We Are Both In The Dirt Ch. 14

"Just like I always imagined," Mandrake says. Mira doesn't hear him at first. She is looking through her purse trying to find the pain pills the doctor Delray had taken her to had prescribed. He told her to pop a few whenever the pain got to be too much. Her past addictions make her leary of most controlled substances, but with a headache this bad she has no choice.

"It's shiny, that much is for sure," she says once she's located the pills. She downs two of them with a quick chomp and swallow. She looks up at Mandrake and the brand new Mercedes coupe he'd just purchased.

"Shiny, red, sexy. Let's fuck on the hood," Mandrake says while leering at a leggy blonde that walks by at that very moment.

"Fuck her instead," Mira says. She turns heel and heads back toward the hotel. Mandrake calls after her a few times, but she doesn't turn around and gets onto the elevator alone. She checks her cell phone, which with its char marks and cracked screen paired with the constant ache in her head remind her of the absolute horror of the explosion.

She calms herself as she scrolls through her call log. A few missed calls. A voicemail from Mint. She then checks Fowler Jone's voicemail. Eerily, his phone had fared way better. He has message after message, various requests, inquiries and comments from people who have yet to learn of his death. She smiles.

The elevator doors open to their suite and she is staring back at Mint who without interlude snatches the phone from her hands. "What you up to?" He asks, his fingers dancing across the screen as he tries to crack the lock code. She manages to snatch it back before he gains access. He walks onto the elevator, corners her. She holds her hands up, her breathing shallow.

"What are you so afraid of?" He asks. He pins her hand against the wall of the elevator and pries the phone from her hands and smashes it against the wall with one swift movement. Mira screeches but stays still, looks him in the eye.

When he kisses her she rears back at first, surprised. She pulls away once the message is clear, rips open her shirt and waits, and she doesn't wait long.

He runs his hands down her thighs and slides her panties down her legs. He eases himself out of his pants and presses against her. He runs furtive, insistent hands over her center, then drops to his knees and runs his tongue over every swollen inch of her.

He holds her legs askew, breathes and moans as his tongue probes and massages her every fold. He is saying something she can't hear. Then he is on his feet again, he hikes up her leg and enters her with one hard thrust. She bites his shoulder while he says things in her ear that both frighten and titillate, holds off as long as she can before she screams her release. His strokes turn to deep, reflexive jerks as he comes and fills her with his warmth. When he is done he zips up and turns away from her.

"What were you saying?" She asks, trying to gain her composure.

"You know what I was saying. You took a hit out on me? On me?" His face is red, his green eyes ablaze. She has never seen him so angry, and when her laugh comes it echoes awkwardly against their extended silence.

"Sometimes, Mira, you make me wonder," he says. He looks as if she has just slapped him.

Her heartbeat speeds up. She can't be offended by this. He's angry. He should be. "What do you wonder?"

"Just what you've got going on in your heart," he says. He leaves the elevator and she feels light headed. The dull ache in her head intensifies just a bit. She blinks her eyes to clear her vision which blurs from time to time since her injury. She leans against the back wall of the elevator, slides to the floor. She recalls the doctor's cautious words, but doesn't think of them long before her phone rings.

"I thought I smashed that motherfucker!" Mint says as he reenters the elevator to investigate.

"You smashed Fowler's phone. Mine's intact, more or less," she says before answering Mandrake's call.

"I've been trying to call the fucking elevator car to the room for damn near thirty minutes! What gives?" Mandrake all but screams this. Mira leaves the elevator and it finally descends. She ends the call and turns to Mint who plies her with a searching look that she takes full on. She has nothing to hide. Nothing much at all.

"I hope it was worth seeing her. One last time," she says. The elevator opens and Mandrake saunters into the room. He looks at both of them.

"Did you guys just fuck? Without me?" Mandrake says.

"Yeah, just trying to catch up with you guys, you know? Mya told me you two have been fucking and robbing Montana for months. Is that true? You were in on this whole thing all this time, Mandrake? You had sex with her behind my back?"

"Mint, give me a break. All of this is your fault!" Mira goes to the refrigerator and grabs her flask. She takes a swig and tries to clear her head. She feels slightly nauseous, hopes the brandy will help.

"How exactly do you figure that?"

"You should have seen her, man. When she found out you were calling Mya and making nice, she was devastated. I was just consoling her."

"And your dick is the perfect cure for the angst I give her, is it?"

"Yes," Mira says plainly. She leans on the marble countertop and takes a deep breath "Mint, I thought I'd lost you. I decided to finally stop longing for someone who couldn't even be bothered to call and check in for three years. I grew to love Mandrake. He took good care of me. Montana beat me up bad one night after I told him I was going to make him pay for all the things he'd done and he lost it. I called Mandrake and we decided to kill Montana. Why not? He deserves it."

Mira walks over to Mint, looks up at the turbulence in his eyes. He hadn't done what she'd thought he would. She recalls how when her days were darkest with Montana thoughts of Mint were her escape. She imagined him getting out, coming to save her, shooting Montana in the head and stepping over his dead body to embrace her. All of that slipped away when she found out about his frequent calls and proclamations to Mya.

Mint is silent for a few moments before he wraps his hands around Mandrake's neck and attempts to wrangle him to the ground.

"Stop it Mint! Stop it!" Mira screams, but she doesn't dare go near them.

"You motherfucker! You've been lying, to me? You had me thinking Montana was in a jealous rage when in truth, he's trying to get revenge, like any man would. I'm your flesh and blood. I'm you! I know we didn't grow up together, but fuck, if you don't have your fucking twin brother's back, then whose back do you have?"

"Mint, don't blame him. I begged him to keep it a secret. We're in the real world, Mint. You know it's thick as thieves between lovers. Don't blame him," Mira says.

"You're right, I shouldn't blame him," he says, releasing Mandrake who clears his throat and coughs as he gets to his feet, "but I sure as fuck blame you. There's no uncertainty about that! Mya told me you and Montana were going strong. Engaged. I decided that we wouldn't ever be together now I get to see how right I was!"

"Well, you could have called me and asked me about it all! Mya was only trying to fuck with your mind, and you fell for it hook line and sinker," Mira says.

"So what was that shit tonight? Payback?"

"Payback?" Mandrake asks.

"She sent Mikowski after me. He killed Mya and tried to kill me."

"Is that true, Mira?"

"Yes it's true," she drains her flask.

"What the fuck!" Mandrake yells.

"He fucking let me down!"

"So you try to kill him?"

"Listen, I ordered that hit before you broke out, Mint."

"I knew it, I knew it when you told me about Mikowski. You know, I actually thought I saw Mikowski inside. Was he inside?"

"Yes, he was going to kill you in prison. He has a guy that got him in. It ended up taking him longer than he expected to get the job done. He ended up having to leave for another job before he could do it. I tried to call him and stop him the night you came to see me Mint. I forgave you in that moment. But I couldn't reach him. He wouldn't answer the phone."

"And tonight, you could suddenly reach him?" Mint asks.

"I sent him a text and begged him. I told him I changed my mind. He never answered me, and you're here, so apparently he listened."

"Okay, I'm confused," Mandrake says, walking toward Mira with his posture predatory, a cigarette smoking in his tattooed hand. "I was wondering this since you first mentioned Mikowski, I know you told me that he was going to take care of Montana, but there's more to your relationship, isn't there? When did you and Mikowski get so buddy buddy? We were at that party, and he watched you so intently I asked you if you knew him. You down played it pretty well."

"Well, we know each other," Mira says.

"Why didn't you tell me that? Why did you pretend like you'd barely met him?"

"Because she's a liar," Mint says.

"I'm a liar," Mira says. She is a liar. She knows no other way. The lies came only after, though, only after she'd learned who each of them were, exactly. Mint, a man who loves another woman but will not admit it to himself or anyone else for reasons Mira isn't exactly sure of.

She doesn't know why he fucked her in the elevator, but it had nothing to do with her, she is sure.

Mandrake, the worst womanizer the world has ever known. Montana, a violent sociopath who subjected her to any and every form of abuse he could divine. None of them are a sure thing. A man like Mint, a man like Mandrake, a man like Montana. Not in touch with their own emotions. Crying when they should laugh, fucking when they should be crying. She loves Mint and Mandrake as much as she hates Montana, but hate and love are next to nothing outside of one's mind.

She's in it now, in this triangle she's created. Thinking of getting out of it. She has enough money to leave all of this behind. All of them behind. However, they are not the type of men one just leaves. If they are in the world at all she would want to be in that world, with them, beneath them, between them.

If she is ever to get anything more out of life they have to be gone, her temptation must be destroyed--at least that is how she'd felt in the weak moment when she hired Mikowski to kill them all. She'd taken advantage of Mikowski's fascination with her. She promised him that they could give things a shot when her roster was cleared, as he put it.

"I don't know what to say to you," Mandrake says.

"I know," Mira says. She feels unsteady on her feet. "I understand if you don't want to be with me anymore, but I'm tired of all the heavy shit. I'm leaving and going to enjoy what little time I have left. You can come with me or you can sit here damning me for my mistakes. You've both made plenty, after all. Lately I keep thinking about those times in my life when I actually had fun. You two were there for a lot of it. Let's go out. Let Michigan Mike blow the club to smithereens, or let another Montana bought crony appear and shoot me to bits. But it's going to happen under a strobe light. I'm going to look fabulous, and I hope to God you're there with me."

She looks both of them in the eye, and when they don't speak she leaves and goes into the bathroom, shuts the door. She looks at her reflection in the mirror. Her skin has a pale tint but otherwise, she looks admittedly stunning. She rarely reflects on her beauty, and maybe that is her mistake. Her appearance is her curse, a fact tonight she will once again force herself to forget.

She gets in the shower, touches herself, thinks of Mint's cock as his cum runs out of her, over her fingers and rinses down the drain. She showers until the water goes cold, and stays in even then, trying to clear her head.

She dries off, opens her purse and begins to dab on a little make-up as her mind considers simple things she is rarely able to contemplate, like what she will wear tonight, what fragrance she will spray on, whether or not to add another coat of polish to her nails. She plans to wear her beauty as a badge of honor, a tribute to what she knows will be a short life, her past be damned.