The Traveling Vampire Show

There was mischief in her smile. “I know many things.” “Jeez.”

She squatted in front of me.

Oh, my God! She’s gonna blow me!

My heart hammered.

“I don’t know, Slim.”

She tilted back her head and smiled up at me. “It’ll be all right. We don’t want you messing up your clean jeans, do we?”

“No, but ...”

She raised her hand toward me.

Okay. Not the same as her mouth, but still ...

Her middle finger curled down. She caught it under her thumb and let fly, thumping the tip of my erection.

“OW!!!” I cried out.

Chapter Thirty- seven

Sitting in the passenger seat of the Pontiac on the way to my house, I gave Slim a dirty look. She grinned at me. In the darkness, she couldn’t have seen much of the look I’d given her, or known what I was thinking. But she said, “It worked, didn’t it?”

She did know what I was thinking. “Yeah, but jeez!”

“You’re fine.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re not the one who got thumped.”

“I’ve had a few thumps.”

Remembering Jimmy Drake, I decided not to pursue the subject.

“The car’s working good,” I said.

“She’s a peach,” Slim said, and patted the steering wheel.

That’s what her grandmother used to say about the car, She’s a peach.

Up to the moment of her grandma’s demise, it had been the old woman’s car and nobody else had been allowed to drive it. Slim’s mother used the hot little M.G. that had belonged to Jimmy. (Apparently, he’d gone on his mysterious trip without it.)

Slim, however, hated everything about Jimmy, including his car. Especially his car. Before going away, he often forced her to take rides with him. He drove her to secluded places and did terrible things to her.

After Jimmy’s departure, Slim refused to go anywhere in the M.G. Her grandmother drove her in the Pontiac when she had to have a ride. Otherwise, she did her traveling by foot. This was fine with Slim. I think, if she’d gotten herself stranded in the middle of Death Valley and her mother came to the rescue in Jimmy’s old M.G., Slim would’ve shaken her head and told her, “Thanks anyway, I’d rather walk.”

When her grandmother died, Slim lost her transportation.

Her mother continued to use the M.G., while the Pontiac sat unused in the garage. It seems that Slim’s mother wanted nothing to do with that car. Who knows why? Maybe she simply enjoyed the nice little M.G., even if it had belonged to a bastard like Jimmy. Or maybe awful things had happened to her in the Pontiac—or nice things that were too painful for her to think about, now that her mother was dead.

Like I say, who knows?

Whatever the reason, the Pontiac got itself abandoned in the garage. It sat there for almost a year.

A few months before the Traveling Vampire Show came to town, Rusty and I went over to Slim’s house on a hot, sunny morning, figuring the three of us might head over to the river. The M.G. wasn’t in the driveway, so Slim’s mom was probably away. Slim might’ve been gone, too, but we knew she hadn’t taken off with her mother. Not in the M.G.

We knocked on the front door, but nobody answered. So then we went around back. The garage door was open. We found Slim in the driver’s seat of her grandmother’s big green Pontiac, gazing through the windshield. When she heard us coming, she turned her head and smiled. “Hey, guys,” she said out the open window.

“Hi,” I said.

“What’s up?” Rusty asked.

“Not much. Hop in.”

While Rusty nodded and eyed the back door, I hurried around to the other side and climbed into the front seat. Leaving the door open for Rusty, I scooted to the middle.

Slim was in a T-shirt and cut-off jeans. Her legs looked tan and smooth. Her feet were bare. The way she looked made me feel great. So did the smell of her. I sighed and smiled. “What’re you doing?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Just thinking,” she said.

Rusty scooted in beside me. “Gonna take her for a spin?”

When he said that, I noticed the key in the ignition.

“Not today.”