I find my table and canopy set up and ready to go. I paid extra to have everything prepared, so all I had to do was place my tablecloth on the table and line up my ten creations with my cash box. It’s supposed to be hot today, so I brought my rechargeable clip-on fan, clamp it to the table, and turn it on low before sitting in my cushioned metal chair.
Multiple shoppers pass my table without a second glance once the clock strikes ten. I keep checking my phone, waiting for my mom to send me a message checking on me. When I glance down at the phone a third time, a shadow darkens the space before me. “Hi,” a man’s voice says. “Did you make these?”
I can’t help but scan his outlandish and eccentric outfit. His sunglasses are tinted purple, and his bright floral scarf seems out of sorts on such a hot day. He lifts the raccoon skull from the table, his black painted fingernails gripping the edge tightly so as not to drop it. He studies its detail, every inch of it, before resting it on the table. “Wow. I love it.” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a wallet wrapped in duct tape. “The name, Scarce, is spot on. Great work.” He removes a fifty-dollar bill from his wallet and passes it to me. “I’ll take it. Do you have a box?” My jaw hangs open. Here, I thought I priced my art too high, but the amount of time it took me to make them seemed appropriate at the time. Now this man’s eagerness to whip out his walletand drop fifty on my dead raccoon has me second-guessing my prices. Maybe I’m better at this than I thought.
“You’re my first sale,” I say to him, unable to stop my grin as I place the raccoon gingerly in a box.
He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his long, pointy nose and says, “Well, I won’t be the last after I show your work to my colleagues.”
Colleagues. Is he an art professor?
I pass him his box as another man stands beside him, uncomfortably close. He holds his business card out to me and shifts away from the intrusive customer beside him. “Here’s my card. If you want to visit my table, I’m down there.” He points to a purple and black canopy with a sign dangling from its opening. “I’m Ethan, and my business name is Ethan’s Oddities and Eccentrics.”
The card slides from between his fingers as the man beside him removes it and places it on the table. “She gets it, buddy. Now, move on.”
Ethan takes one last look at me before storming away, taking his raccoon with him.
“That was rude,” I say to the man, placing my hands on my hips as I stand. The man ignores me. I study his face as he picks up every one of my pieces and sets them back on the table. His skin is flaky and dry with acne scarred pits, and he smells like day-old booze and unwashed armpit. The front of his jeans is torn at the knee. His eyes, dark and sinister, creep across the table to me and land on my cleavage. “So, beautiful.”
I pull the front of my V-neck up and place my knuckles on the table. “Which one do you want to buy?”
He leans forward, placing his knuckles in front of mine, his fierce and lust-filled gaze piercing through me. “None.” He pushes off the table, shaking it. I grip the edge as he slideshis hands in his front pockets, purses his lips and strolls away, whistling an unfamiliar tune.
“Fucking creep,” I murmur to myself.
A woman wearing a long rainbow dress, her blonde hair pulled back in a matching headband, floats to my table. She picks up the mouse display, my smallest of all of them, and her eyes light up. “I can name him Mr. Jingles.”
“You sure can,” I say with a smile as she pulls out a crumpled twenty from inside her cleavage and passes it over to me. I unfurl the moist, sweaty bill and shove it to the bottom of the pile in my cash box. After boxing it up for her, I wait until she’s far enough away before loading up on hand sanitizer.
The first couple of hours go by fast before I fall into a lull. It’s noon, so a lot of people are probably hanging out closer to all the food tents on the other side of the fairgrounds. I reorganize my table and make it look more presentable. A sudden feeling of uneasiness washes over me, and I freeze. I peer up from my table and glance around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
I shrug off the feeling as my bladder screams for release. I’ve been holding the large glass of orange juice I drank this morning in too long. I see the sign at the corner of a building in the distance for restrooms, place myBe back in ten minutes cardon the table, and head in that direction.
When I round the corner, a row of portable toilets with long lines waiting in front of each one comes into view.
Now, not everyone knows this, but when I was a kid, my parents would bring me to the fair, and they never let me use these toilets. ‘They’re gross and unsanitary,’ my mom would say. They would sneak me into an area that was always roped off and marked as off-limits, where employees and the police department had their own set of cleaner, more private bathrooms. I steer to the right of the line of women and head toward the bleachers that overlook the dirt track where horseracers and monster truck shows are held. Beneath the bleachers, a gate encircles the entire area, except for a small opening with a chained-off entrance and a sign that reads ‘No Entry’.
I detach the chain, slide inside and reattach it before scurrying toward the symbol painted on the door for the women’s bathroom. The moment my ass hits the seat in the wide-open and spacious handicap bathroom, urine rushes out of me, and I moan in relief. I sit there briefly before smacking myself in the forehead. I left my fucking phone on my table. If someone steals it, my mom’s going to kill me. I quickly flush and hike up my capris before slamming the door open. A hand catches it, and my eyes widen as the rude man from my table earlier enters the bathroom, a glass bottle wrapped in brown paper sticking out of his grasp.
“What the fuck?”
I barely have time to get the words out before he backs me into the stall and slams the door closed, throwing the lock into the secure position. He turns to me with a devious smile on his face. “Hey there, beautiful.” He wipes his lips with his sleeve. “Want to have some fun?”
His smile widens, revealing a row of yellow-stained teeth.
“Eww. Not a fucking chance.” I push past him, my hand just reaching the lock when my head yanks backward, his fingers tightening around my hair, sending pain across my scalp. I dig my nails into the back of his hand, and he yelps, throwing the bottle of booze on the ground, shattering it into a million pieces. I back away from him as his eyes darken to black orbs.
“Get the fuck away from me,” I yell, putting my hands up to keep him from getting closer.
He slaps my hands away and presses his body against mine. “You’re so fucking beautiful. I bet your pussy smells like heaven.” His hand presses between my abdomen and capris. I ram my head forward, striking his nose with an audible crunch.Rage fills his eyes as blood drains down from his nostrils onto his clenched teeth. “You’re going to regret that.”
I cover my head as he swings, his fist landing sharply against my temple. I stagger sideways and flail over the toilet, the blow sending stars dancing across my eyes.
“Mastyx!” I shout without thinking.
The man’s hand wraps around my throat and squeezes. “Who’s that, your boyfriend?” His grip tightens, and I slap his arm frantically, trying to gulp even a tiny bit of air as he forces me to the floor with one hand and unbuttons his jeans with the other. “He can’t stop the pounding I’m about to give you. They thought prison would change me.” He rambles on, his zipper clicking slowly down, revealing stained white Fruit of the Looms underwear. “But all they did was make my appetite grow. Now you get to be my first—my first in ten years.”
Oh my God. He’s a fucking rapist. A rapist fresh out of prison with nothing but lost time since the last time he took what he wanted from an unsuspecting woman. I grip the top of my pants, holding them tight with both hands. “No!” I scream in his face.
