by Bijou Hunter
“You don’t want me to dance for you?” she asked, looking hurt as I removed the hot water bottle.
“I know a way to soothe you.”
“No,” she said, but then felt silent as I gently sucked at her swollen lips. “Okay, that works.”
“I’d like to see you dance, Raven,” I said, licking her tender clit. “A lap dance too.”
“If this is how you tip, you can have as many lap dances as your cock can handle.”
“Shh, I’m trying to concentrate on fixing what I broke.”
Raven wanted to say something smartass. I saw the look in her eyes and the bitchy response was on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she just smiled and closed her eyes. I savored the sweet taste of her until she whimpered my name like I alone offered her salvation.
As tender as she was and as tense as I was, Raven didn’t disappoint with her striptease. Disappearing into the bedroom, she dressed in something skimpy and found the right song.
With Raven away from me, my mind wandered to my mother. I realized I never asked if she was happy with Ted. All those years after they got together and I was on my own, I would see her a few times a week. We’d talk about things, but I never thought to ask if she was really happy with him. Did she stay because she loved him and their life together? Or did she have no choice?
I never saw any unhappiness on her face, but my mom wore a mask all of those years I was growing up. She never showed her loneliness or disappointment at life. She looked happy then too. Now, I would never know if she was truly happy the last decade with Ted.
I’m Only Happy When It Rains began to play as Raven appeared from the bedroom. She wiggled her butt for me as one strap on her pink babydoll slid off an even pinker shoulder. Sitting on the couch, I admired her swinging hips and the coy smile she gave me as the second strap came off.
As beautiful as she looked, I felt a growing anger in my gut. By the time she flashed a nipple at me, I was pissed. Raven didn’t notice right away. Dancing for me, she moved closer and closer sliding across my lap.
How many men saw this dance? How many got hard looking at her perfect tits and those perky nipples? Did they stick cash in her panties? Did they feel her against their cocks like I did right then? The fuckers were out there, knowing her body in a way only I should know it.
“Why are you breathing like that?” she asked as her ass stopped wiggling on my lap. “You sound like an angry dog or maybe like you need to puke.”
“Just thinking about all the guys who got off like you’re getting me off now.”
Raven’s eyes narrowed. “What about all those girls who felt your hard cock pressed up against their butt like you’re pressed it against me? Should I start breathing weird over them?”
Even unsure why I was so angry, the rage ate me up. Raven was mine and no one should know her like I did. I wanted to hunt every guy down and kill them. Only then, could I really claim her.
“Idiot,” she muttered, pulling up the straps. “The slut is calling me a slut.”
“Good thing your skin is so tender or I’d smack your ass and fuck you until you can’t stand. I’d make sure you’d remember no one but me.”
“Bring it, bitch,” she hissed, leaning forward with her hands on my shoulders. “I’m not scared of you and your jealous crap. Loser weenie dipshit.”
Glaring at her, I took hold of the babydoll and planned to tear it off of her. The material was soft though, just like Raven. Even with her snarling at me, I knew she was in pain from the sunburn. Restraining my urge to lose control, I let go of the babydoll. We glared at one another until the phone rang. In that moment, all of my anger shifted into cold dread at hearing the news from Tucson.
Before I reached it, Raven grabbed the phone and answered.
“Hello,” she said, running away from me.
Based on her expression, I knew Caleb was on the other line.
Her jaw clenched and eyes darkened. “He’s not available. What do you want?”
After a moment, her gaze hardened even more. “I’m his secretary. Tell me what you want and I’ll pass the message along.”
Raven’s gaze met mine as she listened to Caleb. After a minute, she grunted and hung up. We stared at one another for a long time. Her irritated gaze slowly shifted into a softer, sadder expression.
“I’m sorry I called you a loser weenie dipshit.”
“She’s gone,” I said, letting the idea swirl in my head. “What did he say exactly?”
“She passed away a few minutes before he called.”
Standing up, I walked to where Raven stood looking brokenhearted. I hugged her against me and caressed her hair.
“What else did he say?”
Raven nuzzled my chest then forced out the words she didn’t want me to hear. “He said her funeral will be in two days. If you come to Tucson, they’ll let you say goodbye before they kill you.”
I was relieved to have Raven with me. If I’d been on my own, I would consider going to Tucson. I would consider all sorts of stupid shit, but she needed me. As her big blue eyes watched me, I saw how much she needed me to stay.
“It’s not your fault,” she whispered.
“I never told her goodbye. I tried to get hold of her all these years, but Ted wouldn’t let us talk.”
“I’m sure it was because she would say she loved you and didn’t want you to come back. She was probably proud of you for saving Harlow.”
Just hearing that name tensed me. “What do you know about Harlow?”
“Bailey said you showed up here with her and that you’d saved her. She didn’t know anything else.”
Nodding again, I exhaled unsteadily. “I fucked up that night. If I had done things different, I wouldn’t be a marked man. Harlow would be safe. I could have said goodbye to my mom. I’m no hero, Raven. I fucked up and caused all my problems.”
Raven said nothing as she pulled away and disappeared into her bedroom. I stared at where she’d been and thought about my mom. Whether she was happy or not all those years with Ted, she was at peace now. We never went to church, but she would pray and light candles for special occasions. Mom believed in God and Heaven, so I decided to believe in them too. She was safe now.
She might even be looking down at me and knowing I loved and missed her. She understood me. I had doubted the last few days if she hated me like Ted did. Somehow, Mom never seemed clearer in my mind than at that moment. I saw how she never stopped thinking of me as her little boy. She knew I loved her.
Raven returned wearing a loose shirt and sweat shorts. I liked that she had changed, realizing I didn’t want lap dances or blowjobs. I wanted her to really see me.
We sat on the couch with her legs crossed while facing me. She took my hand and I knew she was genuinely sad. Raven wasn’t the pretty girl pretending for my sake because she wanted to fuck me. My pain was her pain. I didn’t need to kill every guy who ever saw her naked to make her mine. She already was.
“Will you tell me what happened with Harlow?” she asked after a few minutes of silence.
“I’m not a hero, Raven. I know you want to see me as a good man. I’m a killer though. I do ugly things and I do them without caring. Harlow was the exception, not the rule.”
“I understand,” she said, scooting closer. “I don’t want you to hide anymore. I’ll listen to what you say and not hear what I want. I’ll hear the truth.”
Caressing her cheek, I forced a smile. “You won’t like the truth.”
“I don’t like a lot of things about you, but I still like you.”
Smiling wider, I sighed. “Okay, but I warned you.
Raven kissed my hand as if to say she was ready for whatever ugliness I showed her.
“When my mom hooked up with Ted, the club became our life. I was nearly eighteen and already pretty big. Ted didn’t think of me as his son. He just wanted to keep me busy, so he made me an enforcer, doing mostly little stuff. Rough up shop owners and people who owed the Devils money. I wor
ked with a guy named Stinky. I never knew what his real name was, but Stinky noticed how I didn’t react when people would cry and beg. He told Ted I’d be a good cleaner and could handle the ugly stuff. Stinky was right too. I’d show up at some idiot’s place and his wife and kids would cry and I would ignore it. I could block out all that noise and focus on my job. Not a lot of men can ignore crying kids, but I could.”
I waited for Raven to react, but she just watched me in the same way she’d been watching me since the phone call.
“A guy in the club that I cleaned up for a lot was called Playboy. He was a pussy magnet in his youth. As he got older, his tastes stayed young. Those younger girls would get pretty wasted to endure his shit. A few months before Harlow, I cleaned up a dead hooker killed during rough play and a runaway who OD’d. I dumped the body for the first and got the second one to a clinic who wouldn’t ask questions. It wasn’t pretty work, but my job isn’t for the feeling type. It’s why not anyone could be a cleaner. You had to do ugly shit and do it without blinking. I always had a way of turning off my heart.
“I really didn’t care either. Things changed in a weird way when Mom married Ted and I didn’t feel like me anymore. It was easy being a cleaner like that until the night with Harlow.”
My cell rang again, but Raven set it to mute. “It’s the fuckwad calling to be a fuckwad again. We’re pretending again it’s just you and me. Nothing outside this apartment can hurt us.”
Smiling softly, I ran a finger over her bruised knuckles. “Harlow had a normal enough life, I guess. Then, her dad died and her mom went over her rocker and started drinking and doping. The kids ended up living with Playboy’s old lady. She was the husband’s sister or cousin. I don’t know. It was something I heard and didn’t care about. I never thought Harlow or her siblings would mean shit to me.”
Glancing around the room, I hated taking Raven with me into my dark memories. She was bruised and battered enough without my shit dumped on her. Of course, I knew she wouldn’t let me stop.
“One night, Playboy called and said he has a mess that needed cleaning. When I got there, he and his buddies were watching a football game. He tells me about how Harlow’s mom came bitching about wanting her kids back. Playboy didn’t care about the little ones. He just wanted to keep Harlow and told the mom to take the brats and go. When she saw Harlow drugged up and knew what Playboy did, I guess she freaked. Playboy said she wanted to snitch to the cops, so he handled her like he would any rat. That’s all he said before telling me to clean up the mess.”
Raven scooted closer as if knowing I was afraid to say the next part out loud. She understood because she was Raven and I was Vaughn. Somehow, we made sense.
“In the back room, I found them. Not just the mom and Harlow, but her little brother and sister. Fucking Playboy killed those little kids too. When he beat the mom with a tire iron, she was holding her kids and he killed them too. Just bashed their little heads in like they were nothing. The whole room stank of blood and sex. Harlow was on the ground holding her mom’s hand. When she looked at me, I knew she was stoned and didn’t really understand.”
A shudder came over me when I thought of her sitting in the blood of her mom and those babies.
“Maybe it would have been better to kill her too. She’ll remember that shit for the rest of her life. Seeing her mom and little bother and sister getting their heads bashed in. When I stood over her, I thought I was doing her a favor. I really planned to kill her too. I was pissed at Playboy and hated the fucker. Even knowing he was evil, I was still planning to do my job. Even when he told me he wished he could keep Harlow because she was a good lay, I didn’t plan to do anything except follow orders. I was that kind of man. No hero, but willing to kill a teenage girl. I might lie and say I was doing her a favor, but I didn’t really care. I was doing my job. Watching out for myself.”
Raven’s expression never changed, but I sensed her horror at what I was telling her. I needed her to really understand the ugliness inside me.
“I pulled out my gun, planning to kill her. I couldn’t do it with my hands. I’d beaten people to death, but to take that girl’s life in such a personal way was too much. I was planning to shoot her and clean it all. Dump all four of them in a grave and walk away. I don’t want you to forget that about me, Raven. Don’t think I was some good fucker who walked in and felt outrage and saved the damsel. I was going to shoot a child in the face. No matter how old she was and how much she’d seen, sitting on the ground like she was, Harlow as a kid. That’s what stopped me in the end. She whimpered for her mommy and begged me not to hurt her brother and sister. She sounded like a little girl and I couldn’t fucking do it.”
The look on Harlow’s face haunted my dreams. As if sensing this, Raven kissed my hand and waited for me to continue.
“I snapped. I didn’t think about the right way to help her or to walk away. I could have grabbed her and run. I could have faked like I killed her and snuck her out of there and run. I could have done a million different things, but then she said mommy. I looked at the dead woman and her dead kids. I smelled the blood and the way those bastards had raped and used Harlow…”
Pausing, I felt the rage return. “It was like every single evil thing ever was on my shoulders. Like I had to get revenge for it all. My need wasn’t to save Harlow. Or to get justice. I wanted revenge. For every time my mom had a black eye from some fucker she dated over the years. For that dead hooker and the runaway and every chick who ever bled for the amusement of the club. I wanted revenge for every time I was scared as a kid while my mom worked two jobs because some fucker stole her savings after making promises to her about being a family. I just wanted to burn it all down, so I snapped.”
Taking a breath, I continued, “I turned my gun on Playboy then his friends. I can’t even remember their names. They were in the club, but now I can’t remember them. I took Harlow and I burned down the house with her dead family in it. I also went to the place where the club stashed a lot of cash for emergencies. I took it all. I stole from the club and I made it bleed and I left Tucson with Harlow.”
Exhaling raggedly, I remembered the way Harlow stared at me while I burned down the house. She didn’t cry for her mother or Mase and Stacia. A part of her understood they were gone. As the drugs faded, she understood more and more and I saw her pull into herself.
“We left Tucson and I had no plan, but I didn’t need one. I had vengeance and it made me happier than the club ever did. Harlow had nothing back in Tucson and she never complained. We rode for hours and she held on. By the time we arrived in Ellsberg, she had stopped talking. Yet, if I told her to do something, she never hesitated. She hadn’t given up. Something just died in her when her family died and this was the new Harlow. I knew how she felt because the man I was when I pulled the gun out to shoot her wasn’t the man I was when I turned the gun on Playboy. We had changed, but our pasts wouldn’t let us go.”
Raven squirmed onto her knees and hugged me against her chest. She soothed me like my mom did years ago. Even though she wanted me to think everything would be alright, I knew the truth.
“I fucked up the way I took Harlow. If I had done it different, she could live her life and I might be able to live a real life too. Instead, I let my temper control me. Now, I’m a dead man and she isn’t safe.”
“You saved her though.”
“Don’t make me a hero, Raven.”
“You are a hero though.”
Frustrated, I wish she understood. “Over the years, I’ve regretted saving her. I can’t even see her without feeling regret. Would a hero feel like that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe,” she said, caressing my face. “I’ve never been a hero. You’ve never been a hero either until that day. You can’t know how a hero feels. Maybe they regret their choices. Don’t you think a fireman who saves someone from a burning building, but gets burned wouldn’t feel some regret? When people suffer, they regret the good things they’ve done. In the e
nd, they still did those good things.” Raven cupped my face and stared into my eyes. “You did a good thing.”
“If I did things different, I could have said goodbye to my mom.”
“Different like letting Playboy live so he could kill more moms and kids? No, you did the right thing and your mom was proud of you.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I do. She took care of you all of those years alone. She loved you so much. I know she did because you aren’t some mean fuck. You’ve got a heart and you make people laugh. You have a lot of good in you and that’s because of your mom. She loved you more than her life and she would have wanted you to save Harlow. She wanted you to be a hero because all great moms want their kids to be amazing. Your mom was great and that’s why you’re who you are.”
Staring into her eyes, I felt the loss I’d been hiding from all of these years.
“She was a great mom. The best.”
Cradled in Raven’s embrace, I wept for my mom. I also mourned the boy inside me who missed the woman that made him the center of her world.
Chapter Seventeen – Raven
Big Bob’s Skating Center seemed louder than usual. Having spent the last few days alone with Vaughn in my apartment then at his place, being in public left me feeling exposed. As much as I missed the quiet, I knew Vaughn and I needed time away from each other. Mostly because the lie about friends with benefits was falling apart.
Even Bailey noticed.
“So are you and Vaughn together now?” she asked, holding onto the side of the rink. “Will I get to be the maid of honor in your wedding?”
“Vaughn just needed a lot fucking because of his mom dying. We’re only friends. Besides, I’m never getting married.”
“If you do, you’ll pick Lark over me, won’t you?”
“Probably. She would never forgive me, if I didn’t. Trust me that you don’t want her holding a grudge. Tiny chicks are sneaky.”
Bailey pulled at her ponytail then grabbed the side again. “I’m going to fall on my stellar ass.”