PREGNANT FOR A PRICE

by Kathryn Thomas

  The men have already made themselves comfortable. Jackets are flung over the backs of chairs to reveal chunky, tattooed arms. A few of the men smoke cigarettes, the air swirling with it. Four men sit at the computers, typing frantically. Typing, I think in awe. An outlaw club and they sit there typing. There are about thirty men in the room in all, most of them bearded, large, and tattooed. Rough-looking is the term. Their hands are callused, and the older men’s faces are worn from smoke and alcohol. They laugh loudly. As Maddox and I walk through, the man with the Irish accent, the one with the scar down the left side of his face, thumps the poker table and lets out a chortle.

  “There’s a main office in the back,” Maddox explains, as we weave through the tables. I stay as close to him as I can, like a child clinging to an adult’s shadow in a crowded street.

  Another door, smaller, leads to what appears to be a small subsection of the main bar area.

  When we get near the poker table, a few of the men crane their heads and smile at me. All of them smile at me, in fact. But these men seem more confident. I see that Markus is with them. The upper echelon.

  The Irish man calls over the din, “Another girl in the clubhouse, Boss?”

  Another man laughs. “He never stops!”

  They smile good-naturedly, and there’s no malice in their words.

  The Irish man shouts, “Boss, tell me your secret! Woman after woman after woman!”

  I look to Maddox and see that he’s smiling.

  The Irish man smiles at me, his scar tugging at his flesh. “Sorry, I don’t mean any offense.”

  “Someone get him a drink and shut him up!” a man from behind laughs.

  “Another woman!” Another man giggles.

  I feel my cheeks go red, and curse myself for it. What did you expect? I ask myself. A guy like this must have women lined up for him. You saw how it was in the coffee shop. You can’t honestly believe you’re the only one.

  Maddox must be able to sense how uncomfortable I feel – either that or my cheeks are super-bright red – because he takes me softly by the elbow and leads me away from the table, through the door, and into the adjoining office.

  “Sorry about that, Eden,” he says, shutting the door.

  As soon as the door is closed, the sound cuts out. The door is padded, sound-proofed.

  “No problem,” I mutter. “I can’t be surprised, can I?”

  The bitterness in my words makes my cheeks even redder. I’m not his girlfriend, I remind myself. I have no right to be bitter.

  The room is small, or perhaps it only seems small because the desk that sits at one end of it is so large. It dominates one-half of the room, the wood dark, sanded, and shining. There are no windows in the room – just padded walls – but an electric light emits a pale yellow light. The room is bare except for the desk, two chairs, and some weight-lifting equipment. A computer sits on the desk.

  “This place helps me think,” he says.

  Then he walks to the desk, around it, and drops into the chair. He waves at the chair opposite. “Take a seat.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  He reaches under the desk and switches on the computer. It hums quietly, but in the soundproofed silence of the room, it’s oddly loud. A constant hmmmmmmm that acts as a backdrop to our conversation.

  “They don’t know what they’re talking about,” he says, waving a hand at the wall, through the wall to the men.

  “I’m sure they do,” I say. “But that doesn’t matter.”

  You’ve held my hand, that’s all. Held my hand, leaned in—and backed away. Do you toy with all the women you bring here? But bitterness slides away as another perspective rises in my mind. He’s coveted by a lot of women. A lot of women want him. Why? Because he’s handsome, of course. Because he’s strong. Because he leads a group of tough men and they all do what he says without question. A friend told me once that she much preferred men who all the girls wanted. I never understood it—until now. There’s a strange appeal to it. It’s not an appeal to the mind. It’s more like a tugging in my chest. A reflexive appeal.

  “Eden?” Maddox says.

  “Yeah?” I reply, coming back to reality.

  “Your face sort of went blank.”

  “I was miles away,” I say. “So, where’s this great programmer?”

  “I’ll just install the game on the PC, and then get him to take a look.”

  “He isn’t here?”

  He shakes his head. “Do you have it?”

  I bend down and reach into my laptop bag. As I do this, I see his eyes go to my breasts, to my bra, and I know he can probably see down there, catch a glimpse of me. Fresh tingles move over me as he watches, tingles which go down my spine and to my ass, and all of a sudden, I want so many things: spank, bite, kiss, ride, writhe, thrust. I push the urges away, reach into one of the compartments of the bag, and take out a flash drive.

  I sit up straight and fiddle with it, turning it over in my hand. “The deadline is in two weeks,” I murmur.

  “All the more reason to get it fixed, yeah?”

  I nod, but I’m unsure. I’ve been working on this for a year. I’ve had help, of course. But that was from Nat, someone who shares my ideals, shares my goals for the game. Everything else – the art, the voice acting – is contracted work, directed by me. If I hand the code over, I’m giving it to a stranger. It’s like handing over a child. I have backup copies – on my laptop, on my PC at home, and on two additional flash drives, as well as in cloud storage – but it’s still my code. It’s still something I’ve worked on for the past year.

  I take a deep breath. “Your programmer, you’ll tell him to just try and fix the problem – on a purely mechanical level – yeah? He won’t change anything? He’ll just scan it for an error and fix the error?”

  Maddox brings his hand to his chest. “Scout’s honor.”

  “Seriously,” I say, surprised at the intensity in my voice. “I don’t want any changes, just for it to be fixed.”

  “Look, Red, I’m a man who gets shit done. That’s my job description: Leader of The Miseryed. Roles and responsibilities: getting shit done. You can either keep the game and never have it fixed, or give it to me and let me sort it out for you. Easy, done, no problem.” He smiles at me smugly. “You see?”

  Smug prick.

  I place the drive on the desk and slide it over. “It’ll be worth it just to see your face when your programmer fails,” I say. “You don’t understand, Mr. Fuckin’ Smug, because you’re not a coder. But I am, and I’ve been over it with laser vision fifty times or more. I’m telling you, the code is too advanced and your guy won’t be able to do a thing.”

  I want to shake his smugness, his confidence, if only a little. If only to show that I’ve had some kind of effect on him. But he just shrugs casually, reaches across the table, and takes the flash drive. He leans down and slots it into the computer, and then clicks the screen. I can’t see, but I know that the automatic install protocol is running.

  “Your programmer won’t be able to do anything,” I say, wanting to shake him. But he just smiles at me, bright blue eyes glimmering playfully.

  “You’re sure?” he says.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay. How about this, then? If my guy can sort this for you, you owe me a kiss.”

  I laugh. I want it to be dismissive, but it comes out as a giggle. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? More like Dr. Feminist and MissFlirty.

  He looks at me seriously. I roll my eyes (been doing that a lot lately) and nod. “Fine,” I say. “I’ll owe you a kiss. Whatever you say.”

  “Good.” He grins his wolfish grin. “Come by tomorrow morning. It will be completely fixed then.” He takes his cell from his pocket and types into it. “Markus is going to give you a ride home. Don’t worry—in one of the cars. So then, tomorrow morning.”

  “Tomorrow morning? You can’t be serious.”

  “I am.”

  I get to my feet, pick up my laptop ba
g, and leave the office. He’s too cocky for his own good. There’s no way.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Maddox

  I watch her leave, watching the way her petite ass moves from side to side, thinking dirty thoughts. Why didn’t I make a move? I ask myself. There were many times I could have, and she would have reciprocated. That was clear from the way she looked at me, the way she took in quick, gasping breaths when I was close to her, the way her hand got warmer and warmer the more I held it. It was clear in every aspect of her; right down to the way she subtly shifted her legs, as though she wanted to fold them over her pussy and press down on it, igniting the embers of pleasure that lingered there.

  Perhaps it’s because toying with her was fun; perhaps it’s because she’s unlike any other woman I’ve brought back to the clubhouse before. She’s not a wannabe ride-or-die chick, a wannabe outlaw’s woman. No, she’s smart, sarcastic, and insightful. She’s interesting in a way the other women were not.

  Focus, I tell my mind, turning to the computer. The game has installed, and now the file sits on my desktop. The file is named: Angels of Death [Working Title].

  “Better get my programmer on the phone,” I mutter, and then chuckle to myself.

  I’m twenty-eight this year, and I graduated from college with a degree in computer science when I was twenty-one. I joined the club when I was twenty-two and became the leader when I was twenty-four. Nobody at the club knows about my background in computer science. They see a thug; let them see me that way. Nobody needs to know that the leader of The Miseryed has a nerdy side, do they? Hell, nobody even knows I went to college, except for an ex-girlfriend called Cassandra.

  Cassandra. A cold spike moves through me. Goddamn, there was a crazy one. I never should have talked to her, let alone dated her. But she’s a chameleon, isn’t she? And she fooled me.

  I stare at the computer screen, at the file on the desktop, but my mind strays back to one of the last nights I spent with Cassandra. I will myself back to the present, back to the program, but sometimes my mind tugs at me no matter how hard I try and concentrate. Thoughts bounce around like pinballs, filling my head with the impossible-to-ignore noise of their ricochets, and I’m forced to give into them, so they’ll go away.

  I lean back in the chair, rest my elbows on the armrests, and let my head fall back. Staring up at the ceiling, I close my eyes.

  One moment I’m in the office; the next I’m in a motel room in the middle of the night, twenty-five-years-old, the winter wind blasting against the windows, and the laugh of a psychotic woman jolting me awake.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I had passed out after the sex, completely zonked out. I hadn’t dream, just slept. My body was aching. Not from the sex, but from a job earlier that day. It got rough, and I was forced to fight. Three men came at me, and three men reeled away, bleeding. But I didn’t need to worry about that when Cassandra and I checked into the motel. Goddamn, I’d thought before sleep took me. She was so glamorous at the start. She was so normal. What the hell happened? Because Cassandra had changed those past two months. She’d started saying odd things, like, “When we die, I want us to be buried together. I want to taste your bones for all eternity.” Or, “When we have children, do you mind if I teach them to always fear the supernatural? Ghosts, you know. They’re real. All of it is real. I can’t lie to them.”

  She said all of this with complete sincerity, as though she truly believed it all. We would be married, we would have children, and she would teach them about ghosts. In her mind, all of this might as well have already happened, it was so set in stone. She wasn’t like that at the start, but now . . .

  I had fallen asleep for what seemed like a few minutes, and then her giggling had woken me up.

  I’d bolted upright in bed and grabbed for my jacket, which was hung over a chair next to the bed. Inside my jacket was my gun. But then I looked across the room and saw that Cassandra was sitting, naked, in the pale moonlight, which slanted through the window. Cross-legged on the floor, she tilted her head up at me. “Mad-dox,” she grinned, drawing my name out. “You’re awake.”

  She giggled again, this time louder.

  “What’s the matter with you?” I asked her, keeping my voice calm. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

  Cassandra was shapely: large ass, large breasts, hourglass. Her face was round and pale, and her eyes were wide and green. When I’d first met her, she was glamorous, held herself like a model, spoke intelligently and acted like a woman a man wanted on his arm. And then, over a few months, this façade slipped away, and the real woman was revealed. The woman beneath the façade was dangerously unhinged.

  She’d sat there, naked; unaware she was naked, giggling.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  And then I’d looked down and saw it.

  She’d pricked her finger with the knife from dinner and was painting the wall with her blood. She moved her finger deliberately, slowly, taking her time to make sure the blood marked the letters clearly. It was dark, and I had to squint, but I made the words out: Maddox and Cassandra fore—And then the blood trailed down the wall. Giggling, eyes rolling back in her head, she cried, “It’s the truth! All of it!”

  I’d got out of bed and went to her, knelt down, and made to pry the knife from her hand. “You can’t do that,” I said.

  She made like she was going to let me take the knife, opening her fingers, and then when the blade was almost free, she clasped it harder and lashed out at me. I was bare-chested and the blade sliced across my pectoral, a clean line, and blood began to pour down my skin, over my abs and onto my underwear. I’d clenched my jaw, keeping myself calm.

  “Don’t,” I said, reaching forward for the knife.

  She’d lashed out again, slicing along my other pectoral.

  “Don’t,” I repeated. And then I’d feinted, reached forward and then darted back when she made to cut me again. Dodging, I grabbed her wrist and twisted it so that she dropped the knife.

  I picked it up and held it behind my back.

  Cassandra had sprung to her feet, moving quick for a woman her size, and began pummelling my chest, her fists smashing into the bleeding wounds. “You said you loved me!” she screamed. “You said you wanted to have my babies! You said you wanted to be with me until the day you died! You said you wanted it all! You said you wanted to have a life with me!”

  I never said any of that, I’d thought, and it was true; Cassandra and I had barely known each other, in truth.

  She’d smashed my chest, over and over, and I’d stood there and let her hit me for a few moments, struck dumb, struck still. She’d been going weird up until this point, but this was the first real explosion of it. I’d never hit a woman, but I couldn’t let her keep punching me, so I grabbed her wrists and wrapped my arms around her, holding her still. She’d kicked out with her legs, and so I wrapped my leg around hers, hooking her. I held her like that for a long time, and finally, she fell asleep in my arms.

  I’d laid her down on the bed and went to the bathroom, got a towel, wetted it under the tap, and returned to the motel room. I’d scrubbed the wall clean of her blood and hid the knife in one of the drawers. Then I pulled on my shirt and jeans and pulled a chair up at the foot of the bed.

  I didn’t sleep again for that entire night, just watching her, terrified, wondering what I should do. I couldn’t leave her, could I? I couldn’t abandon a woman who’d just cut her own finger.

  But I knew one thing: I didn’t want to touch her ever again. I was done with her.

  And so I’d waited until the gray winter light replaced the moonlight, and then gently shook her awake, and explained that to her…

  ***

  I shake my head, bringing myself out of the memory.

  Leave the past in the past, I tell myself.

  I force Cassandra and that dark period of my life out of my mind and turn to the computer. And Eden is different. You learned a lot from Cassandra. You picked up the w
arning signs. Eden is different!

  First of all, I open up the actual game. I can see what Eden meant when she said it was meant to be a game to empower women. Angels of Death is a simple concept – it’d have to be, with such a small team – but I can see how it’d be fun. It’s basically a cast of female characters tooling up and then laying siege to a city full of murderous villains. I can see the differences between other games. These women aren’t perfect white-skinned mannequins. They’re of different races, different sizes, different everything. A true mishmash of feminism. But none of that interests me. I go through the game, noting where it crashes, the problems, and then I close it.