“But you really don’t want to belong there, do you, Mits?” Mindy asked her.
“No. I mean, some of the people are ok and I got a girlfriend there named Lana. We get along real good, but I don’t like Skin and I hated these two fucks.” She kicked Cab.
I thought about asking her why she was worried about infections or dirt getting into her open sore on her hand when a few minutes ago she had wiped her ass with her other hand, but I didn’t. Instead I was trying to think of an exit strategy.
“So the only way you’re going to let us out of here is if I let you eat my girl out?” I asked.
She nodded, smiling.
“You’ll kill us if she doesn’t let you?” I asked.
“Motherfucker, you seen what I can do with my knife.
Don’t test me no more about it.”
Mindy said “Not here, though.
Back at the hotel.”
Mits motioned for us to go out the door. We went outside. There was an old Chevy 4x4 with a lift kit and another motorcycle parked next to mine. “The truck was Gordo’s,” Mits said. “Cab didn’t know how to drive because he was such a
RETARD
!” she hollered back at the door. “The bike’s mine.”
“Follow us to the hotel then,” I said as
Mindy and I got on our bike. Mindy stuffed our shopping bag deep into the sleeping bag rolled up on the back of our bike.
“No funny stuff,” Mits said. “I’ll be right behind you and I can reach you easily with my knife.”
“No problem.”
Weaving through the parking lot full of jammed cars, we went south back to the high
way.
I didn’t know what to do. I was honestly perplexed. This rotten little black girl would only let us leave
if she could eat Mindy’s pussy? It made me sick to my stomach.
Back at the hotel, we went up to the room we had been staying in.
“Ok leave,” Mits told me. “Go down in
the lobby and take some of that medication Mindy stuck in your sleeping bag. It’ll do you some good.”
I looked at Mindy. Her face showed no emotion.
“Can’t we talk this over?” I asked, still trying to think of anything to do or say.
Mits pointed her machete at me. It still had some of the blood on it from the other two men. “We’re done talking,” she said. “You’re lucky you’re not a stiff now, so le
ave us be. A deal is a deal.”
Mindy nodded to me, signaling that it was ok for me to leave. She lowered her head, humiliated.
Shutting the door, I went downstairs.
Mits locked the door behind me.
In the sleeping bag I pulled out the Rose Medical shopping bag. I dry swallowed two of the Tylenol 3 pills.
I started nervously pacing around the lobby, trying to think of anything to do to help Mindy.
About twenty minutes later, Mindy came down into the lobby. She sat down on a couch. She had her clothes on. Her
face still showed no emotion. I asked her if she was ok.
She nodded.
I asked “Where’s Mits?”
“She’s dead.”
“Dead? How did she die?”
“I suffocated her. She is in our room. Please get her out of there. Put her outside in the parkin
g lot. I’m going to go wash.”
She stood up and went back upstairs.
While Mindy was in the bathroom, I dragged Mits’ lifeless body out of our room, down the steps, and out the front door of the hotel. I propped her against a car in the parking lot. When I was done, I went back upstairs and waited on the bed until Mindy was done.
We decided that we needed to move somewhere, and fast. We didn’t know how long it would be before someone in Skin’s clan would find Mits.
We decided that we needed to get out of Denver.
“Should we go back north? We might cross paths with Mason?” I asked
“I don’t know.”
“I think it might be best if we try to meet up with them. There would be four of us then instead of two.”
“Ok.”
After bagging up our supplies, we headed north.
Mindy didn’t say much the next day. She seemed very distant to me. I mean, she hugged me, but she wasn’t receptive to my advances before we went to sleep that first night; she just rolled over.
I understood though. It was almost as if Mindy had been raped.
She didn’t talk at all about what Mits did to her, and I didn’t ask. I felt that if she wanted to tell me about it, she would.
It was getting a lot colder, too.
Two days before Halloween, we made camp just south of Sheridan, Wyomi
ng.
I had to get a campfire going. It was just getting too cold. I could see my breath as I worked the kindling into a fire. Mindy sat behind me on a log, her arms crossed.
When the fire was finally going good enough, I slid back and sat beside her. I put my arm around her. “You ok?” I asked.
She didn’t say anything.
“Mindy, are you alright?” I asked, looking at her.
“You didn’t protect me, Dan.”
“What? I didn’t protect you?”
“No. You gave in to Mits. It was almost like you didn’t care if she wanted to do what she did to me.”
“Oh I cared,” I said. “Don’t say I didn’t care, Mindy.”
“But you didn’t do anything to
stop
her.”
“At the hospital I was going to sacrifice myself so you could get out of there without any trouble...”
“And then I would have been alone.”
“Well what
did you want me to do, Mindy? Try and fight her and her machete? She would have chopped me up like she did to Cab and the other guy.”
“Gordo.”
“Yeah him.” I slid away from her and stirred the fire.
“I was so scared Da
n…she told me to take my pants off and lay on the bed...and you were gone…you left without even trying to talk her out of it.”
“She was the one with the weapon.”
“We could have fought her off in the hotel…”
“I didn’t want to take a chance of you getting hurt.”
Mindy was crying. “You said you would take care of me.”
“I
do
take care of you, Mindy!”
“I felt so alone…” She had her face in her hands, crying.
“It’s over now,” I said as I sat back on the log next to her. “Mits is dead. She’s gone.”
“I killed her. I killed someone…”
“You had to.”
She put her head on my chest cryi
ng. She said “I can’t believe…that you were afraid of…a little black girl…”
That stung. It hurt. I tried to hold my anger back. I said slowly “She had a
machete
.”
Mindy looked up at me, a tear running down her cheek. “I killed her with my legs and you couldn’t even lift a
finger
against her.”
“She had a god-damn knife,” I said, standing up. “She slit those guys’ throats like they were nothing. She could have killed us in an instant if she wanted to.”
“She could have killed me after you left the room like a coward.”
“Oh my fucking god,” I said, walking around the campfire. “So now it’s
my
fault?”
“You said you would always protect me, Dan!”
“Well I’m sorry. When a knife is at my throat, I guess I turn into a puss.”
“Well then maybe she should have eaten
you out
.”
She stood up and stormed into our tent.
“My god…” I whispered. “Jesus…”
I paced around the fire for a few minutes then went into the tent. Mindy was already in the sleeping bag. She was facing away from me.
I said “I’m sorry.”
Mindy said “I think we should have driven away when Mits was following us on the motorcycles. I think we could have outrun her.”
I didn’t say anything.
“We could have fought her in the hotel room. You didn’t have to give in so easily.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I felt like we were backed up against a wall. I didn’t think we could have done anything without either one of us getting hurt.”
“I just can’t believe you gave in so fast,”
Mindy said. “It was so
easy
for her.”
I sat down next to her on the sleeping bag. “I don’t know, I guess I was just thinking that she would leave us alone after – well, after she did what she wanted to do.”
“And you were ok with it?” Mindy asked, turning toward me.
“Not at all.
I hated it. I didn’t want her – or anyone else – to touch you. You are mine.”
Mindy
said “This really has hurt me, Dan; in more ways than one.”
Again I told her that I was sorry.
“She made me get naked in front of her,” Mindy said, her voice hitching. “She held the machete to my throat, then told me to lay down on the bed. She told me to spread my legs. As soon as she lay down between my legs, she put the machete on the side of the bed. I took the chance and squeezed her head real hard. She tried to fight, but I held her real tight. Her face was smothering against my…pussy. I held her there for a long time. After a while she stopped struggling.”
I put my hand on her side as she talked.
“I felt so violated, Dan. Here I was being raped by a little girl, and my man was cowering down the steps. You could have broken into the room and shoved her off of me. You could have tried to get the knife away from her when we were in the hotel. But you did nothing and it hurts me. Its hurts me bad.”
I held my hand on her. I still didn’t say anything. What
could
I say? I’m not saying she was right, but she was making sense. I mean, Mits was a young kid. I think Mindy and I could have overtaken her, but at what cost? An arm? A severed head? A deep cut that neither one of us could have stopped bleeding? I didn’t think there was a course of action that we could have taken differently.
Mits told us that she’d let us go if she could have her way with Mindy – but then again, who was to say if
Mit’s promise was real or not?
Finally I said “I don’t think we had a choice, Mindy.”
She sat up on an elbow. “No,
I
didn’t have a choice. But
you
did!”
“Mindy you’re not being fair…”
“Being fair? Ok how about this: how about some dude was threatening us. And how about he said that the only way we would be set free, would be if he could suck your cock? Would you let him?”
“No.”
“Would you fight him over it?”
I thought about it a second. I said “If it were to ensure our safety, I would let him do it.”
“Oh you’re just saying that…”
I leaned toward her. “No. If it meant keeping you safe or giving you a chance to break free so you could get away and live, then yeah, I would let him.
Just like I was going to give myself over to Mits at the hospital, remember? I was willingly giving myself to those guys so you had a chance to get away. I never expected you to stay there and wait for Mits and me to return later. When they started taking me away, I knew for sure that they were going to kill me. They were going to put me up on a stand in front of Skin and he was going to murder me right in front of everyone.”
I continued “That was your chance to get away, Mindy. I was protecting you by giving myself into
them.
When they took me away, I expected you to make a run for it and never return because I was going to die. Die, to protect you.”
Fresh tears were running down her cheeks. “I know Dan. I know you gave yourself up for me.”
“But I fucked up,” I said. “I should have fought Mits. I could have kicked her or we could have made a run for it, like you said. But…I saw it as an out for us and I was wrong. I am sorry that she did that to you.”
She nodded.
“And no matter what,” I said “it will never happen again.”
“Ok.”
“Do you forgive me?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
I smiled at her.
“Can you come in here?
It’s cold,” Mindy said with a little shiver.
“Sure. Let me put the camp fire out first.”
“K.”
The next morning, we stopped on the north end of Sheridan at a travel plaza for fuel. Mindy went inside looking for anything to eat.
Food was getting very scarce. She came back out holding some dry cereal boxes that had already been opened. Only a few crumbs were left in the bottoms of the bags inside.
The dates on the packages were coming up to their due dates, too. The food tasted stale.