.
The more they drank, the more they hated. The more they hated, the more their hatred bore into them like a cancer. They could feel it in their veins and in the remnants of their livers. In their very bones itself.
Neither Samantha nor her companion took notice of the venom-spiked glances from across the bar. They had their own trials to contend with. But even in their rapidly drunken state, they could sense an aura of poison milling about the mildewed room. It was as flagrant as it was silent. It could be chalked up to adrenaline or paranoia, but no excuse in the world could dissolve it. Nor was it going away any time soon.
Samantha took another sip from her beer, hoping it would ease the tension. Yet even as the clock crept past midnight and the crowd dissipated slowly, returning once more to a night that had already forgotten them, the unease remained. It merged with the alcohol now warming her system. It felt as much a tacit part of the bar room as the faded boxing posters and half-lit neon signs. Before she knew it she had already finished the bottle. Her companion ordered another round.
“I’m going to be honest with you,” she said, her words slightly slurring. “You’ve been somewhat… chivalrous, I guess you could say. Maybe that’s not the right word. I don’t… I can’t imagine that typically… for a kidnapper—”
“I really wish you’d stop calling me that.”
“For sure, it’s honest.”
“It was a mistake.”
“So that’s not part of your job description?”
“Not typically.”
“You didn’t seem to have given it much thought.”
“First time for everything.”
“Yeah, but it fits you… I kinda… I always visualized a kidnapper as being… I guess from the movies and all… as being this kinda scary, gross dude… in the Mafia or something…”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. But I’m still not a kidnapper.”
“What are you then?”
“Just somebody passing through.”
“What should I call you?”
“How ‘bout my name, for starters?” He turned to face her with an enigmatic and sly grin on his face. She had never seen that sort of grin before; slightly sinister, as though the face had its own ulterior motives, yet at the same time, innocent. Benign. A grin she actually felt a tinge of security being in the presence of that normally would have alarmed her. “I’m Dez,” he said calmly, shaking her hand.
The very sound of the name was almost so incongruous, so bizarre to Samantha that she choked and sputtered. “Dez?!?” She collected herself. “I’m sorry… you… you just don’t seem like a Dez.”
“What do I seem like?”
“I don’t know… I guess I haven’t given it much thought… ‘til you said it. I’m Samantha, by the way…”
“You seem like a Samantha.”
“Meaning?”
“Someone without a history.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re probably too young to be hanging around with the likes of Randy Cox. How old are you anyways? Seventeen? Eighteen?”
“I’ll have you know I’m twenty-one.”
“Same difference.”
“Actually, it isn’t… You don’t seem all that older and wiser yourself.”
“Not the point.”
“It is. Can’t play the role of my father if you’re still in diapers yourself… How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine, if you must know.”
Samantha chortled. “How ancient. How worldly. So, Mr. Dez... what makes you think… I’m incapable of taking care of myself?”
“Oh, I think you’re quite capable. And I think in a perfect world, you’d be in your last year of college, engaged to your sweetheart and thinking about settling down, maybe raising a family or starting a career, or buying a home or any other… uh… more ‘sensible’ options. And in that perfect world, neither of us would be here right now. But here we are. So, since we’re both here… what exactly is it about Randy? I mean, I get the impression he’s a good looking guy, but what do you really know about him?”
“Enough that after four years he’s someone I’ve - grown accustomed to?”
“You mean tolerate.”
“That’s - that’s rich. Offering me relationship advice…”
“So you know about the drugs and the other women and the drinking? Oh shit… I forgot. You didn’t even know he owed me over a thousand bucks…”
“I’m his girlfriend, not his fucking mother…”
“So you condone the son of a bitch? Or maybe simply don’t care anymore?”
The last retort stung Samantha like a sock in the mouth.
“You know, you really are something else - one minute, you’re almost being nice, polite, almost charming, really. The next, you’re giving me crap and acting self-righteous! I don’t need this - I’m going out for some fresh air…”
“Now look—”
But it was too late. Samantha had stormed out of Chester’s with a look of haughty defiance on her face. Dez sighed, and lit a fresh cigarette. The bartender came over, polishing a glass with a dirty rag. “Can’t win ‘em all, huh pal?”
Dez stared at him blandly, then let out a long drag of air. “Brother, you don’t know the half of it…”
CHAPTER NINE
Even the moon seemed exhausted as Dez walked into the parking lot. It was 12:45 and the past five hours seemed to have snuck up on him like a thief. All he wanted to do was ge
t back to the hotel and sleep for the better part of the next two days. He wanted to cast off this girl and head straight out west. Take the $250 he had on him and start all over. Get a job as a mechanic or factory worker, like his father. It was his genes, assembly line work. Less risk. After all, it’s not like there was a local union for drug dealers, was there?
“Now look, Samantha?” he cried into the desolate air, his voice being met only with a tinny echo. “Let’s not pull anything rash. We’re both tired and we gotta think straight to get out of this. Maybe I wasn’t thinking before I spoke. Maybe I haven’t been thinking all night. Look, we need to figure out a way out of this mess. Let’s just go back to the hotel and think with a clear head in the morning, OK?”
There were no crickets chirping at a quarter to one in the morning. Merely the metallic clang and bumps of dragged mufflers on concrete and the shifting gears from distant diesel trucks. The April air seemed mocking in its stony faced refusal. Even the bar room he just departed from now seemed forbidden.
“Samantha?”
Dez’s mind suddenly turned grave with suspicion and fear. I shouldn’t have let her bolt out of there like that. What if this chick ran off to squeal to the cops? What if they’re already at the hotel as we speak? What if I’m cornered? I have no idea where the fuck I am and no idea how to get out of Vinita. What if…
His qualms were suddenly interrupted by a muffled yell emanating from the woods behind the parking lot. Dez could have sworn the sound of sobbing and heavy panting was off in the distance. He turned around slowly and heard another shriek and violent rustling, followed by hostile muttering from a clearing in the shallow thickets of the trees and bushes. It was unmistakable a woman’s voice. He quickened his pace, and trotted towards the sound briskly but softly. He fingered his revolver underneath his jacket.
He made his way towards the clearing and gasped catching sight of the two men opposing one another with Samantha in between them. One had his knee on her back, forcing her down on her knees, her body violently jerking and writhing, struggling to break free. Her flimsy t-shirt laid tossed to the ground, forgotten, revealing a tender and bruised body coated by the shuddering and spasms of fear. Her jeans were around her ankles, where one of her attackers was drunkenly trying to pull the cotton panties off. The other attacker was holding her head against the crotch of his slate-grey trousers, trying to mash her cheek into the thick and unyielding fabric, his face contorted in a leer that seemed to spring from the ugliest recesses of his malevolent brain. She growled as he cupped her mouth with his grimy hands, trying to stifle her feral cries. Her hair was matted with the halo of sweat and dread. A not so distant street lamp reflected her only dimly. In the glow half of shadows and half of light, she looked like neither a child nor an animal; simply an accessory. Inanimate. Disposable.
“Get the fuck outta here, faggot… Less you think you’re man enough,” one of the men snarled through a whiskey-coated moustache.
“No, you get the fuck out of here, you redneck son of a bitch,” retorted Dez. His exhaustion had turned to a bolt of primal instinct, and he could feel endorphins surging through his body as he snarled those words. Whatever clouds of beer and fatigue still lingered in his skull soon dissipated. He reached beneath his jacket. They dropped Samantha to the dirt, her body twisted and bruised. She grabbed her shirt and tried to tackle one of them as Dez revealed his .38.
“You don’t have the balls to use—” The threat was futile.
The blow of a sizable hunk of concrete had stunned him. Samantha had hit him and was now repeatedly bashing the back of his head. Blood began trickling as he fell to the ground, dazed by the blows.
The other assailant took a stance as if he was ready to lunge at Dez at any time. Yet Dez stood his ground, scowling furiously. He raised the pistol straight at the man, who responded by ducking into the thicket and running for his life along a path he had known since he was a small boy. Dez shot two rounds blindly into the impenetrable woods, neither knowing nor caring if he shot the attacker. Their sounds were obscured by the belching air-horn of a nearby diesel truck.
He looked at the other attacker on the ground and gave his gravel-bedecked jaw a firm kicking several times with the heel of his boots. He grabbed Samantha by the arm.
“We gotta haul ass out of here!” he hissed, pulling her by the arm as she struggled to throw her clothes back on.
They scrambled through the parking lot, not caring if the sound of their steps alerted the bartender or patrons. But no one took notice. They raced down the sidewalk, their nostrils fuming and their pupils dilating beneath the buzzing of street lamps and the blaze of passing pickup trucks and drunkenly swerving motorcycles. No one took notice. They raced with a purely animal energy, trying to forget themselves in the fumes they gave off as they clambered down the concrete, kicking off discarded cans and newspapers whipping like tumbleweeds in their wake.
“You could’ve gotten us killed back there,” panted Samantha as they ran.
“Third time - just could be the charm,” retorted Dez.
They finally found themselves in the silent maw of the 66 Inn parking lot, feeling as if they were about to pelt the inside of a glass house with bricks.
Once inside, they lay inside the cavernous room with the curtains drawn and the door firmly bolted, anticipating at any moment a knock on the door from state police that would never come. The only illumination was the glow of track lights from behind the half opened bathroom door. Even if it had been working, not even the feeble air conditioner would have been enough to cool down Dez and Samantha.
He lay there, chain-smoking each cigarette to the very filter. It seemed like hours passed before he finally opened his mouth. “I think it might be wise to go to the hospital. Most emergency rooms, they don’t even ask questions. You don’t even have to tell them about the… you know...”
“The rape? Or the fact that you kidnapped me?”
“Look… I just want to make certain you’re alright.”
“No. I’ll be fine. I don’t like hospitals. I’ll just rest it off.”
“At least let me take a look. I owe you that much.”
“Now you’re a doctor?”
“Come on. Let’s go in the bathroom. Let’s have a look.”
“Just - let me get some sleep.”
“I can’t have you injured.”
“You’ve injured me enough, thank you. You can’t have me regardless.”
“You’re assuming too much.”
“And you’re an ass. None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for you. Injured or not, what difference does it make? You’ll still be on the run and I’ll still be stranded out in the middle of nowhere.”
He seized her by the arm, practically dragging her off the bed. “We’re going into the bathroom, like it or not—”
“So help me god, I will…” Samantha tried to finish the sentence, but found it incapable of speaking. She felt a hollow pit in her stomach; a hollow pit that expanded, tearing her upper body. It was a pit of disgust; of sheer, unadulterated revulsion. She tried to swallow the words, but they only lodged themselves more firmly in her throat, taking on strange and unusual shapes. They were no longer words, but hieroglyphs of pain and sheer desolation. They seemed to hum within her, wracking her body until she had no choice but to allow them to erupt in a torrent of wails and sobs, resting her fevered brow on Dez’s shoulder. The more she sobbed, the more she felt it scalding her, her tears steady and streaming the soft denim fabric. Dez tried to hush her, stroking her still matted hair, but it was no use. Her lamentations were relentless.
“Come on…. take it easy…It’ll all be over soon,” he lied, not even believing himself. “I just want to check for sprains…” He reached over to the nightstand table and turned on the light, pulling Samantha’s fragile arm into view. The bruises were noticeable and swollen, already purplish black against the soft whiteness of her skin. Ugly, but they’d fade. He checked the arm and wrist for pressure
. No reaction. A good sign? Then he saw them.
Directly, in intersecting diamond-like patterns, was a batch of recent track marks tracing Samantha’s veins. He let the arm drop down to her side and took her face in both hands. Her face, wracked with tears and snot and trembling, cracked lips, had reverted to a sense of childlike helplessness he had never noticed until just then. He stared into her eyes, neither of accusation nor pity, but a fierce compassion. A compassion that was almost inhuman. This could be his sister. Could be a stranger. Whoever she was, whatever she had done to herself, he was directly responsible for it. He realized that it was his poison that had been filling her veins. He wasn’t ashamed to admit he knew remorse. It seemed it was much of what he had known all his life. Now, he knew a self-disgust that left him stripped raw and shattered.
He wiped away her tears, and took a long look at the doll-like poise of her face riddled with a sorrow and desperation that seemed to swell from the very bedrock of life itself. And in that moment, he was faced with a creature more vulnerable and delicate than anything he had ever witnessed in his life. And in that vulnerability was a beauty he knew he would never possess, and that very notion wounded him to his core.
“He has you shooting up now?”
Samantha’s face contorted into a ball of hysteria. She pleaded silently for mercy, but from whom? From Dez? From some vaguely imagined savior? From the invisible friends of her childhood? From her parents? From herself?
“It’s only been… just… just a few times… honest… You know… how it is,” she lied, but they both knew it was purely in vain.
“Dope?”
“Only a couple… couple times. Not enough… for a real habit or nothing.”
“What else?”
“What… what do you think?”
“Rush?”
Samantha looked downward and let out a soft sigh that admitted to Dez more than words ever could.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Dez, scooting up on the bed and covering his face with his palms.
ROMANCE: THREESOME : Billionaire Brothers' Party (MFM Menage Romance) (New Adult Contemporary Threesome Short Stories) Page 101