Volksie: Read online

  Mashed Potato Face went over to the Beetle and looked it over. The movie star came inside. He saw the girl at the bar as she stood, frozen with terror, next to Grumbine and Alston. Without saying a word, he threw the purse at her feet. Shaking, the girl picked it up. The strap was broken, Alston noticed, leaving the woman no choice but to hold it in her trembling fingers.

  “Come outside, Volksie. Chris ain’t coming. We caught up with him a while ago, made it worth his while to forget about you,” he hissed.

  Volksie? Alston looked at Grumbine with piqued interest. Grumbine, by contrast, seemed more afraid of the movie star than anything else.

  “No,” the girl, Volksie, replied. “I will not go outside.”

  “Now!” he yelled.

  “We don’t want any trouble here, man,” the bartender spoke up. “Don’t make me call the police.”

  At those words both Alston and Grumbine tensed. They did not wish to see the police called either. Nor, it seemed, did Volksie.

  “Don’t call the cops,” she said to the bartender, though she kept her eyes on the movie star the whole time.

  “Call the cops,” the movie star dared the man. “I’ll tell them this little psycho chick stole this car so she could kill herself by driving it off a cliff or something. What the hell were you doing anyway, Volksie? Your brother is worried.”

  “Why don’t you just leave her alone?” Alston said. He swiveled in his bar stool to face the man. “You got your car back. Why don’t you just take it and leave?”

  “Stay out of this, lowlife,” the movie star growled.

  Alston whipped his metal crutch into his hand and swung it across the movie star’s face in one fluid motion. The metal made a dull slapping sound on the big man’s cheek, though the blow seemed to do little else.

  A drop of blood formed in the corner of the movie star’s mouth.

  “Nice,” he growled. Next he was all over Alston. The first blow knocked him off the bar stool. The second blow was a kick to his stomach. Alston tried to deflect the hammering attacks, but didn’t fare well. His adrenaline began to boil. Grumbine, meanwhile, stayed glued to his bar stool as Alston fell in a pile to the floor. The movie star stepped past him to face Grumbine.

  “You want some of me, too?” the big man asked. “You want a piece of…”

  He never completed the sentence, thanks to a face full of metal crutch. This time Alston, who had climbed to his feet behind the movie star, hit a home run. The movie star crumpled into a heap of fat, muscle, and Polo shirt at the base of Grumbine’s stool. A lump the size of Texas began to grow on the back of his head.

  “Holy crap,” Volksie whispered. “You tanked Arnold.”

  “There’s still the other guy out there. Grumbine, bust out,” Alston said.

  “Bust out?” Grumbine asked. “Bust out where?”

  “Your backpack, open it!”

  Grumbine did as he asked. Alston proceeded to grab three knives from the pack. He handed one to Volksie, one to Grumbine, and kept the third for himself. The bartender cursed and flipped open his cell phone to call the police. With Volksie in tow, the three headed for the front door of Loony’s Ballroom. Alston’s letter lay forgotten on the bar. Once outside, they found Mashed Potato Face bearing down on them.

  He slowed down when he saw the knives in their hands. Alston held his low at his side, Grumbine did the same, while Volksie held hers out in front of her as of it were a sword. Alston saw a set of keys in the guy’s hand.

  “Where’s Arnold?” the man asked nervously.

  “Inside. We won’t stop you, but leave us alone,” Alston told him.

  “You’re in big trouble, Volksie,” he told the girl.

  “Drop the keys on the ground,” Alston commanded.

  Mashed Potato Face did as he was told and sidled around the trio. Once he was inside Loony’s, they ran for the car. Alston snatched the keys from the ground.

  “Alston, that’s their truck over there. The Z71, look!” Grumbine shouted. “Should I go pop their tires?”

  “Just get in the bug, there isn’t enough time!” Alston shouted. He opened the door for Grumbine and told him to climb in the back. Volksie waited next to Alston with her hand out.

  He looked at her and said, “What?”

  “I’m driving.”

  “Okay,” Alston tossed the keys to her and hurried to the other side of the bug. The car sped out of the parking lot seconds later.

  “So what is going on?” he asked the girl half a block down the street. “Did you steal this car?”

  “Arnold is a guy I dated briefly that works for my brother,” she replied without looking away from the road. “I didn’t steal it. They were probably going to give it to me anyway so I would stay in town. I was planning to go to Arizona with my friend Chris.”

  “If they didn’t give it to you, then you stole it,” Grumbine laughed. “That makes it stealing.”

  “Why is your brother looking for you, and why didn’t he just come himself? And who is Chris?” Alston asked.

  The woman shrugged. “Chris is – was – my boyfriend. The bastard. I need to find a way to Flagstaff.”

  “Flagstaff!” Grumbine laughed even harder. “Alston, do you realize we are never going to be able to show our face in Loony’s again? Not for a long, long time.”

  “He said you were trying to kill yourself. What was he talking about, Volksie?” Alston pressed the girl, hoping for a few answers to their predicament.

  “Oh no, look back there,” Volksie moaned.

  Alston peered out the back window. He saw a cloud of dust and gravel a few blocks back. A Chevy pickup emerged onto the road behind them, moving like a rocket. Its rear tires jittered on the roadway as it sprang from the gravel parking lot to the asphalt.

  “I told you I should have popped their tires!” Grumbine stressed. “There’s no way we’re going to out-distance them, Alston.”

  “No, not with this engine, but we should try anyway.” Alston turned to the girl in order to tell her to floor it. He realized he didn’t have to say anything, however. Her foot pounded hard on the accelerator.

  “Your name’s Alston?” she asked him.

  Alston nodded. “Your name’s Volksie?”

  “What’s your necklace, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Alston pulled his necklace out. Volksie peered at it excitedly. She reached into her own shirt while keeping one hand on the steering wheel. For a brief moment, he caught a glimpse of milky white skin and the slope of her breast as it pressed against white fabric. He could tell she wore no bra beneath that loose blouse.

  “It’s a Vee-dub emblem,” she said. “My parents gave me this when I was little. They named me after the VW they used to own. We both have matching pairs, see? They’re identical.”

  Volksie took her hand off the wheel. Her slim fingers dropped softly onto Alston’s upper thigh. The feeling brought a tingle to his groin.

  “My mom gave me mine,” Alston told her. “Our family has always been into them since as far back as I can remember. They’re exactly the same.”

  “Arnold’s getting closer,” Grumbine reminded them. The pickup gained on the bug as if it were an ogre stomping after a small rabbit. Grumbine clutched his backpack, fearing the Z71 would simply drive right over them.

  “What was all that about you trying to kill yourself?” Alston asked her again. Volksie shrugged. She took a hard left, sliding everyone against the left side of the small vehicle. The Mississippi River loomed ahead of them like a winding brown gash in the landscape.

  “What’s with your leg? Why do you have a crutch?” she asked, deflecting Alton’s question at the same time. Her hand slid further north. He felt the edge of her fingers graze his crotch. Her index finger caressed the length of his growing erection.

  Alston breathed deeply. “I’ve got a bum leg. It’s kind of a long story.” He put his hand on the metal crutch between his legs.

  “How old are you?” Volksie pressed,
glancing up at what little hair lay on Alton’s head.

  “Twenty-five. I’m just an early balder,” Alston answered. “It’s probably due to stressful living. Grumbine’s twenty-seven.”

  “I’m twenty-three,” she smiled. “Do you two know how to swim?”

  “Yeah, why? You want to go swimming?” Alston chuckled.

  The roar of an engine interrupted their strange conversation. The Chevy bore down on them like an emerald dragon in pursuit of its prey. Alston spotted Arnold behind the wheel. Next to him sat Mashed Potato Face, glaring down at him with fiery, mad eyes.

  “They look like they want to kill us,” observed Grumbine, who peeked out from the back window.

  “They probably do,” Volksie replied. “They have about six or seven guns in that truck.”

  The Z71 sidled over to the bug, but didn’t ram it yet. The vehicles shared the one-lane road neck and neck. Volksie removed her fingers from Alston’s lap and held the wheel like a race car driver. Alston, sad to see her fingers leave his crotch, knew even the best driver in the world would not be able to outrun the pursuing Chevy when driving an old Volkswagen.

  “We’re going to have to ditch,” Alston told them. “See that park up there on the river bank? We can off-road in there, jump out, and leave the car. We can vanish into the crowd.”

  No matter where a person goes in St. Louis, it seems there is a throng of people from somewhere who want to get a look at the “old muddy.” This day was no different. Brightly colored shirts dotted the green fields surrounding the Mississippi River as parents and children pounced and sprawled on the grass. Brown water shot past them in a never-ending torrent of dirt and debris. Trees lined the park, as did a number of tents, ice cream stands, and hot dog vendors.

  Large groups can often follow the same mentality. If one or two people get angry at something, it can take only minutes for the whole party to be furious, possibly even forming a lynch mob thanks solely to the first couple of people.

  When the Vee-dub hit the curb and bounced onto the grass, the mob of tourists simply turned and stared. Seconds passed before the crowd reacted, seconds that saw the bug tear through the wet grass like an out-of-control rocket. A young woman screamed. She grabbed her infant from the grass and ran as the vehicle approached; then another screamed, and suddenly the whole crowd fled the area in a human tidal wave. The little car tore between the crowd of tourists, nearly hitting a hot dog stand. A wet cloud of green grass and dew sprayed the air behind the car.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Volksie announced, and then whipped the wheel hard to the left. The car angled toward the river, filling the windshield with a view of muddy brown water. “I would rather Arnold didn’t get this bug back. He doesn’t deserve it.”

  “Volksie, there isn’t much of a choice,” Alston told her. He almost added that he agreed with her, but left it out as he saw how close the bug was to the riverbank.

  “Roll your windows down!” she yelled.

  By now the roar of the Mississippi was so loud Alston could barely hear her speak. It was then, however, he understood what it was she was doing. And why she had asked if they could swim. He rolled his window down and braced himself for what would come next. Grumbine was suddenly at Alston’s neck, scrambling to climb over his friend and leap from the vehicle, but it was too late.

  The bug leapt from the grass and dropped nose first into the river like a ton of cement blocks. Water rushed around the curved hood and began to slurp through the windows in a flood. It felt cold and silty, everything Alston would expect from the Old Muddy. He grabbed his crutch and tried to slide out of the window as the vehicle dipped and sagged to the right. The car spun around in the raging torrent as if on a merry-go-round.

  Volksie scrambled to climb from the flooded driver’s side window. Grumbine climbed through the passenger window, barreling over Alston – stuck halfway and holding his crutch like an oar – to get out. Alston’s heart pounded in his chest, but he tried to ignore it. He could feel afraid when he was safe, but now was not the time. Grumbine shouted behind him, but it was impossible to hear his words.

  The bug lurched again, snagged by a killer torrent, and sank to the driver’s side. A wave of icy water banged the side of the car on top of Volksie. Alston looked over just in time to see her vanish into the river. He hiked his body out of the window and dove into the water to rescue her, but found it pointless. The current took him. He kicked his feet and gulped air, dipping below the monstrous pull of the river. He managed to slide off his shoes when something slammed into his side. Fingers grabbed hold of him. A second later he was on top of the water and able to breathe again. Grumbine held onto him.

  “I can’t swim, Alston!” he shouted. The man’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “I keep going down! I keep going down!”

  “Push your shoes off! Kick with me!” Alston yelled. He angled his body toward the closest river bank. A tangle of shrubs and tree roots dangled in the water a mere fifteen feet to their right. It might as well have been two hundred feet away. Alston could barely keep himself up. Even with Grumbine’s frantic assistance, the shore never seemed to get any closer. He felt as if sleep were about to overcome him. The Beetle vanished under the water behind them, claimed by the mighty river.

  “I feel something!” Grumbine shouted. His voice came off shaky and frightened. He scrambled forward in the water and produced a wet, snaking tree root in his hands. “Alston, look!”

  Alston breathed a sigh of relief and yelled, “Don’t let it go!”

  Pulling hand over hand, the two made it to the bank and into a veritable jungle of roots, which the two used to free themselves from the river. Both collapsed into a tangle of green bushes and heavy tree limbs on the slopes of the Mississippi. Alston sat up and scanned the water, searching for any sign of Volksie.

  “What got into that girl?” Grumbine panted as he stared up into the sky.

  He scrutinized the far side of the river just in time to see a small figure in wet clothes sidle up the bank and dart into the shadows between two large bushes. He saw a flash of long white leg, which quickly disappeared behind the shrubbery. It had to be her. She had survived!

  “I think she made it out,” he told Grumbine. “I think I just saw someone climb out on the far side.”

  “That chick has a death wish or something,” Grumbine mumbled, his eyes half closed. He yanked his backpack out from under him and tossed it over his head, cursing.

  “All of my knives are going to be rusty now!”

  Alston sighed. “I could use a beer.” He climbed to his feet and looked up river to where the Vee-dub went in water, nearly a mile up. He could see a crowd forming at the park. The police were probably already there. Arnold and Mashed Potato Face were there too, Alston was sure.

  “We need to get out of here before someone sees us,” Alston said, grabbing Grumbine’s hand. Time to leave St. Louis.

  CHAPTER TWO

  BUG LOVE

  Donna’s gentle caresses made her flesh tingle. She knew how to pleasure a woman. Sammy had been with other women in the past, but it had been some time since her last encounter.

  She’d met the shapely Donna a month ago at the book seller downtown while the two perused the store’s dainty erotica section. Donna wore a pair of black pumps and a dark, conservative navy-blue dress complemented by a modest string of pearls. Her shoulder-length blonde hair hung in bountiful curls over her shoulders. Samantha felt stirrings deep in the pit of her stomach as she watched the shopper. They soon struck up a conversation about some of their favorite authors, a meeting that led to the two exchanging email addresses. Since then, they had shared a healthy series of steamy written encounters that led to Samantha’s proposition to Donna that she allow Gary to film the two getting to know each other better. Donna quickly agreed to the rendezvous.

  Donna, who worked as an assistant librarian in Carmel, showed up at their place in a red miniskirt with a matching red top that looked more like a silk apron,
tied at the back behind her neck, but showing a ton of boob on the sides. Samantha had worn only a towel to meet her at the door, thinking she wouldn’t be hampered with clothes for long anyway. Donna had the same thought apparently, as the two already agreed to cut the small talk and get right to the pleasure once they met again in person. Sammy quickly discovered that Donna had made the drive over to her place with no panties on. It would be obvious to anyone that she wore no bra.

  Donna now muttered something about Samantha’s lips, about how she liked to look at them from between her legs, but her voice sounded muffled and husky. Samantha thrust her hips toward the woman’s probing tongue, arching her back off the old recliner in the living room, and grabbed the chair’s arms for support. Donna slid her hands beneath her, palms up, to squeeze her bare bottom. Samantha wore no clothes save for a pair of half-carat diamond earrings on white gold that Gary had given her a week before. She wasn’t really sure how much they cost, but she wagered they were worth a grand at least.

  Gary aimed his high-definition lens at Samantha’s face just as she bit her lower lip. She placed her hand atop Donna’s head and ran her fingers through her straw-colored locks, turned on by the camera just as much as her friend’s fantastic tongue. The camera panned lower, across her heaving breasts, and focused on the young blonde licking between her legs. Donna moved her plump tongue methodically along the folds of moist flesh, basking in Samantha’s sweet taste, and determined to feel her cum against her face. Gary trailed the camera along the woman’s body. Donna sat on her knees, her legs spread far apart, her shapely breasts hanging near the front of the chair. He took the camera behind her, filming her round ass for a few moments, before he returned to her face and shot her red lips and pink tongue just as Samantha burst with ecstasy. Stifling a scream of pure joy, Samantha grabbed a handful of Donna’s hair as she came. Not once did the woman between her legs slow down. Donna stopped, her lipstick smeared over her lips, only when Samantha’s fevered panting began to subside.