Pretty When You Cry

by Skye Warren

  “Anger issues. He’s really not much of a catch, is he?”

  “Back with her people, the girl realized how much she had changed and could no longer live among them. So she returned to the god of thunder. Since their home under the falls was destroyed, he carried them up to the sky where they watched over their people.”

  “And you believe this bullshit?”

  Anger simmered inside me. “Why are you doing this?”

  The words immediately meant more than his antagonism over the story. They were about taking me, keeping me. About hurting me when he could have simply walked away. Part of me wanted the truth, however cruel, while the other part hoped that my words had been swallowed by the hum of the motor, the quiet rush of the air outside the window.

  “I don’t know,” he muttered.

  Not much of an answer, but the raw honesty I heard in his voice felt like an opening, a crack in the veneer. Not that he would let me go with apologies or anything that extreme just because he’d displayed a moment of doubt, but that I could learn something about this man who held me, see around the thumb that pinned me down, see beyond the walls that always penned me in. What made someone like him tick? Why did he do something like this? Had this moral ambiguity always been inside him or was it learned, evolved—forced upon him just as it was me?

  “Who gave you that?” I asked softly, gesturing to the beads swaying from the mirror.

  He scowled. “A man who will no longer speak my name. Does that make you happy?”

  “What did you do before you became a truck driver?”

  He looked at me sharply. “Why would you ask me that?”

  “I’m curious,” I said defensively, though not really giving up ground—not yet. “It doesn’t matter, right? It doesn’t matter what I know. I can’t do anything to you.”

  “No, you can’t do anything to me, not a goddamn thing. You think you’re clever, huh? You want me to open up to you, and then what? Maybe I’ll fall in love with you? Maybe I’ll let you go? Not gonna happen. You’re mine. I caught you, and I’m not giving you back.”

  My throat stung, but I refused to back down. Maybe I was goading him. Would it be so bad if he snapped? Then it would be over. The words tumbled forth, unruly and vehement along the dashboard.

  “You can keep my body and you can hurt me and have sex with me, but you’ll never really know me. You’ll never really have me, just like she didn’t.” It became a prayer, one for each bead on the rosary. “Never, never, never.”

  A low growl seemed to emanate from his chest. “I don’t give a shit about knowing you. I just want to use you.”

  His hand tangled in my hair, dragging me down to the floorboards. Tears flooded my eyes at the pain—at the defeat. He unzipped his jeans and shoved inside my mouth, still guiding my movements with his fist in my hair. I didn’t have time to consider whether I’d fight. I was already doing it. Not really sucking, but then I didn’t have to, couldn’t keep up anyway. There was salt and heat and liquid-coated skin, and then I was gagging, choking on it, hearing him tell me he still didn’t care as long as he got what he wanted. He was inflamed, and I had made him that way.

  “You’re just like them anyway,” he grunted. “Just like them, just like them.”

  Like a prayer of his own.

  The body will cope with what it is given—that was what I learned then. My mind shut off in increments, until he hit the back of my throat and I didn’t feel like throwing up anymore. I didn’t feel anything at all, just floating in a sort of trance while he pulled the truck off on an abandoned weighing station. Not even when he pushed me back and I sprawled back onto the floorboard. Not even when he pulled up my skirt. I tensed slightly, braced against the impact of his invasion, but that was only physical—it didn’t mean anything. He couldn’t move me.

  Until he bent his head between my legs. At first there was nothing. What was he doing? Then I felt it, small wet caresses. Not blinding pleasure or searing pain but slow licks, sensual caresses, and a little bit of unwelcome comfort. It felt like an apology, as he knelt between my knees. Like atonement.

  The blissful paralysis I’d been floating in began to thaw with each wistful swipe of his tongue until I was making little urgent sounds and rocking my hips up to meet him and hating myself, just hating that he could draw me out so easily, disprove my grand denials. He wouldn’t know me? He already did.

  He saw into every corner and every secret. He gave me exactly the right touch or word that I needed to submit. There wasn’t anything left to hold back, and he knew that too. His hands tightened on my ass, spreading me apart, pushing me up into his face.

  He lifted long enough to say, “Come on, sunshine. Give it to me.”

  And I was helpless to resist, too weak to fight the mounting pleasure, too relieved to find myself spread and held and wanted, oh finally, someone did want me, and even if it was perverted and dirty, at least it was new. My stomach tightened first, clenching as I bucked up, seeking more. Then it spread, the tension. White-hot pleasure slid up my spine. My mouth fell open but no sounds came out. Nothing but half-cut gasps and raw groans.

  Before I could catch my breath, he slid inside me. His way was easier this time than before, a smooth glide from first entry, and he took full advantage, moving at a brisk pace. He pumped into me quickly, harshly, but I didn’t get the feeling that he sought his pleasure this way.

  Instead, he seemed to be making a point, saying with thrusts what he couldn’t put into words and cementing the ones he had. You’re mine. Try to understand, I have to do this. I’m as trapped as you are, can’t you see? Although it could have been wishful thinking, wanting to believe that the man lodged inside me, pulsing and shuddering his way through release, wasn’t a monster.

  He collapsed, breathing hard. His weight bore down on me, though not unpleasantly. There was safety in bondage, that much I knew. He turned his head and kissed my temple, the wisp of sweat above his lip mingling with the dampness of my skin.

  “You make it bearable,” he murmured, though his voice was slurred, so I couldn’t be sure. So I lay there, feeling his chest push into mine and then mine push back into his. We breathed together, we held each other. There was no acrimony in that moment, no pleasure either. Just a ship pulled into port.

  Chapter Seven

  The first tightrope walker to cross the Niagara Falls did so in 1859.

  We existed like nomads in the following weeks. We used deserted truck stops for bathroom breaks and daily showers. At night we slept in the fold-out bed in his truck. He would fuck me every night, sometimes tenderly, other times rough and urgent—though each time felt more like intimacy and less like coercion.

  The hardest part was meals, because where there was food, there were people. We had a somewhat painstaking routine where he would stop a few miles out, put me in the back of the truck, then pull into a diner or restaurant and get take-out. I always debated banging on the walls, but I would never know if anyone was there. Hunter could be standing right outside and punish me for it.

  Instead, I would press my ear to the metal, straining to hear anything. If I had heard voices or thought there were people, I would have beaten the door for all I was worth. Instead there was almost complete silence—probably he parked far away from everyone else—and then eventually, the steady crunch of gravel as he returned with food.

  We were going through mountains now. The highways were cut into them, sliced straight through like a butcher knife, leaving a tall, straight wall of striated rock. I watched the lines bleed together through the window as the truck rushed past.

  My stomach grumbled.

  He glanced over. “You hungry?”

  I lifted my shoulder in a shrug. He turned back to the road, but I watched him scanning the blue highway signs as we passed each exit, looking for something decent to eat but sparse enough not to be crowded.

  “What’s the deal with the book?”

  I glanced at him. “What?”

  “Yo
u told me the story from it, about the girl and the canoe. Is that why you keep it?”

  I played at the hem of my dress, distracted and jittery. “Not really.”

  “So what’s the big deal with Niagara Fucking Falls?”

  Despite myself, I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Hunter to be irreverent whenever possible. “No big deal, okay? I’m just curious. Am I not allowed to be curious?”

  He eyed me. “Mouthy, huh?”

  I was mouthy, though I wasn’t sure where the hint of attitude had come from. Was I becoming more comfortable with him? Was I coming to trust him?

  Scary thought.

  “So you want to go there. Then why were you heading to Little Rock?”

  “Didn’t have enough money,” I mumbled. Then stronger, “But I guess you know that, seeing as you already looked through my stuff.”

  He snorted. “Okay, so why haven’t you gone there before this?”

  Because of my mother, I wanted to cry. But that was a lie.

  “Too scared, I guess,” I mumbled. It wasn’t as if I had any pride with him anyway.

  His gaze softened.

  A smile turned my lips. “Don’t imagine you have much experience with that.”

  He squinted into the distance. “Depends on what you’re scared of. Me, I’m scared of standing still.”

  My heart skipped a beat at his confession. Maybe we could open up to each other after all…and then what? What as the end goal? Even Niagara had lost some of its appeal, just another point on the map, a way-station to a true and unimaginable destination.

  I expected us to stop at another fast food restaurant or a diner. But this time, we didn’t pull off the road for him to stash me in the back. Instead we exited the freeway where a large sign had the icons for gas, food, and lodging, and continued on until we were pulling into a truck stop.

  He wasn’t hiding me.

  This truck stop was a lot like the first one, and it made my heart speed up. Maybe it was foolish to hope, but he could let me go here. I’d served my usefulness. I had pried into his life. I had opened up about my hopes and dreams. For whatever reason, he could be finished with me, and now he’d leave me here in a place where he found me.

  So why did I feel disappointment?

  It was premature, I knew, but a spark of hope could conflagrate a wildfire. If I were freed, I would call the cops, file a report, and return to my car. Then I would drive to Little Rock, where hopefully the job was still available, the one at the camera shop where I had never been. I swallowed thickly. So why did it feel like a step backward?

  Faced with the loss of him, I suddenly wanted what Hunter could show me. For all that he was a little unhinged, he saw things—really saw them. I wanted that. Maybe I even wanted him to keep me.

  But that was insane. Completely loco. I wasn’t so far gone that I couldn’t see the craziness of that wish—the same way a Kamikaze pilot must have felt in the second after he volunteered, like what did I get myself into?

  Besides, the part of me that could be spontaneous and risk-taking had atrophied long ago. I was like my mother, bound by fear, but instead of being restricted by geography I was restrained by societal conventions. He was a bad guy, a kidnapper, and I shouldn’t want anything he had to offer—not even freedom.

  So I pressed my lips together and ignored the flutter in my belly. Even when he pulled into one of the long diagonal parking spots meant for trucks—right next to another one!—I didn’t say anything. He wasn’t even trying to hide our presence here. It was all out there in the open, in the waning late afternoon light.

  He turned to me. “Don’t give me any trouble, okay? Let’s just have a quiet dinner.”

  I blinked. We would eat…and then he would turn me loose?

  “If you can’t be good for your own sake, do it for theirs. Anyone you get to help you answers to me, and they’ll live to regret it. Understand?”

  “You’re not letting me go?”

  He stared impassively for a moment, then he laughed. “I thought we went over this. No.”

  Was that relief? Oh Jesus, it was. I was as crazy as he was.

  “I just thought…you might…”

  His voice lowered. “Sunshine, if you’re trying to look less appealing to me, it’s not working.”

  My heart thumped in response, and I felt my eyes widen. “But the people inside. They’ll see.”

  “They’ll see that you’re mine and if they’re smart, they won’t lay a finger on you.”

  I had been up-close-and-personal with this man’s cajones and not even realized how huge they must be. He had no fear, none. He was going to walk into a non-empty place of business during the day with a captive in tow. And judging by the disturbingly self-aware smile that played at the corner of his lips, he wouldn’t even break a sweat doing so.

  It was strangely attractive. My own lips pursed in restraint, but I wanted to smile too, without fully understanding the humor. We could laugh at the people we would see, blind to the egregious crime happening in front of them, or maybe we’d chuckle at his chutzpah. But I feared that the joke was really on me. Stupid, naïve girl who’s too afraid to cry for help in a public place. I’d show him. Hopefully.

  This diner was similar in feel to the last one, both grungy and aging poorly, but this one had at least tried to be homey once. Cherry wood paneling lined the walls and formed booths over brick-colored linoleum. Fake ivy along the walls was coated in thick layers of dust. A young black waitress poured coffee at a table where three men sat.

  We walked inside hand-in-hand, so I knew that his hands weren’t sweating. Mine were, though, and clammy, trembling, as if I were the one doing something wrong instead of him. Hunter didn’t wait for the waitress to look up. He just tugged me over to a booth.

  He gestured me inside in what could have been mistaken for a courtly gesture. I scooted in and he sat beside me, hemming me in. As the waitress walked over to us, he pushed up my skirt, slipped his hand over my thigh, and slid his fingers into the crevice between my legs. I tensed.

  If the waitress noticed, she didn’t show it. After a quick glance at Hunter’s face then mine, she turned to her notepad. “Can I take your order?”

  “We’ll have steak and eggs. Medium rare. Two over easy. I’ll have a Coke.”

  He turned to me. “What do you want to drink?”

  “I…I…” My lips were numb, tongue tied in knots. I could barely function on my own but now there was pressure. What if I messed up, and this girl got in trouble? She was about my age. What if he took her too? Of course, all these thoughts swirling around were making me mess up, and I sat there with my mouth open like an idiot, until she looked up from her pad.

  “Orange juice,” I said weakly.

  After she left, I glanced over at the men, but they were engrossed in their meals. Hunter’s thumb brushed over my skin—back and forth, and it sparked something very near there. I felt my skin almost ripple beneath his, as if it could urge him closer to that heat.

  Abruptly, he stood and slid into the seat opposite me.

  “There,” he said. “Now we can talk.”

  The air beside me felt uncommonly cool, my thigh bare. I missed his presence, I realized with dismay. He sent me a vague smile that said he knew exactly what I felt.

  “Prison,” he said succinctly. “That’s what I did before I started trucking.”

  My lips parted in shock. I mean, sure, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. But it was.

  He grinned briefly, running his finger along a crack in the table. Then his expression turned serious…troubled. “Predictable, really. The ex-con driving a semi, preying on innocent young women. I’m a stereotype.”

  I frowned, perpetually unnerved by his penchant for plain-speaking. It would have been easier to take if he had sex with me in a moment of lust-madness, then walked away with the forgetfulness of the unkind. But he seemed to know exactly what he was doing with me, and though sometimes it seemed to bother him, he had no plans to st
op. He wasn’t lacking in morals, he was willfully going against his morals just to have me, which was terrifying but also sent a small thrill down my spine.

  “I suppose you’ll be even more scared of me now.”

  I was quiet a moment. “That depends. What were you in prison for?”

  Surprise flashed in his eyes at my boldness, and good, it was time I returned the favor.

  “What do you think?” he asked softly. “It’s not so hard to figure out.”

  My throat seemed to swell, and thickly, I swallowed. “I don’t know.”

  “Come now.” His voice was faintly mocking, but who—who was the target? The answer was made clear with his next words. “I know sometimes I come across the perfect gentleman, but surely you can think of something I might do wrong, something cruel and vicious and inhumane? Say the words, sunshine.”

  I shook my head, nostrils flaring as my body prepared for flight, even as my mind knew there was nowhere to go.

  “Aggravated rape.”

  The air seemed to leak from between the yellow-brown blinds on the windows, through the smudged panes of the door, anywhere but here. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Did you do it?”

  He shrugged. “Some people thought I was innocent. The ones who counted didn’t.”

  I thought of the rosary hanging from his rear-view mirror, of the man who would no longer speak his name. Someone close enough to gift Hunter with faith but who didn’t have faith in him.

  “And you.” His mouth twisted in a cruel imitation of a smile. “More than anyone, you know how guilty I am.”

  I found my voice. “And those girls. They know too.”

  “Do they? I’ll take your word for it.”

  I shut my eyes at his cavalier tone. Didn’t he care about them? Sometimes it seemed to pain him when he hurt me. Maybe it was a sickness, an impulse he couldn’t control or a personality shift that took over him at those times. But he seemed fully aware every time he had taken me. I was just making excuses for the man who held my fate in his hands. False hope that he would do right by me in the end.