Sociopaths In Love (8 page)

Outside, the day was still heavy and gray.
Walt said he had to shit and walked over to a massive black Hummer,
climbed up on the hood, and dropped his pants. Erica, having no
real interest in watching him, walked over to the edge of the
parking lot and looked out at the highway. Since she'd never really
had the chance to explore or even really think about exploring
anything other than her very small section of the world, the cars
seemed to be traveling to abstract destinations. She remembered
Walt saying something about going to Dayton, Ohio. She'd have to
ask him what that was about. Hopefully he had plans to move on to
somewhere else after that. Dayton, Ohio, did not sound as exotic as
New York City or Los Angeles or New Orleans.

She took a deep breath of
the clean, watery air. An odd sense of calm settled in her marrow.
She felt emptied out. Somehow, it was like the ability to do
anything she wanted to do made her blank and dreamless, void of
ideas. She had no clue what she wanted to do. Walt seemed to have
ideas and she was content to follow him for now. She didn't know
how long that would last. She had felt independent for the past few
years and now she had to wonder if she had been independent by
choice or if she had been independent because she was alone. Or if
the independence was the result of some harmonious balance. Of
course, she hadn't been independent. She'd been chained to the
house. Chained to Granny. But that had kept her from thinking she
should leave the house to do something and maybe she hadn't wanted
to leave to begin with. Maybe she could have just stayed there for
the rest of her life, experience everything through the pages
of
Glamor Face
or
the television or the internet. The world at a safe
distance.

Was that what the unnoticeable thing was? A
way to take part in the world from a safe distance? A vampiric
observation with virtually no chance for repercussion?

Walt came back and said, "Check it out." He
pointed to the Hummer.

An astronomical amount of shit was piled on
the hood. It looked like it could have been the shit of several men
over the span of a week. The amorphous pile reached halfway up the
windshield and oozed over the sides onto the glistening
asphalt.

"Whaddya think?" he said.

"That's . . . a lot of shit."

"Fuck yeah it is. I feel way better. You
ready?"

She followed him to the car and they were
back on the highway in a matter of minutes. Walt seemed to be in a
good mood so she didn't bother him with the Dayton, Ohio, business
for now. The radio was on and he hummed along to it. Classic rock.
She didn't know why she expected more from him. Certain aspects
were completely alien while most were just like virtually every guy
she'd ever known. Still feeling like the day was weighing her down,
she reached into the back seat, grabbed a sweater, balled it up
against the window, and went to sleep.

When she woke up about an hour later, Walt
was chewing on one of her tampons and making a horrible face. She
knew it was a tampon because the wrapper was in one of the cup
holders between them and the string dangled from his mouth.

Noticing she was awake, he said, "These
things are terrible."

"Are you an idiot?" Maybe she was
cranky.

He slapped a hand down on her thigh and
squeezed until she whimpered.

"Hurting me," she gasped.

"Say you're sorry."

"I don't want to."

"
I
want you to."

She was determined not to
say it. She wondered what would happen. His fingers stabbed to the
bone and radiated bright tendrils of pain. Nearly at the point of
surrendering and issuing an apology she thought,
He has one hand on my leg and one hand on the
wheel
. Quickly, she punched her hand in
between his back and the seat and wrapped it around the gun she
hoped would be there.

"Let go of me." She aimed at his face, hands
shaking.

"You won't do it. Say you're sorry."

"The only way I'll say I'm sorry is after I
shoot you in the face. Let go."

He squeezed harder.

She pulled the trigger. The
driver-side window exploded and a car in the lane next to them went
screeching and sliding into the grassy median of the highway. Walt
let go, probably more out of surprise than anything. Now he had
both hands on the wheel. "Man, how the fuck did you miss? Well,
miss
me
, anyway.
Pretty sure you got whoever was in the car beside us."

Erica looked back. The car had come to a
stop in the median. No one got out and then they were too far away
for her to see it.

"I could try again."

"But you won't."

"So, when the playing field is leveled, it's
still the gun that's the real decision-maker, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"Both of us can do what we want. You wanted
me to say I'm sorry. I wanted you to let go of me. How long would
that have gone on? Until I shot you? Until you shot me?"

"Or until you said you were sorry. That
would have been called a peaceful negotiation."

"But I would have never said I'm sorry."

"Then you would have probably passed out
from the pain and I would have taken my hand off and by the time
you came to I would have most likely forgotten about
everything."

He took the soggy tampon from his mouth and
tossed it out the window. Erica put the gun on the floorboard.

"We're gonna need a new car now."

"I think, before anything, I'm going to need
a shower."

Walt gripped the steering wheel tighter, his
top lip pulling back from his blocky white teeth.

"Unless you think I can just want myself
clean."

"When you can do anything you want, hygiene
is not an issue."

"What's that mean?"

"It means it doesn't matter if your pussy
stinks or not."

"Okay, well, I don't know if you plan on
being around me for a long time or not but here's at least the
first thing you should know about me: I like to be clean. I'm not a
freak or anything, but I'm probably going to require a shower at
least every couple of days or so. Given the . . .
festivities of last night, at least one of them involving you, your
friends, and a fuck ton of body fluids, I feel especially dirty
even though it hasn't been that long since my last shower."

"Can it wait until later? We can just get a
room somewhere and have a good night's sleep."

"And after we shower, you'll go down on
me?"

He smiled and held out his hand. "Deal."

She shook his hand. "Deal."

They continued along the highway, the wind
deafening through the busted window, well into Illinois, well into
dark.

"So what's this about Dayton, Ohio?"

"That's where we're going. Ever been?"

"No. I've never been anywhere."

"Seriously? No vacations or anything?"

"Nope." She waited for him to press it,
already half-knowing he wouldn't. "So why Dayton?"

"Why not Dayton?"

"Is that their city slogan? It sounds really
defeatist if it is."

"I'm not sure. I just got a feeling the last
time I was there. Like I'd be back or something. I think it'll be a
perfect place to start."

"Start what?"

"Our life together."

She didn't know if he was being romantic or
sarcastic. The singularity of that noun did not go unnoticed.

"Are you serious about wanting to spend the
rest of your life with me?"

He put his hand on her thigh and gently
rubbed it up and down over the blooming bruises. "I am. Just being
around you gives me a certain feeling. Something I've never felt
before."

"But we don't really know anything about
each other."

"What's to know? I'm just like every other
guy except for my gift."

"You're supposed to want to know everything
about me."

"I only know what you want to tell me.
You'll tell me what you think is important. Do you want to tell me
everything there is to know about you? Because that includes the
really dark, painful stuff too. If you want to know everything I've
ever done, I could tell you. I carry a record of it up here." He
pointed a finger at his temple. "What matters is now. Now and from
now on. Forward momentum."

Erica didn't look at him. She stared at the
taillights of the car in front of them. The highway now felt dark
and claustrophobic. "Maybe later. I might want to talk about it
sometime. I just need to know you'll listen." It seemed like an
evasive response and she wasn't sure why she answered in exactly
that way except, when she tried to see her past as a series of
flashing vignettes and faces, she had trouble thinking of anything.
There was her. There was her dead mother. Her absent father. Her
sick and then dead Granny. But that was all just words. Sometimes
she thought of her memory as a photo left in the sun and, if she
didn't see a person nearly every second of every day, it was like
they just faded away.

"I'll listen whenever you want me to. But,
if I were you, I wouldn't expect me to tell you anything.
Agreed?"

She was still trying to grasp something,
anything from her own memory, and absently said, "If I ever ask,
you can just lie to me."

They stopped at a gas station off the
highway. He told her he was going to fill the car up and asked if
she'd go in and grab some cigarettes. She almost said she didn't
have any money and remembered she didn't need it. A tired and
trashy woman with bleached hair hanging around a putty pink face
stood behind the counter watching a reality TV show.

"A carton of Camel Lights," Erica said.

The woman didn't acknowledge her.

"Excuse me," Erica said.

The woman turned around to give a quick scan
of the pumps. The only cars out there were Erica's and an even
shittier Dodge Neon. As the woman's gaze returned, she finally
noticed Erica. Erica recognized the now almost customary click of
surprise when the woman saw the lines on her face.

"I'm sorry, hon," the woman said. "What can
I get you?"

"Carton of Camel Lights." Erica kept her
eyes trained on the counter, like the cashier had some sort of
built in retinal scanner.

The woman sat the carton on the counter
without asking for ID and gave her the total. Erica grabbed the
carton and said, "Thanks," before heading for the door and fighting
the urge to run.

She wasn't sure what she expected. Maybe for
the woman to say, "Stop," or "Hey, you can't leave without paying,"
or "Those aren't free." Given the woman's size advantage, Erica
half-expected the woman to come after her, physically stop her from
leaving the store.

But none of that happened.

She stepped outside to see the Neon idling
just across the walk, Walt behind the wheel. It took her only a
second to realize what had happened. Next to the pump where the
Neon had been, a sloppily dressed man lay face down on the asphalt,
probably dead but possibly just severely injured. Beside the pump
they had pulled up to was Erica's car, engulfed in a mountain of
flame. Erica rushed to get into the car, feeling like the whole
parking lot could explode at any moment.

"Got us a car," Walt said.

"Got us some cigarettes," Erica said.

He slowly pulled onto the road and they were
on the highway within minutes.

"This car smells like ass," Walt said.

"It's pretty foul."

"Maybe we can get another one at the
hotel."

"It's a shit car anyway."

It was after midnight before Walt started
looking for someplace to stay the night. They were about an hour
away from the Indiana border.

"I hope there wasn't much in the car you
needed. I really just threw all your shit in there to have
something to do. It didn't look like anything that couldn't be
replaced."

"Everything can be replaced."

"Tomorrow, if you want, we can find a
different car and hit a store. You can get some new clothes and
makeup. Girl shit."

"That'd be nice."

"I really want to eat you out. Like, right
now."

Erica shook her head. "No way. I'm way too
nasty."

"I can fix that."

Maybe he knew what he was doing. Erica
wasn't sure. He pulled the car off an exit that didn't have a
number. There was something that looked like a truck stop,
fluorescent and glowing. Erica's stomach rumbled. There would be
food at a truck stop. But, despite the overall open appearance of
it, there wasn't a single person or vehicle on the grounds.

"I'm not taking a whore's bath in a shitty
truck stop."

"I've got a better idea. Besides, you'll do
what I want you to."

Erica thought about arguing with him but it
hadn't been terrible so far. And it was better than really
thinking. Her brain still felt tired. She decided to commit when it
was convenient to her. Besides, Walt had proclaimed his desire to
eat her out which meant whatever he had planned might be kind of
sexual. While she didn't ever want to see herself as submissive in
her day to day life she had decided that, sexually, since meeting
Walt, she kind of got off on it. And then she wondered if that had
been the problem with the boys who'd come before him. Maybe they
weren't dominant enough. Maybe they weren't mean enough. Maybe they
weren't rough enough.

Walt pulled the car past a bank of diesel
pumps and stopped in front of a cinderblock stall.

A car wash.

He hopped out of the car and stripped off
his clothes. He motioned for her to do the same thing.

"I'll do you first and then you do me."

She was glad it was warm. She removed her
filthy clothes and clamped them against the wall in the spot
usually reserved for floor mats. Walt just dropped his onto the
ground. The lights in the stall were bright and fluorescent, making
her look ghostly and pale. Every blemish and bruise glowed from her
legs. She also noticed dirt and grime around her kneecaps and
fingertips, the folds of her knuckles.