Chapter 1: Shortchanged at the Pump
The nozzle clicked off with a hollow, final sound.
Sera stared at the numbers glowing red in the night: 7.8 gallons. Not even half a tank. A hot wave of frustration tightened her throat. She’d put in twenty bucks. It should have been more. It was always more.
“Piece of shit pump,” she muttered, her voice lost in the low, electric hum of the flickering neon sign overhead. It buzzed like a trapped wasp, casting a sickly, pulsing light over the cracked concrete island. The air was thick, a cocktail of stale gasoline, damp earth, and something else—something sour and old that lived in the shadows beyond the light.
The attendant’s booth was a dirty cube of glass and rust. She saw him in there, watching. Hank. That’s what he’d grunted the first time. He was maybe sixty, with a gut that strained the stained denim of his overalls and skin like old leather.
She pulled the nozzle from her car’s thirsty mouth, hung it up. The metallic clang was too loud. Taking a deep breath that smelled of fumes, she walked toward the booth. Her heels clicked a sharp, lonely rhythm on the pavement.
Before she reached the door, he was out. He moved with a surprising, predatory ease for a big man. He didn’t speak, just took the twenty from her outstretched hand, his stubby fingers brushing her palm. He held the bill up to the neon, squinting.
“Pump’s acttin’ up again,” he said, his voice a dry rasp. “Says you got eight gallons. I got it sayin’ fifteen.”
Sera’s heart sank. “It clicked off. You heard it. I put in twenty.”
“Machine inside tells a different story, sugar.” He stepped closer. The smell of him enveloped her: cheap beer, Old Spice, and the greasy, mechanical scent of the station. “Eight gallons short. That’s… what? Another fifteen bucks?”
She felt the weight of the empty space in her purse, the mental calculation of what was left for groceries. “I don’t have it.”
Hank’s eyes, small and watery, traveled down her body—the thin cotton sundress, her bare legs. A slow smile spread across his face, revealing yellowed teeth. “We can work somethin’ out. Always can.”
He reached out, not for her hand, but to touch a curl of her dark hair that had escaped her bun. She didn’t flinch. This was the currency. This was the math. Fifteen bucks was a loaf of bread, peanut butter, coffee. Fifteen bucks was not walking ten blocks in the humid dark.
“Yeah?” she said, her voice flat, a practiced nonchalance settling over her like a shield.
“C’mere.”
He took her wrist, his grip firm, and led her not into the booth, but around the back of it, into the deeper shadow between the building and a stack of rotten wooden pallets. The buzzing neon was softer here, the world reduced to the scent of him and the distant groan of a lone cicada.
He backed her up against the rough cinderblock wall. It was cool through the thin fabric of her dress. His body was a furnace. He didn’t kiss her—they never did. This wasn’t about that. His meaty hands found her hips, then slid around to grab her ass, squeezing hard.
“Fifteen bucks,” she repeated, staring over his shoulder at a dead fluorescent light tube lying in the weeds.
“For starters,” he grunted.
His mouth was on her neck, sucking at the skin. She let her head fall back against the wall, her eyes on the slice of night sky between the rooftops. She dislocated herself. This body wasn’t hers; it was a tool, a machine to be operated for fuel.
His hands fumbled with the waist of her dress, yanking it up around her waist. The humid night air hit her thighs. He fumbled with his own overalls, the buckles clinking. He got the strap loose, shoved the denim down past his hips. His cock sprang out, thick and already hard. It smelled of sweat and faintly of urine.
“Turn around,” he breathed, his voice thick.
She obeyed, facing the wall, placing her palms flat on the cool cinderblock. He pressed against her from behind, his beer belly soft against her back. One of his hands gripped her hip, the other guided himself. He was wet at the tip, prodding. He found her entrance and pushed in without ceremony.
Sera gasped. It was always a shock, the intrusion, no matter how many times. It wasn’t pain, just a blunt, overwhelming fullness. He was big.
“Fuck,” Hank groaned, sinking deeper.
He started to move, a rough, rhythmic pounding. His body slapped against hers, a wet, solid sound in the darkness. She focused on the texture of the wall under her palms, the grit of the concrete. She focused on the buzzing neon, turning it into a mantra in her head. Buzz. Hiss. Buzz. Hiss.
His breathing got heavier, faster. His fingers dug into her hips, sure to leave bruises. He was muttering now, filthy, broken words. “Yeah, take it, you tight little bitch. Fuck.”
She closed her eyes. Inside, a part of her floated away, a secret self that watched from a clean, white room. This was the deal. This was the transaction. Her body rocked forward with each thrust, her forehead now against the rough wall. The pressure built inside her, a deep, unwelcome friction. A treacherous, responsive heat began to uncoil in her gut, a purely physical betrayal. She bit her lip, angry at it.
Hank’s pace became frantic, erratic. He gave one final, brutal shove, burying himself to the hilt, and groaned long and low into her shoulder. She felt the hot, pulsing release inside her. He stayed there for a moment, panting, his weight pinning her.
Then he pulled out, the sudden emptiness a different kind of violation. The night air felt cold on her wet skin.
He shuffled, fixing his clothes. Sera let her dress fall, smoothing it down with shaking hands. She didn’t turn around.
A folded twenty-dollar bill appeared over her shoulder, tucked between his fingers. She took it. It felt damp.
“Pump six works better,” he said, his voice back to its normal rasp, the transaction complete. “Top yourself off.”
He walked away, his footsteps crunching on gravel, back toward the glowing booth.
Sera stood there for a full minute, breathing slowly, putting herself back together piece by piece. She walked to her car, legs unsteady. She inserted the nozzle into the tank again, squeezing the handle. The gasoline flowed uninterrupted this time. She watched the numbers climb, the smell now nauseating.
As the tank filled, she glanced toward the road. A dark sedan was parked on the shoulder, just beyond the pool of neon light. Someone was inside, watching. The silhouette of a man, head turned toward her. A cold trickle, separate from the sweat on her skin, traced a path down her spine.
The pump clicked off, full. She screwed the cap back on, got in her car, and started the engine. As she pulled onto the empty road, her headlights swept across the sedan. For a split second, she saw him clearly—a man with a sharp, gaunt face, eyes reflecting the light like an animal’s. He was just sitting there. Waiting.
She drove faster than she should, the twenty-dollar bill crumpled on the passenger seat like a dirty secret. The transaction was over. But the feeling of being watched, of being seen in that raw, exposed moment, clung to her tighter than the smell of gasoline.