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| Stories Bingo’s Home Bingo’s Lair |
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Cage Girl — Chapters 1 and 2 |
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Chapter 1 A girl came into the Burger King and leaned against the counter, shouting something to someone in back. She moved nicely; blond hair, straight with bangs. Not fake blond like you saw a lot back then, honey blond. She had a jacket, wore jeans. That’s all I could see until she sat in the corner booth with a drink in a tall cup. I could see her face and it was friendly. I have a theory about open and closed faces. Most models in magazines have closed faces and a lot of people when they don’t care who’s looking at them do too. They could care less if you lived or not and they don’t seem happy with their lives. Both faces can smile but for open faces it’s different. Usually the lips are slightly parted so there’s a glint of light against a tooth. The jaw isn’t clenched. So I’m thinking the girl has an open face. My grandson was just looking at me. A bit of a smile showing. His name is Bobby, his father’s Junior, and I’m Andy. Bobby was in high school. “She in any of your classes?” I was still looking at her. “Who? Her?” “Yeah, the girl over there.” “She’s a sophomore.” “A year ahead of you.” I turned to Bobby and he was looking at her. “I think so.” He turned back to me and said, “She’s a whore.” Junior was the one handling the birds and bees stuff and obviously he hadn’t told Bobby everything. “A whore? What do you mean by that?” “She fucks anyone.” “So you two . . .” “Not me. Other guys, though.” “So not just anyone, right?” “I guess so. Nobody likes her.” “You ever talk to her?” “No.” “So how do you know this stuff?” “Everyone says so.” “So she fucks anyone but everyone doesn’t like her. Sounds hypocritical to me, son.” I shifted my gaze from him back to her. “She looks like a nice girl.” I turned to Bobby. “Maybe we should go over and say hi.” “No way, Andy.” In our family everyone goes by their first name. There’s no mom or dad, grandfather or grandmother, or their variants. There’s no grandmother in our case, anyway. Cindy passed away when Junior was twelve, maybe one reason he came out the way he did. The girl was watching us, not staring, just a friendly interest in the only other people in the dining room. When Junior and Amy split, there’d been a lot of acrimony, plus she raked him over the coals. He lost the house, the car, his job and quite a lot of the prestige he’d built up in our small town. He moved in with me three years ago and stayed. I gave him a Pinto and heaven knows what he did with his days when he was supposed to be working for me. Bobby lived with his mom. He spent a couple of evenings after school with me. I had a BMW in the shop we worked on together, or we went fishing or saw a movie. It all depended on his career aspirations. At his age they changed daily. I looked at my watch, eight ten. In the booth in the corner the girl leaned against the window wall, had her feet up on the bench seat. She might have been reading, I couldn’t tell. “So what’s her name?” “Whose name?” Bobby hadn’t been watching me, didn’t know what I was talking about. I’m prone to these skips in conversation. “That girl’s.” I looked over at her, returned to him. “Liz.” Bobby sounded exasperated. “Okay. Done?” “Sure.” I stood, gathering the papers onto the tray. “Let’s go then.” Andy led the way to the car. It’s a sixty-nine Barracuda, black with red top. We were in the car and I saw two men go into the Burger King. They went straight back to the corner booth and stood. I could see her sit up, but not her face. A moment later she got up and left with them. I checked my watch. Eight twenty-four. I started the car and as we pulled out of the parking spot I said to Bobby, “I think you should talk to her.” “To who?” “Liz.” “No way.” Myself, I felt like Liz was a girl I’d like to know.
Chapter 2 Every night after that I made a point to stop by the Burger King. Sometimes it was eight, sometimes later, after I took Bobby home. I’d get a milk shake and if it was around eight, I would see her come in, get her drink and go to the corner booth. If it was later she might be there, she might not. She always took the corner booth, noticed me but didn’t acknowledge me. I read the paper or a magazine. Some nights it was right after eight, others it was more like ten, when a man, sometimes a pair, came in the Burger King and went straight back to the corner booth. Sometimes they stood and talked to her, sometimes they sat. After a minute or two she and they left. Sunday night maybe ten days after I started coming in, it was just after eight. A guy entered and when they left she set her drink on my table. “If you want it,” she said. I looked up but they were already past me. Milk shake, too. Vanilla, like mine. I finished both, not expecting her to come back, and she didn’t. I wondered where she had been before and where she went to next. Most of the time the men were different, not high school kids, older, in their 30s and 40s. There was once when I thought it might have been someone I’d seen before who came to get her, but it was impossible to be sure. A lot of guys, purposely or not, look pretty generic. Two weeks passed after I first saw her and I took my drink to join her. “Okay to visit?” I asked. “Sure.” She laid her book on the table, swung her feet off the bench seat. “My grandson says your name is Liz.” “Your grandson is right. Should I know him?” “He’s not in your class.” “Oh. You don’t look that old.” “I don’t feel that old, either, but I’m guessing I’m about four times your age.” “Sixty-four?” “Sixty-three. My name’s Andy, by the way.” “Hi, Andy.” “Hi, Liz.” I could see them coming in, three this time. “Looks like your friends are here.” She smiled, put the book in her purse, looked up at them. “We saw . . .” one started. “Sure,” she said, standing. “See you later, Andy.” “Maybe tomorrow.” “Maybe.” She got in the back seat with two of the men and the third drove. After that if she was there we sat and talked until the others came to pick her up. We talked about the weather; stayed away from politics which was okay by me; books; cars, she wanted one; and other stuff. I think she was amused. Maybe she thought I was shy or didn’t know the magic words, or was married or something. We never talked about her men friends, where’d she’d been or where she was going. Three, maybe four weeks, it was colder and a front had passed leaving three inches of snow. The roads had been plowed but not the parking lot and we sat for over an hour talking. I said, “I don’t think anyone is going to come tonight.” “Probably not.” Her book had been in her purse since we started talking. “So I was wondering if you wanted to go for a drive. I can take you home.” She studied my face for a minute, smiled, and said, “Sure. I’d like that, Andy.” “Liz, you’re saying sure to almost just what I said. I’d like to talk to you for a minute or two, out of here, more private. Think a moment because maybe one of your men friends might stop by.” She blinked, didn’t lose her smile. “Sure, Andy.” Okay, here’s the hard part for me. Women figured I was like other guys and I wasn’t. I knew that but they didn’t, yet, and finding a way to break the news wasn’t easy. Every time with a new woman was just like the first ever, except they were the virgins. “My van is parked in back.” I stood. She joined me and we dumped our trash before going out the back door, through the hallway, past the restrooms. The van’s a white 1982 Tradesman, no side windows, small windows in the back doors. The magnetic signs for the shop were inside. This was personal use. “No, here,” I said, opening the back doors. She came up beside me, could see inside the van by the street light. “So,” I said. “If you’re going to ride in my van you ride in there, but first you take your clothes off.” I’d turned and was watching her face. She was staring at the cage bolted to the van’s floor. Three-eights inch round steel bars, half inch by one inch frame, welded and painted black. She couldn’t tell the color but she could definitely see the cage. “I won’t lock the cage door this time. You don’t like it, that’s okay. You can leave anytime. That’s the almost part I mentioned.” “Some almost. So you’re letting me choose if I want to be raped and killed, that it?” She’d taken a half step back. “This is the . . .” “Craziest way to propose to a girl. I know it.” I took a step away from her. “You’re sixteen and I’m not going to touch you unless you’re my wife.” “So where does that fit in?” “Maybe we can talk about that once you’re in the cage. The van can sit here if you want. I’ll get the engine running and the heater is good.” “Andy, you’re a fruitcake.” “That’s putting it mildly. How about a quick yes or no. If it’s no I’ll escort you back inside and buy you another milk shake. No problem. I know you like vanilla.” “I like vanilla.” Her voice dropped as she spoke. “Shit.” She took off her coat and handed it to me. “If you decide to kill me . . . No.” She looked up at me. “I don’t care anymore.” She unbuttoned her blouse and handed it to me. “If you’re worried, I don’t think anybody can really see.” “I’m not worried about that. It’s freezing out here, Andy.” “I’ll get the van started once you’re in the cage.” She sat on the sill of the rear doors and removed her shoes and socks. I held them as she quickly pushed down her pants and panties in one motion. I helped her get them off her feet and she swung her legs around and into the van. “Thanks for the carpeting.” “You’re welcome. Your bra, too.” “I forgot.” She crawled around the cage to the front where the cage’s door stood open. She knelt, removed the bra and tossed it back to me. She crawled into the cage and pulled the door shut after her. The latch clicked shut. “Shit,” she said. “It’s not locked.” I shut the back doors and got in the front. After putting her clothes on the passenger seat I started the engine. There was an auxiliary heater which I turned on. “You should start feeling the heat in a couple of minutes.” “Am I an idiot or what? I can’t believe I’m doing this.” “I was going to drive around.” “Do whatever you want. I don’t think I have much say.” “How is it?” “Cold.” “No, I mean how does it feel in the cage?” “Give me a few minutes to sort this out.” “Do you want me to drop you off at home?” “No, I don’t think so. Ummm. What if I have to go to the bathroom?” “I’ll stop and you can run outside.” She started laughing. I let myself relax a little. “You have a nice laugh.” “Is Andy your real name?” “Andy Carmichel. I own Andy’s Acme Auto Repair. Car repair and restoration.” “You’re telling me this because in a couple of hours I’ll be dead.” “Do you think I’d go about it this way if I wanted to kill you?” “Rape me first. I’m frozen, Andy.” “I didn’t want to wait until spring, Liz.” “Where are we headed?” “Toward the Kroger by the highway. You want to go anywhere?” “You want a blowjob? I like it up the ass.” “That’s a nice offer, Liz, but not this time. How’s it feeling now?” “Andy, I’m in this contraption and you want to talk but all I can see is the back of your head.” “So it’s a little strange.” “Let’s call it interesting, Andy. What are we going to talk about that we couldn’t talk about in the warm Burger King?” “Anything you want. We can talk about anything you want. I hadn’t planned things too far ahead, not knowing how you’d react.” “That makes sense. Andy, you’re not interested in sex?” “If you were a couple of years older there’d be no problem. You being sixteen is a horse of a different color. I have a cage like this in the basement at home.” “Is that where we’re going?” “No. That was just a general statement, like saying the sky is blue.” “Andy, you’re weird.” “Warmer?” “A little. I think I want you to drop me off soon.” “At the high school?” “You’re really going to do it?” “Sure. I said I would, didn’t I?” “Okay. And I get my clothes back, right?” “Sure. But you have to dress outside of the van.” “Outside of the van. I’m sure there’s a reason, right?” “Because that’s what I want.” “Then that’s what I’ll do. Want to keep my panties as a souvenir?” “That’s not my thing, Liz.” “For some strange reason I didn’t think it was. You’ll be back at Burger King tomorrow night as usual? With your crazy cagemobile?” “We’ll be there, Liz. I understand you might be busy. I’d understand if I never see you again.” “You married?” “Widower.” “And not many girlfriends, I bet.” “Now and again, but no.” “That sounds a little sad.” “I’m fairly monogamous. I meant my proposal, Liz. You’d need to know more about me first. I’m happy with what I’ve learned about you.” “Let’s not get hasty.” “We’re at the high school.” “And I really have to dress out of the van?” “That’s right. When you’re ready, I’ll go around and open the doors. Your clothes are warm.” “I’m ready.” She reached for the latch and fumbled for a minute before it flipped up and open. I was at the back with both doors open. “We’re facing the street.” “I know.” I grinned at her. She put on the pants, socks and shoes first, then stood and put on the blouse and jacket. She held up the panties. “Sure?” “I’m sure.” She stuffed the panties and bra into her pocket. “I think you’d better leave now, Andy.” “Thanks, Liz.” “That’s it?” I turned back to her. “I think you’re going to rape and kill me, maybe do worse, and you say thanks and walk away.” “You’re really pretty, Liz, and fun to be with.” She slapped me, grabbed me, and kissed me, before stepping back. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.” “Maybe.” I walked to the driver’s door. She stepped around and said, “You wanted to know. It was interesting.” I smiled, said, “I’m glad,” and got in the van. As I pulled away she was still standing in the parking lot, watching me. Cage Girl Page |
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