“At least I try. Better than looking placid all the time. You’re like a loaf of American white bread. Bland, tasteless, and secretly sweet in a way you don’t really want.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I’m not yelling, but I can feel my temper being pushed to its edge.
“Whatever you want it to mean.”
There’s more silence as I try to figure out why he’s so good at getting under my skin, before I give up and change the topic instead.
“We’re going to a strip club.”
“Oh la la,” Fallow says, but I cut him off before he can spew more bullshit.
“It’s technically our territory, but the Aryans have been making a play for it. I’m trying to show up there in person as much as possible to remind them who they belong to.”
“That doesn’t sound like human trafficking at all,” he says with a hum, looking out the window, a hard edge to his expression.
I try not to sigh with exasperation for the thousandth time today.
“It’s not, actually. We run a clean place. We have fucking standards, which means we run drugs and guns, and nothingelse. Well, technically also brothels, but all our girls are there by choice and they’re all fucking adults. That’s where the line is drawn. Unlike the Aryans, who really do use this shit as a front for human trafficking.”
Fallow is looking at me again, but the hardness to his expression hasn’t changed.
“Do you want a prize for being the most moral criminal or something? You know my father would murder you if he caught you trafficking, anyway.”
“As if he’s not going to kill me anyway. You’ll make sure of that. I might as well stick to my own ethics in the meantime.”
His eyes narrow, but he stays silent for once.
Minutes pass. Then tens of minutes. The strip club is a ways out of town behind a truck stop on the interstate, so it’s a lot of flat, empty landscape and wide empty roads, nothing to distract me from my enigmatic passenger.
“Did you know that alligators’ dicks are always erect?”
His voice finally splits the tension, and I’m so shocked at my own palpable relief that I barely hear what he said at first.
“What?”
“Their dicks. They’re always hard. They just sit there inside their bodies and pop out when they need them, then get sucked back in.”
He’s not looking at me, but I don’t need to see his face to know that he’s not teasing me anymore. It seems to be his favorite pastime. I make a point of not looking at him either.
“Can you imagine having a permanent hard-on?” He says, his voice getting a little lower and more seductive. “I’d go completely mad. No wonder they’re so aggressive.”
“Are you telling me your constant horniness doesn’t drive your bloodlust? Because I’ve seen you killing, and it’s pretty fucking sexual, if you ask me.”
There’s a pause, but I refuse to look at him. Even when his breath gets louder and hitchier, like he’s making a point of how turned on he is.
“Maybe. Or maybe you just think everything I do is sexual because of how much I turn you on.”
The words are accompanied by a faint wet sound, so I finally break and look at him.
And of course. There he is, dick in hand, slowly moving his foreskin back and forth so the pink, glistening head is peeking out.
At first, I’m too shocked to say anything. Then I’m abruptly aware of the sensation of leather under my fingers, and I remember I’m holding a steering wheel because I’m fucking driving.
“Fallow, what the fuck? This is not the goddamn time.”
I’m not looking, but I can hear him snort and pick up the pace a little, the sounds becoming more slick and less subtle.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his voice the living embodiment of seduction.
