The Ram by Erica Crockett Page A

of the teardrop on the road must be like the cascade of an unexpected waterfall to the creature. The shock causes the bug to curl up its exoskeleton into a tight ball. Riley blows on the small being hidden in its casing. It spins away, until Riley can’t make it out against the light black of the pavement.
    He’s not ashamed to admit he enjoys, on occasion, taking out his frustrations on things smaller and weaker than himself. He feels it is part of his biological programming, some bit of a gene which firmly establishes him as a man. And as a man, others are sometimes forced to reckon with his superiority.
    “I win,” he sobs, crawling on all fours back to his driveway.
    “I fucking win.”
     

30 Peach
     
    The stripper is missing from the stage for awhile and Peach scans the room to try and figure out where she went. Then she catches sight of the woman in her silly Western garb as she moves out a pneumatic-hinged emergency exit. Peach stands and considers going out the same door after her, but thinks it might look weird to follow one of the dancers. She doesn’t want to be noticed anymore than she’s already been. The owner of Blaze Lounge had retreated from her table once Peach had stopped answering his questions and she sees him now, at the bar, a plastic basket of barbeque wings in his grasp.
    She leaves out the main entrance and wanders around the outside of the building, worried the woman will have disappeared out of her vicinity and her life. The neon flames on the top of the club aren’t lit yet and commuters rush by on the busy thoroughfare running next to the lounge. Peach turns a corner and sees the dancer leaning against a white concrete wall. She decides she can’t possibly talk to the woman and turns to move away. But the dancer sees her and yells out.
    “You’re the only girl in there,” she says and Peach turns back around. “I mean, not working. I like women. They smell nicer and don’t touch during lap dances.”
    Peach clears her throat and takes shuffling steps toward the dancer. She transfers her fleece jacket from hand to hand and stops a few feet away from the stripper. The woman is smoking a peach-flavored Prime Time. Peach can smell the sweetness of her namesake in the lit cigarillo.
    The stripper is shivering in her skimpy outfit. Peach looks at her fleece jacket and holds it out to the woman. “You cold?”
    “Thanks,” the dancer says. She holds the cigarillo in her mouth and reaches out for the jacket. She swings it over her shoulders, leaving her arms free to rub at her bare thighs.
    “So are you a lesbian or are you wanting to dance?”
    Peach looks at the woman’s cowboy boots. They’re the antithesis of real Western boots. These have platform heels.
    “I don’t dance well,” Peach responds.
    “So you like girls?”
    She doesn’t answer instantly and the stripper moves away from the subject, astute enough to see Peach squirm. Her fingers dart upwards to pull the cigarillo from her lips. “I dance to sleep more than anything else.”
    “How’s that?”
    “I’m an insomniac,” the stripper says. “For some reason, the dancing helps me sleep at night. Might be the exercise. I guess I could just go to the gym, but I wouldn’t get paid there.”
    She snickers at her own joke and Peach laughs along for a moment before growing quiet again. Peach studies the woman’s face and her body with subtle gazes. She can’t believe she’s standing next to her. It’s an unreal moment for Peach and she feels a tingling throughout her entire body, but especially in the depths of her pelvis.
    The metal side door swings open and Peach has to move to escape from being hit by its weight. A big man in a leather jacket emerges, a frown on his face.
    He doesn’t notice Peach at first, just narrows his focus solely on the stripper. He looks around the area where they all stand, like he’s on alert for wild dogs or enemy combatants.
    “Didn’t see you leave, love,” he