Grimoire Diabolique

“Tylersville, I means, if ya kin go all’s that way. You’s kin drops me off ’fore the highway ramp if ya’s cain’t go that far.”

Fuck. Tylersville was all the way at the end of the Route, close to ten miles probably.

“Sure,” he agreed. What else have I got to do? Gray thought. Go home? Catch the end of Leno? “It’s not that far out of my way.”

“Thank-ya, and I’se sorry if I smell like crabs.”

The comment took him aback. “Smell like what?”

“Likes crabs. See, I’se work for Stevenson’s Crabbers. They’se got a shack just up the Route. That’s where I’se walkin’ home from juss now. I’se a crab-picker. See, they’se buy crabs by the bushel down the City Dock, and we’se pick all the meat out of ’em and put it in containers ta sells ta the city restaurants so they’se can make crabcakes’n newburg’n stuff. Pay’s not bad, eithers—fifty cent over minimum wage.”

What was that? About seven bucks an hour to pick crabs in some sweatshop all day. I make that much in about five minutes, he thought.

“Sounds like, uh, an interesting job.”

“Ak-shure-lee it kinda sucks,” she admitted, “but I gots a baby an’ I don’t wanna go on the welfare.”

“Well, that’s, uh, that’s very commendable of you,” Gray struggled for a reply.

“An’, ya know, you’ll’se see me hitchin’ home from there this time most ever nat.”

Ever nat? Gray tried to decipher and remembered yet again the dialect. Ever nat. Every night.

“Yeah, I, you know, I think I saw you last night, but—”

“I saws you too. Ain’t no way I’d ferget a nice car like this. Wish ya’d picked me up, thoughs, ’cos the guy who did, it was this real cracker inna white Camaro. He weren’t very nice.”

Gray searched for a comment. What did she mean? But before he could think of something…

“’Corse I do more’n pick crabs fer money, ya know.”

Silence. Gray drove with it. It was like a companion riding in the backseat, a preceptor sitting there and waiting to see how he would gauge and then react to the remark.

This was the moment, wasn’t it? Put up or shut up.

His groin, suddenly, felt like some burgeoning thing, a husky, drooling animal dragging him around. He couldn’t control it. He hadn’t really even looked at her since she’d gotten into the car, yet something about her seemed to emanate: the musky, perspiry scent, the gentle drawl of her voice, the way her lithe shadow played on the dashboard.

“An’ I guess you knows what I’se talkin’ ’bout,” she went on unabashed, “’nless that’s, like, a summer squash ya gots there in yer pants.”

Gray, in spite of his nervousness, almost belted out a loud laugh. It reminded him of old high school jokes. Is that the Loch Ness Monster in your pants, or are you just happy to see me? Shit. Some summer squash. Six and a quarter inches, and that was on a good day. But it was time, wasn’t it? Time to get down to business.

“I’m not a cop or anything,” he felt the impulse to offer. Didn’t they usually ask that first? He’d seen it on the cop shows and in the movies. If they asked and a decoy cop said no, there was some entrapment law they’d be violating? Gray wasn’t sure.

“Oh, I know you ain’t no cop,” she said and laughed lightly. “Cops don’t drive cars like this! ’Sides, I kin tell you’s’re a nass guy.”

Hmm. So. I’m a nass guy.

“Well, thank you for saying so,” he said. “You’re a nice girl.”

“And I’se kin tell ya, cops ’round these parts? They ain’t nass. ’Specially them county sheriffs. They ain’t nass at all.”

Gray didn’t know what to say. He was too excited to pursue small-talk. The pause that followed sounded hollow, mixed with the big engine’s soft hum. He gulped and continued, “So, like how much money are we talking here, and, you know…for what?”

Her voice didn’t hitch. “I’ll’se give ya a good blowjob fer, like, ten bucks, if you’ll drive me all’s the way home.”

Ten bucks? Christ. Gray was about to offer a hundred. He fished in his pocket—there was a twenty in there somewhere. He grabbed some haphazard bills and gave them to her.

“I don’t know what that is,” he said. “Twenty, thirty, something like that. You can have it.”

“Dag, mister!” Her nimble hands counted the bills in the moonlight on the dash. “This here’s twennie, not ten. Plus a five.”

“You can have it, you know, for—”

The feel of her hand on his groin silenced him. At first it felt as though a little bird had landed there, but then the bird gave a soft rub and then a harder squeeze. Gray nearly came.

Her lilting voice hushed as she leaned over. The hand rubbed him more intricately. “I mean, I don’t wants ya ta think I’m juss some whore’re anything. But I’se never seed nothing wrong with a gal taking some money long’s she’s willing ta give something’n return. Ya know? Mue-cher-all agreement.”

Gray’s breath lodged in his chest. “I…agree…”