by Lynn, Davida
I knew he was choosing polite words then, too. God knows what I really did to get him to come home with me. As Thunder spoke, I took him in. I guessed he was about thirty, but it was hard to tell. He had bright and young eyes, but there were cracks and lines across the deep tan of his face. I could only imagine the hard years he’d lived. Even with him dressed, I couldn’t get the vision of his naked body out of my head. With what he was packing between his legs, it was easy to imagine how he got his nickname.
I dreaded the question, but it was in my head. Did we have sex? The words were on my tongue, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask him. Part of me was too shy, and another part couldn’t handle hearing the answer.
“If I could remember what happened, I think I’d just feel better, but it’s all so nebulous.” Looking around, the nebulous feeling became something more depressing. “Look, Thunder, thank you for everything you’ve told me, but it’s just not enough. You don’t even know my real name.”
After searching through the three rooms in the small apartment, I actually couldn’t manage to find a single form of identification. All the mail was sent to “Current Resident,” and there was no phone lying around. I assumed that I lost it the night before. I was Jane Doe.
“Really wish I knew more.” Since waking up next to Thunder, I had to admit that I was warming up to him. He could have easily skipped out on me, leaving me to deal with my problems myself. Instead, he genuinely wanted to help. That was sweet of him. Is it? Or are you clinging to him because he’s the only person you know, anymore?
“Fucking fuck!” My frustration got the better of me, and the coffee mug broke when I slammed it down onto the old, dirty table. There wasn’t much liquid left in it, but it still trailed to an edge and dripped to the linoleum floor.
Thunder didn’t react to my outburst. He looked at the coffee splashing onto the floor for a second, then he leaned back in the chair and grabbed for a hand towel dangling from the oven handle. He dropped it onto the coffee and worked it around with his foot.
I pushed the pieces of mug away from me on the table and gave a sigh. I felt beyond screwed.
“Here’s what we’re gonna do. Are you listening?” Thunder’s voice changed. When he asked if I was listening, something in his words grabbed hold of me by the scruff of my neck. I looked up to him and wondered if that was where his nickname came from.
After I gave him a nod, he went on. “First of all, we’re gonna get some real food. We’re gonna get out of this place and see if something jogs your memory.” He glanced at his phone, “It’s past noon. By the time we’re done eating, we’ll head to the Watering Hole and ask around. Someone there has to know who you are. Did you drive there last night?”
I was about to give a frustrated I don’t know, but he went on before I could.
“If you did, I’m sure your car will be waiting for you. Maybe a phone, maybe a purse that has some I.D. What d’ya say, Patience?” Those bright eyes. They had a way of easing me back down. I didn’t like my nickname. I hated what it represented, and so I was more than eager to learn my real name.
“You’ve been so kind to me, Thunder. I really don’t know how I can repay you.” I’m pretty sure the sex we had the night before should have covered any repayment, but that wasn’t me. That was some other woman who got wet for any man riding on two wheels. It wasn’t me.
“Don’t sweat it. If I woke up with no memory, I don’t know of anybody who would help me. My life hasn’t exactly been filled with the most friendly people, so I guess I’m just doing my good deed for the year.” He shrugged off the complement, but I knew better.
I had no doubt that Thunder was just keeping up appearances. He couldn’t have anybody thinking that some badass biker was in the habit of helping ladies in distress. God forbid somebody think that he’s a nice guy.” Let me run a brush through my hair, and we can head out.”
The bathroom matched the rest of the apartment: pure shit. The medicine cabinet was bare except for one toothbrush and the remains of a tube of toothpaste. After a little bit of hunting, I did manage to find a hairbrush. It did very little to get rid of the sex hair, but the only other option would be to take a shower, and that thing looked like a total hazmat situation. The brush would have to do.
We stepped outside the door to my apartment and into the dry heat. It hit me that I didn’t have a key, but if somebody wanted to break in, good for them. They couldn’t possibly make the place worse, and there was nothing to steal. If I really had a chance to start over, I’d never come back to that apartment, again. I pulled the door closed and followed Thunder.
I knew he was a biker, but something about seeing that big Harley in a parking space stirred something in me. As far as my memory was concerned, I’ve never ridden a motorcycle before. It wasn’t scary, exactly, but the thought of going sixty miles an hour without a seatbelt was a little unnerving. That, plus the fact that I’d have to wrap my arms around Thunder’s body. It was all enough to get my heart racing. I might have ridden a motorcycle one thousand times, but that day would be the first ride of my new life.
It was pure exhilaration. It was like standing at the edge of a cliff with your eyes closed. The motor was a constant and deep rumble between my legs. I couldn’t tell if Thunder was pushing extra hard because of me, or if he just lived life that hard all the time. If he did, I could understand why he looks so young and so old at the same time. Adrenaline kept you feeling young, but it took its toll.
On the back of Thunder’s Harley-Davidson, I watched the scenery come and go. He told me that my apartment was in Winters, a small town outside of Davis. The Watering Hole was on the east side of town, but Thunder headed west to the promise of a great breakfast.
The diner was a hole in the wall hidden treasure. My mind had been racing since the moment I woke up, and until I sat down, I didn’t realize that I was starving. The fight the night before must have really taken it out of me. The second that I looked at the menu, my stomach let itself be known.
Thunder ordered French toast, and I had three plate-sized flapjacks coming my way. The food couldn’t come soon enough. Between the exhaustion of my memory loss and the exhilaration of the motorcycle ride, I felt like I could down way more than my share of food. Thunder didn’t say much, but he watched me. I thought it would be unnerving, but there was a certain calmness to it. There was a certain calmness to him. I couldn’t begin to explain it.
“What do you think I do?” I asked after I took a big swig of coffee. My apartment made it seem like I wasn’t an executive somewhere, that was for sure. I didn’t want to admit to Thunder what my guess was. Based on the lifestyle that “Patience” lived, my mind jumped straight to stripper. My body was fit and toned, so it made the most sense, even though sense was in short supply.
Thunder turned and looked out the window. There was nothing out there to see, so I knew he was stalling. Maybe he had the same thought that I did. After all, a woman named Patience with a mission to fuck every biker in a motorcycle club sounds exactly like the type of woman that would oil herself up and stripped down for money.
I shook my head, “Don’t you say it. Please don’t you say what I’m thinking.”
He turned back to me, my smile sparking one of his own, “Were you thinking spy, too?”
“Spy?” I couldn’t help but chuckle, “Not at all what I was thinking, but I’ll take it.”
Thunder was a genuine man. I knew he had told me everything he knew about me, and even when he didn’t know the answer to something, it helped me feel a little more at ease. My life was a swirling black mass of confusion, and the biker that I woke up naked next to was my only real connection to the world. How can I repay him? How can I thank him for even bothering with me? He could have snuck home the second he found out that my memory was gone. Instead, he had gone out of his way to help me back to reality.
Maybe it was some ghost of Patience floating deep within my mind, but one thought occurred to me; one way to pay my debt; o
ne thing a hot young, woman could give a hot, strong biker: sex.
That thought was with me, even as we rode to the Watering Hole. I was eager to regain my memory and get back to my life, but Thunder was taking up more and more of my thoughts. Squeezing him tight as we leaned into each turn on the road didn’t help matters. How many bikers had I wrapped my arms around? I didn’t like the potential answers that came into my head, so I decided the answer was only one: Thunder.
The place didn’t look anything like a bar. It would have looked more like a body shop if the front had been littered with busted cars. It was a one story cement block building. Gravel surrounded on all sides, I’m guessing it served as the parking lot. At just after 2 PM, the place was deserted save for one car. I was hoping and guessing that it was mine. I was hoping and praying that my wallet would be inside.
My fought was that the car would spark something inside of me, but it did not. I assumed it was mine because it was the only one parked at the bar. Thunder pulled up next to it and killed the engine to his beastly machine. After riding a Harley for more than an hour, my car looked like a prison cell. Straddling the roaring motorcycle was the only memory I had.
The car was a Chevy painted some nail polish-gone-wrong shade of green. There was some flashy bright pink writing on the side, but too much of it had peeled away to read. Patches of rust dotted the lower half, and the dark interior looked as dirty as the gravel below the car. Of course, I thought. Why shouldn’t my car match my apartment? If I really was a stripper, I must not have been a very good one. Either that, or I was terrible with money. Seeing that shitty car outside the Watering Hole cut me deep.
“Come on. Maybe I should take this chance to start the fuck over.” The weightlessness of the motorcycle ride vanished. The heavy mystery was back on my shoulders. Who was I? What did I do? What had I done to deserve such a shit life?
Thunder tapped the hood. “Hey, now. Don’t be so quick to discount this fine automobile.” I thought he was making fun of me, so I extended a finger to show them how I felt about it. “I’m serious. This car— not this actual car, of course—was the pace car for the 1990 Indianapolis 500. It’s no Mustang or Corvette, but it’s something.”
Thunder was always trying to make me feel better. He was damn good at it, too. A smile came to my face and I rolled my eyes, “Most of those words meant absolutely nothing to me, just so you know.”
“Ah, let me translate. If it starts and runs, you’re doin’ better than a lot of people. Hop inside, sweetheart.” If Thunder had charmed me like this the night before, it’s no wonder I went home with him. He had an easy way about him that was very hard to resist. Apparently I had to type: muscles, tattoos, and heart.
I nodded to him and reached for the handle. The inside was scattered with papers and random trash, but nothing that looked like an envelope or anything official. Fingers crossed for the glovebox, I told myself. I’m sure no one ever had more stress riding on opening a car door. I reached up to the handle, wondering how many times I’d opened it and how many miles I’d driven the car.
My heart was racing. It was such a silly thing, but it could hold the key to getting my memory back. I pulled, and the handle gave. The door opened, and I looked over to give Thunder a look. “Small victories, huh?”
My sexy biker chauffeur was leaning up against the wall of the bar. He had one foot planted against it, too. He looked undeniably good. He didn’t reply, just give me a nod and ushered me on. After the breath, I slid down into the driver seat. Looking around the dirty car, I began to wonder if my memory would ever come back. Not a single thing had jumped back into my head. Not a name, not a memory, nothing. When I tilted the visor down, a key ring dropped into my lap. There were two house keys and one car key. A beaten and worn Mickey Mouse keychain held all three. I would have killed for a tiny little license plate with my name on it. The glove box with my last hope.
I leaned across the center console and flipped the latch. The plastic door dropped down, and my eyes went wide. Two large, black handguns were the only things inside my glove box.
Why in the hell did I have two guns in there? Why in the hell didn’t I have any identification? There wasn’t a wallet, a purse, even one bill or letter with my name and address on it. I was more lost than I was before. Why would some biker cock chaser need two guns, let alone one? Did I know how to use them, was I holding them for someone, had I shot someone?
Before we arrived at the bar, I was a mystery woman with a nickname. After sitting in front of the bar, I was still a mystery woman, but now I had a car and two guns. Thunder raised his hands to either side of him outside of my car, “Well? Are we gonna be formally introduced?”
I looked up, startled. I don’t know why, but my heart raced. My eyes darted all around as I tried to think through things. With no idea what to say to Thunder, I looked down to see that I was picking at my fingernails hard. Oh good, I have a nervous tic. I was learning so much about myself. I didn’t want to tell Thunder about the guns. I don’t know why, but it was like my mind was screaming at me, and I was barely picking up the sound. Was there some reason buried deep in the dark recesses of my mind?
I didn’t know the answer. What else was new? I looked at Thunder through the windshield of my car and tried to read him. Did he know the guns were in there? Had he put them there? Were they there as protection from him? Until I could answer at least one of those questions, I decided to lie. Was it a lie, though, if you had no memory? I didn’t have time for philosophical questions, even though they rained down on me like a summer storm.
Closing the glovebox with care, I shook my head. “I don’t think there’s anything in here that will help.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, so I didn’t feel too badly. He nodded, and I was watching him more closely than ever. Thunder stayed leaning back against the wall of the bar. I was at a dead end.
There was nothing comforting about the car, but I did feel better with a bit of distance between me and Thunder. Fear and doubt are taking over my mind. I felt more afraid knowing I had two guns in my car than when I woke up next to a stranger. Maybe it was something more than memory. Maybe it was instinct. Whatever it was, I needed some time to myself. I needed some time away from Thunder. It wouldn’t be for long, though. Somebody at the Watering Hole has to know something. As soon as the place opened up that night, I’d be back.
In the meantime, though, I thought it best to leave Thunder be. My feelings about him swung back and forth like a pendulum out of control. Get rid of him, but be cool about it.
I stepped from the car with my keys in hand. Thunder pushed off of the wall, and I thought I saw suspicion in his eyes. He seemed more menacing, but I tried to tell myself that was fear.
“Still a stranger?”
“It seems that way. Look, Thunder. I really can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done.” It was the beginning of my speech to wrap things up.
A half smile appeared, “It’s nothing, really.”
“It’s not nothing.” I was trying to wrap it up, anyway. “Not everyone would’ve done that. Shit, I bet one in ten thousand would have done what you did. You’re a good man, Thunder.”
I stayed standing next to the driver’s side, the car door between us. He took a step forward and leaned his hands on the top of the door, “This feels like goodbye to me.” I was almost certain something was up. I tried to keep eye contact with him, even though his stare was rougher than sandpaper.
Nodding, “Just for the moment, I think. I’m going to head home and shower. Maybe if I clean up the car, I’ll come across something. Either way, though, I’ll be back here tonight. Somebody must know the real me, right?” I try to keep my voice light. Thunder was a little too close for comfort.
After a few tense seconds, he nodded and stepped away from my car door. “Guess I’ll see you tonight, then.” He turned from me without waiting for a response. Lucky me, I didn’t have one for him. I slid back into the driver’s seat and pulled the heavy door closed. It did
n’t feel as much like a prison cell, anymore.
The key slid right into the ignition, and despite the visible condition of the car, it fired right up. I jumped in the seat when Thunder’s motorcycle roared to life. For the entire morning, Thunder had set me at ease more and more. Parts of the old Patience were coming through, but in that one second looking into the glove box, everything changed. I should have known from the beginning that no one could be trusted. I couldn’t even trust myself, why should I trust some muscular biker?