#TripleX (23 page)

Christine was so calm, but my hands were shaking. I felt like I could hurl at any minute. Truthfully, even her serenity and ease frightened me. The reminder that I’d only met her in person over three weeks ago made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Did I really know what she was capable of? She’d written a few books that were freaky and dark. What if I’d chosen to travel across the country with a psychopath who was into torture and mutilation?

“Commemorate how?” I asked, my voice betraying me.

“You’ll see,” she said. “Pull in here.”

“A tattoo parlor? Do you think NOW is really the time for tattoos?” I questioned, incredulously.

“Now is definitely the time for tattoos. Starship is expecting us, anyway.”

“Starship?” I asked, confused.

“Yeah, I went to high school with her. She moved to Chicago and became a pretty well-known tattoo artist. She’s done quite a few famous people… sexually as well as with her ink,” Christine joked. “Her real name is Sally Spellman, but don’t call her that.”

“Christine, ummm, when were you going to tell me you have a gun?” I asked, carefully.

“I wasn’t. Never thought I had to. I’ve got a Conceal & Carry—kind of,” she admitted.

“But you didn’t think that was important information to disclose? Like maybe I should know that the person I was traveling all over the country with was packing heat?” I yelled, near hysterics.

“Packing heat? This isn’t a movie, Ang. It’s only for protection. Mine. Yours. And passed out little sorority girls,” she stated.

Getting out of the car, Christine closed the door, leaving Scumbag inside. I followed her out. “Listen Ang, if we call the cops, they’re not going to do anything. There’s not going to be any justice or punishment for an ‘almost-rape.’ Hell, even if he actually did rape her, they’d probably need more to lock him up anyway. First of all, she’d have to remember it, and testify, and all that other legal bullshit.”

“So, what’s your plan? Get tattoos and then shoot him?” I asked, worried and full of anxiety.

“You’ll see!”

“I think it’s some of my best work,” Starship admired, smiling brightly.

“It’s perfect,” Christine complimented. “What about you, Scumbag? You like it?”

Scumbag was still weeping like a baby in the reclining chair. “I said I was sorry,” he sputtered.

“Ang, what do you think?” Christine asked, snapping a picture of Scumbag and his new tattoo. “I think this is by far the most fun I have had in my forty years of life,” I confessed, truthfully. “I never thought I’d get tatted up in my forties after spending all night at frat party.” I looked down at the tattoo on the inside of my wrist, marveling at its beauty and getting choked up by its meaning. “And I sure as Hell, never thought I’d see a guy with a tattoo that said, ‘Rapist: No Means No’ right above his penis… I still think we should put an eyeball on the end of his penis too.” Scumbag cried harder, shaking his head.

“So Scumbag, do you think you’ll ever try to screw—or shall I say, ‘rape’—a passed out chick again?” Starship asked, yanking on his hair. “Because if you haven’t learned your lesson, I can put ‘Entry Only’ on your ass to make things even more difficult for you.”

Twitter: Will Twerk for Cupcakes. #GoingViral #PumpThatPussy #ClosetFlirts

I think that if Angelisa doesn’t stop exaggerating our vigilante exploits the honorable Judge Tight Ass may lock us up for a long,
long,
time. The judge is sitting across from both of us, listening, hands fisting, white knuckling her files. Her face is stone cold and not amused. She’s not seeing the
extraordinary
in any part of our story. I mean, I get it, Angelisa just told her we forcibly made someone get a tattoo. That’s absurd, but
it was a public service.
Then she told
a judge
that I put a gun to some dude’s head. I chuckled and waved it off as a simple water pistol, but her teeth clenched down tighter and all I could do was try to look innocent. I need to bring this back to why we went on this trip. I need Judge Cranky-Pants’ empathy here. Because seriously, I wouldn’t be good with a long period of incarceration. There just wouldn’t be enough books. Do they allow eReaders on the inside? And what about cupcakes? I’d pay someone in cigarettes and back rubs for some books and cupcakes. Eh, forget cupcakes. Let’s get right down to what’s really important.

Sex.

I’d had a long, drawn out marriage without it, so I basically just got out of putang-prison. My hoo-ha’s been in locked up in isolation for so long I can’t remember the last time it saw the joys of freedom and fun. I can’t go back to the slammer again. I won’t. I just can’t. I like dick way too much. Judge Dread’s eyes squint at me suspiciously. I immediately wonder if there are any hot wardens in the pen.

Oh God. That would be a great plot for a book.

Hot warden.

Prisoner.

Taboo sex.

Handcuffs.

Group showers.

Focus
! Back to this story.

I clear my throat and smile at the judge.

Chicago was disappearing through the back windshield of the Jag as we tore out of the Windy City and headed for Iowa. The road ahead of us was empty—just the shimmering heated haze of the blacktop far in the distance. Outside the cool interior of the car, the world sweltered in a thick greenhouse effect, making it seem as if the clear brilliant blue of the sky was melting into the lush green of the landscape. Crisp bright color burned at our eyes.

I drove while Ang lounged her feet up against the Jag’s dashboard. It was something she could never do before, and now she was doing it comfortably. I was all kinds of proud of her, proud of both of us. Soon, we’d need to get even a better fitting wardrobe. My ex’s credit card giggled from somewhere in my pocketbook. It was turning out that my husband’s credit card was better to me than he ever was. It gave and gave and I just took and took. And I planned to continue to ride it hard all the way to Vegas—just like Channing Tatum—who just happened to be strapped onto a shoddy, makeshift bike rack on top of the Jag.

We drove straight through Iowa—going west on Interstate 80. Almost eight hours of rock and roll and Diet Cokes. We would’ve lost the gold in the Urinary Olympics from all the stops we had to make. I hated forty-year-old bladders. They made car rides almost impossible. My first plan when I finished this road trip was to get that organ fixed.

We made it to Nebraska in record time. Nebraska, the Cornhusker State, whatever that meant, but more importantly to us it boasted its wealth for the so-called best Pole Dancing lessons in the universe. At least that’s what the ad for Up-A-Pole Dance Studio promised us when we searched for things to do. Because somewhere along our drunken misadventure we’d promised each other to conquer one thing every day that scared us. And both of us were absolutely terrified of getting in touch with our own bodies and loving them for what they were.

Just before hitting the great Cornhusker Highway, Angelisa’s phone started ringing an obscene number of times. “Who the heck?” she moaned fumbling for her phone. If that was a text picture of another freaking glass of ice and water, I swore I would leave her at the next rest stop.

I glanced my eyes toward her and watched her shake her head in annoyance. “It’s my stupid brother.” She tossed her phone back into her bag and growled, “He should just go get another Jag; I’m positive he won’t want to keep this one after we’re done with it.”

“Especially with the holes we drilled in it for the bike rack,” I laughed and hitched my thumb toward the back seat. “And that smashed cupcake is molding over. We need to clean it.”

“Screw that. He gets to clean that mess. Or he could just hire someone to clean it. I’m sure with his 30 million he could spare some loose change.” Her phone kept ringing and ringing. “Plus, it stopped smelling when we poured all that ketchup over it. It hardened like a nice little shell for the pastry.” The phone continued to buzz.

“Is he going to stop calling?” I asked.

As I spoke, my phone started pinging in the console. After a few minutes, it started whistling. “Dude, your phone is possessed,” Ang said. “What’s with all the noises?”

“Twitter and Facebook notifications. I left them on last night after I posted our last exploits. I pressed the app button and waited for the phone to stop flipping out.

I merged off the highway and onto a smaller one, instantly getting lost. An enormous red pickup truck to the left of us veered into my lane, and I swerved to avoid hitting it. My phone bounced in my hands and fell to the floor. “Hold the steering wheel Ang,” I said, diving for my phone.

I crawled under her as she lifted to her knees in her seat and grabbed the wheel. The Jag bumped and dipped onto the shoulder of the road and bumped along a ditch. I straightened my legs to reach the phone and hit the gas pedal harder.

The Jag careened through bushes, hitting the edge of the road and hurled up into the air. Ang screeched into my ear and started smacking me with her hands. “Crash! Crash! Crash! We’re going to crash!”

“Ahhhhh,” my voice vibrated as my forehead collided into her knees. I stretched out my fingers and touched the edge of the phone, trying to flip it into my hands. “Almost got it,” I yelled.

“Hurry up! We’re headed for a ditch!”

My ass slammed back down into the driver’s seat as the Jag skidded across three lanes of highway. Angelisa tumbled against me and landed with her face in my lap. “Hey, it’s been like months, so while your face is in my lap…” I laughed, yanking the wheel back to straighten out the car. She looked up at me and did a juvenile lip lick just as the red pickup truck that almost hit into us before pulled up along side of us and honked wildly.

With her face still in my lap, we both looked out the window to see two grown men yipping and howling at our position.

“Shiiiit,” I said, laughing and buckling myself back in. “Hold on tight.” I opened the window and yelled out, “How fast you guys willing to go to catch us?”

One of the guys, the driver, whooped and edged the truck faster. My God, the both of them must have been sixty.
Why can’t I get a break?
I think one of them was even hooked up to an oxygen mask. Looking closer, I realized that he was in fact getting extra support through an oxygen apparatus.

I pressed down on the gas and left them in the dust. No competition. I was not ready to face that pool of possibilities. I had many other pools to fish in and wasn’t about to troll the lakes of geriatrics. Glancing in the review mirror, I noticed that Viagra and Cialis were still trying to catch us. I gunned it again. The Jag was a street-eating machine. I think I might have been falling a little bit in love with it.

As soon as they were a small read dot on the horizon behind us, I finally swiped open my phone and read my first Twitter notification from someone who called himself
OMrRyan69
.

Car thief needs to call me ASAP. You just went viral. #YoYoSisterhoodoftheTravelingIdiots. #HalfAssBarCrawl

I just went viral?