In Laymon's Terms

“Slow down a little. If you pass it up, I’ll cut your face. You don’t want a scar for the rest of your life, do you?”

She shook her head.

“Daddy has the money to get a little scar fixed, so I’ll have to make it really nasty,” Jim said as he ran the blade lightly down the side of her face.

“Think daddy would have the money to fix a gash that goes clear to the bone?”

“You do this a lot,” she told him, her tears now ended.

“Enough to know what women don’t like.”

Sometimes a woman got this strange notion that if she did what he wanted and presented herself as being cooperative he might be easier on her. Celeste had gotten to this point rather quickly; Jim had expected a little more pleading, perhaps the offer of daddy’s money.

Jim scooted close to her and cupped her left breast with his right hand as he held the knife to her cheek.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

That was a new one.

“Thank you?” Jim asked.

“For giving me the courage.”

“What? Slow down, you’re going to pass the turn-off, bitch!”

Jim grabbed her smooth leg and lifted her foot from the accelerator. She slammed it back down and turned the steering wheel to the left. The car shot across the southbound lane and then off the shoulder.

“What the fuck are you doing!”

The car barely missed a portion of guardrail that started before the curve. It shot off the edge of the cliff unhindered.

The ocean loomed large. Jim’s heart seized in his chest as if it knew the futility of continuing to beat. He glanced at Celeste, suddenly knowing he’d hitched a ride with the wrong girl—one who’d been contemplating suicide.

Celeste smiled.

Nicole Cushing

FOUNDTHE TRAVELING VAMPIRE SHOW so riveting that I wanted to explore similar themes, only from a woman’s point of view. I wanted to examine, as Laymon had, both the tender and dark sides of adolescent loss of innocence. As a newer writer of mostly surreal and quiet fiction, I thought it might be fun to play in Mr. Laymon’s backyard for a change.

Apologies ahead of time to the ladies at church, who will likely snub me at bunco night after reading this tale. To the rest of my readers: I hope you enjoy the following hike through my id—an appreciative homage to one of Laymon’s finest works.

Nicole Cushing

E MADE YOUR NIPPLES...scabby?” Deadweight gasped in disbelief, missing the toenail and instead landing a splotch of candy apple red on the nearly vestigial little toe.

“He nibbled on me a lot.”

Her belly rolled as she cackled. “Ewwww...you know, I bet that’s how he’ll remember you. In his little black book of girls, he won’t even remember your name, you’ll always just be ‘Scabby Nipples’ to him.”

Angie’s doe-like brown eyes rolled. “I could say something...”

A flicker of recognition signaled in Deadweight’s eyes when she realized that Deadweight sounded at least as derogatory as Scabby Nipples. But if it had worked, at least Angie would have had a label, too. Angie realized the awkwardness and changed the subject. “You’re so fucking predictable. Get the dirt, then knock my tits.”

Deadweight stopped smiling, and gazed at her behind the glare of what had to be one of the few remaining pairs of coke bottle glasses in existence. “Seriously, you need a friend like me, to keep an eye on you.” Angie noted a creepy defensiveness, combined with almost-maternal condescension. “That guy looked a little rough to be hanging out on under-twenty-one night.”

“Mmm hmm, he was.” Angie closed her eyes, pursed her glossy pink lips into a tight, tiny smile, and remembered. “And more than a little.”

Deadweight finished, scrubbed off the smudge of polish on Angie’s toe, then admired her work. Her eyes lifted from Angie’s toes, up two marble sculpture legs, to curvy thighs wrapped like a package in snug, ragged-fringed jean shorts. Then up to the Kid Rock tee shirt covering the bountiful home of the scabby nipples, and finally to her face. Deadweight envied those big eyes, high cheekbones, and the two tiny arcs of jawbone that met at her dainty chin. “You look hagged out. Were you out all night?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Tired?”

“Gettin’ there.”

“Hickey check before you crash.”

“Oh, shit, I would have forgotten it.”

“I’ve been doing hickey check on you since we were in eighth grade. What are you going to do without me at college?”

Angie’s first thought: Lose Deadweight.

“Reel in Alpha Male.”

“Oh please, a campus full of sensitive poets, and here you go already with your fucking Alpha Males.”

“J.D., the guy last night, he was Alpha Male, and let me tell you...”

“Yeah, yeah. Big dick, monosyllabic. This is Mickey Rivera all over again. Now, stay still.”