"What the hell ya readin'?" Merle demanded.
"Nothing," Sinclaire said quickly.
Merle snatched the book before she could hide it and said, "Lady Amanda's Rakish Rogue. The fuck?"
"I…it…I got tired of the CIA ok?" she could feel her face heating up. "There's nothing wrong with a little uh…"
Merle was flipping through the book with a grin on his face. His eyebrows went up and he couldn't resist reading aloud when he came to a certain passage.
"'Oh Ryder, take me now! Ryder clutched Lady Amanda to his chest and she gasped as the flesh of her bosom met the hard planes of muscle that rippled under the moonlight. His member swelled with lusty anticipation…'"
At this point Merle nearly choked on his own laughter and he was forced to stop. Sinclaire gave up any hope of dignity and buried her face in her hands.
"Bosom!" Merle guffawed. "And member…oh God girl. I ain't laughed that hard in a while."
"I'm glad I could be of assistance," she said frostily. "Give me my book."
"Hell no. I'm puttin' this under Daryl's pillow tonight so he can see how ya ain't supposed to do it."
"Why don't you write him up a handy flip book?" she questioned as she snatched the paperback away. "It would occupy your dirty little mind."
"I got the dirty mind?" he questioned with a grin. "I ain't the one readin' about gettin' some dick under the moonlight."
"I should think not," she said primly. "You made your feelings about that well known."
He sat down beside her when she sat again.
"Anyway," he continued, "What's the point of thinkin' about fuckin' when I ain't got nobody to fuck? Lori's got about all she can handle, Andrea's bangin' the old man, Carol's…"
"You leave Carol alone."
"See? And then there's you."
"Well, you don't have to say it like that," Sinclaire teased. "Like I'm the last woman you'd ever pick."
"Ain't that. I told ya before, I'd take ya. It's just that ya hate to be touched. Can't fuck without touchin'…it ain't quite that big."
She shook her head with a smile.
"Why're ya like that anyway Yank?"
He'd been wanting to ask for a while but he'd waited because he realized that he was more likely to get an answer out of her if he knew he better.
"Maybe I'm a germophobe," she said casually.
"'Cept I know ya ain't."
"Maybe I'm—"
"Maybe yer stallin'. Look I reckon I can go my whole life without knowin' if that's what ya want."
"Why do you want to know anyway?" she asked.
"Curious mostly. Ya act like ya've been hurt before. Like a kicked dog, but yer the kind that gets crazy and bites everybody rather'n the kind that just rolls over an takes more. I wanna know what made ya like that," Merle said truthfully.
Sinclaire half laughed and said, "It's nothing really. Trust got placed where it wasn't deserved and now certain things bring back certain memories. But good analogy."
"Yeah well anything would impress ya after readin' that shit."
"My dad would have a fit," she admitted.
"Why? He hate sex too?"
"Obviously not; I exist. He was a literature professor. That's why he named me Sinclaire."
"Ya lost me."
"Sinclair Lewis was the first American writer to get the Nobel Peace Prize for literature. My dad couldn't resist with our last name, so my mom added the "e" to the end of my name so I could go by Claire if I wanted. I didn't. It's really fun having an uncommon name; you always know when your teacher is talking to you."
"Know how I knew my teachers was talkin' to me?" Merle asked.
"How?"
"Whenever they said "Don't break that," or "Get down," I knew they couldn't mean nobody else," he answered.
"And here I had you pegged as teacher's pet," Sinclaire joked.
"Nah. Didn't much matter anyway, I just killed time till I could join up. Then I didn't like that neither. Came back home and spent my time irritatin' my brother."
"I can see how that would be easy," she admitted.
"He does have him a quick temper," Merle said, as if he didn't. "Teachers hated him too."
"Really?" Now Sinclaire was surprised. "He's so quiet."
"He's a Dixon," Merle said. "Where we came from that was enough. Yer daddy have him any teacher's pets?"
"Not that I know of. Like I said, I was only 8 when he died. He didn't really get into the intricacies of teaching with me. But I'm sure he had favorites; every teacher does."
"Reckon so," Merle agreed. "Ain't ya bored Yank?"
"Bored?" she repeated thoughtfully. "I guess so, a little."
"What'd ya be doin' right now if ya could do anything?"
Sinclaire thought for so long that Merle got impatient and punched her in the arm.
"Ow! I'm thinking!"
"Think faster."
"I don't know," she said at long last. When Merle stared at her in disbelief she said, "I don't! When I was a kid I was in school. After school I was in the Army. I've never really had time to myself. I just…do what I'm supposed to do."
"That's a shitty life."
She shrugged and said, "It's easy."
"Easy ain't what it's all about," Merle shocked them both by saying.
"Yes sir," she said. "I'll try to do better sir."
"Now I like the sound of that."
His grin was incorrigible.
"So what about you?" she asked. "When you're not making fun of my slips in literary discretion, what do you want to do?"
"I used to practically live in a bar," he said with a half laugh. "Now I'm just about goddamned desperate to get the hell outta one. I wanna do all that shit I thought was borin' before. I wanna wake up and cut the grass. I wanna go to Wal-Mart an buy old TV shows outta the 5 dollar bin. I wanna listen to Tom Petty on the tailgate of my little brother's truck and drink a beer by the lake. Simple shit ain't it? Guess ya can tell I'm a damn redneck."
"I can," she answered. "But…I can also tell that underneath all that ass hattery and the drugs, you've always been a fairly decent man."
"Is ass hattery a word? 'Cause I depend on ya to build my vocabulary."
"It's a word. I just made it. We'll write a new dictionary. Ass hattery can be the first addition."
"Shit," Merle drawled. "What about my words?"
"Well, they're all real…you just pronounce them wrong or use them wrong."
"Like what?" he said indignantly.
"Um," Sinclaire tapped her chin and then said, "Ah ha! Okay, how if I say where are you going to sleep and you say, Rat Cheer and you mean Right Here."
"Yer the one sayin' it wrong. That's how ya say it. Bet ya don't put the 'w' in dog either."
"You also put the emphasis on the 'ay' in the word area, and…"
"Had more'n enough outta ya, Yank," Merle said. "I'm fixin' to show ya…what?"
"Fixin' to! That's another one!"
"How 'bout this one? Blow me."
"It lacks the necessary Southern charm," Sinclaire informed him. "I could not, in good conscience, put that in a dictionary for future generations."
"Uh huh," Merle drawled. "Go back to yer porn book, imma see about supper."
"And by "see about" you mean hassle someone until they cook for you right?"
"Sure."
"Get them to cook for me too."
"Like the way ya think."
"I like the way you talk," Sinclaire said with a smile.
"I like the way you talk," Daryl drawled from just inside the door, finishing the Slingblade quote.
"Thanks. You can contribute to the dictionary too."
"I'd be honored."
"Hope yer honored enough to cook," Merle said, slapping him on the back. "Ya just got drafted."