Dash in the Blue Pacific Read Online Free Page A

Dash’s
face.
    “ Waddya see?”
    “ A peace sign.”
    “ Not what I’m lookin’
for.”
    “ I need my coat.” Dash tried to
twist away from the hand pinching his skin.
    “ I think you’re an
asshole.”
    “ You’re not alone.”
    “ You puke in Dicky’s room and I’ll
make you eat it, asshole.”
    ‘ Eat the room or the puke?’ Dash
nearly asked before foreseeing the consequences. The goon let him
pass with a wave, eyes locked on the next target, a tipsy co-ed
with untied shoelaces leaning into a wall.
    Beyond the door was a room that had grown two
igloo-size mounds of winter outerwear, one on each twin bed. Dash
chose to hunt the nearest pile, stomach churning from the goon’s
power of suggestion. He peeled back layers of expensive down coats
and handmade scarves, looking for signs of his Army surplus parka.
Nearing the bottom, the material shifted, came alive. He unearthed
a miniskirt with a tanned leg. Parting two leather jackets, he
found a girl with curly blond hair wearing a t-shirt with the word
CRAZY in large letters across the chest. She smelled of cinnamon
gum and fruity perfume and made purring sounds in her
sleep.
    He put his full weight on the bed and she
stirred, turning to look up through foggy eyes. Her lips parted as
if to speak, but then her lids dropped and her head lolled. She
began snoring. Dash couldn’t help but notice that her skirt had
hitched up to expose the first shaved crotch he’d seen outside of
magazines. It grinned at him sideways, and he resisted the
temptation to reach down and make it talk the way he did his
niece’s chubby belly.
    “ Hello, how are you?” he’d made his
niece’s belly button say. “My name is Boo Boo.”
    Dash knew the sleeping girl’s name. He’d heard
the guys talk about Sarah the Fuck Machine, the school’s gold medal
tramp champ. Just wind Sarah up and watch her blow. But this Sarah
was quiet and lovely, and Dash knew how full of shit guys were
because of all the lies he’d told personally.
    Did respectable girls shave their privates? He
knew for sure they tended pits and legs, but he had no experience
with hair down there. The missing panties might be an indication of
her habits, but he only had rumors to go by. He sure as heck never
witnessed her using her mouth like a Hoover on half the basketball
squad, JV included.
    Her cheekbones were rounded and soft, lips thin
and fragile, meant to whisper, not service athletes. It was an
innocent mouth, nothing like a household appliance.
    “ I think you’re beautiful,” he told
the lovely Sarah, whose face was nestled in black leather and
silver zippers. He leaned forward and brushed golden ringlets from
her forehead, trying his best to ignore her intriguing crotch with
its tantalizing smile.
    Again she responded, opening her eyes and then
her mouth, first looking at him as though startled, and then
turning away to projectile vomit across the coats he’d stacked.
Dash glanced at the door, where he’d promised Godzilla there’d be
no such crime. Luckily, it didn’t touch any of Dicky’s stuff, he
imagined telling the goon. Not a speck hit the mattress, not a
single chunk on his tasteful shag carpet. But Dash knew it wouldn’t
fly.
    His fingers touched her collarbone. “It’ll be
okay.”
    Sarah’s head tilted back, eyes dancing over his
face like a moth afraid to land. She squinted, perhaps searching
for a name, or maybe his position on the basketball court. “I’m a
mess,” she said, eyelids again drooping. Her breathing turned
smooth and deep, and Dash lightly stroked her bare arm after
flicking a wad of gum from the letter Y over her left
breast. He pulled a high school varsity jacket from under his butt
and used its soft cuff to dab the corners of her mouth.
    “ I’m sort of a mess, too,” he told
the sleeping girl, then tossed the jacket onto the floor. Fuck you,
Dicky. Fuck every basketball player who ever lived.
    Dash then did something that would cause guilty
pangs over