The Bare Bones

by Layla Wolfe

  “Yeah,” I said. “She could’ve been so unprepared for him to shove her off, even if she was handcuffed. Restraint adds another layer of stress to cardiac arrest. It’s like capture myopathy.”

  “Right,” said Maddy.

  “That’s why I’ll never restrain or cuff Unity in any way.”

  “Good point,” said Maddy. “Fear can be deadly.”

  Lytton snorted. “I respect your decision, but I wouldn’t get far with June if I didn’t cuff her.”

  Slushy made a lip fart. He seemed to become very cynical when anyone mentioned sex or love. He’d recently become separated once again from Yvonne Serpico, Roman’s mother. “I’ve got news for you. Even if Tutti Morgan had lived, they would’ve charged him under the Kingpin Statute, which is ginormous. They just have to prove four things, which in his case would’ve been as easy as pissing a bed. First, he had to have committed a series of three or more drug offenses. Done. Then, he has to commit them while working with at least five people. Done. Did he organize and supervise those people?”

  “Done,” said Lytton.

  Slushy shot him with a finger gun. “And last. Did he make substantial income from the business?”

  Ford said, “You saved a lot of people’s lives by getting rid of him. He had some psychotic murderous bent to kill unknown people with his concoctions.”

  Maddy added, “And the ATF determined that Mexican drug dealers had cut her open, thinking she was a drug mule.”

  “I will tell you,” said Santiago Slayer, approaching us slightly weaving, holding a plastic champagne glass, of all things. Of course, he wouldn’t take the red beer cups the rest of us had. But I had no idea where he’d found a champagne glass. “23andMe sent me back the DNA results.”

  Slushy grinned. “Oh yeah? Did they tell you you’re related to Ferdinand III, the King of Castile?”

  Slayer frowned, sticking out his lower lip. “What? No, no. The DNA sampling cannot go back that far. Although, if it could, I am sure I’d be related to—“

  “So what’d it say?” asked Maddy.

  Slayer seemed to recall what he was talking about. “Oh, right. I sent in the DNA you found in Lavinia’s vagina and asked for a match to the DNA we swabbed from inside Mr. Morgan’s mouth. It was a match.”

  Lytton said, “That just proves he fucked her before someone else tossed her over the cliff.”

  But even inebriated, Slayer was ready for action. He pointed at us with his plastic flute. “And it matched with skin scrapings from her shoulder, where he put his hand when shoving her.”

  “Ah,” said everyone at the same time, nodding their heads with knowledge.

  I said, “You’re pretty up on this whole DNA thing.”

  Slayer nodded. “It is a good tool for my toolbox. I need to stay relevant.”

  Slushy stood. “Speaking of relevant. Slayer. I’d like to stay that way, too.”

  Slushy steered Slayer by the arm as they turned their backs to us. The last thing I heard was Slushy saying what sounded like, “I was thinking of maybe doing some commercials.”

  “TV commercials?”

  “Well, as much as this mug was born for the big screen, I was thinking more like radio. I’ve been told I’ve got a very slick, sincere voice . . . “

  Paddington stirred under my hand. His ears puffed up, like they did when he saw a squirrel. Unity was heading our way, making a funny face at the two con men as she passed them by.

  She slung a thumb at them. “What was that all about? Warning him not to run his own DNA again?”

  Ford said, “That cousin twice removed of his is serving like ten years for nonpayment of child support.”

  Bellamy and Lyric were approaching. Bellamy really did have a motherly vibe with her arm protectively around Lyric, though they were separated by only ten years. I let Paddington run over to Bellamy. “Who’s that?” I asked him excitedly. “Go see.”

  Lyric broke away from her foster mother. She ran toward me with open arms. “Tanner! I can’t say ‘thank you’ enough times for helping me in court. Without Beetle sitting next to me I don’t know if I could’ve made it.”

  “Thank Wolf,” I said. “He’s been training Beetle to be a companion dog. Maybe they’ll go on all the Bikers Against Child Abuse runs from now on.”

  Lyric tousled my hair. “Yes, but you were the one who brought Beetle from St. Louis. I swear, I wouldn’t have had enough guts to stand up to Gary, to face him in court, if I didn’t have that little fluffster sitting beside me—even if I hadn’t been wearing a Bare Bones cut.”

  “Aw,” I said, unaccustomed to being treated like a father. “You have to give yourself credit, Lyric. Your testimony was vital. And you were perfect. Going up against that twatwaffle was the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen. The jury were so disgusted, you could tell.”

  She shrugged. “And Unity’s testimony helped massively. Showing a repeat pattern helped put that fuckturd away for twenty years.”

  Maddy asked, “What’s your mom doing now?”

  Lyric shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. Without Gary’s shitty income she’ll have to give up the house. Become homeless. I seriously don’t care.”

  I knew what she meant. When parents treat their children with disdain and even battery, they still expect those kids to be around, to step up to the plate for them. That’s unrealistic. My mother basically ignored me my entire life. Men were more important to her than her kids. It took me a long time to admit she was basically a slut. After I came to look at her objectively, I was surprised she knew who our fathers were. And should these parents who ignore or mistreat their kids be accorded the same level of respect and duty as parents who actually take an active hand in bettering their kids’ lives? In my life, I’ve seen very few people with parents like that. But the few I’ve known, well, those kids went onto college and good careers because they had their parents’ support. They had self-respect.

  I doubted any Bare Boner could say the same. I’d met Duji’s New York Italian father in a wheelchair, and they were always sniping at each other. Taking care of an old-timer was hard enough, but an old timer who not only wasn’t grateful for your help but actively, nonstop bitched at you for trying to assist? “I want some velcro to repair these plastic patio chairs!” “But dad, the velcro and materials will be $100. You can buy new chairs for ten.” “How dare you suggest I switch to a smaller trash can?” “But dad, you only use half this one, every week.” “Get your hands off my garbage can! It’s mine!” Or, the best I’d heard was from Wild Man, his mother disinheriting her kids because they dared to arrange her pills in one of those weekly pill reminders. Thank God that people of my generation were starting to live shorter lives, but we were stuck with the parents who lived forever.

  No thanks. Let them pay someone to put up with that bullshit.

  And when I was old, other Prospects would have to help me out, because sure as shit, I was going to patch in, sooner or later. Lytton was giving me a hint of what was to come.

  He said, “After you eat, Tanner, we want you to put on these pasties”—he pulled out some glittery things shaped like little Chinese straw hats—“and go shirtless through Wal-mart, CVS, Whole Foods, and Safeway buying up every box of tampax you can find.”

  “Tampax?” asked Maddy, normally not one to butt into club business. “So, he only has to buy up tampons?”

  Lytton looked confused. “Well, all of it. All the tampons and all those pad things. Did I leave anything out?”

  “That should cover it.” Maddy, Lyric, and Bellamy grinned to beat the band.

  I stood. “Well, if that’s my task for tonight, I’d best get in shape for it.” I held out my hand to accept the pasties, because I’d seen Unity and Bee heading our way. They both held five-gallon black plastic pots containing what looked like roses. Bee was a master gardener running a nursery, and she’d provided plants for our new ranch at cost. True to her word, Unity was getting highly into it, designing a sitting and picnic
area for humans, and of course planning all the vegetation around our future home.

  “Darlin’,” Unity drawled. She’d been calling me that too lately. I’d never noticed it was a habit of mine.

  I took the pot from her and put it on the ground. “I’ve got to make my bones tonight. So, I thought we could take a break right now, you know. Get powered up for my task tonight.”

  Unity, as my official Old Lady, knew better than to ask, “what task?” But she was definitely into getting powered up. “The trailer?” she suggested.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” I said. “Keep an eye on Paddington?” I asked the group. There was nothing like being stuck in a trailer with a Newfoundland who kept jumping on you while you were trying to fuck.

  We had to pass through a cloud of delicious shrimp smoke on our way to the trailer. Unity said, “Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

  I remembered another time she’d made a Buddhist quote. She never ceased to amaze me. This time I asked, “Where do you get these Buddhist quotes?”

  “Oh, you know. There are lots of Buddhists hanging around the cannaworld.” She hadn’t done much modeling lately, being stuck there at the ranch, but she had gained a new sponsor, a maker of glass pipes who had donated money in return for our displaying some banners of theirs on fences. In one way, I didn’t want her to miss out on her independent avant garde lifestyle. In another way, I was jealous and suspicious of the men who were allowed to ogle her. We’d cross that bridge at the next HempCon.

  “Are you going to show me the Queen of Heaven position?”

  My heart lurched. Did this mean she’d finally let me penetrate her? As far as I could recall, I’d committed a little white lie when I’d told her that position meant impaling her dogstyle while rolling her clit between my fingers. Only, so far we’d only done the frigging part. Not the impaling. As I said, I was going very slowly with her. She was a responsive little minx now, and I rarely had to use much caution.

  “Sure, if you think you want to.”

  She gave me a dimpled smile over her shoulder as she climbed the metal steps to the trailer. “I want to.”

  The bedroom was big enough for just a bed, and a laptop that we used as a TV sat on a built-in shelf. Quickly, almost nervously like a schoolkid, I queued up a screensaver I’d made for her consisting almost entirely of shirtless photos of myself. I’d been studying how stock animals thought to be infertile could get primed with sexy sights, boar odors or images of playboy bulls. As damaged as Unity believed she was from Gregario’s assaults, I secretly held out hope she could become pregnant. I’d be an older father, sure. An older father, an older doctor. I’d gotten a late start in life.

  “Oo,” she marveled. “The horny screensaver. We can practice the Queen of Heaven while I look at these photos.”

  I turned her to face the wall of shelves backed by mirrors. With one knee on the mattress, I could angle my hard cock into the cleft of her ass, corkscrewing my hips. It probably gave me more pleasure than her, but then I knew she got off on looking at herself, too. It wasn’t a vain or ego-riddled characteristic of hers. It was more like she saw her boobs through my eyes and posed and moved so as to enhance them.

  Which she did now. When I grabbed handfuls of each muscle shirt strap and yanked down, her tits easily popped out of her fabric bra. Pinioning the shirt under her boobs like a shelf, I weighed her breasts, bobbing each one in turn. Her breathing accelerated as she twined her fingers together at the back of my neck, behind her.

  All at once, she made a leap for the wall of shelves. Like a petulant kid, she knocked all sorts of crap off the shelves—books from my TBR pile, stuffed animals that reminded her of better days, even my lone high school baseball trophy my mother had actually saved for me all those years.

  “I want to see,” she panted, returning to her former position. Undulating like a prairie, she heartily returned the gyration of her butt against my groin. Was this it? Was she ready for actual penetration? I’d have to go slow, but I’d come in about thirty seconds anyway from the months of build-up, and—

  She fell to her knees. Frantically she unbuckled my belt and scrabbled her fingers at my jeans buttons. “I want to blow you,” she asserted.

  Great. I’d last more like ten seconds.

  Unity

  Tanner was pumped. I mean his prick was just like a taut hose ready to burst. And I was ready to take a load of jizz down my gullet.

  I knew it turned him on to watch my boobs in the mirror. I used to be too petrified to help him, but now I wiggled like a pole dancer while humping my butt against his hard-on. Over time, trust had been built up between us. I no longer went into capture myopathy mode when about to approach orgasm, that was for fucking sure. I was awake and clear with every cell of my being when this commanding man licked me into a frenzy. Coming into his mouth was similar to the initial euphoria of heroin—minus the crash later on. Now I knew from Tanner that powerful chemicals were released in the brain leading up to the moment of climax. Some were actually heroin-related opioids. For me it went on for three minutes or more. Tanner usually stopped me within thirty seconds, claiming it was too much for him. Either way, I knew as I hoovered his rod that he was feeling the exact same things I felt with his face between my legs.

  Only this time, he grunted and protested more. With a fistful of my hair, he kept backing me off. He sat on top of one leg on the mattress, the other long stallion’s leg stretched out to touch the wall. Now he can watch himself. That idea sent goosebumps scattering over my ass. Just knowing he was getting off on his pumped deltoids, curvaceous biceps, strong collarbone, pointed nipples—I could easily see in my mind’s eye what he was seeing, and it made me so wet I humped my own bare foot on the floor.

  My mouth actually watered as I sucked him. Of course, it was impossible to stuff the whole length down my throat, but I hoped my tongue action more than made up for it. I guessed it was, by the way he was yanking his handful of my hair back and grunting like a bear. His juicy penis was filling with blood, I knew from his doctorly lectures. Pressure was soaring inside the fleshy piece of meat. His dick felt so stiff against my palate I knew it was equal to a boa constrictor suffocating its prey.

  He was at the point of no return.

  That was precisely when he gave one last giant yank and pulled me off his dick with a loud pop. I looked up at him wide-eyed. He panted like a winded man, staring ferociously down at me.

  “Queen of Heaven.”

  I didn’t know if he was referring to me by my pet name, or suggesting that we enact that Kama Sutra position, but either one was fine with me. I jumped to my feet and stripped off my short jean skirt and panties.

  He was on me like hot, dripping sugar, turning me to face the bank of mirrors. “Oo, I like this,” I purred, turning my head this way and that trying to get the best angle.

  Meanwhile he was whipping off his boxer briefs and sliding his penis between my thighs. I clamped them together to create friction, fascinated with the way the shiny mushroom head would appear between my legs.

  I was rooted to the spot, reveling in the stark comparison between the images of Tanner onscreen, the shirtless selfies either he or some chick I couldn’t stand had taken, and the masculine reality of his hard, hairy body pressing against my naked back. I palmed his cock, so it’d rub more strongly against my bulging pussy lips. His thigh muscles trembled.

  “Oh, Law, darlin’,” he groaned. One of his hands slid up my neck to hold my jaw, so he could ply me with biting, gnawing kisses. “I’ve never known a voluptuous, elegant woman like you. So luscious. You’re like a ripe piece of fruit.” He sucked on my diamond cheek stud.

  “Do the Queen of Heaven,” I panted. I angled my hips as far back as humanly possible, capturing his thick glans in my palm, pressing it inside me.

  On one of his thrusts it slipped in, and I gasped. It had been since
Evan that I’d been penetrated. And I couldn’t recall the surge of love hormones being half as strong then.

  Tanner seemed surprised, too. Poor guy had been waiting a long time for this. He paused, shuddering from deep within his core, cock twitching inside me. We stayed this way for what seemed like a long time, my pussy muscles squeezing his fat meat. I thought if I squeezed rhythmically and strongly enough I could make him come. Just the idea of him shooting his scorching, tasty load inside of me was enough to bring me to the brink of orgasm. When Tanner finally moved, he hissed in air through his teeth as though burned. He lifted his talented fingers to my clit and touched it experimentally.

  I jumped. Then relaxed, threading my fingers again around the back of his neck. I clutched at his cock while spreading my knees farther apart on the mattress. We were turned a bit sideways to the mirror wall, and the sight was one that would stay imprinted on my brain forever. His muscular ass shivered as he flexed his cock inside me. He already knew that to stroke my clit meant I’d grasp his cock even more firmly, so it didn’t take much to bring us both to the brink of orgasm.

  “Queen of Heaven,” he murmured, licking my earlobe. “I love you, Unity.”

  “I love you, Tanner,” I said simply.

  The thundering orgasm took me by surprise, as I’m sure it did Tanner. Between the pleasuring of his fingers and his prick I was a helpless blob of jelly. The rippling, building chain of contractions milked his dick, and he started fucking me in earnest. His free arm wrapped around my shoulders, coming dangerously close to bad memories of “breath play,” but those thoughts must’ve retreated over the past months. I freely bucked back against my man as he slapped his full ballsac against me. My brain shifted into slow frequency as we both came together, my brain flooded with feel-good hormones.

  I remembered to open my eyes because I desperately wanted to watch Tanner’s biceps flex. It was one of my favorite visions in life. His head was thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, every muscle standing out in sharp relief. His neck was corded, and his glutes shivered as he pumped his load into me. I was in bliss being flooded with such masculinity, balancing out my fears, my paranoias, my terror of men.