by Nicole Fox
Bruiser, the leader of our little clan, smiled. He was a scrawny man, but he knew how to intimidate someone if he wanted to. This time though, he just smiled and spread his hands. “Just stopping in for a drink.” His leathers creaked in the silence that had fallen over the place.
“I don’t want any trouble, now,” the manager warned. “If you’re here as paying customers, well then, that’s fine. But I have the sheriff on speed dial.” He pointed to an old phone on the wall that looked like it could have been a prop.
We had about the same experience no matter where we went. The Warriors rode where they wished, whether the locals appreciated it or not. We’d been on the road for far too long, and it was time to stop for a while. This little town of Myrtle Creek was going to be our temporary home for the next few days while we rested and tuned up our bikes. Our gang filled up the bar quickly, making the locals take off for other watering holes.
I found a spot at a table near the back with several other members who had become close friends in the few years since I’d joined the Warriors. “What do you make of this place?” I asked, studying the barnwood that lined the walls and the framed pictures of small-town celebrities. “Think there’s anything interesting going on around here?”
“You’re joking, right, Snake?” asked Axle, a slim young man who had just joined our club last year. He pushed his long curly hair back with one hand. “We’re probably the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to this town. All the little church ladies will be talking about us for the next five years.”
“We could always make something happen.” Rusty, big and burly with a head of flaming hair that matched his name, plunked down in a chair and raised his finger in the air to summon a waitress. “I’m a little bored after just riding for so long.”
“You heard Bruiser,” I reminded him. “He said we’re just here as paying customers. No fights tonight.” It had been a while since I’d had a good brawl, but I wasn’t really in the mood. Like Rusty, I was tired.
A young woman with a dark ponytail and wide eyes walked up to us. “What can I get you?” Her voice shook, and she constantly looked over us at the bar, no doubt keeping eye contact with her manager.
“Just a round of beers,” I said.
“Unless you’re on the menu.” Rubble was built like a boulder, short and round. He had a habit of being a little creepy, and the girls in any town we stopped in usually ran from him like the plague. “I’d gladly take a serving.”
She practically ran back behind the bar to get the drinks, tears in her eyes.
The big blond man across from him shook his head, his beard brushing against his vest. “You’re never gonna get a woman,” Moose advised. “You should know by now that a delicate creature like that needs a little time to get used to seeing your ugly mug before you subject her to your nasal voice.”
The rest of us laughed, but Rubble balled his fists. “You want to go at it again? I’m gonna kick your ass this time.”
“Sure you will.” We all knew that Moose wasn’t the kind of guy you’d want to fight. Formerly in the military, he had studied martial arts for several years and was a weapon in and of himself. A little guy like Rubble couldn’t take him, and the rest of us were smart enough not to try.
“Dude, don’t listen to him. You can get a girl any time you want.” Axle leaned forward on the table. “You’re just going to have to pay her. A lot.”
We exploded in laughter once again as the waitress came back. She nearly threw the beers on the table before retreating once more, and Rubble didn’t say anything else to her. After all, we were all ready for a long night of drinking.
It was cheap beer, but it hit the spot. I sucked it down like it was the stuff of life and ordered another round. Before I knew it, I was feeling a little buzzed. “So, what are we going to do while we’re here? We should see what they have for entertainment in this little one-horse town.” We hadn’t spotted any casinos or nightclubs on our way through town, just a lot of churches. Still, there had to be something to do.
Rusty pounded his empty glass down on the table and sat up straight, looking like a lumberjack with his red hair and goatee. “Call it what it is, Snake. It’s a shithole. Just like every other little place we ride through. I don’t know why Bruiser doesn’t go for bigger cities. There would be so much more to do. But no, we’re stuck in the shithole.”
“Okay, then we should see what they have for entertainment in this little shithole.” I shook my empty glass in the air, and the little waitress shot back over to refill it. She was working like crazy to keep all the bikers satisfied. “And I think he’s just a small-town kind of guy. Besides, there are more cops in the cities.”
Rubble watched the waitress’s ass as she walked away. “Let’s just do what Rusty said and entertain ourselves. I bet there are horny women all over this town that would just be dying to get on our bikes.”
“You’re living in a porno,” I said, punching him in the arm. “It’s not a fantasy world.” Still, I didn’t really mind the idea. It had been a while since I’d had a woman, and I had needs of my own.
“We could always make it a little more interesting than just finding women.” The rest of us turned to face Rusty. “Let’s make a bet. The first one of us to knock up one of the local chicks wins.” He pulled out his wallet and threw a hundred-dollar bill on the old wooden table. “We can each bet a thousand, with a hundred holding your place in the game. What do you say?” He looked at us expectantly.
We were getting drunk, but I think we all would have been game for it anyway. Who wouldn’t want to be part of a bet that involved getting some ass? My hand whipped to my pocket for my wallet without my even thinking about it. It was a ridiculous idea, but I wasn’t about to lose. “I’m in.”
The little pile of bills on the table was quickly finished, none of us turning down the dare. Rusty swept up the money, folded it, and tucked it behind his driver’s license. “We don’t have a lot of time here, so we’d better get started.”
“I’m going for her.” Rubble stared at the waitress, who had been carefully keeping as far away from him as possible since he had first tried to speak to her. Even when she came to our table, she passed the beers around from the side opposite him. “She wants me; she just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Oh yeah. She’ll have you. Right after she has some tragic accident in the kitchen and goes blind.” Moose scanned the room. “Looks like we’ve chased most of the women out of here, but there’s that chick that keeps hanging out near the jukebox. I call dibs on her.”
“Sure, get the easy one,” Axle chided. “You know she wants some biker dick if she’s staying in the bar while we’re all here.”
The blonde man shrugged. “She can’t be that easy if nobody’s gotten to her yet. And hey, if she wants some biker dick then I’m more than happy to give it to her.”
“Fair enough,” Rusty agreed. “What about you, Snake? See anything you like?”
If this had been a biker bar, I would have had a lot more to choose from. There would have been half-dressed women all over the place, eager to do favors for any one of us just to get a ride or a free meal. And I wasn’t all that picky. I knew I wasn’t looking for anything more than a casual fling. There could never be anything more than sex between a woman and me. My stepmother had made sure of that. I shook my head to fling the thoughts aside.
When I looked up again, I saw the most attractive woman I’d seen since we’d pulled in to Myrtle Creek. With her long blonde hair laying against her shoulders in waves and her big brown eyes, I knew exactly who I would be going after. “Her,” I said, pointing.
The guys turned around and laughed as soon as they saw. “A poster? You’re a lot drunker than I realized. You can’t fuck a poster, and you sure as hell can’t get it pregnant. Good thing, too, or a lot of teenage boys would be in trouble.” Axle smiled, laughing at his own joke as he took another pull of beer.
“No, you idiot. Read it. This little du
mp had some sort of festival this week, and the parade is Saturday. That girl is the county queen, and she’ll be in it.” I couldn’t stop staring at her. It was just a snapshot of her on a stage, but she was amazing. Her beaded dress hugged her slim curves, and her smile could have won the contest all on its own. If she had walked into the bar at that moment, it would have been almost impossible for me not to ravage her. But of course, county queens didn’t just go walking into bars. And I highly doubted a girl like that was looking for a guy like me.
“Good luck.” Axle shook his head and slammed the remainder of his beer. “I gotta piss. If I see any other posters in the bathroom, I’ll let you know.” He clapped me on the shoulder and left.
Rusty, Rubble, and Moose continued to make their plans, but I wasn’t paying attention. Most of the women I’d been with were just random warm bodies I had found in bars. They barely had faces, and plenty of them didn’t have names. I didn’t care. I just knew I wanted this woman, and I would find some way to have her.
Chapter 2
Bambi
“Would you sit still? I’m never going to get this right if you don’t cooperate!”
I cringed and tried to keep my head from yanking back, but my mother was pulling too hard. “Can’t you comb that section out before you try to style it? The knots are killing me.” I shut my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see her frown at me in the mirror with her froglike lips and narrow eyes. Unfortunately, I also didn’t see the back of the brush as she brought it down to whack me on the back of the skull.
“Maybe you should be conditioning like I’ve told you to, and then it wouldn’t hurt so much.” She continued her styling, wrenching my hair into a curly up do that I could nestle my tiara in. “And quit complaining. We’ve got to get this just right before the parade.” She stabbed at my skull with several bobby pins.
“It’s fine. We already did this hairstyle for the pageant. I don’t see why we need to do it just for the rehearsal.” The two of us were set to be at the community center in less than an hour to go over everything we would need to know for the next day. The Peach Festival Parade was one of the biggest events in Myrtle Creek, and everyone in town would turn out to see it. There would be fire trucks, police cars, local clubs, scout troops, marching bands, baton twirlers, and antique tractors. Children would run out in the streets to scoop up candy, running gleefully back to their parents. I had to admit that even I was looking forward to it, even though I wasn’t very appreciative of my role.
“Bambi, you’re the Peach Festival Queen.” She said the words as though she was telling me I was the president of the United States. “The townspeople chose you because you’re perfect, and that’s exactly what we want them to see during the parade. Don’t you realize just how important this is?” Her eyes in the mirror were tearful and hurt, as though I had done something to insult her by not thoroughly enjoying my new position as queen. She grabbed a jumbo-sized can of hairspray and thoroughly fogged my hair with it.
I flapped my hand in front of my face and coughed. “I do, but I think we’re going a little overboard. I mean, I’m still just a normal person.”
Mother whipped me around in the chair in front of the dressing table so that I had to look directly into her eyes. They were a bright blue, and they glinted with anger at the center of decades of eyeliner that never seemed to wash off anymore. “Bambi Bidwell, don’t you ever go saying you’re a normal person! You’re my daughter, and you’re special! You’re the most beautiful, most talented woman in this goddamn county, and I won’t hear of you thinking otherwise!” She slammed her fist on the arm of the chair for emphasis.
I knew there was no point in arguing with her. “Yes, ma’am.” She had always pushed me, even when I was a child. There were trophies lining the shelves in my bedroom and leaking out into the living room that declared I was beautiful, talented, photogenic, and smart. Mother was never satisfied unless I was in first place, no matter what I was doing. I had even graduated as valedictorian from Myrtle Creek High School the previous year, but she wouldn’t let me out of her sight to attend college. I was her little puppet, a pretty doll that she forced to dance and sing.
“That’s much better. Now, let’s figure out that makeup. I think you should go with a brighter shade of lipstick for the parade. That light pink was nice, and it was perfect for the judges. They had to see you as sweet and innocent. But now that you have the title, I want to make sure everyone can see your features.” She pulled a tube of lipstick out of her massive makeup case and held my chin tightly as she applied it. “That’s much better. Now, about those eyes.” She folded her hands in front of her sagging breasts as she bent over to study every inch of my face. “Yes, I really think we need to go with the blue contacts.”
“They’re not comfortable,” I argued gently. “They dry out, and I feel like I have cornflakes in my eyes.” This wasn’t the first time we’d discussed the contacts, and I had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last.
She clucked at me as she reached for a tiny plastic case. “Bambi, you never do anything but whine. If it weren’t for me, you’d be a nobody right now. I just wish you had gotten my eyes, instead of those plain brown ones from your father. Still, we can make them look nice enough.” She came at me with the contacts.
I leaned back and blocked her with my arm, a move that was unheard of in our house. “No, I don’t want them. I can’t see anything when I have them on, and I’ll have even more trouble with them if I’m riding on the back of a convertible. Besides, I won the pageant with my plain brown eyes.” If it had been up to her, I never would have made it to the pageant without those damn contacts. She had insisted that I wear them, and I had agreed to avoid an argument. They had been conveniently misplaced the morning of the contest, but Mother had found them eventually.
She snapped the case shut with a resounding click and an even deeper frown than she’d had before. It accentuated the lines in her face, which multiplied regularly. “I suppose that’s true. But when the festival is over and your picture isn’t tacked up in every single restaurant and store in town, you’ll have to start making the transition to blue so we can get you ready for the state competition. You’ll be Miss America before you know it.”
My shoulders slumped. We’d had this conversation so many times, and it always ended with Mother practically in tears over her hopes for me. “I don’t know that I really want to go that route …” I began.
But she wasn’t listening. “You know, we could always have that surgery done. Then you wouldn’t have to mess with the contacts. I’ve been researching it on the Internet. There are some places that just use a laser to blast all the brown pigment out of your eyes, and then there’s another place that does some sort of implant to change the color. It’s a little expensive, but you won some money at the pageant and you’re only going to win more. I think we can make it happen.” She tapped her finger against her lips. “It’s cheaper in Mexico, so that’s always an option. We can make a vacation out of it.”
“Mother! Stop! I don’t want surgery!” I was horrified at the thought of doing it at all, and I certainly wasn’t going to have it done in a foreign country.
She scowled at me. “You say that now, but just give it time. Before you know it, you’ll be begging me for a boob lift or facial injections. I’d get them myself, you know, but I spend all my money on you.”
Here we went again. There was never an end to how much she thought she sacrificed for my sake. Her job at the hospital in the human resources department paid well enough, but she always needed something more. I decided this was the time to take up yet another old argument. “Then let me get a job. I can make money for myself, and you can spend your money on the things you want. I want you to be happy, Mother.”
She smiled, which was just an odd stretching of her lips. “That’s very sweet of you, dear. But you know we can’t do that. You have a busy schedule, and you have other obligations. You just let me worry about money.”
“But
what if I’d really like to get a job?” I asked. “It would be such a good experience for me, and I’d probably make all sorts of business connections.” I knew that was one point she would like. Mother prided herself on all the people she knew.
That wasn’t enough, though. “Absolutely not. Let’s say you go get a job as a waitress. You’ll have men pinching your ass and staring down your shirt. And don’t think it’s any better if you work in an office. No, Bambi. There are too many awful people out there, and I can’t let you go out alone.”
She wouldn’t even let me go to the parade rehearsal by myself. I didn’t need her assistance. I had been to the Peach Festival Grand Parade every single year for as far back as I could remember, and I didn’t even need the committee members to tell me what to do or where to go. It wasn’t as though it was difficult to meet my driver at the right time and place, and then just smile and wave as we drove through downtown. Still, it was a big deal for our little town, and everyone was crowded into the community center to go over the details that afternoon.