Alice and Norman and Ruth (Patreon)

After I left Jules, while the bus was on the road, I fell asleep. I didn't think I would, but I did. Every time the bus jolted, I'd just fly awake, half panicked. I think I was having the nightmare about wiping out.

Anyway, somewhere close to Des Moines, which was where the bus was headed, my ticket ran out and I had to get off. I was totally muzzy, like I wasn't asleep, but I wasn't fully conscious. Everything seemed really far away and kind of hollow. The bus stopped at this little restaurant, I bought a tea. There was a cab number written on this little card on top of the pay phone, so I called it and had him take me to a hotel.

The motel/hotel was this little mom and pop thing. Forty rooms, two levels. This little old lady rented me a room. I told her I wanted it for a couple of nights at least. She seemed to ask a lot of questions, but I was just fading right out. She had to repeat herself once or twice.

I got in the room, laid on the bed, and I was out. That was it. I woke up sometime in the middle of the night, I had to pee, I drank about four glasses of tapwater, undressed and crawled under the covers.

The next time I woke up, there was a ham and cheese sandwich in plastic wrap, and a little cardboard carton of orange juice laying on the table beside the bed. I wondered where it came from, but not too hard. I ate, drank, and went back to sleep.

I woke up again, early morning. The dawn's light was coming in. I drank more water and then watched morning cartoons until I drifted off. When I woke up, there was another sandwich in wrap, roast beef, and a cardboard carton of apple juice. I ate the sandwich and washed it down with tap water. I wanted to save the juice for later.

I thought about going outside. I didn't really want to. So instead, I laid in bed and watched television some more, just kind of drowsing. Every time a car drove slow around the hotel, my heart would race. I took a shower, just for something to do. I got a look at myself in the mirror, I looked like shit, hollow eyed, gaunt, I had all these little bruises and I could count my ribs. I didn't remember looking this bad with Jules, how'd I get like this? I was tired all over again, so I went back to bed. I couldn't seem to stay awake now, I thought maybe I'd caught something, because I just couldn't see how I could go downhill so fast.

Next time I woke up, it was night, I had a nightmare. My hair was a total rats nest, cause I'd gone back to sleep without drying it or combing it. I sort of laid in bed for a while, turned on the TV watched for a bit, turned it off. Tried to do something with my hair. I don't remember going back to sleep.

But the next thing I knew, it was day outside again. There was knocking at my door. I just had this panic attack, I didn't say anything, just stared. There was the sound of a key, thedoor opened.

I said 'who is it?' real quickly. Actually, it came out as a croak.. Not good. It was the little old lady, Alice. What did she want? I think I was kind of snippy, cause I was still getting over the scare. She'd brought me a sandwich and more juice.

Mystery solved.

I felt bad about being mean to her, especially when she was doing this for me. I thanked her and said I was sorry. She asked if I needed anything. I said no. I asked her how long I'd been here, she said a couple of days. That was it.

I got left alone, to eat the sandwich slowly. I ate really slowly, I tried to draw out every bite and then I'd chew slowly, counting off the chews. What is it, you're supposed to chew every bite fifty times? Fuck, that would take forever, we'd be like this civilization of cows, chewing cud 18 hours a day. Anyway, I found if I got to twenty I'd be lucky, cause usually there wasn't much left in my mouth after a dozen.

Ah, the exciting world of Des Moines. Technically, it wasn’t. It was a little town on the way to Des Moines, on the outskirts, Des Moines was the big city. I was there a few times. But it was just boring all the way through.

You know, it was mostly all like that. Bored, bored, boring. Dull, dull, dull. Like the Inuits had forty words for snow, but out here, peoples entire vocabularies were words for 'nothing happening.' I spent a couple of months out there, well, maybe it was just a weekend that felt like a couple of months. Sorry, it was more than a couple of months, I got weekend thing from some comedian. Anyway, it was just deathly dull the whole time, boring, totally utterly boring. Even the sex was boring, mostly.

Anyway, the next day, I finally left the room. Alice had brought me another sandwich. But it was so dull in there you couldn't believe it. I was sick of television. So I went out and I met Norman, Alice's husband. He was a nice old guy, he loaned me some magazines and old paperbacks, so I took them and scurried back to my room.

The next morning, I was just ravenous. So I took a chance on going to the restaurant. I ordered three breakfast specials. I wolfed down the first two so fast it made my stomach hurt, but they gave me the third one in a little styrofoam container and let me take it back to my room. Later in the day, I went and bought a toothbrush, cause my mouth tasted gross. I hadn't brushed my teeth in like days and days. Even with Jules, I wasn’t brushing a lot, just when it felt gross.

That was it for those first few days. I slept a lot, ate, drowsed, was mostly bored when I was awake, and jumped at my own shadow.

I think I was having some sort of delayed stress thing to my time with Jules. Like, I'd been totally adrenalin around him, but now that I was away, I was just collapsing.

Anyway, there was a knock on my door the next day. Alice asked if instead of a sandwich, I'd like to have dinner with her and Norman. It wasn't the sort of thing I could refuse, I mean, they'd been really nice to me. So I straightened myself up as much as I could, and went.

Their house was over the hotel. Well, like the hotel lobby was on the main floor, right, and that was basically the front of their house, with the hotel part as wings off it. They mostly lived on the second floor, which was pretty nice.

Dinner with the Waltons. Actually, I found out later, their names weren't Waltons at all. They were Bornsons, or Bjornsons. I don't know who the Waltons were, I think they must have been Alice’s family, but I never got around to asking. Anyway, I was ravenous again, so I ate a lot. They were very nice and friendly, and there was another girl there. A Guatemalan girl, I forget her name, it was something like Louisa. She was like me, an illegal alien. She worked there as a housekeeper, but they treated her like family.

They were partners in the restaurant, and they owned the Laundromat across the street, which was a good thing. Probably some other stuff. It just kind of grew. Like, they'd started their little motel, and they added on to it. Then they thought a restaurant would be nice for people traveling, and they ran that till they got older and then let a partner in to run it. Then Norman had to buy a lot of washers and dryers for the motel sheets, they're just killers on laundry. But they didn't need to use it all the time, so they turned it into a laundromat. Then people needed laundry soap and travelers needed stuff, so there was a convenience store, and that turned into a grocery, and so on. I've no idea, they might have owned half the town by now in their little empire. But mainly, they liked running the hotel, I think they liked meeting people and getting to know them.

Anyway, for the next couple of weeks, that was my pattern. I'd sleep a lot. I was sleeping constantly. I'd tire out so easily, sometimes I'd get tired brushing my teeth and have to lay down for a nap. I was thirsty all the time, just drinking constantly. Sometimes I think the only reason I'd wake up half the time was so I could pee. My appetite would have these ravenous surges, and I'd just eat desperately until my belly literally felt hard. I watched a lot of television, and read Norman's magazines and paperbacks.

My social life consisted of having dinner with Norman and Alice and Louisa, and getting gently probed by Norman and Alice. They learned I was from Canada. I'd left home. They asked about my parents once, but only the once. That was a nice thing about them, when they found a sore spot, they'd leave it alone, all they needed was to know where it was. They got part of the biker story. They'd talk about stuff themselves, mostly about people they knew or the way things were going. They had this really gentle way of speaking, sort of thoughtful and considerate.

They took me to church a few times at first, it was one of those hard to refuse social invitations. But I stopped going and they didn't press it, they were respectful like that. They accepted that I wasn't religious, and anyway, I was Catholic and they were one of those strange Christian cults that the Americans have, Methodists, I think. I never saw anyone in their church handle snakes or roll around speaking in tongues or anything like that.

Gradually, I got stronger. I felt better, I seemed to be getting weight back. I could still count my ribs, but the hollowed out look seemed to be going away. And it was getting so I didn't need to go to sleep all the time.

I was running out of money.

Jules had given me a few hundred dollars, which on one hand is a lot of money, but on another hand, its not much money at all. When I first checked in, they'd charged me the daily rate. But when they realized I wasn't in shape to go anywhere, they told me they changed it to the weekly rate, retroactive, and they were talking about changing that to the monthly rate.

But even so, I was going to run out of money soon, and I didn't know what I was going to do. I mean, geez. Find someplace cheap to live, get a job, that kind of thing. But I just wasn't in shape for it. I didn't talk to them about it, not directly. But they had this way of asking indirect questions, or saying things indirectly, that kind of told the whole story without actually spelling it out. I'd go back after supper, and I'd lay in bed, and think 'shit, I told them too much', that I'd said more than I meant to say. It was easy with those two, they were just really soft, and if you weren't careful, you'd give them the story of your life.

Anyway, one day at supper, they asked me to come and work for them. Basically, room and board, I'd help Louisa and Alice with the housekeeping, and get paid for each room I did. It was slow right now and Louisa handled it. But business was starting to pick up, and soon, Louisa was going to need help.

Wow. Piecework cleaning rooms at a hotel. That's got to be one of the suckiest most unfair job arrangements I've ever heard of. And you know, if it was assholes, they'd screw you over so bad. But actually, they weren't assholes. They were always careful to treat Louisa and me well.

And actually, I found out they talked it over with Louisa before they offered me the job. She could have been upset, I mean, if she was paid piecework, then basically, they were giving half her job away on her. But, they'd talked it over with her, just because that was the way they did things.

I took the job of course. I mean, they'd offered it at the right time. I was starting to get scared about money, and I had no plans and no ideas, and I was still sleeping a lot. I moved into a room at the back that night. Luckily, I didn't have a lot to move, some clothes and stuff, toothbrush, magazines. They had to let my hotel room air out for a couple of days, it just reeked of sweat and of me.

I had my own room, it was unfinished and about half the size of my hotel room. But it had a bed and a color TV and cable, so that was fine. The bathroom was in the service hall, I had to share it with Louisa, but on the other hand, I had a mini-fridge to keep things in, and an external door, so that was good.

So, that was how I started my new career as a hotel housekeeper.

Yay.

Actually, it wasn't bad. Business did pick up, but it wasn't brutal.

It was a pretty simple job actually. It's like you had a checklist. Knock on the door, change the sheets, make the bed, do the ashtrays, wipe the surfaces - windows, TV, table, replace the glasses, then do the bathroom.

Bathrooms were always the worst. It's like people went all hygiene free zone in there. They'd pee and miss, or leave shit smears on the toilet seats, or they'd shower but not use the curtain so you'd have to bring in a mop, or they'd use the entire roll of toilet paper (how?), and that stuff on the sink, I just hoped that was toothpaste, there was a couple of times, I wasn't sure at all.

Sheets were also pretty bad. Norman kept small plastic liners on the mattresses, and I realized pretty quickly that was a good idea. Most times, the sheets were okay, but some stuff. Like mense stains, that happened once in a while, you could always tell them from the shape and position of the bloodstains. Other blood stains, they'd be all over. There would be shit stains sometimes, or pee, or cigarette burns, chocolate stains, food stains. Sometimes, it would just be sweat, you could smell that more than see it. Or there'd be these huge sex stains, a couple of the women that came to the hotel were gushers, and we got to know which ones.

Vacuuming was optional. After a room was rented three times, we'd vacuum no matter what. Apart from that, we'd vacuum if it looked like it needed it, or if it was musty. Sometimes we'd air and vacuum rooms that hadn't been rented.

And we'd always make a note of stuff that might need fixing, for Norman.

You always knocked of course. If someone was in, usually, they'd let you know. But once in a while, we'd open the door and there'd be this guy there, and he'd always, always have his pants off and acting all surprised as he runs around with his dick swinging. I didn't hear you knocking. Just a minute. That didn't happen often, but it would happen more than you'd think. Frankly, it was just tiresome. Any of you guys ever read this, here's a message. Listen assholes, we're not stupid, we know what you're doing, and it's not funny. Go and fucking harass someone who isn't working for a living.

While I was there, Louisa walked in on this couple while they were making love. That really was an accident, they were just so into it, they didn't hear her. Everybody was really embarrassed, especially Louisa. She said they were kind of fat and old, so it wasn't a thrill.

The afternoons were usually quiet. We'd do laundry, wash the glasses, count toilet paper rolls and little bars of soap, like, the behind the scenes housekeeping stuff. Sometimes I'd go around with Norman and carry his tools. Mostly though, it was pretty light.

The thing with unskilled labor, I've found over and over, is that it isn't really unskilled. I mean, like look at this housekeeping stuff. You're sitting there thinking, wow, a monkey could do that. And sort of yes. But also no. Because there's a difference between doing something and doing it well, doing it efficiently.

Louisa could do a room twice as fast as I did, and she'd do it better. When I was just starting on my own, Alice would check on the rooms I did by myself, and sometimes she'd send Louisa in to do it over. They never told me of course, cause they didn't want to hurt my feelings, but geez, I'd figure it out. I got better at it of course, but Louisa was always better, and Alice when she showed me something, like how to get a fold just so, she knew it.

Alice mostly supervised. I mean, she was old, she'd done this stuff for years. She was entitled to slow down.

Anyway, some days or weeks, there'd be not much. So, they'd send me across the street to help out at Sig's place. I didn't get paid by Sig, or paid extra. It was sort of just a favor, and sort of a 'well, we don't have enough work to justify you here, so go and do some work over there and we'll say its even.' Sig was Norman's brother or uncle or something. He was even older than Norman. He was a fat old guy with snow white hair, and a badly trimmed beard that had sort of started out as a goatee but went somewhere else. Or at least, that's how Norman described it.

Sig ran this, I guess I would call it a funk shop. Like junk, okay. But the thing is, like you go around cities, in the cool areas, like if you wander around, you'll find all these little shops selling neat bizarre stuff. And that's cool. But if you wander around the countryside, like around small towns and stuff, you'll come across these places, and they're like those funky shops in downtowns. But they're a lot more raw and strange. It's like, raw funk. Basically, it's guys who are collectors and eccentrics, and they accumulate all these really strange things, just cause they like having them around. So, you can go in there, and you might find anything.

It was weird the stuff Sig had in there. I was dusting off a cardboard box with a slinky in it, and I was looking at the box, and I realized this was from 1972. It's a weird feeling when you find a slinky that's older than you are. He had some amazing shit. He had plaster casts of bigfoot prints, actually, those sold well. He had like stuffed armadillos, and once for a couple of days, he had a real live one and those things are just bizarre. He had a stuffed jackalope, one of the real ones, it's a sort of rabbit with antlers, very rare. He had magazines from the 40's and 50's in plastic bags, newspapers from the thirties that if you handled too much they would fall apart. Secondhand books, mostly true crime, and videotapes, anything you could think of. He had all these weird things that people would make out of junk. Or things he just thought were neat cause of the way they looked or the way they were made. Some of it, like the slinky, was from forever.

He also had this cooler and little area where he sold chips and pop and stuff, and that was a lot of his business actually. But mostly, he didn't care about that. He just liked having all this mental amazing stuff. People would come by, sometimes travelers, sometimes people he knew, and he'd sit there in his treasures and hold court.

It was kind of cool. I mean, if I'm ever some 70 year old fat white haired geezer with a funky beard, that's what I wanna do with my life. But, like, subject to major surgery, I doubt it'll ever be me.

He closed it down a couple of years ago. I guess he was getting too old for it. Even when I was there, I could see it catching up with him. I don't know what he did with all his stuff when he closed. Maybe gave it away, or threw it out, or maybe some other old eccentric guy bought it for his shop. He sent me some medals, Canadian medals, I don't know how they got all the way down there. He also sent me a bigfoot print, but that fell apart in the post, which is too bad.

Anyway, once in a while, I'd be over there to help out. Mostly, I think, it was to give me something to do while Louisa did the real work better. I'd dust around the place mostly, there was lots of dust. Sometimes Sig would leave, I don't think he liked to leave, but sometimes he'd have a doctors appointment, or he'd just want to go for a walk or something. I think he liked having someone around to give him an option to go out when he wanted. But he could have just closed the store.

It was usually pretty dead there. So if I was minding the place, and I didn't feel like dusting, I'd just read one of his old secondhand paperbacks, mostly he had true crime stuff. I don't understand those things, like how they can make lurid stuff seem so dull. Or I'd look through his ledger to see what kind of stuff he'd sold. He didn't have a modern cash register, just this old antique thing, so he'd keep track of everything with a ledger. Bear claw necklaces, an elephant foot umbrella stand, things like that.

Oh yeah, you know you're bored when you're going through old ledgers. I mean, there's only so many times you can pet a stuffed jackalope or look at thirty year old slinkys or compare bigfoot prints.

I mean, I did like Sig. Not in a sexual way, I mean, I like older men, but he was ancient and fat and gross, and he smelled funny. I know he liked to look at me, and I didn't mind that, but get real.

You know, contrary to the impression you might get from reading these things, I haven't slept with every man I've ever met. There's at least four or five I've skipped. But I've got their names and addresses, and one of these days when I have time, I'm going to go back and do them all.

Yeah right.

But anyway, I liked Sig, and Alice and Norman. But really, it was just dull there. Nothing much happened. Ever. Doing rooms and then having dinner with them, watching television and reading this mindless junk because it was less mindless than what was on television.

I hung out at the restaurant, usually to read, or watch TV. They had a screen mounted up off the floor near the ceiling. The restaurant was actually a popular place.

There were a couple of trailer parks there. In Canada, trailer parks, mostly, are pretty neat places. Basically, they're like these mini-villages with mobile homes neatly lined up, and little tiny lawns and stuff like that. In the US, it's a lot rattier all over, and its not all mobile homes, but like these little trailers and winnebaggos. I even saw one of those traveling things that go on the back of pickup trucks, it was up on barrels. Still, it was like, for some people, it was like a good place to be. They wanted to live there. Yuck.

Anyway, a lot of young people, teenagers and twenty somethings, they would go to hang out at the restaurant. So I started to get to know some of them.

Then this guy asked me out. Okay. He seemed all right. He had a run down pickup truck. That was the thing, most of these guys lived in the rattiest holes, but they always had cars or trucks. Sometimes not very good cars or trucks, but they had wheels.

Anyway, after supper, he picked me up and we drove to the gravel quarry. That was the big make out spot. It was still light out, when we got there. It was basically a quarry. No like for rocks though. It was sort of a hole, sort of dug into the side of this hill, and it had all these little mounds or hills of gravel or sand, something like fifteen feet high, and there was this giant conveyor belt machine. It wasn't all open, sort of L shaped, so there were lots of corners you could park in. In the middle, there was a pool, actually just a giant puddle I guess. They said it wasn't more than waist deep. It was drying up slowly, until the next rains, and it was surrounded by this ring of dried green scum. Not exactly the most romantic place.

He started playing with my breasts. It felt like he was trying to tune in a good country and music station on the radio. I let it go on, as he gradually got on top of me and then eventually, we were dry humping as he slobbered and tried to unbutton my jeans. I broke the clinch long enough so we could get our pants down. I sucked his cock a little, squeezing it tight at the base, just so he wouldn't come, and put a rubber on him.

I didn't even feel especially sexual or turned on. I was basically, just going through the motions, doing it for something to do. I was dry, but I had vaseline in my purse. I always carried some kind of lubricant. I didn't like using vaseline, guys say they don't like the taste, and also, its oil based, so it breaks down rubber, which isn't good if you're trying to have safe sex. But dry sex is worse, so I used it. After that, he climbed on me again and got it in. It was awkward on the truck seat, and the plastic kept pinching, I moved my hips, trying to get him in deeper and trying to get some feeling. Just as I started to get going, he came. He laid on top of me for a bit, and left the rubber kind of sticking half out of me.

A little fucking sexual etiquette here guys. When you're withdrawing, reach down and make sure you hold the condom, so that when you come out, you take it with you. Jesus fucking Christ, I hate that so much you wouldn't believe it.

He pulled off and started pulling up his pants, but I thought, hey, maybe we can actually make something happen, because I sort of wanted to come. So I played with his cock. I let him play with my breasts. He wouldn't go down on me.

Oh yeah, I'd discover that was something that the guys didn't do around here. They wouldn't go down on girls, not if you had a gun to their head. Assholes. Anyway, it didn't really go anywhere, and eventually, he took me home. I mean, I wasn't bitchy or anything and we didn't fight. But all in all, not much to it.

I was tired out from it. I mean, I was wiped out from it, which sort of upset me. I mean, this is what I do, this is what I'm good at. On some level, its how I define myself, which may or may not be a good thing. So, geez, I was dry, I was tired, it was flat sex. Not good.

The next night, another guy asked me out. And I made a date with another guy for the night after. I was getting to know the quarry really well. Everyone seemed to have their favorite spot.

A couple of days after that, my period started again. On the one hand, that was sort of good. It had stopped for a while, and I'd started to worry. On the other hand, scratch one pair of blue jeans, which wasn't so good.

I kind of went overboard for a little while. It started to get out of hand. I guess I was getting a reputation. Or maybe I got it right away, when I went out to the gravel quarry and went all the way on a first date. But fucking grow up!

One night, after I'd gone to the gravel quarry with this guy, as we were driving back, there was another guy waiting in his pickup truck to take me out. So back to the quarry. Then after that, half an hour later, I was in my room, and there was a knock at the door, and it was this other guy, and he wanted to go out too. I mean, geez. So I went, but only gave him a blow job. Then about a little while after that, there was a knock at my door. I thought, geez, I mean, give me a frigging break. So I ignored it, and he must have knocked for about ten minutes before Louisa finally got up and asked him what he wanted, which made him go away.

That was a little excessive, but mostly, every night, I went out with a different guy, and it was mostly to the quarry. Sometimes to a mobile. The sex was hardly ever incredible, but it felt right, I could feel my body returning back. I could feel getting wet, and the excitement of having a cock in me, and I even started to come, not necessarily with them.

I wasn't even enjoying myself all that much, you know. Mostly, it was just something to do. I liked that I was popular, and that I was wanted. But I mean, these guys, a lot of the time, it was like singing opera to pigs. Basically, I was bored, and okay, mostly it was dreary sex, but at least, it made me feel like I was here on the planet, and not just sleepwalking. Like something was actually happening.

One night, I was getting dropped off. This time, I'd been at a winnebago thing up on blocks, so at least, I'd been able to fix myself up a bit. I mean, get fucked in a pickup truck, you look like you got fucked in a pickup truck, you know.

Anyway, Norman and Alice were up. Which wasn't a big deal, cause it wasn't late. I really didn't like staying up late back there. The mornings were always work, and besides, I didn't want Norman and Alice to worry.

They invited me to have coffee with them. I thought, oh oh, here it comes. The LECTURE. I'd been down that road. I begged off, but they insisted. I sighed, and sat down for coffee.

Actually, it wasn't bad. They just talked in that mild way they had, about stuff. Mostly what to do tomorrow. About Sig, about old times, about business. About the customers, half their clients were locals having affairs on each other.

I never understood that, I mean, here they were, they knew everything. They knew who was cheating on who, they knew who was having a secret gay thing, or the guy who was bringing teenagers, or the woman who'd sell herself to make ends meet. I keep thinking that should have made them harder, more cynical, but it didn't. They didn't judge, they never judged. They just talked about them with this mild affection, like part tolerance and part forgiveness.

Anyway, I expected the LECTURE, but it didn't come. Instead, there was just this quiet rambling discussion, sometimes about who was having an affair with who, sometimes about some country and western singer, like Hank Snow versus Garth Brooks. I sort of got lulled into a sense of ease.

And then....

"You know, Eve," Norman said to me, "we see things..."

He paused.

"We just think you can do better."

And Alice reached out and patted my wrist.

I said I'd try.

They nodded. The conversation just kind of moved along for another ten minutes, and then they got tired and decided to call it a night. I was only just starting to realize I'd had the 'lecture.'

There offered to walk me back to my room, for safety. Like geez, fifty feet? What was gonna happen? Abducted by aliens? But I said okay, I let them walk me back, and at my door, they each gave me a little hug, and then they left me alone with my thoughts.

"We just think you can do better."

Wow.

It made me pleased and ashamed and thoughtful, not right then, when they said it. But after, when I was thinking about it, as I laid in bed, it kept me up half the night. I can do better.

I'd had fucking wars with my parents, with people. And I'd never backed down, and never backed off. I'd gone out and gotten drunk and gotten fucked, and swallowed it all down as hard as I could. And that lead to screaming matches and all sorts of horrible shit. I mean, I'd heard the lecture a hundred times, and ignored it and rebelled against it. No one could tell me what to do, I'd refused any control.

"We just think you can do better."

And somehow, that got in so deep. Not hurting, not angry, just this... Thing. I didn't want to be a disappointment to them.

After that, I got it more under control.

I didn't go out for a few nights. Even then, I slowed it down. I didn't want to go straight to the quarry. Like how about going to a movie or something? And I stopped doing it the first time out. Why? It wasn’t going to be that great anyway. I tried to stick with guys for a few times, instead of just burning my way through them.

That was sort of good and bad. I mean, it gave me a better chance to get to know some of them, and what I found was I really didn't want to get to know them. They were boring. There was nothing there, like, just kind of obstinate dumbness, with bits of racism and ignorance.

At least, when we were at the quarry, twisting around, trying to peel my jeans off in the cab of a pickup truck, as they climbed on top of me, at least there was something there, there was something happening, there was something real. But this... Talking to them, there was nothing there.

The better I got to know them, the less I wanted to fuck them.

So, more and more, I did blow jobs.

Everyone knows a blowjob isn't actually sex. Basically, a blowjob is like shaking hands, but friendlier. It's not real sex. Most of the girls there were doing blow jobs. It was no big thing.

Cunnilingus is real sex though.

That's kind of a double standard, now that I think of it. I guess I'm a little bit of a hypocrite.

Of course, you know, I'd wind up wrestling around in the truck, or the car, sometimes I'd just go, 'fuck it, put it in.' Or sometimes, I'd actually get excited, especially if they were good with their hands, or if I really liked the way their cock looked or tasted, and I'd want to fuck. But mostly, it was just what it was.

Anyway, like everything else there, even sex became a rut. Not really great, not awful, but just something I did.

Actually, I think it was good that I slowed down. Looking back, I think I was starting to get disliked. Maybe I think I was starting to get traces of the chill that started in high school, where the girls would just loathe me. I didn't pick up on it at the time, but now, I can sort of see that maybe I might have been starting to play the shit game all over again.

But anyway, I slowed down and that made me a little more acceptable socially, not that I had any kind of a social life. But at least, I didn't have to worry about getting drive by eggs thrown at me or stuff like that.

Actually, I did wind up going out once in a while. I went to this club a few times and discovered line dancing. Line dancing is basically being drunk enough that you're almost falling down, except its organized.

Also, I found drinking didn't look so good on other people. I mean, some people are good drunks. I'm a good drunk, it picks me up, I'm fun.

Well, I stabbed a guy with a fork once, but I was blacked out so I don't remember it, and I never got arrested or anything over it, so it couldn't have been serious like stabbing him in the eye or anything, and anyway, that happens to everyone.

But basically, I was okay drunk. But I was tending to hold back on it. I mean, earlier, I found that drinking just made me tired not really drunk, I think it was some of that collapse stuff.

I was back in Minneapolis before I felt really truly completely recovered. And after Alice and Norman had their talk, I was really trying to sort of moderate. But other people weren't, and they were getting too shitfaced in really unpleasant ways. Especially the guys.

I remember one time, I wound up back at this guys trailer with a couple of two fours and we basically put them away. He was really drinking heavy, and in the end, he was so shitfaced, he couldn't get it up. I sucked on it for a while, sort of moving it around in my mouth, guys like you to at least try. But hey, not even with a bicycle pump. So that was it. He wanted to drive me home, but he could hardly stand up, and I knew I wasn't in shape to drive, so I walked home to the hotel. It took about 40 minutes, and mainly cause I hitchhiked a ride from some people I knew.

The whole time, I had this taste of stale cock and sour pee in my mouth, and I thought, there's one guy I'm never ever going to talk to.

So many of these guys were just such fucking losers, it wasn't even funny.

Norman was right. I could do better.

It was just that this is what was around.

Anyway, I wound up going out with this guy named Eddy a few times. The thing I remember most about Eddy is that he once told me he learned to kiss when he was eleven years old, from his twelve year old sister. They used to practice a lot.

Eek!

The thing was, around here, I don't think that kind of thing was all that unusual. Which is really kind of icky.

One night, we were parked out at the club, and we were arguing about a movie. He wanted to go see some kung fu thing, and I wanted a real movie. I think I must have been fairly bitchy.

All of a sudden, he grabbed me by the hair and slammed my head into the dashboard!

Wham! Wham!

I think the shock was greater than the pain, I was completely like, thrown. I couldn't believe he'd done that. I started clawing at the door.

He started saying he was sorry, right away.

I fell out of the truck and started walking away.

He followed me, saying he was sorry, telling me to come back to the truck.

I was just going, fuck off, fuck off. It really hurt, my temple was throbbing and one eye was tearing up. I couldn't believe what he'd done. What an asshole. I was getting all shaky with rage, and just really on the edge of flipping out.

He followed me into this greasy spoon restaurant, kind of a late night hang out.

I told him I didn't want to see him, just fucking leave me alone. I went and hid in the girls bathroom. The waitress came in to check me out, and then she had the cook get rid of Eddy.

Meanwhile, I was just getting this big goose egg on the left side of my forehead, like in cartoons. It was just a lump.

I was still just so fucking mad, and I felt so violated. I wanted to smash him, I wanted to hit him back and fuck him over. I just felt like poisonous hateful.

Anyway, I went out into the restaurant, he wasn't around. I wasn't sure what I should do. I had this idea, I would get some guys to go and beat him up for me. I was perfectly willing to pull a train to get it done, no problem. I wanted him hurt.

I think that came from hanging with Jules and bikers. It was kind of mental, but it was the sort of thing they did. Maybe being with Jules had sort of lead to that attitude. I don't know.

There were some people I knew there, not well, but to see. The meanest, biggest guy was Leo. I'd never gone out with him. He was with his girlfriend, Ruth.

Ruth was kind of a bitch, I didn't think she liked me.

I remember, when we met, she said she was Ruth 'like in the bible.'

So I asked what part?

She looked blank.

So I said, well, what part of the bible? What does it say?

She'd never looked it up. So, I'd wound up making her look kind of stupid. You can’t do that to people, they’ll hate you for it. I hadn’t meant to, but it was done. She’d give me these ‘fuck you’ looks, and I’d go ‘Nope, not going over there.’ Nope, I wasn't her favorite person. But then, she was kind of a bitch to everyone, so it wasn't like I was up for special treatment.

There were some strangers. But Eddy was bigger than they were, and like, I didn't think they'd want to get involved.

I suppose I could have waited till later, when there was more people. But I wanted revenge now. I was hurting and my temple was swollen, and I just wanted it done.

So, I went up to Ruth and asked her if I could talk to her in private. Looking back, I think that was the right thing to do. I mean, in the old days, I'd have just gone straight to Leo and then it would have turned into a mess. She took a look at my face, and the lump on my forehead and she said okay.

So, I told her what Eddy had done, and she was all concerned. Then I told her what I wanted Leo to do, basically, beat the snot out of Eddy, and she was really not into it. People are big on sympathy, but mostly they try not to get involved in situations. She could see me wanting him beaten up, but she just didn't want me dragging Leo into it.

So, I played my card.

I'll do you both. A threeway.

She got this sour face.

You're telling me, right out in the open, you want to fuck my man like a hoo-er? You fucking bitch.

No, not just him. Both of you.

What the hell are you going on?

You and him, the two of you together. A threeway.

That's sick.

Please.

She was pretty disgusted. I offered money instead, but I didn't actually have any. So it came back to the only thing I had to offer, my body. I guess my desperation came though. Finally, she said she'd talk to Leo. I knew I had her. No guy has ever turned down a threeway.

You know, I think if I'd waited, even a few hours, I wouldn't have done it. I would have calmed down and maybe I'd have never been happy about it, but I'd have dealt with it differently.

I'm not proud of this, of the way I acted.

Leo was for it. Eddy had taken off, so we all piled into Leo's new pickup truck and went around looking for him. I was kind of losing my taste for revenge by the time we found him.

Losing it, but I still had it.

Leo just stopped the truck, jumped out, ran over and punched him. Just like that. I thought it would be a fight, but it wasn't. Ruth and I were jumping out, and Ruth was just screaming for blood, calling him a wife beater. Eddy wasn't fighting back. Leo hit him a few more times, and then he fell down. Leo started kicking him. I saw blood. It was just getting sick, I just wanted to stop. So I ran up and started pulling at Leo and yelling it was enough. He gave a couple of final kicks, and then we all ran back to the truck and raced off.

My god, my heart was going a million miles a minute. Ruth and Leo seemed giddy, almost hooting with excitement. They were talking quickly, just kind of reliving it. I saw Leo lick blood off his knuckles, it made me queasy. They were totally feral. They'd just gone out and beaten up somebody on the street, just out of the blue, and they were high off of it.

We didn't go anywhere after that. We just cruised around and around, I think coming down off it. They started asking how I was feeling. I think I looked pale and shaky. I remember at a stop sign, Leo reached over and touched the bump on my forehead, tracing its shape with his fingertip. He was surprisingly gentle. They kept asking how I felt. I realized that they were coming down, and were trying to justify what they'd done, that was why they kept asking if I hurt.

Then we went to this other restaurant, because Leo wanted ribs. We ate. He wanted to know about the threesome. Had I ever done them. Yes. What was it like? What would we do? Would I do things with Ruth? Or would it just be the two of us on him. I said, basically, whatever you wanted. Ruth said she'd go in, but she wasn't going to do any Liz-bo shit.

I really wasn't into the idea. I hadn't been at any point, I'd just been really mad. But I'd just seen them beat Eddy bloody on the street, so the deal was made. And to tell you the truth, I was a little nervous about not going through with it, having seen that naked violence. I'd seen too much of it around Jules. I didn't want them mad at me, didn't want to be on the receiving end.

After that, we drove around. We went to the quarry, but even as we got there, Leo realized it was a shit idea. Ruth talked about places we might try going to. Finally, Leo decided for his first threeway, he wanted to go all the way. A soft bed, real sheets, lights so he could see everything. We went to the hotel. Ruth and I were parked in the truck way back, and he rented the room.

We did it. It wasn't the best threeway I ever did. Ruth and I took turns sucking his cock, then I rode him while Ruth watched, from behind, fascinated by his cock pistoning into me. I remember, all night, she kept saying 'its like a porno.' As I straddled him, she came up behind and cupped my breasts, riding alongside behind, her hips curling in mine as she air humped while I thrust down on her boyfriends cock.

We traded places, moving forward so she could take it. He came. We took turns doing him orally, and then I licked his balls while she sucked him. When she wasn't looking, I wet a finger and slipped it up his ass, and his cock stiffened. He rolled her on her back and started fucking her, while I laid beside them and started playing with her breasts.

All of a sudden, the two of us were kissing.

Then I was getting fucked, and she was kissing him.

He pulled out, turned us on our knees and elbows, side by side, and then just switched back and forth, I think he must have gotten that out of a porno movie or something. We rolled around. Then I was on all fours again, and he wanted it up my ass. I had her spit on my asshole and guide his cock in.

After he came a second time, and he had a lot of stamina that second time, he laid back.

He wanted to watch the two of us go at it.

I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure about Ruth.

She'd been very willing to touch me while we were playing with him, but she'd been almost hostile right at the start. If she went all stiff on me, it would kill the vibe.

I didn't have to worry about it, she got right into it, kissing me hard, her tongue surging in my mouth. Her hands were all over me and she just kind of forced me down, getting on top of me. She was sort of dry humping, until she got her legs around my thigh and started grinding herself. She couldn't take her hands off my breasts.

I reached between her legs, she was so fucking wet. But there was something aimless about the way she dry humped me, like she thought she had a cock, but it wasn’t there and she didn’t have anything else. I found her clit with my fingers, and let my hand slide against her pussy as she humped, and oh gosh, her expression didn’t change, but her eyes lit up.

Leo watched the whole thing, propped up against the headboard, blank expression, playing casually with his limp dick.

Confession time.

I don't understand men.

I don't have a clue. Men are inscrutable. They're terra incognito. Mysterious, and not the good alluring kind of mysterious. They're the dark, we don't have any idea what's going on, kind of mysterious.

Erections I understand. If cocks could talk, I'd make them sing. I understand the sex drive, I understand the hunger, I understand their urge to fuck.

I understand the common stuff, like the universals. Everyone needs to shit, to eat, to breathe, everyone needs a place to sleep, a place to live, money, a job, toys, happiness, whatever. I've got all that down.

But in men, deep down, sometimes not even all that deep, there's this core of something I can't grasp. This impenetrable thing that I don't know anything about and don't understand. I should know men better than anything, I've slept with hundreds, practically. But there's something I can't begin to grasp, and maybe I never will.

So anyway, Leo watched us, as inscrutable as a Martian.

We're both performing for him, that's deliberate. But we're also into it. And he's watching us with these blank eyes and a limp dick cradled in bruised knuckles, and I can't begin to guess what's going through his mind.

It was creepy.

Anyway, I got back to my room really late. I was dead tired all next day, I had to drag myself around. I was better, but I still tired out easy, and found it harder to bounce back. I wound up cleaning the room we had our threeway in.

It was a one time thing. Leo said he'd like to do it again, but Ruth was just a huge 'no fukken way.' So, I thought that was the end of it.

A few nights later, late, Ruth showed up at my door with a six pack.

'How you doing, ya whoo-er,' she asked, and invited herself in.

That was how they pronounced it: 'Whoo-er' or sometimes 'whoo-are'. I pronounced it 'Hoarr' with a little roll on the 'r' at the end. They called each other that all the time, at first, I didn't even click on the word. But guys were always going 'how you doing you old who-er' to each other, and girls were going 'you're such a who-er (giggle)' to each other. It seemed to be okay as long as it was in the sex, girl to girl, but it was like a deadly insult for a guy to call a girl a 'who-er.' He might get away with it if it was his girlfriend and he said it in the right tone. Anything else, big fight.

So I'd tell Ruth I didn't like to be called a 'who-er' but she'd do it anyway.

And lesbian was 'Liz-bo' and gay was 'ho-mo' or sometimes just 'mo'. I was 'Eevee' or if I really insisted, 'Eev-el' like I was Superman's transvestite cousin.

We sat back and started on the six pack. I didn't get many visitors. I never made out here. I'd always just go off with the guys. I didn't want to make out here, I guess, subconsciously, I thought it might disappoint Norman and Alice.

I wanted them to approve of me. Or at least, I didn't want them to disapprove of me. Or something. I knew the feeling, but its hard to explain.

So, basically, the flag had to be planted on neutral soil, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, she asked if I was a Liz-bo.

No.

That's good then. That's very good.

Yes.

Cause that was really disgusting. And she didn't ever want to do that again, the threeway.

Ok.

She was glad I wasn't a Liz-bo, because then I would have liked it to much. And that wasn't good.

Right.

She wasn't a Liz-bo either. She wanted me to know that.

Yes.

Just to be sure. Because, touching another woman, the idea of it just made her sick.

I see.

Thing was, she couldn't get the other night out of her mind. She couldn't stop thinking about it. It just preyed on her all the time.

Oh.

But that didn't make her a Liz-bo.

No it didn't.

I didn't think she was a Liz-bo, did I? I didn't notice anything while we were doing things?

What do you mean?

We were just fooling around, it didn't mean anything. It was just fun. Not like Liz-bo's, because they'd be serious.

It was fun.

You liked it? You really liked it?

Uhm...

She just couldn't fucking let it go. It was maddening, she'd dance up to it, then run away. But she couldn't let it go.

Finally, I had three beers in me, and I thought fuck it. I put my bare foot on the inside of her knee. She was sitting, I was laying on the bed. I just started working my toes up the inside of her thigh.

She looked like she was going to say something - changed her mind - decided to speak - couldn't - drank some beer.

She just looked down at my toes, right next to her crotch. I asked her what she wanted. She said she wasn't a Liz-bo or anything, but she said it softly.

She was flushed, eyes half closed.

I climbed off the bed and pressed my forehead against hers. I still had a little bit of a lump. I was sort of looming over her, kind of overwhelming with my physical presence, without

really touching her. I found that erotic when guys did it to me, so I was trying it instinctively. I brushed her hair gently, and I whispered that it would only happen if she wanted it.

I waited three heartbeats.

She whispered yes.

I kissed her, a gentle little kiss on the lips. One kiss leading to the next, each hungrier and more urgent than the last.

I pulled her slowly onto the bed. We did it slowly, undressing each other, just building and building it up until we were like wildcats.

He pussy was so fucking wet. I frigged her with two fingers in, using my other hand on her clit, and she laid there stiff as a board, legs spread, head up watching me. I’ve never felt so self-conscious. I tried to smile at her, because even though she was wet, I couldn’t tell if she liked it.

Then her pussy grabbed my fingers, and I mean grabbed. Just clamped right down, squeezing. She got this surprised look on her face and said “Oh!” and her head just laid back on the bed.

When her pussy let go, I mean, it was an orgasm, I knew orgasms, I climbed up on top of her, our breasts rubbing together. She wouldn’t look at me, staring at the ceiling instead. I kissed her cheek and asked her how she was.

Some women can come and come, we have like these chain orgasms like a string of firecrackers. Other women can come repeatedly, but they need to get there each time. Some come and then they need space. I knew that much. I didn’t know which kind she was, and she was snakey enough I didn’t want to risk it.

What was that?

I couldn’t believe it. Her first orgasm, I knew it then, but she admitted it later. She was a horny little mink, Leo had got her going so many times but had never gotten her off. She’d rub herself but never quite get there. This was her first. I kissed and asked if it was good.

Oh yeah.

Want another?

Oh yeah.

So I crawled down between her legs, and started licking her pussy.

I looked up, and she was watching me, head lifted, she had the strangest expression.

That’s disgusting what you’re doing. It’s not right.

I’m sorry, do you want me to stop.

No.

Afterwards, we cuddled and kissed. I asked if she wanted to go down on me.

No way!

Okay.

So we played around more, french kissing and dry humping like mad women. She fingered me, and I talked dirty about how it felt, just to guide her. She absolutely loved my breasts.

Then her face was between my legs, staring as she finger fucked me.

She pulled her fingers out. I reached down, pulling my lips apart, exposing my clit.

She looked up at me for a moment, strangest expression I ever saw.

Then she licked me.

It’s really weird, she wasn’t that good, but it made me happy that she was doing it. Not because she was servicing me. But it felt like I was giving something to her. Offering up my clitoris for her, letting her have something she’d never had before. I was careful not to speak, not to twitch or moan, I just let her do it.

It didn’t last long, she went back to using her fingers, and I came and I didn’t hide it at all.

Then afterwards.

This doesn't mean I'm a Liz-bo.

No it doesn't.

Don't mention this to anyone, ok, not even Leo.

I won't.

Ok. I got to get going. The minute she said that, it was as if she couldn’t wait to get away. She was in her clothes and out the door so fast she was practically running.

There were two beers left in the six pack. American beer, pfft. She’d had one, and I had three while we were leading up to it. So I finished the last three off. It was enough for a light buzz, which told me I still wasn’t a hundred per cent. Still, it was nice to be alone and relaxed and a little drunk.

I remember thinking, after she left, that she was really fucked up.

I was pretty sure she’d come to visit me open to the possibility of this happening. I hadn’t raped her, and when it had been going on, she’d been into it. But she was strange and fierce and all fucked up inside, with this rattlesnake temper, and she was a genuine homophobe. Oh and she definitely didn’t like me, that was pretty damned clear.

So yeah, that this happened at all? Totally fucked up situation. I decided it was a major mistake. Bad judgment on my part.

I wondered if she'd ever talk to me again. Like, denial that huge, homophobe like she was, repressed and Christian like they all were, she might decide I was her worst enemy. I thought it over, and it seemed to me that this had been a huge mistake.

The next time I saw her, she wasn't especially friendly, but not really hostile or psycho or anything, which I thought was as good as I was going to get. I hoped that was the end of it.

Like, around here, they'd tell each other stories about beating up mo's and liz-bo's with ax handles.

A couple of nights later, she knocked at my door again. She must have been waiting for me, because I'd just gotten back from going out with a guy to the quarry. She just rushed in and shut the door, locking it. I swear, she was so nervous, she practically wanted to look under the bed. Her attitude was a lot different than the last time. I think, it was because she was more honest. Last time, she could just tell herself she was coming over to drink beer and 'shoot shit'. This time, she didn't really have an excuse, she just wanted.

She practically climbed me, telling me all the while, she was no Liz-bo, and I'd better not say different. The sex was amazing, she was unbelievably hungry, it was like she wanted to swallow me whole, like she couldn't get enough. Her body literally crackled under my touch, she was like white trash lightning in bed, and she'd go practically incandescent.

Just cause I let you lick me, that don't mean I'm a Liz-bo, she told me, as I went down on her. Oh she just loved that. Nobody went down on girls around her, and it sent her totally around the bend.

She had this really thick long tangle of pubic hair, after our first time alone together, I'd asked to crop it, and she'd let me. I think she liked it, my working with scissors down there. Not just cutting it, but touching her.

I think women like to be petted. I mean, we go to hairdressers, and we get manicures and pedicures, facials, massages, and waxings. But really, I think its that we live in a no-touch society, and we have this need to be touched, to have the intimacy of touching. So we pay for all this expensive 'allowed touching.' So, I think that's what it was for Ruth, she liked the touching, the petting, she liked the non-sexual part of grooming down there.

And she really liked getting licked.

Every time we got together, she'd have me crop her closer. Eventually, I just shaved her bald. She was sort of panicked about what Leo would think.

But he loved it. And he spread the word. Within a day, like three people told me Ruth had shaved herself, it was like big news. I was surprised it didn't wind up on the front page of the paper.

That was actually kind of frightening, to realize how fast gossip could move like wildfire. I mean, this was just silly sexy stuff. But if it was ever toxic, like dangerous nasty stuff, I mean, someone could get really hurt.

She also liked to crop me. I think she just liked to look. I mean, it was like looking at her own cunt, it was kind of discovering. Women don't really get to look at themselves, not unless you want to contort like a pretzel with a mirror. She was endlessly fascinated with my cunt, and she liked to lick it and play with it.

Totally loved my red hair down there. It was so exotic. I don’t get that actually. For me, it’s... meh. Always been like that. But for some people, it’s... I dunno. Magic or something.

You're turning me into a Liz-bo she said one time, as she went down on me.

Analingus just set her right off. Rimming isn't my favorite thing. Like, its unhygienic and most people don't keep clean enough, and most people have hairs there, so its like kissing a guy with a mustache except gross. The times I've done it and liked it, have been with very smooth people. But Ruth, man, it would set her off, she'd go wild on it, and I loved her reaction. She'd just squeal with this utter delight and kick her legs and just go crazy. It would just blow her away. She'd never heard of anything like that, never even imagined it in her wildest dreams and she'd literally just quiver afterwards. I pushed my tongue in for her, and that's the only time I ever did that for anyone.

One night, she just said, 'fuck em.'

I asked her what she meant.

Fuck em, she said again. Fuck boys, fuck their smelly trucks, and their smelly cocks. Fuck em. She said it with real loathing, it was almost frightening.

She hated them. Actually, she hated everything. She hated her whole life, it was unbearable to her. She said once, it was like she was skinned alive, and they'd put the skin on inside out.

Ruth was the most claustrophobic person I'd ever met. She just seethed with this suppressed rage, with this anxiety, with tension. She didn't like where she was, she couldn't stand it. It made her crazy. She was stuck in this dead end existence in this nowhere town and with no past of her own and no future to look forward to. She lived in a trailer park with her mother and her mothers series of boyfriends, and maybe she'd get some shit job, but sooner or later, she'd be knocked up and living in some shit trailer with shit kids and it would all be going nowhere.

She wanted out so desperately, she would have gnawed through wood.

But there was no way out. I mean, I'd done my rebellion and kind of went into this personal hell. But she didn't even have that. Even rebellion around here, it was in a rut. The rebellion rut, leading nowhere. There was practically an official manual, it was practically formalized, you could rebel into being a nowhere drunk, or a nowhere slut, or get holy rolling nowhere god. All paths lead to the wasteland.

So there she was, stuck in a life that gave her no pleasure, which made her crazy.

Do you ever watch Jerry Springer? I started when I was back home in school. Ruth was like a Jerry Springer person. She was just totally trapped, seething under all this immense pressure inside. She hated her life, hated it passionately and intensely. Just like the Springer people. They all seem to be just barely contained rage on that show, a discontent that just boils under the surface, looking for a way to spew high pressure.

No matter who it is on that show, the one who's dumped, or the one dumping or the new flame, they're all angry, all just kind of holding it in. I think, that when you're that intensely trapped in a life you can't stand, under all that pressure, its like pinhole cracks happen, and all the energy just kind of spurts out and takes this bizarre form, so its like transvestite lesbian undertakers. It's not that's who they really are, that's just where it cracked and where they got driven. But they're still in immense pressure, so they still aren't happy.

That was the thing with Springer, you'd see these people, they'd left their relationship, they'd come out, or found someone knew, and they still weren't happy. They still just had that rage boiling. Whatever they'd done, it had released a little pressure, but it hadn't dissipated the rage, it was dammed up, not abated.

She told me once that she used to fantasize about burning down her Mom's trailer. Or taking a rifle to school and just start shooting everyone. She seemed to want to confide in me. I think it was because I wasn't part of the nowhere existence. I was from somewhere else, I was someone who'd broken out, who'd travelled to magical places like Tucson, Chicago, Duluth, Canada.

I was a Liz-bo and a Who-er. Her personal Liz-bo and Who-er. I was foreign. I was this tiny window in her life that she could see out of the hellhole into. No wonder she just climbed me with such intensity, or why her sex was so live wire. I think she gave me the best sex of her life.

I sympathized with her. I mean, I saw into her inner life. How could I not feel for her. She was practically the only one I knew out there who had an inner life.

Or maybe they all did, have inner lives, and she was just the only one I got a look into.

I loved her. I mean, I really loved her. Not just infatuation, I’d had those. I saw her clearly, saw her flaws, I didn’t idealize her.

We could never show it in public. Like I said, this part of the world, they joked about beating gays with ax handles. Or shoving a baseball bat up some Liz-bo cunt to teach her a lesson. There were scare stories about ho-mo or liz-bo making passes and how disgusting it was. So yeah, we were on the down low.

It was only there in my room when she came to visit, that we could be honest about it. We could breathe. She could be herself. She’d cling to me sometime, like a sailor clinging to a mast in a stormy sea. And I’d see her true self, all wildfire energy and passion and need. We had something unique, something I’d never had before.

But she scared me too. I mean, I'd finally met someone who was more fucked up than I was, and it was breathtaking. I was the only person who even came close to understanding how on the edge she was.

I mean, geez.

She wanted to leave so desperately, she could taste it. But at the same time, she was terrified of leaving. I didn't quite understand why, but then now I think that was more me than her. As bad as it was, she was rooted down and tied down. Me, I had nothing, I'd burned all my bridges in one hellish night. She'd never had a night like that, where she just burned away her life. Instead, she had death by army ants, a thousand stings and never ever one big thing enough to set her free.

Phoenix was her shining city on the hill. I wanted to know why.

She said it was the legend, a bird that every hundred years would set itself on fire and go out in a blaze of glory, and then get reborn all new and pure. She'd loved that all through growing up as a little girl. I think when the rest of us were drawing pictures of horses and unicorns, she was making phoenixes. It was her big metaphor, the blueprint of what she wanted from life. She wanted to just burn away her old life, leave it behind, and get reborn somewhere else.

I told her about Seattle, my shining city.

Of course, she shit all over that, because she was... Ruth.

What did I know about Seattle? What was in Seattle?

Actually, I didn't know much. It was on the coast, it rained a lot, it had music, it was where Curt Cobain and Courtney Love, Nirvana and Hole came from.

That was it. I realized I'd just appropriated Lee's dream, and that it wasn't really my own. That kind of tarnished it for me, for a while.

So we talked Phoenix, and made plans to go.

Actually, we didn't make plans. We talked about it at night, cuddling sometime. Going

together to Phoenix. She wasn't a plan making kind of girl, and we weren't really together. Our moments were late night couplings, a secret from everyone except maybe Norman and Alice. I didn't think they knew, but one time, Alice said something, and now I wonder about that.

She wasn't really a friend. I mean, not like Kerry. Kerry was a best friend, and we'd plan and do stuff together.

Ruth. Ruth was like this - when I was still in junior high school, there was a fair or a festival or something. The fire station had an open house, and they had fire hoses and they'd let you shoot water into the harbor from the hoses. So, I went for it, and a fireman helped me hold the hose. It was rigid in my hands, just canvas, but stretched completely taut and rock hard by this immense water pressure coursing through it. The hose kicked and twisted in my grip, all the pressure surging and racing through, and if we weren't holding it, it would have gone whipping around all over the place, out of control.

That was what Ruth was like.

But her restlessness rubbed off on me. I think I was going to leave sooner or later. It was just too fucking boring to stay. But one night, at dinner with Norman and Alice, I said, "I'm going to be going in two weeks." I sort of surprised myself by deciding it right there. They asked me where. I said "Phoenix."

Ruth bought a pickup truck. Man, it was a piece of junk. But she was proud of it. She came and picked me up, it was the middle of the day and I had to take off work, but that was okay. We drove for an hour, then out on some dirt road in the middle of nowhere, she pulled off to the side and we had sex, her white trash lightning sizzling around the cab. Afterwards, as we were getting dressed, our clothes all sweaty and rumpled, I wanted to roll down the window, but she wouldn't let me. The cab was thick with our smell, the smell of our cunts, our excitement, our wetness. The smell of sex and sweat and orgasm.

She wanted to breath it in, she said. She just wanted the smell of us to soak right into the torn plastic and exposed foam rubber of the seats, of the finishings, of the floor rug. She wanted to smell us every time she drove.

It was a weird speech, I had the feeling she rehearsed it. I could almost see her, laying on her bed in the trailer, while her mom fucked her latest boyfriend, writing it out laboriously. Tongue tucked between her teeth, working out some private ritual, writing down words, crossing some out. Trying to make some secret ceremony that would only make sense to her.

Or maybe not. I'm just guessing. But I wouldn't be surprised.

It would be fitting, I guess, to say that was the last time we made it together. But it wasn't, actually it was somewhere in the middle, I guess. But it just sort of seems better to write about it here.

Ruth chickened out of course.

We had a falling out. She decided she hated me. I represented the outside, and it scared her. Much as she hated where she was, she was scared of being somewhere else.

We made up.

We broke up again. I was sick of her whole yo yo thing. It wasn't much of an affair really. We only made it a handful of times, always late at night, except for the one time in the truck, when she was almost 'out' about it. It was really, a pretty tiny spot in a long slow dullness. She was conflicted and fucked up and full of intensity.

I picked a day to go, I had some money saved up. Not much, but enough I guess. Norman called some people and found me a place in Phoenix, a rooming house. It wasn't much, but you know, it was safe and cheap. I could live there while I looked for a job.

Ruth and I were on the outs when I left. It wasn't a big deal, just a spat in our fucked up non-relationship.

But she didn't come to see me off or anything. That hurt, And it made me more determined to leave.

And deep down, I think I wanted her to just put off all her stupid moodiness and fire-bitch attitude and just come with me. I mean fuck it, Phoenix was her dream, not mine. Get the message, bitch!

So fine, fuck you. Be that way, I’ll go anyway.

Come and find me out there, if you want.

Please.

A bunch of other people said byes in the last couple of days. Louisa gave me a cheap rosary for luck. I guess she felt obligated, we'd been kind of like sisters for a while, in a pretend family. But we weren't really close or anything.

Norman and Alice drove me to the greyhound together after supper one night and I hugged them both. I couldn't wait to leave, you know, but at the same time, it hurt to say goodbye to them. I don't know if they were really good people or not, but I think they were. I think they were special people, and they treated me like a daughter, and if things were different, I'd have liked to be that daughter. But you know, I think there was a lot of pretend in it, and its not good to take it to far.

Sometimes, you should just let them last as long as they last.

They stayed and waved as the bus pulled out. I waved back from inside the bus. But I'm not sure if they saw me. And I was on the way to Phoenix.

I didn't last long in Phoenix, it kind of sucked in major ways. But I kept in touch with Norman and Alice, just to let them know I was doing all right.

Sig closed his little shop a few years ago. Louisa got some sort of immigrant status, but I don't know much about that.

Ruth left town eventually, I knew she would. She came back a few times. I knew she'd do that too. But she always left.

She asked about me which was nice, and she got my addresses and numbers from them. I said that was okay. She gave them a couple of phone numbers, but I'd never get around to calling until the line was disconnected. I don't really know much about what happened to her.

I look back, and my big memories of that time was sleeping a lot. Even when I was awake, it felt like I was sleeping. Basically, I lucked out. I mean, I'm pretty sure I would have wound up somewhere and pulled myself together. But there's plenty of bad things that could have happened, I was really at my most vulnerable.

It's funny, but I like the bits and pieces of it, I loved Alice and Norman and even Sig and definitely Ruth, the quarry, once I got used to it, was a funky place to make out, and even the television wasn't that bad. Line dancing was sort of fun, when you got into it. There were lots of good people and good moments.

But overall, I find I think about it like a long dead spot in my life, a dull pass on the road. I dunno why, maybe cause that was just who I was then. Maybe if I was more mature, I might have liked it more, found a reason to stay.

Fuck, look at me. I still feel a little guilty about leaving.

But I think that was a good thing, in the end. The right thing.

Oh, and I meant to talk about this earlier. I looked it up about the Phoenix, years later. Ruth had it all wrong. The Phoenix builds its nest and incinerates itself, yeah. But it doesn't get reborn. Instead, the fire hatches the egg it's laid, and that allows the new baby Phoenix to get born.

NOTE: At the time this all happened I was of legal age, just for the record.

ALSO: This was all written about twenty years ago, when I was back in Hamilton and going to university. I started writing porn on this list, like shit I had done, and that kind of evolved into this. Sorry if its not hot enough. I'll post scorching stuff later. I just wanted to share this. Sorry if its a bit rough.