Sandra’s thighs itched from all the sweat. The boys claimed the van’s air conditioning had broken on the drive from Santa Barbara to LA, but Sandra had her doubts. Her skin turned pink when overheated, then broke out in bumps. She didn’t want Dennis’s bandmates to notice, so she draped a shawl across her lap and suffered more.
Dennis was not a good driver, but he was the only member of the Velvet Holsters with a license. His passenger, Earl the drummer, played navigator up front. This left Sandra in the back with Ronnie the guitarist, and Juanita, a girl the boys met just a few shows back. Sandra felt annoyed each time the van hit a pothole, but everyone else kept their cool, so she did too. Like a magician with an infinite handkerchief, Juanita pulled joint after joint from her beaded coin purse, lighting the end of each one with the ember of its predecessor.
Sandra gazed stoned out the window at the blurring Mojave cacti. The night before, she had gone backstage with some girlfriends from prep school, one of whom knew Ronnie. Sandra had been entranced by Dennis’s gravelly voice, the sophomoric poeticism of his lyrics, and the way he fixed his eyes far beyond the crowd toward a future she couldn’t quite see. Sandra had her own burgeoning future, one that would begin in only two months at UC Berkeley. But now, slick and jostling in the back seat of a ramshackle tour van, Sandra felt foolish. Being on the road had always seemed so much more glamorous: a circular bed with red satin sheets. She wanted so desperately for something to happen.
Juanita squeezed a bag of Fritos until it popped, scooped a handful, then passed the greasy pouch to Sandra. “I wish I could sleep through Vegas and Dallas,” Juanita groaned. “Wake me up when we’re in New Orleans.” She threw her head back against the window, shut her eyes, and slumped down until her legs stretched fully across the orange shag carpet that covered the seat-stripped back seat.
“I’ve never been that far south.” Ronnie removed his glasses and turned from the window toward Sandra. “How do you deal with the heat?”
“I don’t,” Sandra said. “My parents have air conditioning. And a pool.”
“Must be nice.” Ronnie had a farmer’s tan and an Adam’s apple like a kiwi. He spoke real slow.
“You sound like you’re from the South,” Sandra said.
“Well, I’m not. Kansas is Midwest.”
“Right.”
Sandra knew she was being a sourpuss, but she was sore from having lost her virginity and regretful for agreeing to continue on with the boys for their tour. Her girlfriends had insisted she get some “real deal” experience before college, otherwise she’d have nothing to talk about except a calm, quiet childhood in Malibu. It’d been important to Sandra that she lose her virginity before orientation, but she was still tripped up on having not bled. It aided in her lie about being experienced—she had planned on saying the blood was from her period—but the clean sheets shocked her. Dennis complimented her prowess afterward, but didn’t every deflowered woman bleed?
Sexually curious, Sandra had waited forty-five minutes in unrelenting rain outside of the Pussycat Theater for Deep Throat. It was all her older brother and his friends talked about. She was too embarrassed to invite a girlfriend, so she went alone. A long-haired couple dry-humped two seats over, and the shoulders of the trench-coated man in front of her bobbed up and down at an alarming rate. But Linda Lovelace was beautiful, and Sandra felt electrified by her own clandestine pastime, electing to next indulge in Boxcar Bertha. The throbbing between her thighs was as foreign as it was enthralling, and each time she went to the Pussycat, she rushed home afterward to press herself against a pillow until she shook. The rendezvous amounted to more than a hobby for Sandra—they were her way of learning to make love.
Earl dropped his lighter under the passenger seat, bent to grab it, and reemerged with a nitrous oxide charger.
“Dude!” He waved the bullet-like silver in Dennis’s face.
“The dispenser’s way in the back,” Dennis said, “in one of the bags.”
Earl turned toward Ronnie, Juanita, and Sandra, then sighed. “It’s probably buried under so much junk.”
Sandra hoped she would not be tasked with digging through the suitcases. She dreaded what she might find. Ronnie spoke up. “I’ll look.”
“Nah, man. Not even worth it. I’ll figure something out.” Earl opened the glove box, revealing a Swiss Army knife and a revolver. He stabbed the charger, held it to his lips, then contorted like an epileptic as he screamed a closed-mouth scream.
“Jeepers, Earl!” Dennis swerved off the road, creating a cloud of dust as he slammed into a yucca tree. He attended to Earl, who whined like a terrier. “Ronnie, can you give me a fucking hand?”
Ronnie crawled to the front seat and squatted between the other men. Dennis peeled the corner of Earl’s lips from the frozen chrome.
“Rip it off quick,” Ronnie said, “like a Band-Aid.”
Earl squealed and shook his head.
“I’ve got this, Ronnie. Just be quiet and sit in case something happens.”
Sandra was excited. She smelled something not unlike burning hair. She glanced at Juanita for confirmation, but she was too focused on Ronnie. Anything was possible: full lip removal, loss of consciousness, a severed tongue. After a few minutes of fussing, the charger was extracted along with a gummy chunk of Earl’s upper lip.
“Gross,” Dennis said. “You’re gonna wanna fix that before we get to Vegas, look good for the lady scout.”
Earl pressed his tank top to his lip, let the blood soak through. His eyes watered, but he didn’t cry. The band had been especially stoked for the Vegas show, as the headliner’s vocalist had promised Dennis there would be a talent scout present, some young woman looking to launch her career.
“Well, that’s that.” Dennis turned the key.
The engine stuttered to a start and the burning scent swelled. Ronnie crawled back to Juanita’s arms. Looking pale, he said, “I’m way too high for this shit.”
Juanita cackled and Ronnie cackled too until Dennis yelled for them to stop, said it was no laughing matter. Sandra didn’t like the vein that bulged from Dennis’s forehead, the white knuckles where his hands choked the wheel. The heat, weed, and excitement drained her. She lay her head against the back of Dennis’s seat and fell asleep.
They’d just crossed the Nevada border when they noticed the smoke. Dennis parked at a Chevron in the middle of nothing but cracked earth and barbed wire. Sandra struggled against the weight of fatigue. She forced her eyelids open and felt surprised to be anywhere but in her bed.
“Hey Sandy,” Dennis said. “Why don’t you run on in, grab yourself a treat, and fetch me a jug of water?” He reached into the back seat and handed Sandra a soft, sweaty five-dollar bill.
Sandra slogged through the heat toward the Chevron. She hated being called Sandy. It gave her fingers a gritty feeling, impossible to wipe off. The gas station’s Twinkie wrappers were covered in dust. The lights were off, but the sun was bright. A fan whirred on the unoccupied counter. Without the tires spinning beneath her, without the chatter of boys, the gas station was deafening in its silence. In fact, Sandra could not remember ever being anywhere so quiet, so still. She grabbed a pack of Sno Balls—the only snack with clean packaging—and secured the jug of water. She rang the bell on the counter and sprang back from the sudden invasion of sound.
Nothing stirred. Sandra looked through the yellowed window toward the tour van. Dennis and Earl gesticulated in the front seat while Juanita paced the pumps. Just as Sandra turned to leave, a toilet flushed. The bathroom door swung open and out came a frail woman with smoker’s wrinkles as etched as ripples in the area’s surrounding sand.
“Yes,” the woman said.
“Hi, ma’am. Just trying to buy.” Sandra lifted the water jug and the Sno Balls from the counter.
Grunting, the woman ambled over. She stabbed at the register until she said, “Two dollars even.”
Sandra was impressed by the absence of a wedding ring. The woman must’ve opened the Chevron on her own. The veins on the back of her hands bloated like post-rain worms. Sandra handed her the five and waited while the woman counted out two ones and four quarters’ change.
“You’re my third customer all day.”
Sandra nodded. She wanted to apologize but didn’t want to insult. “Honored,” she said.
The woman spat out a laugh, revealing a lower row of popcorn-butter teeth, a jewelry box worth of dental crowns. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “The pleasure’s all mine.”
Shaken, Sandra hustled toward the van to find Juanita trancelike, in tears.
“They figure out what’s going on?” Sandra asked.
“Engine’s screwed. Water isn’t gonna help.”
“Should I go get a refund?”
Juanita just stared. “The boys don’t have any money. We’re fucked.”
Sandra reentered the van. The boys abruptly hushed and turned to face her.
“I got the water,” she said, “but Juanita said it won’t help.”
“My dad’s a mechanic,” Earl said. “The piece of shit’s beyond repair.”
Ronnie seemed twitchy, nervous. He wouldn’t meet Sandra’s eye.
“Well, what are we gonna do?”
“You’re gonna call your parents,” Dennis said.
Sandra was confused. Yes, her parents had money, but why would they help? They’d disapproved of the plan from the moment Sandra called from the band’s motel room. They’d told her not to go, so she reminded them that she was eighteen and hung up.
“I don’t think they’ll be willing to help,” she said.
“Yes they will.” Dennis’s voice felt like a threat.
“And what if they don’t?”
“Let’s just assume they will. Vegas is a make or break.”
Sandra walked to the pay phone, bracing herself for the lecture to come. She popped a quarter into the slot and fidgeted with the cord as she dialed her own number.
“Bierman residence, this is Gwyneth speaking.”
“Hi Mom. It’s Sandra.”
“Oh God. What is it? What did those monsters do?”
“Well, Mom, the van broke down.”
“Of course it did. Steven!” Sandra’s mom called for Sandra’s dad. Muffled voices worried the receiver, but Sandra couldn’t make out a word.
“Sandra honey,” her dad’s voice boomed through the phone. “We’ll come get you. Where are you? What town?”
Sandra pressed her forehead against the dusty glass of the phone booth. If her parents came, she’d be humiliated, not to mention there wouldn’t be enough room for everyone in the Continental.
“Can you just wire me money for a mechanic?”
“Absolutely not, Sandra. Why on earth would I help these boys I haven’t even met? Just let us come get you. Stay where you are.”
“Forget about it,” Sandra said. She slammed the phone back into its cradle and was filled with an urge to bolt from the booth, sprint into the Chevron, and throw her arms around the crone inside. But she knew the woman wouldn’t be of any help, her bones surely as brittle as brush.
Sandra returned to the van, defeated.
“No dice,” she said.
Dennis looked to Earl, who nodded and winced. He had since taken the tank top from his mouth, revealing a slab of coagulated blood, a rusted kiss against his sternum.
“Can you run back in, Sandy? Get Earl here something cold for his lips?”
As she approached the Chevron, she saw the old woman scurry from the window toward the register.
There wasn’t any ice, so Sandra grabbed a Klondike from the freezer and brought a dollar to the counter.
“One of the turkeys in the van out there ripped his lip off,” she said.
The woman looked mortified but didn’t ask. “Have the ice cream, hon. On me.”
Sandra returned to the van and gave Dennis his remaining $2.75. Earl ripped open the Klondike, held it to his lip.
“Alright, Sandy.” Dennis flicked a pen against his armrest. “What’s their number?”
“My parents’?”
Dennis nodded.
“I don’t think they wanna talk to you.”
“Well, they’re gonna have to. Earl, grab me a napkin.”
Earl opened the glove box again. He touched the gun, glanced at Sandra, then grabbed a napkin. Vanilla ice cream melted down his other wrist.
“Alright, Sandy. What is it?”
Sandra glanced through the window at Juanita, who continued to pace. Ronnie stared down as he ran his fingers through the shag.
“310-555-0187.”
Dennis grinned and exited the van. Sandra watched as he approached the phone booth and popped a quarter into the slot. Seconds crawled by, leaving Sandra woozy. She opened her package of Sno Balls. Coconut shreds floated toward the shag. The cake part was dry.
Dennis returned and said, “Your momma says they don’t got three grand.”
“Three grand?”
“We don’t got time for an engine swap. We’re gonna need a whole new rig.”
Sandra figured she could convince her parents if she just spoke to them again, maybe even offer to pay them back once she got her degree. She scooted toward the door, but Earl sprang back and grabbed her arm. “Fat chance.”
“Let me do the talking,” Dennis said. “We have to give them the impression that you’re under duress.”
“Am I?”
Dennis shrugged.
The needle-dry heat paired with Sandra’s quickening pulse and made her breathing unsteady. Blood whooshed like a seashell to her ears. Her vision sparkled with floaters, and, within moments, she fainted.
She awoke to a splash of water across her cheeks.
“You scared the bejesus out of us!” Dennis said.
“How long was I out?”
“Like ten seconds, dude. Don’t do that again.”
Dennis and Earl got out and pushed the van to the far edge of the lot while Dennis went back to the phone booth. Juanita sat still beside Ronnie, clearly pissed. She picked the seeds and stems from her baggie and flicked them into the shag.
Sandra watched as Dennis shouldered the phone. After hanging up, he skipped to the van, looking proud.
“Alright fancy pants,” he said, adjusting back into the driver’s seat, “your mom and pop came through.”
Sandra jumped up onto her knees, thrilled. “And?”
“And we gotta hitchhike into West Henderson to catch the wire.”
In a rush of humility, it occurred to Sandra that for the rest of her life she would have to tell people that the man who took her virginity had not only been a D-list rock star but held her hostage the very next day. At least, she thought, she would have some “real deal” experience.
“Juanita’s gonna stay with you,” Dennis said. “We need all three of us men in case we get picked up by some sicko. Better start thumbin’ now.”
Sandra had to get to the money before the boys did. She thought Juanita would be easy to handle, but to what end? The van didn’t work and she hadn’t seen anything but the Chevron for miles.
“Don’t worry,” Dennis added. “We’re dropping you at the airport in Vegas. Your dad’ll get your ticket back.”
More than anger or sadness, Sandra felt shame. Shame for having given herself to a stranger, shame for having listened to her careless girlfriends, and shame for having revealed her parents’ wealth. She was not only a pervert with Deep Throat fantasies but a bad daughter and an absolute pushover. How would she manage to survive at Berkeley when she was so prone to stupid mistakes? The Bay Area had a reputation for cults, and she knew she would be helpless in the face of temptation, having no street smarts or willpower to speak of. She would wind up dead, another teenage statistic.
“Juany, don’t let her leave.” Dennis pointed toward the glove box and raised his brows. “Keep her here and we’ll make it worth your time.” He rubbed his thumb against his index and middle finger to signify money.
The boys left but not before taking the six twenties Sandra kept in her purse. Juanita sat in the passenger seat sniffling as Sandra stayed quiet in the back, neck sweat icy from the cool air of the Mojave at night.
Once the boys had been roadside for a few minutes, Juanita said, “I can’t even look at you. This is all so twisted. I’m totally bugged out.”
“Why don’t we just leave?”
“Well, they said they’d give me money if I stand watch, and, unlike you, my folks aren’t rich.”
Sandra nodded and considered her options. She could kick Juanita’s face in, open the glove box, and hold the gun in Juanita’s mouth as she stood roadside, but who on earth would pick her up in such a state? She could beg Juanita to let her leave, to tell the guys a cop pulled up and left her no choice. Or, she could abide by the plan and wait to be dropped off in Vegas, but she couldn’t stomach the idea of those assholes parading around in their new van with her parents’ panicked money. She wanted to get to the phone before the morning, tell them she had broken free. She needed to prove she was capable of something, if not to her parents then at least to herself.
“I’ll give you a couple hundred if you come with me,” Sandra said. “Leave these Casanovas to their beat-up van.”
“Really?” Juanita said.
“Yes. Really. I’ll have my parents wire us instead and I’ll get you a ticket back to Santa Barbara. Or wherever. We just gotta get out of here first.”
Juanita opened her palm, studied it like a map. “Can you fly me to New Orleans?”
“Sure.”
Juanita stared out the window toward the boys. “When they get picked up, we’ll leave.”
It was 11 p.m. before the boys loaded into someone’s sedan.
“You got any quarters?” Sandra asked. Juanita dug through her pockets and backpack, shook her head. The girls rummaged through the van but found only a couple stray pennies.
“You could call collect,” Juanita said. “Reach out and touch someone.”
Sandra laughed at Juanita’s Bell jingle as she walked to the phone booth and pressed zero. The operator attempted contact, but her parents didn’t pick up.
“Can you leave them a message?” Sandra asked. “It’s important.”
“I’m sorry hon, but they have to accept the charge.”
“You’re cruel, you know that? Cruel.” Sandra slammed the phone into the cradle and marched back to the van. “They’re asleep,” she told Juanita.
“Sleep? How could they sleep at a time like this?”
Sandra shrugged. “Numorphan.”
“Well, our best bet is to get into town, I guess,” Juanita said. “Ask someone for some money once we’re there.”
Sandra agreed and the girls ventured to the roadside to wait.
It was dawn by the time a semi crawled to a stop. Juanita hopped with both thumbs in the air as Sandra calmly offered one. The driver’s eyes were bloodshot, his goatee thick.
“Where y’all little girls headin’?”
“Same place as you, I bet,” Sandra said. Her blood rushed like a bandit’s, a star’s.
“Vegas?”
Juanita nodded, went “Mhmm.”
“That your van over there?” He pointed toward the Chevron lot.
“Was,” Sandra said. “Not worth the repairs.”
“I see.” A grin crept across the truck driver’s face. “How much you got?”
“How much what?” Juanita asked.
“Not shit,” Sandra said.
“Well,” the man said. “That’s just too bad.”
Juanita dug again through the pockets of her shorts. “We were robbed,” she said.
“Robbed? Give me one good reason I should get in trouble with the likes of you.”
Sandra’s thoughts drifted toward the Pussycat Theater, to Linda Lovelace and the Johnson she took. She said, “We’ll make it worth your time.”
The truck driver yowled and Juanita looked sideways at Sandra before following her into the cab. Sandra scooted so close to the guy she could smell the salt of his sweat, spot the strays of his goatee he’d missed when he shaved.
“Your thighs are pink as a piglet’s,” he said. Sandra smiled shyly. “If I had an apple, I could shove it in your mouth, make you my babe.”
Juanita’s eyes bulged.
“What ever could replace an apple?” Sandra asked.
The truck driver chuckled, turned the ignition, and drove.
They hadn’t been in the truck for even ten minutes before the driver pulled over. There wasn’t a single building in sight, not even a cactus. The sun had turned the sky a blushing pink, and it dawned on Sandra that she hadn’t seen a sunrise in years.
“Well, time’s tickin’.” The man stared at the crack between Sandra’s breasts as he rubbed the crotch of his denim. It reminded her of her childhood, those compressed pucks she’d submerge in water, how she’d watch them turn into towels. The bulge grew, stretching the threads of his jeans. When Sandra had had sex with Dennis, he forbade her from putting it in her mouth, said he’d come too fast. Instead, he spun her around, bent her over, and hammered his member with the spazzed urgency of a woodpecker.
The truck driver unbuttoned his jeans and slowly pulled down the zipper. He parted his boxers and revealed the curved pink thing, wet at the tip and bright as the sky.
Sandra breathed in deep and readied herself. Though this truck driver wouldn’t be her first choice, she was excited to try what she had only tried on unwitting eggplants, on her own fists. She wanted to make the man moan like in Deep Throat. To wield such power over a man would really be something. Maybe her clitoris, like Linda’s, would throb, maybe even drip. Just as Sandra lowered down to get busy, Juanita shouted, “STOP!”
Sandra jolted upright, and, before she could even turn to see Juanita, the air pulsed. Her face wettened and her vision clouded with smoke. She looked down to find the man’s blasted dick all inside out. For an instant, she considered putting it in her mouth anyway, soothing his pain with the warmth of her tongue.
“You fucking whores!” the truck driver screamed. “I’m going to killlllllll you!” The man miraculously managed to twist his torso and reach behind the seat. Through the ringing and the gunpowder, Juanita grabbed Sandra’s hand and yanked her from the steep height of the cab.
“Run!”
The two girls sprinted down a long stretch of I-15. Sandra’s mouth ran dry, felt filled with gauze. More than fearful of the trucker’s revenge, she felt let down by her missed opportunity. Juanita’s eyes, however, were wide with horror as she pulled Sandra down behind a creosote bush and hyperventilated. Sandra rubbed Juanita’s back in egg-shaped loops. Minutes later, the semi sped straight down the road in blind fury right toward Vegas and all its hospitals.
After a moment of silence, Juanita said, “Sandy, I blew that man’s thing clean off.”
Sandra laughed so hard she wobbled over into the grainy dirt. She wished for a mirror so she could see the blood spatter across her face like a badge. She laughed and laughed until she was lightheaded, and Juanita joined in laughing, too. Finally, something had happened, but the story would be too incriminating to tell.
It wasn’t until Sandra yelped that Juanita noticed the scorpion, slow and patient on the earth between them. Juanita whipped the gun out of her pocket and shot that, too, sending the girls into further frenzy. They were dehydrated and delirious, silly with sleep deprivation, when they heard the tires squeal to a halt.
A pickup lurched into park, and a figure leaned over to open the passenger door.
“Goin’ to Vegas?” It was the Chevron crone.
Sandra steadied herself from the ground and moved toward the woman like a mirage.
Once Sandra and Juanita were buckled in, the woman handed each girl a handkerchief.
“You’re gonna need to freshen up before we get to town.”
Sandra spat on the cloth and scrubbed the cooked blood from her cheeks. “Thank you.”
“Don’t be silly,” the woman said. “The pleasure’s all mine.” 
Shy Watson’s fiction appears in Fence, Southwest Review, Joyland, and elsewhere. She wrote Horror Vacui (House of Vlad, 2021) and “Jeff! Bess!” for the anthology Sad Happens (Simon & Schuster, 2023). She earned her MFA from the University of Montana and was a recent writer-in-residence at Monson Arts.
Illustration: Rae Buleri