by Nicole Fox
“What is this?” The man steps in front of my path, a cruel leer on his face. Behind him, two men puff themselves up. I recognize him. Michaels, I think, the man who used to terrify me as a girl because of the nasty scar down one side of his face. “This isn’t little Nancy O’Neill, is it? This can’t be the same girl who used to crawl around on the floor when me and her dad were watching football, can it? No, because that girl would never doll herself up for some biker scum, and then walk into a biker hangout. No, she wouldn’t do that.”
He leans over me, trapping me against the wall. I want to thump him in the chest, slap him across the face, do anything I can to get him away from me. Not for the first time in my life, I hate how physically weak I am. All I can do is make sure my physical weakness doesn’t translate to emotional weakness, which I do by standing up straight and not letting my fear show on my face.
“Get away from me, please.”
He ignores me. His scar wrinkles when he squints. “What has happened to you?” he asks, and there’s genuine amazement in his voice. I find that absurd, since he knows Dad, and must know that if something has happened to me it would be the drunken bottle-smasher. “I really mean that, Nancy. Your father told me you might show up here one of these days, and to keep a lookout, but I didn’t believe him. You’re a lawyer, for Christ’s sake.”
“I’m not a lawyer,” I tell him, struggling to keep calm. “And you’re in my way.”
“So you and this Fink character are an item?” Michaels says, ignoring me. “Is that about the size of it? Have you completely lost all self-respect?”
“I don’t have to justify anything to you. I don’t even know you.”
“Know me? I’m the law, girl! Of course you know me!” His goons mumble in agreement. “I just don’t get this. You’re a . . . I don’t want to say it, but looking at you now with your face all painted up and your tights hiked up and your ass pushed out, I think you’re a whore. I don’t want to say it, but what else can I say? Look at you. You’re practically panting for that little shit’s cock.”
“Get. Out. Of. My. Way!” I slap him in the chest.
It accomplishes nothing but to hurt my hand. It’s like hitting wood. He just stands there, unharmed and unbothered, watching me calmly. “Wow,” he says. “You just assaulted a police officer. You just assaulted a police officer.” He grabs my wrist, squeezing too hard, crushing the bone. “How’re you going to make up for that, little whore?”
I take a step back, pressing myself so closely to the wall that my back and bum and legs hurt. The stone bites into me. Michaels leans over, aiming a trembling forefinger at my face. The way he looks right now, shaking, full of crazed energy, I believe he could do anything. He and his goons could grab me and shove me in a van and do something horrible and there’s nothing I could do.
But then, Fink and two men appear behind him. All three of them are wearing leathers. One man has a dragon tattooed on his neck. Without even realizing it, I’ve started hyperventilating, my breathing taking hold of me. All the horrible things these men might do to me spring alive in my twisted mind. When I see Fink, though, my breathing slows. Not a lot, but enough for me to think.
“Well?” Michaels barks.
I tilt my head up at him, smiling as sweetly as I can, looking like timid prey but thinking like a deadly predator. “I’ve always thought you were handsome.”
“What?” He glances at his goons, and then at me. Fink and his men advance slowly. “Really?”
“Sure,” I say, as Fink creeps closer, closer. “When you used to come by the house I thought that, all the time. I thought you were the biggest, handsomest man—”
Fink leaps, smashing Michaels over the head with the barrel of his handgun. Michaels’ eyes go wide for a moment. He stumbles, and then he slams into the wall and slides to the floor. Fink’s friends make short work of the other two, and then Fink turns to the dragon-tattooed man. “Dump these somewhere, Snake,” he says. “But don’t kill ’em. The last thing we need is three dead cops. I’ll kill the surveillance footage.”
“Why shouldn’t I just kill them?” the man named Snake asks.
Fink darts forward, grabbing his shirtfront. He moves even deadlier than he did just now. “Three dead cops,” he says. “If you do this without the boss’s permission, I’ll have no choice but to tell him. See how he reacts to it.”
Snake nods when Fink mentions the boss. “Fair enough. But sooner or later, he’ll give the order. You won’t be able to keep your peace then.”
A car pulls up and Snake and the other man drag the bodies into the trunk. Fink turns to me, looking down at me with a mixture of a smile and a scowl: a smile for me and a scowl for the situation. Just seeing his face after all these weeks would be enough to make me wobbly, but his face combined with the memory of Michaels, the thoughts of what that crazy man could’ve done, his cutting words . . .
I collapse forward into Fink’s arms. I’m shaking, I note in an oddly clinical way. Yes, I’m shaking. And now I’m hyperventilating again.
“He . . . was . . . going . . . to . . .”
“Hush,” Fink says, stroking my hair. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I wonder what he means, but then I see: a spray of blood on my face and shirt from where Fink hit Michaels.
My breathing only gets worse.
Chapter Eight
Nancy
Panic is a strange thing. It’s like I’m sitting outside of my body watching the hyperventilating woman, and as I sit here I can’t help but think that she looks kind of pathetic. I want to scream at her: “Get yourself together, dammit! He didn’t do anything! You’re safe!” But in the panicked woman’s head, Michaels is still leaning over her, still sneering and threatening, and his threatened deeds could become reality all too soon.
Fink leads me into the ladies’ bathroom. He nods at a woman doing her makeup in the mirror. “Sorry, bathroom’s closed. On your way, now.”
The woman retreats and, after checking the stalls, Fink locks the door. He returns to me by the mirror and runs the tap. “Shall I, or you . . .”
“You do it,” I say. “I . . . I’m sorry, Fink.” I don’t know why I apologize. No sooner have I said it than I forget the reasoning behind it. “I’m not, actually. I’m not sorry at all. I’m scared. No, angry. I’m . . . I’m angry, and tired. I’ve never had—I guess Dad has threatened me before. But I never believed him. I believed Michaels. He didn’t care—a whore, I was. Just a whore now. And because I was a whore, he could do anything to me. I saw it in his face. He didn’t care. He was going to—I mean, really going to—”
“Okay,” Fink says, stroking my hair with surprising softness. “I get it. It’s over. He’s gone. He can’t hurt you now.” Fink cleans me up as best he can, washing the blood from my face completely and from my shirt only partially. Then he steps back, hands at his sides, watching me.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Just wondering if you need an ambulance or what. Your breathing’s all janky.”
“Janky?” I giggle, a little forced but a giggle nonetheless. “Janky?”
He shrugs, looking lost. “I don’t know. Have you breathed like this before?”
“I think I’m coming off a panic attack,” I tell him. “I used to have them when I was a little kid, before I understood what a panic attack was. Dad would come crashing around the house and I’d hide in my room, all hunched up, and just pant and pant into my knees.” As I talk about those torturous times, my breathing slows. Odd that the thing that started all of this would help to fix it. “Once, Dad caught me mid-attack and knelt down beside me and started to cry, said he was sorry and he’d never drink again. The next day he was drunk.”
I take a deep breath, let out a deep breath, repeat the process a few dozen times. Fink watches calmly.
“I’m better now,” I tell him.
“Okay.” He nods. “Good.”
We pause for a few moments, just watching
each other.
And then Fink says, “What are you doing here?”
“Really?” I can’t hide the anger from my voice. “That’s the first thing you want to ask me after what just happened?”
He doesn’t enter into the argument, stays cold, distant, just watching with his light green eyes. “I want to know why you’re here,” he says. “I don’t see that that’s a problem.”
“Have I done something to offend you?” I ask. “You’re looking at me like I slashed your tires.”
He laughs, seemingly unable to help himself. “You haven’t done anything to offend me. I’m just in a damn stressful situation and I don’t see how us seeing each other is gonna make it better. The Sons of Wolves and the cops are at each other ’cause those cop bastards tooled me up, all because I tooled your dad up. I don’t know how this is gonna end, but blood seems pretty likely. I don’t want you anywhere near when that happens. Look what almost happened today.”
“I’m not a child,” I say. “I can make my own decisions.”
“Do you know how lucky it was we showed up when we did?” he counters. “That could’ve ended anywhere.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” I snap. “What do you think my panic attack was about? Fun?”
“Then you agree with me,” he says. “We can’t be near each other. So I’ll ask you again. Why are you here?”
“I don’t like your tone,” I say. “I don’t like it at all. I feel like you’re trying to act all cool and nonchalant. I see right through it, Fink.”
He massages the bridge of his eyebrows. “You’re speaking like we’re a couple or somethin’.”
“There it is again! Mr. Cool and Nonchalant, too cool and nonchalant to bother with me.”
“I’m trying to keep you safe!” he breaks out, waving his arm and gritting his teeth.
His explosion of anger brings emotion with it. We meet eyes again, and this time we truly see each other. In his face, I see that he’s missed me as much as I’ve missed him, thought about me as much as I’ve thought about him. It makes sense for neither of us and yet it’s the truth.
“I just want the best for you,” he says.
“Don’t you think I should have some say in that?” I reply.
“We can’t see each other,” he says. “The cops’ll go crazy at the idea of one of their own—and that’s how they see you, Nancy, even if that ain’t how you feel—they’ll go crazy at seeing us together. They’ll kill me and kill you, or worse, and then where will we be? And for what?”
“I don’t understand it ether,” I tell him. “All I know is for the past few weeks . . .” I cut off, suddenly embarrassed. Half-turning, I say, “I’ve missed you.” I feel vulnerable admitting something so intimate to a man I scarcely know: scarcely know, and yet I feel close to him.
He takes a step forward, his body close to mine. I feel the heat from him drawing me in, impossible to ignore. It’s heat that promises rounds of pleasure, so many rounds that when the bell rings, I’ll lie spent on the floor. I turn to him, stepping closer.
“I’ve thought about you, too,” he says, and then an animal look comes into his face.
He moves with deadly speed, the same deadly speed he used outside to smash the leering cop over the head. His hand yanks down my tights and panties to my knees, and then slides up my inner thigh toward my pussy. His eyes are locked on me the whole time. I know I could ask him to stop. I’m not that sort of girl, etc., etc. . . . but I don’t want him to stop. I’ve dreamt of this hand for too many nights to make him stop now. Fear has become lust like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.
He pushes his finger against my hole, moving it softly, opening me up. “Is this what you want?” he asks.
I’m wet, so wet, and aching, and hungry for the release of pleasure. “Yes,” I moan.
He slides his finger inside of me, deep, pushing all the way to my sweet spot. That aching spot is waiting for him. The second his finger presses firmly against it I lose control, leaning forward against him and biting onto the leather of his jacket to stop from screaming. I’m vaguely aware that we’re in public, that outside women talk to each other, wondering aloud why the toilet is locked. Music pumps through the walls and glasses clink together. But I blot all that out until all that exists is me, and him, and his finger pressing against the most pleasurable part of me.
He moves his finger fast, around in circles, which make my hot spot hotter and hotter. I taste leather, and then taste his sweat as I bite down on his T-shirt. His pectoral is solid, so solid that I can hardly grip it with my teeth. He tastes good, manly, smelling faintly of oil from the garage. Without warning, he lifts me up, both with his hand in my pussy and his arm wrapped around my bum. He drops me on the sink surface and leans forward, pumping his arm so that his finger drills my pussy. I feel utterly powerless, and feeling utterly powerless with Fink is almost too much to bear.
Everything is on fire. My body, my mind, a billion pleasure centers singing a unified song.
“I want you to come on my fuckin’ hand.” Fink growls like a beast, kissing and biting my neck as he fingers me. “I want to fuckin’ feel it.”
I squeeze my legs around his hand, squeezing my pussy at the same time, making it so that my lips are tight around his finger, trapping him inside of me. He moves his finger even faster, so fast that I can’t feel it anymore: not each movement. All I feel is a searing heat inside of me, a heat so powerful it touches every part of me. The orgasm approaches, hot and steaming, touching my finger and my toes, making both curl, and making my cheeks and my lips flare red-hot. I close my eyes and see heat imprinted on my eyes. Fink rubs me quicker, quicker, and I can’t stop myself anymore. It feels too good. I’m lost to the world.
I moan loudly, not caring that someone might hear, not caring about anything other than losing myself in this pleasure. I moan in unison with the heat, my moans getting louder the hotter my pussy gets. Soon, the heat is a giant force inside of me, so large that it blots every other feeling. I grind against his hand, so close now I can almost feel the orgasm. And then—
The orgasm snaps from inside of me like a whip; Fink’s finger has become a weapon flailing wildly, hitting every single inch of me. My pussy releases, pleasure releasing with it, my hole getting looser as attack after attack whirls within me. Heat-touched pleasure utterly consumes me. My pussy gets tight, loose, tight, loose as pleasure empties onto Fink’s hand. I squirt, hard, squirting so much that I feel it dripping onto my thighs. I am aware that I’m screaming in pleasure but unable to stop myself. The orgasm could last for five seconds or five minutes. I have no idea. All I know is the flame-tinged whip, making my clit, my sweet spot, my face, my body, my nipples, everything—making all of it hotter than I can bear. Finally, the orgasm retreats and I’m left leaning against the mirror, my chin resting on my chest, breathing so fast it’s like I’m having a panic attack again.
Fink steps back and I hop down from the sink, pulling up my panties and my tights. “Wow,” I say.
“Wow,” he agrees.
He doesn’t ask for sex. I know why, because he knows I’ll say no. And yet part of me is disappointed. I splash some water on my face, my panties damp from the pleasure, and then turn to him. “So,” I say.
“So,” he replies. His chest heaves as lust slowly leaves him.
“I want to see you again,” I offer.
“I know,” he replies. “I want the same.”
“But?”
“We’ve been over it. I’d say this is like Romeo and Juliet, but I don’t consider myself much of a Romeo. We’re from different worlds, Nancy. How do you reckon this could work?” He kisses me on the forehead and makes for the door. “I wish we’d met under different circumstances.”
I stand there, dumbfounded, not sure how to feel. He gives me the greatest pleasure of my life—and I mean that, because that frantic exchange dwarfs every other orgasm in my life—and then leaves me just like that. After a while, I leave the bathroom
, leave the bar, make my way home, where I sit on the edge of my bed full of restless energy. He’s made his position clear and I should respect that, but I can’t help but feel that there’s more to this, there has to be more to this.
It can’t all end with an orgasm in the restroom.
Chapter Nine
Fink
“You sound an awful lot like you’re scared, Fink.” Snake drains his whisky and pours another. “I don’t wanna start nothing, but it seems that way to me.”
I drain my own whisky. “Keep talking that way and see how scared I am.”
Snake gulps, and then holds his hands up in a show of peace. “I didn’t mean nothing.”