Two Crazy, One Wild

by Shaye Marlow

  The girl introduced herself as Tanya the medical assistant, then said, “Relax. And I need your sweatshirt off.”

  I yanked the hoodie over my head, and Frances burst out laughing. I looked down at myself as Tanya wrapped the blood pressure cuff around my bicep. There were sequins on the front of my snug muscle shirt, and when I squinted, they read… Juicy.

  “What?” I asked, still not getting it.

  Frances laughed harder. “You got that from your brother’s closet, didn’t you? But,” she continued when I nodded, “I’ll bet you anything that’s not your brother’s.”

  I frowned, trying to figure out who else… “Oh. Oh. I remember now. There was this one time when all three of us were in Rory’s room, and… uh. Yeah. The shirt looked much better on Lucy,” I finished lamely. Had come off easy, too. “No wonder it’s so snug.”

  Frances gave me a sour look. “Just put the hoodie back on.”

  Tanya unwrapped my arm and I covered the sequined tank top back up. She asked me a few questions, took my temperature, then said the doctor would be in shortly.

  Frances was across the room as soon as the door closed. She started picking things up off the counter, examining them, and opening cabinets.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, my nerves fraying as I spied a box of syringes.

  “Looking for Band-Aids,” she said. “I’m out.”

  “This isn’t a store.”

  “Oooo. I love this tape. Sticks good, tears easy.” She slipped a roll into her shiny purse. “And you never know when you might need a tourniquet. Now, where the hell do they keep the—aha!” A handful of Band-Aids went into the purse.

  Suddenly, I had an inkling of why she’d been hiding from the cop. “Frances. Stop.”

  She was digging around in the drawers under the exam table, and pulled out a clear plastic duck-bill-looking thing. Grinning, she waved it around.

  “Put it back.”

  She pouted. “Do you know how much fun we could have with this? Have you ever played doctor—?”

  “Put. It. Back.”

  Instead, she clicked it at me.

  She shrieked as I lunged across the room, cornered her behind the table, and pried it from her hands. I dropped it in the drawer, and kicked the drawer shut.

  I pinned her with a look. “Are you a klepto?”

  Her eyes grew wide and shifted all over the place. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. ‘Klep-toe’? I don’t even know what that is.”

  “Bullshit, you don’t. Let me see your purse.”

  She gasped, folding her arms over the leather bag as she backed farther into the corner. “You can’t look in my purse. Don’t you know that’s forbidden?”

  She turned sideways as I made a grab for it, then scrambled over the exam table. Started to scramble. Would’ve scrambled, if I hadn’t grabbed her.

  I leaned over her, reaching for the bag. She rubbed her ass against my crotch. With a growl, I flipped her over, and grabbed her purse. My hand cinching it shut was the only thing that kept the contents from littering the floor.

  She grinned, wiggling under me. “So,” she said, reaching around to squeeze my ass. “Is this where I stick my finger up your butt?” Her hand slid inward.

  I yelped and jumped backward, hitting the wall and losing my grip on her bag. Gravity took over. I tried to recover, tried to catch the damn thing, and fumbled it.

  Filched shit went everywhere. The floor, the exam table.

  A tampon bounced off the lab coat of the person who’d just opened the door. We all froze, staring at one another.

  Frances, half-reclined on the exam table and covered with condoms, gum, and loose change, smiled. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Frances.”

  The doc glanced at my chart.

  “I’m Zack,” I said. “Here for a flight physical.” Shuffling quickly through the crap on the floor—and there was still quite a bit in the purse I clutched—I parked myself in the chair next to the counter and schooled my face to upstanding-citizenness.

  The doctor settled on his stool and perused the chart while I dug around in Frances’s purse. In addition to the medical supplies, there was a bottle of Tabasco, a little baggie of rhinestones, a roll of duct tape, an alligator-skin checkbook, and a paperback. Servicing the Target, by Cherise Sinclair.

  “So. Your blood pressure was a bit high,” the doc started.

  “Take it again,” Frances said. “He’s got white coat syndrome pretty bad, but I think he’s calmer now.”

  I stared at her, suddenly wondering if she’d been distracting me on purpose.

  She winked at me as the doctor wrapped the cuff around my arm and hit the button.

  “You sneaky shit.”

  Frances laughed out loud.

  Turns out my blood pressure still wasn’t great, but it was in range. The doc told me to exercise and lay off the salt, then signed off on my medical certificate and shooed us out the door.

  Our next stop would take me into completely unknown territory, and thus was almost as terrifying. We were going to…

  The bookstore.

  FRANCES

  I rocked against him as Zack braked to a halt. After he’d climbed off, I dismounted, pulled off my helmet, and shook out my hair. Catching him staring, I grinned.

  Zack pulled the door open, and I breezed past to hold the next one. “You ever taken a girl to a bookstore before?” I asked, giving him flirty eyes.

  “No. I don’t think I’ve ever been in here before, period,” he said, looking around with what might’ve been horror.

  “Well, pick your poison. We’ve got travel, arts and crafts, technical manuals, fiction including romance and fantasy—”

  “Just the textbook,” Zack said.

  “You sure that’s all? They have books on painting, beautiful books with big color pictures… C’mon,” I said, snagging his hand. “Lemme show you somethin’.”

  “What? Where are we going?” He nearly knocked over a display as I dragged him past the little desk where he needed to ask for his textbook, and toward the back of the store.

  “I am going to set the tone,” I said, “for all of your future bookstore visits.”

  We turned into a quiet aisle, one with two ladies reading blurbs. I released Zack for a moment to grab a stool, and then carried it past one of the women to plunk it mid-aisle. “Sit, please.”

  “Frances…” Zack was obviously uncomfortable. Even so, he was so good-looking, my eyes ached from looking at him. The way that shirt hugged his shoulders and pecs, the tattoos peeking from his sleeves and neckline. Those crystalline eyes…

  I gave him an encouraging little shove, and he sat. The ladies on both sides of us were surreptitiously casting us glances—probably comparing Zack to the covers of the books they held, and finding the covers wanting.

  I pulled down a book at random, flipped it open, and cleared my throat. I sent Zack a little smile before bringing my attention to the page. “The lights flickered low, basting her skin in a golden light. It was their first night together, the first night he’d taste her, a night he’d remember always. The first joining of flesh, the night two became one…”

  “Frances,” Zack muttered, glancing at our audience.

  I raised my voice. “She was beautiful, and so delicate—like a pastry, her skin like cream. The angels had wept when she’d been made…” I read a few more lines silently, then scoffed and threw the book back on the shelf. “Now I’m hungry, but also a little disgusted,” I said, selecting another.

  The new book’s cover was black and white with a title in neon pink. I cracked it, and started to read. “He was so damaged. Broken. Fucked up. And only I could help him. That’s what I was thinking, thinking about drawing out the poison, thinking about healing him… as I sucked his cock.” I held the book away from me. “What the fuck?”

  The woman to my left laughed. “Hey, I have a good one for you,” she said, pulling a book from the top shelf. She flipped open the big hardba
ck, then peered through her beaded reading glasses. “One was the number of noses on her face. Two: Her pretty eyes. Three was the number of times she’d slapped me. Four: The ties. I ran a feather—a single one, long and curled at the tip—down her body, observing the way she shook. I bent down over her, breathing in the warmth from her lungs, dragging my fingertip across the turgid tip of one milky breast. I drank in her uncertainty, reddened the skin of her thigh in the shape of my five fingers. Her heart beat in time with mine, faster. Six… The number of stripes I’d put on her ass, for what she did at seven o’clock last night.”

  “Are you sure that’s romance?” I asked.

  “Oh yes. He’s a sadistic doucheburger at the beginning, and by the end, she’s tamed him completely.”

  “Does he count like that throughout the book?”

  “Well, yes. He’s also a bit autistic, I think. Or OCD?”

  “Huh. Well, I was looking for something a little more… arousing?”

  Zack was shaking his head, but I ignored it, and the woman to my right did, too. “Ooo, oo, I have one,” she said. She leaned over Zack, grazing his ear with the side of one large breast. I got the distinct feeling… she was hitting on my bookstore date.

  This woman was younger and had a high, extremely cute and breathy voice, which made the stuff she started to read sound that much dirtier. “His cock was hard as granite, standing up from the mounting block of his body. I wanted to worship him, to ride him, to run my tongue from stem to stern, hitting every bump along the way. I wanted to lick the head of that straining organ, to circle it, to tease that little spot that made his breath catch. To trace those veins with my tongue, feel through them his heart pounding harder, harder...”

  “Wow, what’ve you got there?” Left lady asked. Right flashed her the cover, Left wiggled her fingers, and Right handed it over.

  I smiled down at Zack, who just now seemed like he was beginning to understand the game. “You okay there?” I asked. “You’re looking a little flushed.” Not waiting for his answer, I cracked open another book, unerringly—

  “How do you do that?” Zack muttered.

  —navigating to the juiciest part, and started to read. “She was wearing red. Very little of it. Just a lacy bra, and the tiny thong I’d bought her. ‘Strip,’ I ordered. ‘Take it off for me. Slowly.’ I took a sip of champagne as she reached to her shoulder straps, as she slid them down her arms. She had such perfect breasts, two lovely mounds, perfect for my hands—or my mouth.”

  Another woman had joined us, and she read an excerpt from an old west romance. The action was soft and gentle, the plot primitive, and I held Zack’s gaze throughout.

  Then Right gave a reading from what seemed to be a time-travel romance.

  I opened one last book, and flipped to the sweet spot. “She curled her fingers into the thick hair covering his back, while in the distance, a row of catapults fired, one after the other, after the other, each release signaling her own, until… What the shit?” I flipped the book over, taking in the awful cover, the author’s name. Helly Adderack. Shaking my head, I skimmed a few more pages, and then tucked the book under my arm.

  The ladies now crowding the aisle had broken up into pairs, discussing the books.

  Zack was staring at me.

  “You wanna know how I do it?” I asked. Yeah, I knew he probably didn’t. “Let me show you. Pick a book.”

  “Uh…” He was picking something, all right: an escape route.

  “Pick one,” I urged.

  Heaving a sigh, he reached out and grabbed a hockey romance.

  I laughed as I moved behind him. “All right.” I breathed into his ear as I skimmed my hands down his arms. I cupped my hands over his, helping him cradle the book. “You hold the book like this. Not too hard. Caress it,” I added, sliding my thumb gently across the pages.

  Zack shifted in my hold. “You said the scene’s at about the halfway point?”

  “Yes, but you can’t force it. Close your eyes as you run your thumb over the pages. Feel the contents.”

  “Frances…”

  “You’ve gotta find the sweet spot,” I crooned, “and eeeease it open.” I stuck my tongue in his ear, making him jump and shout. Laughing, I smacked a kiss to his cheek and put the book back on the shelf.

  “Blame Dotty,” I said as he got to his feet. “She’s been packing romance novels in with our mail for years.”

  ZACK

  After paying for the books, we stopped over in the adjacent café for drinks.

  I was ordering a large mocha when something jabbed me in the side. I spun, and froze halfway into a swing when I realized what’d poked me. It was a blue knitting needle, held by an older woman rocking a bowl cut.

  She wasn’t looking at me. She was glaring at Frances, who dodged her second jab.

  “Hold still, you thief,” the woman said. When the knitting needle failed to score, she hitched up her tote and swung it in a wide arc, thumping Frances upside the head.

  “Ow, dammit, stop.”

  “It’s Frances,” the knitter called over her shoulder, and four more mature ladies in sweaters and stockings and carting yarn-filled totes stood up from their table.

  “Ma’am, you can’t be hitting people in here,” the girl behind the counter said, only to be narrowly missed by the woman’s next thrust. She jumped back with a cry.

  The old gal cornered Frances next to the creamers and swung her tote again, whacking Frances in the chest. “Where is it?” she demanded. “Do you still have it?”

  I thought about intervening, then shrugged and gave the open-mouthed girl at the register the rest of my order. She took it, unable to peel her gaze from the scene unfolding at the condiment bar.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Frances said, catching the next blow on her right forearm, and parrying a needle thrust with her left.

  “My dahlia!” the woman said. “My dinner plate… dahlia!”

  Conversation stuttered to a halt as everyone in the café turned to watch.

  “Where is it?” the woman hissed.

  “I think you must be going senile,” Frances said. “I don’t know you, and I certainly don’t know—”

  The woman had dropped her bag and needle, and with a scream, tackled Frances. Sugar packets flew everywhere as Frances bounced off the counter, and then the two were grappling, staggering amongst the tables to the shocked cries of the occupants.

  The granny was a real scrapper. She pinned Frances to a table with her age-spotted hands wrapped tightly around her throat, and I thought about helping… but then Frances bucked her off, and the barista set my drink on the counter.

  Frances seemed to be winning when two knitters approached from behind and caught her arms.

  The angry old woman drew a long, wickedly-sharp needle from one of her compadres’ bags, and jammed it in under Frances’s chin. “Where,” she growled, “is my dahlia?”

  Frances’s expression was mutinous.

  I threaded my way through the tables. “Frances,” I began, already knowing the answer, “did you take this woman’s dahlia?”

  Frances looked away.

  “She did,” the woman said. “She came in under cover of darkness, and she dug it up, right out of my yard. My best, winningest dahlia.”

  I perched on a table close to the action, crossed my ankles, and sipped my coffee. “Where’d you put it? Your dad’s place?”

  Frances finally looked at me. “Why aren’t you helping me?”

  “’Cuz if you stole something from them, they’re in the right. Also, I don’t beat up frail old women.”

  That earned me some dirty looks. Frances tried to take advantage of their distraction, but only succeeded in messing up her hair and getting a little red in the face.

  “So, did you take it?” I asked.

  “Yes, okay? Yes, I took it.”

  “And it’s…”

  “At my dad’s, yes.”

  “And you’re going to get
it…”

  “Just as soon as we get back,” she said, struggling against them again. I was transfixed by her heaving chest when the security guys arrived.

  Like a dumped box of rats, the knitting club scattered. They piled atop each other in their haste to get through the door. Out the big windows, I could see them jumping into their Lincolns and Mercurys. The ringleader nearly mowed down one of the security guys, then shot us the bird as she roared by in her Subaru wagon.

  Let’s just say, Frances and I didn’t wait for the security guys to come back in. I gulped my coffee as we hurried through the other exit. We stuffed our books into the saddlebags, then peeled out onto the road with Frances hugging my back.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ZACK

  We wound up on the Seward Highway going southbound, and since it was a sunny day and a fun ride, I stayed the course. We hugged the curves all the way to Girdwood, where we stopped and got pizza.

  At the pizza place, Frances nearly got me into a fistfight when five guys coming in behind us joined the single man ahead of us in line. She protested, loudly, but I slapped a hand over her mouth, smiled at the guys, and restrained her until we got to the counter. We walked out with two plates full of pizza, and Frances muttering something about it being the principle of the thing. We parked ourselves on a bench built around a raised flower bed, and it wasn’t until the guys—windsurfers, judging by the equipment strapped to the tops of their vehicles—left that Frances settled down.

  “So,” I said, having put my food away in a fraction of the time it was taking Frances, because apparently Frances couldn’t bitch and fume and eat all at the same time. I wiped my hands on a napkin, then turned toward her, very aware of the press of her knee. “Those bikers seemed to know you.”

  “Mm.” She pulled the slice away from her mouth, twirled the stretching strand of cheese around her finger, then sucked it off. Her lips glistened, stealing my thoughts for a few moments.