OUR SURPRISE BABY

by Paula Cox

  He squints at me, his gaze tight, hot. “You don’t have many manners, do you?” he says. He tilts his head, animal-like, observing, and then comments nonchalantly: “Maybe I ought to teach you some.”

  The urge to swallow my fear, or to scream, or to turn and run is almost overwhelming. But somehow I manage to fight it back and keep my face composed. This is why you ran from your comfortable suburban life? a voice chides in my head. If I weren’t terrified, I’d be giggling. I came from suburbia to Motor City to be threatened by unpatched bikers: traded picket fences for picked fights, bland men for brutal men.

  “I will remember what you look like, and sound like. I will remember what you are wearing. I will remember your face. You don’t want to do this. You don’t want this kind of trouble.” Through some miracle, my voice didn’t shake. It is completely at odds with how I feel. Inside, I am panicking, but my voice fills the dim, shadowed side street with a lawyerly lilt, in-control. Trent looks as though he doesn’t know how to respond for moment, and then he takes another step forward, so that his body is almost touching mine. He wants me to stop back, to show him that I’m afraid, and the moment I do, he’ll be able to tell himself that I’m just a scared girl and he can do what he wants. So I stand frozen, glaring up at him, fists at my sides, projecting anger and confidence as hard as I can.

  “You’re crazy,” he mutters. “You’re really bat shit, aren’t you? Have you got some kind of death wish? What’s going through that whore head of yours, talking like that, talking about police to a man like me? Huh?” He hefts the pipe, making as though to hit me.

  I push my fear far back, right into the back of my head, where I shove it into a box and wrap chains and padlocks around it. It’s only by doing that that I stop myself from flinching as he hefts the pipe.

  He shakes his head in disbelief. “You need to be taught a lesson.”

  “Let me get into my car and drive away and I will forget I saw you,” I say. This time, my voice does shake, and I think I’m done for.

  He glances over my shoulder, down the street. “Maybe I’ll just kill you,” he mutters, more to himself than to me.

  His voice is curious, the sort of voice I imagine a sadistic child using before he decides he wants to dissect a cat: the voice of a budding psychopath. He turns back to me, smiling. “You’re just acting brave,” he says. “Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll beat you a little with this pipe, and when you start screaming, I’ll know that you’re just a scared whore like the others. Okay?”

  He asks the question as though really wanting me to respond, and then he lifts the pipe, aiming at my face. I can’t hold it in anymore; I see that he’s going to hit me, that there’s nothing I can do. I take step back, let out a small whimper, and my hands begin to shake. His smile gets wider at this sign of weakness. “I knew it,” he says. “I knew you were a scared slut just like the rest of them.” He walks forward as I walk back, almost stepping on my toes. “You’re always trying to act tough, aren’t you, you whores? Always trying to make men feel small. Well, lemme tell you, you’re not making me feel small. No way.”

  “Please—”

  I hate how scared I sound. Pathetic. I hate it. I am supposed to be able to talk to people like this: supposed to make them stop from behaving this way. But I’m terrified, and all of my training has gone right out of my brain.

  “‘Please,’” he echoes, and then laughs harshly. “Knew it.”

  He makes to swing, and I am sure that he would batter my face in if it were not for the growling engine which fills the air of the side street. He pauses, looks over my shoulder, and slowly lowers the pipe, his eyes now tracking the car or bike behind me. I can’t turn to see who it is. My fear is too powerful, so that even though I know I should run, I can’t make my body move an inch. But I can see the men behind Trent, the way they throw their cigarettes to the floor, glancing at each other nervously. And I can see the uncertainty which enters Trent’s expression.

  The engine comes within my peripheral vision: a bike, with a huge muscle-bound man sitting on it. He is broad-shouldered, his leather jacket pulled tightly over his back, the sigil of his club—The Damned—held taut. A picture of a tough man in the foreground, a burning church in the background. He stops the bike, climbs from it. He’s tall as well as muscular, much taller than me, and taller than this bastard in front of me. His hair is brown, cropped close to his head, and his face is strong and clean-shaven. He has sturdy, square features, and his eyes are dark, almost black. Even through my fear, I manage to note that this man is incredibly handsome. He has a small smile on his face, as though he’s just heard a joke moments ago and is still fondly remembering it.

  “Unpatched,” the man says, moving slowly to where Trent and I stand. As he approaches, Trent backs away to join his men, and then this big man is standing in front of me, arms at his sides, watching Trent and his men. “Unpatched botherin’ a lady,” he says. His voice is deep, but smooth, the voice of a man who is never unsure. I notice the outline of what looks like a gun beneath his leather; his right hand rests close to the butt of the weapon, but he is relaxed and calm, his eyes gazing almost lazily straight ahead. “Maybe it’s time you fellas took off.”

  “Fuck you, Rust,” Trent snaps, but now he sounds pouty, and the effect of his words is mitigated by the fact that he’s walking backward toward his motorbike. “This isn’t over. You know that, don’t you? We’ll get you one day, you fuck.”

  “I’m right here,” Rust says, shrugging. “Why wait?”

  “Because you have a gun and we don’t.”

  “I’ll fight you fair, if you like,” Rust comments. “Show you how much of a coward you really are.”

  Trent pretends not to hear that as he climbs onto his bike and he and his men ride from the alleyway, their engines growling as though with the rage he must feel at being humiliated by Rust.

  Once Trent and his gang are gone, their engines dim echoes faraway in the city, Rust turns to me, his smile wider now, cocky.

  “You’re welcome,” he says, and then holds his hand out. “Rust, ma’am, nice to meet you.”

  Chapter Three

  Rust

  She stands there like a deer in the headlights for a few seconds, just staring. She’s damn hot, and that’s the truth. Around five six, with long, curling chestnut locks of hair which look like she’s tried to tame them and failed, flowing all the way down past her shoulders. Her face is pale, and open, with bright green eyes which make her look startled as hell, like she’s not quite sure what’s going on, but this is contrasted with her lips, which are thin and sharp, and her nose, which is cute and button-like. All in all, she looks smart and cute at the same time, a rare combination. I hold my hand out for a few seconds before she slowly takes it.

  We shake, and I can’t help but think about how soft and small her hand is. She tells me her name is Allison Lee.

  “I was talking my way out of it,” she mutters, after a few seconds of just standing there.

  “Oh yeah.” I smile sideways at her. “You look like you had a real handle on the situation. Maybe you were just waitin’ for the right time to use your ninja skills, huh? I suspect I owe you an apology for interrupting your routine.” I bow sarcastically. “Please, accept my sincere apologies, m’lady.”

  She squints at me for a moment, and then giggles despite herself. She immediately smooths her expression. “I could’ve handled it,” she says proudly.

  “Sure you could,” I say, but I don’t figure she could. She’s too small, too vulnerable-looking. And sexy as all hell. Just looking at her gets my blood stirring. She’s wearing tight jeans and a tight T-shirt, accentuating her figure, thin at the hips, small but pert breasts and legs which make a man think of what they’d be like wrapped around his waist.

  I think she can tell this, too, ’cause her pale cheeks turn crimson and she glances down at her feet.

  “Come for a drink with me,” I say.

  “What?” She giggles, and then stop
s the giggling like she’s embarrassed. That just makes me want to provoke that giggling again, just to see her cheeks turn redder, as red as my name. “It’s the middle of a Wednesday, Mister …”

  “Springfield. Rust Springfield.”

  “Springfield…any relationship to Bruce?”

  I grin. “Yeah, he’s my less-sadistic younger brother.”

  Her green eyes glimmer at that. I know women, know them physically at least, and I know that Allison is thinking of all the sadistic, sexual things I could do to her.

  “Come for a drink with me,” I repeat.

  “I have work.”

  “Take the afternoon off.” Why people work nine-to-five always confuses the hell out of me. What sort of person wants to work a job where you can’t go for a whisky or two in the afternoon? It’s stuff like that which reminds me of just how much I love the club.

  She hesitates, takes a deep breath, and then lets it out and nods in a quick, small movement. “I can go for an hour,” she says shortly. “But—or maybe I shouldn’t.”

  “If you think you shouldn’t do somethin’, chances are you should. Give me your keys. I’ll drive us.”

  She swallows, looking like she has no clue what she’s doing, and then reaches into her pocket and hands me the car keys.

  “Let me help you with these, sweetheart,” I say, kneeling down and collecting the pamphlets which have dropped all over the alleyway.

  “I didn’t even realize I’d dropped them,” she mutters, kneeling down beside me.

  I collect them, keeping one for myself: advertisement for social services work out of a community library.

  “Do much business?” I ask, as we walk toward the car. I stuff the pamphlet in the pocket of my leather.

  “I work with lots of people, yes.”

  I open the car door and climb in. She drops into the passenger seat. “For a second there I thought you were going to be a gentleman and hold the door open for me.”

  I laugh, and then turn and grin at her. “Nah, that ain’t me, sweetheart.”

  “Why do you keep calling me that?” she asks, sounding like an exasperated teenager trying to be a calm grownup. It’s cute and funny and the same time.

  “Because you look like a little deer caught in the headlights. It’s sweet. I presume you have a heart, since you’re working with troubled men like yours truly at the local community hot spot.” I turn up the sarcasm in my voice as high as it goes, and it irritates her, just like I knew it would.

  “I do not,” she says, folding her arms, which has the incredible effect of pushing her breasts up, two peaches pressing together.

  I stare at them for a few seconds before she realizes what I’m doing. “You’re disgusting,” she says, but she doesn’t unfold her arms, and there’s that same glint in her eye. “We just met.”

  “I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for you, baby,” I say, turning the key.

  She shakes her head. “Disgusting,” she repeats, and I chuckle.

  I drive us to a bar called The Englishman where they know The Damned and we don’t have to pay for our drinks. A Union Jack hangs from a flagpole above the door, and inside various pictures of famous English men and women hang from the walls: Dickens, Austen, Darwin, dozens of others I don’t know the names of. The Beatles play on the jukebox, and the man behind the bar wears a red-and-white T-shirt, which apparently has something do with an English dragon slayer called Saint George.

  “Drink?” I ask Allison, as we sit down.

  “Just a Coke, please,” she responds, folding her hands on the table. She’s trying so damn hard to be respectable, as though this is entirely normal: just agreeing to come here with me. Really, what she would’ve done if she was being respectable is thank me for my assistance and refuse to come for an afternoon drink with me.

  So I know that I can persuade her to have more than a Coke. “Don’t want wine?” I say.

  She only hesitates for a moment, and then says, “Technically I’m not working today. I was going to go in after handing out the pamphlets to get ahead on some work.” She hesitates again, and then admits, “It’s my day off.”

  “So you’re saying you want a drink, sweetheart?” I say.

  She blushes, and then nods. “Sure,” she mutters.

  I call over the barman for a whisky and a glass of red. He brings it over, and I sip from the whisky, enjoying the way it burns down my throat. I’ve always loved the way whisky burns down my throat, a proper jolt-awake drink, a proper sit-up-and-take-note drink. Allison sips daintily from her wine. Goddamn, she’s sexy, the fact that she’s trying to act like a lady when I can see how much she wants something to happen making her all the sexier.

  “I take it you don’t normally do stuff like this,” I say.

  “I shouldn’t be too scared,” she says. “But—well, um…a drink will definitely help calm my nerves.” She pauses, looks at me like she’s wonderin’ if I’m as tough as I look, and then adds, “That man—Trent—he knew you, didn’t he? They all did. They were like seven of them, and you show up, and…How does that happen?” There’s awe in her voice.

  I wave a hand. “They’re unpatched, just a group of wanderers trying to make trouble. Nothing for The Damned to worry about. Anyway, I don’t wanna talk about Trent. I wanna talk about the way you’re lookin’ at me. Keep lookin’ at me like that, all deer in the headlights, and a man might get ideas.”

  “I am not looking at you like anything,” she says, but her cheeks are glowing carmine now, bursting with life, and her eyes move to my arms, where my leather is tight around my biceps.

  I shrug. “Course not.”

  For the next few minutes, we sit and drink in silence: a silence around our table anyway, because British pop music plays throughout the bar, and a few tables back two old men play checkers, every so often letting out a cough of a low chuckle. After a while, Allison looks up—she’s been glancing around, nervously, deer-like—and says, “May I have a second wine, please?”

  I grin, and then gesture to the barman, who brings over another wine and whisky.

  “How do you drink that stuff?” she says. “It’s so harsh.”

  “Maybe I’m a harsh man,” I say, and knock it back. It scorches my throat. “So, social work,” I go on. “That sounds …I don’t know, fun?”

  Her face properly glows at this, as though she is very rarely asked about it. “I don’t know if fun’s the word,” she agrees. “But it is rewarding, one-hundred percent the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. What about you?”

  “I’m an enforcer,” I say calmly.

  I wait for her to react as she should react, with complete disgust, or fear. She should’ve reacted like that back in the side street with that unpatched gang. But instead she just holds my gaze, and then takes a sip of her wine. I watch the hand holding the wine for any indication of nervousness, but she holds it steady.

  “What?” she asks after a moment of staring.

  “You’re not easily bothered, are you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re sittin’ here with a Damned enforcer and back there you were almost beaten into the ground by an unpatched sadist. Don’t you get scared?”

  “Of course I do,” she says, with a note of dignity in her voice, head held high, “but I am used to fear now. I know how to handle it. Anyway, if you hadn’t arrived earlier, I would have started to scream in earnest.”

  “In earnest,” I repeat, grinning. “You speak funny, sweetheart.”

  She grins back, and I swear to God, that grin is sweeter than sugar. “Funny, or just with a slightly larger vocabulary than an eighth grader?”

  “Oh, you’ve done it now,” I shoot back, enjoying myself. “If I’m an eighth-grader, you better watch yourself. Mud-pies are going to be coming your way, along with some titty-twisters and water balloons.”

  She giggles, which seems to surprise her. The moment she giggles, she covers her mouth. “You’re rotten, Rust,” she
says.

  “True,” I say, nodding.

  She finishes her wine, and I order us two more drinks. The alcohol isn’t having much effect on me, as alcohol always does. I don’t know if it’s thick blood, or a liver as stubborn as me, or just that I’m twice the size of most men, but alcohol never kicks me in the balls like it does to others. Allison, though, is getting tipsy if not drunk. She sways just a tiny bit in her chair, like a scarecrow rocking in a light wind, and her white neck is blotched with redness. I can’t help but think that looks attractive as hell; there’s so much life in this small woman. She makes me think of what it’d be like to have her sitting on top of me, bouncing. I bet she’s bouncier than an inflatable castle.