Crime Flash Fiction by Cindy Rosmus
“Do you seriously think . . .” Lars laughed. “You can get away from me?”
Just like that. On speaker, so anyone could hear it. If Joey and I weren’t alone . . . A cop, or killer could’ve jumped on that.
“We already did.” Joey’s voice shook.
Huddled like little kids, I was terrified. In person, Lars had raped me raw, beaten me. But that voice on Joey’s phone . . .
That laugh.
On the nightstand the phone sat, like a haunted thing. In the motel window, the filmy curtains looked ghost-like.
“Like I don’t know what you’re about. What you like . . . best.”
Joey squeezed my hand so hard, it hurt.
“Just come back.” Lars’s tone softened. “Both of you. Like it never happened.”
For a moment Joey’s hand relaxed. I buried my face in his chest. That rock star hair enveloped me.
If we went back, he’d never be one. Music was his love! Gut-wrenching songs he wrote, about childhood abuse, confusion. Torturous indecisions.
But instead . . .
“New one: Taste My Load. We start filming tomorrow.”
Joey held me tighter.
“Same place. Same time.” Lars went on. “Big bucks, this guy is paying. Joey, your lead. You, Carlos, and Tabitha.”
I cringed. Tabitha. Who’d been itching for my place in Lars’s heart. Putrid as it was.
She—I couldn’t stop trembling—No, we already shared Lars’s cock. All of us.
Even Joey.
“You too, Val,” Lars said, in a patronizing way. “If you’re a good girl.”
A sob broke out of me.
“No,” Joey said. “I’m done.”
Was he? I thought. I couldn’t look at him. But suddenly, I was overwhelmed with love. Beyond sex, though we’d had lots since we found this room.
“Done?” Lars said sarcastically. “With what?”
Joey didn’t answer. The first time we met, Lars had smacked me into reality: his high-paying, fetish porn empire. The horrors of sex slavery. I’d met Joey nude, before I ever saw him in clothes. With a rock hard-on. Still, whatever he wore–jeans, spandex, sweats—he came off as nude. Exuded sex. Lean, and muscular, with a hairy chest, yet, but at the same time, he was almost pretty. And . . .
The way he moved drove guys nuts, too.
“All of it.” He let go of me, lay back on the bed.
“All of . . . what?”
I never hated anyone so much. How Lars kept going on. If he was in this room, I would’ve found something sharp. Ended this nightmare.
“You know.”
Lars snickered.
Laying there, Joey might’ve been posing. But the camera wasn’t rolling.
“Big bucks,” Lars repeated. “For you, Joey. His favorite star.”
I shimmied over so I was next to Joey. I wanted to cover his ears.
“Do this last one, and bye-bye. Go be a rock star.” Again, that snicker. “Or marry Val, if
you want.”
Joey turned on his side, away from me.
“Dude,” Lars said, “He wants you.”
No answer. But it didn’t matter.
“If you change your mind . . .” Lars hung up.
Joey was so still, he might’ve been sleeping. Or dead.
I wanted to hide in the bathroom, cry my eyes out. Like I’d never cried in front of him. This Joey was different. If I left the room, this one might be gone.
He wants you.
Didn’t we all? Lars. Wiry Carlos, the most reliable bi “actor” Lars had. Sneaky Tabitha. And me.
Me, me, me!
As bad as Lars this Joey was.
He had really fallen asleep. The way he clutched the bedclothes, like he was in his own bed, somewhere. In another time. He was that relaxed.
With his vulnerable back still facing me.
Before he woke up, I could find something sharp. I wasn’t strong enough to use my bare hands. Mad as I was.
Next time, maybe I’d bring a blade.
I’d cut Lars too. Somewhere, when the time was right, when he least expected it . . .
In the meantime, I rested my head on Joey’s shoulder, shut my eyes.
Tomorrow we’d both have to be very good girls.
Bio: Cindy Rosmus originally hails from the Ironbound section of Newark, NJ, once voted the “unfriendliest city on the planet.” She talks like Anybodys from West Side Story and everybody from Saturday Night Fever. Her noir/horror/bizarro stories have been published in places like Shotgun Honey, Megazine, Dark Dossier, Danse Macabre, The Rye Whiskey Review, Under the Bleachers, The Yard, and Rock and a Hard Place. She is the editor/art director of Yellow Mama and has published seven collections of short stories. Cindy is a Gemini, a Christian, and an animal rights advocate.
Cover art by: Sophia Wiseman-Rose
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