Yep, I am a judgmental asshole.
“How is this going to work again?” I asked. She’d already told me ten times, but she could tell me ten thousand times and I still wouldn’t feel comfortable.
Nikki fluffed out her limp hair. “Seriously, Doe, do you ever listen?” She sighed in annoyance but continued on. “When we get to the party all you have to do is cuddle up to one of the bikers. If he likes you there is a good chance he might want to take you in, keep you around for a while, and all you have to do is keep his bed warm and a smile on his face.”
“I don’t know if I can do it,” I said, meekly.
“You can do it, and you will do it. And don’t be all shy like that around them, they won’t like that. Besides, you’re not the shy type, that’s just your nerves talking. You’re all rough edges, especially with that horrible case of foot-in-mouth syndrome.”
“It’s eerie how you have me pegged in the short time you’ve known me,” I said.
Nikki shrugged. “I’m a people reader, and believe it or not, you are very easy to read. Like for example, right now you’re super tense. I know this because your shoulders are all hunched over.” She presses my shoulders back. “Better. Stick out your chest. You don’t have much to work with up top without a bra, but if you keep your shoulders back, they might catch a glimpse of a little nip, and guys love the nips.”
That was it. I could get a biker to like me, he would protect me, hopefully long enough for me to figure out plan B. “Worst case scenario is that he’s only looking for a quick one-time thing and he’ll throw you a few bucks and send you on your way.” Nikki made it sound more like a vacation than prostitution.
I could fool myself into thinking that if I wasn’t soliciting on the street then I wasn’t like Nikki, but the truth was no matter which way I twisted the facts, this plan would turn me into a whore.
Judgey McJudgerpants.
When I wracked my brain for other options, I’d come up as empty as my stomach.
Nikki pushed open the door, and sunlight invaded the dark space as it swung back and forth. With one last glance at the plain-faced girl in the mirror, I whispered, “I’m sorry.”
It was a comfort knowing that whoever I was before my slate was wiped clean didn’t know what I was about to do.
Because I was about to sell her body.
And whatever soul I still had.
Three
Doe
I sat in the back seat of some bald guy’s ancient Subaru, willing myself to become temporarily deaf so I wouldn’t be forced to listen to Nikki suck off the driver. He was taking us to the party, which was in a house in Logan’s Beach. When we finally came to a stop, I leapt out of the car like it was on fire.
“Bye, baby,” Nikki said sweetly, wiping the corner of her mouth with one hand and waving with the other as our ride pulled away. When he was out of sight, she rolled her eyes and spit onto the ground.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said, trying not to gag.
“Well, I didn’t see you offering to suck his cock for a ride,” Nikki snapped. “So shut the fuck up about it. Besides, I got us here didn’t I?”
Here was on a dirt road at the edge of a property overgrown with trees and hedges. A small gap in the brush allowed room for a narrow driveway. It was dark and there were no street lights to guide our way up the to the house, the path seemed to go on forever. A mild fish odor permeated the air. My empty stomach rolled, and I covered my mouth and nose with my hand to keep from getting sick.
Flickering lights appeared in the distance. As we approached the house I realized what we were seeing weren’t lights at all, but plastic torches stuck into the ground at awkward angles, creating a makeshift path through the grass around to the back of the house.
The house itself was three stories and built on a foundation of pilings. The majority of the bottom floor under the house was open area, filled with shiny motorcycles and cars parked in every inch of available space. Two doors took up the far wall, one with a deadbolt and a metal bar across it and another a few feet off the ground with two concrete steps leading up to it. Wrap around balconies made up the second two stories and lights flashed through every window, revealing shadows of the people within. The music vibrated off the wet ground, shaking the water off the tall blades of grass onto my legs.
“Do the bikers live here?” I asked Nikki.
“No, this house belongs to the guy they’re throwing the party for.”
“And who is that?” I asked. Nikki shrugged.
“Beats me. All I know is that Skinny said it was a coming home party.” Skinny was Nikki’s sometime boyfriend, sometime pimp.
When we reached the back of the house, I got my first glimpse of the bikers and my stomach rolled again. I stopped dead in my tracks.
There they were, surrounding a fire pit in the center of the massive yard, flames and billowing smoke shot up as high as the house. I was so caught up in what I was going to have to do I’d forgotten to stop and think of who I was going to have to do it with. There were seven or eight men, some sitting in lawn chairs, some standing with a beer in their hands. They all wore leather vests with varying amounts of patches adorning them. Some wore long sleeved button down shirts under their vests; others wore nothing at all. Women who looked like they took their fashion cues from Nikki laughed and danced around the fire. One girl was on her knees, bobbing her head up and down on the lap of a man who casually talked on his phone while guiding her head with his hand.
This is just a means to an end.
I turned to tell Nikki that maybe we should reconsider the plan, but she was already gone. Scanning the yard, I spotted her with an arm already draped over a tall guy with a red braided beard. An American flag bandana tied around his forehead.
Strong arms wrapped around my waist from behind and hauled me hard against a wall of muscle. My immediate reaction was to shake him off, but when I struggled to break free he held me tighter. His hot breath smelt of garlic and liquor, assaulting my senses when he spoke with his lips pressed against my neck. “Hey, baby girl. I’m ready to party. How ’bout you?” Grabbing my wrist he forcefully wrenched it behind my back until I was sure my shoulder had dislocated. He shoved my hand down the front of his jeans, rubbing my clenched fist up and down the length of his erection. “Feels good, don’t it, baby girl?”
I opened my fist and grabbed his balls, squeezing them with all the strength I could manage.
“You bitch!” he yelled out.
Releasing me, he dropped to his knees in the grass. Hands cupped over his privates, he fell onto his side and raised his thighs to his chest. I raced up the steps that led into the house.
“You fucking bitch! You’re going to fucking pay for that!” he called as I disappeared into the house sliding past a ton of party-goers. I took the first set of stairs I came across and ran all the way up to the third story. I tried the handle of several closed doors down a narrow hallway, but they were all locked. It wasn’t until I was almost to the end of the hall when one finally gave.
I hadn’t even taken a step inside when I quickly realized the room may have been dark, but it wasn’t empty.
A smattering of neon paint on the walls made the room look like as if it were glowing. I couldn’t see much in the way of features, but I could make out two bodies in the center of the room. At first glance it looked as if someone was standing behind another person who was lying down. It took me a second to register it, but after I did, there was no mistaking what it was I’d walked in on.
Skin slapping against skin. Moaning. The smell of sweat and something else I couldn’t quite place. It seemed like hours I’d been standing there, but in reality it wasn’t more than a few seconds. I should’ve turned around and closed the door the instant I realized the room was occupied, but I couldn’t tear myself away from the scene playing out in front of me.
A magnetic pair of eyes locked onto mine. Under the artificial lights, they glowed bright green. The man
stared right through me and much to my surprise he didn’t blink or look away. Faster and faster, his hips slammed against hers. His eyes bore into mine as he thrust over and over again. When he closed his eyes and threw back his head with a long throaty groan, our connection was severed.
The man collapsed onto the girls back and released his grip from her throat. He’d been strangling her? She was moaning when I first walked in on them, and then she had fallen silent.
Dead silent.
I quickly remembered I had feet and closed the door, fleeing back down the stairs. I hid beside the water heater under the house, beside all the cars and bikes, where I sat for over an hour, running the gravel through my hands and hoping to come to terms with the shitty direction my life was heading in. As much as I wanted to take off into the night and run I couldn’t go far, my overwhelming fear of the dark held me captive at the house where I may have just witness a murder, but it least I could find light.
Fear had seriously fucked with my priorities.
It was that fear, as well as my growling stomach and light-headedness that reminded me of why I was there in the first place.
Basic survival.
I am desperate, and desperate people don’t have the luxury of options.
I sucked in a deep breath. I had to do what I had to do, even if I didn’t exactly know what that was. I mean, I knew the mechanics of it. But my brain was like a car with the mileage turned back to zero. A clean slate that I was about to make filthy dirty.
I may have been homeless and starving, but I was determined to get myself off of the streets and into a real life someday. A life with a soft bed and clean sheets. Once I didn’t have to worry about my safety or my stomach, I could focus on finding out the truth about who I really was.
I made a promise to push through the here and now and do what needed to be done, then I would never think about this time ever again. It would be a small spot on the radar of my life that I vowed I would never dwell on.
I stood up and brushed myself off and began my internal pep talk. I was going to do this. I was going to make it. I was going to have to fake like I knew what I was doing, like I wasn’t afraid, but pretending like I wasn’t scared shitless wasn’t something new for me, I’d done it every single day since I woke up with no idea of who I was.
I would be a biker whore because it was what I needed to be. I would be a tightrope walker if that’s what it took to stay alive.
With newfound determination, I walked back around to the bonfire, grabbed a beer out of the cooler, and cracked it open. The cool liquid lubricated my dry scratchy throat. I darted around from biker to biker and the girls who had their attention. I found myself particularly interested in a girl straddling the lap of a biker who must have outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds.
It was the look on her face I was intrigued by. The smile she wore that said your dick would feel great jammed down my throat. I mimicked her demeanor, and hoped it was enough to get the attention of someone who would take an interest in me.
Someone who could help me survive.
* * *
“Hey there,” a deep voice rumbled against my ear.
When I turned around, I was eye level with a wall of leather with white patches sewn into it. One read VICE PRESIDENT and the other, BEACH BASTARDS. The man wearing the vest had long blonde hair that draped over to one side of his head, revealing the shaved area beneath. He had a beard, not stubble, a full-on beard that was a few inches long and very well groomed. He stood well over six feet, his frame lean yet very cut and muscular. I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were because his lids hung heavy and were slightly reddened. His entire neck was covered with colorful tattoos and when he went to light a cigarette I noticed that the backs of both of his hands and were covered in ink as well.
“Hey,” I answered back, trying to assert my newly found false confidence.
He was beyond attractive. He was gorgeous. If I had to end up in someone’s bed, I imagined that being in his wouldn’t be half-bad. He sniffled, drawing attention to the light dusting of white powder trapped in his nostrils.
“They call me Bear. You belong to anyone?” he asked seductively, leaning in toward me.
“Maybe…you?” I winced at my choice of words. Of all the fucking things I could have said, THAT was what came to mind? Stupid fucking mouth. Nikki was right. I spoke first and thought second.
Bear chuckled. “I’d love that, beautiful, but I got something else in mind.”
“Oh, yeah? What would that be?” I asked, trying to keep my tone light although my mind and heart were racing.
“This party? It’s for my buddy. And he was down here for a total of thirty minutes before he hightailed it upstairs to drown himself in a bottle of Jack. He’s like a cat in a tree, can’t seem to talk him down. It’s understandable, seeing as he’s been away a while, but I figure you can help me out.”
He hooked his finger into the front of my skirt and slowly dragged me toward him until my nipples were flush up against his chest. He pressed his fingers into the skin right above my pubic bone and I resisted the urge to jump back by biting down on my bottom lip.
“The BBB’s have never really been his thing.” He paused when he saw the confused look on my face at his abbreviation. “Beach Bastard Bitches.” He explained. “But you? You’re new. You’re different. You’ve got this cute little innocent thing going on, but I know you’re not or you wouldn’t be at this kind of party if that was your deal. I’m thinking he’ll like you.” Bear brushed his lips against the side of my neck. “So maybe you go up there. Make him happy for me. Make little him happy by wrapping those gorgeous lips around his cock for a while. Then when you’re done, bring him back down here to civilization. And maybe later, if you’re a good girl and do what you’re told, we can go back to the clubhouse and have some real fun.” He grazed his teeth along my earlobe. “Think you can you do that for me?”
“Yeah, yeah I can do that,” I said. My skin prickling from his touch. And I could do it.
I think.
“What’s your name anyway?” Bear’s hand slowly traveled up the back of my leg, pushing up my skirt, it came to rest on my ass cheek, which was then exposed to anyone who might have been looking in our direction.
“Doe. My name is Doe,” I breathed.
“Fitting.” He said with a chuckle. “Well, my innocent looking little Doe.” Bear leaned in close and surprised me by planting a soft kiss on the corner of my mouth. His lips were soft, and he smelled like laundry detergent mixed with liquor and cigarettes. I was just beginning to think that the kiss meant that he’d changed his mind and didn’t want me to send me away to his friend, but no such luck. He pulled away abruptly and turned me around by my shoulders so that I was facing the stairs. He swatted me on my ass, propelling me forward. “Up the stairs you go, sweetheart. Last room at the end of the hallway. Be good to my boy, and me and you will get to play later.” He sealed his words with a wink and as I made my way up the stairs I turned back and flashed him a fake smile. I hoped the guy at the end of the hallway was like Bear, because then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
Then a thought hit me that had me fighting back the tears that sprung from my eyes with a sudden force that almost took me to my knees.
I’d officially sold myself, and the price was far more than any dollar amount.
Four
Doe
Boom. Boom. Boom. Ba-boom.
It was hard to tell where the bass ended and my pulse began.
I wiped my palms on the tattered skirt I’d lifted from the Goodwill donation bin and maneuvered through a sea of bodies rhythmically writhing up against one another. A thick layer of smoke lay trapped under the low ceiling. Hauntingly robotic party goers danced and gyrated under the flickering lights on every available inch of floor space.
In the dark, with only the pulsing of the lights to guide me, I made my way up the stairs, and as Bear instructed, to the door at the very end of the hallway.
The door to my salvation.
The door to my hell.
I turned the handle, and the hinges shrieked. The only light in the room was courtesy of the dim and muted TV on the far wall. The heavy scent of pot wafted from the room.
“Hello?” I squeaked into the darkness, trying as hard as I could to make my voice sound as sexy as possible, but failing miserably.
A voice, deep and rough, broke through the silence, his words vibrating through to my very core. “Shut the fucking door.”
Snaking its way into every crevice of my already fragile mind and body, an entirely new feeling enveloped me, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. I’d expected to feel hesitant, nervous, and even anxious.
But what I felt was far more than that.
It was fear.
Heart racing. Pulse pounding. Red alert. Fear.
The impulse to turn and run as fast as my trembling legs could carry me was overwhelming, but any thoughts of immediate escape were interrupted.
“Door,” the voice commanded again. I hadn’t moved an inch. As much as I wanted to run, my desperation propelled me forward.
I closed the door behind me and the chaos downstairs disappeared with a click of the latch, shutting out the noise as well as the possibility of anyone hearing my cries for help.
“Where are you?” I asked hesitantly.
“I’m here,” the voice said, offering no indication of where here really was. I took a deep, steadying breath and then a few steps toward the TV until I was close enough to make out the outline of a bed in the middle of the small room and a pair of long legs hanging over the edge.
KING SERIES FIRSTS: King, Lawless & Preppy Part One Page 3