BOOK II NOW AVAILABLE AT AMAZON
AND BARNES & NOBLE
eBook Available later this summer, 2016
NicoleMDixonAuthor.com
With the release of Book II in the Bandita series looming large above the soon-to-be launched pool of books due this year, I wanted to provide potential readers with the kind of humorous airs this literature/pop fiction dramedy series is built on. The Bandita series is literature with pop fition at its core. It belongs to a rare genre all of its own, which will hopefully, one day, spawn many more like it so that readers will be able to get the benefit of both worlds!
Enjoy the aumusing insight of this latest installment, which is expected to launch this spring.
Bandita Bonita and Billy the Kid: The Scourge of New Mexico, Book II (a Novel).
To Buy Book I in the Bandita Series, Click Here:
----Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Independent Book Stores
----Buy in Print, for Kindle, Nook, iPad, or through Google Play!!!!
----Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Independent Book Stores
----Buy in Print, for Kindle, Nook, iPad, or through Google Play!!!!
_______________________________
From Chapter 13, July, 1879
Bandita Books I & II at Amazon
Bandita Books I & II at Barnes and Noble
“Have we ever fucked?”
His
head whipped around astonishingly fast. He stared at me silently, his
expression a strange blend of shock, fright, and confusion. That fatherly air
of his was upon him, the one that came about when he would react to some
ignorant blunder of mine that caused him awkward pains and forced him to maneuver
an explanation or impart a sermon with the intent to learn me something.
He
embodied the tension of a tightly wound spring that would start if further
provoked and so I stayed silent, letting him stare at me like that. He didn’t
move as he looked at me, not one bit. I realized I had overstepped some boundary,
but unsure of what boundary that was, I felt it best to remain quiet and let him
make the next move.
“Pardon
me?” he asked, seeming to choke the words out.
I
curled my lips inward and bit at them. Clearly I had made him somewhat
uncomfortable and I didn’t know how to correct myself. What was it that was wrong in what I said? Was it the vulgarity of
that word? That mean word that meant “sex”?
I had heard it so often and had even spoken it prior without consequence, so I
didn’t understand his mood. I supposed I would need to puzzle this out by
treading lightly.
“When
I’m with those girls they talk about a lot of things, many of them lewd in
nature—“
“I’ll
just bet.”
“Well…they
asked me if we had ever done such a thing, and I thought to tell them yes, we must have. But the accounts I
gave of our actions assured them we had not, and so now I’m uncertain. I never
felt there was a difference, but they assured me there is.”
I
had vexed him with this confession. He took in a breath and pressed his lips
together in an obvious attempt to keep his temper in check.
“What
business is it of theirs for you to even talk about... about what we do?”
“I
didn’t suppose it was any of their business at all, but all the same it was of
interest to me. The conversation was intriguing. What’s the difference? Have we
or have we not?”
As
he was all too familiar with my tendency toward accidental transgressions, his
irritation relented and he reluctantly excused my faux pas, taking in another
deep breath as he prepared to articulate for me an explanation while weathering
a storm of discomfort.
He
scratched at the back of his head distractedly and made his eyes as big as
saucers.
“Lucy...”
he began.
I
waited.
“Yes,
there’s a difference, and...”
I
stared on at him with anticipation, eagerly awaiting his explanation.
“No
we have not.”
He
spilled those words out as one: nowehavenot.
It was apparent he wanted this conversation over with quickly. He must have
felt confident that his brief reply had answered my question sufficiently,
believing I’d have no cause to push the topic further, but I was never one to
concern myself with the emotional collateral damage that sometimes manifests in
the pursuit of knowledge.
“But
what is the difference?” I pressed.
Exasperated,
he rolled his eyes and blushed, annoyed with being stuck in this situation. I
thought to take a different tack.
“What
is it we do, then?”
“Oh
Lucy, can’t you guess?” He replied,
impatient.
He
was clearly ill at ease, and his anxiety caused him to raise his voice as he
asked this of me. I looked away from him and furrowed my brow as I thought on his
harried response. I suppose I could say that I could guess, but how could I be sure I was right?
I
decided to drop this, but not before I tried for a clue once more.
“Have
you done this with other women?”
Galled
by my ignorant nerve, he sighed and stood to leave without saying a word.
Seeing
Billy so troubled by my inquisition left me more interested than I thought I
had been otherwise. What had started out as an innocent curiosity had now taken
on a shade of obsession.
I
was sitting with Jimmy and playing a lackadaisical game of Knucklebones, neither
of us caring much to keep score, when I thought to pose the question to him.
Being my second most best friend, choosing to ask Jimmy seemed only logical.
Unsatisfied with the answers Billy had given me, I was now armed with a
newfound, keen need to know. I could only ask someone else to help me find the
absolute answer. I thought nothing at all of asking Billy such a personal
question, but despite being close to Jimmy, I didn’t share the same easy
comfort; it didn’t manifest. I knew asking Jimmy would be plainly embarrassing
considering the delicacy of the subject matter. Though I had once tried at seducing
Jimmy, my attempt had only been halfhearted and trivial, which made the thought
of asking such an brazen question all the more unpleasant. And then there was
the realization that asking Jimmy would only serve to enlighten his familiarity
of my private affairs with Billy. I would have preferred to avoid sharing my
curiosity with Jimmy, but my resolve unhinged my rationale and gave me a
profound sense of C’est la vie.
“Jimmy?”
In
the middle of collecting his bones he acknowledged me.
“I
asked Billy what turned out to be an odd question, and he became disturbed.”
His
mind still on the game, Jimmy sort of grunted and followed up with “Huh?”
“Well...”
I began.
I
swallowed nervously and felt the color rising in my cheeks, burning them. I had
to force my daring, lying like a heavy rock in the pit of my belly, to rise.
With
a great amount of hesitancy, I forced my nerve to the surface and let it do
what it would.
Forcing
the words out while trying not to think of them, I said, “I asked him if what
we did was...If what we did was...fuck.”
I cleared my throat. “Why should that get him in such a state?”
Jimmy
produced a shocked sound, peculiar in its semblance of a laugh and cough, before
rendering a similar version of the insecure stare that Billy had given me.
Taken
aback, he exclaimed, “What?”
“He
seemed upset by my question,” I explained again. “I realize it was a bit crude,
but I’ve said that word before, and you must know that we’ve been...intimate…in such a way that I should be
able to ask these things of him without repercussion, so I can’t understand his
reticence.”
Jimmy
laughed somewhat hysterically out of astonishment before going back to the ball
and picking up his quarry.
“You
really asking me this?” He marveled, stunned. Still, he gave me a rather mischievous
smile.
Mortified,
I unintentionally shouted back in self-defense, “Well I don’t want to!”
Still
laughing, he shook his head. “All right, sweetheart, calm down. It’s all right;
I’ll do the best I can to help you out.”
He
looked at me and smiled sympathetically, but I could still see he was amused.
“Well,”
he began. “I don’t think he cottons to the disrespect behind the meaning.”
“Disrespect?”
He
stared on at me, wondering how to explain.
“Yeah,
disrespect. Like, he doesn’t think of you in that way. It’s like—that word…it’s
usually reserved when talking about women of a certain…immoral profession, to put it plainly. If you understand my
meaning.”
“Was
it too bold of me to ask, then?”
“Well,
maybe. I’d just bet with all the odd things you say, he wasn’t expecting that to come out of your mouth.”
This
thought sent him back into fits of laughter.
“Well,
what’s so wrong with my asking anyway? Our relationship is such that I should be
able to ask such a thing without taxing his nerves. He knows how inquisitive I
am.”
“Yeah,
but that’s something men do with whores. I don’t think he wants to think on you
like that.”
“But
how’s it truly much different from what we do when we share a bed? I would’ve
thought it was all the same. There’s only one thing to be done when a man and
woman bed together.”
“Well,
there’s a few things to be done, now
that you mention it.” He sniggered at his dumb little joke.
“Yeah,
I heard all about that other stuff. But mostly it’s just the one thing.”
I
waited for him to say something else. When he didn’t, I asked, “So?”
“So
what?”
“So
what’s the trouble?”
“I
told you what’s the trouble. That’s what whores are for. He thinks on you like...maybe
like a man thinks on a wife, and men don’t do that with their wives—what
they’ll do with a whore. That’s just the way it is.”
“So
was that what he was doing with Celsa and the others?”
“Probably.”
“But
they’re not whores.”
“Not
professionally, but close enough, anyway.”
“If
they are, then it only stands to reason so am I, and I can’t rightly say that I
am.”
“No,
I don’t think you are. Those others, they get around; you don’t because you’re
his, and he makes damn sure it stays that way. I think that’s his problem with
your forwardness on the matter.”
“I
don’t feel you’re explaining this to me right.”
“Well,
I guess it can be complicated.” Exasperated, he said, “Look...when a man fucks
a girl, he’s just using her to get it out of his system. That’s all it is.
There’s nothing else. No love, no sort of commitment. The man is in it for
himself. It’s just sex, and it’s quick—and exhausting. It’s really actually
quite a lonely experience, truth be told, because there’s no caring involved. But
it’s something a man needs to do.”
I
thought on this. I’ve been there to help Billy get “it” out of his system before, and sometimes it could in fact be exhausting. Sometimes it even felt like work, but I
had to admit that it was in fact a pleasant sort of work.
Jimmy
explained that when Billy was with me, the “it” Billy was most likely ridding himself
of was his desire for me, and he guessed that probably he might just be ridding
himself of that same desire for me with others as well, only there was no
meaning behind it with them.
“Now
I’m almost positive you’re not explaining things right to me,” I asserted.
“How
should you know, anyway?” Jimmy said with an aura of affront. “You’re the one doesn’t
know but is asking.”
“Why
not just be with me always then if it’s me making him so agitated? Why waste his
time with others as a distraction?”
I
of course knew the answer to this, Billy explaining it to me time and time
again. Our relationship was a complex mess. He wanted me, but he refused me so
often because of the odds: he did not want to get me into trouble and ruin me;
my future, should I choose to end this life and go back to my life in New York,
would be irreparable if I were to fall pregnant, so he took his desire for me elsewhere.
He took it to women who didn’t deserve it. Can it be imagined? My just desserts being offered to lesser
women to enjoy? It was infuriating. So infuriating that, naturally, as was my
way, I continued to ask Billy the same question, phrased differently, in the hopes
of receiving a different answer for this, knowing damned well there wasn’t no
different answer. There was nothing that would be said that could make me feel
better about Billy’s warped sense of logic. Though, I was being unfair, wasn’t
I? My frustration sometimes got in my way, I supposed. When my mind was
well-grounded, I saw his logic perfectly. He still meant for me, at the very least,
to present the illusion that I was untouched and perfect, doing whatever he
felt necessary to keep my future intact. His illusion was, should I get out of
this hell and go back to the fold in New York, I could parade myself under the
guise of innocence and be accepted by my own people with open arms.
The
sound of Jimmy’s voice broke my reverie and brought me back to our
conversation.
“How
should I know?” He said. “Except to say that maybe he just wants it over and done
with—with them.”
“So?”
“So
I guess he respects you too much to make it quick and run out the door. When he
doesn’t want to miss out he’ll come to you. That’s why whores are so important—they’re
there to serve a purpose: quick satisfaction.” He nodded matter-of-factly to
himself, pleased to emphasize this justification.
“How
can you call those other girls whores but not me? As far as I know, Billy
doesn’t lay so much with prostitutes because he has his little legion of townie
admirers. They’re not unlike me. So at best, this all seems very confusing.”
He
gave me a smug chuckle and rolled his eyes at my naiveté.
“He’s
had his share of calico queens, Lucy. He may flirt with a lot of girls in the
towns, but it ain’t like they all
fall on their backs for him. He’ll go off with the rest of us and find relief
in the town brothel.” He blushed a bit at this brazen confession to a lady that
her compadres sought comfort in the arms of prairie nymphs. “And anyway…those other
girls? In the towns? They’re not much like you at all.”
“So
tell then. How so?”
He
looked at me while considering his answer, slightly scrunching his face in
thought as he did so.
“Do
I have permission to speak freely?”
“Naturally.”
“Some
of them, the ones you’d think were proper? Well, it’s true that many do fall right on their backs. They cling
to him, and when he chooses one, they encourage him to come to their bed.”
“That’s
just because Billy has this way about him. He’s charming.”
“It’s
just because they’re whores. They may
not reside in a brothel, and they may seem as if they’re respectable, but
they’re whores just the same. Lucy, do you mean to tell me that you think no
girl could resist him?”
“No,
of course not. But—“
“Even
if a woman finds him irresistible, she still has pride, don’t she?”
I
saw his point, but myself being someone with a proud disposition who would not have
been expected to fall prey so easily to a man’s charms, I knew something of
this. I made this point to Jimmy who sat up straighter when he explained.
“Billy
doesn’t talk much about you, not in a personal way, so I don’t know much about
y’alls private relationship ‘cept for what you tell me or the hints I pick up
from watching the two of you. I know from your own mouth that you two were
close before anything else. And knowing you as I believe I do, I’d guess that
that’s not exactly what happened between you both; you succumbing easily to him
because he fooled your pride. Fact, I believe you checked your pride when it
came to him and found he was worth your trust.”
This
was true.
“Yes,
we were great friends, and I loved him. And he told me he loved me and I
believed him then as I believe him now.”
“I
believe he did—I know he does. He respects you in a way he doesn’t anyone else.
He answers to you, but them he could take or leave. It’s remarkably clear that
you two have very strong ties and he’s certainly never shy to threaten anybody
away from you. Do you think he cares if those other girls sport with other men?
And they do, Lucy. Face it, Billy the Kid dotes on you, sweetheart. You’re
different—he loved you first before any intimacy, and I know that’s a fact. He
didn’t simply want sex, he wanted you, and that’s not so with anyone else. And
I know it that the other girls want what you have. They want Billy the Kid, but
they don’t have the history to truly have him as you do.”
I
frowned. “I know it, and I hate it. That loathsome cross of a name makes him that
much more attractive to the girls, and in my opinion, I find that…that prestigious epithet ridiculous—a blight on
his character. I find it foolish and scornfully reject it! But, Jimmy, he was
never left wanting in affection from the fairer sex since before all of this.”
I considered the
truth of what Jimmy had said, about the girls wanting Billy more because of his
reputation as an outlaw. But the more Jimmy had talked, the more questions I
had. The only person who could give me the straight answers I wanted was Billy.
That night as I lay in bed, I waited up
for Billy. As soon as he entered the room I started in on him.
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