Frank didn’t want to move, didn’t want to give Annie any reason to pull her hand back, but he carefully turned his head and glanced into the back seat. Petunia snored softly, curled up in a tight ball, dead to the world. “I don’t know. She looks awful comfortable.”

“That’s what I thought.” Annie slid closer. “Kind of nice, just sitting here, looking at the water.”

“Yeah.”

“I know you’ve heard about me,” Annie said without looking at Frank.

“What?”

“Let’s stop pretending, okay? We do it all the time, with everyone, with everything that goes through our heads, so let’s…Let’s just not do it tonight, okay? Not between you and me. It’s demeaning. So, what did you hear? I know they filled you in. I want to know what they had to say.”

Frank exhaled, long and slow, wondering if one of Annie’s cigarettes would help. He thought of something better. “Well. You’re talking about the guys, the clowns, right?” He felt around under the driver’s seat and pulled out the bottle of cheap rum he’d stashed earlier.

“Who else?”

“They’re…they’re big fans. Chuck is, anyway.”

Annie smiled hugely. “Of course he is. But why? What did he say, exactly?”

Frank unscrewed the top, let the cap fall wherever it wanted. “He, uh, he said you were the best.” He took a long, long drink.

“The best. Best at what?” Annie still hadn’t moved her hand. Frank was sure he’d never been anywhere that had been so goddamn quiet. It was so quiet he could hear Annie’s thumb and forefinger tracing little circles, smoothing out the denim on his thigh.

Frank took another hefty swallow, decided to get it over with. “He said that, for twenty bucks, you gave the best blowjobs ever.” He immediately took another drink, then offered it to Annie.

She took the bottle with a knowing smile. “Good. Perfect. That’s what I hoped he’d say.” She took a drink. “Uggh. This is crap. Where’d you get this?”

Frank laughed, took it back. “It was cheap.”

Annie lit a fresh cigarette, took it slow, enjoying the drag. She still wouldn’t look at Frank. “The way I see it, no matter what you do, no matter what kind of job you want to get, it’s all about marketing, you know? It’s all about word of mouth It’s all about perception, see?”

Frank shook his head.

Annie said quietly, “I never gave anybody a blowjob. Shit. I’m still a virgin.” She gave Frank a little grin that stopped his heart. “I just get ’em to pay for a blowjob, and then to say that they had one. You understand?”

Frank wanted to nod and say, “Yeah.” But he said, “No.”

Annie turned in her seat to face Frank, eyes alive with mischief. “It’s simple. Men and their dicks. You play with their ego. See, I start slow. Maybe a little rubbing, through the pants, but the whole secret is talking dirty. You get to talking dirty to a man, I mean, really working it, really stroking his imagination, and hell, you’re almost there. That’s all it takes. Want me to show you?”

Frank’s heart had almost started beating again when this stopped it dead. “Why don’t you walk me through it first.”

“You sure?”

“No.”

Annie laughed. “Okay. Okay. Well, it starts slow, like I said.” She started rubbing his thigh. “Then we go for a drive. Some place private. Like this,” she gestured out at the lake through the windshield.”

“You been here before?

“Maybe. So then I start talking about, oh, I don’t know, about the night or the lake. Doesn’t matter. The point is, I’m using words like soft, wet, smooth, for the place. Then I refer to them, using words like powerful, hard, strong. Things like that, you know?”

With each adjective or adverb, her voice became husky, slow, seductive. The rubbing of his thighs matched her voice. “Then my hand moves up. Hell, half the time I don’t even have to unzip their jeans.” Her palm slid up to Frank’s crotch. He was surprised to find that he wasn’t the least embarrassed about his aching erection, and took another swallow of rum.

“Then I just rub, slow, for awhile, talking to them the whole time. About what I’m going to do to them, about how much I enjoy it, how much I need it. I’ll go into detail about how soft my mouth will feel, how much suction my tongue will give, how much I want them. Sometimes, that’s all it takes. Sometimes, they last a little longer. So I use a rubber glove. Like a surgical glove. Didn’t bring one with me tonight, though.” Her hand paused on his belt buckle. “Thing with latex gloves though, you gotta provide a little extra lubrication, so I’d stick my hand down my pants, pretend to rub myself. All I had to do was act like I was enjoying it. Want me to show you?”

“Not if it’s fake.”

“You add a little spit to it,” she mimicked, licking her hand, “and yeah, sometimes you had to touch ’em.” Her hand closed into a fist. “I just pretended I was milking a cow. Usually didn’t take ’em long. ‘Specially if I talked.” Her hand unclasped his belt buckle with a smooth jerk.

“Then what?” he asked.

“Then what—what?” She pulled back and flicked the cigarette out of the window. “They came. I could usually talk them into wiping themselves with their shirts.” Annie thought this was pretty funny.

“You never…”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” She turned toward him, up on her knees, hands in lap, demure as choir girl. “Put something like that in my mouth? Please. Especially with the hygiene around here. But the thing is, they can’t tell each other the truth—they can’t admit that they never got a blowjob. Hell, they think they’re the only one that came before getting their dick sucked, and there’s no way they want to admit it to each other. They don’t want to be the only one that didn’t come in my mouth. So yeah, they’re out there telling each other that they got the best blowjob of their lives.”

Frank didn’t know what to say. He checked on Petunia. She hadn’t moved. Annie blinked at him. His erection hadn’t gone down. His scalp itched from being shaved. “Why are you telling me this?”

“’Cause I want you to know that I’m not…well, I was going to say not a whore, but that would be lying, wouldn’t it? I am a whore,” she said, almost proud. “I just have boundaries.”

“So why are you telling me this?”

“’Cause I like you. And I want you to like me.”

Frank took another long drink. The bottle was nearly half empty. “Look. I, uh…” The rum decided he should be honest. “Ahh, fuck it. I do like you. I…shit. Ever since I met you, I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Annie’s face glowed in the starlight. “Please Don’t tease.”“

“I’m not. We both do things…things that we wish we didn’t have to.” He reached out and cupped her head, thumb just in front of the ear, the rest of the fingers stroking the back of her skull. He kissed her. Gentle. Tender. Her lips felt soft as clouds. He pulled back. “But you…stimulate cattle for reproduction.” Frank gave her a cold, lopsided smile and Annie wanted to pull away from his touch. “I kill.”

* * * * *

They sat in silence during the ride back. It wasn’t uncomfortable, though. It was more a contemplative quiet, each lost in his own thoughts. Both realized that they had revealed more of themselves to each other than perhaps anyone else alive. This was a new experience, a strange sensation, being so honest, so open with someone else. It felt like struggling into a new skin. Something that didn’t feel uncomfortable exactly, just different.

Frank stopped in front of the satellite dish. Petunia, awake by now, licked his ear. He turned to Annie. “I need to see you again. Soon.”

She gave a secretive little smile, clasped his face with both hands, and kissed him deeply on the mouth. He felt the electrifying touch of her tongue, just a brief little stab, but it was enough to stick in his mind for days. Then, without saying a word, she slid out of the car, let Petunia out, gave a tiny wave, and disappeared into the house.