by Lucas, Helen
“This is my ‘hood,” Fang muttered over the dying roar of the bike as we stopped at a red light. “It’s well with-in Damned territory, so I get a good discount on my rent.”
“Extortion?” I asked.
“Sure, that’s one word for it,” he said with a grim chuckle. The light turned and off we raced down the street. An endless series of bodegas, ethnic hair salons, dollar stores, and tattoo shops later, we ended up at a surprisingly decent looking building—a three-flat with a backyard and a big driveway that Fang pulled into.
“Home sweet home,” he said with a sigh as he heaved himself off his bike. He was agile and light on his feet, I could tell, but he also had pain when he moved—he just worked through it.
I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but it was apparent to me. Maybe because it was something that so many of Fred’s friends from the service had after years of being wounded, of being wounded and then continuing on, continuing their battles, whether in the field or back in the civilian world.
A world that could be just as brutal and ruthless and uncaring as the mountains of Afghanistan or the sands of Iraq.
Fang unlocked the door and we entered his first floor place. It was, indeed, the consummate bachelor pad: a moth-eaten futon dominated the small living room, with a TV and an Xbox directly in front of it. No table.
Was I seriously going to live here for the next few months?
I must have given Fang a desperate, disgusted look, because he scowled.
“Fuck, I knew this wasn’t going to work…” he growled, throwing my helmet down on the couch.
“No… No, it’s fine,” I said, reluctantly, putting my things down.
“Come with me—I’ll show you where you’re going to sleep.”
I followed Fang into the next room (I was honestly surprised it had more than just a living room) where a twin bed greeted me, pressed up against the wall with a little night stand beside it.
On the other side of the room was a bookshelf, absolutely stuffed. So. Fang was a reader.
And not just the usual stuff. The classics. Thucydides. Herodotus. The Illiad. He was a veteran, after all—I wondered if he found something particularly stirring in those old books, those old tales of war and battle? Maybe, just maybe… There was more to Fang than what met the eye.
And then, he also had children’s books: chapter books, picture books, Harry Potter. This was one hell of a weird mix of reading material. Maybe those other books—the old ones, the heavy classics—maybe that was all stuff he hoped to be able to read someday. Hell, for all I knew, he could be barely literate, just holding onto a bunch of books that he thought he might, someday, be able to get through.
But what could be in those books that he wanted to read? It could be that he found, best expressed in those ancient texts, the things he had experienced overseas, fighting alongside other soldiers, other warriors.
The things that Fred had experienced.
“So,” Fang said from where he stood in the doorway. “I’m out of toilet paper, so I’m just going to leave a roll of paper towels on the bathroom counter. Hope that’s okay.”
Okay, so maybe he wasn’t exactly a refined warrior poet.
Still, as I turned to follow him into the kitchen, I couldn’t help but find myself watching his every movement, the way his shoulders and muscles moved beneath his jacket. He stripped it off, revealing his bare arms—he wore a tight wife beater that seemed to be a size or two too small for him.
“You’ve got a lot of tattoos,” I murmured. “Did you get all of those in the service?”
“Some,” he said with a shrug.
On one arm was a Japanese warrior, a samurai, but with a skull for a head—a zombie warrior, skin stripped off, posed with a sword ready to strike. It was beautifully done, a rippling masterpiece of tightly wound art that hugged his muscles.
The other arm depicted a carp—what the Japanese call koi—riding up splashing waves, seeming to disappear into the water, only to reappear as a dragon on his shoulder, snaking around to his collar bone.
I couldn’t help myself. I reached out to touch the koi. He looked at me hard, with a serious gleam in his eyes.
“Didn’t anyone ever teach you any manners?” he snarled. I withdrew my hand but he grabbed it and forced it to his shoulder.
I felt his tight, tense muscle, barely contained within his warm flesh. But I also felt…
“Scars,” he said, simply. “I got that one done after I came back. To hide the scars.”
“You’re probably tired of hearing people thank you for your service.”
“No one thanks me for my service. No one thanks any of the Damned—we’re all the rejects, the misfits. The ones who got chewed up and spit out. The ones you’d rather forget about.”
“So, why are you turning on them?” I asked, meeting his steely glare. “We should be enemies, but you’re welcoming me into your home.”
Honestly, ‘welcoming’ was a stretch. But here we were.
Fang’s hand shot out, grabbed me by my collar and forced me close. I gasped, feeling his strength, the way he moved me through the air as if I weighed nothing.
“What…” I started to say but he cut me off.
“You want to know why I’m selling out those sons of bitches?” he growled. I could smell his breath, smell the cigarettes and whiskey that clung to his lips. He wanted me to flinch, to fear him, but I had already stared death in the eyes only a few days ago, and nothing could make me flinch.
“That’s right,” I whispered, letting the words slip out of my lips like water whipping along over pebbles in a stream. “I want to know why you’re selling out those sons of bitches. Actually, I don’t give a damn. But what I want to know is this: if you’re the type to sell our your sworn brothers in crime, what’s to keep you from fucking me over at the last minute?”
He snarled, rage barely contained. I thought for a moment he was going to throw me across the kitchen, but he controlled himself.
“Because I don’t want to die with those bastards. I’m tired of this life, but I don’t want to give up on living. I just want a different life.”
“So, why don’t you leave?”
The look in his eyes all but broke my heart—the look of a boxer, cornered in the ring and weathering blow after blow. A bead of sweat formed over his eyebrow and I saw the tendons in his well-muscled shoulders tense.
“Because they’d kill me. The only way you get out of the Damned is in a body bag or a coffin. You die in a shoot out with another gang or some coked up addicts or the cops—or you’ll die when the other Damned murder you for looking at condo prices.”
“So, your life is in our hands,” I concluded, still holding his unblinking gaze. He nodded curtly.
“Looks that way.”
“So, I guess you’d better be nicer to me.”
He let me go and I felt like I was descending back to earth. My head felt whoozy and I wanted to sit down, but I couldn’t let myself look weak or fragile in front of Fang.
The fact was… I was kind of turned on. It seemed so wrong, so terrible and unprofessional and even—unfaithful. But if I were being honest, in my heart of hearts, I could have torn that wife beater off Fang’s chiseled flesh and used my lips to catalog every single turn and flourish of the tattoo artist’s needle.
“You’ll sleep in my bed,” he murmured, breaking my reverie.
“You don’t have to do that. I’m happy to take the couch.”
“Couch is more comfortable. I sleep on the couch all the time myself,” he said with a wry grin. I could tell he was lying. I liked the way his face moved, twisted, and contorted when he smiled.
I unpacked the small backpack of things I had brought with me, setting them in the bathroom and on the nightstand next to his bed. It was made, but the sheets hadn’t been washed for a while. They smelled like a man—the scent of sweat, tobacco, and strength clung to them, entered deep into the fibers and I couldn’t help but take it in.
&n
bsp; It was a scent I hadn’t experienced since Fred died. Since before, in fact. Since he had gone, since he had been deployed the last time.
God, but I missed him.
I was aware, suddenly, of someone watching me. I turned to face Fang.
“Well, I guess this is goodnight,” I said, starting to take my shirt off without another thought.
He had already stripped off his wife beater and stood before me, shirtless, his powerful torso covered in more tattoos, more scars, and a light smattering of chest hair that blended in with his natural tan. The hair led down his rippling belly to his boxers, just visible over his belt and the waist of his worn blue jeans.
“If you need anything in the night…” he began, trailing off as I tossed my shirt on his bed, standing before him with just a bra. This was the most skin I had shown a man since Fred died.
But this was a job. This was work. Fang was bound to see more of me in the coming weeks anyway.
And I wanted to see how far he would go.
Truth be told… I wanted to see how far I would go. Would I allow myself to be seen half-naked in front of him?
“I’ll just find you in the living room on the couch, right?” I confirmed, beginning to undo my own jeans. I lowered them and daintily stepped out of them, like a mare stepping over a creek.
“That’s exactly right,” he grunted. “On the couch. In the living room.”
I allowed him a smile.
“Sounds good, then. Good night.”
And I turned my back to him, bending over, letting him see my butt. I can’t help but be proud of my ass—the upside to being an FBI agent, of course, is the physical activity. I have to stay in great shape, and that means evenings at the gym, squats and deadlifts, boxing, jiu-jitsu, kettle bell swings—the works. I played volleyball in high school and college and I’ve never been in as good of shape as I am now.
I felt powerful, felt like I was toying with Fang as I showed him my butt, teased him with my otherwise boring and unremarkable Target panties. I glanced over my shoulder, back at him.
“Anything else you need from me?”
That seemed to wake him up, made him realize he was staring. He shook his head.
“No. No, I’m good. Good night.”
And he stalked out of the room. I heard him turn on the TV, crack open a can of beer, and plop down on the couch. I took off my bra and imagined him coming back into the room, seeing me just about naked, throwing me down on the bed…
He would pounce on me like a wild animal, tear into me, and I would squeal in delight, writhing in pleasure beneath him as he tore me apart.
No. This was a job. I had a job to do.
Even if I had to do it with… Him.
I climbed into bed and pulled out a book to read, trying to calm my nerves after the strange, stressful last few days. I had grabbed a copy of Gunther Grass’s The Tin Drum off my bookshelf. Fred had given it to me years ago; it was his favorite book. I had started it many times over the year, and never managed to keep up with it.
And now, I couldn’t bring myself to concentrate on the complex layers of plot and character. All I wanted was to know more about Fang.
More than that, the last few days had brought amazing, profound changes in my life. I had lost one partner and gained a new one. I hadn’t taken any time at all to mourn Winston, unless you counted hitting the gym hard and beating my personal deadlift record mourning.
Which, to be honest… I did. The horror of death came to me and it terrified me, and I felt I needed to do… Something. Anything. Anything to prove to myself that I was alive.
Maybe that’s what terrified me the most about the deaths of those I love. The feeling that I must be next.
But if that were so, then why didn’t I given two shits about my own life, about my own safety? Why could I charge into a salvo of gunfire, squeezing my eyes shut, and unloading my own gun, without even a thought to my own vulnerability, the fragility of my flesh facing down the blazing guns?
I was lost in reflection and only returned to reality when I heard the television in the other room click off. I heard Fang yawn. The light turned off and he must have gone to bed, because I heard the rustling of skin on fabric.
I sat in my own bed for a while, letting the night overcome me, letting the night take me, but holding out against sleep. My mind was still racing.
What did Fang want? Could I even trust him? I remembered back to a conversation I had had with Doug before accepting the assignment. Of course, I had already informally accepted the assignment that evening in Doug’s car on the way back from the scene of the shootout with Bolo’s men. But then, back then, I had yet to officially accept the assignment.
That came later, in Doug’s office, when I sat across from him, as he read out the details and I signed my name to the official paperwork that placed me on the case.
“We don’t know if we can trust MacKinnon,” Doug said as I signed my name. “That’s half the reason you’re there—to figure out if he’s been truthful. We’ve sunk a lot of resources into this case and it’s on the basis of his word, a lot of it is. If it turns out he’s been lying or feeding us false information…”
“Then we’re sunk, and we’re out the money we spent on it.”
“Bingo,” my boss said grimly. “So, if you smell something rotten, tell me before this goes any further.”
Rotten. Was Fang rotten?
When I was sure that he was asleep, I rose from my bed and began to wander through the apartment. A veritable bachelor’s pad, as I first had judged it, but not without it’s charm—it’s own surprising traces of humanity.
Too often, we assume that criminals and gangsters live in their crimes, in their lives of criminality. But so much of their waking consciousness is taken up by the same banal thoughts and petty worries as anyone else. It’s just that, when they go to work, they commit crimes, and when most of us go to work, we don’t.
I found Fang’s shopping list scribbled on a white board affixed with magnets to the fridge. Eggs, cereal, toilet paper (of course), bacon, milk, rice, canned soup… So, these were the things that powered a biker.
As I passed through his kitchen, I found myself drawn to the fridge. I opened it, and found what I would have expected—beer, some left over chili in a pot, and… Hot sauces. Dozens of them. All in colorful bottles, emblazoned with flames, dragons, sharks, devils, fire-breathing goats, angels lit on fire, chili peppers, and more.
So, this was something I hadn’t known about Fang. He likes spicy food.
I glided out of the kitchen and into the living room, where he slept. I noticed a series of pictures, all framed, on the bookshelf, but the blinds were drawn and I couldn’t see what they depicted in the dark. A slight sliver of moon light came in under the blinds and fell on Blade’s face, passed out and slightly sweaty in the darkness. His snores passed in and out of his lips easily, like waves crashing on the beach.
I took a step closer to him, peering over him, taking in the powerful image of his tattooed flesh at rest, watching his chest rise and fall with each crash of the waves. I was tempted to kiss those lips, just to see what would happen, but I refrained.
No. Job. Work.
I stepped back from the couch and went back to my room. I hadn’t learned anything more about Fang. Anything except that he, apparently, was a hot sauce nut.
And that I wanted to jump his bones.
That realization made my cheeks flush but there was no point in denying it. After all, he was the first man I had really been attracted to, since my husband died.
It had been years. And still, even looking at Fang, even imagining him, imagining his body beneath those worn out, tarnished blue jeans—it felt like I was cheating.
But Fred wasn’t around anymore. He was just a memory.
I felt a sob bubble up in my throat at that thought. My husband. Just a memory. I hated it.
It had been just after I graduated, in May of my last year of law school, when I got the n
ews. I had been coming home from brunch with friends when my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, and, although when Fred was deployed, I usually jumped on the phone whenever it rang, even if it was an unfamiliar number, this time I didn’t answer. This time I ignored it. I was buzzed from one or two too many mimosas at brunch and the inevitable marathon of Real Housewives episodes with my girlfriends seemed way more important.
It was only that evening when I got home, looked at my phone, and saw that I had six missed calls and as many voicemails. They told me what had happened, told me that he had been recovered, that his remains were being flown back that weekend, and told me how I could receive them at the airport. They told me how to arrange his funeral, how to request the handsome young marines with rifles to come and perform a salute over his grave.