by Ora Wilde
“If you’ve harmed her,” he bellowed, thinking that I was one of the Godlesses wanting to follow up on their demands, “I’m gonna gut your belly and choke you with your own fucking intestines!”
I haven’t heard him that furious before.
“Tulare’s gone,” I told him.
“Lenny?” he replied with shock, his voice was almost a murmur.
“Tulare’s gone, Prez,” I repeated without explaining why I was still alive. There’d be more time for that later.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry, Prez. I had to act quick and bringing the matter to the club would just cause a delay I couldn’t afford. I assaulted their HQ. Took down thirty, forty, maybe even fifty of them.”
I heard cheers in the background. I realized that I was on loud speaker.
“You’re not bullshitting me, Lenny?” he wanted to be sure.
“No, Prez. Tulare’s down.”
“And... And Samantha... my daughter?” His voice started trembling, shedding off the regal might that he has been known for, the same kind of dignified strength that has, for so long, inspired the club.
“She’s with me. She’s unharmed.”
The patches whooped it up even louder. Prez let out what sounded like crackled sighs.
I gave Samantha the phone before walking a few feet away from the booth to give them the privacy they needed. She started weeping once more as she talked to her father. I could only hear some parts of their conversation. But when she uttered four words, I knew that what happened today didn’t only save her life, it also salvaged her relationship with her old man.
I’m sorry for everything.
Prez asked me to narrate the details once I got the phone back. The patches cursed and howled and hooted as I was recounting the events that unfolded. Then Prez gave me specific instructions that he wanted me to strictly follow. Don’t go Rambo this time around, he said.
Ride to Stanislaus via Mono and Merced. Look for Roadblock Tavern. The patches from the other charters will meet you there. They’ll stay with you until the smoke clears and the situation at San Mateo is resolved.
Make sure that Samantha remains unharmed.
I gave him my word.
It took us three hours to reach Stanislaus via the route that Prez ordered. She had her hands wrapped around my waist the whole time, holding me tightly as she rested her head against my back. It felt nice. So nice that I didn’t want our ride to end.
But we reached our destination. Roadblock Tavern was a nondescript watering hole situated just outside the town’s main district. It was sandwiched by a couple of Chinese eateries and a few mom and pops stores, establishments that catered to the suburbs a few kilometers south of its area. The bar wasn’t in a location ideal for its target market. At best, it was meant for locals who wanted to spend their happy hour just before heading back to their homes.
It was the perfect spot for a clandestine meet-up.
The patches from Topeka were already there. It turned out that they camped at Alpine as the entirety of San Mateo’s borders were littered with Godlesses. That allowed them to reach Stanislaus before we did.
Pido, their president, begged for me to tell them the story of how I took down the Tulare charter. I repeated the tale, much to their enjoyment. Some of them patted my back. One ruffled my hair. A couple kissed me on the cheek. These were displays of affection that no patch would ever show a prospect.
When everyone settled down, I rejoined Samantha who previously chose to plunk herself on a seat at the corner farthest from the door. She was still afraid and I couldn’t blame her. She has gone through a lot in the past twenty-four hours, and it would be difficult to forget the horrors she has seen.
She looked at me as I pulled up a chair and sat beside her. Her eyes were still watery. Her lips were still jittering from time to time. I placed my arm over her shoulder and pulled her closer to me. She didn’t resist.
“How long do we have to stay here?” she asked.
“I... don’t know.” Much as I wanted to give her the answer she wanted, I couldn’t. We could be stuck in Stanislaus for a couple of days, maybe even a week, until things at San Mateo became clearer.
“I’m scared,” she admitted.
“Don’t be,” I tried to reassure her. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”
“You broke that promise before,” she reminded me with a rather adorable pout which made me snigger.
“But I’m still here,” I told her as I held her more firmly. “I should’ve been dead. I was losing a lot of blood. But one thing kept me going. You.”
Her mouth twisted into a warped shape as she tried to stifle a smile. “Hmmm. Go on,” she said with a charming tone. She liked what she was hearing.
“Heh. I can rant on and on about that...”
“Then do so,” she egged, finally allowing her lovely beam to shine. “As you’ve said, you don’t know how long we’d be here. We’ve got a lot of time to spare.”
“I’m not big on talks like this,” I confessed. “But I can summarize what I feel.”
“And that is?” she asked with obvious excitement as she pulled herself closer to me.
“I knew I was gonna die,” I continued. “Hell, I believed I was gonna die. But I willed myself to live... because I didn’t want my last breath sullied by the thought that you weren’t safe.”
Her smile disappeared. Her eyes turned sodden once again. The edges of her lips foundered, revealing a pout that didn’t look petulant at all. She seemed happy but humbled, wanting but overwhelmed, satisfied but yearning for more.
“I don’t want you harmed in any way,” I went on to admit. “If I have to die to make sure that you won’t get hurt, I’d gladly choose that fate.”
“I... I don’t want you to die, Lenny,” she responded weakly, with a tone that was sullen and proud at the same time.
“Well, that makes two of us,” I jested which made her giggle. “But I’ll give you my life if I have to.”
Her smile returned. She struck my chest with her palm.
“I never thought you were this... theatrical,” she commented.
“Hey! As someone famous once said - I think it was Tupac or Seal or John Legend or some other black dude - love turns men into poets,” I answered back quickly, wanting to roll with the moment we were sharing.
Her eyes widened with shock. She hastily retreated from my torso. She looked straight into my eyes as her lower lips dropped from her mouth.
Fuck!
The L word. Shit! Why did I even say it?
She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have reacted that way. Damn it! I wanted to stab my heart with a jungle knife for being so fucking stupid. It was too soon, and it was a big word to say at this point. She wasn’t ready to hear it. She most probably didn’t even feel the same way.
A long silence followed. I kept hitting my head in dismay. I couldn’t even dare to look at her.
“No,” she said after what seemed like forever.
“No?” I asked as I braced myself for the worst.
“That line isn’t from a song,” she proceeded to declare. “It’s from Plato.”
“It’s... That’s... Not from a...” I didn’t know how to react to her reply. Why would she tell me something so trivial in response to what I just revealed. “That’s all you wanna say?” I asked out of confusion, out of a little bit of anger, and out of disappointment most of all.
“You’re expecting me to say something else?” she shot back. Her voice sounded perturbed and irate.
“No,” I answered as my eyes left her lovely face and focused on the beer at the table instead.
“Good,” she responded quite coldly.
Another round of silence ensued, filled with awkward moments when we just tried to avoid each other’s gaze. We pretended to be preoccupied with insignificant matters - like looking at the patches as they cleaned the barrels of their guns or observi
ng the barkeep as he obsessively wiped the surface of the counter - just to have some excuses not to continue with our conversation.
I waited for her to break the quietness. She never did.
Every second that passed made me feel more and more dejected. I was such an idiot for saying that fucking word, and it drove her away. That’s the least thing I wanted. That’s the least thing I’d ever want in my life right now.
She’s important to me. Very important. That much I was sure of. Just the mere thought of her made me overcome the mental and emotional shit I carried back home from Cairo. That meant a lot to me, for it proved that my feelings for her were immensely significant, decidedly extraordinary, and undeniably intense. Her slightest acts gave me so much joy, no matter how peculiar and seemingly irritating they were. Her attempts to get under my skin only made me adore her even more. I found a peculiar kind of grace in her ways, and an intoxicating kind of splendor in her imperfections.
I’ve known her for three days, and a good part of that was spent with her being a captive of our enemies and I being at the brink of death. Three days is such a short time to get to know somebody really well, but it’s enough to make me know one thing with all certainty: that I want to spend the rest of my life getting to know this girl and discovering something new about her with each passing day. It wouldn’t matter what she’d show me for I knew, without doubt, that I’d find beauty in everything she would share and happiness with every second she’d spend with me.
I love her that much.
But now, she’s slipping away, peeved by a word that summarized everything I am since I met her.
I could continue to mope and blame myself for carelessly uttering that word... and lose her forever.
Or...
Fuck! I didn’t want to lose her.
I grabbed her arm firmly. She turned her head to look at me, her eyes were fully open to express how startled she was by my sudden act. Her lips tentatively parted with equal surprise.
I wanted to assure her that I meant her no harm.
But screw that thought! There’d be more time for that later.
I dragged her arm towards me, pulling the rest of her body closer to mine. When she was close enough, I wrapped my hand around her nape and drew her face - and her soft, luscious lips - to my mouth.
She closed her eyes as she approached.
And I closed mine.
And I kissed her.
And she kissed back.
It began with gentle brushes of lips. It escalated into a dance of tongues desperate for every centimeter of space they could find. Soon, the rest of our bodies joined the fray... her arms around my neck, my hands around her waist, her leg hooked over my thigh, my chest pressing against her soft breasts, her groin rubbing on my upper leg...
Dogs from the other charters were scattered around us. But they didn’t care. They knew better than to interfere with a fellow member’s business, even if that member was a mere prospect. And even if their curious eyes rolled towards us like we were a float at Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, I doubted if we would’ve even given a damn.
We were so immersed in the passion we shared, a passion that we’ve both tried to suppress since that night when we first made love. Though I didn’t know if she’d consider this another mistake or not, or if she’d just dismiss is it as a thank you gesture for saving her life, I didn’t really give a fuck. At that moment, she was mine. And at that moment, that was all that mattered.
Her velvety skin... her perfectly perky breasts that only reminded me how immaculately pink her nipples were... her slender but shapely legs that goaded me into imagining how it would feel if they were hitched over my shoulders as she waited for me to get inside her...
She was giving me a taste of these and more.
“I want you,” I whispered into her ear as I was licking her neck. “I fucking want you, right now.”
I could see her face. Her eyes were still closed as she bit her lower lip. Her nose was scrunched in a cute but sensual manner. It was like she was in so much pain, but she was joyously reveling in the agony she was feeling.
“I... I want you too,” she responded tenderly.
That was all I needed to hear.
I fastened my hands under her thighs and carried her up as I continued to kiss her. There was a room right beside the toilet at the back of the bar. I didn’t know what it was for, but it had a door... a door that could give us the privacy we needed.
I walked across the tavern, through the crowd of patches who were busy chatting with each other and smoking their weed and drinking their ales. Maybe they were just pretending to be busy. Maybe they were just pretending not to notice us. But it didn’t really matter. My lips never left hers as I made my way through the pub, carrying her like the only trophy that mattered to me, a trophy that I would forever cherish, a trophy that I wouldn’t allow to leave my sight.
I reached the room by the toilet. I opened the door and the stench of dry air immediately escaped the enclosure. It was small, dark and filled with boxes and mops and beer cases. It served as a stockroom, that much I could tell. Hardly as romantic as a hotel room, but it should suffice.
I went inside and closed the door. I rested her back against the wall. She unhooked her legs from my arms on her own. Then she began to remove my kutte. My vest wasn’t that easy to take off so I helped her out. Once it was off, she helped me take off my blood-stained shirt.
Then it was her turn to undress.
Her marvelous breasts, as round and as lively as I remembered them to be, greeted me. I paused for a bit to admire them. But she was quick to hold my chin and pull my lips back to her mouth. She unbuttoned her jeans, and I did the same.
Soon enough, we were both naked as we stood behind the crates and under the cobwebs of the grimy room that served as our own little piece of paradise.
We kissed a little more until my mouth decided to venture to other parts of her fine body. I started with her neck, proceeding to her ear, lingering there for a while until I glided my tongue down to her shoulders, playing around her collarbone the longest. She liked that. Her soft moan told me as much. I went farther down to her breasts, tasting every bit of skin my tongue could find, circling her luscious mounds ever so slowly until my motions spiraled and settled on her nip. I gently bit her hardened tip and she groaned a louder than before. She grabbed a handful of my hair and gave it a placid tug. I bit her nip a little harder and she began pulling my hair towards her body, an instinctive gesture to make me continue what I was doing.
So that’s what I did.
But my hand wanted to explore her, so I reached for her cunt. Two fingers began to stroke the slit between her thighs. She was wet, her fluids were already trickling down her inner thighs. Her pussy was as soft as velvet though quite stubbly as hair was starting to grow around her womanhood. I found that very enticing. I was sure she’d be embarrassed about it if she wasn’t lost in the ecstasy of the moment. But no one knew. No one, except me... and that thought made me even more aroused than I already was.
I rubbed her juicy flower for a minute or so, until she became more damp and her pussy became plump with exhilarating heat. She was ready. One finger dug its way inside her, and she gave me a long and sensual moan. A few thrusts later and another finger joined the fray. Her moan became more intense, so much so that it almost resembled a howl.
That turned me on so much. My other hand grabbed her ass, squeezing her nubile hump and pulling her midsection towards my face. I helped her hook her leg over my shoulder until my mouth was directly underneath her pussy. Then I began to lick, tasting her secret part which she allowed me to forage. A flick of my tongue on her clit sent her reeling in bliss. A series of licks later and she was wildly tipping her head as her breathing escalated into a rapid pace. A tease of a penetration had her head bending backwards as she murmured a word of vilification that instead expressed the pleasure she was feeling. “Shit...” she whispered, almost mumbling, biting her lips to prevent
her from screaming.
I smiled.
My tongue’s motion consisted of a lap from the base of her clit up to the middle of her cunt and into the walls of her pussy. I started slowly, coursing through the line with methodical rhythm. Eventually, however, I ended up lapping her cunt like a starved animal let loose on a chunk of meat. Her hands looked for something to hold on to, her fingers finally settling on a rusty coat hanger nearby. I continued with what I was doing, at the same frenetic rate that almost drove her over the edge of her sanity.
She pulled my hair as her back arched and her legs stiffened. She released a muffled grunt. I felt the goosebumps forming on her inner thighs as they were sandwiching my cheeks. She was about to come.