Once upon a time, there was... a girl. She is bright and dark, and tan, and blonde, and overweight enough that she will often be told she "could be very pretty" if only she'd lose weight, by family members. This, compounded by an abusive childhood, some of it sexual, some of it physical, and the largest portion verbal and emotional, --these things, make her somewhat sexually "adventurous" and not at all inhibited. The past makes her insecure and desperate for love, and when she finds love, she usually finds it is her own love, poured into someone who doesn't want it, and will not give her theirs. She loves strong, and she loves true, and most importantly, she loves free. It doesn't take money, or even any particular quality to earn it from her. Approaching her 26th birthday in less than two weeks, this quality is still mostly alive in her, maybe a little damaged, but it's there.
Her first great love was a man we all know because she talks about him in a carefree way, because... she has no man to scare away with talk of another great man, by which she will measure all men. We won't say his name here, but we'll tell you hers in just a moment. He loved her fiercely, and she holds him firmly in her heart; a reminder that it is, or once was, possible for her to be loved fiercely. She has many flaws, and she is ashamed of them, but... hides them as well as the next person. And this great first love saw past them, which to her, was tantamount to divine power. He loved her through her panic attacks, pregnancy, abortion, anxiety, anger, and depression, and he loved her after he met her mother. And she grew up with him before they inevitably, --like all good partnerships do, --dissolved.
Years later, this man tells a Friend about his ex, Ashley, --this is our girl, --and although she is busy being attracted to someone else, she is also willing to pursue this friend. Well, the friend is probably a good man to her ex, the great man who inspires goodness in others, but the Friend is not a good man to her. He uses her like a condom, pulls her off, and throws her away. Ashley does not get over this Friend easily, because she did not expect to be hurt by any Friend of her great man, --not someone this man knew and trusted with her heart. But maybe that was karma, because she had once broken her great man's heart, and now... she deserved to be broken too? Ashley wonders when she will stop getting what she deserves, and tries to be as nice as she can, so that it will stop.
This is where things become shadier. Those that know the prequel will wonder what is going on. And I will explain it in the epilogue.
Another driver from the same trucking company the Great Man, and the Friend work at arrives. He is tall, somewhat wide, but not in a way that is unattractive to her, and his name is Steve, for the benefit of the story. He arrives one afternoon after she's had a very long day of buying a new car battery she doesn't have, getting stranded with her neighbor the first time he ever goes anywhere with her, preparing for (dreading) her sometimes lover's short vacation to the land of inaccessibility, her apartment without air conditioning, and the intense panic attack she had when a wasp chased her around her grandparents' car. It had been a very long day, and Steve, who she believed was trustworthy, since he knew both the Friend, and the Great Man, --offered to take her to an afternoon movie. She acquiesced, knowing she was safe with any friend of His.
The movie was terrible, and halfway through, they both took a break; her to the Ladies, him to the Mens, and all is right with the world, until she leaves the public bathroom and can't find him. She looks high and low, and sees his big truck parked in the same place, with him in it. He is far from her, and waves her over, just poking his upper body out of the open door and motioning. She follows the wave, wondering who this is, if at all, the identity of the person has changed, and where Steve is. She opens the door, and climbs in.
It is not Steve. It is a Thin Man, who is very tan, tanner than her, and he smiles from his position in the drivers' seat. He smiles and smiles at her and starts the truck, pulls out and drives. The Thin Man is looking at her dress, and her thick frame, and appraising it, and he is driving her away and she isn't stopping him because she is nervous and suddenly, very insecure. She buckles her seatbelt, sits back, rolls the window down, and smokes. They are getting on the highway, and the Thin Man, the very tan man, is smiling and smiling. He offers no explanation, and she asks for none.
"My girlfriend doesn't smoke, but it's okay that you do, for a while. At least today," he says suddenly.
Ashley frowns out the open window, hurt that this person stealing her is making her part of some harem.
"She's fifteen," the Thin man grins, proud of his conquest.
Ashley throws her cigarette into the dry grass on the side of the highway and hopes she starts a fire. Policemen are doing something, and they are approaching several cars, about twenty feet apart, with cops pacing around between them. She thinks about signaling them, but doesn't. The Thin Man maybe heard this from her thoughts.
"You can signal S.O.S. with your hands," he made some flourishing gesture, being goofy, and obscene, "do you know how to do it?"
She shook her head, and continued staring out the window. She looked down at the door lock, and made sure it was secure, pushing it down firmly, just in case. She looked into the back, at the shelves above the twin bed. She recognized her comforter, rolled into a tight, messy ball, beside bags of her clothes. She wasn't calm anymore. There was something burning up her throat from her stomach, something horrible that made her want to scream and cry, --seeing her blanket here.
"How did you get inside my apartment?" Ashley asks.
The Thin Man smiles, and ignores her, eyes on the road.
"I hope you didn't break my door," she continues, her voice still steady, despite the mechanics she's working with the seatbelt. Traffic is thick, they aren't moving fast, because this is the All Star week, and even though the motel she works at is slow, it's good to see that people are actually coming for it. He is ignoring her still, and paying attention to the road.
Ashley keeps a handmade knife with her at all times, because she is very sentimental. The Great Man bought it for her at a gun show; it has a curved, claw-like blade and its own little sheath. She has used it on many fish; it is very sharp because Ashley was taught by Him many years ago to keep her knives in the kitchen sharp, and so she did, --lovingly so, keep it sharp. She was using it to cut through the base of the seatbelt, right above the plastic casing that held it above the floorboard. It came free, and she stretched it as far as it would go, --and she did all this, being as nonchalant as possible.
"Is my cat okay? You didn't hurt my cat?" Ashley was close to panicking, just thinking of her cat, her own real love, --not a man at work who had boundaries, --not an ex who had someone new, --not her Sire who had a life altogether separate from her, --but a real living thing who slept with her and depended on her, and whose love she did not have to question. She tied the base into a knot, hiding her hands behind her seat on the right.
The Thin man smiles wider. He ignores her further, squinting at the glare of the ninety-degree sun on the roofs of the many cars in front of him. She unfastens her seatbelt, and out the door Ashley goes, holding tight to the length of the thick, life-saving belt, and her feet quickly find the surface of the dusty incline of bare dirt beside her. He is driving slowly, and he is now speeding up, and before she starts being dragged, she lets go, falling flat on her face. The truck is big, and he can't slam on his brakes nearly as quickly as she can get up, dirty and probably bleeding, and run into oncoming traffic.
A woman with dark skin, a blonde ponytail, and a mutt in the backseat of her tiny red Asian-made-convertible-of-some-sort, --stops. And she smiles, and gathers up Ashley who is breathing is a strangled, screaming, fast way, and begging for her cat. The dog puts his chin on her shoulder when she finally hides her face in the dark safety of her palms, and cries, and cries, and cries.
Ashley wakes up in the front seat later, and it is dark, and the woman gives her a can of Coke, and a cigarette. They don't talk. She says nothing, and Ashley says nothing, and the dog is thrilled to be alive and turning circles in the backseat, barking at passersby, but not loudly, and never once dares to jump over the door, --which would be easier than anything, --and chase anyone.
The woman with the Ponytail drives Ashley to a motel, and checks her in. On the way over, Ashley looks up at the dark sky, the bright stars, the brighter moon, and drinks her soda and smokes. She is calmer now, and knows there will be tears later, police, explanations to be made. She knows that she'll have questions for Great Man and his Friend, --and she won't know how to ask, and she wonders if they'd be honest.
The Ponytail is checking her in, making an explanation, --the clerk shakes his head in seeming disbelief, but she can tell from outside, watching through the window, that he doesn't care, and isn't really surprised. She knows, because she is a motel clerk, and knows how easy it is to be skeptical and desensitized. Ashley has never checked in a crying woman without making sure that the problem was heard, understood, and the woman was hugged at least once. This is her guilty secret that no one else at her job knows.
She goes upstairs, and gives Ponytail all her important numbers, and Ashley eventually begins to drift off; her head is on Ponytail's lap, and Dog is curled up against the small of her back. Ponytail is rallying everyone, who will hopefully find her out here, in this alien world she is in now. She doesn't know where she is, but she trusts Ponytail completely, because she has Dog. And Dog would not be so happy to be with Ponytail if she was not at least, in some measure, trustworthy.
Ashley is still scared of what's happened to her cat, and the rest of the future, --the questions and the answers, and the story she'll have to tell. The changes she'll be forced to make to her life, because fear and paranoia will find her when the surreal edges come back into focus, and reality will slap her hard in the face, wake her up, and demand things of her. She is afraid of the future, and the possibility that her sometimes lover might not want her anymore, or see her differently. Afraid, but lethargy has crept in now, and she is falling asleep.
Besides. Everyone else is afraid of the future too.
The End.
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No one kidnapped me today. I have been having extremely intense dreams lately, because of the heat, I guess. Only the people who know me will know which parts of this story are completely true. Last night, I dreamed that a guest at my motel tried to rape me, and instead, just ended up strangling me and slapping me around.
I remembered all of this dream, because it scared me, and took me about 45 minutes to figure out if it really happened or not. It took me an hour and a half to write it, and I had to stop at one point because I started to have another panic attack, --which would make two in one day for me.
I'm going to go for a short drive now, pick up something to drink, and smoke, and listen to a little music and bask in my car's AC. Rough sleep has hurt my back, my heart, my mind, and maybe my soul. Maybe... just a scratch.
