by Greg Barth
Selena
Copyright © 2015, Greg Barth
All rights reserved. No part of this electronic book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by Mike Monson and Chris Rhatigan
Edited by Rob Pierce and Chris Rhatigan
Cover design by Dyer Wilk
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART ONE: SELENA
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
PART TWO: HOSTILITY
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
PART THREE: RAVAGE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
PART ONE: SELENA
There was a little girl
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”
- Niccolo Machiavelli
ONE
I AWOKE TO PAIN. It was the typical hangover headache, a dull throb at the base of my skull accompanied by an icepick through the left temple.
Fuck.
My mouth was dry and tasted like a sewer. Bourbon, cigarettes, and something else. Something organic.
I squinted an eye open. Not my bed. Not my room.
Okay, I thought. I opened my other eye, and I gave a minute for my blurred vision to focus.
I didn’t recognize the guy lying next to me. His back was to me, but I could see well enough to realize that I didn’t know him. He looked like he was deep asleep. Good.
I eased my way out of the bed. At five-feet, four-inches tall and 98 pounds, I can make little noise when I need to.
I can also make a hell of a lot of noise when I want to.
I was totally NSFW. Not a stitch of clothes on.
Heavy dark curtains covered the window in the bedroom. Bright sunlight shone through the gap underneath in a thin line that gave just enough light to see my way around the dim room. Looked like early afternoon sunlight. I doubted it was later than 2:00 PM. I never sleep past 2:00 PM.
Something oozed down my thigh and I realized that practice had not yet made perfect when it comes to safe sex. My skirt and panties were on the floor in a bundle. I slipped into them. I looked around the room but couldn’t find my bra or blouse. Probably in another room. That happens sometimes.
My purse was on a chair in the corner. I picked up a black t-shirt off of the floor—probably his—and slipped it on. It had a skull image on the front, and it smelled of cologne and sweat. His jeans were in a pile at the foot of the bed. I rifled through the pockets, found his wallet and a cigarette lighter. I opened the wallet and checked for cash. I ignored his ID. I didn’t care what his name was. There was a thick fold of bills tucked inside. I grabbed my purse off the floor and slipped the cash and his cigarette lighter inside.
A half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels was on the nightstand. It was tipped over on its side, but the cap was screwed on tight enough to keep any from spilling. I grabbed it as well.
My shoes were by the door. I slipped them on and eased out through the bedroom door.
It opened onto a narrow hallway that led to the apartment’s entrance.
I wanted to pee but was afraid to make any sound that might wake him.
On a small table by the entrance there were some CDs.
“People still buy these?” I mumbled.
I thumbed through them. A bunch of bullshit I would never listen too. Mostly metal and hard rock. Then I came across one that was out of place in the mix. The Teaches of Peaches. I’d heard her played in the dance clubs, usually a song called “Fuck the Pain Away.” A good tune with a lot of attitude. I grabbed the disc and stuffed it into my purse.
I opened the front door, and the blazing sunlight hit me square in the eye like a nuclear blast.
“Shit,” I said and raised my forearm up to shield my eyes.
The heat outside was stifling, the air thick with humidity. I didn’t want to breathe. My temples throbbed, and my arms trembled.
The apartment was on the second floor. It was an old brick building with a gravel lot in front. I followed the walkway to a set of stairs that descended down the back side of the building. Some trees shaded my way down the steps.
I paused long enough at the bottom to push a finger down my throat and vomit into some shrubs. I did this twice. Very ladylike. I opened the bourbon, took in a mouthful, swished it around, and spat. I repeated this until my mouth tasted cleaner. There was a Pepsi machine against the wall under the stairway. I opened my purse and found my sunglasses. I slipped them on. I also found some Midol. I grabbed three and took out a dollar that I had lifted from the guy’s wallet. I fed the bill to the machine and got a can of soda. It was delicious and cold. I swallowed the Midol. I fished around in my purse some more and found a paper bindle that had half a line of coke left in it. I unfolded the paper and poured the powder out into the cup of my middle fingernail and snorted it up one nostril. I stood there, one hand on the soda machine holding me up, while I sniffed deep a few times as the icy powder trickled down my windpipe.
Achievement Unlocked - Freshen Up.
After a minute, I ran my fingers through my shoulder-length, dark hair and tried to tame it as much as I could. My hair fell in loose curls and was all one length, so it was easy to maintain. I lit a cigarette. I had no idea where I was, what apartment complex this was, or even what street I was on. As I stood there and smoked, I tried to pull memories from the night before from my fuzzy mind. I couldn’t come up with any details, just a few fleeting images. Bars. Drinks. Cigarettes. Coke.
I gathered my stuff and was about to head for the parking lot when I noticed an older man sitting on a deck chair with a folded newspaper on his lap. He was in a white t-shirt and plaid shorts. He wore a ball cap that had some kind of police star on the front. It looked like the FOP logo. He’d been there the whole time, about twenty feet away, and I hadn’t noti
ced him.
“Oh, hi. Good morning,” I said. I gave him a shy smile. “Or afternoon, as the case may be. Sorry about the, uh…shrubs. Just feeling a little sick. Coffee didn’t sit so well this morning.”
“Good afternoon,” he said.
We stared at each other for a few awkward seconds.
“Don’t suppose you’d be a dear and call me a cab would you, sweetie?”
TWO
When I got back to my apartment I slipped out of the borrowed t-shirt and tossed it in the trashcan. I stripped off everything and took a long, hot shower. I wanted to smell girlie and fresh, and nothing like the sex animal from the previous night. I stayed in the shower and lathered and moisturized until all the hot water was used up.
I got out of the shower, toweled my hair dry, and slipped on a long t-shirt.
I grabbed my purse to get a cigarette, then thought of the money I had lifted. I took the bills out, unfolded them and counted. Four-hundred-and-eighty dollars in twenties. God, I hope I was worth it, I thought. I generally want two hundred to go all the way. This was heavy. This amount constituted porn-star sex.
Oh well, it’s rule number one for working girls. If she will fuck you for money, she’ll also fuck you out of your money.
I pulled out the CD case and opened it. The CD wasn’t the original. It was Peaches on the cover, but the disc inside looked like a burned copy. I hoped it was Peaches but realized the odds were that it would contain a mix of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Hank III.
I stuck it in my CD player and hit the play button. Nothing happened. I turned up the volume. Still nothing. I checked the display, and it was giving an error message.
I took out the disc and inspected the playing surface. No scratches. I wiped it on my t-shirt to get any fingerprints or smudges off. I put it back in the player. Still nothing.
I left the disc in the player, took the CD case and dropped it into the trashcan. Easy come, easy go.
I checked the time. 3:30 PM. Still had a few hours before work.
“Fuck it,” I said. I grabbed the half empty JD bottle and headed back to my bedroom.
I spent the afternoon in the dark bedroom, in bed, flipping through the channels on the TV, drinking bourbon, and smoking a joint. When I got good and baked, the TV shows stopped making sense. One minute it was some teen girls in a diner fretting about something on the Disney channel, then it was some people jamming the sharp ends of steel tools into the heads of zombies on some other channel. It was dizzying. I stopped on a news station but couldn’t figure out what was going on. A pretty blonde woman in a red dress that showed cleavage sat between two older men in business suits who seemed to be angry about something the “liberals” were doing. I thought maybe the liberals were like alligators crawling up out of the sewer system or something like that.
In my mind the blonde woman began making moves on the two men.
I pulled the bottom of my shirt up and rubbed my thighs. The series of horizontal scars on my upper legs felt like small ridges or speed bumps under my fingertips. The feel of the scars was comforting. I had stopped cutting myself when I was fifteen, but I still thought about it almost every day. The first moment of penetration with the razor blade was a rush you couldn’t get any other way. I pictured the blonde and the men on TV rubbing my thighs. I was beyond high on the pot and alcohol. I imagined them tying me down and rubbing razor blades gently across my inner thighs. Across my waxed pubic area.
After a few minutes of stoned fantasy, I grabbed my massager from the nightstand, turned it on its highest setting and parked it right against my button. I held it tight with one hand and teased a nipple through my shirt with the other hand. My breasts are small, but you can get a good grip on the nipples. I slid my feet up the sheet until my knees were in the air and spread. It took maybe five minutes before my toes curled and my thighs quivered. I had that look too. You know the one, head back, eyes closed, mouth open in a perfect o, nipple twisted like a knob.
Hashtag Super-Sexy.
I’d have to get another shower before leaving for work. But first, a nap. I’m like a guy in that respect. When I cum my brains out, all I want afterward is a good snooze.
Little did I know that getting off while stoned and watching the news would be the last good time I’d have for a long time.
THREE
Before I tell you why my car and I don’t get along, it’s important that I first tell you that I’m not an alcoholic. Alcoholics are mostly sober people that attend a bunch of meetings. They constantly introduce themselves, they “share” their confessions, and are quick to point out that the first thing you have to do is admit that you have a problem. I don’t attend meetings, I’m hardly ever sober, and I’m fully functional. So clearly I don’t have a problem.
That being said, my car has an ignition interlock system. You have to blow into it and prove to the car that you’re sober before it will start. The car holds to a strict threshold on sobriety. What is considered perfectly sober for safe-driving purposes to you and I equals, like, shitfaced, fucked up drunk to the car. I knew I wasn’t sober enough to start it (by its standards), so I paid my neighbor twenty bucks to blow it for me. Fortunately he blew a negative. I do care about everyone else’s safety—I mean, cars are heavy, fast and dangerous if they get out of hand—so I made sure I could walk a straight line first.
The upside of having the device installed is that I never have to worry about some drunk taking off in my car. And the fact that I drive a ‘95 Nissan Bluebird (two-tone white and rust) keeps the sober people from driving off in it. Either way, I’m covered.
The device will also randomly have you blow it while driving to prevent you from doing exactly what I had just done, or the car stops running. In that respect, it reminds me of some the guys I’ve known.
I only worked five miles from my apartment, so I thought it was a reasonable risk to take. Even if a running retest was required, the car wouldn’t just stop instantly. If I hurry, I’ll make it, I told myself.
I worked at the Lollipop Lounge. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Dancers wait tables one night out of five on a rotation. That night was my night to waitress. The tips would be lousy, and if not for the interlock device, I wouldn’t have been in a hurry to get there.
I thought I could sell a blowjob though, and that would make my night worthwhile. Earn enough to maintain my lavish habits.
I pushed through the door of the club and Chris, the greasy bouncer sitting on a stool on the inside, said, “Fucking late.”
“Well, there’s fucking nobody here,” I said, gesturing to the empty room with an extended arm as I passed.
Everything inside the club was black – the walls, ceiling, tables, chairs: even the vinyl covered couches along the walls used for lap dances were black. The floor was covered in what had once been red carpeting, but it was so filthy with spilt drinks and years’ worth of dust from the nearby interstate that it had gone to black as well. All lights were centered on a waist-high stage with a T-shaped walkway where the dancers performed. The bottom of the T was backed by a black-curtained doorway through which the dancers emerged. A silver, floor-to-ceiling pole was at the intersection of the T. The stage then split off in two directions. A row of two-chair tables lined the floor in front of the stage. The wall behind the stage on either side of the curtained entrance was covered with silvery mirrors.
The men who came to the club didn’t come for bachelor parties. They didn’t bring their wives or girlfriends with them. This wasn’t that kind of classy establishment. They were mostly working-class guys that got their rocks off looking at naked ladies in person. These guys came alone, lurked in the shadows, and looked intently at the girls on stage. I got the sense that these guys had a lot of frustrations in life. You wouldn’t touch one without a condom.
The dancers all smelled like fruit cocktails from the overuse of cheap perfume sprays to cover up the underlying smell of the cigarettes they chain-smoked backstage. And they all smoked. Every single one. But
that’s okay, after all, what’s sexier than the smell of pineapple body splash from Kmart? Their skins were covered in tattoos, glitter, and fake tanning solution to hide the cellulite and stretch marks. They were all addicts, and they all hated each other. Their bedroom eyes were the result of too many pills and Everclear. They mostly had boyfriends and gave no thought whatsoever to the male patrons that came to the club each night unless they thought they could hustle them for a few dollars. A lot of them had criminal records, which made the Lollipop Lounge their employer of choice. Nobody in this city would hire someone with a record except the strip clubs and fast food joints. And if you’ve got the body for it, you could make a lot more money dancing than frying burgers. If you held up, you could support your self-destruction for a few more good years. That’s just how it was.
What can I say, I used to work in fast food, but I got fired for coming to work drunk too many times. That wasn’t an issue at the Lollipop Lounge.
The club was dead until about 9:00 PM on weeknights. I killed time behind the bar helping Lenny prep. I don’t know his real name, but we all called him Lenny because he looked a lot like that guy in Motorhead that sings and plays bass, Lemmy. Somebody got that wrong and Lemmy became Lenny. Who knows? Anyway, the name stuck.
Lenny was tall, had long straight black hair, and wore the mutton chop sideburns and mustache. He always wore ‘80’s metal band t-shirts and jeans. His forearms and biceps were covered in colorful tattoos, most consisting of skulls and naked, dark-haired babes with large breasts. Lenny was fit. He had thick, strong shoulders that suited his tall frame. He was good looking in a rough kind of way.
Lenny wasn’t much of a bartender. He poured the drinks too strong, and never mixed the right amounts. He couldn’t make anything fancy. He broke a lot of glasses too. His primary function at the club was to deal drugs to the dancers. The dancers were all users, but they also dealt to the patrons if the men were interested in that sort of thing. There was an established economy about the place. The money flowed from the men to the dancers and then to Lenny.
