by Jolie Day
“Lucy, I’m a journalist, not a -”
“A journalist?” Lucy scoffed. “No, my dear. You’re a long way off from a journalist. You’re an employee of The Darton Herald and you’re no grander than the rest of us just because you’ve got a degree or did a writing course, or whatever you’ve done to make yourself feel so high-and-mighty. Take a week writing the puzzles and then come back to me when you’ve decided whether or not you are willing to represent the values of the paper and not your own.”
“You mean yours?”
“You’re treading a fine line, Georgina. Careful.”
Georgie scowled, but pursed her lips and headed back to her desk. She was fuming. She didn’t understand how it was all right for Lucy to use the paper to spout her own conservative, archaic nonsensical rants, but a reasoned review from a levelheaded person was out of the question. Now she was stuck making crosswords, which was not journalism. But, then again, none of this was. Of course Georgie knew this and if she’d been a bit braver or more determined, perhaps she’d have ventured off to one of those great big media capitals of the world like New York and tried to make a living as a real reporter, but she felt like she was past all that now. Journalism was a dog-eat-dog profession and she felt too old at twenty-seven to be fighting in the dog pen. It seemed like she was doomed to a career of putting forward mumsy, middle-aged views for the rest of her life.
She let her mind wander to Charlie as she thought up clues for the crossword and it was the first thing all day to bring a smile to her face. There’d been nothing mumsy about her last night! No, she’d felt awakened, sexual, alive. It made her a little breathless, even now, to think about. Sure, she was surrounded by the scornful middle-aged, but only last night she’d had her legs wrapped around the body of a virile and passionate biker...
4/DOWN: The feeling of complete physical bliss at the climax of sexual activity. (6 letters)
Georgie began to giggle at the naughty clue and wondered if Lucy would have anything to say about that the next day. Her little act of rebellion cheered her up a little, as well as the knowledge that Charlie would be waiting for her at the bar that night.
She wore a skin-tight black dress, which showed off every one of her full curves and her large breasts. It was the sort of outfit her mother would have said a girl of her size shouldn’t have worn, but Georgie felt fantastic, and as soon as she saw Charlie’s eyes light up when she walked in the bar that night, she knew that he thought she looked pretty amazing too. He bought her a drink and they sat down at the bar. Today the biker was wearing denim jeans and his usual leather jacket. When they were seated, he looked at her with eager, waiting eyes.
“You look stressed. Your little act of rebellion didn’t go down well at the office?”
Georgie rolled her eyes. “I’m meant to represent the values of the paper and not my own. Lucy’s paper, Lucy’s views.”
“You should quit.”
The crossword writer let out a loud derisive laugh. “Unlike you, I’ve got rent to pay.”
“I’m serious, Georgie. Life’s too short to play other people’s games. I’ve not known you long, but I can tell that you’re a big fish in these small waters. Your mind’s too open to be stuck in a close-minded town like this.”
Georgie let out a long, wistful sigh and gave a little shrug. “Maybe you’re right, but journalism is a young woman’s game. To be honest, I’d just be happy to be writing for myself instead of someone else. If it’s going to be my name at the end of the article, I at least want it to be my opinion.”
“How about a blog?”
“A blog?”
“Yeah. You know, an online diary or whatever it is. Get the real you out there.”
“Yeah? And who would read my blog?”
“Let me give you something to write about and we’ll see.”
“That sounds like an invitation.”
“Come with me.”
The two left the bar and Charlie led her around back to where his bike was parked up in a row with all the other visiting bikers. It was a sleek, red beast with black handlebars and a gleaming silver frame. It was meticulously cleaned and there was a helmet hanging from each handlebar. He handed one to her.
“Ever been for a ride on a bike like this before?”
Georgie laughed again and looked at the helmet critically. “You want me to go for a ride with you? I’m wearing heels, Charlie!”
“So you’ll look damn hot as my passenger. Look, you’ve had a hard day and there’s an open road out there waiting for us. Just get on and I’ll show you what you’re missing.”
He set his deep blue eyes on her and that ready grin began to issue her with a challenge that she couldn’t ignore. Georgie accepted his outstretched hand and he helped her climb onto the machine. She’d never ridden on a motorbike before, but she instantly felt at home on the leather seat and as soon as her arms closed around the firm waist of the rider, she felt a thrill, which began deep in her stomach, start to spread through her body.
Then, they were off. Georgie loved every second of the ride. She loved the sound and feel of the wind whipping past her and the vibrations of the road travelling up her thighs. She loved moving in time with Charlie to tackle a tight bend and the way that a rough spot in the road would send her flying half-a-foot in the air so that she had to grip onto him more tightly and squeeze her legs against his hips.
She could understand why Charlie loved this so much. She could understand why he could scorn her safe little life. This was pure freedom.
They rode for about an hour and by the time that they returned to the bar, Georgie’s face was flushed from the wind and her heart was racing from the adrenaline. She felt so sexy when Charlie took off his helmet and then held out his hand to her to lead her back inside. Yet, inside the bar, an atmosphere was building and Mickey was furious. He stormed towards Georgie when he saw her and thrust a local paper into her chest.
“What is this?” he growled. “I let you in here and give up my time to talk to you and make you feel at home and you print this shit about me? You’ve picked the wrong crowd to cause trouble with, little girl.”
“Woah, woah! Mickey!” Charlie intervened, stepping between a shocked Georgie and the bar owner. “What’s this all about?”
“That little slut has badmouthed us in the paper.”
“Let me see.”
Charlie took the paper from Georgie, who was trembling in shock from being berated by the kindly old bartender and began to read. He threw the paper down on the bar and pointed forcefully at the name of the writer.
“Jack Tenson. Get your facts straight, Mickey. I think you owe this young lady an apology.”
“I don’t know who this Jack fella is, but she’s the one who was poking her nose around here with a recorder. Have you read this?” Mickey picked up the paper and began to read. “The atmosphere at Mickey’s Den is, quite frankly, threatening. The gathering of strangers in leather, gathering together to drink and disturb the peace with loud music and motorbike engines is detrimental to the peace of our quiet town and The Darton Herald can do nothing but frown upon the intrusion of gang-life into our family community. Gang life? What is this shit, Georgie? I ran a bar with my wife back in Colorado for twelve years before she died. My kids helped out. We were a family establishment. I go on the road for a few years and now I get this? You don’t know me. You and your team of petty little gossip mongerers are scum and you’re not welcome here.”
“Calm down, Mickey,” Charlie warned. The bar owner was getting more and more enraged and his skin was starting to flush and his grey moustache bristle with temper. Several of the punters had risen to their feet in preparation for the fight that was brewing.
“Calm down?” Mickey spat. “That’s some loyalty there, isn’t it? You’d turn you back on someone who’s looked out for you just because some little whore took you home?”
Charlie’s punch came from nowhere and sent Mickey reeling into the bar, holding his ja
w. The bar owner recovered and threw himself at Charlie to get his revenge. Before Georgie knew what was happening, the bar had erupted into a full-scale brawl and she could hear sirens in the distance. She bet that it was Wendy who had called the police. Tears began to spring to her eyes as she saw fists fly and voices raised all because she’d stepped into the bar. Suddenly Charlie grabbed her hand and led her away from the brawl. He was bleeding from a cut above his eye and his face was fixed in a firm and threatening scowl.
They were just about out of the bar when they were stopped by a biker named Jimmy, who was a man in his early forties with prematurely graying brown hair and narrow eyes. He held Charlie back by the arm and gave him a slightly threatening warning.
“You’d do better to stick with your own, boy. She’s trouble for us.”
Charlie said nothing, but met the other biker’s eyes with a firm glare of his own and shrugged him off. Georgie raced to keep up with him as he headed towards his bike and threw the helmet her way. She put it on and climbed on and they sped away from the chaos.
She didn’t enjoy the ride so much now that her heart was thumping with the panic of what had just occurred and she wrapped her arms tightly around Charlie’s middle for comfort as much as safety. He came to a stop at a lookout point on the outskirts to the East of the town and pulled up his bike next to a bench that overlooked the valley where the small town lay. When he took off his helmet, Georgie could see how stressed he was and she reached out to give his gloved hand a comforting squeeze.
“I’m so sorry, Charlie.”
“It wasn’t your fault, doll. Mickey’s a good guy, but he’s got a temper.”
“I thought you said he was the nicest guy around.”
“Oh, he is, but he won’t be walked all over by anyone. He’d give the shirt off his back for a friend or his last cent, but he won’t lie down when someone steps up to challenge him. He won’t let this go.”
“I should have done more,” Georgie said guiltily. “I should have stopped any article being published. I’m really sorry.”
“Hey, you don’t owe us anything, baby girl. You risked your job to stand your ground over this. It’s that Jack who’s the coward. I swear, if I ever get my hands on him...”
“Don’t do anything crazy, Charlie.”
He was starting to scare her a little now. The Charlie that Georgie had known so far was cool, levelheaded and just the right amount of cocky. Now he was fuming and she imagined that it was more because he’d had a fight with a friend than because of anything published in the paper.
“Have you thrown a punch at Mickey before?”
Charlie let out a little laugh. “No. But he’s thrown one or two at me. Sometimes it’s the easiest way to clear the air. He’ll get over it. We’re family.”
“You were sticking up for me, weren’t you? That was really sweet.”
Charlie had been standing with his hands in his pocket and overlooking the dim and twinkling lights of the town nestled in the valley below them, but he turned around when she said that, gave her a warm smile and came to plant a heavy kiss on her lips.
“Nobody calls my girl a whore.”
“Your girl?” Georgie half-laughed. “You’ll be gone in a day.”
“You should come with me.”
“And what would I do on the back of a bike? I’ve got no savings. I’ve got a home full of things. I can’t just take off. I’ve got commitments. Besides, we hardly know each other.”
“You worry too much, Georgie. Sometimes the best way to solve an argument is to throw a punch and sometimes the best way to change your life is to take it in a completely different direction. All that other stuff is just fine print. What matters is what you want.”
“I want to knock Jack over on his smug ass.”
Charlie laughed again and sighed as he looked out over the view. “It’s gonna be chaos tomorrow. Those guys won’t be best pleased if there are arrests. Lucy’s gonna bring war to Darton.”
*****
The police had made three arrests that night and from what Georgie had heard, the bikers weren’t happy, although Lucy was on a cloud of self-satisfied glee.
“I told you they were scum!” she gloated. “I bet you feel foolish now, don’t you Georgina? Poor girl, defending those men...I suppose you weren’t to know any better. You are young after all. How are those crosswords coming along?”
Suddenly, Georgie felt herself boil over with rage and she just snapped. She felt like flipping over her table and stamping on the silly triangular toes of Lucy’s silly, dumpy court shoes, but instead she managed to refrain from any such acts of violence and simply picked up her bag and her laptop with a disdainful shake of her head.
“You know what, Lucy? I’ve had enough of this. I quit.”
“Don’t be silly, Georgina. Sit back down.”
“I’m serious, Lucy. You’re aggressive, narrow-minded, condescending and rude and I’m not putting up with it anymore. You’ve had me running through hoops for months with the promise of a promotion I can see I’m never going to get and this whole thing over Mickey’s was just an excuse to kick me back down. Enjoy your little paper. I’ve got better things to do.”
Georgie had barely stepped out the door of the office before she began to regret what she’d just done and wonder if she should go back in and grovel for another chance. No. It was too late for that now. The delicious feeling of seeing Lucy silenced was worth the months of hopeless job-hunting ahead. Georgie didn’t want to spend another day of her life feeling undervalued and pigeonholed by a woman that, frankly, she couldn’t stand. She allowed a grin to grow on her face as she strolled away down the corridor after her first and only dramatic quitting speech and returned home, where she opened up her computer and put Charlie’s advice into play.
But what to call her blog? Georgina’s Life. No, dull. Goodbye, old Georgina! What does that even mean? Hmm. She thought long and hard and then finally typed out Georgie’s Journey and smiled at the curly letters spread out at the header of the webpage. Then she sat in uncertain silence and let her fingers hover over the keyboard with writer’s block making her unable to get her words out. She’d waited all this time to write for herself and now felt like she had nothing to say! Think, Georgie, think! What really got her going? Georgie could only think of one thing and she began to write.
...When I first met Charlie Turner in a newly-opened biker bar in a small Southern town, I had no idea that a week later I’d be quitting my job and dreaming of the open road...
Her grin spread across her face as all the events of the last week spilled out, from how she’d felt wearing her heels and tight pants, to when she’d first been invited to interview the charming biker, to a one-night stand she’d told herself she’d earned to the brawl in the bar. She finished with this sentence:
...So now here I am; unemployed and more than a little lost. But you know what? I feel more in control than I ever have, because this is my life and I’m finally writing with my own voice.
BEEP! What was that? Georgie let out a little laugh of delight when she realized that the beeping coming from her computer was the sound of a new subscriber and then another and one more. Georgie didn’t want to get carried away by relishing too much in the joy of three new followers and decided instead to seek out Charlie, who’d told her that he was staying with Mickey over on River Street.
When she arrived there, she was relieved to find the biker sitting out on the wall, inhaling from a cigarette, which he quickly put out when he saw her approaching.
“Well, if it isn’t the little hell raiser,” he teased. “Come to cause more trouble?”
“Don’t!” Georgie moaned. “I feel bad enough as it is.”
She came and sat on the wall beside Charlie and looked nervously over her shoulder back at Mickey’s house.
“Don’t worry. He’s out.”
“Is he still mad?”
Charlie gave a short nod. “He knows how to hold a grudge, alright.”
“Did you fight again?”
“I’ve stayed away as much as possible. He still thinks you’re behind that article.”
Georgie sighed heavily. “I’m really sorry it blew up like that.”
“It’s not your fault,” Charlie reiterated, but he let out a heavy sigh. “That woman better back off though. I’ve not seen Mickey that angry in a long, long time.”
“What do you think he’ll do?”
“Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.”
“What about the others who were arrested?”
“They were out this morning. Tomorrow the gang’s moving on again. We’ll all leave and hopefully when we’re not around, Mickey will realize he’s outnumbered and not do anything stupid.”
“Hopefully.”
“Shouldn’t you be at work now?” Charlie said suddenly, realizing it was the middle of the day.
Georgie shrugged and then caught Charlie’s eyes with a determined and slightly haughty expression. “I quit the damn thing.”
Charlie laughed in delight. “Are you kidding me? You go, doll! What’re you gonna do now?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure I’ll figure something out.”
“You know, I’m leaving tomorrow with the rest of the guys.”
“That figures.”
“You’re getting me wrong, Georgie. That was an invitation.”
“An invitation? Just because I lost my job, it doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly free to get on the back of a bike and take off!”
“Why? What else have you got to stick around for?”
Georgina thought about it and a little flame of defiance began to dance inside of her. Charlie was right. What did she really have to stick around for? A small smile spread across her face.
“When do we go?”
*****
Packing up her life into one small backpack was something Georgie never thought that she would do, but as she folded another shirt on top of the pile, she couldn’t help but feel another shiver of excitement run up and down her spine. She closed the lid of her suitcase and opened up her laptop to write another blog post. Overnight she’d already gained several new followers, but she knew she’d have to work hard to get any real readership, but who knows? Maybe people had a soft spot for an underdog letting go.