edited 8/5/14
The Tops was thinly populated. The buildings of the Strip had been built in an over-populated world. Mint imagined at one time all the seats at the fabric lined tables could have been occupied by smartly dressed gamblers with pudgy bellies and full alcohol glasses. Everything about the world now was empty. Buildings were too large for the meager population and spaces always seemed oversized.
Only the liquor remained. Liquor and canned food and tables with cloth surfaces. Mint's vodka burned as it splashed down her throat.
Veronica was playing cards discretely as Mint surveyed their surroundings for the man in the checkered coat.
On their way in, Mint had caught a glimpse of Swank out of the corner of her eye. In a rush to get past the doorman, she relinquished all her weapons, even the one she had meant to retain, a thin switch blade she could thrash around with if it came to the worst. If she had been recognized, there might have been no hope of making it to Benny. Or maybe that would have made their task easier. There was no way to know. The reason for Mint's departure from the Tops was still missing from her memories. That fucking missing year.
Mint ascended the few steps up from the blackjack tables and headed back towards the entrance to loop around the floor one more time. Veronica held her position and flirted half-halfheartedly with the young, fresh-faced dealer. The kid looked like he had never seen the Mojave sun. Couldn't have been older than 16.
And there was the checkered coat, a Chairman to either side of him looking bored with their lot in life. Benny had told her that they were all getting a bit soft, but soft wasn't a bad thing. Soft and alive sounded better than hard and dead.
She approached Benny's turned back, not bothering to hide her presence. The bodyguards would only think her a threat if she gave them reason to. Maybe they would even recognize her. Maybe they would shoot her dead in any case.
Mint stopped six feet behind her target and waited for him to turn around. The look on Benny's face was as if he had seen a ghost. From his perspective he most certainly had.
"Smooth, keep it smooth doll..." He was visibly agitated. "Smooth like little babies..."
Even though the cigarette between his fingers was far from finished he put it out on one of the golden ashtrays that punctuated the floor and lit a fresh one. He offered a second one to Mint. She took it and coughed up when the smoke hit the back of her throat.
"Why don't you and I go to our room, Benny?" She had meant to sound seductive, and failed. If anything she sounded slightly feral. That could work too, right?
"Pussycat, all you and I got in common is a bullet." He took another confident drag.
Mint screwed her face, she needed to get him separated. She needed her answers.
She changed tactics. Scanning the memories that had returned to her since she woke up, she stopped being Courier Six, stopped being the woman who had killed her way across the Mojave and into this confrontation and shared a bed with a runaway Brotherhood scribe and instead melted into that girl in her memories, the one in the purple dress.
"Benny..." She held his hand, cautiously at first, running her thumb over the back of his hand, over the ridges of his knuckles. She remembered this. She couldn't remember those same hands tying her wrists together and blindfolding her, dragging her to Goodsprings Cemetery. But it must have been him. Those moments before her death were unimportant compared with the way she was now sure she used to run her fingers over his knuckles. Touching him, even in this chaste way, confirmed that her memories of him had to be real.
"Doll, how do you..." Benny's demeanor had softened for a moment before becoming unreadable again. Still, he twined his fingers with hers and led her away, indicating to the other Chairmen that they were not to follow.
Veronica had been given strict orders to wait on the casino floor. Mint had been convinced all along that Benny would not try to kill her again. In fact, Mint wasn't really convinced he had wanted to kill her in the first place.
They rode in the elevator silently, still holding hands. Benny's body heat against her left side was familiar. Mint felt more herself than she could ever remember, or not remember, something like that. As the floors ticked by his palm became sweaty. She didn't care in the least.
The door to their suite clicked behind them and Mint wasted no time. Her hands left his and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing their lips together. He smelled and tasted clean, free of dust and grime and the Wasteland that spit so many people out again. His hands were at her hips, pulling her closer and taking her slightly off balance.
"That bullet must have made you crazy, pussycat. Helluva way to pay a fink like me back."
Mint could feel the pads of his fingers gripping against her khakis. She felt ready to burst. There were no new memories but her chest felt like it might explode. What had gone wrong that he had shot her? Why was she a courier at all? Between twenty and twenty-one...
"Benny."
"Pussycat..."
She cocked her head to one side, "Why don't you call me by my name? You always called me by my name."
It was Benny's turn to look confused,"I don't know your name, girlie."
Mint's blood ran cold.
"You don't recognize me?"
"Of course I recognize you. Looked you right in the eye before I pulled the trigger. Did it like a man."
Mint stepped back, releasing Benny's shoulders. "No, no, I have memories of you from before. Mint, I'm Mint, you liar." She couldn't stop herself from sounding frantic. He was lying to cover up what he had done. He was lying to conceal the fact he shot his lover, his childhood friend for selfish gain. Liar, liar, liar.
This time he was on her, knocking her backwards onto the couch and pinning her below him. Though they were similar in height, he was much broader and heavier than she was. Panic seized Mint and for the first time she began to fear for her life.
"I'm the liar? Who the fuck do you think you are?" His face was turning red with anger. Mint struggled against his hold on her wrists. Even if she could manage to free her hands, he was still straddling her and had her hips pinned down with his weight.
She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of showing fear. "I don't know. Someone conveniently put a bullet through my fucking brain," seethed Mint.
"Fuck, fuck, FUCK!" Benny released her and paced back and forth in front of the couch before punctuating his curses with a fist through the drywall. His hand came away scraped and bleeding slightly, not enough to cause concern.
"That's my excuse, what's yours, Benny?"
"Where did you even hear that name?" Benny slumped against the wall until he reached a seated position. He looked completely drained.
"It's my name, isn't it? You told me we'd come here, that we'd be together...that no one would take me away."
The look in Benny's eyes made it appear that he was somewhere very far away. Mint was sure that had been her own default expression since waking up in Goodsprings.
"You're something, Girlie, but you're not Mint."
"You held me, when I was going to attack those men. When I was going to kill them. You calmed me down. I remember. I was going to kill half the Tribe, but you stopped me, said you would fix everything."
"Girlie, this is a sick joke. And I know sick." He smirked, but his eyes were still sad. "After all, I shoot pretty women in the face for personal gain."
Not-Mint stood and walked over to where Benny was sitting against the wall. She lowered herself next to him, still desperate to feel him against her, even if everything was still as wrong as it had been yesterday, the day before, the week...
"It feels the same, when I kiss you now, like it does in my memories." Not-Mint put her own fingers to her lips, mimicking their earlier kiss.
"I fucked you up real bad. That I'm sure of. But I don't know how you think you're a ghost. Well, I suppose I know how you might think you're a ghost. It's just the particular one you've selected." He let out a thin laugh.
She brought her fingers away from her lips and placed her hand over top of Benny's. The size discrepancy between their hands was similar to that in her memory. Similar enough that it fit. "You'll have to prove it to me I'm not her."
Benny's laughter continued. "What, dig up her grave? Parade her around? Girlie, it's been, what, six years since Mint died? I don't have to prove a thing to you."
Benny stood and poured himself a glass of scotch. He poured a second and left it on the table for Not-Mint, but didn't bother to hand it to her. "I don't know what your game is, Girlie. Did Not-at-home put you up to this? Or just your own brand of revenge?" He knocked back the scotch and poured another.
Not-Mint thought about ways to prove her identity. She had been unsure before reaching the Strip if her tribal memories were all there was to her story. Now, here, sharing the same space with the man who was a boy in her dreams, she was sure that those memories were legitimate. They no longer felt distant. Benny's denial only strengthened her resolve.
"You have a scar." Not-Mint passed the table, ignoring her scotch, and cornered Benny against the wall. He backed up, allowing her to corner him, but continued taking slow sips of his drink. He wasn't rushing through this glass.
Not-Mint traced her fingers over the outside of Benny's left leg, just below his hipbone. "It's right here. I gave it to you." She let her fingers dance along in a pattern she had memorized. From the twitch of Benny's lips, she could tell she had it right. "I pushed you into the ground. I was fifteen and you wouldn't kiss me. There was metal shrapnel on the ground. Cut through your shorts and then your flesh. I wouldn't let you up until you admitted you liked me."
Benny handed Not-Mint his now empty glass. "You're not her."
It was an accusation, but still his lips were on hers. The taste of scotch was still in his mouth and she didn't like it. While it was important that Not-Mint convince Benny that she was not lying, the immediate heat of his proximity was more important.
His hands raced for her hips and he pulled her off the ground, supporting her weight easily. Not-Mint still had the empty glass in one hand but used the other arm to wrap around Benny's shoulders. The kiss had broken but they both chose to breathe rather than speak. Not-Mint was afraid of another interrogation.
Only after Benny deposited her on the bed was she able to dispose of the glass, placing it on the bedside table. Benny used that same time to remove his jacket and dress shirt. His chest was softer than she remembered, but still defined and attractive. Fuck was he attractive. Life on the Strip was easier than the Wastes. She didn't need garbled memories to know that. Still, he was fitter and stronger than most men she had encountered since waking, though he was the first she had seen in a state of undress.
Crude tribal tattoos snaked over his sides, permanent identifiers of a life they had deliberately left behind. While he had never said he was ashamed of them, it did seem like he kept them well enough hidden now, his shirt collars coming high enough to cover even the tendrils that approached his neck.
Not-Mint stripped away her own shirt before Benny was on her again. One hand dipped below the waistband of her pants while the other worked at the buttons. He radiated heat. Heat and power and desperation. There was little practiced about his movements, they were a frenzy of a man who had waited without any expectations. He was hungry for her now.
Stripped of their clothes, Not-Mint could not recall feeling so confident. This she knew even without the aid of her pieced together memories. Benny was in her muscle memory, she didn't have to recall anything in particular, it just happened.
Two fingers slid inside her while his thumb worked her clitoris. The circle he made was too tight, as if anticipating someone a bit smaller. His movements were welcome, pleasurable, but imperfect. Hers was a body he didn't yet know, even if she knew his.
Not-Mint resolved to put the discrepancy aside.
Benny shifted down the bed and replaced his thumb with his mouth, still moving in a slightly incorrect pattern. Not-Mint bucked her hips to meet his tongue. One of his hands pushed down on her hip, trying to steady her and she rolled into her orgasm.
He gave her a moment to settle before rolling her to straddle him. Their lips met again and she could taste herself, all traces of the scotch were gone.
Not-Mint repositioned herself and guided Benny's cock into her. He grunted and threw his head back against the pillow, avoiding her eyes. It didn't bother Not-Mint in the slightest.
He allowed her to set her own pace, only rolling his hands across her body. Her chest, her hips, her back. Benny didn't speak, but occasionally now their eyes would catch each other. He looked peaceful. The traces of his frantic initiation were long gone.
Not-Mint couldn't ignore the heat that was all around her, swallowing her. Benny felt like he was burning. Everywhere his hands touched she felt like she would go up in flames.
As he approached his own release, Benny took more definitive control of Not-Mint's movements. One hand on each hip regulated the pace of her thrusts against him and his own hips rose from the mattress to reach hers. His thumb played at her clit again, bringing her off again and causing her to push down onto his cock. Benny panted as he came, a habit of learning one's own body and those of others in close quarters with many suspicious ears. Not-Mint hadn't quite learned that trick.
Not-Mint rolled off of Benny as his cock began to soften inside her. She placed her head against his shoulder and he didn't indicate that he disliked her position, so she stayed.
"Girlie..."
"Mint..."
"I told you," he paused, "you're not her. But you do a hell of an impression."