Page 9 of For Fillies and Monsters

TWO

STETSON

March 7th, 2024

The Wagon Wheel—whocomes up with these small town bar names—is surprisingly full for a Saturday at twelve-thirty. It already smells like sweat and stale beer, and I can’t help but wrinkle my nose in disgust. I was always a party girl growing up, granted it was to escape my horrible life versus face it, but still. Cheap beer and wild, groping hands are not my favorite way to spend an afternoon—not even in my top ten favorite ways. I prefer wide open spaces and a bonfire, or thumping music and dancing bodies.

But a silly little honky tonk?Not exactly my thing.

That being said, I want Dale to like me—correction,loveme and I know I will gladly come here every Saturday afternoon if it means she will keep smiling at me like I’m the long-lost sister come home to see her. It’s intoxicating, to be wanted by someone as happy and positive as Dale, and I’m realizing how quickly I will get hooked.

Dale is beaming, and I can’t help but loosen up; if only just a little bit. Her smile always has been contagious.

“See anyone you like?” Dale shouts over the twang of the music filling the tightly packed space. I just blink at her;reallyjumping right in there, I see. She always was this way—trying to hook me up, but never going home with anyone herself. I assume she eventually found someone, but even ten years ago she would say how she was living vicariously through me.

Surely that has changed, right?

I make a raspberry with my lips, and look around the bar. All I can see are cowboy hats, tattered shirts, suppressed male rage, and alcoholism.

“Not really your type anymore? Colorado change you or something?” Dale says it jokingly as she waves her hand at the tall, blonde, relatively handsome cowboy behind the counter. Dale doesn’t realize how true that statement is.

My type has changed; I am no longer satisfied by anything with two legs. I need something with a bite and preferably a dominant disposition. I need someone far darker, far quieter, and far more into using rope for things other than tying up cattle.

But I am not in the habit of talking about my type. Not to anyone. It reminds me that I am dirty—“fucked up”.And even though I know and accept those things about myself, I’ve learned most people can’t.

I plop down onto the sticky wooden stool and roll my eyes at the way my rounded cheeks squish over the sides. I’m not a thin girl, and the small town, “everybody needs to be a size zero because that’s how our grandmas were”shit is getting on my nerves. If I sit here long enough, I may just reverse-swallow the thing.

The thought makes me chuckle, and Dale looks at me expectantly. I sigh, and steeple my fingers in front of my face.

“I’m not sure what my type is anymore,” I whisper-shout at Dale. She continues to stare at me, waiting, a mischievous smile pulling at her lips.

“Sweet little Dale, going to show party girl Stetson, the local—”Dale taps her black painted nail on her lips, “—delicacies? This really might be the best day of my life!”

I chuckle again, not wanting to ruin her fun, as a glass full of clear, fizzy liquid with lime is placed in front of me.

“Don’t mean to be rude. But I am happy to volunteer as your first sample.” I look up at large hands pressed against the back of the bar, muscles rippling up tanned arms, toward a clean boyish face complete with shaggy blonde hair and blue eyes. I stare at him, trying to decide if laughing is rude, as my eyes rake over his cleanshavin’ face, and his smile falters. Not enough to drop completely, but enough to tell me what I needed to know.

I would devour him whole with my sexual needs.

“Oh Jared, I thought you were my boyfriend,” Dale whines, crossing her arms across her chest in a pout. He turns then, almost looking relieved that I wasn’t instantly taking him up on the offer, and winks at Dale.

“You’ll always be my best girl.” He slings a dirty rag over his shoulder. “And my best customer.” With a half-hearted chuckle, he saunters away.

“Isn’t this fun?” Dale asks, nearly breathless with excitement. I turn to her, a genuine smile creeping across my face.

“Dale, you need to get out of this little town.” Dale frowns at my words, her dark eyebrows drawing together.

“I’ve left. I just like being a star, and right here in Moztecha I am that. The star of the show.” Dale slurps a large gulp of, what I now know is Vodka and soda, and then looks around the room again with a wide sweep of her arms—a queen taking in her conquests.

“Truly, what’s your type? I’m dying to hear what years of experience out in the wild have done to my dearest friend,” Dale says with a smile, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

Her dearest friend.I want to cry at the sentiment, but I have not had nearly enough to drink to start doing that. So I shrug myshoulders, steeling my back, causing my blonde hair to fall to one side.

“Tall, dark, broody. Facial hair is good.” I tap my lip in thought. “Oooh, curly hair. Responsible. Hard-working. Calloused hands are a must. Good with horses. Devoted. Demanding in bed. Masculine. Hot eyes.” I shrug again, leaning forward to slurp at my drink. “Nothing too specific.”

Dale bursts into a fit of whooping laughs, the sound so warm and carefree that I can’t contain a giggle from escaping—it’s freeing and unfamiliar—making my chest feel warm and light like a balloon.

And then reality comes crashing back down, the heat of a different kind crawling up my back and neck like it does from time to time. Like I’m being watched intently; their gaze wholly on me and my every move. I look around behind me, a laugh still tumbling from my lips.

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