Otis B Driftwood One Shots: A Never Ending Collection

Ambivalence Part 1

A/N: Trigger warning for mention of rape. No real details, just the aftermath.

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I never imagined my life would be where it is today. A year ago, I was a homeless drifter who whored myself out for money, and I dumpster dove for food when I didn't have any. I had survived on my own since I escaped an abusive orphanage in Georgia at the tender age of 8 years old. Now, at twenty-nine, I had no social upbringing; I was severely psychologically damaged, and I had never learned any other way to live. Drifting, thieving, and selling my body was all I knew how to do. There was always the occasional murder as well.

Late one October night in 1976, close to Halloween, I was ass up in a trash bin behind a hole-in-the-wall bar in Ruggsville, Texas, searching for something, anything edible. A drunk stranger who was taking a piss caught me. Instead of going inside the bar and telling someone who worked there, he attacked me. I was way off my guard because I was starving and not paying attention to my surroundings, and he beat me so badly that I laid on the cool pavement and slipped in and out of consciousness while he ripped off my ragged clothing and raped me. Toward the end of the brutal assault, I mustered enough strength to shove my thumbs in his eye sockets and buy myself a sliver of time.

While the man screamed in agony, I yanked a knife from his belt and slit his throat without a second thought. Blood gushed all over my front side. Blind and helpless, he sputtered and choked until his last breath. Slumping over onto me with his full weight, he pinned me down. I dropped the knife and struggled to move out from underneath his lifeless body. Grunting, I pushed on the stranger's shoulders, but I could not get him to budge. He was a lumberjack of a man, and I was injured and malnourished.

'This is it. This is how I'm gonna die,' I thought bitterly through my haze. 'Naked, bloody, and in an alley under a dead body. How perfect.'

"Wait, do you hear that? What the fuck is that?"

A curious female voice bounced off my sensitive eardrums, and I cracked an eye open. Unsure of what to do, I waited with bated breath.

"I didn't hear anything," a male replied. "Wait, don't go back there! You never know what's goin' down in an alley!"

"What's the matter, ya scared?" she teased, giggling.

"Well, no-"

"Yes, you are. Stay here if ya want. I'll go have a look myself."

"Fuck this shit," her companion said. "I'm goin' back inside."

"Suit yerself." She snickered. "Pussy."

"Fuck you," he snarked.

"You could've, but ya just ruined it. See ya, loser."

"Yer a crazy bitch," he said, his voice fading as he made his way back to the front of the bar.

She snorted. "Been told that before." Her footsteps padded closer, and she peeked around the back corner of the bar.

"Help!" I whisper-yelled. "Git this asshole off o' me!"

"I knew I heard somethin'." She inched closer and crouched next to me. "Holy shit, yer fucked up." Her hair was blonde, long, and curly, and she had super-inquisitive, royal blue eyes. "Ya killed 'im, though. Yer a fuckin' survivor." Her lip turned up into a sideways smile, and her eyes held a peculiar glint.

I gulped. "Kinda had to. It was me or him."

Glancing around and absorbing what had gone down, she agreed wholeheartedly. "Yeah, fer sure. Whatever ya need ta do, ya do it. There is no wrong. If someone needs ta be killed, ya kill 'em. That's the way."