Painful Truths
Chapter 1
Lluvia sat on the passenger's side of the beat up old truck looking at the red sand of the Utah desert blur by. She still had a bit of trouble believing that this was her new home. No one in their right mind would move to this piece of shit town willingly, but she had. Lluvia turned to look at the man that had brought her here, Mac sat in the driver's seat, lazily driving with one handed and smoking with the other. Mac couldn't be described as handsome or good looking but he was attractive. The signs of hard living and drug use were written all over his face and body. At 43 he had large bags under his eyes and his chest and arms were littered with sores from his meth use, still, he was attractive. Lluvia let her eyes wander over his toned arms and over his chest which was covered by a thin dirty wifebeater. He had his red flannel tied around his waist and his baggy jeans were covered in fine red dirt and grease. If she was honest with herself the roughness of his appearance is what she found attractive to begin with. Pretty was never very appealing to her, mostly because she never considered herself pretty either. She didn't do poorly with the opposite sex but a long legged model, she was not. Mac however did not seem to mind in the least. She felt his eyes on her nearly the second she walked into the run down little shack he called home.
"You change your mind already?" Mac asked without looking at her. If you weren't paying attention his soft voice would have you thinking he couldn't care less what her answer was, but Lluvia could see his hand grip the steering wheel tighter as he waited for her answer.
"No" She said just as softly "I just can't believe I'm moving this fast" she shook her head and let out a small laugh, "It's not like me to be so…." She wasn't quite sure how to finish the sentence. Spontaneous? Optimistic? Romantic? It could be all of those or none at all. All she knew was that this wasn't something she would normally do.
He glanced at her then and shrugged his shoulders "It's been, what, a month or some shit" he shrugged again and took another drag of his cigarette "It's time" he blew out a cloud of smoke and flicked the spent cigarette out the window. Lluvia followed the cigarette butts progress on the wind as it flew past Mac's head and gently gliding over all her worldly belongings, tucked safely under a blue tarp in the bed of his truck.
"I don't think leaving your entire world behind and moving in with a person you've known only a month is exactly normal." She sighed.
"Yeah, well driving for hours back and forth is fuckin' annoying and it ain't safe for you" he really looked at her then "you could run into someone like me" he gave her a cold grin " 'sides I want you here, when I need you." He turned back to the road signaling the end of the conversation as far as he was concerned.
Lluvia didn't argue. She had made up her mind to accept his offer, which was really more of a demand, to move in with him, and had no intention of changing her mind. Still, she wondered why she was so willing to throw all caution and reason out the door for this man. She was no spring chicken, Lluvia was 33 and had never put her wants and needs aside in order to make a relationship work. She wasn't big on inconveniencing herself for another person, but ever since she had met Mac that is exactly what she had been doing. Her friends and family were in shock.
Lluvia had met Mac through a friend of a friend. The party her friend had invited her to had really been nothing but an extended drug exchange. Lluvia and her friends Layla and Gina along with Layla's cousin Frank had driven hours to get to this little one horse town. It turned out that the shack this party was supposed to be at, was really just the house of Franks drug dealer. Lluvia had been pissed, she had, had a long week and was just looking to drink some beers, socialize and unwind, not get arrested. Her friends managed to get her inside with promises of a good time with plenty of booze. Lluvia was shocked at the state of the house they walked into. She was no stranger to the shadier aspects of life but this place was a wreck. The walls were covered in drawings of spiders and trash was covering nearly every surface of the place.
As Lluvia looked around she got the feeling of being watched, turning she found herself facing a tall blue-eyed man coming from the hallway. He stared at her as he adjusted his belt and she assumed he was coming from the bathroom she caught a glimpse of over his shoulder.
"Hey, Mac!" Frank called from across the living room, waving a hand full of money at him. "hows about we get the party started"
The man staring at her tore his glaze away and looked toward Frank "All the money better be there Frank, or we gonna have some problems" the man, she assumed was Mac, growled.
Frank shifted uncomfortably "It's there man, that one time it was an accident" Lluvia had never seen Frank look so scared. She turned back to Mac to find him staring at her again.
"y'all staying?" Mac asked without taking his eyes off Lluvia
"Yeah man, brought you a couple bottles of Jack too. Gonna have ourselves a good time" Frank perked up a bit.
Lluvia shifted uncomfortably under Mac's glaze. She wasn't use to being stared at like this.
"Sit down" Mac demanded motioning to a love seat on her right "have a drink"
Lluvia obeyed almost instantly much to her embarrassment and dislike. She really wanted to be sitting on the other couch next to her girlfriends. Without knowing it, she had set a precedent for their entire relationship within the first few seconds of knowing Mac.
The only other people in the little house were a couple of guys sitting around on the floor so obviously stoned out of their minds that they barely acknowledged the new comers.
Mac sat uncomfortably close to her on the couch but didn't pay her much mind as he began his transaction with Frank. The girls began passing a bottle of jack around and talking, she had a pretty good buzz by the time she felt his eyes on her again.
"Can I use your bathroom?" she asked partly to get away from his piercing stare.
He stared at her quietly for a moment before jerking his chin in the direction of the hallway. "yeah, door at the end. Need me to show you?" He gave her a dangerous looking smile.
Lluvia gave a small laugh "I think I can manage thanks" she hurried down the hallway and shut the door. Why did that man look at her like that? Her friends were much better looking, taller and leaner. She was confused by the intensity of it all. Taking a deep breath she gave herself a pep talk, this guy was not going to intimidate her.
She exited the bathroom and began making her way back to the living room when she heard a cry of pain and a sniffle from behind the door to her right. She took a step towards the door cautiously. It sounded like someone was hurting bad, maybe she should check on them. Another painful cry had her reaching for the door knob before she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"What are you doing?" Mac was looking down at her with a strange expression on his face. It was a cross between anger and excitement.
"Sorry, it's just that it sounds like someone is hurt." Looking at the door Mac sniffed and looked her up and down, his eyes settling on the spider tattoo on her shoulder.
Shaking his head he said "Yeah, that's Dave's chick. She's having a bad trip, best leave her to it. You don't want to see what she's been up to." He gave her another cold smile and led her back to the loveseat before sitting beside her.
Lluvia didn't really remember how it happened but she ended up on that couch talking to Mac all night. She supposed he never really gave her a choice, demanding all her attention without once coming across as desperate about it.
To be honest he was interesting, funny and intelligent. She enjoyed talking to him. He told her funny stories about the druggies he sold to, fights he'd been in and some basic life philosophies that while crass were really kind of brilliant. By the end of the night she was a little smitten by him. He was all man and that was something she hadn't come across before. She had given him her phone number and three days later, her body. Now a month into it and she was giving him her whole life.
