Page 79 of Play Dirty

The only thing worse than a whole family dying is one of them surviving.

So I drive. I just leave work and get in my car and drive. And the phone is ringing and buzzing texts at me, so I turn it off.

I don’t know why. I really don’t understand what’s happening to me. All I know is that I don’t want to talk to anyone.

I just drive north on I-25. Just keep going past Fort Collins, past the Wyoming border. Past Cheyenne. And when I get to Casper, I head west for some unknown reason. West towards… something. I dunno why. I just keep driving. Then I’m going north. The darkness is all around me as I head towards Thermopolis. And then all the little towns on Highway 20 start popping up on road signs.

Kirby.

Winchester.

Worland.

Washakie Ten.

Washakie Ten. I say it over and over in my head. Washakie Ten, where Ixion landed last year and hid out in a tiny cabin. Washakie Ten, a place I knew once. Washakie Ten…

I know where the dirt road is. How? I have no idea. But I find it. Against all odds in the dark. I find it. And I turn off the main road and head deeper into the woods. The pine trees tower over the road like giants, obscuring the stars and the moon.

The cabin is dark and looks so much smaller than I remember. I turn off the car and just sit there, the ticking of a hot engine the only sound.

And I remember…

We’re going hunting, he’d said. Turkeys or deer, I don’t really remember. It didn’t matter because we weren’t there to hunt. We were there to fix me.

I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. Not now. Why am I here? Why now? After all these years? Why now?

She was tall, and older. Not old, probably not eighteen because that would’ve been so much worse… but older than me. I was twelve. And she was very pretty. Very pretty. I remember thinking, Why is she wearing that dress in the woods? You can’t hunt in a dress.

And maybe she read minds or maybe I didn’t think it, I said it out loud. Because she gave me a sad, sad smile.

And she said, “I’m yours for the weekend, Jordan. Your father paid for me. Do you know what that means?”

And I did. I knew.

But he’d left by then. Some excuse that he needed to go to the store and pick up milk or whatever. So we were alone. And she took off her clothes, and then she took off mine too.

“We’re going to play a game,” she said. “A dirty little game.”

And I don’t know what my face looked like in that moment, but I remember how I felt. And I remember what she said next. “Would you like to play a dirty little game with me?”

I get out of the car and walk up to the front porch. My hand reaches for the door and finds it unlocked.

I don’t know what I expect. Leftover filth from squatters maybe. Because that year I turned twelve was the last time I came up to Washakie Ten.

But what I find is a perfectly neat and tidy hunting cabin. Even in the faint light of the moon coming through the front windows I can tell people have been here recently.

Does he rent it out? Do they—my parents—come here? I try to picture my father bringing my mother here for a long weekend and find I can’t.

The light switch is right where I expect it to be. My fingers flick it on and I see the old, worn, leather couch. A couch that lived in my father’s home office until I was… what? Seven? Eight, maybe?

We just stood there. And she took my hand and placed my fingertips on her breast. She smiled. I remember her smiling as she cupped my hand around the firm mound of flesh. She squeezed it for me because I didn’t know what to do.

“He knows your secret,” she said.

“What secret?” I asked.

“That you like boys, Jordan.”