I only grab her in the first place to get done arguing quickly, but she makes a shrill squeal like a wildcat and starts fighting me off. Chitto doesn’t bother to open the door and Damara’s ruckus activates three of the brown stray dogs orbiting Oske’s trailer.
The barking dogs bounce around us like they can’t tell if we’re fighting or playing, but they want in on the action. Damara breaks free from me, but she doesn’t make it far before I wrap my arms around her waist and drag her down the rickety stairs towards my bike.
She screams bloody murder and begs Chitto for help, but he only comes to the window to shut the curtains. Just when I think he has nothing in common with his sister…
Damara calms her ass down a couple hours into our westward ride from the Creek Reservation. The old Route 66 highway reminds me of the best weeks of my life from my childhood and teenage years. Unlike the rest of the boys in the club, I spend most of my time away from the family and those long rides intothe preserved American South West make me feel like a real cowboy…
It’s a ten hour ride to Santa Fe. After five hours, I need proper food and rest. Damara refuses to go to Cracker Barrel, and I oblige her request for a place that “isn’t named after a cracker”, and we end up at a no-name Texas steakhouse a few miles off Route 66, North of Lubbock but not particularly close to it, except by Texan standards.
“This is kind of like our first date,” I joke to Damara when the friendly red-haired hostess seats us at a booth table.
“What would I be doing dating a young white boy like you?” she says with the same disdain she had before.
She acts like she wouldn’t jump into bed with me again if she could. She might need to calm down a little bit, but after a couple nights out in Santa Fe, Damara will beg for my cock.
Chapter Eight
Damara
The only reason I don’t fight Magnum off with every ounce of my power is because dinner is downright delicious and when we pull up at his place in Santa Fe, I start to think that this man has some money. I’m half-asleep but the neighborhood is pretty peaceful around 2 a.m. Wow. I didn’t expect Magnum to live in a place this fancy. There’s no one selling weed at the corner. No mysterious kids in diapers.
The neighborhood is the type of nice that makes me instantly uncomfortable – like I don’t have the look. Magnum doesn’t seem uncomfortable, even as he leads me to an apartment in a gated luxurious complex that seems far too green for downtown Santa Fe.
He’s too tired to make a move on me. We stumble into the bathroom after the long ride, wash our faces, swish mouthwash around and Magnum grunts, “You’re staying in my room.”
I’m too tired to fight him and he’s too tired to make a move. The worst that can happen between us already happened, so I might as well climb into bed with him when I can tell he’s too tired to do anythingtoofucking crazy to me.
I just have to trust him, which scares the crap out of me, but appears to be the only option unless I would rather liveon the streets than snuggle up to Magnum with his terrifying, but weirdly attractive form. I’ve always had a thing about problematic white boys and as time presses on, I don’t seem to be getting any better about it.
I don’t remember the moment my head hits the pillow, but I fall asleep within seconds. When I wake up in the morning, I face the grim realization that I just ran away from my problems again, letting this incident with Magnum give me an excuse to wake up underneath a white man and let that be my reason to escape.
Tamiya thinks I have everything in my life under control, but nothing could be further from the truth. Some people find it easy to discover what they’re meant to be doing in life and who they’re meant to be. Nobody looks at a forty-two-year-old woman and feels anything but pity for her if she was never sure about marriage and kids. I’ve never felt like that type.
I like pink hair and my freedom, especially after spending my youth healing from one fucked up boyfriend after another. I guess I thought that everything would fall into place for me eventually the way it did for my friends, even ones from my fucked up, unstable circumstances. I might just be too sensitive for this world and all the pain it’s brought me, and that’s all well and good, but the world isn’t kind to sensitive people.
The man next to me grunts like a beast, knocking me back into reality and away from the existential thoughts that rush into my head whenever I climb into bed at night. Forty-two is two years over forty, which feels significant. I thought I would have a white picket fence and two kids at this point in my life. I don’t even have a boyfriend or a savings account.
Magnum didn’t exactly kidnap me, but this half-kidnapping at least gives me a distraction from the fact that I’ve beendrugged and I could possibly be pregnant with this absolute beast’s baby. My life was already falling apart and this terrible situation is messed up beyond belief. Shit was spiraling for me on the outside, and maybe switching things up will help. I’m tired of the daycare grind. Maybe I would be happier hanging around kids all day if I had one of my own, but I’m tired of getting up and slogging through dirty diapers.
I don’t know what I was thinking. I never had a maternal instinct, so maybe I should have known, but I thought helping children would fix a part of me that remains dead. I lived a tragic story. I want to let it go. I just can’t seem to find that lightness within me.
I feel trapped – too afraid to leave Tamiya behind, but unable to live the life she wants me to live close to her and her husband forever.
At least here… I just have to worry about the big brutal biker I sort-of allowed to have sex with me. We have the mystery to solve of who the hell drugged us, which will keep me busy for a few more weeks. I’ll take this little sabbatical and when Magnum kicks me to the curb, I’ll use that as motivation to get my shit together. I’ll have to apologize to Tamiya for leaving the daycare behind with nothing but a few employees and a list of instructions, but honestly, if they just hired a manager, the daycare wouldn’t even need me.
I’m just saying.
“I can tell you’re awake,” he says in a deep, honestly terrifying voice. Okay, and? I don’t answer him, because we aren’t doing pillow talk when I could take this opportunity to have an extra thirty minutes of sleep. I donotwant to face the state of my hair right now. Magnum’s hand cups my ass cheek and he squeezes,instantly snapping me out of my sleep and ruining my fantasy that I could possibly get any peace in this man’s presence.
Wasn’t sharing dinner with him bad enough? He kept pretending to be all sweet and romantic, like we were really on a date just because he accidentally had sex with me. I wasn’t very impressed by one little date – even if I ate a lot.
“Are you cupping my ass?” I snap at Magnum, too scared to make a sudden movement, but hoping my sharp tone stops him from having a full on grope of my behind.
“Does it feel like I’m doing something else?” he asks, taking both hands and jiggling my ass cheeks together. The nerve of this man.
“I’m not your girlfriend. I’m trying to sleep. And we still have to solve our interpersonal issues. So touching my ass doesn’t seem like a smart idea.”
“From your perspective,” he says.
