Dottie and Bree: Episode 1- Getting out of Vegas

Dottie and Bree’s Escape
Part 1: Getting out of Vegas

The obsessiveness she once felt was finally dissipating the farther South they drove from Vegas. The sinews of hope were stretching dangerously thin and ready to snap; she wanted them to break in the next mile but desperately feared the recoil.

She tried to ride the bull and lost dramatically; wallowing in the dirt and grey dust for a few moments before tugging her broken spirit to standing (barely). Blood slowly trickled from her gashed head and beaten nose and mixed with the tears she refused to wipe collecting them in a jar to water her plants or blend with liquid acid for their foray into the desert sunset with the Devil.

She’d gotten that card three times in one week from three different psychics. Three different decks, three different cities, the Devil was plaguing her close now. She could sense his hot breath and bifurcated tail. He whispered cloying deceptions and truths she wanted to believe, darting impishly from one ear to the other, playing both sides of the game, slipping his slithering tongue deep into her brain. This wasn’t real.

Bree drove faster.

Mexico’s freedom beckoned sweetly, and she tried to focus on the road ahead rather than her companion’s passed out body in the seat next to her. She prayed to an invisible god that Dottie’s ample breasts, sans bra, would continue to rise and fall as the cracked window blew her blonde hair into unmanageable tangles. White crust caked Dottie’s tiny nose; her last coke binge left her exhausted and spent, and Bree had to drag her lifeless body through the garbage laden alleyway behind “Circus Circus”. She would have driven Dottie to the hospital, but they needed to escape town immediately.

They would be coming soon now, and distance was imperative.

The universe provided for them; the nondescript white car had keys in the ignition and was unlocked when Bree jiggled the handle. She tossed Dottie’s legs into the wheel-well and lifted her shoulders into the seat gently laying her swaying head on the rest. It fell forward limply as she tried to belt her into the seat. She wasn’t moving fast enough; they were coming.

Bree pressed roughly on the gas with sequined stiletto heel and sped from the alley. There was enough gas to get them as far as Barstow where they could buy second hand clothes at a thrift shop and ditch their pleather skirts. She wanted a pair of jeans and a Journey T-shirt; she needed a pair of size 7 beaten sneakers. They had sixteen dollars.

She turned the corner onto the Strip and heard the drastic thumping thud in the trunk. Something large and heavy was in there. Something in that trunk would get them killed, she was sure of it. The Universe giveth and taketh away quickly; Bree didn’t want Dottie taken away too. They needed to get to Mexico.

There was nothing in the rearview mirror but the deserted road’s faint yellow lines illuminated by moonlight. They flew by lonely cactus and hungry coyote and flattened decaying jackrabbit. Dottie started to stir within the window’s wind; she mumbled incoherent, nonsensical phrases about squirrels and Wisconsin and Imperial China. She probably didn’t remember what happened in that rank hotel room or that Bree had saved her life for the fifth time this year; it was January.

They were running dangerously low on gas and whatever was in that trunk grew more restless with the passing miles. The thumping was coming in regular intervals now, and Bree assumed it was alive. They had no weapons save their sharpened heels and fear; Dottie had killed with less.

She needed her awake.

She needed her alive.

She needed her.

Gas station lights glowed brightly in the distance. They needed to stop and refuel both the stolen car and themselves, but had limited cash. They needed seven gallons, a bag of Cheetos (the puffy kind) and a liter of Diet Coke. Sixteen dollars would not suffice for their meager needs. Hopefully, a man would be behind the counter and Bree could barter blow-job for sundries.

Dottie stirred again lifting broken head off chest and fluttered open her green eyes. A small smile curled on her still soft lips; she was a serial Chapstick user claiming men like moisturized lips wrapped around their cocks. Always a pragmatist, she reached in her pocket for the thin tube and emerged with cherry balm and an orange bumper filled with white powder. She applied one to her nose and the other to her lips and was immediately awake.

“Are we in Mexico?” her tiny child voice graveled.

“We have some work to do at the gas station.”