Merle turned off the flashlight, handed it to Dave, pulled up his pants and climbed over the seat. On the screen a worm-like monster was coming out of the sand on a beach.
"This flick isn't half bad," Dave said. "It's kind of funny, really. You don't get too good a look at the monster though. that all the pussy you gonna get?"
"Maybe some later," Merle said.
"You feeling any better?"
"Some."
"Yeah, well, why don't you eat some popcorn while I get me a little. Want a cigarette? You like a cigarette after sex, don't you?"
"All right."
Dave gave Merle a cigarette, lit it. Merle sucked the smoke in deeply.
"Better?" Dave asked.
"Yeah, I guess."
"Good." Dave thumped his cigarette out the window. "I'm gonna take my turn now. Don't let nothing happen on the movie. Make it wait."
"Sure."
Dave climbed over the seat. Merle tried to watch the movie. After a moment, he quit. He turned and looked out his window. Six speakers down he could see a Chevy rocking.
"Got to be something more to life than this?" Merle said without turning to look at Dave.
"I been telling you," Dave said, "this is life, and you better start enjoying. Get you some orientation before it's too late and it's all over but the dirt in the face. talk to me later. Right now this is what I want out of life. Little later, I might want a drink."
Merle shook his head.
Dave lifted the woman's leg and hooked her ankle over the front seat. Merle looked at her foot, the ankle bracelet dangling from it. "I bet that damn foot's more a size eleven than a ten," Merle said. "Probably buys her shoes at the ski shop."
Dave hooked her other ankle over the back seat, on the package shelf. "Like I said, it's not the feet I'm interested in."
Merle shook his head again. He rolled down his window and thumped out some ash and turned his attention to the Chevy again. It was still rocking.
Dave shifted into position in the back seat. The Ford began to rock. The foot next to Merle vibrated, made little dead hops.
From the back seat Dave began to chant: "Give it to me, baby. Give it to me. Am I your Prince, baby? Am I your goddamn King? Take that anaconda, bitch. Take it!"
"For heaven's sake," Merle said.
Five minutes later Dave climbed into the front seat, said, "Damn. Damn good piece."
"You act like she had something to do with it," Merle said.
"Her pussy, ain't it?"
"We're doing all the work. We could cut a hole in the seat back there and get it that good."
"That ain't true. It ain't the hole does it, and it damn sure ain't the personality, it's how they look. That flesh under you. Young. Firm. Try coming in an ugly or fat woman and you'll see what I mean. You'll have some troubles. Or maybe you won't."
"I don't like 'em old or fat."
"Yeah, well, I don't see the live ones like either one of us all that much. The old ones or the fat ones. Face it, we've got no way with live women. And I don't like the courting. I like to know I see one I like, I can have her if I can catch her."
Merle reached over and shoved the woman's foot off the seat. It fell heavily into the floorboard. "I'm tired of looking at that slat. Feet like that, they ought to have paper bags over them."
When the second feature was over, they drove to Dave's house and parked out back next to the tall board fence. They killed the lights and sat there for a while, watching, listening.
No movement at the neighbors.
"You get the gate," Dave said, 'Til get the meat."
"We could just go on and dump her," Merle said. "We could call it a night."
"It's best to be careful. The law can look at sput now and know who it comes from. We got to clean her up some."
Merle got out and opened the gate and Dave got out and opened the trunk and pulled the woman out by the foot and let her fall on her face to the ground. He reached in and got her shorts and put them in the crook of his arm, then bent and ripped her torn panties the rest of the way off and stuffed them in a pocket of her shorts, and stuffed the shorts into the front of his pants. He got hold of her ankle and dragged her through the gate.
Merle closed the gate as Dave and the corpse came through. "You got to drag her on her face?" he said.
"She don't care," Dave said.
"I know, but I don't like her messed up."
"We're through with her."
"When we let her off, I want her to be, you know, okay."
"She ain't okay now, Merle. She's dead."
"I'm don't want her messed up."
Dave shrugged. He crossed her ankles and flipped her on her back and dragged her over next to the house and let go of her by the water hose. He uncoiled the hose and took the nozzle and inserted it up the woman with a sound like a boot being withdrawn from mud, and turned the water on low.
When he looked up from his work, Merle was coming out of the house with a six-pack of beer. He carried it over to the redwood picnic table and sat down. Dave joined him.
"Have a Lone Star," Merle said.
Dave twisted the top off one. "You're thinking on something, I can tell."
"I was thinking we ought to take them alive," Merle said.
Dave lit a cigarette and looked at him. "We been over this. We take one alive she might scream or get away. We could get caught easy enough."
"We could kill her when we're finished. Way we're doing, we could buy one of those blow-up dolls, put it in the glove box and bring it to the drive-in."
"I've never cottoned to something like that. Even jacking off bothers me. A man ought to have a woman."
"A dead woman?"
"That's the best kind. She's quiet. You haven't got to put up with clothes and makeup jabber, keeping up with the Jones' jabber, getting that promotion jabber. She's not gonna tell you no in the middle of the night. Ain't gonna complain about how you put it to her. One stroke's as good as the next to a dead bitch."
"I kind of like hearing 'em grunt, though. I like being kissed."
"Rape some girl, think she'll want to kiss you?"
"I can make her."
"Dead's better. You don't have to worry yourself about how happy she is. You don't pay for nothing. If you got a live woman, one you're married to even, you're still paying for pussy. If you don't pay in money, you'll pay in pain. They'll smile and coo for a time, but stay out late with the boys, have a little financial stress, they all revert to just what my mama was. A bitch. She drove my daddy into an early grave, way she nagged, and the old sow lived to be ninety. No wonder women live longer than men. They worry men to death.
"Like my uncle I was talking about. All that worry. hell, that was his wife put it on him. Wanting this and wanting that. When he got sick, had that operation and had to dip into his savings, she was out of there. They'd been married thirty years, but things got tough, you could see what those thirty years meant. He didn't even come out of that deal with a place to put his dick at night."
"Ain't all women that way."
"Yeah they are. They can't help it. I'm not blaming them. It's in them, like germs. In time, they all turn out just the same."
"I'm talking about raping them, though, not marrying them. Getting kissed."
"You're with the kissing again. You been reading Cosmo or something? What's this kiss stuff? You get hungry, you eat. You get thirsty, you drink. You get tired, you sleep. You get horny, you kill and fuck. You use them like a product, Merle, then when you get through with the product, you throw out the package. Get a new one when you need it. This way you always got the young ones, the tan ones, no matter how old or fat or ugly you get. You don't have to see a pretty woman get old, see that tan turn her face to leather. You can keep the world bright and fresh all the time. You listen to me, Merle. It's the best way."
Merle looked at the woman's body. Her head was turned toward him. Her eyes looked to have filled with milk. Water was running out of her and pooling on the grass and starting to spurt from between her legs. Merle looked away from her, said, "Guess I'm just looking for a little romance. I had me a taste of it, you know. It was all right. She could really kiss."