From: A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir. Ed. Megan Abbott. Busted Flush Press, 2007.
Bored teenager Deb runs away from home and gets mixed up with a succession of wrong men—manipulative, abusive, paranoid—fleeing all of them afraid for her life.
One day while attached to a drug-dealing diner owner named Randy, Deb meets Bobby Mazard, hired by Randy as a short-order cook. An affair begins between Deb and Bobby, and it's the best sex Deb has ever had. This, she realizes, is how it's supposed to be. As the story climaxes, Deb and Bobby plan to steal Randy's closely guarded money and start a new life together.
Until the final paragraphs I was asking, "How will Bobby be different from all the other men Deb has known?"
Even if you've guessed the answer, the story is worth reading for its execution.
2 comments:
I liked this one, too, Gerald.
This is one terrific story and will appear in Ed Gorman's best of the year anthologies.
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