Against the Wind (3 page)

“Where you going?” Her voice is deeper, huskier than it ought to be, askew with the rest of the package.

“Any place your little heart desires.”

“Old Adobe Motel. On the East Side?”

“You visiting?”

She shakes her head. She’s drunk; she stumbles, catches herself. “I’m not drunk.”

“Didn’t say you were.”

“I work there. They give me a room. It’s got a kitchenette and all.” She takes a deep breath. “I need fresh air.”

They kick over their motorcycles, eardrum-splitting exhaust blasting the stillness. After two in the morning and it’s still blisteringly hot. She climbs on behind Lone Wolf, wrapping her arms around him, laying her head against his colors. He can feel her nipples through the denim; he hasn’t been laid in three days, it’s an instant hard-on, this is going to be all right.

The motel’s on the right, a block ahead past the light. $24 a night. Adult cable. The neon sputters.

“That’s it!” she yells into his hair over the blast coming from the wind, pointing. “Pull in behind the back, the manager don’t like bikers, especially ones like you. I got two quarts of Lone Star stashed in the refrig.”

They roar through the intersection against the red, not even slowing as the motel flashes by.

“Hey where you going? You just passed it.”

“No shit.”

She turns, looking back. The motel recedes behind her, its sputtering neon blending with the halogens spread out along the highway. For a moment she feels fingers of fear, making her want to pee; then they’re gone, swallowed up in the pool of whiskey that’s still sloshing around in her belly.

By the bikers’ standards it’sa short train; there are only the four of them, and they only fuck her twice apiece. Lone Wolf does her first, of course. He’s the leader, he gets the prime cut, the good loving: french-kissing and full-in deep-throating. She doesn’t know what’s coming, that’s how drunk she is, by the time she figures out it wasn’t what she wanted it’s way too late, she’s along for the ride, floating above it all. Drunk or sober she knows the way you survive this is to let it happen and pretend it isn’t. They have a knife out for show, a mean pig-sticker, but they don’t have to even threaten to use it, except to pick their fingernails. She’s a good girl: compliant and tight where it counts.

They’re up in the Sangre de Crista Mountains, almost to the top. Down below, the lights of Santa Fe shimmer in the heat. The bikers drop some uppers, red hearts, 30-milligram h-bombs. They can’t sleep, they’ve got a day’s ride yet ahead of them, they’ve got to stay alert.

“Come here, girl.” Lone Wolf pulls Rita to him, his back against a boulder, looking down at the lights. She sulks at first, but she knows not to piss him off too bad so she comes over and cuddles, her back in his chest. Her pussy hurts like hell, she’s going to walk like a cowgirl for a week.

He fires up a joint. They pass it back and forth.

“That was nice. You’re a good lady. I could get to like you.”

“Me too.” She’ll say whatever he wants to hear. She’s frightened, exhausted, hurting. She’s been getting over a yeast infection and didn’t have enough lubrication; they tore her up good.

“Maybe I could check you out next time I’m coming through. Just me you know?”

“Yeh that would be cool. I’d like that. By yourself I mean.” Tell him what he wants to hear.

“Yeh that’s what I mean.” He takes her chin in his hand, turns her face to his. “Nothing happened tonight. Did it?”

The obvious answer dies in her throat. “No,” she replies. “Nothing.” You didn’t fuck me, she says to herself, your friends didn’t fuck me, my pussy doesn’t feel like you blew up a cherry bomb in it. “You just dropped me off at my motel and I never saw you again.”

“Yeh.” His voice is soft, barely a whisper. “That’s how I remember it, too.”

He stands, pulls her to her feet. They all mount up, ride back into town. Rita clings to Lone Wolf’s back. They drop her at her motel, fuck her one more time apiece. She’s beyond resisting; she lies there and takes it.

It all becomes a blur; she remembers a banging on the wall, somebody shouting ‘Shut the fuck up in there,’ a guy she had gone out with was staying in that room, he had met some other guy earlier on at the Dew Drop who had claimed to be a dope dealer or something, one of the bikers had shouted back ‘fuck you.’ Finally, she passes out. She doesn’t know how much time has passed when, moaning in a bad-dream half-sleep, she finally hears their choppers roar off.

She wakes with a start, her armpits soaking. Outside it’sfull sun, a cloudless sky, so hot already the tarantulas are looking for shade. She walks through the dingy courtyard. She’s going to have to hose this down, it’s filthy, shit there’s condoms and everything. Right now though all she wants is to go back inside and lie down. God, her pussy aches.

Her friend Ellen, the other maid, is coming on shift. “Where you been?” Ellen asks.

“Don’t ask.”

“You look like shit.” She squints against the sun. “What happened to your eye? Damn girl, the left side of your face’s all stove in. Your eye’s practically swoll’ shut.”

“I’m okay.” Weary, so goddam tired. Got to be evasive, though. They find out she ran her mouth they’ll come back and retaliate. “I was out with some guys. We went up in the mountains.” She runs her tongue around in her mouth that feels like it’s packed in cotton, licks her dry lips. “Too much booze. I got to cut that shit out.”

“Tell me about it.”

They go into Rita’s room. She pops a tall boy, takes a swig to get the dryness out of her mouth, strips to her panties.

“Jesus Christ Rita!”

The front of her panties is stained with blood. She turns away, scared. She doesn’t want Ellen to know.

“Must be my period.”

“Your period bullshit. Nobody bleeds like that. You look like somebody knifed you or something.”

She comes closer, trying to get a better look. Rita spins away, pulls on a terry-cloth robe she copped from the Ramada from when she used to work there before they caught her stealing and canned her ass.

“Let me get a look at that.”

Rita’s too tired to argue. She stands passively while Ellen gently opens the robe and pulls down the soaked panties. They lie in a forlorn heap on the floor.

“Damn!”

“I’m all right. It looks worse than it is.”

“You got to go to a hospital.”

Rita jerks away, tightening the robe against her clammy body. God, she feels like shit. She’s got to get to sleep right now.

“No fucking way.”

Ellen backs off, looking at Rita suspiciously. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

Rita sits on the bed, taking a long pull from the Lone Star. “No big deal. I fucked a guy with a big dick.”

“Must’ve been Johnny Holmes from the looks of you. Seriously Rita you should get looked at.”

Rita shakes her head. “I been up all night, I got to conk out. If I’m still bleeding when I wake up, then I’ll go. Grab me a couple towels, would you?”

Ellen goes into the bathroom, comes out with two thin towels, the motel limit. Rita bunches them up, folds her legs around them. She lies down on her side, her face to the wall. “Cover for me a couple hours huh?”

“Sure. I’ll look in on you.”

“Thanks.” Rita smiles at her, rolls over into a ball. She pulls the covers up over her; it’s hot out, even this early, it’s going to be brutal, but she feels a chill coming on. She shivers involuntarily, feeling the wetness oozing out of her. Fuck the bikers, fuck Lone Wolf, she ain’t going to be here when they come back, no way Jose.

At least she can’t be pregnant.

Ellen takes a long pull from the Lone Star tall boy, sets it on top of the TV. As she closes the door behind her she sees Rita lying on the bed, already asleep, curled up into a tight ball like one of the homeless dogs you see down by the plaza.

P
ATRICIA OPENS THE DOOR.
She must’ve just come back from running; she’s still wearing a sweat-stained Santa Fe High School T-shirt, red with a blue devil on the front, Cornell-red sweat-pants with a white stripe on the leg, and off-white Nike running shoes with a red crescent on the sides, the kind with a see-through window in the heel that shows air bubbles. She’s a healthy woman, she runs four miles a day, works up a good sweat. Her breasts, underarms, thighs are soaked through her gear, there’s light ribbons of moisture on her upper lip and forehead under her sweatband. It’s appealing; she’s always had a good, athletic figure. We probably shouldn’t have gotten divorced. But we did, it was so long ago that it’s all amorphous now, shadow memory.

“Claudia’s at Paulette’s,” she informs me. “They’re making marionettes. It’ll be a few minutes yet. Come on in.”

It’s the same house we bought the year we got married; she could do better, but she stays, she likes the neighbors, it’s the best elementary school district in town, close to her office and Claudia’s after-school care.

She tosses me the sports section. “Do you want coffee? I brewed some fresh.”

“Since when are you drinking coffee?” I ask. She’s a health nut from way back.

“I’m not. I thought you’d like some.”

“Sure. Thanks.” I flop unceremoniously on the sofa, start leafing through the sports pages, looking for the baseball scores. It’s a nice little domestic scene being played out here, wife (okay, an ex) fixing hubby a fresh cup of coffee, daughter playing next door with her friend, the paper crisp and unwrinkled, the grass in the front yard is green and freshly mowed, the sky is blue with no prospects of rain; something’s weird here, I’ve been picking Claudia up Saturday mornings for eight years now and Patricia’s never offered me a cup of coffee, not once.

She places a coaster under the cup, sets it on the coffee-table in front of me.

“We’ve got to talk.” She sits next to me, but not close enough that we might accidentally touch. Hands folded between her knees, hunched slightly forward. Her shoulders are tense; I don’t know what it is, but it won’t be good. Then it hits me: she’s heard the truth behind my fake leave of absence from the firm, she’s worried about Claudia’s child support, the braces. Maybe, I indulge myself, she’s worried about me.

“Okay,” I say calmly, “shoot.” I take a casual sip; my body language is going to be cool, I’m a master of my emotions.

“I heard about your leave of absence,” she says.

I nod.

“I think it’s terrific. I wish to God I could.”

I shrug. “I’m not sure it’ll pan out.” I’ve got to be very careful here.

“If it doesn’t you can always go back ahead of schedule,” she says. “At least you’ve got something worth going back to,” she adds bitterly. “Your own practice.”

She hates her job. She’s an assistant District Attorney in the appeals division. Technical stuff; she’s never argued in front of a jury. She’s very good, they’d be lost without her: John Robertson, the D.A., her boss (who I drink with occasionally, even though we’re always on opposite sides of a case, him being the District Attorney and me a defense lawyer) tells me so all the time. She’s hated the job for years.

“I hate my job.”

“You’re great at it. Everyone says so.”

“Oh Robertson, that putz,” she exclaims with considerable irritation. “He’d praise an orangutan if it could take dictation and work overtime three days a week.”

“No, really.” Is that what this is all about? Some stroking? “Everyone knows you run the appeals division. Rodriguez is only a figurehead.”

“Great,” she rejoins. “That’s why he makes forty-seven-five and I’m stuck on thirty-five.”

“He’s due for retirement in a couple years,” I mollify her. “You’re a lock.”

“I don’t want to wait a couple years,” she says. “Will …” she massages her temples with her knuckles, hard enough to redden them, “I am almost forty years old.”

“You look great.”

“Thank you”; resentfully. She presses on. “I’m stuck in a dead-end job that I hate, I’m living in a house that I hate but I can’t afford to buy a new one, and …” here she takes a deep breath … “God, this is embarrassing …”

“What?” I’m alarmed; is she sick, has she caught some terrible disease, maybe something sexual? All these years I thought she stayed in the house because she loved it. It’s what she’s always told me.

“I haven’t had a man …” again, a long pause. She’s actually blushing, her neck is flushing. “I haven’t been laid in over a year,” she says to the ceiling.

The impulse is to offer my services, but that would be making light of it, not a clever move. I look at her; she’s a great-looking woman, what’s wrong with the men in this town? She can’t even get an occasional mercy fuck? That’s the problem; she couldn’t do it that way.

“So the guys in this town are a bunch of blind assholes or gay. So what else is new?”

“That’s the goddam point,” she says vehemently, turning to me. “That’s the whole goddam point; that and the fact that I’m going nowhere in my work. Zilch, zero, zip.”

“It’ll work out.” It’s a lame answer, but what else is there? I’m sorry she’s feeling bad, but right now I’ve got my own problems to deal with.

“That’s why I’m moving.”

The cup freezes halfway to my lips. I manage to put it back on the coaster without spilling it on the rug.

“To Seattle.” She’s on her feet, checking her watch, suddenly fascinated with the time. “I’d better call Claudia. I don’t want you to lose any of your week-end with her.”

“Whoa Nelly.” Now I’m on my feet, which are uncharacteristically shaky; my legs are turning to jelly. “What’re you talking about?”

“I didn’t know how to tell you.” She pulls off her sweat-band, stretches it into a figure eight. All of a sudden my head is light, I feel a rush of air through the room. I stare at her, my brain frozen.

“Simple English’ll do.”

“All right.” She inhales, gathering her forces. She’s very competent; if our history wouldn’t inevitably have gotten in the way I’d have brought her into the firm years ago; she and Andy’d make a great one-two behind-the-scenes punch. If they don’t take me back she can have my place; save them some money on repainting the door, not to mention cards and stationery.

“For the past year I’ve been sending out my résumé,” she says. “No big deal, everything on the q.t.; I was curious about my market value, I wanted to know if I had one.” She hesitates.