Mick starts talking about all the girls he fucked, and I don't want to hear it. I've heard this story about a dozen times and I don't believe a word of it. Well that's not fair. I guess I just don't believe the word "hundreds".
Mick didn't talk at first, and that was nice. I thought we'd be able to just lie here, waiting, in peace and quiet, the only sound our labored breathing, but I guess he tired of that eventually and opened his mouth. He'd asked me if I knew how many girls he'd had, and I told him I didn't. I didn't ask for any more information and he didn't offer it, so we went back to silence, just breathing and waiting.
"Three," he says. After a second I look up at him and he's looking right at me. He gives a little nod and repeats it, and this time I have to ask.
One is some girl I never heard of, not that I should have, as from the sound of her she was just some truck stop whore off the turnpike. I don't know many who paid for their first, and I'm comfortable saying I know less who would admit to it, but there you go.
He tells me about her and honestly he paints a pretty picture. Obviously I got the sense to not fall in love with the first girl to throw a piece my way, much less a whore, but Mick's not the most worldly of individuals, as is becoming clear. It sounds like the cutoffs are what did it for him, what made him pick her out of all the girls working that night, and I guess if he felt like he got his money's worth then that's all right, but I'll tell you, I'll take tight over short any day of the week and not think twice about it. It's entirely likely that says more about me than him, but there it is.
The whore was all right though, he says. She was nice, she was sweet. She kept her bra on and took her shoes off and Mick didn't know which way was up by the end. She had big eyes and dark roots and the way he talks about her you can tell he was thinking about how he's gonna save her from all this and take her away somewhere, give her a good life, make her happy, be the one that she turns it all around for and everything else, every fairy tale his fool head was full of, and she smiles while she smokes, nodding along and "Sure, sure, of course," even while she's pulling those cutoffs back on and when he tells her he loves her and she says it back, walking out that door, he believes her, and I can't help but sympathize. My grin turns into a wince, but he's worse off than me by a long shot.
Donna's the next one, but I knew about that already. In fact, that's the one I did know about, because everyone did, because everyone was there when she came ripping into the shop screaming like hell about she was gonna kill him for what he was spreading around. Never once did she deny any of it, but she swore up and down he'd regret opening his mouth the way he did and I swear to God I expected him to come to heel like a whipped dog, but he just stood there, cool as can be, shrugging it off, trying to calm her down in that way that just makes them madder, until she knocked a socket set down into the Dodge and stormed off, the sockets clinking and clanking down through the guts of the car and into the oil pan beneath it.
Now like I said he was very cool: he didn't rattle. But then again he didn't talk about Donna again, even if someone asked. He'd laugh and say something about how that was nothing and get a load of this, and he'd whip out some other story about some other girl, but none of them ever had that meat, the blood and bone in the story where you know it's in their flesh and coming out their mouth. For all his stories, it was Donna all along: Donna the scene queen. Donna the party girl. Donna the hellion. Donna big tits. And I guess I understand that.
I wonder why Mick's telling me this- I know why he's telling me, I just figured he'd still think he was going to make it out of here: I didn't expect him to figure it out quite yet. I guess he put that quiet time to good use, thinking it over, figuring out the lies, rather than just lying there bleeding. He's come a long way, really. I'll be sure to tell the guys how impressed I was with him by the end.
He starts in on Jen and I go rigid. My vision goes white for a second and fire rips through me. That was stupid of me, but I guess I deserve to get hurt, still keeping her so close. Even now she does this to me. Even now she's got me tearing myself apart trying to make her mine, trying to keep her mine. Years of playing the game, years of the chase and Mick's the one she picked? I'd drag myself over there and choke the life out of him, but that's not the smart play. I need to sit here and breathe and save my strength. That's why I'm making it out of here and Mick's laid out, spilling his guts. I'll outlast him and I'll make it out, they'll come and get me and patch me up and it'll be too late for Mick there but hey, I'm still here and I'll have years yet to make her see me the way I need to. If he can, I can.
Only he can't. Or he didn't, anyway, not that he didn't want to, not that we all didn't. He wanted her bad, he says, yeah, him and everyone else. Legs forever, great figure. She had this hair that was just... He wanted her as bad as me, and by the sound of it, she was about as interested in him as she was in me. Obviously that didn't stop me from chasing her, year after year, trying my damn best. Mick tells me he tried, too. He did everything he knew how, even going so far as to swear off the dozens, scores, of other women beating down his door, if only she'd say yes. I'm confident she saw right through that, but she just laughed that laugh of hers and turned away, gliding.
It was then, Mick says, that he made his decision. He went out and he found a girl with that same look: tall and strong, deep, dark eyes and a neck that was just so, and I guess she did the trick. This one he doesn't have much to say about. She was a looker, obviously, but even he knew it wasn't the same. In a way that probably ruined it for him, and were he a thinking man he would have known that, recognized the shame for what it was, and known the disappointment was in himself. Instead he took it as enough of a victory to move on, satisfied he'd put that dream to rest in a manner close enough to the ideal as to make no difference. That doesn't sound half bad.
I try to keep pressure on the hole in my side like you're supposed to, but it hurts too bad. It's starting to get dark, but that's okay, it can't be much longer now. Mick's lying there, pale, looking at me with glassy eyes, and I can't help but pity him. He's gonna die here with that story on his lips, and I'm gonna get out of here and make that girl mine.
Mick laughs a little and looks away.
24 May 2012
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