by Julia Kent
“You know I love you,” she said.
Now that is what you call a non sequitur.
“Yes.”
“And you know you owe Calvin an apology.”
“Yes’m.” As the shock and stress of seeing Mama and being dressed down started to fade, it was replaced by the memory of my colossal fuckup at the roulette table.
Just then, Rooster appeared, dragging Mavis, brown feathers leaving a trail like they were Hansel & Gretel, only instead of bread crumbs they were leaving little feathers.
“Darla! Mavis needs you.” Rooster said. “She’s about to lay another egg!”
“Mavis?” Mama’s eyebrow arched.
“It’s a long story.”
“I got all day.”
Just then, Joe appeared in my line of sight again, strong and composed, with a look of contemplative understanding that made me feel ten feet tall.
And I burst into tears.
CHAPTER TWELVE
JOE
It’s hard to comfort your girlfriend in a room full of people either dressed up like animals or walking said human-animals on leashes.
It’s even harder when you look over her shoulder and see a table full of butt plugs with animal tails, real ones, handcrafted by her stepfather.
In addition, the two chicken freaks were pretending to lay eggs or something, their eyes glassy and spaced out as they got their jollies off my girlfriend. A simple glare made them scatter. Good.
Add in her mother glaring at you, dressed as a cat, and this whole scene was more uncomfortable than accompanying my mother to her gynecologist appointments.
But I had an ace in my pocket.
Not literally, because that’s the fastest way to get your legs snapped and your body thrown out of a casino, but I had the next best thing.
“I got your money,” I whispered.
“What money?”
“Your money. I won it back.”
She froze, then began to shake, like an earthquake started in her heart.
“How could you win my money back? Did you go back in time and play the right number at the roulette table?”
“No. I spent some time at a poker table.” Total lie, but the best I could come up with.
“You won eight thousand dollars at a poker table?”
“Nineteen thousand, actually.”
“Now I know you’re joking.” She hit my chest, hard. “You didn’t borrow the money from your parents, did you? Because I’ll kill you.”
I shrugged. “What? No! I wouldn’t borrow from them. Don’t need to.”
That made her even more skeptical. I sighed. “I didn’t pick the number. I was just trying to get back your money.”
“You’re not kidding.”
“No.”
“Joe. You seriously waltzed over to some table, joined in, started playing, and won that kind of money in a few hours?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you play poker for a living?” she asked in awe.
Oh, fuck. Wasn’t expecting that question. Now was not the time to reveal my trust fund, but she had a great point. If I could magically make five figures at poker – and that was my lie – why not do it all the time?
I had to scramble for an explanation, and the only one I could come up with on short notice sucked.
“Because I become overconfident.”
“Overconfident? Since when has being overconfident turned out to be negative for you? Other than losing friends because you become a raging asshole.”
“Raging assholes get shit done. And for the record, I don’t become a raging asshole. I become a calm, cool, rational asshole.”
“You realize that’s the definition of a sociopath, with a sprinkling of narcissism.”
“Do you want my help or not?”
She shut up.
“Joe,” she said softly. “You’re not kidding?”
“Not kidding.”
“You won nineteen thousand dollars at poker?”
“Uh huh.”
“Then that’s your money,” she said in a voice that made my gut tighten. Her voice dipped low, to an octave she doesn’t normally use, when she was being stubborn. I could be obstinate, but when Darla shifted into this gear, it was like moving a boulder.
“It’s our money.”
“Nuh uh. You cannot rescue me out of an eight-thousand-dollar mistake.”
“You rescued me out of a life that would have been a mistake. Let me do this, Darla.” I was surprised by my own vehemence, my tone one of pleading. She jerked, looking at me like I was a strange animal in a zoo that suddenly pounded the glass wall between us so hard, it threatened to break. This felt dangerous, unmoored, uncharted.
Because it was.
“You mean let you give me that kind of money? No. Let you rescue me? Yes.”
“That is one big contradiction.”
“So am I.”
She had me there.
“I’m offering you the money, so you’ll let me rescue you, but you won’t let me give you the money?”
“Yes.”
“Then you want a loan?”
“No.”
“Then....”
She started crying again.
“I have an idea,” I said in a low voice. “How about you work it off?”
“Work off the money? How?”
I made a nondescript but innuendo-filled sound deep in my throat.
“You want to turn me into a whore?”
“You were willing to walk human chickens on leashes for a thousand dollars an hour, Darla. We’re long past name calling here.”
“I am never, ever going to hear the end of that, am I?”
“No.”
Darla came in for a stronger hug and I realized we had an observer. More than just Trevor.
Cathy, with her cat face, was the one staring at us with an expectation.
“I think your mom wants to talk to you,” I told Darla gently.
“I know she does. Just walk me backwards out of the convention hall and put me in the witness protection program.”
“If I thought that would actually work, Darla, I would have done it for myself years ago.”
“Dang it. I knew there was a flaw in my plan.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“When did you become Mr. Encouragement?”
“When you let me.”
With that, I peeled my arms off her and started to walk away.
“Don’t go,” Cathy called out. I halted, really needing to get away from the mess, but also knowing that listening to your girlfriend’s mom was a show stopper. I couldn’t be rude.
As easy as it would have been.
“Okay.” I turned around, trying to stay in place and not escape. Darla’s mom was someone on the periphery of my life. We saw her at her wedding, at Josie’s wedding – and now. She was someone I saw because of circumstance.
Not choice.
I didn’t have a specific opinion about her, but considering she and her husband were selling sex toys made from dead animals and Cathy was dressed up as a cat, it was hard not to judge.
TREVOR
Charlotte pointed to my right, her hand hesitating for a split second, breath changing as she took in the scene. Both Joe and Darla had ignored their phones, and Charlotte seemed to be the only person who had a clue where they were.
This was not what I expected when I went in search of them.
Darla stood in the center of a pile of vibrators.
Vibrators with tongues.
And… whiskers? Cat ears?
Her mother was talking with Joe, who looked like he would rather be in charge of giving vasectomies to llamas than having that conversation.
“You boys are here to play in the band,” she said as I approached, making eye contact with me and giving a little nod of acknowledgment.
“Yes.”
“And Darla’s in this convention hall because...?”
“Because our friend Charlotte s
ells sex toys and gave us passes to get in.”
“So you’re connected to the business,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Not technically. We’re just –”
“I don’t want you giving Darla shit about this.”
“Excuse me?” Joe matched her hard tone in a way that wouldn’t have been possible a year ago.
“You heard me. Your ears ain’t broken.” Cathy shifted her weight, her bad leg clearly causing her pain. Her shoulders dropped and her breathing went steady, like someone rooting themselves in place to prepare for a fight.
“You think we’d give Darla shit because her mom sells sex toys?”
“I think you two love her. I also think you – ”
“What you think about us doesn’t matter,” Joe declared. “What Darla thinks about us matters. What we feel for Darla matters. And so if you’re defending her against us, you can stop. We’re not the enemy.”
“I never said you were.”
“But you’re acting like it.”
“I’m making sure none of what I do hurts her.”
“Then you have a terrible way of executing your goal,” Joe said with more emotion than I expected.
Darla gasped from the sidelines, her face falling, eyes pinging between Joe and her mother, who suddenly seemed locked in a verbal battle that came out of nowhere.
“I don’t want –”
“You kept this secret for a long time,” Joe interrupted her. “For the same reason Darla kept us secret for a long time. From you.”
Cathy gave him a long, hard look. It was difficult not laughing, though, because when a woman dressed as a cat at a fetish convention is glaring at your partner, you should be able to be amused.
“I see why Darla puts up with you,” she finally said. “You’re smart.”
“And hot as fuck,” someone in the crowd murmured.
“Mama,” Darla said, interrupting finally. “It’s all good.” She walked over to Calvin and opened her arms. “I’m sorry, Calvin,” she said as she gave him a big hug. “I was wrong to assume.”
“It’s okay, Darla. You were just protecting your mama the way Joe and your mama are protecting you right now. Loyalty is what makes love shine.”
Darla’s mom married a walking Hallmark card.
But his hug seemed nice. Fatherly, with a touch of patient grace I knew well. You had to have plenty of it to deal with Darla. I imagined the dose went up with her mother.
“I didn’t mean to –”
“You did mean to. And it’s okay. I’ll handle Pauline. She’s our biggest distribution client, but I’m pretty sure all you did was give her something to laugh about. That room card was for special access to a secret exhibitor’s room in another wing. Not,” he said pointedly, eyebrows up. He looked like a minister as he paused. “Not for a hotel room.”
Darla looked so embarrassed.
Calvin’s phone buzzed and he looked at the screen, then his wife. “Cathy! We got to go to the loading dock. New shipment of badger tails just come in.”
“Badger?”
He shrugged. Cathy limped over and gave Darla a fierce hug. “Don’t judge.”
“I ain’t judging! What other people put up their butts ain’t none of my business.”
“Well, it is our business,” Cathy said with a laugh.
“And it’s good business,” Calvin added as he wrapped his arm around Cathy’s waist and led her toward the back of the room.
Darla sagged against me as I stepped gingerly over a cat vibrator. “I cannot believe how many ways I have fucked up in the last twenty-four hours.”
“You are allowed to make mistakes,” I said slowly.
“I make plenty of them. Remember jail? Tortilla? Joe’s mom bailing me out?”
“Yes.”
“And the waxing incident with the wallpaper? Cost me a lot of money to fix Josie and Alex’s wall.”
“Uh huh.”
“You two are falling all over each other trying to convince me that it’s all fine and okay, and you’re using soothing, overly careful voices to make me not cry, but the reality is I fucked up and fucked up big. Nothing you say – no forgiveness, no pass – will make up for that.”
“You don’t deserve to beat yourself up badly for it, though.”
“How will I learn if I don’t do that?”
“Do what?”
“Beat myself up. It’s the only way to make sure I don’t do it again.”
“No, it’s not. You just make sure you learn.”
“How?”
“You just… do.” Joe and I both moved close to her, my grip tightening, his hands going to her shoulders as we let the dawning realization we shared pull us in, like gravity.
“Guys?”
“Yeah?” we asked in unison.
“I’m tired.”
Our hug got tighter.
“Take me back to the room and put me to bed.”
“How about we take you back to the room and put us all to bed?” Joe asked in a low voice.
“You’re interested?” Darla’s voice dripped with judgment. “After all this?”
“After? More like because of,” I said.
“You’re turned on by this animal fetish shit?”
“I’m turned on by you,” Joe answered, kissing her forehead. Our eyes met. “But Trevor is definitely sporting some wood for the chicken people.”
I pulled Darla away from him and we began walking out of the hall, passing Charlotte’s booth as we left. She was demonstrating a face harness for a dildo, jutting her chin up like a chicken, hands on her hips like a boss. Like a pro.
Like Wonder Woman.
I didn’t say hi. And I definitely didn’t think about Liam.
“Where are you going?” Joe demanded, on our heels.
“I’m taking Darla to the room to have sex.”
“You expect me to –”
I shut her up with a kiss. She was exhausted, I knew, and whatever trouble she’d been in, it looked like Joe had figured it all out. Later, they’d fill me in on all the details, but right now, I felt intense pressure to reconnect with them both.
And not because Mavis the chicken set me off.
Not even a tiny bit.
Nope.
DARLA
Sex? They wanted sex after everything I’d gone through that day? What did they think I was?
Oh. Yeah. They knew what I was.
A horny twenty-five-year-old woman who used sex sometimes to escape from really intense emotions.
“Get me upstairs. Draw me a bath. Give me more chocolates. Talk me down. Because in the last day I’ve managed to lose all the band’s money, my retirement account, walk two human chickens for money, find my stepdaddy cheating on my mama, get yelled at by my catwoman mama here in Vegas, have one of my boyfriends win all my money back, and… shit, I lost track of it all.”
“That’s a lot,” Trevor commiserated. He took in a deep breath through his nose, then let it out, the guttural tone turning sinister. He was ten different shades of red, giving Joe looks that made it clear he expected explanations.
Stat.
“Too much,” I groaned as we found the elevator and stepped in, like it was waiting for me all along. As I prepared to explain – not that I knew how – to my surprise, we rode up in silence, unable to put into words whatever it was we needed to express.
Still without a word, Trevor entered the hotel room and took a sharp left into the bathroom, the faucet’s bubbling sound turning quickly into the rush of a hot waterfall against fiberglass and porcelain. Humidity poured out of the bathroom as Joe flopped on the bed and closed his eyes, kneading his forehead as if trying to unknot himself.
Trevor collapsed on the bed next to me, changing the weight distribution, pulling me toward him. He smelled hot and musky, like someone nervous but cool now.
I sniffed my own armpit.
Oh. That wasn’t him. That was me.
“I have questions,” he whispered. “Lots o
f them.”
“I know. And I’ll have answers. Just give me a few minutes.”
My mind raced as I rested on my back, staring up at the ceiling, feeling the room start to slowly spin. After a few minutes it all calmed down and Trevor stood, walking into the bathroom as I followed him. More silence as I undressed and climbed in, Trevor reaching for a small beige burlap bag and holding a handful of something over me.
“Is that chicken feed, Trevor?” I sat up in alarm, sloshing some water over the edge.
“No.” He looked at me strangely. “It’s lavender. Why would I pour chicken feed in your bath?”
“Fetish?”
He laughed softly, sadly, sprinkling the greyish-purple seeds into the water as Joe came in and leaned against the doorjamb, eyeing me with a look that said it was all on me to explain.
But first things first.
“Did you hear about the woman who died by suffocating on a guy’s penis?” I asked, all out of the blue. That’s how my brain worked sometimes, and hell if I understood it. Given any set of crises, I could compartmentalize and let at least one loose strand of gray matter float off in the wind, brought back by a breeze with a strange little factoid tucked away in the outback, coming forward to be uttered out of my no-filter mouth.
Plus, I needed time for the brain’s back burner to figure out how to give them an answer that fully conveyed my apologies and regret for being so stupid. Given that, why not distract them with a huge-dick story?
Trevor and Joe groaned in unison. They knew how I worked.
“He was from Peters, Ohio, wasn’t he?” Joe asked.
“I’ll get beer. We’re going to need it if this is one of her stories,” Trevor said, standing up and shaking his head as he and Joe exchanged a look I didn’t understand.
“No, not from Peters,” I said. “Trust me, if a guy back home had a cock that big, I’d know about it. Or have been dead long before I met you.”
They both froze, then slowly turned to look at me.
Oops.
Trevor left and came back with two bottles of beer, popped them open on the tab attached to the wall, and walked over to Joe, arm outstretched. Joe took it and the two drank down their beers, glorious Adam’s apples bobbing in rhythm, like they were swallowing to the same beats they use when we fuck.
