by Meg Jackson
“Fuck,” I screamed out, hearing the word pierce the warm, still air of my bedroom, and released a flood of juices over his fingers, my clit standing straight like a soldier, my body shuddering as all the built-up tension melted away in a flood of delight, like sand running with the tide. My hips arched upwards as his fingers moved away, his tongue taking their place, tasting my juices, lapping at them like water.
I moaned as Boon pulled away, my grip on his head relaxed, my thighs falling open in weak surrender. He began to crawl over me, grabbing my hands along the way and pulling them over my head. I smiled dazedly up at him, still reeling from the orgasm. And that’s when we heard it.
It was distant, but not very distant, maybe three blocks away. A roar of many engines. At first, I didn’t think anything of it, but I reacted when Boon’s body stiffened above me, his head snapping to the window.
He quickly jumped off the bed and ran towards the window, pushing the curtains to the side. The roar grew nearer, louder, bearing down on us. The volume increased every second, eventually ripping through the air violently, assaulting our ears. Boon turned to me, his face almost comedic in its panic, eyes wide and shaking. I saw where the curtains were trembling from his grip. I sat up, my heart beating hard now.
“What is it?” I asked, desperate for Boon to say something, anything, to make me feel better about what I was hearing, seeing.
“Tell me your dad owns a motorcycle,” Boon said, his voice a rough whisper. I shook my head, biting my lip. “Shit! Shit, shit, shit!”
“What is it? What’s going on?” I said, ideas forming in my mind: bad ideas, really bad ideas. Boon backed away from the window and began to pace as the roar grew even louder. And then stopped. The silence was as loud as the motors have been. Boon glanced at the window, shut his eyes, mouthed some words. I jumped up, rushing to where he stood, grabbing him by the arm and turning him to me.
“Boon, tell me what’s going on,” I said, trying to meet his eyes.
“He found me. He came. He’s here,” Boon said. He sounded like a little boy, and that scared me more than anything else.
“Who?” I asked, already knowing the answer, and feeling my stomach drop through the floor.
“My father.”
Part III
24
You thought you hit snooze, but you actually turned your alarm clock off. You’re late now, and you didn’t do laundry when you should have, so the only clean underwear you have has a big hole in it. You can’t find any shoes that match. You brush too hard and cut your gums, and you don’t have any time to get your hair to look decent, so you just put it in a bun.
You’re halfway out the door when you realize you don’t have your keys, and you don’t know where they are. Two minutes later, you find them on top of the toaster. Why are your keys on top of the toaster, goddammit? You get to the car and the engine won’t turn. You lean your head against the wheel and think: my life is a mess, my life is falling apart.
Well, take it from me, that’s a rough morning, but your life isn’t a mess, and it’s not falling apart. Your life is probably just peachy. You don’t get to think that your life is falling apart until your biker boyfriend follows you home from Vegas, gets held at gunpoint by your dad, then admits that he’s trying to escape his own father, who just arrived at your doorstep with a horde of scary men on rumbling motorcycles. That’s when you really get to say “my life is a mess”.
Yes, when you look back from your bedroom window, out of which you can see the gang of men on their bikes, and see your crumpled panties on the floor, where the boy who shouldn’t even be in your room threw them, and realize that you’re irreversibly screwed on pretty much all accounts, then you get to think to yourself: my life is a mess, my life is falling apart.
Because at that point, it will be true.
25
“What are we gonna do? Boon, what are we gonna do? Holy shit, holy shit, I have to call my dad, I have to call the police, we gotta….” I said, panic hitting me like a champion heavyweight. Blood was pounding in my ears, making the whole world sound muted, muffled. My hands were shaking; hell, my whole body was shaking. I could barely focus on Boon’s figure at the window, his face pale. He turned to me and I felt his strong grip on my wrist; next thing I knew, we were running down the stairs and towards the back of the house.
“Boon, wait, stop, my dad, my phone, we…”
“No time! There’s no fucking time, Samantha! They’re not here to fucking negotiate, they’re here to fuck us up!” Boon said, propelling me through the house at a neck-breaking speed. We reached the glass doors that led to the backyard and I thought, foolishly, that Boon was going to run straight through them. He stopped and fumbled with the handle. It was locked, but in his panic Boon was just pulling at it.
“Wait,” I said, moving in front of him and unlocking the door, letting it slide open. I turned to him, blocking the exit, clarity starting to bleed into my frenzied thoughts. “We need to stop and call someone. We can’t outrun them or…”
“Samantha, I swear to God, if you never trusted me before, you need to trust me now. There’s no time.” I heard knocking on the front door: a very, very, very loud and violent knocking. “You don’t know my father. Now we have to GO!”
With that, he grabbed my hand again, pushing past me into the backyard, dragging me along the manicured lawn as I stared back into my house, hearing the knocking become a banging. This is a safe neighborhood, I thought to myself, vaguely, as Boon pulled me through the backyard. They can’t hurt me here. They can’t hurt us in my home.
Just as Boon was pulling me through the hedges that acted as a fence around our backyard, I saw shadowy figures in the hallway, rushing towards us. And then we were in the next yard over, my heart racing, my mind still foggy, Boon still pulling me along. I couldn’t see the house anymore after that.
“Jesus, Samantha, you gotta hurry up, baby, please,” he said, his voice desperate and fast. I turned back, facing forward now and trying to walk as quickly as Boon was dragging me. We came out the other side of my neighbor’s house; the street here seemed so quiet, so still and normal. But Boon kept pulling me away.
He led me across the street to a car, grabbing the handle and pushing me towards the front.
“Get in on the other side,” he said; the driver’s door must have been unlocked, because he slid into the front seat and leaned over, unlocking the passenger side. I stood in front of the car, looking at him incredulously.
“I’m not going to get into a stolen car with you,” I said, loudly.
“Well, consider it borrowing, then, Samantha, but get the fuck in,” Boon said before his head disappeared; he was leaning under the steering wheel, presumably preparing to hotwire the car. I slammed my hands down on the hood. His head jerked back up.
“I’m. Not. Stealing. A. Car. We just have to go into any of these houses, someone will be home and we can call the cops,” I said.
“The cops? Samantha, my dad eats cops for breakfast. And anything they can pin on him, they can pin on me. I can’t call the cops on them, Samantha, I just can’t. They’ll gang up and it’ll be my ass in a cell for seventy years. Please, please, just get in the car,” Boon said, leaning out of the window and looking at me with a mix of fear and determination in his eyes.
I turned back to the house whose yard we had just cut through and nearly pissed myself when I saw motion in the hedges; a tall, leather-clad figure emerged, running across the lawn, and my mind was made up. There really wasn’t time to go door-to-door looking for help. I raced across the car to the passenger side and threw myself in, locking the door.
“Go, go, go,” I screamed. Boon held a bundle of wires in his hand and I watched him match some up; the engine roared to life and Boon grabbed the wheel, one foot pressed against the pedal. We skidded off down the street and, turning around, I saw one, two, three, five, seven huge figures run out into the street after us. We skidded around a corner, then another; I had no idea
where we were going and neither, presumably, did Boon.
“Where are we going?” I asked, my breath shallow, adrenaline coursing through me.
“Somewhere safe. Any ideas? This is your town, where can we go?” Boon said, glancing at me quickly. His knuckles were white from clutching the steering wheel, his eyes dancing between the road and me. My mind was racing, but it seemed like I was thinking in gibberish. Nothing really made any sense. I felt tears begin to roll down my face.
I thought, suddenly, inexplicably, that I wished I’d been wearing panties. They were still balled up on my bedroom floor. In my house. Which had been broken into. And probably trashed. Maybe they were in my room right now, tearing my curtains, breaking my picture frames, going through my clothes, they’d see my panties right there on the ground…
The tears began to turn to sobs as my poor little brain began to process the last five minutes. Those five minutes, when I looked back on them, felt like hours.
“Samantha! Focus! Where can we go? There has to be somewhere!” Boon yelled, reaching out one hand and grabbing my shoulder, squeezing it. Despite everything else, the weight of his hand on me felt calming, sturdy. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes.
My first thought was my aunt’s farmhouse, where my cow and chickens lived, but if the club had been able to find my address, they could certainly find my aunt’s house.
“The Clamhouse,” I suddenly said, speaking even before the thought was fully formed in my head. “We can go to the Clamhouse.”
“Okay, okay, what is that, and where is it?” Boon said, squeezing my shoulder again. The Clamhouse was what we all called an abandoned farmhouse on the outskirts of town. It was a place where people would sometimes throw parties or bonfires. The origins of the name were murky, but it was common belief that it was called “the Clamhouse” because it was someplace boys took their girlfriends to have sex. In a fairly conservative town where you couldn’t get a hotel room if you were under 18 and most fathers had shotguns locked in their desk, sometimes you needed someplace to get a little privacy.
Of course, I’d never been taken to the Clamhouse for anything other than a post-football game party, but I knew there were mattresses and blankets and things inside, and that it would be – probably – the best place to hide out. We were driving aimlessly, and quickly, through my neighborhood. I tried to make my brain work enough to figure out the directions.
“Take a left here,” I said, knowing that we needed to get on the highway. Boon followed my directions and soon we were zooming through the city, headed towards the country. I looked out the window (the stolen window) and felt tears returning, pressing against the backs of my eyes.
“I need to call my parents,” I whispered, turning to Boon. “This is bad. I stole a car and…and…”
“You didn’t steal a car, I stole a car,” Boon said, not making eye contact.
“Well, then I assisted you in stealing a car,” I snapped back, my nerves raw. “And my dad is the goddam sheriff, and I’m about to start college, and…and…shit!”
“I know, Samantha, I know. Don’t you think I feel guilty enough? Goddammit, I knew I shouldn’t have done this….I shouldn’t have come here! I’m such a fuck up! And now I’ve got you involved…” He slammed his hands against the steering wheel, his shoulders practically next to his ears with all the tension in his body.
I softened, realizing he was just as unhappy about the situation as I was. And, frankly, he had a lot more to lose; I wasn’t going to get in real trouble, but if Boon got involved with the law…I didn’t know exactly how many skeletons he had in his closet, but I imagined there were quite a few. Reaching out, I gripped one of his hands in mine. His shoulders slowly began to fall, his breathing getting even.
“It’s okay, Boon. You’re not…it’s going to be okay. I mean, this is bad, yeah, I mean…really bad. But it’s not your fault. I don’t…I don’t blame you. But…” I trailed off, knowing exactly what I wanted to say but also knowing that saying it would only make Boon angry again.
I still wanted to go to the cops. It might be risky for Boon, but I thought it was a much better option than trying to hide away at the Clamhouse for who knows how long. I mean, it’s not like the gang was just going to give up so quickly. They’d found him once, and they’d find him again. So what, really, was the point in hiding?
I considered, for a moment, giving Boon the wrong directions. I could lead him straight to my father’s office. He would have left for the day by then, but everyone there knew me, they’d all want to help.
It was this thought that brought to my attention something I hadn’t considered before in the frenzy of our escape: my parents. They should be getting home right about now, maybe a little bit later. Would the whole club be there, waiting for them? They’d come home and see the front door broken in and…
and a tribe of murderous biker dudes in their living room, I thought, the idea bringing a new batch of panic to my heart. If Dad got home first, it might be okay, but Mom…but they’d have to see all the bikes out front and know better than to go inside, right? I mean, they weren’t stupid. But what if they hid the bikes? What if Dad decided to be a hero? What if…
“We have to go back. Or to the police,” I said, backtracking on the comfort I’d just tried to provide Boon. There wasn’t time for comfort. I had to get back to my parents. I had to let them know I was okay, and go straight to the police.
“Dammit, Samantha, we can’t!” Boon said, as rigid and stressed as ever. He sped up slightly on the highway.
“But my parents!”
“They’ll be fine on their own, Samantha! They’re adults. I mean, your dad is the damn sheriff! He’ll have the police there in a heartbeat, and it’ll all be over soon, and then we can come back. I swear, Samantha, just trust me on this,” he said, clearly trying to sound calm in a categorically un-calm situation. I shook my head at him, wide-eyed.
“What the hell are you talking about? Then let’s just go to the police station! I mean, if they’re going to get involved anyway…”
“Samantha, I can’t go to the police, okay? I mean, first off, you’re right, this is a stolen fucking car. And second off, I don’t want to rot in a jail cell for the rest of my life. Trust me, these guys are slick, they have ways of throwing you under the bus when they need to. If anyone found out it was me…well, I’m pretty fucked as it is, but I’d just be more fucked after that.”
I leaned back in my seat, closing my eyes and trying to still my racing heart. I needed a minute. I needed an hour. Several hours. I needed to think. Everything Boon was saying made sense…sort of. In some ways, he was right. In other ways, I didn’t think he could be more wrong. Opening my eyes again, I saw we were nearing the exit that led to the Clamhouse. Or, I could let him drive a few more miles down and turn off at the section of town where the police headquarters were…
“You want the next exit,” I muttered, barely loud enough to be heard. After everything, I figured I could at least give Boon the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he really did know what he was doing. Maybe if we just hid out there for a few hours, a day at most, we could come home and his dad would be in jail and it would all be behind us…maybe we could explain the car...return it to the owners…it was kind of a life-or-death situation, after all, and as long as we brought it back…
And, I mean, my father was the sheriff. It wasn’t like you could just break into the sheriff’s house and not have every cop in a hundred-mile radius on your tail. And Dad wouldn’t play the hero, I knew. I hoped. And Mom would see the bikes and just drive right on by and call the police herself and…
I looked at Boon, studying his profile. Is he worth all this shit? The thought surprised me. Of course, he wasn’t, really, was he? I mean, he was a great bed buddy, and I still found myself consumed by desire for him, and he was really funny and smart, and the way he looked at me sometimes made me feel so…so precious. Cared for. Understood. But was he worth grand theft auto, and a gang of marau
ding bikers chasing you?
Was any boy worth that?
Alicia would say that he absolutely was worth it, and that once this all blew over it would make a fantastic story. She’d probably enjoy it while it was happening, anyway. She’d love to be speeding down the road in a stolen car with a heartthrob like Boon, on the run. Becky, of course, would slap me across the face and drag me home by my ear. I sighed. I wished they were in the backseat. I wished I could just call them. I thought of my phone sitting on the kitchen counter, where I’d left it.
Panic gripped my heart again. If those guys found it…it had all my contact info inside, including Becky and Alicia’s numbers and addresses. What if they went after them? The more I thought of all the things that could possibly happen, the more I felt my heart crawling up towards my throat, anxiety flooding my nerves. I was shaking again.
Boon looked over at me, and noticed how my hands were trembling. He slowed the car and placed one hand over mine. It was so big compared to my little hands…it felt safe, but in my mind I had to wonder how safe I could really be. I mean, Boon was clearly as afraid of his father as I was…if not more.
“I’m sorry, Samantha. I’m so sorry. I never wanted to drag you into this. I…fuck! I’ll never have a single goddam good thing. He’ll make sure of it. Until he’s buried in the ground, he’ll never let me have anything good,” Boon said, his grip on my hand tightening. “You don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve you.”
The car was slowing more and more as he spoke.
“Don’t stop, Boon. Let’s just get there and get safe and we can figure it out,” I said, looking at him in the rearview mirror. He looked pained. Genuinely hurt. I knew I cared about him, then, because I would have done or said anything to take that look off his face. It hurt me to see.