On the road again, heading back to the gas station. The fuel gauge is reading empty, but he is pretty sure they have just enough. They might not make it, but what the fuck. She’s small. She can steer while he pushes.
She is back to playing with her Zippo. Flicking it open, snapping it shut. Every time, she cuts poor Betti right in half. Right through the sternum. Betti doesn’t seem to mind, though.
“God I want a fucking smoke,” she says, as though he were to blame.
He can hear that edge in her voice. She has started to turn. Now that she has serviced his need, she is going to show him the other side of the coin. Turn him into an effigy to punish for someone else’s transgressions.
He is the asshole now. For not having refused her. For not being precisely what she wants. He has put a load into her, so now she gets to punish him for it. That is the transaction.
And he is going to let it happen. There is no other choice.
She’s sitting there, twirling her Zippo, staring at li’l devil Betti Page. Then, like she has read his mind, she says:
“Do you know about the succubi?”
“The what?”
“The succubi. They’re demons,” she says, smiling down at Betti in her lap.
He thinks about this.
“Isn’t it succubus? It’s a sexy woman demon, right? They suck men dry and kill them,” he says. He almost continues the thought, but shuts up just in time.
She smiles, knowing just where he was going.
“Yeah… that’s me. And you’re right! Good for you! You’re not as dumb as you look. One of these bitches is called a succubus. Succubi is the plural. And some people think they’re called that because they suck men dry, like you said. But that’s not it. Their name comes from the Latin. All the demons and devils have Latin names, right? In Latin, Succubus means, ‘to lie under.’”
She stares at him, waiting for him to acknowledge her superior knowledge.
“Huh. No shit,” he says, never looking away from the road.
They drive on. Eventually, though, his need to know more defeats his pride.
“So, these succubi, what do they do? They fuck men to death, right?”
“You got it!” she says proudly. “They are the most erotic of hell’s bitches. Imagine the best strippers, but even better, right? Because they fuck. And boy can they ever fuck. And they get with a man and make him cum again and again. And every time he does, he loses a little piece of his soul. A chunk of his mana, you know? His life force. And when that’s all gone, he dies. And there’s nothing left of him, in this life or the next. He’s just dust.”
She blows on her fingertips as she finishes her story, separating them with her breath.
“Huh. No shit,” he says, his heart now racing.
“Yeah. No shit. And do you know why they do this to men?” she asks, real soft.
“Well… they’re demons, right? That kinda shit is what demons do.”
“Sure. But some demons eat babies. Others skin men alive to make the drums of Hell’s legions. The succubi fuck men’s souls right outta them. But why are they doing that?” she asks.
“I dunno. I guess you’re gonna tell me, though.”
She leans out from her seat and puts her lips just by his ear. She whispers softly:
“That’s right. They do it for seed. You see, the succubi’s job is to gather the sperm of human men. They take it back to Hell inside their bodies. And do you know what happens then?”
“No,” he whispers, both hands clenched on the wheel.
“They give the sperm to the incubi. You’ve never heard of an incubus, have you? See, that’s just like society. It plucks the part about the hot bitches fucking up men, but leaves out the most important part.
“You see, demons and devils, they can’t have babies with humans. So what they do is, send a succubus to Earth, this mortal plane of ours, and they collect the sperm of a strong, desirable, powerful man. A man just like you. And then the succubus goes back to hell, and she fucks an incubus, which is a male demon just as sexy as she is. And what a fuck it must be, huh? Just imagine that. And while they are fucking, she injects the human sperm into him. Exact the reverse of what human men and women do. Of what you just did to me. And then the incubus goes back to Earth, and he seduces a good woman. And he puts that demon-tainted sperm into the human woman. And then she has a demon baby that’s free to walk the Earth and do Hell’s work.”
She pauses. Puts her hand on his upper arm. Squeezes his clenched muscles. Then, so gently, she licks his neck.
“And that, my friend, is the whole story.”
She sits back in her seat.
He drives on.
They reach the gas station on fumes.
The Gas and Grocery. Fireworks, cold beer, and ammo. The building is a one-story blight on the landscape. It has one concrete island with two pumps on it. First pump with two Regular nozzles. The other with one Supreme. The concrete posts protecting the pumps are barely holding on; scraped up and leaning from countless engagements. But you should get a load of the other guy.
He pulls up to Supreme and gives her a sideways look.
“You sure you have enough money. She has a big tank,” he says.
“Don’t you worry. I’m flush. But you should back up to the regular,” she says.
“Oh, what, you’re getting cheap on me now, huh?”
“I can pay for premium if you want, but you’ll still only be getting regular. Whatever the pumps are saying, it’s just the one tank of gas here. This guy is as crooked as his dick.”
He gives her a look. She smiles. He backs up to the Regular and shuts the car off. They get out of the car and take a minute stretching in their own ways, as though they have been driving for hours. With the car off, it is quiet. No traffic. No human sounds. Just some bugs clicking and chittering in the bushes.
He looks at the gas pump. It is dead. The little LCD screens are blank.
“Pay to pump, baby,” she says with a grin, miming a handjob in front of her mouth. “I’ll go take care of that.”
He watches her walk into the building. She struts like she is on a runway with the eyes of the world upon her. She pulls it off.
It takes a minute, but the gas pump on his side lights up with a hum inside. He fills her up slowly. It takes a while.
When he puts the nozzle back in its cradle, the pump shuts off automatically. Dead inside again. Pay to pump. How many people like that are wandering around?
Where is she? He looks over to the Gas and Grocery building. The window is opaque with filth. There’s no seeing inside. A new sign, though. Another cardboard missive in magic marker: BACK IN 30 MINS, stuck between the glass of the door and the steel bars behind it.
Pay to pump. How many different ways can that transact?
He gets back in the car to wait. Sits with the engine off, windows down, smelling the gasoline fumes. Like the perfume of an old lover. But better. Petroleum has never betrayed him.
A big pickup truck pulls up behind him. Immediately starts honking.
“Move! Come on! Fuckin move!” the guy behind the truck’s wheel yells, leaning out of his window.
Ahab starts the car and pulls away from the pump. Noses out into the road a bit and then backs up into the Gas and Grocery parking.
Truck asshole pulls up to the pump. It is a big, black fuckin truck with big fuckin wheels. Lift kit. Lots of aftermarket chrome. A big dick on wheels.
Backing up, Ahab notices the rock. About the size of a baby’s head. About the same shape too. He avoids running it over and parks in the space next to it. He opens the car door and picks up the rock. Leaves it in the driver’s seat as he gets out of the car. He shuts the door and leans back on it. Watches the asshole in the truck.
Truck Asshole gets out of his truck and comes around its front, leaving it running. Lights a cigarette as he does. Truck Asshole gives him stinkeye the whole way to the pump.
The pump is dead, of course. Pay to pump.
Truck Asshole goes back around his truck and honks his horn some more, this time at the absent attendant of Gas and Grocery. He really lays on that horn. Long and loud. Eventually, though, he must be annoying even himself, because he lays off. Comes back around the truck and glares at the, BACK IN 30 MINS, sign in the window.
Truck Asshole turns to him.
Ahab is still leaning on the car, open window right above his hip.
“Where the fuck is he? Were you waiting for gas?” Truck Asshole asks him.
He keeps staring at Truck Asshole.
Truck Asshole goes and pounds on Gas and Grocery’s door. Gives it a good rattle. Locked up tight.
“Where the fuck is he? I gotta get gas! I can’t make it to the highway.”
Ahab finally stops staring at Truck Asshole. Looks down into the driver’s seat instead. At the baby-head rock, right there in the middle of the seat. He’ll have to lean down to grab it.
Truck Asshole’s anger has washed away now. With nothing to focus on, it has dissipated like blood on concrete hosed down. Typical of assholes, Truck Asshole assumes that because he has forgotten being an asshole, everyone else will too.
Truck Asshole wanders his way, looking over the car like she is a teenager in lingerie.
“Sheeeeeit, man. That is a sweet fuckin, ride. I must admit. She a 68? Got the four speed?”
Ahab shifts his gaze way from the baby-head rock in the front seat to a spot a few feet above Truck Asshole’s head. Then to the trees across the road.
“What’s your problem, man? I told you I like yer car.”
Truck Asshole is not going to go away.
Ahab sighs.
“You didn’t have to be an asshole,” he says, finally looking Truck Asshole square in the eye. “You could have turned around and backed up to the other side of the pump. Or just driven around to it.”
“The fuck you say?”
“I said you didn’t have to be an asshole, asshole,” Ahab says, very clearly.
Truck Asshole is big. Probably has a stretch of football and steroids in his past. Now he is coasting on that. Slowly losing the battle to beer and barbecue. But he’s still big.
Truck Asshole takes a step towards him and rolls his shoulder slowly as he raises up his fist.
“I said: what the fuck did you just say?” Truck Asshole says.
He stares right back at Truck Asshole. Shifts his weight off the car door and drops his right hand into the open window. His hand is now halfway to baby-head rock.
Truck Asshole stops dead.
They stare at each other for a bit.
Lit cigarette in his mouth, Truck Asshole pushes his Nascar racing jacket back off his right hip to reveal a pistol, high on his belt in an open holster. It is a Colt 1911. Because of course it is.
“We gonna have a problem, asshole?” Truck Asshole says, finally living the moment he’s been dreaming of.
He stares at Truck Asshole.
Truck Asshole stares back.
“Are you really going to shoot me for calling you an asshole?” he finally says. “That would just prove my point, wouldn’t it? Asshole.”
Truck Asshole drops his hand to the pistol’s grip. He starts blinking fast, trying to process why this guy in front of him does not seem worried.
He decides to enlighten Truck Asshole:
“Throw down if you want, asshole. Whichever way it goes, you’ll be doing me a favor.”
Truck Asshole stares at him for a few heartbeats more. Then he backs away to his truck. Makes a big show of being calm himself as he gets back in the cab to wait for the attendant to open up again. Leaves his door open. A minute later, he drops his lit cigarette butt on the lot as he lights another.
It takes about twenty more minutes, but the Gas and Grocery attendant finally unlocks the door. There are four cigarette butts on the lot beside Truck Asshole’s truck now.
Truck Asshole is out of his truck and over to the pump right away, shouting as he moves:
“What the fuck man! Where ya been? Here! I’ll take fifty!”
Truck Asshole peels a bill off a wad and holds it out to the attendant.
The attendant looks for a second like he is going to make Truck Asshole come to him to hand over the money, but he thinks better of it. With a deep sigh he comes to the pump to snatch the bill from Truck Asshole’s hand. Then he takes his time to going back inside to turn the pump on.
Truck Asshole lights another cigarette and starts the pump.
The Gas and Grocery’s doorbell jingles and Jezebel comes out, hugging a big, paper grocery bag tight to her chest. She and Truck Asshole lock eyes for a second. She gives him a smirk as his face contorts in a mixed bag of emotions.
He gets his shit together by the time she is halfway to the car.
“Hey! Tinkerbell! What the fuck are ya doing?” he shouts. Then it dawns on him. “Oh! I get it! Ha!”
She moves around the back of the car. Gets the passenger door open and pops the seat forward to put the grocery bag on the floor in front of the back seat.
“Hey! Tinkerbell! Why don’t ya ditch this prick and I’ll show ya a good time again!” Truck Asshole shouts, still pumping his gas.
She smiles at Truck Asshole across the car’s roof. Then sits down into the passenger seat and shuts her door.
“Hey, I’m talking to you, bitch!” Truck Asshole shouts at her through the car’s open driver’s window.
She leans over the driver’s seat to shout back:
“You couldn’t show a girl a good time if you had twice the dick! Go fuck yourself, you pig!”
Truck Asshole’s face seizes up again for a bit.
She opens up the driver’s door and pulls the baby-head rock into her lap. Ahab gets into the driver’s seat and starts her up. Roars the engine a couple of times. As he puts her in gear, Truck Asshole shouts:
“Hey buddy! You know what she was doing in there, right? It aint just my sloppy seconds yer getting with this slut!”
She puts her hand on Ahab’s arm.
“Pull out that way,” she says to him as she points out the lot and up the road, just to the right of Truck Asshole’s truck at the pump.
She clambers up out of the passenger window, sitting on the door with her legs down in the seat, facing Truck Asshole across the car’s roof. She has still got the baby-head rock pulled in tight to her tummy with her left hand. With her right she gives Truck Asshole the finger.
“Fuck you, limp dick!” she screams.
She secures her position. Wedges her feet down between the car door and the seat, her knees wide, giving Ahab in the driver’s seat another great look at her panties.
“Gun it!” she orders him.
He does. The engine roars and the tires scream in smoke. He roars out of the gas station right on the angle she had pointed.
Jezebel heaves the baby-head rock. Bullseye. Hits Truck Asshole’s windshield right above the steering wheel. Baby-head rock punches straight on through the glass.
“Fuck you, asshole!” she screeches. Drops back into the passenger seat, kneeling in it, facing Ahab sideways. She squeals in excitement as she thumps on his arm and chest with her little fists like he is a drum. “Yeeeaaaaah! Fuck you!” she screams at the back window.
Looking out the windshield, Ahab sees the city skyline ahead, looming over the land like a hail-laden thunderhead.
“Wrong way. Hold on,” he says.
He slows down a little and then slams her into a handbrake turn. Roars the engine to swing her ass around and muscle out of the turn. Another high G move. Reckless. He makes it look easy.
She screams some more as she’s thrown around by the maneuver.
Car and woman screaming back to the gas station.
Truck Asshole is muscling his truck into a reckless turn of his own. Swinging through the Gas and Grocery parking lot to turn around and come after them. He’s left his gas cap off, and gasoline splashes from his truck onto the road as he roars out onto it.
Ahab guns the car’s engine and swerves around Truck Asshole. In the last second he sees Truck Asshole’s Colt 1911 sticking out of the hole in his windshield. As loud as everything is, he still hears a shot as they go by.
The shot is a split second late and a mile off the mark. Story of Truck Asshole’s life.
Pinning it now. Knowing this will be a race of raw power on the straightaway. At least he hopes so.
Turns out to be a very short race all about handling.
Truck Asshole guns his truck off the road into the dirt to spin it around and come after them. Not a bad move, but his tires grip too much when they hit pavement again. With the jacked-up suspension, the truck can’t handle the turn, and it rolls over into the opposite ditch.
A big, juicy wreck in the rearview mirror.
Staring out the back window, she squeals some more as she pounds Ahab with her fists.
He puts it into neutral to coast for a bit, letting the speed bleed off.
Then they drive on. Now with a full tank of gas.
Muse Vassal 