by Amy Brent
“Everythin’s wrong with you,” said the third one, slapping the slumped one on the back of his head. He had dark hair and his brows were drawn together. He didn’t seem to be the smiling kind of guy—Shandy was under the impression that, while Number One might be the one dictating what the three of them did, this guy was the one who was really in charge. “We didn’t notice he was drinkin’, ma’am. We just need someplace to sit while this lummox sober up, is all.”
“How long do you think that’s gonna take?” she asked. “Storm’s comin’, you know.”
“Shit,” said Number One to Number Three. “Should we keep on drivin’, then?”
“I ain’t takin’ this shitsack if he’s gonna throw up every two minutes,” said Number Three.
As if in response the clouds behind them turned bright white for a split second, and the thunder that followed sent a jolt of fright through all four of them. “Ain’t drivin’ in this weather, either,” said Number Three, as the snow, which had been falling steadily for the past hour, sudden turned into a wall of white.
Shandy sighed. “Looks like we’re stuck,” she said, sighing. “You guys will be popsicles within five minutes in this weather.”
“Thanks ma’am,” said Number One. “We won’t be any trouble. Promise.”
There was one thing that Shandy had learned by now, though: no matter what a man said, if he promised not to make any trouble, trouble was probably coming no matter what.
Tucker and Kellan set Truman in a booth and took seats at the counter. The place was eerily empty. The three of them had eaten at their fair share of diners over the past five years or so, since they’d started at the Glenco Ranch together, and they’d come to expect the foul-mouthed short-order cook at the griddle, covered in grease and smudges; the over-made-up waitress who could out-swear them as soon as fuck them; the quiet tight-lipped regular who, if prodded the right way, would take out his guitar and play them a song. A diner that was empty except for the one waitress—who was neither overly made-up nor seemed to be the cussing type—took some getting used to.
Kellan had been hoping to get a soda, at least, but after Tucker had promised not to be any trouble he realized that he had to keep his mouth shut. “They’re probably out of everythin’ anyway,” said Tucker, trying to get a look at her again through the door.
“You’re fuckin’ horny again,” said Kellan in disbelief.
Tucker shrugged, not denying it. “What if I am?” he asked. “She’s easy on the eyes, that’s for sure.”
Kellan punched Tucker in the arm. Tucker, with his rugged, Marlboro-man good looks, was always thinking with his dick—he never had to work too hard to charm the ladies into the sack with him. When the girl came out again, to ask them if they wanted anything to drink—“Soda machine’s out, but I can let you guys have something in the bottles,” she said—he watched her, wondering if she saw it. She was younger than most of the ones that Tucker usually got—he’d have to take it easy with the flirting if he wanted to have a chance with her.
“Thanks,” Tucker said. “Got a few cold ones back there? We’ll pay for ‘em—don’t want you gettin’ in trouble for helpin’ a coupla cowpokes outta a tight spot.”
“You’re cowboys?” she asked.
“Hell yeah,” said Tucker, grinning. Kellan felt the twitch start—Tucker would start flirting and he and Truman would be left sitting out here while he fucked her to screaming in the back. “Kellan—that’s him—I’m Tucker, by the way, and that sodden lump of drunkenness is Truman. We work at Glenco—maybe you heard of ‘em?” Glenco was just south of the Red River, one of the biggest cattle ranchers in the business.
She nodded, but it was hard to tell if she was just being polite or if she’d actually heard of it. The few words she’d spoken so far had given them enough to guess that while she was from the South, she wasn’t from that part of the country.
Kellan had to confess that Tucker knew what he was talking about. Her breasts were ample without being freakishly large, and when she turned to head back into the kitchen, the way the uniform fell about her suggested that her ass was more than pert. “She’s just a kid,” hissed Kellan, as soon as the door closed. “You’re not going to—”
“Relax,” Tucker said, grinning. “I can’t help it if a woman wants to strip naked for me—”
She came back with two bottles of beer and one club soda. “For your buddy,” she said, handing Tucker the club soda.
“So what’s someone like you doing out here in the middle of Fuck-All?” asked Tucker, as he passed the bottle to Truman.
She shrugged. “Just passing through, I guess,” she said.
“You guess?” Tucker asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, becoming slightly defensive. “Why is anybody here?”
“We’re on our way to Kansas for the holidays,” said Kellan, quickly, before things could get nasty. “You got anybody you’re gonna go home to?”
She shook her head. “My mom’s dead, and my dad—well, he’s been out of the picture since I was born, so…”
Tucker shot Kellan a glare. “Shit, miss, we’re sorry,” Tucker said, now.
“What’re we sorry ‘bout?” The one named Truman was sitting up, now. He reached for his bottle of club soda and drank it down in one long chug.
“You’re going to be sorry for having drunk all of my booze,” Kellan snapped. “You’re the reason we’re spending Christmas holed up in this diner in the middle of Fuck-if-I-Know, Oklahoma.”
“Vernon,” she said, and the three of them turned to look at her. “That’s the name of this town,” she added.
“Like I said, fuck if I know,” Kellan said, sourly.
“You’re the ones who are here,” she pointed out.
Tucker coughed. Feisty—I can do feisty. “Listen, Miss—”
“Shandy. You can call me Shandy.”
“Is your middle name Tristam?” asked Truman, jokingly.
“Tristane,” she said, the beginnings of a smile playing about her lips. “Nobody gets that,” she added.
“Truman here is Mr. Harvard—”
“Just Iowa State,” Truman amended hastily, casting a glower at Tucker. “He’s always telling lies,” Truman added.
“Don’t all men?” she asked.
The wind rattled the windows, and presently the power cut out. The four of them looked nervously at each other. Outside the sun had set, but there was still enough light from the snow reflected in the clouds so it wasn’t entirely dark. The snow had piled nearly a third of the way up the door in the meantime, and there was already frost forming on the inside of the windows. “Do you think we can make ourselves something to eat?” asked Kellan, smiling so that he wouldn’t seem like a jerk about it.
“I can see if we still have some burgers,” Shandy said. “Won’t be any fries, though—that involves firing up the deep-fryer and frankly that scares the bejesus outa me.”
“Burgers will be fine,” said Kellan. “Like Tucker said, we don’t want to be any trouble.”
“Trouble’s a relative term, isn’t it, though?” she asked.
“Are we being a bother to you?” asked Tucker. “Sorry if we are—but we can’t exactly—”
Beneath them the generator cut in. They could hear it pumping current, but the lights stayed out. “It powers the refrigerator and the freezer,” she said, as she led them into the kitchen. She hoped Marvin wouldn’t mind. But out here, it could be a day before they got shoveled out—and that was after the storm started, too. He couldn’t expect them to not eat anything. Besides—they put a pair of twenties under the salt-and-pepper set by the register—it wasn’t as if they weren’t paying.
She opened the freezer. “Well, we have fish sticks—oh, good, we do have burgers,” she said, brightly. “I don’t recommend the fish sticks,” she added, as she took out a strip of vacuum-sealed patties. She used a pair of scissors to cut off four of them—and then she reconsidered and cut off three more. “Stick these
in the microwave, please,” she said, handing them to Truman. “Something like fifteen minutes on the defrost setting.”
Truman’s eyes got big and he seemed to have lost the ability to speak. Tucker grinned at Kellan; Kellan merely rolled his eyes. Tucker was, no doubt, thinking about getting Truman laid. The guy was such a sex maniac—if it weren’t for the fact that he somehow succeeded in getting laid almost every time he put his mind to it, it would be downright creepy.
“Want me to help you with the buns, ma’am?” Kellan asked. She’d taken out a cutting board.
“Thanks,” she said, handing him a back of kaiser rolls—the good stuff, Kellan noticed. He’d have to remember Vernon. Most years they’d driven right through the town on their way to Kansas, but for a burger this good—with cheese that she had to cut off of the block, and mushrooms and bacon that she was frying together now—he could stand for stopping an hour early.
By the time the burgers were finished even Tucker was drooling—for food, for once, Kellan thought, sourly. But even he couldn’t stay sullen for long: she brought them out to the counter, filling the diner with the scent of hot grilled burgers. She lit a few of the candles that were supposed to be for the diners, and the atmosphere would have been romantic had their stomachs not been rumbling as loudly as they were. Watching the patties brown on the grill, and getting layered with mushrooms, bacon, and onion, with a thick slab of cheese melting over everything, had turned on an appetite for something even more basic than sex, even in Tucker. The sharp, smoky tang of the barbecue sauce, and the crisp crunch of the lettuce and sharp sourness of the pickles put Kellan in heaven, and he was halfway through his first burger before he thought to look up and say, “Thanks, Miss—”
“Shandy,” she said, quietly. She was sitting across from them, on the register side of the counter. “My name’s Shandy.”
“No disrespect meant,” he said. “I just—you’re a lady—”
She giggled. “You’re the first person who’s ever called me a lady,” she said. “Most people call me a girl.”
“You’re old enough to work here,” Kellan said. “Makes you a lady in my book.”
It was funny to see Tucker trying to decide whether he was hungrier or hornier, watching him frantically chew on the oversized mouthful that he’d taken. Truman was smirking. Kellan asked, “You got anybody? I mean, we’re glad you’re here ‘cuz otherwise I’d be scraping frozen puke outta my truck. But surely someone misses you, don’t they?”
Shandy shook her head. “I been on a couple dates in high school, but it was never anything serious,” she said. “Only been in Vernon for five months, and most here are just passin’ through—it’s hard to get to know people like that.”
“Must be tough,” Kellan said, nodding sympathetically. “My girlfriend and I split up last year, too. Ranchin’s hard—you’re out there for the better part of the year. Gets hard for the other person. Truman here—he’s lucky. He’s still a virgin—”
Truman’s jaw fell open in shock. Kellan shrugged. What? “He don’t know about disappointment yet,” Kellan said.
“And Tucker?” she asked.
Tucker forced the last lump of cheeseburger down his throat and said, “I’ve got girls in every state east of the Rockies,” he crowed.
“He’s braggin’,” Kellan said. “He mighta had sex with in every state east of the Rockies, but I’m pretty sure there are more women that don’t care to see him than those that do.”
She smiled shyly and pressed her lips together, as if trying to work up the courage to tell Kellan something secret. “Aw, you do have someone,” he said, grinning. “Who is he?”
She blinked, and seemed to reconsider. Then she shook her head and took the plates away. Presently they could hear her washing the dishes. Tucker turned to Kellan and scowled, saying, “Thanks for ruining it.
Outside the snow kept piling up. It had buried the truck up to the bumpers already, and Truman, who had one of those fancy smartphones, opened up the weather app, and found that the storm was only about a third of the way finished. “Shit,” said Kellan, shaking his head. “Looks like we’re stuck here for at least another day.”
“Well, that ain’t gonna stop me from making the most of it,” Tucker said, standing up and following her into the kitchen.
Kellan felt his jaw drop open. It wasn’t that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. But she was clearly not interested or not ready, and he wasn’t that desperate to get some. But Tucker—Christ, was the man completely shameless? “You can’t—she’s not—”
“Hey, it’s me,” Tucker said, shrugging and grinning. “Do you want dibs on her pussy, or should we let Truman here try going down on a lady for the first time?”
Truman’s jaw dropped open as well. Kellan hissed, “Tucker—”
But Tucker had already opened the door and gone in.
Truman looked and Kellan, his eyes wide open with surprise. “Kellan?” he asked uncertainly.
“Oh, don’t you worry,” said Kellan, even now feeling his cock starting to twitch. “He won’t force himself on her, if that’s what’s got you worried.”
“Then, what is he going to do?”
There was no other way to describe what Tucker did that had women dropping their panties for him, other than, “Magic.”
Shandy was scrubbing up the pots and pans when she saw the one named Tucker coming in. “Can I give you a hand, Shandy?” he asked.
Only if you keep your hands to yourself. She bit back the words—it wouldn’t keep him from grabbing her ass. It never worked with the truckers—why should it work with cowboys? And this one, at least, was cute.
“I got it,” she said. “You can go now,” she added, tilting her head back to the diner. “Ain’t much to do here.”
“Okay, I’ll confess,” Tucker said. “I’m dying to know—have you ever been with a guy before?”
She could feel her eyes getting wide. “That’s—that’s personal,” she sputtered, not quite sure if she could believe her ears.
“I know, I know,” he said, putting his hands up. “See, it’s just that Truman—the young one, you know—well, he ain’t never been with a woman before—”
“Maybe he’s gay,” she spat. For some reason, her heart was pounding—but he was still by the prep counter, a good ten steps from the sink, and he wasn’t making any moves towards her. “Maybe—” she began.
“Are you a lesbian?” he asked.
“What?!”
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that if you are,” he said, putting his hands up. “I’m just askin’, you know, in case we have to break Truman’s heart. You know how young guys are.”
Her face was flushed, now. She’d never done it with a woman—she’d never done it with anybody, and that wasn’t anybody’s business but her own. But the conversation was dredging up the memory of the club she’d stopped in—it was in Kansas City, just a regular club, from the looks of it. Someone was handing out free tickets outside the Safeways, where she’d stopped to pick up some more food and hygiene things, and she’d thought it looked all right: nothing wrong with a night of dancing, good music, maybe she’d meet someone.
At first it’d started out like any other club night—the DJ was laying down some nice beats, and she was having a good time dancing. Then, at around ten, the emcee came out and shouted, “Y’all ready to get this party started?”
There were loud cheers from all around.
“Ladies—let’s see them titties!”
And all around her, women were pulling up their shirts—a few of them took off their tops altogether—and the guys were hooting and tossing them strings of beads, and she remembered: Mardi Gras. Of course it would be Mardi Gras.
She froze—afraid, not of being naked, but of the feelings that were playing deep in her crotch, the sudden wetness between her legs at the sight of all these gorgeous women suddenly gone topless, pressing their bodies against each other, kissing and sucking on each other’s nipples. Sh
e’d never felt anything like this before—and she left right then and there, hoping that she’d ever feel anything like it again.
And now, here was Tucker, reminding her of the sea of breasts, the excited glee on their faces as they stripped off their tops and exposed themselves, the cheers as beads came raining down on them—and the look of pure lust in the men’s eyes as they watched.
The look that Tucker was giving her, now.
“You wanna know what I see in you?” he asked now. “I see a woman who don’t know what she’s got. I bet you ain’t never looked in no mirror naked before.”
“And what’s it to you if I haven’t?” she asked, scarcely believing that the conversation was going in this direction. This is no way to talk to a woman, she thought. She was starting to get a little worried, actually—she was alone in a restaurant with three other men—men she didn’t know, one of whom was definitely thinking of having sex with her. If they decided to force her there was nothing that she could do.
“I just think it’s a shame that you have no idea how beautiful you are.”
“I have plenty of idea how pretty I am,” she said, annoyed. “You know how many guys grab my ass every day?”
“They’re thinkin’ ‘bout themselves,” he said. “They’d try to grab your ass if you were wearing a burlap sack. I’m thinkin’ ‘bout you, Shandy.”
She turned off the water and wiped her hands on her apron. “Well, the feeling isn’t mutual,” she said as coldly as she could manage, and then she headed back out to the front, to wait with the others for the end of the storm.
The girl came back out, again—with all of her clothes this time, Kellan was relieved to see. Still, when he caught the pall of disappointment on Truman’s face, Kellan realized that neither Tucker nor Truman were going to listen to him if he told them to leave her alone. At that point he began wondering if perhaps he should have brought along a pack of wild dogs instead—they would probably listen to him better than these two knuckleheads.