Nevada: High Roller (Fallout New Vegas)

Chapter 3: A Lonely Road

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My expectations for what happened in that petrol station were already low. The bar was as much on the floor as the grubby, thin mattress it happened upon was.

But Ringo? 

               Ringo exceeded my expectations in ways I never knew someone could.

In the space of three minutes, he'd taken my already low expectations as some kind of challenge to outdo every man and woman I'd ever had sex with, in terms of being shit-fuck awful. 

If being bad at sex was a competition, he'd gone for gold, silver, bronze and all the runner-up spots, all in one session.

I'd had my fair share of god-awful hookups during my time out in the Mojave wasteland. Real dreadful stuff: the type that would make anybody with a brain and the tiniest shred of dignity cringe painfully, turn their cheek and swear themselves to a life of pious devotion -- as if just the mere thought of touching another person again was enough to make them want to vomit harder than I did after a night of binge-drinking Atomic Cocktails.

                It was a given that not everyone you'd meet out there would be great in the sack. And for someone who was reluctant to embrace the idea in the first place, I was hardly expecting anything good to come of it. 

I figured it was something I could tolerate, just lie back -- 'take it and fake it,' like I'd done far too many times before, until the whole thing was over and done with. 

Not that I'd even wanted to fuck the guy in the first place. 

All it was, was settling business. I'd figured that, by doing the deed, it would mark the end of what had been owed all-round that week. 

Taking on the Powder Gangers had been more for Trudy's benefit, seeming to make up what I should have owed her for letting me stay rent-free in her saloon, the daily meals and the twice-daily drinks for free. It wasn't something the two of us had needed to discuss. I'd dealt with business for her before and been offered something free afterwards, or vice versa. 

             Our relationship, though not rocky, was built on the foundations of necessity and mutual transactions. I was the muscle, she was the supplier. It worked. Helped, too, that she'd known my folks a while ago.

I'd thought that, by taking Ringo up on his offer, that it'd be closing that cycle of owing and paying back. The seemingly endless debts from favors I'd found myself in after getting shot.

 I didn't want to be setting off on the road with any business left unsettled, as much as I truly didn't want to hook up with Ringo. It should have closed the deal, should have made me feel better about the prospect of heading out onto the open road with a clean slate in Goodsprings.

Instead, as I furiously yanked my black jeans up my legs, roughly tugging them over my wide hips, I wondered whether I should have walked Ringo out into the street and let Joe Cobb shoot him.