We Are Both In The Dirt Ch. 16

Killers. She loves killers. A woman who loves killers must be prepared to endure every facet of a psychopath's psyche. She cannot cower when he threatens her with the same violence he doles out with reckless abandon to the world he rips through. She must fight back when he strikes her. She must always be thinking. Always be outthinking him. She has to be one step ahead. She has to stay interesting. She must be beautiful, classically so or otherwise. Just beautiful.

Any woman with a career criminal will become a criminal. It is unavoidable. Even if she hasn't ever pulled a trigger, sold a drug, done a drug. Everyone knows that if you knew than you knew and you are as good as incarcerated. It is all worth it, for her. She is sure that any man less intense than the ones she surrounds herself with would not pique and hold her interest. She likes their danger, always has. There comes a time in a woman's life, however, when she must separate herself from her basest desires. She must actively shun them. She must purge her soul. That day, thankfully, is not today.

She runs her hands over the stubble on Mikowski's head as he lies on top of her, his eyes low lidded, cigarette smoke sliding out of his parted lips. She touches the bandage on his shoulder and then caresses the feverish skin surrounding the bandage itself. She teases her index finger into his mouth and feels around for his tongue. He begins to suck, shifts his weight so that she feels the press of his erection against her thigh.

She had not expected Mikowski, and her heart truly breaks for this betrayal. There is nothing she can do, after all. She ponders whether or not her capacity for love is finite. She is not sure. She remains genuinely perplexed by her wonton acts of what some might simply call promiscuity-and promiscuity it is not.

She has, however, done Mint and Mandrake a solid, or, Mikowski has. as he has freed them of Montana's cronies as well as the puppet master himself. They can live without fear-without fear of Montana anyway. Mint is an escaped convict and Mandrake has more warrants than the set of a western movie and so they remain pursued, after all. Another reason she cannot stay with them, it will only bring more angst, she knows it in her heart. She wishes it were not true.

"Montana, he didn't beg. He looked resigned. Tired. Different than I'd ever seen him before, actually. I thought that I would feel some rush before I murdered him. That is the usual thing, a rush of adrenaline, warm pleasure filling every single inch of my body. But I didn't. I felt that he was a good man that had gone wrong way before you met him. I feel like maybe he knew his life had been shit, and the shit made it too hard to climb out," Mikowski says.

"And while he lived in the shit he was flinging it out at people trying to lessen the depth of his-shit pool," Mira says.

"Yes, this is true," Mikowski says with a chuckle. "He died quick. I don't know what I expected, but it was nothing. Lesser men have had more dramatic deaths. The shot he got off resulted in a mere flesh wound. He was never a good shot."

"Well, I'm just glad this is soon to be over. We can start over. We can move out of the country. Get normal jobs. Or not. We could go to school. Open a business, a restaurant."

"Go straight?" Mikowski says. "You have to be kidding."

"Maven, one can only evade the law for so long. You and I have been lucky-never having been caught. But luck runs out. Mint went a long time before he caught his first case. After that it's all too easy to get caught again. Your record just grows and grows. Being in jail on some 20 to life sentence is not what I'm striving for."

"Me neither, but I'm good, Mira. I've never even gotten a speeding ticket."

"Mark my words," Mira says with a playful swat to Mikowski's back.

"Michigan Mike? He crumpled like a doll," Mikowski says, suddenly.

"What do you mean?"

"I sniped him. This was a good one. Nothing messy. I watched him for a day or two. He had sex with all kinds of people, he was a bit...eccentric. He had a hotel room downtown on the water, you know where I'm talking about? He was just going through the phone book ordering people at one point. Dick, pussy, and everything in between. And when he wasn't fucking some nudie mag back page offering, he was beating his meat to porn. I did see him preparing for a job. He gets steady work despite all the jobs he's botched."

"Well he's effectively not botched a lot of jobs, and I'm glad I was one of his failures."

"Me too," Mikowski says, snuggling against her. "You sure about the Murder Twins, though? Do you think that you can just up and leave them? I can take care of them. Might be easier for you, you know, to move on with them dead. I know how tempting the comfort of a past love can be."

Mira tenses as panic seizes her stomach. She thought she'd made it perfectly clear that she didn't want Mint or Mandrake harmed. "I told you, don't touch them. You touch them you might as well kill me, too. I won't be with them anymore, I agreed to that, but I won't stand by and let you hurt them."

"My what a difference a day makes. A little over a month ago you wanted both of them done and over with. Had me using all kinds of means best left untouched. I risked getting caught in the system when I went to jail to off Mint for you, and now you're so adamant that they be left unharmed. Should I be worried? Worried that once the breeze of indecision washes over you you'll leave me, too, send those crazy motherfuckers after me?"

"No, you don't have to worry about that, not at all. And if I wanted you dead, I'd do it myself," Mira says with a smile. Mikowski smiles back, takes one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger.

"I really love your skin. It's smooth, smells like the earth," Mikowski puts his lips to the flesh between her breasts. "When we make love for the first time, I know it's going to be amazing."

"I'm sure it will be," Mira says. She lights a cigarette and runs her nails up and down Mikowski back. He'd spoken of Michigan Mike's eccentricities as if he didn't harbor a barrelful of his own. Mikowski had told her, one of the first times they'd spoken, about his childhood spent in a Glasgow orphanage. He'd joked about his daily efforts to protect his virginity, and then on a more serious note had described his slight aversion to sex. While he'd been with his share of women, he told her he never had sex until entirely comfortable with the woman and their collective energy.

He prefers what they are doing now to anything else, lounging naked in bed, sharing a joint or a drink. Talking. Sometimes he would have her sit and he would stare at her naked body while falling into one of his "trances" where he would chant and light incense. He told her the practice provided focus for his killings, witnessing the female body, he told her, allowed him to channel the full strength of his abilities. He would touch her and kiss her and fall to his knees, bury his face in her stomach or her breasts, praise her beauty for hours. She and Mikowski had shared long, deep conversations for years now. It was only recently that they'd taken it to this level.

"I worry that we won't be able to make love, however, until I'm sure that you are mine, and only mine."

Mira stubs out her cigarette. "I am fine with waiting," Mira says, "and I am as much yours as I can be anyone's."

"Exactly. You're not mine, not yet," Mikowski says. "What made you come here with me tonight? What made you decide to leave them, finally?"

She isn't exactly sure. Mikowski speaks to some part of her that Mint and Mandrake do not, yet she cannot say that she prefers Mikowski to Mint or Mandrake. He is simply satisfying her tastes for variety. His smoldering violent streak intrigues her, and his moral fiber, which although hypocritical in its existence, is intact. He does not kill wantonly. He says prayers for his victims. While people speak of his penchant for torture, they fail to remember that he is hired to commit the torture he performs. "I'm here because I want to be," she says.

"Are you sad about Montana at all? I'd meant to ask you earlier," Mikowski says.

Another answer she is unsure of. She'd been surprised by an unmistakable pang of loss that hit her to her core when Mikowski came to her in the lounge and told her that it was done. It was only a moment, and it passed quickly, but she'd felt it. She imagines the money she hasn't stolen will go to Alice, a child Montana had with a woman in Seattle five years into he and Mira's relationship.

Mira had found out about her only recently, and had reached out to Alice's mother, Mel, without any clear motive in mind. When they first met, Mel told Mira that she and Montana remained together in a sense, and that he'd taken care of Alice, at least financially, from the moment she was conceived. Alice, who Mira had found to be cheerful, well-adjusted and all around darling, had suffered a few medical issues as a toddler, and he'd paid every medical bill and had even attended a few doctor's appointments.

Mira recalls how intrigued she'd been as Mel told her about how Montana always made sure to call Alice on her birthdays, and that every blue moon he would come and visit her, take her on some exciting day trip and then not see her again for a year or more. Mira did not know this Montana-this semi-thoughtful responsible human being who thought of others. She cannot deny that she feels a tinge of jealousy that Mel was able to elicit something in Montana that she surely never could.

She tries to calm her brain, which is racing suddenly. She even recalls a memory of her mother, picking her up from her crib after some sort of incident with her father. She cannot remember ever thinking of this moment before, but it is there and it is clear and she feels, for a moment, like she is that child again, lost in some highly charged moment that can only exist between people in love.

She again feels the cold dread of her impending death, like she had before she'd gone out the night before. She is not sure why she feels this way, and dismisses the thought as quickly as it forms.

Mikowski shifts his weight again on top of her, and soon drifts off to sleep. She lights another cigarette and takes a drag. She feels hyper-aware of her surroundings, the softness of the down mattress on Mikowski's bedroom floor, the heavy weight of his body as she lay half-pinned beneath him.

She imagines that having dated a number of criminals, picking up their habits, methods, and inclinations, she may be the biggest criminal of them all. The biggest psychopath of the bunch-not quite. She is merely a woman awash in echoes of scorn and anger, confusion and fear.

Crime is a different thing altogether. She had kept Mint and Mandrake clean, for a while. Kept them out of further trouble in Mandrake's case. She'd formulated plans that didn't appear to be feasible on paper but were easily executed with an amusing perfection. She has proven herself invaluable to those close to her. She'd said that exact thing to Mandrake after they'd robbed a liquor store in a town whose name she can't remember.

What she does remember is that the shopkeeper had flicked his tongue out at her and called her a racial epithet as leaned over the counter and ripped cash from the register drawer. He'd looked like a corpse and ogled her breasts openly. She remained a mere sex object even while in the commission of a felony. A black bimbo awash in a fetishized world.

Her mind drifts for a moment and she is suddenly wondering where she is, who is on top of her.

"Hello?" she says, slapping Mikowski on his back.

"What, you alright?" He asks. He looks her right in the eye and suddenly her mind is clear again.

"Yes, I'm fine," she says. She lies her head back as Mikowski climbs over her, takes her wrists and presses them gently against the wall.

"Do you want to know why I need you to be all mine?" he whispers in her ear.

"I think something's happening," she says as Mikowski begins to kiss her. She feels good, warm, like her entire body is vibrating, and though she isn't as confused as she was a moment ago, she feels disconnected from the sight of Mikowksi's eyes as he says something to her that she cannot hear. The look in his eye changes and he is shaking her, saying other things that she can't hear.

She remembers Sela. The night she died. She and Montana had gone over to her house for some reason or another, and everything had disintegrated into chaos. She hadn't seen Sela for a few weeks, and she'd entered Sela's house to find her asleep, and pregnant. Mira remembers the confusion she'd felt, and how memories of Sela covering up her thin frame with baggier clothes in the months before had begun to flood her memory. She'd shaken Sela awake while Montana had yelled at her that they needed to leave. When Sela had finally awoken she looked out of it, drugged.

Mikowski is still speaking but he's also on his phone now, and his movements are frantic. She still cannot hear a word he's saying, but she can clearly see Sela holding the gun to her head, telling Mira that it's Montana's baby, and that she is sorry. Mira forgave her before the sorry had even left her lips. She knew better than anyone how coercive Montana could be, how much pressure he could apply. Sela called herself a slut. Said she didn't deserve to live, and shot herself before Mira could stop her. Shot herself and dropped to the floor.

Mira feels sick suddenly as the ever present pain in her head intensifies to an unbearable degree. A transient memory of some Ferris wheel ride she'd taken with her father during one of his rare appearances begins to play through her head as her vision blurs and then goes black, then light again, and then black.

She begins to drift into what she feels will be a deep, satisfying sleep. In some cloudlike ether that seems to surround her in the place behind her eyes, she sees Sela, and she's holding a golden-skinned baby in her arms.