Chapter 4
The “new truck” is a limited-edition Ford that came out a decade ago, but I’m guessing that’s new by the man’s standards and also because the total mileage is only ten thousand.
When I got the truck, I saw an antique Mustang in the garage at the back of the store, which I remember taking for a joyride when I was about twelve. I drove to Headings Peak out in the middle of nowhere in our great state of Wyoming and then drove it back.
Wish I’d known Tammy back then so I could have taken her for a ride with me and gotten a feel of her tits. Big tits. I’m gonna suck on them soon.
Thinking about sucking her tits puts me in a great mood while I duck inside the big grocery store in a bigger town and scurry through the aisles, finding her, then backing off so she won’t catch a whiff of a tail.
She doesn’t. She’s a civilian, unlike me, who’s constantly looking at people, angles, exit points, shelters, and possible scenarios of a normal trip to the grocery store gone to hell.
She pushes the cart down the aisle and rounds the corner. I move from my spot, then stop to see what she was looking at. Barbies. Her girls come running around the corner and practically shove me out of the way so they can view the doll selection.
Same as their mom, they’ve got long brown hair that curls at the ends. One wears jeans and a white shirt, the other black tights with a red shirt. Their shoes are the same, though, sparkly and with flashing lights on the soles. I had no idea shoes could do that.
The one wearing jeans points at the red sticker on the Barbie box. “Clearance means it’s on sale,” she explains to her sister. “How much money do we have?”
“Not enough,” her sister says.
“Not even for one?” The girl wearing jeans glances at me, gaze lingering. She tilts her head. “Do we know you?”
“No.”
“Do you know our aunt?”
I did not see that coming. These aren’t her kids. “Yes.”
“Can I borrow two dollars, then?”
Get the fuck out of here. I blink. What’s the proper protocol here?
Kids should come with manuals. I want to give them the money, but I can’t be seen as a creeper, even though I’m stalking their aunt and them by proxy.
I scrub my jaw for a second when I hear Tammy call for them.
The last thing I need is her seeing the girls talking to a “stranger.” I know that much about kids.
Before Tammy catches me, I grab two Barbies on sale and walk away without a word.
I hear her chastising the girls for taking off on her as she’s trying to shop.
I wait until they leave the aisle, then return to stare at the dolls, and an idea hits me.
Who needs guns when you can do the job with Barbies?
I tuck the two sale-priced Barbies under my armpit and pick up two more, the ones that aren’t on sale, and some boxes of clothes and a pink car.
I’m holding it all in my hands and bending, trying to see what else is there on the shelf at the bottom.
More shit. I pick up a few things, though I don’t know what half this crap is. They’ll know, and that’s what matters.
Arms full of toys, I’m trying to figure out where to tuck Barbie’s toy poodles. Pockets. Good. I get two boxes with plastic poodles with pink bows in their hair, while searching the display for an armed badass bitch Marine Barbie and can’t find one.
Army Barbie? Negative, and even Ken is just a pilot and not Air Force. This is some fucked-up shit. Neither Ken nor Barbie has a security team or defense personnel.
While I’m aware most girls like sparkly pink Barbies, I’ve gone to war with women beside me, and those who want a badass Barbie ought to have an option to buy one.
I’m all for empowering ladies, and I intend to empower Tammy with my dick and some other qualities I can’t think of at the moment because I’m too busy trying to find her in the store.
At the bakery, she gets a brown bag of something, and I fucking missed what it is, which means now I’ll have to get inside the house to see what she likes to eat.
I’m trying to think back to what she might’ve looked like as a teenager, but nothing comes to mind.
I don’t know her from before. It’s for the best. Back then, at fifteen, I didn’t care about what kind of food girls got at the bakery. I just wanted to grab a tit.
I still want to grab a tit. It’s just now, I’m older and smarter and I know the tit is attached to a body and brain, and I want it all.
Tammy sees me, and her eyes immediately lock on the toys I’m managing to balance in my arms. Her eyes widen, and she hurries toward the cashier, leaving the girls behind her because the girls have stopped to stare at me.
They’ve got that longing look on their little faces, and I smile, saying with no words that I’ll get this shit to them later, but the one in jeans sticks her tongue out and pulls at the one in tights, who’s dug in her heels, giving me sad, adorable puppy eyes.
I follow them to the cashier and find that Tammy’s practically throwing things on the track to get out of the store faster. Too bad the cashier lady is elderly and you can’t hurry her along because she’s too old to give a fuck about your attitude and why you’re throwing shit at her.
Martha—I read her badge—takes her sweet time, likely going even slower than usual, because Tammy’s huffing and puffing at this point, wallet ready, card out, waving and all.
The girls pack the groceries, and the badass one who’s clearly more assertive than her sister keeps throwing covert glances my way.
The cashier rings me up while Tammy packs the rest of her groceries.
When she pushes her cart toward the exit, I grab my stuff and dump the bags full of Barbie bribes inside.
Before she has a chance to protest, the girls are screaming, ripping through the bags, getting the toys out, and I swagger away like Lucifer after an evil deed.