Anne runs out of tastes in Tipton. She’d find new flavors in new places. When they got stale, she’d leave them. She tells the pastor she found love across the country. She needs to go to him. He offers to buy her a plane ticket. She says the Lord told her to drive. She finds her first in Charlotte. He tells her she’d be the perfect mother. She savors him. He isn’t allowed to touch her. He tastes like the grime under his fingernails. He goes stale in Erie. She samples the flavors in Cleveland. No one tastes right. The man made her picky. She sobs and bites her tongue. It doesn’t taste like anything. She’d never had sweet that didn’t burn her. 

Marley is in Columbus getting beaten for sport. She tries to mug a man and gets put on her back. She pushes him into a wall and he kicks her legs out from under her. The stars look beautiful. The man kicks her. She smiles. Marley watches the stars cling in the sky and the world spin until her teeth hurt. She hears footsteps and hopes the man has come back. Anne replaces the stars. She kneels down and asks Marley if she’s OK. Marley kisses her. Anne can’t place her taste. She asks Marley if she wants to come with her to Indianapolis. Marley asks why. Anne tells her she isn’t sweet enough to go farther. Marley tells her she’ll be as sweet as Anne needs her. Anne chuckles. Marley is in love. Her bloody grin writes itself into every alley. 

Marley’s eyes lock with a coyote’s. It opens its mouth and snarls a smile. An invitation. Marley feels her flesh try to crawl out of the car. Her teeth are too short. Her nails are too dull. Her hair is too slicked to her body. The car speeds past the coyote. Marley hears it whimper. She flicks her eyes from the road to Anne. 

They’re a few days past Indianapolis. Anne doesn’t look at Marley. She tells Marley she needs to sleep. Marley finds a roach nest and gives her directions. 

Marley only looks at the road to navigate. She tries to stare a blemish into Anne’s skin. Her eyes have a venomous kindness in them. Marley thinks about a rat of a man whose girlfriend she’d fucked. He’d punched her teeth in. He had the same allure that makes you want to smell something rotting. Her meat is too fresh. Marley picks at her scabs. She digs her nails into her flesh. Her phone beeps. There’s a turn coming. 

Anne pulls up to the roadside motel. She stays in the car after Marley gets out. She’ll be eaten here. Her body gets out of the car on instinct. Marley looks back at her and gives a crooked grin. Anne wouldn’t get her beauty sleep. Marley thinks this place looks like heaven. The door jingles. The receptionist doesn’t look up. A mountain of fur covers a dog. He sits next to an old man. Anne’s eyes widen at the dog. Marley strides to the receptionist. 

“How much for one night?” Marley asks. 

“35 dollars,” the receptionist says. 

Marley winces. Anne could cover it. Anne stares at the dog. The old man next to him smiles. He walks over to Anne. Marley glares at him. 

“What’s the dog’s name?” Anne asks. 

“Buster,” the old man says. He moves to grab Anne’s hand. 

Marley grabs her arm and turns her around. The receptionist slides a key and a form on the counter. Anne scribbles her signature on it. Marley drags her outside. An old janitor tips his cigarette at Anne. Their room has two beds. Marley’s eyes drift to a painting of an owl on the wall. It stares at her. She sees the coyote in its eyes. Anne drops into a green armchair by the desk. 

“Push them together,” Anne says, waving her hand between the beds. 

Marley does as she’s told, pushing each bed to the center of the room. She puts some show in it. Anne drinks her in. The owl’s eyes pull Marley in again. They weep. Red and viscous tears streak down its body. Marley tries to rip it off the wall. Anne watches. The nails are stronger than Marley. She rips herself from the owl. 

“You want to leave me here?” Marley’s eyes weep the same red tears. “Take that old man instead?” 

Anne rolls her eyes. “I’d take his dog.” 

“Replace me with it then.”  

Anne picks at her nails. 

“Leave me like you wanted to.” 

Marley falls to the ground. She tries to collect her tears. Anne flicks her eyes at the beds and Marley crawls over. 

“Strip,” Anne says. 

Marley peels her ragged clothes and they slough off. Marley is wet clay in Anne’s hands. She slides her hands under Anne’s dress. The owl beckons to her. Anne grabs Marley’s head and forces her to look her in the eyes. Anne bites at Marley’s neck. She tastes like blood, like sweat, like candy hearts. She begs Anne to hit her. Anne craves blood. Marley craves bleeding.

Marley finds the janitor and asks his name. Mike. She asks for a cigarette. She hasn’t smoked since Anne. It burns her lungs. She thanks God and Zippo. 

“That girl, she yours?” Mike asks. 

Marley shakes her head and thinks. 

Mike takes a long drag and talks about his family. Mike’s wife is the ugliest butcher he could find. Mike thinks he looks like a stump. Their daughter looks just like them both. She latched on to a boy from Ellis. She sucked the blood out of him until he looked like a bag. When she was finished she yelled at him for giving up. 

Anne finds Buster again. The old man is flirting with the receptionist. She giggles. Buster sits waiting for Anne. She takes him with her. Marley asks Anne where she gets her money. Anne tells her she gets everything she wants. She uses Marley as bait in Rapid City. She spots a slim man with a too-long and too-fancy coat and tells Marley to hit him. He looks like a prairie dog. Marley hits him in the stomach and he doubles over. He hacks and coughs. Marley looks at Anne. She smiles. The man gives Marley everything he has. A large man in leather punches Marley in the teeth. Marley grins at him and he headbutts her. Her stars go out. Anne rushes to them and fusses over the two men. They don’t notice her lifting their wallets. She hauls Marley to the car and leaves her tied to the passenger seat.  

Buster waits in the car with Marley. She talks to him when she wakes up, about how hell is bright and sterile, and heaven is covered in a hard day’s dirt. Buster listens well and drinks from the bowl Anne left for him. Marley does the same. Anne finds a girl who no one has ever called pretty and makes her feel like a Goddess. The girl tips Anne handsomely. Anne kisses a man who tastes like chocolate and flowers. She wretches after. When she comes back she bites Marley until all she can taste is her blood. Anne stuffs her tongue in Marley and doesn’t take it out until she stops convulsing. 

Marley is only allowed to leave on Anne’s leash. At every stop she can, Anne takes Buster to a groomer. She buys him special shampoos and expensive treats. She gets him a specially designed carseat. She leaves Marley in the car. In Denver, Anne takes Marley to watch her drain a rich man of everything. She ties Marley to a chair and tells the man to stay still. She drags her fingers over Marley until the man starts twitching. He tastes like cleaning fluid. She thanks him for it. Anne spends his money on a truck she can sleep in. She buys Marley a muzzle. They don’t stay in one place for more than three days at a time. Anne gets used to plastic food that itches when she eats it. Their meals burn when they go down. Marley gets drunk on them. Anne spends money on pretty clothes and Buster. He doesn’t need a leash. Marley only gets money to buy things for Anne. 

Anne tells Marley she has a surprise in Seattle. When Anne drags Marley into an apartment, she thinks her life is over. Anne pushes her onto the couch and strips her. She puts a blindfold over Marley’s eyes and forces her mouth open. She slips a gag down Marley’s throat and licks her fingers clean of the spit. Marley feels Anne tie her hands behind her back. The ropes bite into her arms and she grinds against the slack. Anne puts a harness on her legs and snaps it in. She feels it buzzing. She screams and only a whimper comes out. Anne leaves her on the couch. Marley makes a vibrant world in her mind. 

Behind Marley’s eyes, God is a monkey made of pastel rainbows. Anne wears a lilac-patterned sundress and tells Marley to look up. God tells her that Anne is going to kill her. She walks across an endless plain. Thousands of coyotes stare at her. The coyotes are a path. Marley walks for 30 days and 30 nights and finds nothing at the end. God tells her she should’ve listened to Anne. A coyote steps forward and speaks. It tells her to come home. Anne rips the gag from Marley’s mouth and she snaps back to her. Marley’s tongue grasps while her body begs for air. Anne fills her throat with a new shape. Her world cuts out.

They settle down for a month or two after breaking the lock on a lakehouse in Montana. Anne doesn’t touch the water once. Marley does laps of the lake. She whines and begs until she’s let back into the house. They live off fish and gas station plastic. Anne gorges herself on fresh fruit once a week. She forces Marley to join her. Marley finds Anne standing at the edge of the lake one day and watches her. She stares at her reflection and picks at her flesh. Marley throws a rock into the lake and the waves wipe Anne away. The next day they’re back on the road. Anne tells Marley they’re going east and puts Buster in the passenger seat. 

Anne leaves Marley in Boston. She gives Marley 50 dollars and tells her she’s gone sour. Marley finds the largest man she can. She begs him to hit her. Marley tells the man she’ll give him 50 dollars. She hits him in the stomach. He doesn’t move. Marley falls to her knees. The man tells her to get up. She stays down. 

Anne finds Marley two days later with tears in her veins. She caresses Marley’s neck and snaps the collar into place. Anne drags her up by her leash and coos at her. Buster laps at Marley’s legs. Marley asks Anne why she did it. She tells Marley she hates her. It takes months for Marley to get her sweetness back. Anne tastes her every day to see. Marley is tied to the passenger seat for the rest of her life. 

Anne lets Marley see Mike when they pass through Kansas. Anne stays in the car and watches. Mike gives Marley a cigarette and laughs. She takes a drag. 

Anne is in the car petting Buster. He wags his tails furiously and slobbers on Anne. 

“That girl, she yours?” Mike asks.

Marley shakes her head and thinks. He chuckles at her. She sighs and returns to the car. 

Anne drives out into the middle of nowhere. She drags Marley into a field. Anne takes her dress off and stares at the stars. She tells Marley to open her mouth and drink her. Anne tastes like metal and glass. The taste cuts Marley’s tongue.