Sunny

“Well, what now?” I asked, nervously smoothing my shirt with my hands (which looked a lot like me just stroking my chest).

“Now we make a plan,” John said enthusiastically.

It was about time. The more I thought about it the better that $2 bath sounded. I hadn’t bathed in days, and I was beginning to smell like the rest of my companions—it wasn’t pleasant.

“All right, so what do you guys suggest? Has anyone talked to the, um, victims, yet?” I asked. I figured we needed to know how the prostitutes felt about the whole situation. I had a feeling that the whole thing might end up in a shootout, and if that was the case, we’d need the prostitutes to gear up as well.

“A plan. Hmm…a plan.” Apparently John was stuck on the idea of a plan.

“Yeah, we got that John, but what should we do?”

“Well, I think we should go into town and see if those ladies will hole us up for the night,” Eli said.

I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a better way to phrase that.

“Eli,” I said clarifying, “you do know those ladies aren’t exactly—”

“Exactly what? Moral?” John interrupted, seemingly enraged. “What’s wrong with you? Step down off your high mountain Moses and come save the wayward children!”

Now I was really lost. John was ranting about scriptures, and I was getting accused for being too self-righteous to help a bunch of men who couldn’t help themselves. And wasn’t Moses a good guy? Didn’t he get the ten commandments on that mountain? Poor Eli had no idea what he had been roped into, but he’d find out soon enough.

“Aren’t exactly what?” Eli asked a little confused.

I was torn. Do I break it to him? Or should I wait, and let him find out himself? Or did he already know?

“Uh, they aren’t exactly…cheap,” I went with option B. “After all they are prostitutes, and I really don’t have much money.” I hoped my lie sounded convincing.

John continued to rant about golden calves and how everyone can be forgiven and whatnot. “Aw, now you don’ t worry your little head about that,” Eli replied flashing a pearly white smile and tousling my hair. “I can get us in there for free. Never in his life has ol’ Eli had to pay for sex with a—”

“Horse!”

We all jumped at Cyprus’ yell. We turned and looked at Cyprus who was pointing into the desert. We followed her finger and sure enough, there were four riders coming our way. “Well, I think that’s an excellent plan,” John said hastily. “Let’s move out!”

John jumped on his horse. Eli did a gymnast-like mount and held out his hand for Cyprus. She was more than willing to let him pull her up onto his horse. Who wouldn’t want to sit close to those chiseled abs and pectorals? I felt subtle pains of jealousy—of whom exactly, I can’t say.

“Let’s go!” John yelled and hoisted me on his horse behind him (not exactly an easy task with me not being able to bend my arm).

I’ll save you from the uneventful details of our escape. Suffice it to know that we rode awhile in the desert doing our best to lose the riders, which we finally did when it got dark. We all dismounted and found ourselves on the outskirts of Sunny—so pretty much where we began. “Who were those guys?” I asked.

“The very men who wanted to kill you in the desert,” John replied.

He continued, “All right. Here we go. We’re going to penetrate the town all the way into the ladies’ quarters.”

“Uh, do you mean infiltrate?” I offered, trying to ignore the images that his sentence conjured up in my mind.

“No, I mean penetrate. We’re penetrating the ladies’ quarters. Just remember to stick to the plan.”

What plan? Had we decided on a plan? Or was our plan simply to all get killed? I was all for some deaths, but not my own. If the others wanted to die trying to make the world a better place so be it (they really wouldn’t have to try—just dying would take care of it), but that wasn’t for me. I wanted to live in this rotten world. John looked at me as if he knew exactly what I was thinking (probably wasn’t that hard to tell considering I was sitting there with my mouth open and my arms spread wide questioningly).

“It’ll be okay,” he said.

“How is any of this going to be okay?” I asked desperately.

“I’ve done this sort of thing before.”

“You’ve helped a bunch of male prostitutes fight some guy for their lives before?” “I’m not exactly sure what you mean by ‘male’ prostitutes,” John said, making air quotes (I fought the urge to explain that that is exactly what I meant), “but I’ve been in similar situations. Plus, Wagner is German.” Had John just said yes, I probably would have believed him and just left it at that, but as it was, I wasn’t about to let it drop.

“How can any situation be similar?”

“I once helped a prostitute who had lost her puppy—a German shepherd.”

“Was the dog’s name Wagner?” I asked, sarcasm dripping from my voice.

John looked at me surprised, “Why yes, yes it was. Either way I have experience.”

Cyprus and Eli nodded their heads in support and murmured their agreement.

“How is that at all the same!” I was almost yelling now. “I know a bunch of crazy people but that doesn’t make me a lunatic!” (Although I was beginning to wonder.)

Eli slapped John on the back.

“That’s why I’m glad you’re on our side!” he exclaimed.

We reached new heights of insanity that night.