"You want some?" offers Debbie.

"Sure."

The face comes over the counter with Debbie' s straw, snorts the rest of the line and licks the counter clean. The pretty face belongs to a red hair of good body and hairy armpits. Debbie finds her armpits intriguing; they are like two more crotches, but real close to her freckled breasts.

She – Debbie couldn' t remember her name – kissed her first, just like that, and she let her do it. They ended up in a stool kissing, touching, caressing. Tongues rolled over damped skin and fingers got wet, and Debbie continued to live life by the drop.

Boat Trip

Youngstown drifted in and out of Ken' s mind like a miasma rising from a sewer. The drab factories, the rusted clunkers on the road half eaten by winter salt, the shuttered stores downtown, and the lines at the Social Security office, what a shit ass place to remember. And the cramped cemetery full of concrete crosses where Tony was laid, what a human dump ground it was. Smokeless stacks reached to the sky like cold fingers poking at the curly clouds' bottoms. Psalms came mixed with the noise of trucks from the nearby highway. Down the hole Tony went in his shiny coffin, probably the most expensive thing he ever owned.

But those things now belonged to a past that Ken had been able to extricate himself from, the hard faces, the questioning faces that expected no answer but somehow understood. Ken sipped his piñ a colada and contemplated the blue and green water surrounding Ortega' s yacht now moving steadily over the waves. Splash, splash, its hull parted the waves, so nice to be away from that shit ass place. Tony, why in hell didn' t you come up front with me? Dumb ass. No, you had to fight it out like some fucking cowboy, like Rambo. Damned coke bales were like sand bags, stopped every bullet behind me. But there you were, sitting behind thin aluminum, shooting at the Cubans like if you were Mr. T in the A-Team. I pity the fool.

It was all over with. Life continued. Again. Ken slurped his piñ acolada and let the rolling and pitching of the boat cuddle him into a pleasant numbness fueled by alcohol. He heard somebody arguing at the stern in Spanish. He looked down in that direction and saw Ortega giving Sonia hell about something. He had no idea what the fuss was about.

Ortega and Sonia were at each other' s throat, yelling insults – at least they sounded like insults to Ken. Ortega pulled a nickel plated pistol from behind his waist and pointed it at Sonia' s head. An orange flash and a crack made Sonia' s head explode in scarlet. She fell to the deck shaking in jerky contortions while her blood tinged the wooden deck.

Ken dropped his piñ a colada between his feet. Two of Ortega' s men showed up with a short but heavy iron pipe and a rope that they tied to Sonia’ s still kicking legs. They heaved Sonia' s body overboard, still exuberant but now just a heap of fish bait. Ken saw her head go under followed by her hair leaving a bloodied spot soon diluted by the ocean water and the distance.

Ortega' s minions remained silent, neither celebrating Sonia' s fate nor showing any discomfort about it. Ortega said something in Spanish, still angry. He looked up and saw Ken looking at him from the upper rear deck, and he saw Ken' s ashen face. Ken couldn' t hold his stare and turned away.

"Am I next?" Wondered Ken. He figured Ortega had whacked Sonia because she was screwing him. Now was his turn to go for a swim. Ken though of jumping overboard. And then what? Swim to Miami?

Ken stood with both hands on the handrail, his knees trembling, looking at the waves, wondering what would be better, swim or stay. Ortega came behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. Ken started to turn around, expecting to see the black hole of his pistol' s barrel, right on his face. Instead, he met Ortega' s smiling face standing in front of him.

"No good woman, was getting too friendly with the cops."

Ortega held a glass full of Bourbon, which he offered to Ken," Have a drink. You will get over it, plenty of pussy out there."

Ken drank his bourbon in one gulp, his throat burning in a slide of fire. He watched Ortega' s crew wash Sonia' s blood away by splashing bucketfuls of seawater on the deck. Youngstown with its parade of wrinkled, weathered faces didn' t seem so unsavory now.

The Fucking Trip

Erich breaths in short gasps. In and out. Debbie moans in pain as Erich goes in and out. Another round of forced anal sex, no Vaseline either. Bastard. In and out. Debbie wishes she had diarrhea so she could explode all over the bastard. In and out faster and faster.

Two days with Erich, and she has hated every minute. Erich from Arkansas, an inbred bastard, for sure, thinks Debbie sitting cross legged on the passenger side of Erich' s Seville, miles going by, country music rising from the radio to fill the smoky interior.

"I' m gonna make some good money in this trip," says Erich.

"So happy for you," says Debbie staring straight over the hood. She smokes in long puffs.

"First thing I' m gonna do when I get back West, is get my self two young China whores, you know, real nice and tender like chicken nuggets." He laughs at his own wit.

"I thought that you people would rather fuck your own relatives, like little nieces," says Debbie. "Or you don' t like fighting it out with your brothers?"

Erich pulls his nine-millimeter Glock from under the seat and points it at Debbie' s head. "You' re fucking funny, aren' t you?" He pokes the muzzle at Debbie' s temple, every time saying "Aren' t you?" Poke," aren' t you?" Poke," aren' t you?" Poke.

Debbie remains cool, staring straight. It didn' t matter one way or another. Erich puts the pistol back under the seat, then leans over her side and slaps her face. It burns but Debbie shows neither emotion nor pain. Been there, done that.

"I' m gonna dump your skinny ass once this deal is done. Fuck John and fuck you, you hear me? You' re riding the bus back little miss. I can get my own pussy." He pauses. As he looks away he mutters," If I haven' t killed you by then."

Debbie feigns hearing nothing, but her muscles tense and her already heightened survival instinct kicks into high gear.

"This mother fucker is up to no good," she thinks. John had asked her to accompany Erich in this trip so she could introduce him to his dealers. Erich showed them a briefcase full of money, from "West Coast investors," so the money part didn' t seem like bullshit, but the bastard, ponders Debbie, wasn' t right in the head, like he had watched too much TV or he had been dropped when he was a baby. Maybe it was the way his crooked smile seemed to hang from his face as if ready to spill from one side; and playing around with his gun. He couldn' t get a hard on if he didn' t have that thing pointed at her while she was giving him head.

She would be glad when they reached the end of this trip. Let John' s friends handle the hick bastard, bring him down a couple of notches, the hard way.

Her cigarette grows too short. She sticks the smoldering butt in the ashtray under the dashboard and squashes it by turning it in her fingers like if she were trying to drill a hole through the metal. From her purse she gets her pack and lights another one.

"What a fucking trip," she says aloud, as if speaking to herself. Erich ignores her, too busy picking his nose.