Stella, Get Your Gun. Nancy Bartholomew

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СКАЧАТЬ as much, but you could tell. It was all in the way he ignored the dog but refused to get rid of him, or in the way he sighed sometimes and said, “Tracy used to…” Before now, I’d prayed Tracy never returned to claim her prize. Now I realized why she’d left in such a hurry, never to return.

      Lloyd whined again, reclaiming my attention by butting his head against my leg. The only time Lloyd camped out on the back steps was when Pete and I had sex. Lloyd’s nerves couldn’t take it. He always tried to jump up on the bed and rescue us from ourselves. This distraction seriously irritated Pete, so Lloyd got shoved unceremoniously out the back door, where he waited with an almost unbearable level of trembling separation anxiety.

      “You’re a good boy, Lloyd,” I said, and bent to pet him again. “Now you stay here and let me handle this.” Only I didn’t have any idea of what I was going to do, or how I was going to deal with my partner and my boyfriend betraying me. It was one thing to stay tough on the outside, but inside I was shaking harder than Lloyd.

      I slipped into the kitchen, padding barefoot across the floor in an attempt to catch them unaware. This stealth was completely unnecessary. You could’ve driven a truck through the quaking trailer and not disturbed Pete and Lou Ann. When I reached the doorway, he had her up on all fours in the center of our bed. Her enormous breasts swung back and forth as he hung on to her hips, driving into her with everything he had.

      “You’ve been a bad little girl, haven’t you?” he snarled, slapping her fat butt with a loud crack.

      Lou Ann was pleading. “No, Daddy, don’t spank little Lou Ann!”

      “Bad girl!” Pete cried, and brought his hand down again with a sharp smack. “Bad, bad girl!”

      “Oh, I’d say she isn’t the only bad kid in the classroom,” I said.

      They jumped apart, Pete shoving Lou Ann so hard she collapsed in front of him with a gasp and had to struggle to flip back over.

      I don’t know when I pulled the gun out of my pocketbook. All I know is, I was standing there and it was in my hand, and the violent side of me was in complete control again.

      “I wouldn’t move,” I said, when Pete appeared to be considering it. “Really.”

      I aimed and put the first bullet into the wall beside his head.

      Pete froze and put his hands out in front of his body like a traffic cop. “All right, baby, all right. Now, just calm down. I can explain.”

      “Fuck you, Pete!” I said. “You can’t explain fucking my partner any more than Lou Ann here can explain fucking my boyfriend, can you, honey?” I put the second bullet into the mattress six inches away from her thick left thigh and was rewarded with a terrified shriek.

      “How long have you two been meeting like this?” I asked, trying to recall all of Lou Ann’s recent sick days.

      “Baby, I swear, this was the first time!” Pete said. “Now baby, really…” He started to shift toward me, and I lifted the gun, aiming it dead center at his chest.

      “Do you feel like trying me, sweetheart?” I asked. “Because I don’t care if you do. Dead is dead, but I’m thinking I just might take the family jewels instead. Wouldn’t that give you a little more to think about? Wouldn’t that be just the right thing for this particular occasion?” I lowered the gun a few millimeters and smiled as his balls shrank up behind his already invisible penis. “Bad boy,” I murmured. “Bad, bad boy!”

      I looked over at Lou Ann for a fraction of a second, knowing Pete would make a move if he found an opening. “So, you tell Dave and the kids you’re fucking Pete, or did you save that for me to do?” I asked her.

      Lou Ann’s face paled. “Oh, Stella, don’t do that!” she cried.

      I could feel my body begin to tremble with rage and grief. I couldn’t stay in the trailer too much longer or I really would hurt somebody, like maybe myself.

      “So what did I do to deserve this, Pete?” I said, looking back at him, never moving the Glock from its target.

      “Baby, you didn’t have a thing to do with this….” he began.

      “Damn straight, I didn’t,” I said. “And I never will, not ever again.” I backed up a step. “That’s the trouble with weak men,” I said. “They can’t handle strong women. You and Lou Ann ought to be perfect for each other.”

      I kept walking backward, keeping Pete in my sights, daring him to leave the bed before I turned and walked out of his life forever. I took in every detail of the room, memorizing everything, the way Pete and Lou Ann looked together naked, the way the sheets and blankets puddled in a heap at the foot of the bed, the fear in Lou Ann’s eyes and the blank look on Pete’s face. I was forcing myself to commit the unthinkable to memory so that I would never, ever be tempted by Pete’s charm to forgive him and start over. No, this was a lesson I was going to learn and never need to repeat, a lesson I’d somehow forgotten to learn from other lovers in the past and one that was almost killing me now.

      I felt the shaking begin to get worse as I closed the kitchen door behind me and stepped out onto the stoop. I almost tripped over Lloyd in my hurry to get down the stairs and escape before anything worse could happen.

      He yipped as I squashed his paw and stared up at me with his huge dark eyes.

      “You were trying to tell me, weren’t you?” I said as I passed him.

      I kept on going, crossing the dry, crunchy grass and half-running toward the car. I jumped in, started the engine and threw the car into Drive as Pete appeared in the kitchen doorway.

      “Stella! Wait!” he cried.

      I put my foot on the accelerator, lurched forward, pulling even with the back steps, then stomped on the brakes.

      “Honey, really, come on inside. Let’s talk about this,” he said. “Come on, Stel, where are you going to go, huh? Come on, baby.”

      I saw a flash of Lou Ann behind him, hastily pulling on her jeans and hopping around on one leg. She was panicked; I knew that much, and that made me perversely happy.

      I put the car into Neutral and opened the driver’s side door. Pete looked hopeful, probably thinking that with just the right approach he could smooth the entire thing over.

      “Well,” I said. “I guess you’d better pick one of us. Tracy left you. She’s never coming back. Are you going to keep on waiting for a miracle, or are you ready to start over, too?”

      Pete looked puzzled, then almost relieved, but it was Lloyd who never wavered. He bounded down off the steps, crossed the yard and leaped into the car with a joyful bound of doggy delight.

      “Pete?” I said, my voice a sweet coo of encouragement.

      “Yeah, baby?”

      “Bite my smooth, tender ass!”

      With that, Lloyd and I drove away, laying rubber down the narrow trailer park road, screeching out onto the main drive and flying away from Pete and Lou Ann as fast as we could, the cool night air slapping our faces and drying the tears that for some reason lasted only a few minutes.

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