WALKER: The men of Whiskey Mountain

by Love, Frankie

  "We have our reasons for who we let come, who we let stay."

  "You mind filling me in on those?" I lift an eyebrow not liking his tone. Suddenly the hippy-dippy smile is wiped off his face and he gives me a hard look. I don't know what this is all about, but I need to figure it out before I go.

  "I'm just looking for my friend, Waverly. I heard she was out here."

  "Waverly?" He shakes his head. "Don't know anyone by that name."

  "Well, do you mind if I look around? Maybe I can find her?"

  "Not sure I can help you with that, sir," the man says. Now a few other men are joining him. All looking the same. Long hair and overeager smiles. Like they're hiding something. A secret.

  "I don't know what you're getting at," I tell him. "I'm looking for my friend and I need to see her before I go."

  "Sorry. That's not how it works up here,” he tells me.

  "And what was your name exactly?" I ask, stepping closer.

  "My name is John Doe,” he says.

  "Trying to be funny?" I'm not in the mood to laugh. I'm not in the mood for his games. It's sketchy as hell that he doesn't want me to see Wavy. I don't want to fight, but I'll do what it takes to see my girl.

  "She came here a week ago. Unless someone took her back to the mainland, she's out here. All I want to do is see her. Is that so hard to ask?"

  My voice is getting louder and I realize we're creating a scene. But I don't really give a shit. This may be private property and on land governed by the one who has staked his claim, but that doesn't mean he or anyone else can keep Wavy from me. It doesn't mean that I won't do whatever needs to be said or done to see her.

  "Listen," I say, my voice grim. "Show her to me now."

  "Sorry, can't do that." In the distance, I see some women wearing white dresses and flower crowns on their hair.

  “Maybe she’s with them.”

  “Not sure, but it’s time for you to go,” he says menacingly.

  I have a gun back in my plane, but I didn't want to carry it and create a scene. But goddammit, a scene is becoming necessary.

  "Just let me see her and I'll go in peace."

  "It's not going to happen."

  Just then I see her in the distance.

  Waverly.

  Waverly.

  Mine.

  There she is.

  "Waverly," I call out. She starts to move forward but then stops in her tracks. Steps back. Looks around her. Scared.

  "What did you do to her," I ask the man. "Why can't she come closer?"

  "She can do whatever she goddamn well pleases," the man hisses. "If she doesn't want to come to you, it means she don't want to."

  I'm not one for touchy-feely energy. I'm not one to walk around preaching good vibes only... but I'm picking up on some weird-ass shit. I don't think these guys are tripping on mushrooms. I think they are tripping on power. And control. Maybe the women here are nice. Hell, maybe the men here are nice, but I'm not one to let wool be pulled over my eyes. I see things in black and white. Clear as day. Something is wrong here.

  "Waverly, I need to talk to you," I say, pushing past the men, knowing it might get me in trouble. Not giving a shit if it does.

  "Walker," she says, a whisper on her lips. When I see her, I see her eyes are half-closed. She looks me up and down, licking her lips. I swear she's remembering. Remembering it all. Me, her, the motel. One perfect night I will never forget.

  The night I fell in love.

  "What's going on out here?" I ask her.

  "I... I... I found my family..." she says, her words trailing away in a whisper.

  "This is your family?" I ask. She's in a white lace dress, her skin paler than I remember. Like she's been locked up in a room all week.

  It makes my blood boil, the thought of it.

  "What are these people doing to you?" I ask. "What are they making you do?"

  But Waverly just shakes her head, steps back. "Nothing, Walker. I swear. This is where I belong. This is my home now.” But she closes her eyes as if the words themselves exhaust her.

  "Come back with me, let me take you--"

  She cuts me off. "Walker, I want to be here. I chose this. You need to go.” With that, she turns and walks away, leaving me speechless. My soul cracks open, stomped on, shattered. All those fucking metaphors filling my heart all at once and I hate it. Hate that she's leaving like this. Hate that she won't even look me in the goddamn eyes.

  "You heard the girl," the man says. John fucking Doe.

  “And you haven't heard the last of me," I growl, walking away from the girl I love.

  Knowing that when I come back, I'll be bringing a hell of a lot more ammunition.

  8

  Waverly

  When I see him, there’s only one thought going through my mind. He needs to go. Now.

  It's dangerous here. One week in and I know that.

  Maybe this is the way the universe is punishing me for not doing something more to save my sister's life.

  Maybe this is the way the universe is saying, Waverly, this is what you deserve.

  I've always felt worthless like I didn't deserve the things other people deserved.

  My Dad left when I was little. My mom was there in a physical sense, but emotionally? She was never by my side, never took care of me, nor cherished me nor loved me like a mother ought to. It's why the idea of turning into her terrifies me.

  And if I'm completely honest, I don't want to be like my sister either.

  I love Jemma. Loved her. But that doesn't mean I want to be like her.

  My mom was a drunk and Jemma considered her body as her only skill. At a young age, she would leave at night, return at all hours of the day. Often bruised or deeply scarred. I knew what she was doing, what she was becoming, and I swore I would never be like her.

  But then she left for this yacht girl gig and I was alone in our tiny apartment, unable to keep the electricity on. Eating ramen and oatmeal without any hope of getting out of my dead-end job.

  I was making minimum wage, and in LA that means it's next to impossible to survive on if you don't have a roommate. And my roommate— my sister — had left.

  When she called me, a month after being gone, she apologized. She said, “Waverly, this is the future. This is sunshine and smiles and champagne and caviar.”

  I knew there was a catch. I knew what she was doing in return for her room and board. What she was giving, what was being taken.

  But she was all I had in the world. My sister was the one and only person that loved me, even if her love was small and brittle. Even if it felt broken more often than it felt whole. My sister loved me, and she needed me, and I needed her.

  I thought if I left our shitty apartment and joined her for her escort gig, then I could make sure she was okay. I could keep an eye on her and protect her. But one day in, I let her down. I watched her die. One day as her guardian and she ended up in a grave.

  So now, I am at LOVE IS HERE, a compound that seems magical to the outside world. And I understand why Jemma and her friend thought this place could be Paradise. Isolation means freedom. Or at least it can. But I'm not like Jemma and I'm not like her friend. And this place doesn't feel free. It feels like a trap.

  It is a trap and now I can't get out. And I don't trust these men. I don't trust these women. They were so nice at first. The day I showed up here they began feeding me soup and fresh bread, braiding my hair and giving me clean clothes to wear. White lace dresses. That's all anyone has on. White lace everywhere. But it doesn't seem pure or innocent, it feels forced. Like we are playing a game, putting on an act. And later, when the men came in from the fields, I watched as the women submitted to them.

  They offered themselves to the men, but it was as if they didn't have a choice. I tried to ask about it the next morning. I said, “Um, so you want to have group sex? That the kind of the thing you're into?” I wouldn't say I was judging, I just wanted to get a lay of the land because everyone was having sex
and doing ‘shrooms and acting out of their goddamn minds.

  “We have no choice,” Bellamy tells me. “We chose to come here, and they won’t let us leave.”

  “Then let’s go. All of us at once.”

  “It’s easier this way,” she says. “And where would we go?”

  “Home.”

  She shook her head, tears in her eyes. “Women come here because we are running away. Because there’s nowhere to go back to. At least here we are fed, have a warm, clean bed. Have each other. And there is not pimp dictating our days.”

  “What’s Father John then?” I ask, referring to the leader of the commune.

  Bellamy just shrugged. “He’s not cruel.”

  “He isn’t exactly nice, either.”

  I looked around, realizing the women who live here truly do support one another. I’ve watched it. Watched the way they work in the kitchen side-by-side. In the garden, harvesting vegetables, and in the yard, hanging laundry to dry. For some it might seem a better existence than the one they had. Jemma’s friend loved it — and maybe it made sense for her. She had grown up in the sex industry and was tired of the struggle. Here, you can have a full life in exchange for submitting to men’s sexual appetites at night.

  There are no relationships here. No marriages or boyfriends, it’s fluid. And some people may even find pleasure in being with the men at night. They may see it as enjoyable, not a punishment. They could see it as an act of love.

  But I’m not them. I want something else. As I kept watching the way the men and women interacted, I realized they may not have been young girls from off the coast of San Diego, but in every sense of the word they were escorts.

  They aren't getting paid in monthly stipends, but they are getting room and board the same as Jemma was. They are getting paid for their services and they can’t leave. It’s a cycle, a trap, and a deceiving as hell one because, for all appearances, they welcomed me in with wide arms and bright smiles. They made me feel like family.

  But a few days later, I saw a man come to the property and they didn't let him linger.

  They kicked him off the land and that's when I started counting. Counting the number of men and the number of women; I realized there was a disproportionate number of women, and no new men were coming in.

  That's when I knew. I walked right into a trap. No one knew where I was, and no one was going to look for me. Well, one person knew where I was. His name was Jameson and he didn't think my coming here was a good idea. He gave me his card — a number to call in case of an emergency— but there is no phone here. There is nowhere to go. I am on a tiny little island in the middle of Alaska and I am alone.

  Then I saw Walker come onto the property.

  I had just been walking back from the garden, picking flowers with the ladies, when I heard the commotion, the fight. Walker was a foot taller than the men. His shoulders so broad and his eyes so green. I felt like he could swallow me up. I knew he would fight for me, do anything for me, but I knew these men had guns. And I knew they weren't afraid to go at him.

  Walker was one man. These were many. It wouldn't be a fair fight. I wouldn't put Walker in that position. Not after he'd been so good to me. Held me so tightly. Kissed me so deeply. Opened me up in a way I've never been open to before.

  Walker saw me and I saw him, and I couldn't hurt him like this. Let him walk into the trap. Same as I did. Because if he tried to come after me, try to take me with him, he'd be shot. Buried. And no one would know where he was. That's the problem with the wilderness. You can get lost so easily. Go missing without a trace. And that is why when he walked toward me, I told him to go. I told him to leave. I said, best as I could, “I’m fine. This is my family now.”

  It wasn't true. Of course, it wasn’t. How could it be? This was a prison, a death sentence.

  So far, I've been able to bide my time and not give my body to these men. But how long would that last? Eventually… I’ll have to pay for their hospitality. Pay for the fresh soup and fresh bread and clean clothes.

  And they don't want my money. They want my body plain and simple. I don't know how long I have. And when I watched Walker leave, it felt like a nail in my coffin.

  I came here because it's where my sister wanted to go. I came here to try to make sense of her death

  But coming here means I am dead too. It means I'm gone.

  But I'm still breathing.

  To be honest, I don't know which way is better.

  9

  Walker

  Leaving the commune is as hard as hell. I get on my plane and open my glove box to check if my gun is still there. It is. Part of me wants to push it, to grab the gun and run back to the property like a militia man, but that’s not the kind of man I am. Not anymore. I swore I'd never be that man again. One who used force to get what he wanted. One who'd use bullets in the name of family.

  It's not right to point a gun at another man just to get my way. No, there needs to be another answer to get Waverly back and I don't think fighting is the way to go. At least not for me. I've done that enough times in my life and as I take off in my plane, I start to consider my options.

  What does this place lack? What does it need? And what can I trade in order to get Waverly? Of course, she might not want to come with me. Maybe her words were her truth and I'm reading it all wrong, but I think she isn't telling me the whole story. When she told me to go, when she said these people were her family, I think she was saying something else entirely. That she was scared or frightened. Or, that she had no hope and that she knew what would happen if I stayed.

  I'd be shot and she'd be stuck. There must be a better way.

  When I get back to my cabin, my cock is aching because the whole way home, all I do is think about her. Think about getting her here, safe with me. Making sure she is protected. But the more I think about that… the more my cock hardens. The more my cock hardens, the more I can’t escape the thoughts of her pure body resting against mine and the way I opened her up for the very first time. Or, how she gotten on her hands and knees and told me yes. The way she said please and the way she asked me for more.

  More. More. Now.

  The way I gave it to her. God, I need her.

  I unlock my cabin door, glad to be home wishing Waverly was here with me. My cock knows what it needs, so I turn on the water of the shower and step in, letting the hot water wash over me. I should probably take a cold shower, but that's not what my cock wants. What I want is at this moment is her. I want to get off as I replay the way her sweet ass felt in my hand.

  And so, I do. I stroke myself the way I've been doing for the last week.

  My cock is nice and hard, and I pump it in my fist getting myself off to the memory of her virgin pussy. The memory of those tight lips so damn wet for me and how my cock loved to fill her. Now as I think about her with all those men with their cocksure faces, my own cock becomes steel. It can't be the way this ends.

  Losing her to them.

  My body knows what it needs. What it was made for. Her, her alone. The shower goes cold as I stroke myself, pumping my thick cock until the creamy release erupts against the tile wall. My big cock, so desperately still needing to sink itself into her warm cunt. God, she was so pure, so ripe, so mine.

  Fuck, I'm rock hard again. And this time the water is so cold, it burns.

  I need her. No one else, nothing else. I won't take no for an answer.

  I toss and turn all night, but the next morning I wake with a plan. I'll go into town, get a shit ton of supplies and offer them in exchange for her life. If she wants me, she'll take the offer. If she doesn't, I'll leave in peace, my cock aching for the rest of my goddamn life.

  Before I can jump in my plane, Jameson comes up to me looking worse for wear himself.

  “Where are you headed, motherfucker?” he asks me

  “I’m headed back to get my girl.”

  “You're still on that? Still trying to chase her down. What happened yesterday at the co
mpound or commune or whatever it’s called?”

  “It went badly,” I offer and explain the situation to him, He whistles low.

  “I knew it was sketchy out there. So, what's your plan? You really think she's in trouble?”

  “How could she not be? You remember the way she looked? The innocence, the purity--”

  He cuts me off. “I don't want to know about your sex life, Walker. All I'm saying is, you're just going to go back there and say, give me the girl? It didn't work yesterday. Why will it work today?”

  I explained to him my plan for a trade and he nods telling me he thinks that might actually work.

  “I could help you. I heard of a guy with a shit ton of coke they're trying to get rid of.”

  I look at him hard. “You moving drugs out here?” I shake my head. Honestly shocked. Is there no place left on this earth that hasn't been tainted? Is there no place left on Earth that is sacred or is every inch of the world dark?

  “Look, it’s not my shit. I'm just saying those people like drugs. I can get ‘em for you if you want.”

  I shake my head, my heart pounding, knowing that this would actually work but I came here to stop being the man I used to be. I came to Alaska to start over. Otherwise, why wouldn't I have stayed put? Stayed with my family, took over the business. Been my brother's right-hand man? I didn't do that because I wanted more for myself and for my future.

  Jameson looks at me and I'm still pretty shell shocked that he knows a dealer.

  “Don't look at me like that,” he says, look. “I'm not dealing, I just know people. And if someone asks me to move their cargo, I do. No questions asked. It’s how I’m so fucking rich.”

  “That’s called being a fucking drug runner, Jameson, and I don't think turning a blind eye makes it any better.”

  “What do you know about it, anyway?” he asks.

  I shake my head. I know fucking plenty. I won't give him anymore. I thought we understood one another, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe he's just like everyone else. Maybe there's a reason why I live on my own. Why I stick to myself. Because everyone lets you down.