“Get in,” he told her.
Something like fear in her eyes, but not really. Some wariness and distaste, but mostly cool apathy. Whatever it was, he sort of liked it. Maybe she thought he was looking for revenge for the crushed comic book incident. “No, that’s OK.”
“I’ll give you a lift back to the city.”
He had muscle. He had horsepower, wisdom. The ancient dust of lost kings made up the fuel in his tank.
Cole was no longer himself, and could let go of his little boy nature. What he couldn’t do, the Stang could do for him. Here, in this cockpit, he had become a man and she somehow perceived it. So what if he needed a little help to get there?… everybody needed a boost, a kicker, some extra support. There was no shame in weakness. The Stang connected him to the ages of warriors, the rituals of maleness. He was complete.
Terry did a little double-take, checking to see if it was really Cole in there. She gave a head toss, her black tangled hair flopping one way, then the other. For a second he thought she might scream for a cop, try to ward him off with a cross, something like that. Scream for any murder gurrls in the neighbourhood to come to the rescue.
Then she sighed and shook her head, berating herself probably, thinking it just more mayhem, and stepped off the kerb.
She got in and he gunned it, letting the tyres squeal but only for a second, the way Joe used to do it. He didn’t need a big show, the action happened as part of the car, inside, not out there looking at the red roaring by. She giggled, an unnatural sound for somebody so far into the scene of romantic doom and anguish. It was easy to sense his need.
“You’re not thinking of your comic books now, are you?” she asked.
But he was, he always was, the way he thought about novels and movies and everything that mattered when he was younger. Even ten minutes ago. Twenty-one and already he was going grey. He’d be his father in another fifteen years, and he’d already outlasted his brother. You didn’t need to dress up like death to find it, all you had to do was start the engine, sniff the pipe.
He had a few wet naps, opened, unfolded them, and started wiping her face of all the powder and wax. The chain between her eyebrow and ear swung wildly. “Hey!”
“I want to see you,” he said. He worked at her clothes too, tearing, unbuttoning her skirt. “Get naked. I want to see all of you.”
“You’re slow to start but, once you do, you speed along.”
“Yes.”
She mattered but she also didn’t matter, right here next to him. He realized he was on the right track now, edging towards a new highway. She fit him perfectly but it wasn’t about that now. It was about the place they were going, where they’d been. His heart was killing him, but it wasn’t about that either. The road offered the earth before him, and he thought he might as well make a move for it.
Terry removed her panties, opened her blouse all the way up so he could see the entire tattoo. She had a couple of others, a rose on her hip, a wreath of skulls. There was room enough in the seat for her to turn completely around, show him her beautiful pale ass. Another tat at the bottom of her spine: a face he thought he recognized for a second and then didn’t any more. He brushed her with the back of his hand as she clambered around again. Terry reached over and undid his jeans, took him into her hand and began caressing him slowly, with a deliberate and almost familiar touch. She licked her palm and pulled his soul up out of him another half-inch.
“You like this, hm?” She worked him fast for a minute before she let her lips ease along him slowly, inch by inch, keeping pressure up all the way. He wanted to know who the face was, who it was going to be. The Stang screamed. She made gleeful noises, licking, wiping him across her throat like a knife.
He drove like he’d never done before, easily, without a wasted motion, sliding in and out of traffic flawlessly, nobody caring.
“Say my name,” he told her.
“Hmm?”
He grabbed her by the hair and hefted her up. She appeared to be growing whiter, the ink of the tattoos standing out even more. He said, “I want to hear you.”
“You’re the greatest, you’re the best, God, I want you, c’mon -”
He held her like that and wouldn’t let her get back to it, even though she was struggling now. “Just say it, Terry. My name. Tell me my name.”
Her eyes cleared and she understood without judgment. “Cole. You’re my man, Cole.”
Releasing her hair, he settled back, as she dropped again and continued bringing him to life, switching him into something else. Her naked ass shined against the seat and when Cole checked the rearview, he could almost see Joe back there, watching him as Cole had once watched and dreamed of his brother. He looked around and didn’t know where he was any more, and didn’t much care.
Terry was a biter, chewing. He finally recognized the face on her back: it was her dead sister. Who had shoved her? Who had been down there in the tunnels for no reason? Where had Terry been that night, and how much anger and provocation had stood between them? How much love? More than him and Joe?
He was ready and shifted, drawing her up with his free hand, the other on the wheel, always on the wheel.
“Here?” she said. “Now? There’s traffic. Truckers.”
“Come on.”
She liked the idea even though it frightened her a little too, and that made it agreeable. They needed more fear at this moment, so that it would last. Maybe she’d never done anything in public with the ladies death watching. Always on the sly, alone, of course, in shadow not on the sidewalk. Or maybe she had started thinking of what would happen next, further down the line, when it was his time. She slinked across him, working one leg over, settling into his lap. She positioned him and slowly slid down, sighing, now hugging him and rocking gently. That’s what he wanted, to feel her this close, and closer. And they had to get closer.
Terry kept one hand closed, as if she was hiding something. He could guess. As she bit into his shoulder, he reached over and started tossing her clothes out of the half-open passenger window. He was hard everywhere, with the generations of cool and horsepower riding with him. He hardly had to do anything at all, the Stang took care of her.
Cole kept checking the rearview mirror, waiting, knowing what was coming. It took a while but eventually he saw Joe appear. His brother sat in the back seat, keeping an eye on Cole, watching the world unfolding all over again. Cole couldn’t make out the expression on Joe’s face – jealousy or disappointment? Probably both, it would always be both.
There was a blur of motion and it took Cole only a second to realize what had happened. She was quick and had practised the move for a thousand hours until she couldn’t be seen, slipping something small between her teeth. She leaned in to kiss him and he pressed his fist under her chin and shoved it up tight until her shoulders cracked. He’d been waiting for the move. If he hadn’t, he’d be dead.
He slapped her, and her head bounced against the driver’s window. “Spit it out.”
“Huh?”
Cole slapped Terry again, much harder, and it did nothing but bring a giggle up in her throat. He mashed his lips to hers and could feel the razor blade pressing through her flesh from the other side. They kissed and her lips parted, and then her blood burst into his mouth.
He took it in because he had to and he wanted to, then wiped the back of his hand across his chin. “Spit it out.”
She turned her head and spit the razor blade into the back seat.
“Don’t try it again,” he told her.
“No,” she said, “no, not for a while.”
Fair enough. It was getting dark now but he didn’t put on the headlights. He kicked it up to ninety, still weaving through traffic. She rode and he rode, the engine thrumming, gas gauge more than half-full, staring out at the world descending through the windshield, his neck unbroken, murder just in front, thinking about all the insane and uncompromising curves that lay in wait ahead.