by Diane Munier
Dorie blushed red as a tomato. “I…he just…I never felt like with him…he’s so…exciting.”
“That’s it. For once we get to do something besides work the board. For once we aren’t going home on a Saturday night to wash and set our hair and do each other’s nails. I want to live for once, don’t you?” Isbe said, with tears stinging her eyes.
Francis laughed. “Listen to you. You talk about him like he’s some kind of movie star.”
“He could be. He’s the most handsome man I ever saw, and he hasn’t taken his eyes off me, not even around all the women out there who…well, he seems to want me.”
“Why wouldn’t he? You’re putting out!” Francis laughed, waving her hand.
“Finally,” Isbe said, a little stung by Francis’s opinion. “And it doesn’t hurt to have some fun. I’m not doing anything below the waist.”
Francis tipped her head back and laughed on that one. “You telling me nothing is happening below the waist? You forget I was married?”
Well, no, none of them was likely to forget that.
“He’s looking to score,” she said to Isbe. “Yours too,” she said to Dorie. “You girls are going to have a big fight on your hands when we get back to the car. We aren’t parking with these guys. I don’t care how many steak dinners they buy. That slut was holding money when she got out of their car. I’ll bet she was charging more than us.”
“Francis…you were just out there doing the same thing. What are you getting on us for? I thought you were ready to date again,” Isbe said.
“I said I was thinking about it. I didn’t—I didn’t want to rush.”
“It’s been a year, Francis,” Dorie whispered.
“It doesn’t matter. You don’t understand.” Francis turned to the sink and turned on the water to let it run over her hand.
Isbe looked at Dorie. She was sobering up. Dorie stuck her bottom lip out and smiled at Isbe. She pulled up her socks and smoothed the cuffs. She straightened up and adjusted the waist of her jeans and made sure her blouse was tucked in all around. “I sure wish I’d worn a skirt.”
Isbe went to Francis and put her hand on her shoulder. “He’d want you to be happy,” she said.
Francis’s thick yellow hair had dropped around the sides of her face. She sniffed. “I know that.”
“Maybe someone like Audie is a good start,” Isbe said.
Francis sniffed again. “He’s a dead-end, Isbe. He’s nothing like Garrett.”
That was true. Garrett was a talker, but Audie could chew him up and spit Garrett out and use his bones for toothpicks. But a dead end? Isbe had no idea, but in his own way, Garrett had been the dead end, and Audie—Audie was here.
“Just…just enjoy tonight. Use him. Use Audie to get back in the water. He wants to be used. He deserves it,” Isbe said, a big grin now.
Francis lifted her head and looked at Isbe. “Yeah,” she whispered. “I could do that. I could use him.”
They laughed. All three of them hugged each other.
“Whatever happens tonight, let’s promise each other we won’t give it up,” Dorie said.
She was so earnest, Francis and Isbe broke out laughing again.
“Deal,” Francis said. “Isbe? We straight? We watch out for one another. You can bet they do.”
“It’s a deal,” Isbe said. She wasn’t a fool. “Let’s just have fun—go crazy. But no baby-making tonight.”
They laughed again.
“Where the hell are they?” Audie asked, downing the last of another long-neck bottle of beer.
“Impatient?” Bobby smirked.
“Look who’s talking,” Audie said, tapping his fingers on the table.
It was blues now. Shiney was singing, a story about how his daddy had tried to kill him and he’d gone for his gun.
“Daddy’s goin’ down,” Audie said, making his hand a gun and firing.
“Here they come,” Bobby said.
“Hey, after…after…they got that motel down the road…you heeled?” Audie said to Bobby.
Bobby leaned back in his chair, tipping a bottle to his lips. He smiled at Audie and flickered his brows up and down. “We ain’t sharing a room,” he said.
“Then you’re paying for two, ape; you owe me. Back in the city, I gave those pigs a ten.”
“You get the Buick,” Bobby said. “Jules gets a tree. He’s good in the forest; screws standing up,” he added, laughing.
Jules was turning his bottle round and round while he watched Isbe coming toward him. She was the prettiest girl in here, hands down. Sweet and sexy, his favorite combination. Looked like the three of them had regrouped. He knew about regrouping. That’s how you got strong, touching in with your squad, sharing the lay of the land, making a plan. They were fresh now, their faces shiny, their lips deepened red, their hair smoothed out, away from their faces. They’d done their recon, and they were in charge.
He smiled at her. He liked to watch her move; no, he loved it. She’d danced with Francis, that’s how it had started, those two tapping their toes, then out on the floor and swinging each other around like they’d done it for years, and probably had, in their apartments, to the radio, those girl things he’d thought before, learning how to move cause damn, that took practice and they were good at it—natural, but practiced. And he liked that. He liked her, those hips, that ass, little and round, perfect, just perfect, and her rack, her waist—he liked her throat, her long neck, her little ears even, and her face, eyes he could look into forever cause he was her hero…now. And he was going to enjoy this…her…being her hero—before he blew it.
He patted his leg. He wanted her right there now. He pushed her chair into the table and patted his leg again. She laughed and took the last step quick and sat that little round ass on him, and his arms went around her and hers around him, and that smile…damn. Just damn. She smelled so good, and her face was soft and cool from the water. She kissed him, and he went in, took more, and it went all through her; he could feel it. Bobby was right, he could screw standing up; he had, and with her, right here, he could take her right here.
Audie kicked his leg and brought him back. He had literally flown out of here kissing Isbe.
“You guys ready for another round?” Audie shouted, standing over them.
“Yeah,” Jules groused at him. Damn, couldn’t he see they were ready?
Audie left, pulling Francis up out of the chair she’d just plopped onto. Bobby had Dorie’s chair pulled between his legs. They’d been in a lip-lock most of the night, even while they’d eaten their dinners out back.
Isbe liked to put things in his mouth—cigarettes, food, even the shots Bobby bought the table. Audie watched; it turned that screwball on, and he had to run his mouth, but Jules didn’t care. He only cared about this chick, Isbe. He had this focus; he’d always had it. He’d see things others would miss. That’s how he’d seen her, in the theater, right away, her dark head, alone; he was always looking on the edges, the interesting, fascinating edges. That’s how he saw the horse…in Belgium…that’s how he saw the sniper’s flash…on the edges.
She pulled him up, and they walked a few feet, and she came up close to him, right against him. His hands slid around her, and he knew that part of her now, that little middle he could so easily span. And he did all that, spanned her with his hands, locked her in his arms, and pulled her against his body. He wondered if she thought about what he had against her, because here, that’s what it was all about, the real and raw, no hard-to-follow rules, just people here, what a church was supposed to be, but wasn’t. The real and raw here, inside these worm-eaten boards. It’s all he asked for. It’s all he knew.
And his eyes were closed, and he breathed through her hair and kissed her ear, and he heard her groan. She tipped up her face and asked, “What are you doing to me?” and he touched his nose to hers, and dragged his lips across her cheek and kissed her neck. Then she returned the favor, and he knew it would scratch her sweet mouth, but
she didn’t seem to mind; she licked him now, his salty, rough neck, and she kissed on that spot that made his hands go right to her ass and pull her against him, and Shiney sang deep about hunger and anger, and holy shit, he was glad he’d made it home…to this.
Chapter 5
Shiney’s, Part Three
Isbe peeled Jules’s white shirt off, and that left him in his undershirt. It was so damn hot in here, but it was raining again. If the music stopped long enough, one musician jumped up to replace another and the instruments kept changing too. In those brief seconds of silence, you could hear the thunder crack and the downpour.
It was cooling off, and the shutters over the windows were propped open, and the rain came down in sheets outside the dark screens where the flying bugs clung against the greasy black wire, and the smoke from a hundred and two cigarettes was layered over the dancers in the dim light, and they moved through it like a magic cloud had fallen through the ceiling. This was heaven.
Jules loved the feel of Isbe peeling off his shirt. He wished she’d keep going, and he’d return the favor; damn, he would, he’d die to get a look at her. But this peel led to Isbe, well, all the girls at the table, seeing the tattoo peeking out from his short sleeve. And that led to Bobby and Audie peeling theirs off too, cause they all had one, three soldiers holding their rifles, “Hell on Wheels” written beneath on a curling ribbon.
They were drunk when they got these tattoos, but they came out of a decision made two years earlier when they were also drunk, a decision that held nonetheless, made before Normandy—when they got home, they’d get marked, whoever survived—three soldiers.
The ones on their shoulders, the ones these girls had yet to see, were decided upon before they shipped out—when they were good monkeys, who didn’t need to be caged.
But after, these ones on their arms, the three soldiers—there wasn’t a cage that could hold them.
The girls were admiring of them; women always were—taken aback at first, but then they’d stare and get creamy. You marked yourself like that; it got attention. A tattoo was a story and a story in a story. It was for you, it was for someone else, but not the whole bloody world—unless you wanted it to be. God gave the palette, then you lived, and shit added up, and sometimes, you had to mark it down.
These girls…they were interested. They looked at each, but they touched the one on the arm of the guy they were with. Even Francis, because Audie made his dance a little, flexing that bicep, that huge bicep he loved to display. Francis and Audie were in a deep conversation now. Negotiations had begun. They’d be signing the peace treaty pretty soon. Maybe. She’d been keeping space between them on the dance floor, but less all the time. Audie was bringing her in slow, but he knew how to keep her on the hook. The broad was game or she wouldn’t be here. She seemed to have questions, but Audie would have answers; she could count on him for that, and if he didn’t, he’d bullshit her into thinking he did—if she could be bullshitted. But she was drunk…and yeah, she was all heart. That’s why she bitched him out like she did. She dug Audie, and she was mad at him for it. That was Jules’s plastered guess.
Glenda had come out of the kitchen to sing now, and it was a soul-wringing wail that went through you and stirred the sludge with a slow paddle—too many stories brought back from Europe, too many pieces of dirty laundry you weren’t ready to shake out and put on the line.
Isbe kept him in the moment. She was amnesty… from the storm in his mind wanting to blow him away, back across the pond where they pushed through, pushed on, faster than their own supplies. He thought about that winter they had no cold-weather gear. They stole what they needed from a German warehouse, but they couldn’t wear any of it outdoors for fear of being mistaken and getting shot.
Come Easter, their winter supplies caught up with them, all the supplies they could no longer use. They were just glad it was spring.
When his memories caught up, he hoped it would be that way—things he could put in a trunk once and for all—because he’d moved on.
Isbe was like spring, warm and sweet. She held him here, like the music and the smoke, and he didn’t know how long he could stay. Hope just gave him more to lose, but he felt something good…here in heaven.
He had to watch it, pull back some. He was overwhelming her maybe, a couple of times. He could pretend it was all sex, and it was sex; it was definitely that, yeah, the chimp was alive and banging on the cage—he wanted this girl…oblivion…but after that—the crash wouldn’t be worth the rush. That’s how she’d kill him, that’s how he’d kill her, and she was too good. He wasn’t ready for her, and yet in that theater he’d gone right to her—the back of her head, just that—and he’d gone.
They were back on the dance floor. She pulled him there, and he went, her slave. She moved her hands under his shirt. She splayed her hands on his back, near his belt. Shit. He laughed some, thinking how crazy she was making him.
“What’s funny?” she slurred, her head over his heart.
He kissed her temple. “You,” he said.
One of her hands moved up to his tattoo. She fingered it a few times like she wanted to penetrate it. She pulled back some then and sucked on her finger. “Your tattoo tastes like candy,” she smiled. She put that wet finger on his lips, and he kissed it. She was so damn deadly.
“I like your…everything,” she said, laughing a little.
He pulled her head back down to his chest and rested his cheek on top of her head. This girl. If she could hear herself in the morning, she’d die. But right now…he couldn’t get enough. Every little thing she said, he was straining to hear it, leaning close, making her repeat it. He couldn’t get enough of her.
“You’re…” he breathed, letting his hands roam. His sober side told him to cut it out, stop treating her like a whore, but the other side, the louder voice, said to press her against his dick and let her ride. He was going back and forth, more back because the bad guy was more fun.
“You’re so sexy,” she moaned, holding him tight.
He made her say it twice.
“You too, baby,” he said, and he meant it because he was generous that way.
She lifted her head, and there were tears in her eyes. “No…I mean, like, you’re really, really beautiful.”
He brushed the hair back from her gorgeous, sweaty face. “Th…thanks,” was all he could get out.
“I’d do it with you…but…we said we wouldn’t,” she said next.
“Do…it? Like…sex?”
She nodded, her eyes latched onto his, sincere and pure, her lashes so long and thick they curled.
“You think that’s what I’m after?” he asked.
She nodded again, and he stopped moving his feet.
“Don’t be mad,” she whisper-slurred.
“I’m not mad, baby.” He kept petting her. “But we’re just having a good time, right?” The bastard in him told him to shut up and not say what was coming next. “You’re safe with me. You got that?”
She nodded. “I know.”
“You…you ever done it before? Had sex?”
“No.” So simple, so honest.
He smiled, and her eyes…soul…her eyes.
“I think I love you,” she said; then she gasped and put her hand over her mouth.
“What’s the matter?” he asked through his haze. She loved him? “You gonna be sick, baby?”
She barely nodded and went kind of limp, and he scooped her up and pushed through the drunk crowd that was slow to part, and he got her outside on the porch, and she was moaning, and her head was lolling, and he got her on her feet and bent over the railing and he tried to hold her, and her stomach was on the rail, and there went that steak and the fries…and probably the misguided notion that she was in love, which probably made her gag more than the booze.
But he smoothed back her hair as she stayed bent there for a minute, and she didn’t lean as much, and he made her a ponytail and held it back with his fingers, and he held her
around the waist. “C’mon girl. We’ll get you a 7-Up. That’s right, lean on me…baby.”
“Jules?” she croaked, so pale even in the dark. “I know I’m disgusting…but…I do love you.”
“Shhh,” he said now, as he helped her back toward the door. “You’ll be all right, girl. I’ll take care of you.”
Chapter 6
Shiney’s, Part Four
“Drink up,” Jules said, holding the glass of soda to Isbe’s lips.
She covered his hand with both of hers as she sipped. She took enough to fill a grasshopper, then pushed the glass away and licked her lips. He set the glass on the table and tried not to giggle like a puss.
She’d washed her face again, rinsed her mouth, and her hair was tied in a ponytail with some butcher’s string he’d got from the kitchen and tied there himself, in a bow even. Isbe looked so young with her little ears sticking out, the cutest ears he’d ever seen.
She kept smiling at him. “I guess I can’t hold my liquor,” she said softly.
“You want me to take you home?” It killed him to say it, but he would…if that’s what she wanted. And he wanted her to think well of him, to think he was that generous even though he planned to talk her out of it if she wanted to go.
“No,” she said quick. “I mean…is that what you want?”
“Don’t matter to me,” he lied. “If you’re sick…”
“No. I’m not. I feel better now…I’m not sick.”
“Relax. Just thought I’d offer…hero and all.” He smiled before he took a big drink of his beer.
Her girlfriends had made sure she was fine, and they’d pow-wowed again in the bathroom and shined her right up, other than the hair. He liked it loose, but he was just learning her face, counting her freckles, and even in this light, she had six.
