“Yeah, Paw. She’s all wored out judgin’ by her face.”
“Wait a minute!” she interjected. “What guy really cares about the face, huh? I’ll, like, do shit for ya, serious! I’ll chill ya out.”
Helton swigged his soda, then explained, “Well, girlie. You’re a citified type, we’se backwoods rednecks. You eat at the Mack-Donald’s, we eat gopher we cook on a woodstove.. You’d likely not take to hill life.”
“Aw, shit, man!” she enthused. “I’ll chop wood, cook gophers, wash the shit stains out of your overalls in a fuckin’ metal tub and I’ll fuck and suck you both, like all the time. Let me be your hillbilly bitch!” and with that, the woman rose on her tiptoes and opened her overcoat.
Helton and Dumar both simultaneously spat out mouthfuls of soda.
“Holy sheee-IT, Paw!” Dumar hacked.
Helton chuckled, addressing the woman. “Well, dang, girl! Hop on in! I’d say you just found yourself a home!”
Once their passenger was safely inside, the truck clattered off into the night…
(II)
In the distance, strings of Christmas lights blinked, and even more distantly she heard a chorus singing, “God rest ye merry gentlemen…,” but Veronica’s traumatized mind remained incognizant. She merely stood, looking at the small sedan that men she didn’t know said was hers…
Where am I? her most feeble thoughts ticked. WHO am I?
Lights swept behind her, then came the sound of tires swiftly turning a tight corner. A car engine droned.
“Veronica? Jesus, that is you!” a voice seemed to crack at her…and there was something…just something hauntingly familiar about it.
Footsteps, then hands grabbed her and turned her around. The face of a man—a very handsome man—loomed before her.
“What are you doing here? We’ve been worried sick about you! And where have you been?”
Veronica blinked at this person, and in a sensation akin to a nail being extracted from old wood, her mind extracted something as well. “I,” she mumbled, “I…don’t know…”
The hands shook her by the shoulders. “Don’t you recognize me? It’s Mike!”
Mike, the word dropped in her head like a single bell-toll.
“Mike,” she grated.
“Shit, Archie was right. Something happened to you—you’re out of it. Come on, I’ll drive you home,” and then he whisked her into his pretentious two-seat Japanese sports car.
Heat engulfed her; the door sucked shut. Then this person—Mike—sat next to her.
“Veronica!” he blared. “You’re not on drugs, are you? You’ve been missing for days. Don’t you remember what happened to you?”
Her dazed stare slowly turned to him. “A…a truck, maybe? Some…men? A…table in the truck, I think, and-and-and…a noise like, like a power drill…” Her lower lip trembled. “And…a camera…”
“You’re not making sense.” He rummaged through her knapsack and withdrew a band of $100 bills. “Holy shit! Where’d you get all this money? This is like…ten grand!”
Circumstance continued to drag more nails out of Veronica’s beclouded spirit.
“Mike,” she said.
“Yeah, Mike!”
And then all at once, something did snap in her head, something monumental, and this snap resounded not at all like a pencil but instead a baseball bat cracking.
“Mike!” she shrieked and then awareness seemed to fall into a virtual vat instantaneous awareness, like, for instance, the scene in the Three Stooges where Curly lands in a vat of plaster (for those who even remember the Three Stooges.) “Oh, Mike, Mike! I’m so confused!” and then she hugged him with all her might.
“You remember now—good. Where have you been? Archie thought you might’ve been abducted. You weren’t abducted, were you?”
She shivered in his embrace. “All I remember…is leaving the store one night after Archie said you’d already left. I was so jealous. I had it in my head that you were cheating on me with the Greeter…”
Mike drew on a difficult pause. “But you disappeared days ago.”
“What day is today?”
“It’s Christmas, Veronica.”
Veronica’s brain churned now, like a gearbox. “My God. This had to be the 21st or 22nd…” Her gaze snapped to his face. “Are you getting it on with the Greeter—and…what is her name, by the way?”
Mike flapped a hand of disregard. “Shit, I don’t know—”
“But you hired her. How can you not know her name?”
Mike hemmed and hawwed but could summon no reply.
“You are getting it on with her, aren’t you?” she demanded.
Mike sighed. “Yes, Veronica. I was going to tell you after Christmas. You and me? We just weren’t clicking the way I need things to click.”
All at once, and as quickly as her awareness had returned, Veronica’s world collapsed. “But-but…I love you! I want to marry you!”
“No can do, baby. Look, let me take you home—”
“No!” and then her hand soared to his crotch. “Let me suck your dick!”
Mike winced. “Veronica, please…”
“Get it out! Let me suck it!”
“You don’t want to suck my dick—trust me.”
“Yes, I do!”
“No you don’t. And I won’t even tell you why…”
“Why!”
Mike shrugged. “All right, you asked for it. An hour ago I was at the Greeters apartment…fucking her in the ass. There. Now you have it.”
She squeezed his crotch with urgency and adoration. “Let me suck it! Then you’ll love me!”
Mike stifled a chuckle. “Veronica, do you really want to suck a dick that’s been up another girl’s ass only an hour ago?”
“Yes!” and she began to unbuckle his pants.
Mike squirmed. “But I haven’t taken a shower yet! My dick smells like butt!”
“I don’t care! Take it out!”
“And the truth is,” he continued with even more reluctance, “you give lousy head.”
Veronica froze.
“Hey, sorry, but I’m just telling you like it is,” he explained. “I never told you because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“Lousy…”
“Not just lousy, Veronica, but terrible.” He looked right into her eyes. “In fact, you give the worst head in the world.”
Veronica locked up for a moment as if encased in cement, but after this momentary self-reflection, an angst like she’d never known consumed her.
“Oh, yeah!” she snapped. “We’ll see about that!” and then she opened his pants, yanked them down, and began to fellate him. The fact that his penis still reeked from another woman’s bowel did not circumvent her resolve in any way, shape, or form.
Mike sat back, eyes wide in shock. “Oh-oh…wow, Veronica. Mmm, oh, holy shit… That’s-that’s-that’s…great!”
“Um-hmm,” she moaned as her mouth moved.
He was panting, breathing heavy, hips tensing. “Where did you…pick up this…new technique?”