Running With Monkeys: Hell on Wheels

by Diane Munier

  She had to laugh then, and he smiled. “Sorry I… peeped.”

  She hit him on the arm. “Stop,” she said with a pained smile. “You’re so…damn good looking. And don’t tell me women don’t notice. I’ve got eyes.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. He loved apologizing for being handsome and irresistible. He’d been combing his hair straight back for the last couple of days. She seemed to like it.

  She was shaking her head at him, and her arms came unknotted and she put her hands on his sides, and he maneuvered under the hat canopy and kissed her. He’d been holding the side of the boat and her glasses with one hand, while the other went back to her knee, and he let that one ride a little higher on her thigh and go under the leg of her shorts some. He felt about sixteen creeping in like that. Her skin was so soft. He deepened his kiss, and she gripped him more tightly, and he was walking that V-shaped aisle between her legs on his knees. That got him going, and he was kissing her like a horny ape, letting her have it. He dropped her glasses and let his hands run all over her back to her plump little rump.

  Then one hand moved up her side and over to that clover. He fingered it through her blouse, his wrist touching her breast. Oh yeah, she was the sweetest little sex-pot.

  “Jules,” she panted, pushing against him.

  He sat back on his heels. He felt his rod jerk next to him. He had a bite. He didn’t give a hoot, not really, but she screamed about it, and he grabbed the thing, and then he got involved, reeling it in just to watch her go crazy.

  They packed up by the Buick’s headlights. Jules watched Audie run to the trunk to check that it was empty before the girls walked back there to dump the gear they carried. They had a cooler filled with a nice catch. Tomorrow being Friday, they were going to have a fry-up at Isbe’s.

  “I smell something fishy,” Audie said, sniffing, when he got in the car. Everyone laughed. Bobby and Dorie were necking immediately, twisted around each other like cobras. Jules and Isbe sat tangled beside them. Francis sat glued to Audie in front.

  Isbe was nearest to Bobby and Dorie, but Jules kept her pulled into him, her legs between his. He was kissing her and fingering that clover and the strap, running his fingers under it, moving the weight of her breast without really touching it.

  They were serious now. She was the one struggling to accept this, not him. It just was. He couldn’t believe how quickly they got to her house. He was angry at Audie. He must have set a record for speed. But then he couldn’t move on Francis while he was driving.

  So they unloaded, and they were quiet at first; then they got louder. The monkeys cleaned the fish in the backyard by the porch light. They wrapped the fish and put them in a pan in Isbe’s refrigerator for the next night’s feast.

  The men washed at the hose, and they cleaned up their mess and washed the cooler, leaving it sitting on its side to air.

  Jules went inside to tell Isbe goodnight. The girls had to go in to get ready for that last day of work. She wasn’t downstairs, so he called up to the second floor.

  “Isbe?”

  “Come up,” he heard.

  He lost no time. His feet were pathetically swift. He took the stairs two, three at a time. Soon as he got up there, he saw there was a closet to the left and to the right her bedroom door, then a bathroom at the end of the hall. He went swiftly to her room.

  She sat with her back to him, her hair long against her back. She sat at a vanity table, looking at him in her mirror while she brushed her hair. She wore what looked like a full slip, nightie thing, with a long, sheer robe over it. The clover pin was on the mirrored table. He looked around. It was girlie in here. She had things girls saved, but not too much. Her bed was narrow. Everything was lavender. He went to her window, looked out at the trees, and pulled her shade. “You close this at night?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He took a couple of steps and stood behind her and took the brush out of her hand. He pulled all of her hair behind her shoulders. He brushed the long chocolate-colored strands, letting his hand follow the strokes. The top of that silky thing she wore showed the shadow between her breasts. He brushed through a few more times, then slowed. Carefully he set the brush before her, then put his hands on her shoulders.

  “Why’d you let me come up?” he asked.

  She was shaking her head. “I don’t know. I’m asking for trouble.”

  “You think I’m trouble?”

  He moved his long fingers to massage her a little.

  “You could get me in trouble,” she whispered.

  “Isbe, they are leaving,” Dorie called up the stairs.

  “I can tell them to go without me,” he said.

  She turned quickly on the seat, and he kept his hands on her.

  “Listen to me, I wanted to show you this…me. I’ve been trying not to say it all week. I’m sorry I was so…I’m not such a shrew…I just…I love you.” Now that did throw him. She made these leaps…

  She raised that brow. “It’s customary when someone says it…”

  “When I’m ready,” he said back with a firmness that surprised the hell out of himself.

  Her lip trembled. “You don’t love me?”

  “I didn’t say one way or the other, did I?” he reminded her. Taking charge was the only way he could get some breathing room here.

  She stood up, and he fumbled one step back. She was a knockout all the time, but in this long slip thing…the sash on the robe was not tied. He let his eyes drag down. He could see the outline of her underwear.

  “You trying to kill me? I thought you loved me,” he tried to say smoothly, but he sounded like a chimp.

  She didn’t smile. “Every time you leave I cry,” she said.

  “I make you sad?” What was this garbage?

  She shook her head. “You make me feel.”

  He wanted to take her hand and make her feel, like that first night at Shiney’s, make her feel…him. “You torture me,” he said back, no smile either.

  “Jules,” Bobby yelled from below.

  “I’m trying to give you something,” Isbe said, “because I know…you want more.”

  “Should I tell them to go?” He had to be at work in the morning, but he’d get home when the sun came up, no problem.

  “Jules…I can’t. I’m trying to figure out…how to keep you without…losing…my beliefs.” She took his hand. “Was it wrong to bring you up here?”

  “Bring me up here wearing that? I’m not complaining…but…I’m confused. Or you are.” He put a hand on her shoulder and leaned forward and kissed the top of her head.

  When he pulled back, she lunged forward and grabbed on to him. He groaned cause…shit!

  He put his hands on her arms. Audie hit the horn outside.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

  “Isbe…it’s all right. No crying tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow night. We’ll bring the drinks, and I’ll get a cake from the bakery. All right, doll?”

  “I feel like such a fool, and you’re being so patient.”

  “Nah…nah…don’t apologize. I may be up all night thinking about,” he motioned the length of her, “this…you. But don’t ever apologize for something like this.”

  Mustering all semblance of self-control he went downstairs, but later, he couldn’t recall the ride home.

  Chapter 21

  “That’s my fish—the first one. That’s Freddy,” Dorie said, as Audie helped himself to the big crunchy fillet.

  “You want this fish for yourself, short stuff?” Audie said, the fish mid-air on the spatula.

  “No! I couldn’t eat Freddy. I’m eating one of the ones I don’t know,” she said, and they all laughed then.

  There was potato salad made by Isbe, Jell-O salad and corn on the cob rolled in butter from Dorie, cucumbers and tomatoes in vinegar and coleslaw from Francis. Bobby brought the beer, and Francis and Audie fried the fish at her place, with cornmeal and a cast iron skillet. And Francis wore an apron
while they did it.

  Jules brought the chocolate cake from the Italian bakery near the shit-hole where he lived.

  They ate outside, as usual. Isbe was in her swimming suit, her hair in a ponytail. She kept breaking off pieces of fish, dipping them in the sauce she’d made with ketchup and horseradish and feeding Jules little bites. He grabbed her hand and sucked the grease off a couple of her fingers.

  She giggled and got red, not that anyone was looking. It was a feed at the trough. Jules was ready to die and go to heaven, this food was that good, and her potato salad? Best in his life.

  They quit horsing around, and he cleaned his plate twice.

  Isbe was so full she lay in a lounge chair and groaned, holding her stomach.

  “Let’s get in the water,” Jules said, leaning over her chair.

  She was curled like a baby on her side. His baby. “Jules, I can’t.”

  “You got your suit on.”

  “I know,” she groaned, keeping her eyes closed, “but…it’s just for show. I can’t get in.”

  Oh. For show. For him. “It your girl time?” he whispered.

  She opened one eye and looked up. “Jules.”

  “What? This some rare disease?”

  She tried not to laugh. “Yes.”

  He was running the backs of his fingers up and down from her hip to the back of her knee.

  “You want something?”

  “Um…just you,” she said, her eyes closed again.

  “Well, move over,” he said, squeezing into the chair, getting behind her.

  “You can’t fit in here,” she said, “big lug.”

  But he could. He did. He was spooning her. He put his long leg over hers, planting his foot on the cushion to keep off the weight.

  She kept her body neatly folded like a good little nun, but she lifted her head and placed it on his arm. He knew the muscle there was more than adequate to sustain her. He had everything she needed, actually, when it came to that…the physical.

  His other hand was on her stomach, moving just a little. He didn’t want to disturb something. “That good?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “You mind me…rubbing a little?”

  “No,” she sighed, “I don’t mind you, Jules.”

  She was so mellow. He wondered at the change. Yesterday she’d been so much fun to tease, ready to walk on water to get away from him, but this Isbe needed babied a little. He had her fanny tight against him. He chuckled some.

  “What’s funny?” she slurred, lightly elbowing him in the stomach.

  “Nothing,” he nuzzled her ear. “You. Me.”

  Then Audie jumped in the pool, and the coldest spray of water peppered them like a shower from the North Pole.

  “Gorilla-ape-shithead.” Jules lifted his head and cursed. He lay back down. “Sorry, baby, I meant to say nit-licking gorilla.”

  Isbe buried her face against his arm and laughed a little, groaned a little.

  He licked some water off her ear. “Tired of me? Sick of me?”

  She turned so she could look at him. “I’m kinda nuts about you,” she said softly.

  “Oh monkey butt-hole, no—I mean—that’s exactly what I mean, you slum-runner!” Audie yelled, having landed on Boardwalk with Bobby and Dorie’s hotels.

  Dorie didn’t seem worried about language now. She was kicking her feet and shaking her head. “Pay up, big brother!” she yelled like a spitfire. She hugged on Bobby and bounced on his leg.

  Francis grabbed all the money she and Audie had left out of Audie’s hand and threw it in front of Dorie. “Here, Simon and Simone Legree. We’re done.”

  “Baby, I was counting that out,” Audie protested.

  “We’re done for. Admit it,” Francis said.

  “Baby…I could borrow something…” Audie tried to fight.

  Jules dumped his money in the middle of the board too. He wasn’t getting into lending Audie his fake money. Anyway, he and Isbe were nearly broke, not that she seemed to care. She’d had her head on his leg for the last half hour. They’d barely been hanging on, but once she’d quit, he’d lost interest in anything but her.

  Dorie and Bobby were hugging and kissing like they’d won a high-rise.

  “If I wouldn’t have ate that damn Freddy,” Audie said.

  “He was my lucky fish,” Dorie said. “He was working for Bobby and me!”

  The hooting and hollering that name brought made Dorie turn a flaming red, but she was standing her ground and waving her colorful fan of money in Audie and Francis’s faces.

  It was crazy around here. Jules nudged Isbe to sit up. She did, and he got up and stretched. Damn, he hadn’t needed that cake. “Hey,” he said, rubbing her shoulder. He reached down and scooped her right off the bench. She didn’t weigh shit—a hundred and eleven, she said. He hefted her a little bit. Then Bobby stood and scooped up Dorie. She was only a hundred.

  Bobby told her to straighten out and, holding her by the waist, he slowly lifted her over his head. She knew just what to do, letting her arms go up behind her, her head raised, her legs straight, and toes pointed—these two looked ready for a photo shoot.

  “Hey, straighten out,” Jules said to Isbe.

  “No,” she groaned, tightening her arms around his neck.

  “She won’t do it,” he said, eager to beat Bobby at something since they’d caught the most fish, won Monopoly, and now he could lift Dorie over his head like they were ready to grace the cover of a magazine.

  “Don’t get any ideas, killer,” Francis told Audie, standing and brushing cake crumbs off her shorts.

  Audie stood too and followed Francis into her house, yammering all the way about how they should’ve held out. He could have pulled them out of it.

  Jules moved in a slow circle with Isbe. “Want me to carry you upstairs?” He shot a quick look at Bobby, who was carefully lowering Dorie.

  “That would be swell,” she said, softly.

  He made for the screen door, caught the handle with three fingers, whipped it open, and swept them inside.

  He got to the stairs and hefted Isbe up easily.

  “I can walk,” she said softly, with a big grin.

  He blew that thought away and went slowly up.

  “Like Rhett,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Rhett Butler and Scarlett.”

  Oh yeah, the movie. These stairs were a little less grand than the ones Rhett took like a trooper.

  “To the right,” she said, once he reached the top.

  “I know…Scarlett,” he answered. She giggled. Had it slipped her mind he’d been up here just last night?

  He went into her room. Heck with the light. He went to her bed, laid her down, followed her down. He was on his side, and he gathered her in close.

  “Thanks,” she whispered. “I get really bad cramps sometimes. I’m sorry.”

  He laughed a little. “Sorry?” He rubbed her stomach again. “You got medicine?”

  “Aspirin,” she said. “But it doesn’t help so much.”

  “Did you take some?”

  “Yes. Francis gave it to me.”

  He would have offered to get that for her, but he didn’t know.

  “That’s why I was so crabby yesterday. I’m sorry.”

  “No…” Yes.

  She moved closer to him, her arms around him, her head on his chest; then her leg timidly moved onto his, and her foot probed a little, and she pressed the arch onto the front of his farthest leg.

  “I…like having you to hold onto,” she said.

  He tightened his hold a little. He knew what she meant. It was nice like this.

  “I…I’ve thought about you up here…like this. Us…like this.”

  They were quiet for a minute. “Isbe,” he laughed a little, “just lying here?”

  She slapped his chest, but it was very feeble, and she squeezed him right after.

  “Sorry. What are you thinking about right now?”

 
“Oh, how you told me you always closed your shade, and it was still up last night, and it is tonight.”

  “That’s what you’re thinking of?” she said, lifting her head.

  He laughed a little. “Maybe.”

  “I do close it…most of the time. Geez, I can’t believe that’s the main thing.”

  “I didn’t say it was the main thing.”

  “What is then…the main thing?”

  He moved his arms some, his hands over her. “You.”

  She was quiet for a minute. “Me too. It’s you, Jules.”

  They held each other. He wasn’t alone anymore. It felt good, what they made when they were together.

  It was a soft bed, and right now…he could sink into this with her…

  And he did.

  The pain set in about four in the morning. She breathed kind of heavy, but it was a great sound. That was his first thought. Then, shit. He turned his head, and he had a crook in his neck cause for someone who didn’t weigh squat, she weighed him down big-time. He liked it, and he needed to move.

  He was supposed to work a half day on Saturday. He eased out from under her. He stood, he stretched. He’d made it through the whole night without molesting her in any way. He had more self-control than a high priest. He’d also slept like the dead.

  His shoes were downstairs with his street clothes. He was still in his trunks and his undershirt. The air in the room was cool, and he turned on her fan and worked the cover from beneath her. Blood. God, was she hemorrhaging?

  His hand hit his leg, and it was wet too, sticky. She had bled on him.

  “Isbe, baby, wake up,” he said, alarmed.

  She stirred from deep inside, it seemed.

  She looked up at him. “Jules?”

  Well, who the hell else would it be? “Do you feel all right, baby? You’re bleeding…all over here.”

  She raised and gasped and looked down at the scarlet stains on her suit and the sheets. “Oh no.” She grabbed for the covers, and he helped her cover herself some.