Read Online Baby Geisha by Trinie Dalton - Free Book Online Page A

hunching over to hold his damaged finger in his good palm. Blood squirted out of the closed fist.
    â€œLet me see,” I said, prying his hand open. A flat, mushy appendage lay in a pool of dark liquid, its tip split wide open so the wound looked feminine, like a vagina. I expected it to start talking. You should’ve … it said in a whiny voice. I couldn’t understand what the finger was saying I should’ve done. Killed Zane? I thought.
    â€œWhere’s the sink?” Beets asked.
    â€œThere is no sink,” I said. I was furious. What wrath had I incurred, sitting over there, watching water lap onto a lake beach? I took off my dusty t-shirt to wrap around Beets’ finger, applying pressure the way I had learned in First Aid class.

    â€œYou need a doctor,” I said. I felt semi-motherly because I was topless now, like a witch doctor.
    â€œAll I need is a bathroom,” he said.
    â€œThere’s a bathroom in town, Beets. I’ll take you.”
    â€œNo one’s going to the emergency room at 4 a.m. high on acid, crack, and shrooms,” Zane interrupted as he walked over from the other tent end.
    â€œAre you the boss of smashed fingers?” I asked. “He’ll bleed to death.”
    â€œNo one’s going to bleed to death,” said Zane.
    I kicked sand instead of Zane.
    â€œGive me your keys,” I said. Zane ignored me.
    The shirt wrapping Beets’ finger was gurgling with blood. Beets was pale and sweaty. Sand stuck to his forehead and his moist shirt, and it looked like he had a wasp hive on the end of his arm. Even though sand is porous, blood pooled on the surface of the sand at his feet. I worried he would die if I couldn’t bamboozle Zane’s car keys away. It was time to get crafty, but I began to cry.
    Zane let go of the last dumb stake of the already collapsed tent and assessed the situation. Beets tried wandering off to a non-existent bathroom.
    â€œSit down, Beets,” I said, grabbing his shoulder to still him. I faced the inevitable. “You’re going to die.”
    â€œDon’t TELL him that!” Zane said.
    I entered the tent to locate a dry shirt to contain Beets’ doomed finger. The scorpion seemed like years ago. Tomorrow, there would be a corpse buried in sand. I’d tell the police I didn’t take him to the hospital, and they’d book me. The sandstorm calmed and I stopped shielding my eyes, even though I was already in the tent. Beets would bleed into first morning light, while I thought of ways to kill Zane.
    Zane always exerted this false sense of authority. He had zero sexual grip on me, since he reminded me of a scraggly
Irish Setter. There was only life and death for Zane, though, and I liked this. He ignored everything in between. I knew what was running through Zane’s head: Beets wasn’t going to die, therefore he didn’t care about the remaining plan. Appendages were inconsequential to Zane. He was nonplussed at parties unless people were diving off decks or having cardiac arrests in bathtubs.
    I craved near-death adventure, until I got my fill with Zane. He was so gentle with me, weeks prior to this, the night we sat on his dorm room mattress for twelve-hours talking about how messed up life was. Gazing up at rock posters, Zane and I plotted against our healthy selves, destroying our bodies with real camaraderie. Zane almost died one night, and I got to watch his eyeballs pop out of his head while he laughed hyperactively. But recently, every time death neared, Zane denied its possibility, which made me suspect that he’d lost his edge.
    Â 
    I woke up in the reeds, far from camp. Sand was in my mouth, my hair, my eyes, and my ears. I never wanted to see those guys again. I was seven hundred miles from home with sixteen dollars in my pocket. I wandered to other campsites asking people for a lift, and found someone who was going back to California. I needed to gather my