Dirty Beasts

  Rev

  Jasinda Wilder

  Copyright © 2022 by Jasinda Wilder

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. Anywhere But Here

  2. Damsel In Distress

  3. An Empty Room

  4. Fisticuffs

  5. Sucked In

  6. Fucked

  7. In For A Penny, In For A Pound

  8. Got It Bad

  9. Story Time

  10. Never Knew It Could Be Like This

  11. Not Like Me

  12. It’s Called Joy

  13. Home And Family

  14. Alien

  15. The Welcome

  16. Bullet to The Heart

  17. Mine; Yours

  18. Gone

  19. Rivers Of Blood

  20. Home

  Epilogue: Heartsick

  Also by Jasinda Wilder

  1 Anywhere But Here

  Myka

  I’m sitting in my car, chewing on my thumbnail, furiously fighting back tears. I’m in my driveway—or, rather, what used to be my driveway. What used to be my home. The house I spent the past six years turning into a home, all by myself.

  It wasn’t large, and when we bought it, it wasn’t very nice, either. Kinda ramshackle, if I’m being honest. But back then, I was eighteen and my husband twenty-two. He wasn’t an attorney then, only a lowly paralegal working his way through his law degree. It was…a fixer-upper back then, and that’s putting it nicely.

  A one-story ranch, it had been stuck in the seventies. I’d seen the beauty in the bones of it, though, trained to do so by my father, who is a home builder, renovator, and real estate agent. I’d seen what it could be, and it was all Darren and I could afford, anyway. I’d painted every single wall. I’d personally ripped out and put in all new flooring—assisted by Dad and PopPop and my two brothers, Angus and Jordan. They’d also helped me knock out the wall between the kitchen and living room and put up a load-bearing beam. We’d redone the whole kitchen for less than cost, since I had a family of professional builders helping me on the weekends.

  Short of it is, I’d made it my home. Every photo and piece of art was hung by me. Every decoration. Every drawer and cabinet pull, every light fixture. It’s mine and I’m darned proud of it.

  And I’m about to drive away from it forever.

  In the back of my ten-year-old Wrangler I have four suitcases; a duffel with my makeup and hair stuff; a backpack containing my laptop and various electronics chargers; my yearly planner; my well-worn, floppy, red-leather Bible with my name engraved on the front; and on the seat next to me, the Coach purse I’d scored at a yard sale.

  All of my possessions.

  In my purse are the divorce papers, signed, sealed, and delivered, adjudicated, and 100% final. With it, my name change documentation, returning my last name to Donovan, rather than keeping my cheating, scumbag, lower-than-dirt ex-husband’s stupid garbage last name—Milch.

  Yes, for six years, my name was Myka Milch—pronounced Mike-ah Milk. Yeah. For real.

  Now, I’m back to being Myka Donovan again.

  There’s that, at least.

  But still. Stupid, garbage, lower-than-dirt, cheating ex-husband aside, I don’t want to leave my home.

  My phone rings. Through the hot haze of tears, I answer it without looking at the caller ID. “H-hello.”

  “Mike.” My sister, Ana. “I felt a disturbance in the Force, so I called you. What’s up, baby girl?”

  I sniffle. “I can’t do it, Ana.”

  I don’t have to tell her what. “Yes, you can.”

  “No, I can’t. I’ve been sitting here in my car in the driveway for ten minutes. I can’t do it, I just can’t. It’s my home, not his. He didn’t do a darn thing to help. I did it all—with ya’ll’s help.”

  “Myka, honey.” Her voice is quiet—she’s my eldest sister, and like a second mom to me; not that I need a second mom, since my first and real mom is the best mom ever; Ana is just a natural-born caretaker like that. “You have to. Work with me, okay?”

  “Okay.” I sniffled.

  “Step one, put the car in reverse.”

  I inhale deeply, hold it, and do as I’m told—clunk, the shifter hits the R. “Okay.”

  “Check for cars, both ways, and then just back out. Don’t think. Just do it.”

  I shake my head. “Can’t.”

  “Open your eyes, Mike.”

  “I’m crying too hard. I can’t see a thing.”

  A pause. “He cheated on you, Myka.” Her voice is hard. “He doesn’t care that you had three miscarriages and a stillbirth in four years. He doesn’t care that you were so depressed you could barely get out of bed for weeks at a time.”

  I know what she’s doing, and it’s working.

  She’s not done. “You saved yourself for him. You left college for him. You gave him a home. And what did he do? He cheated on you, divorced you, and took the house.”

  Anger rifles through me. It clears the tears away—the trade-off is that I’m now shaking with rage. But it lets me function, where my sadness wouldn’t.

  I check the road both ways, and then back out, my shaky hand jerking the shifter into Drive, and I hit the gas. Too hard—the tires bark and I’m thrown backward in the seat.

  Immediately, I back off and drive the exact speed limit to the stop sign at the end of our road. The house—my home—is in my rearview mirror. “I did it.”

  “Good girl, Mike. Now…drive away.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Ana.”

  That’s my sis—she can feel things. She just knows things, always has. When I broke my ankle chasing after Angus and his friends and I was stuck and crying at the bottom of a ravine, she knew, and she found me.

  She breaks seemingly impossible tasks into manageable chunks and talks me through them.

  “Call me every day, y’hear?” she says. It’s not a request, though.

  “I will. Promise.”

  “You promised, and if you make a promise—” she starts.

  “You keep it, no matter what,” I finish. It’s one of our family mottos.

  “You have all your stuff?”

  “Yes. Everything I care about that’ll fit in a car, at least.”

  “Cash, hidden in your bags, your purse, and your car?”

  “All but a couple grand in the checking account I opened at the big bank across town.”

  “And you know where you’re going?”

  I laugh, the first laugh in days. “Not the first clue, sis. Anywhere but here, that’s all I know.”

  “You need anything, you call. Me, Mom and Dad, any of us. We’ll all drop what we’re doing and come right to you, no matter what.”

  “I know, I will. Bye, Ana.”

  “Bye, Myka. Be safe.” A pause. “It’ll be okay.”

  I know she’s not lying about my family dropping everything for me. I have five siblings—Anastasia (Ana, to everyone), Angus, Jordan, Juniper (we all call her June), and Mallory. I’m the baby. Any of them would drop what they’re doing at the word boo, and find me and do anything I need, come heck or high water. So would Mom and Dad.

  It’s a heck of a support system, and honestly, they’re the only reason I’m still here. If not for my family, I don’t think I’d have come through the past year even halfway sane.

  But the one thing they can’t do is fix me. They can’t give me my virginity back. They can’t give me the past six years of hell back. They can’t restore my womb or my fertility. They can’t piece my heart back together. They can’t tell me what the heckle-schmeckle I’m going to do with my life, now.

  I’m twenty-four, divorced, and I have no college education, no work experience, and a grand total of five thousand dollars to my name, plus a paid-for ten-year-old Jeep Wrangler with a souped-up engine, thirty-five-inch mud tires and black wheels, upgrades courtesy of my brother Jordan, as a birthday gift last year.

  I realize I’ve been stopped at the stop sign for more than a minute, staring in the rearview mirror at my erstwhile home. I yank the mirror down so I can’t see it, and gun the engine. My thoughts are boiling, my emotions cycling rapid-fire from anger to sadness to fear to doubt to rage to loneliness.

  I turn on the radio, tuned as always to the local Christian station. I don’t think it’s ever been changed. I drive west, on autopilot. Past the church I’ve gone to since I was christened at birth, the church I was born-again in, baptized in, married in. Past the courthouse where I was divorced. Past the CrossFit gym where I went to boot camp five days a week the past year, in an attempt to exercise myself out of depression and down enough sizes that maybe my husband would want me again. It didn’t work on Darren, and I’m still depressed, but I’m in killer shape.

  I’m tempted to flip the gym the bird, but I’d never do that in a million years. “Sorry, Lord. I didn’t mean it,” I whisper.

  Further west, and through the town I’ve grown up in, the tiny North Carolina town I’ve only left three times in my life (missions trip to Mexico my senior year of high school, honeymoon to Belize, and a girls’ trip with my sisters to Myrtle Beach over the holidays this past year). In a blink, I’m through the downtown, past the library and the school complex, and then I’m a
way, on the two-lane blacktop highway headed Lord-only-knows-where.

  Anywhere but here.

  Two Days later; Branson, MO

  The woman behind the counter stares at me like I’m a curious-looking bug. “Fine,” she huffs. “My dishwasher run off on me and I need to hire a new one anyhow. Ten bucks cash under the table, till I get a new one hired up. Prolly ‘bout a week. You work the whole day, eight to four. I’ll give you a half-hour break around noon, and I’ll feed ya.”

  I nod. “Yes ma’am. Thank you.”

  “Can you start now?” she says, in her raspy, pack-a-day smoker voice.

  I shrug. “Sure. Show me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

  Twenty minutes later, I’m wearing a thick, black rubber apron and elbow-length black rubber gloves, standing at a waist-high wash table. In front of me, a few inches above the wash table, is a window on which the busboy sets the big black tubs of dirty dishes. It’s simple work, but not easy. It’s a busy diner just off the highway, and the dishes come nonstop.

  But it’s work, and it puts cash in my pocket for food, gas, and lodging, so I don’t have to touch my stash of cash I got in the divorce, or my little nest egg in the bank.

  I have a room in a dirty motel, paying by the night. And even that, I’m reconsidering. Motels every night, even cheap ones, are gonna blow through my cash faster than I can make it, even if I stop and work odd jobs.

  I chew on the problem while I work, that first day.

  Second day, I get an idea.

  After work the second day, I find an army/navy surplus store and buy a two-person pup tent, a camp stove and propane, a propane camp lantern, a few basic cooking necessaries, and a sleeping bag, plus a huge hiking backpack to put it all in—a fairly big outlay in supplies, but camping will save money in the long run. Because shoot, the only vacations I’ve ever been on—except those three trips—have been camping with my family, always to campgrounds somewhere in North Carolina. So if there’s anything I know, it’s camping rough.

  Third day, I check out of my dirty, roach-infested motel room and find a campground—it’s a whole heck of a lot cheaper, and it’s more familiar than that crappy motel.

  That night, in my new tent, I realize something—I’ve only been gone less than a week, but I’ve barely thought about my garbage-face ex or his skinny, skanky new girlfriend since I’ve been gone.

  This may just work.

  Two Weeks Later; The Badlands, South Dakota

  * * *

  I’ve been through five states, so far. I spent four days in Branson, washing dishes. I spent another three in a tiny town in Nebraska, helping some Amish folks raise a barn. They paid me in canned fruit, several pounds of freshly butchered beef steaks in a Styrofoam cooler filled with dry ice, several ears of corn, several jars of jam, a bottle of honey, and an exhausted sense of accomplishment and community. It crossed my mind to stay, because that little town sure as heck reminded me of home, without the memories. In the end, though, I knew it wasn’t for me, and I continued on.

  I’d been heading west mostly, but when I left that Amish community, a tug in my gut pulled me north, and now I’m in the Badlands of South Dakota—French Creek Campground. I’ve been sleeping in my car.

  Right now, it’s just past dawn, and I’m nursing a mug of coffee, sitting in the open hatch of my Wrangler, watching the sun rise over the alien landscape. Right now, it’s utterly still. I’m the only one here, though I know it won’t be for long—I managed to catch the campground at an odd lull in the tourist season.

  I’m trying to figure out where to go next. I’ve got money enough, and all the time in the world. I just don’t know what I want. That’s what I’m mulling as I sip my coffee—brewed in a French press I picked up for cheap at a highway-side flea market on my way into South Dakota.

  What do I want?

  Experiences.

  That’s what I’ve gained from this road trip, so far. I’ve met kind folks, worked odd jobs, seen places. I’ve learned that I can stand on my own two feet, make my way without anyone’s help. For the baby of a family of eight, this is new, and big. I was carried around by my older siblings to the point that I didn’t learn to walk till late. My breakfasts were made for me. My lunch was packed for me. It wasn’t till I left home for college an hour and a half away that I learned to fend for myself in even the smallest ways.

  That didn’t last long—I met Darren, and that was that. He was about to get his prelaw degree, then transfer to the university closer to our hometown, close enough he could commute to finish his law degree, work his internship in town, and pass the bar exam. I dropped out and set about becoming his wife. Fixed up our home. Spent time with my family, helped out my sisters with their kids.

  Point is, I didn’t do squat. Didn’t have kids—and thank the good Lord for that mercy, which I realize now was a mercy, since I’d’ve been saddled with that donkey’s hind end the rest of my life.

  I went barely anywhere, rarely ventured outside the narrow confines of the podunk hill village I grew up in.

  Now, suddenly, I’m in the wide world and discovering I like it out here, alone. I like meeting people. I’m learning to come out of my shell—I was always thought of as the shy one, except around my family.

  I crave life.

  So, the question: now where?

  Where can I go for maximum life experience?

  A name pops into my head. It sounds wild, conjures up notions of debauchery and sin and crazy hijinks.

  Las Vegas.

  Maybe I’ll gamble. See a show. Shoot, maybe I’ll even drink.

  My folks aren’t teetotalers, but drunkenness is a big no-no. So, I’ve never been drunk.

  It feels settled. Las Vegas it is.

  I slug back the last of my coffee, pack up the camp stove and my French press, close the hatch, and head out. South and west, now.

  Destination: Sin City.

  One week Later; Las Vegas

  * * *

  I took my time getting here. Stopped in a cute little town in the southwest corner of Wyoming and worked a few days on a real-deal cattle ranch, helping bale hay, something I’ve done plenty seeing as my grandparents own a farm and I spent summers there as a kid, baling hay, stacking it in the hay barn, throwing it around for the cattle and the horses.

  I ate real good, on that ranch. Liked it there, too, but it’s still too close to what I grew up in, and I’m after something new. I just don’t know what it is, yet.

  So here I am, the freedom panels off the Wrangler and stacked in the back over top of my stuff, my hair pulled back through a Tar Heels ball cap I stole off Angus, a local classic rock station blasting loud enough to hurt my ears; once I left my hometown and drove out of range of the Christian station, I started branching out and listening to other kinds of music for the first time ever. So far, classic rock is my jam.

  I’ve got not a single clue what I’m gonna do here. I can’t camp out, that’s for sure. But, I figure I’ll figure it out as I go. That’s what all this post-divorce road trip adventure is all about, after all.

  First, I just roll up the Strip, slow, rubbernecking.

  Then, I get myself nice and lost, doing circles around the Strip until I’ve got a decent handle on the layout.

  Finally, I find a cute little diner way, way off the Strip, where I hope the prices won’t be gouge-your-eyeballs-out astronomical. I go big—order a burger and fries and a milkshake. I know sure as Moses parted the Red Sea, this meal is gonna go straight to my booty…which the good Lord seemed to see fit to bestow upon an extra portion or two. And that’s after a year of CrossFit five times a week.

  But heck, I’m on an adventure. I’ll worry about the renewed heft of my backside later, once I’ve figured out what on God’s good earth I’m gonna do with my life.

  For now, I enjoy the juicy burger, crisp steak fries, and cold, creamy, chocolatey shake. The waitress is a lifer, a type I’ve come to recognize in my weeks on the road. She’s short, wiry, could be anywhere from an old forty to a young sixty, calls me hon, and I can tell she’s taken a shine to me since judging by the other orders she brings out, she gave me an extra helping of fries.