by Amy Law
Chapter 1
Jesska made her first visit to Poison Wells on her nineteenth birthday. Off the highway in a blasted hollow of Nevada scrub, she took a deep breath as she approached the door of Blades motorcycle clubhouse.
If big sister Tiffany knew her intention, she would have smiled indulgently and said, “Well, okay, but I’ll come along. It’ll be fun.” That meant she would come along and take most of the fun out of it as she took care of her little sis., and looked out for her. Daddy would get to know about it, too.
Jess didn’t want any of that, and so she went alone. She parked up out of the way, somewhere dark near the unkempt shrubs where her ride wouldn’t be seen. It would draw a hail of scorn if the hardcore bikers clapped eyes on it.
She stepped past the line of low, fat Harleys leaned up by the hitching rail, and up onto the wooden platform. Uncertain still, and with a dizzying flurry in her stomach, she reached out to push on the door. It flew open in front of her.
Ancient heavy metal cranked out of the room, and a huge biker filled the dark of the doorway. He wore a cut-off leather jacket and a thick beard rolled over the black Motorhead t-shirt that draped over a gut as big as he was wide.
His eyes twinkled when he saw her short, tight little frame. She was big in all the right places. His teeth showed and he asked her, “You a dancer?”
“I can dance. Why?”
“Free admission for a pole dance.”
She watched as his grin parted the thicket on his face. “I’ll provide the pole.”
“So,” Jess replied, “Admission is free with a pole dance, otherwise admission is no charge. Is that right?”
A couple more bikers had turned to watch. Jess heard one of the others call the big man ‘Bear.’ It fit. “If you want to be a hang-around, honey,” Bear told her, “certain duties are involved.”
“Oh, and I thought this was someplace where an independent soul might enjoy a whiskey in peace and good company. My mistake.”
Jess had turned to leave when a low voice from inside said, “She passed the take-no-shit test, Bear.” The bikers chuckled.
Keeping her cool and standing her ground seemed to have earned her some credit. Bear stood aside and waved her in with a comical bow, “Enter. Drink and be merry,” he said. Her stomach flipped again as the follow-on—for tomorrow we die—popped into her mind, but she kept it to herself.
Jesska had dreamed of hanging out in a motorcycle club for as long as she could remember. Now that she was here, she felt a simmer of panic bubble in the pit of her stomach. She was determined to tough it out. She would have a couple of drinks, and meet some bikers. Leave early. Just get the feel of the place.
She realized that if anyone asked why she was here, her answer would sound lame. Anything she could think of would sound lame in the thick and thumping clubhouse atmosphere.
She crossed the threshold and stepped into the darknesslights and the noise. Bear said, “C’mon, I’ll buy the first one for you.”
“No,” Jesska said, “I’ll buy one for you.” but her attention was snatched by a pair of eyes glowing out of the shadows of the crowded bar room. They belonged to a big, black-haired biker with a long, neat mustache. He leaned over a table and clearly dominated the three bikers sat around it.
Somehow, Jess was sure that these were the eyes of the man who told Bear that she’d passed the test. A shudder went through her as his dark eyes held hers. He was appraising her, looking over her soft, generous curves and taking in the creamy slope of cleavage, swelling now and fluttering as her breath caught in her throat. If a boy did that to Jess anywhere else, she’d have gone right up to him and either spit in his eye or hit him. In here, she was an outsider, he was not, and the atmosphere was not on her side.
Conscious now of how short her black leather skirt was, she made her way through the crowd of heavy leather and denim. She drew appreciative notice from most of the male eyes as her vision adapted to the low, colored lights. Her ears adjusted quickly enough to the pump and grind of vintage Motorhead.
Two girls danced around poles on a raised platform, one blonde and one redhead. They wore loose, ripped t-shirts, torn stockings, very high heels and very little else apart from glitter.
At the heavy, polished wooden bar, Bear called, “Hey, Gyro,” but the bartender was already on his way over to Jess. In a broad-brimmed leather hat and with a thick, carefully curled mustache, the stocky bartender looked like he could be in a twenty-first century version of a Wild West saloon.
He had the courteous manners to match, as his green eyes twinkled and he asked Jess, “What will be your pleasure, ma’am?”
She asked for bourbon and whatever Bear wanted. Gyro touched the brim of his hat. “Right away.”
The girls on the podium shook their pert tits within licking distance of the clump of nearby bikers. Some men took their opportunities as they came and lapped at the hardening nipples as they came into range.
The girls would back off, mock horror on their faces before they leaned out again, or turned and leaned to poke their asses up and shake them for a repeat encounter. The redhead wore a pair of pale green and completely transparent panties. The blonde had no panties, and no pubic hair either. Her hips flicked to give swift flashes of her reddening, wet folds.
From under a table close by, two girls’ heads and shoulders rose and fell in the laps of bikers who leaned back in their chairs, laughed, drank and maintained a conversation with their two buddies.
The scents of beer, whiskey and pot smoke mingled in the air, thick with sex. Jesska had dreamed of coming to a place like this. Now that she was really here she felt small and vulnerable, but she was damned if she would show it.
The brown-haired girl looked up from below the table with mascara streaked around her glistening eyes. She wiped her wet mouth on her arm as she moved on to the next guy.
Jess had trouble keeping her eyes off the girl opening up the biker’s jeans. Soft white cotton was stretched hard inside, pressed outwards and up. The girl slipped her hand into the cotton underwear. Her eyes sparkled and her face lit up as she took ahold of what was inside.
“See,” said Bear, his grin wide, “she knows what’s expected of a hang-around in here.”
Jess said, “Like I said, I’m just here for a quiet drink. I’m not a sweet-butt or a honey or a saddle-whore or whatever you call them here.”
“Just a gash, then,” Bear chuckled.
From the far corner, those smoldering eyes still watched her. The hungry intensity of his expression made Jess’ insides flip.
A biker at the table with a girl in his lap leaned farther back and stretched his neck, shaking his thick, frizzy mane. His voice was thick, “Oh, you got it there, baby! Oh, yeah! Harder!”
His fingers wound and dragged in her hair as his big paw clamped hard on the back of her head and his pelvis jerked hard.
Along the bar was a noisy clump of men who Jess figured for ‘civilians.’ They wore shinier jackets with no patches. They had tidier hair, more self-consciously ‘cool’ t-shirts with day-glo print logos. Visitors, she thought, but a different kind from her.
These looked more like the weekend warrior types, regular Joes and working stiffs who fantasized all week about the biker lifestyle. Guys who came to a bar like this so they could scare themselves up a bit, then tell each other afterwards how they hadn’t been scared.
They’d take stories to their work buddies in the bank or the software firm, all about the bikers they knew. For them, Jess thought, this was a titty-bar with a fantasy thrill ride thrown in.
The patched bikers around the group had the tightening looks of angry cats when they go very still, their ears go back and their eyes narrow.
Jesska felt more than saw the biker from the corner make his way up to the bar. She sensed the way that men moved aside as he ranged slowly through the crowd. He wore a hefty cut-off leather jacket, with an open belt at the bottom, and heavy denims, low, with another leather belt. A big k
nife was sheathed by his thigh.
His soft, slow, rolling walk knocked Jess’s heartbeat out of rhythm. When he got to the counter, he leaned his elbows on the bar and Gyro turned to him. “Ryder. What’ll it be, bro?”
His voice was soft, low and strong. “A shot of Jack, please, Gyro.”
He was long and lean. His thick, dark, mussed-up thatch was turning to Jess. When he shifted his hips, her breath caught in her throat. She met the amber glow of his eyes and a shock bolted through her, all the way down to her crotch. Her urge to smack him almost overtook her. He blinked slowly and drew a breath, ready to speak.
Then his attention, hers and everyone else’s was yanked away by the big, round, reddening civilian. The group had moved near to where Jess was standing and they were taking up a lot of space. The red-faced guy waved his shot glass and everybody heard his voice shift up a gear.
His speech was fluid and warmed with alcohol. “A bike’s a bike, amiright? We got bikes, just like yours. We got Harleys outside. Hell, I got an Indian Chief back home in my garage. What do you think about that? So, why shouldn’t I drink the whiskey, partake of the honeys, wear the patch and you can make me a member of the club. There’s a lot I can bring to a place like this. Whaddayasay, fellas?”
Ryder cut from the bar and through the group like a knife. He grabbed hold of the ear of the nearest tourist and leaned his tensing lips towards the lobe stretched in his hand. Jess heard his voice, low, rhythmic and solid. He spoke through his closed teeth.
“You should be real grateful to me right now. You should probably kiss my boots.”
The man’s bleary-eyed face turned slowly towards Ryder, “Oh, why’s that?”
“Because I’m giving you the chance, this one chance, to get your asshole friend out of this clubhouse so you can all ride off into the sunset.” The guy blinked, trying to take it in. Ryder tugged harder on the ear as his voice deepened. “Right. Fucking. Now.”
The civilian looked back at Ryder. His reactions were slow and his thoughts were written across his face. First, when he heard Ryder he understood that he was being offered a way out. He was grateful, until his watery eyes drifted back to his bigger pal.
His pal was just getting warmed up. “How many of you have ridden along the edge of the Grand fucking Canyon?” His eyes swept around, bluff, challenging and ignorant of his audience. “That’s some real biking, man. I tell you.”
Bear’s voice slugged an unmistakable menace through the dense group, “I’m going to have to ask you boys politely to leave.”
Ryder said, “It’s okay, Bear, I already asked one of ’em politely.”
“But they ain’t gone.”
“Seems not.”
Ryder grabbed the man he’d spoken to by the lapels of his jacket, banged his forehead into the guy’s nose and shoved him hard into the gaggle of his friends. His eyes bulged as he staggered backwards. Ryder hit him with a hard jab under the eye and a red gash opened up.
Bear got two of them by their collars. They struggled, and they were big men, but they were soft and Bear was a lot bigger. Even Bear was startled by how vicious Ryder’s assault was. The pudgy man was bleeding, howling and crawling as fast as he could on his back for the door.
Ryder stepped to the big guy who had made all the noise, grabbed the front of his jacket and overbalanced him, shoved him towards the door. A molten sea of leather erupted in a roar as bikers leaped from all around the clubhouse and engulfed the civilians.
Arms flew in at them, and some bottles, too. Jess heard heavy glass shatter in the fray as the four men were beaten, chased and kicked to the door, through it and out.
The clubhouse was suddenly very quiet and almost empty. From outside came a series of dull thumps. The two girls on stage exchanged a look and stepped off the platform to light up cigarettes.
Soon a few bike engines fired up. Accompanied by shouts and a few more sounds of glassware shattering against hard objects, several bikes thumped across the shale and skidded away into the distance.
The bikers tumbled back into the clubhouse in a wave, just like they’d left, but in a lighter mood. The rumble of boots and chatter was a happier ruckus. These boys loved nothing more than a disturbance. Jesska realized that her thighs were trembling. Her panties were hot and damp.
Bear romped back with a big grin and said, “Well, your first night here and you got a show.”
When Ryder returned to the bar, Gyro said, “I fixed you a fresh glass, in case yours had gotten spilled.”
Ryder’s smile was boyish, almost shy. “I’m alright, thanks. I put my shot down on the table here for safe keeping.” His eyes meandered down the bar to Jess. Her breath caught as he looked at her, and handed her the fresh shot of bourbon.
“You may want this to steady your nerves.”
“My nerves are fine,” she looked up at him and her pulse raced. “I’ll take the shot, though. Thank you.” As she took the glass their hands touched, and a shock bolted through her body. Her nerves were anything but fine. When Ryder had begun the fight, her body had crackled with excitement.
Now the tops of her thighs burned and the scent of her heat was so strong in her nose, she thought it must have reached every nostril in the clubhouse. Ryder came nearer. Her eyes fixed on him, taking in his lithe, strong frame.
He said, “I’m sorry for the… disturbance.” She felt her breasts rise and swell as he looked her over, sized her up and assessed her with that boyish grin on. “This is a club,” he said, “We have rules for members, and from guests we ask a certain…” as he spoke he weighed her breasts with his eyes, “a certain etiquette.”
She took a hit off the whiskey. He moved closer. She felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek and her neck as he spoke. “The motorcycle clubhouse is kind of a home to us. When we welcome people into our home, all we ask is that they don’t be assholes. Doesn’t seem too much to ask, I’d say.”
Now he studied her hips before his eyes made a leisurely journey back up to her neck, then her ear and then back to her eyes. “That and one other thing.”
Jess felt the muffled boom of a depth charge in the pit of her stomach. She slid backward, up onto a bar-stool. She had to hold onto it to steady herself. Why didn’t he back off and give her some more space?
“And what’s that?” Her throat was tight.
“Don’t take any shit from Bear.” She saw the gleam of his teeth as his grin widened. “You passed that one at the door.”
Ryder said, “I’ll be back,” as he took his drink back to the table in the corner and left Jess sat alone at the bar. She nursed her bourbon and looked around the room. There was no trace that a fight had recently broken out. It was just another evening in the clubhouse.
The dancers were back on the stage. They swung their tits and swayed their asses provocatively near to their attentive audience. Jess wondered if the two girls at the nearby table had found more laps to play in. There was a good and ready supply. Order was restored and all was right with the world.
Yet, in some way, her own world wasn’t the same place as it had been when she’d arrived. Something had shifted. The look in Ryder’s eyes and the heat of his body had set off a chain reaction inside of her, and nothing was quite the same. Her equilibrium was off-kilter.
The whiskey rasped on her throat and burned its way down, seeping outwards through her body like slow lightning. She had fire burning from both ends. What would happen when the flames met?
After this shot of bourbon, I’ll leave, Jess told herself. She should go. Should she have just one more whiskey? She shouldn’t be on the road with the amount she’d had already. He would probably be hours with whatever it was he was doing. He just as likely wouldn’t come back anyway. Gyro set a fresh glass in front of her. She should go.