Let's Talk Trash (Gothenburg/Public)

"OW--" He swatted her hand away like a child (but with much more force) and hesitantly turned back to the wheel as if he didn't trust her.

They were fine at the moment. No cars had crossed their path, and even if they had... He hadnt seen them. This just proved to him how great a driver he was-- and when he looked back at her, her smile seemed to agree. There was only one logical thing to do, then. Reaching over with his whole self, he grabbed her collar and smashed his lips to hers. His adrenaline was pumping a mile a minute-- maybe even faster than the car was going. There was no room in his mind to think about decisions. Which was whi it was a poor one. He was beginning to swerve into a ditch.

She wasn't exactly thinking too clearly herself, at the moment. Which was why she didn't spare a thought as to whether his decision was a poor one or not. Neither did she notice the car swerving about dangerously; she was too engrossed with the immediate business at hand.

Not even taking the time to be surprised at the sudden kiss, she put one hand behind his head and the other against his back, pulling him on top of her. Breaking off the kiss, she moved to his neck of her own accord, her hat falling off onto the floor somewhere in the process. Reason and thought in her mind seemed to have been replaced with sheer feeling; with sheer exhilaration.

((Watch and be amazed as I assume the interior is a bench seat--))

Her strange suddenly disappearing inhibitions were probably what would save her life in the end. As he was pulled onto her and away from the pedals, the car didn't have enough acceleration to jump when it hit the ditch and flip over, but merely had some turbulence and skidded to a slow halt in the field next to the road, the hood smoking from exertion.

It was always better to have a willing woman, he'd realized long ago. Even if said woman wore pants and smelled like gasoline. Already his hands had worked their way into and up her jumpsuit. "I guess you get a few more points for being a real woman," he pulled her back into a full kiss, rushed and sloppy. "But you still got a ways to go." Was it his strategy that worked or was it the pills? He hadn't expected this reaction, but sometimes he got lucky.

If only she could have seen the smoking hood, she would have been exasperated--the coolant system had most likely overheated, resulting in (drumroll) a blown head gasket. Which was exactly what she'd had to travel to the dump for in the first place. It would not be fun having to go back a second time, especially knowing she had been right there and could have prevented the blowout before it even happened.

However, she wasn't thinking about any of that at the moment.

Fingers shaking with adrenaline, she popped open the buttons on her shirt and pants, making it all the easier for his lurking hands. "You get a couple of points for being a man," she smirked through dark red lips, tugging at the waist of his pants with one finger, "I'm not impressed easily--do your best, ja?"

He was dumbstruck for a moment-- all that was under that grungy jumpsuit? And there had to be more than the drugs involved here. But who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth? By the time he was done thinking, the button and zipper on his trousers were both undone. ...So much for thought.

True to her request, he did, in fact, do his best. By the finish the high had crashed, and his memories of the past hour were foggy at best. He remembered falling off of the seat at some point (which explained his current position) and something he did with his teeth... What matters was that it was productive. At least, he thought so. So, he tucked himself back into his trousers and waited to hear her opinion.

...What was her name again?

Having taken only one pill, her high had ended quite early--before either had finished. And even in the absence of the artificially-produced euphoria, she could tell he was good. Really good. Was she going to tell him just how good?

God, no.

Watching him slip off of her and onto the floor out of the corner of her eye, she dug out her cigarettes and lit one up as she quietly waited for her breathing to even out. With her left leg propped up, she lifted the right one so that her ankle was lying on top of her left knee, foot tapping up and down in the air rhythmically. She flicked her ashes out of the window directly behind her head, the smoke wafting out after it in whisps.

"Ja," she broke the silence while staring at the ceiling, "Not bad."

Once her heart had calmed sufficiently, she sat up and pulled her clothes back on sloppily, opening the car door and stepping out into the field. Dropping the cigarette onto the ground, she smeared it out with the heel of her shoe before going over to the front of the car. Even from within, she could smell the telltale traces of overheated engine--the burnt rubber stench that contrasted with the cigarette smoke.

The hood popped open, followed by some lingering clouds of smog and a few audible curses.

"Just not bad?" If that was the case, it wouldn't have taken so long for her to say so. He knew it was a lie. That just made his grin larger.

And he supposed it was opportune that she was there to fox the car he'd wrecked. Win-win. Climbing out of the car after her, he watched her curse and swear into the car's hood. Usually people did that about sleeping with him. Maybe it was good she didn't talk to many women. But he still had a bone to pick with her, otherwise, he'd still be in the car.

"'Not bad' is all you can say?"

She didn't even bother answering him directly as she slammed the hood shut again, without fixing anything inside.

"Gasket's blown," she declared, frowning, "It'll run for now," (though it would smoke like nobody's business), "but I can't do anything about it out here."   It was no small task, by any means, to replace a head gasket. Despite how small the thing itself was. "You'll have to leave it in the garage; I'll fix it later."

Letting herself back inside, she picked up her hat from where it had fallen to the floor and put it back on, leaning back in the seat. "At least I got some not-so-bad sex out of it, or else I'd be pretty pissed to have to repair this thing just because you were speeding." She'd consider the intimacy as collateral.

Rolling his eyes, he got back in the front seat and started the car, jumping a little bit when smoke sputtered from the hood. Well, at least he would get it fixed for free.

"I hope i get more than 'not so bad' repairs on this car." He muttered with a snide smirk.

The car wheezed to life and he drove back to the carnival-- at considerably less speeds than he'd gotten out there in the first place. As he pulled up to the entrance, the woman he had originally gone out for was there waiting. "Shit." He muttered, trying to wipe the lipstick off his face. "Act like nothing happened." He told his passenger gravely. Then, yelling out the window at the Odessan, he greeted, "Hey, Vesna-- got something for you!"

She walked over, ready to see the surprise. All she saw was another blonde woman in the car. "...?"

...God damn it.

Suddenly, she didn't know what to do with herself. Was her face red? Was her lipstick smeared? There was no time to check--her face suddenly felt hot; she wanted to just get out of the car and leave. Even before the other woman walked over, Alice could tell she was very pretty...feminine... She didn't want to talk to her, she didn't know what to say (it had been a couple of weeks since she'd even seen another woman). 

Act like nothing happened? This must have been his 'friend'.

In a panicked moment as the beautiful woman walked over, she smudged some of the fresh grease from her hands (from his car engine) onto her face, masking whatever embarrassed blush might have been there. Shoving her hands in her pockets, she slouched slightly in her seat, staring fixedly at the dash, wishing she could disappear into the leather.

She didn't speak when the Ukrainian saw her--even if she had anything to say, it felt like her throat had closed up. ...For once, she half-hoped it would be assumed that she was a dyke. Then there'd be no question that nothing had gone on.

He quickly explained that she was the mechanic and needed to fix his car. True to her character, the taller woman simply nodded and smiled blankly, asking no more questions. Then, getting out, he gave her the bag of miscellaneous parts for her to do what have you with, and told her he needed to drive back up to the garage. Another blank nod, a hug that lasted too long, and he was back in the car, leaving her in the dust as he sped up the carnival road.

"Dumb as rocks," He chuckled as he pulled into the tent filled with better cars than he'd ever get to drive.

The second they left Vesna (That was her name, right?) behind, her anxiety melted away. Turning slightly in her seat, she caught a last glimpse of the Ukrainian before she disappeared from view. "Good-looking, though," she commented in response, "Nice legs--damn, she's tall."

...In her experience, that was the appropriate way to talk about other women. It wasn't like it wasn't true, anyways.

Getting out of the car, she got to work straight away.  After disconnecting the battery terminal and coolant system, she raised the car on jacks and removed the bolts holding the exhaust pipe. Then lowered it again. All kinds of parts came out after that--air cleaner assembly, radiator hose, thermostat housing coil, coolant temperature sensor, spark plug wires, distributor water shield & cap, a/c bolts, timing belt cover, valve cover, wiring harness connector, throttle cables, vacuum lines, fuel lines, EGR valve connector, ground strap, vacuum hose, heater hose... Only then, could she start on the real work.

"Here, help me lift the engine head," she instructed, showing him where to grip it from.

"Jandira, the amazon princess from Brazil," He laughed at the absurdity. "That's her name, around here." It was a good thing the rest of the world was still a mystery to these backwater Midwesterners. Any other might question a blonde and blue-eyed alleged royalty allegedly coming from the jungles surrounding the Amazon. To her comment... "And if you go both ways, well, she can too."

He assumed he could leave after he dropped the car off. He was wrong. "Come on, Puiule, I got stuff to do..." Nevertheless, he did help her out, frowning again when he got more sludge on his hands. "Is that all?"

She snorted, "Is she a carnie or something?" She couldn't imagine why else they'd give her such a ridiculous nickname. Alice didn't pretend to know much about the Americas, but even she was well aware that caucasians did not come from Amazonian tribes.

The meaning of his second comment sailed straight over her head, though "Go both ways with what...?" Perhaps if she actually did go both ways, she would have picked up on it, but as it was...she wasn't exactly thinking of that.

"I'm doing it now so you leave with it now," she explained as she wrenched up the cracked gasket and began cleaning out the areas around it. "Because otherwise I won't have time for this. This," she indicated the gasket she'd recovered from the dump, "was supposed to go into that." She pointed at a Dusenburg Model J behind him. "I have to go back to the junkyard to find another one now."

"Nu," He burst out laughing. "She's a whore. The best one I got." There was no harm in telling her this after he got what he wanted out of it. Hell, she was even fixing his car. "But I guess that counts as a carnie." And if she didn't get his second guarantee... She would in a moment.

"Oh," He looked back at the car behind them. "That's the boss's." Then, strolling over to it, "Mind of i take a pocket knife to the leather? Bastard's trying to take more than his share of my profits. He'll do it to you, too." As if to prove he was willing to do so, he pulled a Swiss army knife from his back pocket.

Well, that was certainly a surprise. She gave him a strange sideways look (though just briefly, as she needed her attention focused on the task at hand) as she adjusted the new head gasket, "You run the brothel? Why didn't you say so in the first place?" What was all that horse shit about bringing people in or whatever? Unless that was what he meant by it--

And she did indeed understand his second point, now. Flushing slightly, her eyebrows narrowed over an unamused expression, "I'm not interested in your whores. Not like that, anyways..."

She happened to glance up in time to see him too close (within a five-foot radius) to one of the most precious cars there (for Bourbon did not only use one, by any means), pulling out a knife.

She reacted like the car was the president, and she was the secret service.

"Are you crazy!?" She practically screamed, dashing to put herself between him and the vehicle, as though she would take the proverbial bullet for the leather. "You want me to lose my job?? You're standing too close to it--go over there, where I can see you!" The panic was not entirely unfounded--it had taken her a long, long time to get to this point. She was very careful not to get on her boss's bad side; wage slashes or no, this was a financially secure career. A rare find, in these hard times.

Why didn't he say so in the first place? He shrugged and grinned. "Would you have trusted me if I had said so? Would you have slept with me of I'd said so?". Probably not. There wasn't much attractive about saying 'I manage the whores'.

She did finally get it though, and he was glad he didn't have to explain himself. "Hey, you already have enough points docked off the dyke scale, I'd be disappointed if it turns out you were lying." He laughed, backing up to where she told him to.

"Fine, I won't scratch it up. I'll just find something else to fuck up of his, then. Thinks he can run my business..." He grumbled, sinking down to the floor. "Doesn't even know two ways about my business..."

She shrugged right back at him, looking unconcerned. She probably wouldn't have slept with him either way, if he hadn't given her that pill--not at that particular moment, anyways, after he'd called her a dyke. (Which he was still going on about; she chose to save face and ignore it.) If anything, she was a little jealous of him, in a way. He wasn't even a woman himself, yet he probably had no problem talking to them.

Only after he was a safe distance from her job security did she return back to work, installing the new gasket. "Why don't you just give him a woman with a bunch of venereal diseases?" She was joking, but at the same time...she wasn't. In spite of how much she wanted to keep working there, she was not Bourbon's biggest fan.

Speaking of disease, she made a mental note to get a shot the next time the doctor came by. She'd had to get it before, so she knew there was plenty of time (a whole year until it became ineffective), but there was no point in waiting long enough for any symptoms to crop up. These days, you couldn't trust anyone to be clean--whether they managed whorehouses or not.

((DAMN YOU, causing me to research syphilis. :I But hey, hey, what timing: the 30's was when penicillin became popular. B) ))

((Ah, syphillis XD THE NEW WORLD'S REVENGE-- /shot fff XD))

"There's my answer," He muttered, running a hand through his hair from the heat. "What, were you worried about my feelings or something?"

At her mention of sabotaging bourbon's genitals with one of his whores, a scowl immediately graced his features. Apparently she knew even less about his profession than the Frenchman did. "Excuse me?" He asked, offended. "I don't know if you know this-- but I take my job seriously. Just as much as you do. They're all clean. Men have to shower right after they sign up." Clearly he hadn't found a smart woman yet. "Do you ever think before you speak? Goddamn."

He didn't want to have to be around her anymore-- but he still had to wait for his car to be fixed. Coming to the realization with a heavy sigh, he crossed his arms. "How long till it's done?"

She snorted at his taking offense at something anyone would assume. Maybe she wasn't around women often, but she was around men. And she had heard plenty of opinions on whores--if this guy was so concerned about what people thought about his profession, then he was really in the wrong profession. Dryly, she quoted, "Can't you take a joke?" She was not the only one who had wrongly assumed some things today, after all, jokingly or not.

For a while, she didn't say anything, even when he asked how long it would take--couldn't he see that she was reassembling it? Jesus, he really didn't know anything about cars, did he. Hitching it up on the jacks, she slid underneath and, as she was putting things back into place, she could be heard over the clanking, finally answering his question from before, "No, I wasn't worried about your feelings. But if you really wanna know, I probably wouldn't have cared, then. I don't now, anyways, so I'm guessing I wouldn't have." She would have preferred the truth from the get-go, but of course, he couldn't have known that about her. "I spent enough time trying to find this job to know that you have to do what you have to do, nowadays." Making a living, even a shady one, was better than being a bum--especially in a world where no one had the money or the time to care about bums. The unemployed didn't last long, in a depression this severe.

Screwing the last bolt into place, she pulled herself back out and got to her feet, giving it one last glance-over. Affirming that everything was good, she shut the hood and took her cap off, rubbing her forehead with the back of her wrist, "Ok, it's done."

"If a restaurant's specialty is fat poison, are people gonna go back to it?" He inquired rhetorically, as if the correlation was obvious. "Would people come back to a bordello that gave 'em the clap?" Besides, he was interested in keeping his job, too-- it was easier to sabotage bourbon from someone else than to poison him with one of the hookers he was so fond of. "It's a business like any other." Then, with an added hurt grumble, "If it was a joke, it wasn't funny. My sister works hard for her money."

He wouldn't admit it, but his feelings were slightly hurt. Wasn't a female mechanic just as scandalous? She was wearing pants, for Christ's sake.

Finally the car was done, and by then he was aggravated enough to treat her like any woman. "Woulda been done faster if you hadnt clucked all the way through it." He got in the far and slammed the door in front of her, turning the ignition and letting exhaust fill the tent before he drove out.