The Headshrinker's Dilemma

Chapter Eighteen

It was too quiet in the car. Dale had lost track of how long it had been since they got in the taxi. Time seemed to drone on and lag behind everything else, similar to how their own taxi ride seemed to be behind all the traffic. He looked over at Cashier Girl. She winced in pain. Her shoulder was bothering her. It suddenly dawned on Dale that he had been shot as well. He looked at his arm and then his leg. They both seemed to begin to throb once his eyes fell on them – the gaping wounds. He was still losing blood, there hadn’t been time to address the injuries, wrapped them in any way to stop the bleeding, and with all the commotion, he had honestly just forgotten about it – that he had even been shot. Twice. And the grazing on his back that was suddenly burning.

“God-dammit!” the taxi driver shouted, banging his hand against the steering wheel hard. He looked from side to side, prompting both Dale and Cashier Girl to do the same.

Wall to wall traffic. Dale understood the driver’s frustration. He didn’t know why the driver would add onto it by trying to change lanes. There was nowhere to go. A sinking feeling rose in Dale’s chest: was he not doing the same thing? He looked over at Cashier Girl again, trying to make her into a catalyst for him to escape his dire thinking. But her face, downtrodden at best, offered no glimmer of hope. In the span of two days he had totally destroyed his life, not that it had been so great before anyway, and Cashier Girl’s. Not to mention the several others that were dead – Felicia, Jamaican Girl, a bunch of bad guys, thugs, and some college students he knew that were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cursed. That’s the word that came to mind, Dale thought, and that was exactly what he was. Jamaican Girl had seen to that and she was right.

Again, Dale looked at Cashier Girl. He wondered who she had been before he had walked into that grocery store. He imagined that she had had some kind of life, even if it wasn’t the best or most glamorous. If she just worked and then went home to an empty apartment with some ridiculous cat, it still would have been a life – her life – and no matter what it was, Dale had been the reason for it all being taken away.

“What?” she finally returned his look. “You’ve been looking at me off and on since we’ve been in this taxi. What –What’s going on with you?”

The words wouldn’t come out. Worse than that, when he tried to speak, it felt as if he was about to cry, that feeling that tickles and then kind of burns at the back of the throat leading up to your nose and spreading into each nostril.

“What? Dale. Stop. What’s-What’s going on with you?” she seemed more concerned than upset or frustrated with him and he didn’t know why. Why would she still care? Especially about him?

And then she reached across the seat and slid her fingers in between his. Dale turned away from her, but despite her own injury, she scooted herself across the vinyl seats to be next to him. The way the back of her shoulder rubbed and worked against the seat, Dale imagined it must have hurt or at least been uncomfortable. The two them were close. Dale continued to fight back tears. Cashier Girl would have none of it. She put her hand completely in his, gripping and then squeezing.

“Dale…”

She pulled him into her as she leaned in. Her lips were sweet. And Dale was no longer able to hold back his feelings. Tears jettisoned down his checks. He sniffed. And kissed her. Kissed. Then sniffed some more. Their kisses were a mix of sweet and salty. No moment in Dale’s life had ever been as precious, he thought. Cashier Girl brought her arm up to Dale’s face, each hand on the a side, caressed his face, and then pulled him further into the kiss. And this went on for a while. They lost each other within each other. But Dale was glad to be lost in her.

***

“Greta,” she said.

Her name was Greta. Cashier Girl’s name was Greta. Dale stared at her absently at first. Then with more focus. Finally, a strain.

“What?” she shrieked, leaning back from him, a playful grin on her face.

He paused for effect: “Just trying to see if you’re a Greta or not.”

A very healthy laugh came from her. It was as he remembered. Things were different in the taxi now. Not only were they out of traffic and moving, but the chasm or blockade of silence that had been between was gone. Dale and Greta had kissed and then kissed some more. When it was all said and done, intimacy seemed to have been the cure-all – for what was ailing between them as well as their injuries, Dale specifically. Nothing on him hurt any longer, neither of his gunshot wound nor his back. The healing touch of a woman, Dale thought. They truly were goddesses. Dale decided once and for all that Greta was the only deity that he needed in his life.

The taxi cab driver suddenly veered off the road, it was a quick and sharp right turn. They were pulling into a convenience store parking lot. The taxi came to a violent stop. Both Dale and Greta were almost thrown into the front seats from the back carriage.

The driver turned to them: “Gotta take a piss.” His face was flustered. He hurried out of the car. They watched as the portly man hurriedly hobbled into the store.

Quietness fell between them again. The minute it did, Dale’s first thought was to start kissing Greta again (he laughed to himself about that and finally knowing her name – Greta. It was weird saying it, even silently to himself). But for Greta, it wasn’t a laughing matter and it wasn’t just a thought. Dale was completely taken aback as Greta climbed on top of him and started kissing him again. Before they had sat upright and kissed. It had been a nice make-out session in the back seat of the taxi cab, but now this was more: Dale’s body titled back as she pushed forward. The grazing wound on his back burned and bothered him, but kissing her meant more and somehow overpowered the pain.

She kissed him hard and grinded on him the same. Dale tried to keep up with her aggression weary of her hurt shoulder. Dale put his hands on her waist and pulled her down onto him harder, their bodies synced; he could feel her on him. She stopped kissing him and hurriedly lifted the hospital gown that she still had on (crazy, Dale hadn’t even noticed it until then). She then undid Dale’s belt and then pants.

“Now? We – We gonna do this now?” Dale questioned.

“I want you,” she shot back. “Can you be quick?”

Dale nodded as she reached down into his pants. Her hands wrapped around him. She lifted up some and then… She stopped. Greta hurriedly put his p***s back inside his pants.

“He’s coming back. Zip and fasten up.”

Dale sat up and did as Greta had said. She shoved her hospital gown down and sat straight up. Dale watched her curiously. She sat like a very polite school girl, well-mannered and even tempered. And if you were a person just meeting Greta for the first time, then it would be easy to think that about her. But she was so much more. Dale knew that about her and she continued to prove to him the depths of her character, she had done so from the moment he met her that night in the grocery store when she was just a cashier girl. And then she became Cashier Girl to him, fighting side by side with him against some of the randomness s**t he had ever experience and was sure anyone in existence had experienced. Cashier Girl had saved him, taken a bullet for him, and now as Greta was ready to have s*x with him in the back of a taxi cab on their way to her parents’ resort – another surprise – that her parents owned a resort on the Kruthic Mountains. Looking at her, even though he now knew her real name, he still wondered who Greta was. He was sure that in going to her parents, more was going to be revealed.

***

The taxi driver pulled up in front of the house. He placed his arm in the middle of the bucket seats and then leaned back, looking over his shoulder at them. Dale noticed the worried look on the taxi driver’s face. Dale realized that the guy still thought they were going to run off and not pay him. If they tried, Dale doubted that either one of them would get very far, especially not him.

“You’re gonna pay me now, right?”

Greta sat up. For some strange reason, Dale felt the need to do the same. He scooted to the edge of his seat. He felt like he needed to protect her even though he also knew that Greta was more than capable of protecting and taking care of herself.

“Yes. Okay… I have to get out to go get my father,” she answered pointing to the long driveway that led up to a house on the hill.

The taxi driver gave her a disapproving look.

“I’ll stay,” Dale added.

“What? No,” she said.

“Yes. He stays. He can’t walk anyway.”

There was some hesitation on her part and Dale wondered if she was telling truth. Were they really at her parents’ resort? Greta looked at Dale and for the first time he doubted her. There was so much mystery surrounding her and he had just been thinking to himself about her layers and how he knew that there was more to her.

“Fine,” she said, sounding upset.

She gave him a look. Kissed him one more time. It was a full kiss, her lips more moist than before. Dale didn’t want the kiss to end.

“I’ll be right back,” she said.

And then Greta climbed out. Dale and the taxi driver watched her as she walked up the winding driveway. The house was so far away, Dale felt as if it was going to take forever. Dale leaned back in his seat, thinking about what her parents, especially her father, was going to say when she showed up at their door wearing a hospital gown and gunshot wound to her shoulder. The taxi driver eyed him again and then turned back around. He crossed his arms and looked ready to get comfortable. Dale did the same. It was going to take a few minutes.

***

A knock came on the passenger side window. Dale had drifted off and so had the taxi cab driver. But both of them was jarred from their sleep. The man outside the car was tall, a very pallid complexion, and with thinning silvery hair. Sitting on his nose was what Dale would call a look-a-like pair of Harry Potter glasses. The man and Greta looked alike.

The taxi driver rolled down the window: “Yeah?”

Greta’s father shoved his right hand into his pocket and when he pulled it out a wad of money came with it. He reached into the car to hand the taxi driver the cash. The taxi driver hurriedly took it, almost looking surprised that he actually got paid.

“Come on, son,” said the silver haired man that Dale assumed was Greta’s father, leaning his head in the window some. Dale felt reassured slightly by his smile. It seemed friendly. And so did he. Dale climbed out the car. The man didn’t say a word. He turned and began walking back up the driveway. Dale tried to follow, although his leg was killing him.