Besides her hailing from Montana and being married Soda Curtis knows shit about Val Webb and both liked it that way. She doesn't talk about herself but he's seen the Montana plate on her car and noticed the ring on her finger. The first time Soda saw it, his lighter hit a spotlight on the diamonds and they appeared as enormous and real as her tits, which may or may not been real, who the fuck cares. He looked at the ring, raised an eyebrow, but doesn't say shit.

She responds in kind, though maybe kindness had nothing to do with it, and asks him nothing about his ring, about his wife.

It's not anonymous sex, the type people these days find on the web. Soda doesn't judge, but hell the whole idea is fuckin' weird as shit. Maybe it's because his phone connection is slow and the sound of the dial up reminds him of a heart monitor before it stops. Doesn't get how anyone can get off on it. He needs to feel, to touch. To be touched. To be felt. So no, he don't really get the point of doing it with a screen in between, squinting and clicking. Even the pornos, least you could feel the pages, those pages as slippery as the fantasy that one of 'em playmates would actually want you to bang them.

It's not anonymous sex, but Soda doesn't know she has a daughter and Val doesn't know he has a daughter and two sons, or that his oldest son is older than her. He may have dropped out of school after Sophomore year, but he can do math and it occurred to him that Val's young enough to be his daughter, even if she's a grown woman. He throws that thought farther than any ball, or rock, or grenade, or sticky computer mouse.

But what they do, (fuck each other), it's as close to anonymous as possible, which is also how they like it.

The first time Soda saw her ring, he tried to remember if she had it on before, seemed like a pretty big thing to miss and all. For someone who can figure out people, sometimes the little details speed by. Lately he's been having trouble figuring out people and that includes himself, too.

But even though he scratched his head hard enough that dandruff caught under his nail, he couldn't remember and didn't particularly care one way or the other. It was his own wife he worried about, it was the ring on his finger that made him toss and turn. Though shit. He was tossing and turning with Val too wasn't he? That was kinda his problem and all. One type of tossing and turning led to another until he could never feel still.

Could he ever be still? For one damn fuckin' moment?

What is he a fuckin' kindergartener? Being restrained and tied up to his chair by his teacher who couldn't take his shit, no matter how big his grin or how mischievous his big brown eyes were, no more? Yeah, it happened, apparently not every woman is bowed over by Soda's charm, even 6 year old Soda with that cute little gap tooth grin.

Besides, it wasn't the first time he and Val fucked, so it didn't matter one lick if she was stepping out on her man or not, he was already guilty and a low down dirty dog piece of shit; that she's an identical piece of shit cut from the same shit stained cloth was not a thought Soda wanted to mull on.

Now, in the lobby his long lashes dissect Val. Her breasts bubble out of her shirt, her ring hand flips her hair back and the whole gesture is overdone, there's nothing subtle about her, but still watching her his blood pulsates with the same animal instinct that's been gnawing inside him all week.

He bites down on his bottom lip.

"Ready?" Val says and let's out a yawn, more impatient than tired, or at least that's how it sounds to Soda, who might instinctively recognize that type of tired in a voice. But he don't know Val has a child, a little girl with brown hair and blue eyes. Sage Aurora.

"Hold your damn horses," he hisses, as if he doesn't hold at least half the reins himself. He's too far stuck inside himself to even appreciate the horse like snort she lets out in response.

But still follows her to the elevator, not bothering to acknowledge the clerk's 'thank you for choosing us,' as if they could afford a better place with the crumpled bills used to pay for a room he won't even spend the night. It's the type of motel that you know on instinct at least one person rented a room for the sole purpose of blowing their brains out, even if the motel does promise free HBO.

He doesn't know what she does after they're done. Though the word 'choice' stings hard enough that his shoulders twitch and he's reminded that he could still go back home, ditch Val, maybe she'll watch The Sopranos. Does she seem like the kind of person who watches The Sopranos? Sure, why not. Who the fuck knows.

Leave her alone in bed; begging, pleading with him to fuck her hard. That's what she says like they're in a porno 'fuck me hard.' Like this hotel's got Cinemax too.

He'll slam the door on her and walk out of that room and drive out of that parking lot like the devil's hot on his tail to go straight to confession... Nah, he'd go to his wife first, after all she's the one he did wrong, and he wouldn't have converted without her anyways. He'd confess to the one he hurt and beg her forgiveness, though he knows he don't deserve it, so maybe he won't beg for forgiveness but just say how sorry he is and let the chips fall and... but he can't, he can't, he can't lose her.

With his eyes he rips Val's clothes off until he can practically feel her skin slip like an eel snagged inside something dark, like his pupils.

Like the slippery slick of blood before it coagulates and turns sticky.

But he doesn't remember the mole on her shoulder blade, or the scar on her leg, the one that runs like lightening down her calf.

She turns around like he's the ball and she's the string. His eyes lock in place like her body is a key hole right where her legs spread out a little. Slowly Soda draws his gaze upward as he steps into the elevator, though her eyes, blue like a doll's eyes and piercing, ain't the reason he's fucking her. Though her lips wet and warm around his dick is nice, he'll admit to himself, and to her, with his groans and down her throat.

He's got no opinion on her nose.

The elevator door is still sliding close and the clerk's eyes are still peeping past the registration desk when she takes her hand and brushes his privates. The whole thing reminds him of his firsts, the ones who would awkwardly rub him through his jeans, the painful friction before they got the courage to move their hand inside. He liked the friction though, he didn't tell anyone that.

Didn't know what it meant at the time, but when he thinks about it now, it kind of explains a whole lot.

Having an affair reverts Soda and Val into teenagers, makes them stupid and horny, that's for damn sure, but it's also kind of exciting; electrifying, though he won't admit it. That the sex is better than what he's had in years and it's not just because she's younger either.

Having an affair may make Soda feel young again but there's nothing hesitant in her touch.

"Not yet," he hisses. Soda yanks her hand off, though not cause of propriety. Though Soda, holds open the doors, still even now. Force of habit.

Her mouth twists opens a bit, before closing. It's the second time he's spoken to her all day which was perfectly fine with her, she's not fucking him because of their conversations. He doesn't stimulate her that way.

The elevator door opens up and Soda knows what will happen. He'll fuck Val and go home to his wife and he suspects Val will go home to her husband, though who knows? Maybe that ring is just for show? Maybe she's long divorced? It don't matter.

The thought makes him uncomfortable for a second, thinking about her husband, only cause that makes him think of his wife. So he lasers on Val and all thoughts except a primal urge come to a halt.

But before Soda goes home to his own wife he scrubs his hand a light pink. He watches bits of dirt and oil slurp into the drain. But he doesn't look up at his face, avoids it like it won't be with him long after he leaves the room.


Valerie lies naked on the bed's diagonal and reads USA Today. His hat on top of her head and then she inspects the inside of the cap for her strand of blonde hair and finding none she continues to play with the bill, folding it back and forth.

She looks up at the painting, in velvet, a fruit bowl, staring at an apricot, she opens her mouth. The baseball cap makes her think of him, and she can almost feel her fingers in Mike's dark, curly hair.

That's when Soda takes her, the way she likes it, from behind.


But when it's all said and done, it's the truth, he's here, with Val, cause he wants to be.


"Hey there pretty boy!" Duane doesn't look up. Like an old cut into his jeans he knows who owns the honey on the rocks voice.

The sky lies with unlimited possibilities above Valerie Erlander's head like a blue-black crown. Ree's what everyone calls her. She rests on a sleeping bag on her porch that wraps like a snake around her house. Her neighborhood is the Badlands. Fossilized earth too rough to nurture life, but it's sandstone pinnacles and spires claw out ravished and defiant.

Here's where the dinosaurs died. Here's their grave yards.

They're grown, but her tone: flirty, friendly, mocking all jumbled up together still tastes like fries on a Friday afternoon.

Duane, between his truck and the gas pump. But now he gave a quick look up, a quicker wave.

She doesn't wait for an invitation but confidently strutting, even as her gait is unbalanced, under the blinding lights towards him. Like he's who she wanted to see all this time.

She's Ree the girl with eyes like sapphire that glowed with a sort of cunning and mischief. She once screamed at Duane in the school commons to 'go fuck yourself' and a day later an errant hand inching up his thigh over his jeans looked at him like she wanted to do exactly that, their passion lit up by the Bunsen burners.

And with one hand she unbuttoned his jeans while her eyes stayed straight ahead on the blackboard, that was really an olive color. And when his body jolts and he made a noise before her fingers did anything to warrant that sort of sound, she laughed like a trickster in her jeans and and flannel hoodie with a Van Halen t-shirt peeking underneath, and sat up and looked at him like he was crazy, the way Mrs. Linden and the whole class looked at him too.

Ree's hands neatly folded on top of her desk like she was in prayer, which felt almost enough of a punchline to warrant the sly grin on her face.

Before she's a teenager Ree hates knowing the downtown by heart. She can't reconcile the vastness of the sky and land and smallness of her town, the way she feels like a wild animal trapped in a cage. She can't forgive her parents for making her be from this hell hole.

She loves Aerosmith, Van Halen and later Guns n' Roses, Extreme, Drivin' N' Cryin' and Soul Asylum and keeps Dolly Parton to herself.

Instead she and her friends roll marijuana cigarettes, drink Southern Comfort and ride their skateboards. Her friends are all boys. She doesn't get along with girls.

When the other girls wear their hair feathered, Ree's straight long blonde hair is like a cape behind her, her arms and legs banged up and bleeding, once she tore her leg so badly she needed emergency surgery, but came out of the hospital with no limp and showed off her scar to everyone.

Sometimes Ree wonders if she would be a different person if she grew up in New York, or even Billings some place where she wouldn't feel so bored and restless and hungry for trouble.

Appetite for Destruction, and even the album's title feels yanked from Ree's soul. Her favorite song is Welcome to the Jungle.

You can taste the bright lights, but you won't get there for free
In the jungle, welcome to the jungle
Feel my, my, my serpentine
Uh, I, I want to hear you scream

She's the first to jump into the water hole and lets her bra strap fall down so her nipple peaks through as she comes up to the surface for air.

But today those wild blues are caged inside sockets surrounded by deep, thick tired lines that told a story that didn't seem belong to the same universe as the bright aurora borealis laugh that seemed to erupt all the way from an enormously pregnant stomach.

"So what's going on with you stranger?" She points to a picnic table next the convenience store and Duane looks at her, but moves towards the picnic table too. She's got a ginormous rack and ass and she turns around with a smirk.

"Better watch it Duane, at this point hand jobs are pretty much all I can do." Gives her stomach an exaggerated pat and gives Duane a wink that makes him grin in spite of everything.

"You want a Dr. Pepper?" and Duane for a second was floored that she remembered that Dr. Pepper is his favorite soft drink while she unzipped her purse and hunts for three quarters. He remembered that in her own way Ree could be generous and considerate.

She looks at him good and long. She's got a double chin now, and bits of acne dotting the bottom half of her face, in a horseshoe pattern.

"By the way I go by Val now. Why are you apologizing? But it's Val Webb now."

It was strange meeting old classmates he once knew by one name and having to adjust to another name. If Val Webb was any different from Ree Erlander.

"Yeah Mike Webb," she adds quick like a shot down the hatch. She slams her hand on the table. "You're already up to date about me," And Duane doesn't notice she doesn't have a ring on.

"What about you? What the hell have you been up to Duane Prince? How's good ol' Glendive been treating you? This town still full of shit and broken dreams?"

"Now, he's a little cutie, has your eyes, for sure. I got a little girl. Her name's Sage. Gage and Sage. We should set them up." She laughs. And Duane is good to remember that Mr. Erlander taught both of his girls (and his son too) how to handle pistols and hunting rifles from an early age. That's how fast she reaches into her own purse for her wallet, opens the wallet up to a baby.

Ree, or Val, smiles.

After all these years it's still a beautiful expression.

"It's an old picture," she adds apologetically, "she'll be turning three soon. She's so smart Duane. Already knows her A-B-Cs Can you believe it? Not even three yet," she says with unabashed pride. "Course she fucks up the lmnop part, and that whole xyz thing, but we're working on it."

Gage's father laughs.

"End of May. I fucked everything up Duane." And her voice, her tone, her face, everything changed so quickly that Duane feels the jolt in his insides. Everything jolts when Ree's around, turns out it's the same with Val.

She's trying to laugh, but the more she tries to laugh the more her tears stand out which only made her angrier and more desperate to hide them.

But like that the tears vanish into the Montana sky and in a straightforward voice Val speaks bullet paced.

"I cheated on my husband, had sex with a married man who's old enough to be my father and now I'm pregnant with his baby." Then she remembers to breathe.

"' 'S not all. Get this..." She lets out a rueful laugh and talks. Her eyes are blue steel.

Duane lets out a bit of a whistle. It's crazy, but it's also Ree.

"Like something out of a damn white trash soap opera," she laughs bitter and Duane is glad he didn't ask how her folks are.

"Sure. I got a place up in Broken Arrow, nice irony there, right? Some little town near Tulsa. I swear Duane, if I have to live in a place that shares a name with a Rod Stewart song I rather live in Rebel Heart."

Duane Prince remembers Ree carving hearts into her desk with an X-acto knife. She would fill it in with a pen or sharpie or sometimes the X-acto knife itself, and not care if it bled over the boundary.

"Best fuck of my life," she lets out laugh.

She looks up at the sky, so does Duane, who can feel himself turning red. It's a big sky tonight, endless.

You're not obligated to stay, Duane tells himself. You owe her nothing. So why does he lean in? Where does curiosity end and schadenfreude begin? Or is it pity too? The last thing Ree would ever want. But maybe Val would take it. Maybe she's got no choice. Because right now her life is a mess. Because he's going home, after this, he's going home to his family, he can leave Ree behind.

"But I don't love him," the words come out of her mouth with unsurprising confidence and ferocity, like Ree's never left, like she's been here all along.

And Duane wonders, despite Ree-Val, saying that her old man was older than dirt, if he must look a bit like Duane, to warrant that look in her eyes right now.

"I'm having a girl." She's says mostly to herself, softly, even as she still looks at Duane.

Pulls out cigarette, there are two left in the package between yesterday and this evening. Lights and breaths in deep before it even touches her lips. "Don't judge." Takes a long drag and pause. "Serenity. Maybe the name will work out for her."


A/N: Hinton owns. Thank you so very much to anyone who reads this. I've had this on my computer for a long time (not that it was worth the wait, I know!) but while I'm trying to get out of this writing rut I decided to find snips of old unpublished stories and well...here we are! ;) Again, I so very much appreciate you for reading this so very much. Thank you :)