by Celia Loren
“That wasn’t nice!” Bane barks. He wrestles the gun out of my hand and tosses it to the floor. I can smell the whiskey on his breath. “Thank god it wasn’t loaded or we’d both be in deep shit. Idiot! Did you not listen to what I just said?”
We are nose-to-nose, breathing each other’s air and tasting each other’s sweat.
“Fucking women,” he curses. “You make no god damn sense.”
“Well excuse me if I don’t accept being some skanky gangster man-whore’s property!” I growl. “Excuse me if I don’t fall all over myself with joy! You’re a criminal just like them, otherwise you’d let me go!”
“Easy with the name calling,” he shoots back. “Look princess, it’s complicated ok? We’re both up shit creek without a paddle here. I didn’t exactly write you down on my Christmas list.”
“How terrible for you,” I spit, thrashing. “Would you rather have had a different size or color woman? A boy? A blonde perhaps? Or two, since that’s your thing? Should I apologize to you for finding yourself in the terrible position of owning me?”
“You are really starting to piss me off lady,” he growls through clenched teeth. He tilts his head back to get a better look at me. “I didn’t ask for this. I sure as hell don’t want some frigid cager bitch dicking around with my Remington. I’ve got enough going on, myself. So if it were up to me, you’d still be shoving organic popsicles up your ass on the Upper East Side or wherever the fuck you came from. But clearly, that’s not happening. So accept it. I’m the best fucking thing that could have happened to you tonight, and you better get that through your thick head if you want my protection.”
Finally, rage breaks through my fear and confusion. I am pissed as hell, pissed that Mr. King hijacked my life, pissed that twisted criminals like Jack exist, pissed that I’m caught up in a dark world I can’t control. Pissed that there is a sex trade. Pissed that there are biker gangs. Pissed that I’m in New York City at all when I could have just listened to my parents and had a nice quiet life in Michigan.
Pissed that Bane is so goddamn full of himself.
All of this accumulates in my brain to the point of rage. It wells up inside and renders me reckless. I snort until I can hock up a spit wad, and send it right into Bane’s eye.
“You arrogant prick,” I hiss. “You’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”
He stares at me with deathly calm for a minute, then shifts his weight over me until he can still hold me down while wiping his face clean. When he’s finished, his face is livid.
“Wrong move, Red,” he whispers. An iron hand closes around my neck. “Wrong move.”
Quick as lightning he is standing, yanking me up beside him. His grip on my throat is controlling but not debilitating, and he uses it to push me in front of him as he slams out of the room. Never mind that we are both either naked or close to it: he marches me down the long hallway and up a flight of stairs resolutely, muttering to himself all the way.
“You could have left her with Jack,” he says to himself. “She didn’t have to be your problem. You could have minded your own business. You could have had another blowjob by now. Hell, you could have had three blowjobs. But no, you had to be a fucking hero.”
He stops me abruptly in front of a door and raps three times. It opens a crack, and I see that it’s one of the other women from earlier—Coco I guess. Trinity must be banging Jack somewhere.
“Watch this for me,” Bane grunts, shoving me through the door. I stumble and Coco makes no move to break my fall, watching impassively as I splay out on the floor. “Just keep her alive, I don’t give a shit how. You can toss her in with the rest of the mamas, but no one touches her. She’s my property.” He glances over me disparagingly. “Temporarily.”
With that, he stalks away.
I push up on my palms and realize that I am alone with Coco, who locks the door behind Bane and turns to eye me with the same distaste. She’s dressed herself in heels and a black lace babydoll that does little to conceal the darkness of her nipples or pubic mound. She’s lithe like a model and covered in tattoos, gorgeous, and dark-featured.
“Girl you must be some kind of retard to twist him up like that, and you his bitch.” She plants one stilettoed foot on my chest, pushing me back to the ground. “You suicidal, or just fucking dumb?”
“Both at the moment.”
She almost smiles but catches herself and pushes her heel into me until I gasp in pain. “That was quite an entrance tonight, my bitch,” she says. “I’m not big on surprises.”
“Me neither.” I glare up steadily, too mad to be careful. “And I’m not your bitch, bitch.”
“Shut the fuck up!” she swipes a hand across my face and I cry out as the taste of blood fills my mouth. She smiles down at me, licking my blood off her fingernails. “Right now your protection don’t want you, bitch. Comprende? You the lowest on the totem pole.”
She kicks me sharply in the side, sending me rolling over the floor and cursing in pain. I hear the click of her heels as she follows me, and as my body grinds to a halt around the legs of a bunk bed I feel her nails on my shoulders. She spins me around to face her, leaning over my face so close that I can see the gold specks in her irises. She’s laughing at me. “You my bitch. You everybody’s bitch.”
I’m in at least the seventh circle of hell.
Chapter Eight
The bar is hazy and full of smoke and a cover band is butchering Led Zeppelin. I’m no Robert Plant, but I could do better vocals with strep throat. The off-pitch keeling makes me wince as I study the room.
There’s a pool table, a dancing pole, a swing. Topless women are swaying on the bandstand and giving lap dances. Girls in G-strings serve up wings and beers, and there is a lot of fondling and making out going on. Health codes are definitely being violated. There’s a broken syringe on the middle of the doorway that Coco’s stilettos crunch over as she pushes me in. All the patrons are men, all wearing Death Layer Motorcycle Club colors. I soon learn that the all-women workers are, if they’re lucky, willing club sweetbutts. Or, if they’re not lucky, slaves—like me.
Coco and Trinity dragged me here after a sleepless and foodless morning, their brass knuckles and sharp stilettos sapping the fight right out of me. Now I am literally chained behind the bar, metal shackles linking one of my ankles to a pole that runs the length of the bar along the ground. Like a dog on a leash.
“Welcome to the clubhouse,” Trinity smirks.
Trinity has mercifully allowed me to keep on my bra and underwear, which affords me more coverage than whatever ‘uniforms’ the other girls in the bar are wearing. Coco has strapped a spiked dog collar around my neck that earned me another black eye when I resisted putting it on.
At least my eyes match each other now.
My collar links by a chain to a parallel pole above the bar on the ceiling. I have about a foot’s worth of give, just enough to bend over for ice and cups. Satisfied that I can’t get away, Trinity holds my arms back so that Coco can write on my chest with a sharpie: “Property of Bane.” She then draws a big X over my face with a nasty grin.
Clearly she thinks this is some kind of sorority hazing.
“Do as you’re told and pour the drinks, bitch,” Coco laughs at me as she tightens the metal around my leg until it’s painful, drawing a pinch of blood. I’ve already learned not to show my reactions. She likes this dominatrix shit too much, and I am not going to give her any satisfaction if I can help it.
“You’re lucky,” Coco jeers. “Out of the goodness of my mama heart I’m giving you a cushy job your weak ass can handle. If you can manage not to piss me off today, maybe I’ll loosen these.”
“Might as well tighten them now,” I retort.
For no real reason, she punches me in my groin and yanks my collar as I sag off-balance momentarily, choking me.
“Fuck!” I gasp.
It’s not like I have a dick but it still hurts like a motherfucker, just like the time I los
t my grip while climbing a wire fence as a kid and landed with the wire between my legs…blinding sting. By the time I catch my breath and straighten back upright, Trinity has hopped over the bar and worked her way deep into the crowd, dancing and laughing.
“Don’t screw up!” Trinity calls over her shoulder.
Coco gives my chain another choking yank and moves to the other end of the bar. I glare at her as she gives orders to another girl before peeking her head through a little curtain in the wall to shout at the kitchen. Great. I guess she’s my new manager.
And I thought George was bad.
The other girl behind the bar stares at me for a second with wide blue eyes. They didn’t let her keep her bra, and I see that both her nipples are pierced and a chain dangles between. Her ankle is cuffed to the pole on the ground, too. She gives me a curt nod and returns to her work, her expression carefully blank.
Unsteady, I look around to get my bearings. I know we’re three floors below the sleeping quarters. I can see that the bikers come and go through a door that attaches to the same stairwell we entered from. No light filters through the tiny barred windows on the far wall, so I have no idea what time it is or what the view is like.
The bar can’t possibly be at street level, but the sight of windows—the first I’ve seen since coming to Death Layer—is driving me insane. The outside world is tantalizing close and yet impossible to reach. I stare at the glass panes longingly before remembering my chains.
There’s a giant black flag behind the bar with the Death Layer MC colors and rockers, just like Bane’s massive back tattoo. The flaming devil’s head grins luridly down at me between the crossed barrels of a pair of guns. On the sidewall, there is a fleet of framed portraits—all men, all menacing.
With uncanny speed, my eyes lock on to a familiar portrait: Bane himself. It’s under a plaque that reads: “Road Captain.” A few rows above him I see Jack’s picture under the words: “President.” I recognize one of the big bouncer guys as the Vice President.
“Yo Jessica Rabbit,” someone shouts at me. “Dewar’s, neat.”
The irony of my situation does not escape me. Being fired from a service job was, ultimately, the beginning of this mess, and here I am right back to pouring drinks. The thought almost makes me laugh.
Yeah. Pouring drinks in hell. For Satan and company.
My head snaps up and I study the jerk that has decided to crack a redhead joke along with my last nerve. He’s got a springy mess of jet-black hair and a ruthless face. Muscles bulge large under his MC jacket and enormous rings sparkle on most of his knuckles.
When I don’t move, his attention settles on me. “Dewar’s, neat.” He repeats. “You deaf?”
I cross my arms under my breasts and glare, clearly acknowledging and refusing him.
He laughs, his eyes sweeping over me and resting on my matching black eyes. “Really?” He says. The laugh dies with a playful bite of his lip. “Whoever gave you those shiners not enough for you? You wanna play with me, too, bunnyrabbit? Huh? Ok.”
Startlingly fast, his hands snatch my spiky collar and jerk my body forward over the bar until my face is close to his. He leers at me and I can smell his surprisingly fresh breath, minty Listerine. Those hands of his are way too big for me to pull away, and my stupid ankle cuff and collar are digging painfully into my skin.
This is what’s called being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
His voice is rough. “I’m happy to play with you and your little attitude problem. Teach you a lesson or two. It’ll be good for you.”
I stare right back at him with open loathing but say nothing. That was usually my strategy with bullies: don’t give them the reaction they want. He chuckles, seeming to get a kick out of my lack of physical resistance. To punctuate his threat, his free hand reaches over the bar to squeeze one of my breasts.
The assault startles me out of my deadweight and in spite of my restraints I lurch to get away, but the metal cuts into my ankle and neck and a whimper of pain escapes my throat.
“Oh yeah, you like that? I’ll play with you anytime, bunny. Don’t worry; I’m playing. I’m playing right now.”
His groping hand moves south over my bare navel and towards my underwear. A wave of nausea washes over me. My hands scramble to push his away but he’s way too strong for me, even if I wasn’t caught up in chains.
“Hey!” Coco is suddenly at my side, surprising the hell out of me by trying to insert herself between us. Her arm wraps around my waist, tugging. “There a problem I can straighten out for you here, Smokey?”
I feel like the rope in tug-of-war, both the biker and the sweetbutt treating my body like their disputed territory. A frustrated growl emanates from my throat.
“Butt out Coco,” the guy named Smokey warns.
“Can’t,” she insists, “Sorry Smoke, this bitch is Bane’s and he says hands-off.”
“I don’t take orders from Bane, or you.” Smokey’s hand lashes out to the side, cracking on Coco’s jaw and sending her sideways with a startled cry. She lands on the floor behind the bar, her head hitting the corner of the sink. I wince at the sound of the impact. “My hands go where they want,” Smokey shouts over Coco’s moan. He grips me between my legs where I’m tender from Coco’s earlier punch and lifts my body high, the painful pressure distracting me from the cuffs cutting my ankle. I gasp in agony. “Right now my hands are gonna fix your attitude problem for you, bunny. What you need is a good finger fuck, yeah?”
“Let go!” I gasp, terrified. “Stop!”
Opening my mouth to speak was a mistake. He frees up a hand and shoves his fingers under my tongue, moving them slowly, gagging me. “Get them nice and wet for me,” he whispers. “For lube. You’ll like it. That’s a good girl.”
Something moves in my periphery but before I can identify it, I see a wall of black slam into Smokey. His grip loosens on my neck and his fingers fall out of my mouth. Stumbling back, I cough and swallow air like a beached fish. The room is spinning.
The wall of black is a man, moving fast. His fists hammer into Smokey’s chest and yank him off of the barstool, then slam Smokey down on the bar. An iron fist shoots out, grabs a beer bottle, and breaks it on the bar. Green glass splinters in tiny fragments in all directions and I’m showered with beer droplets, shivering as I see that the now-jagged bottle end is poised over Smokey’s throat. An edge pricks Smokey’s skin and there’s a slow drop of blood dripping from the point.
Gasping, I glance up at the newcomer’s face. Though it’s twisted in a violent mask, I can still recognize the incongruously clean and rugged good looks: Bane. He leans over Smokey, and I can feel the heat radiating off his tensed body. My legs are trembling as I watch on.
“I’ll just have to assume you’re an illiterate cretin who can’t read, Smoke,” Bane snarls. “Otherwise, if you’re not an illiterate cretin, I’d have to assume you read the label on that redhead. And then, I’d have to kill you. See that?”
He grabs Smokey by the hair and twists his head back at what looks like a painful angle until his wild eyes are pointed at me.
“See that writing on her chest?” Bane shouts. “Says she’s mine, you fucking cunt.”
Bane picks up Smokey enough to slam him back onto the bar for emphasis.
The darker man groans. “Come on, man, I didn’t do nothing.”
“Yet.” Bane is in Smokey’s face, his itchy fingers twirling the broken bottle in his hand. “Just like I haven’t cut you. Yet. But I will if I see anything by daylight between you and my property again.”
Bane jerks Smokey up and kicks him in the ass, sending him stumbling away a few steps before he can catch his balance. Now Smokey is standing upright, fuming. He raises a fist.
“Don’t push me, man!” Smokey shouts. “You’re pushing it, property or no property. How was I supposed to know it was true huh? These bitches are always saying bullshit, I don’t take em seriously.”
“You’ll take me seriously!” Ba
ne’s voice is so powerful it drowns the cover band for a second. “Or you’ll bleed. Are we clear?”
Smokey and Bane eye each other warily. That cold grin tickles the corner of Bane’s mouth again. I believe he’s actually capable of anything, and I am tempted to shut my eyes. I don’t want to watch another man die like last night.
“Crystal clear,” Smokey finally says. He holds his hands up in the air, the universal sign of surrender. “My mistake, brother.”
Bane nods curtly, but doesn’t relax his fighting stance until he has watched Smokey cross to the other side of the bar and take a seat. The blue-eyed bartender hands him his Dewar’s without a word.
The bar seems to collectively exhale in relief and the din of the crowd resumes.
Bane tosses his improvised broken bottle weapon on the counter and leans over the bar to help Coco back to her feet. As he bends past me, the scent of his musky clean aftershave makes my pulse speed up. He wraps a giant hand around Coco’s shoulder and pulls her back to standing.
“You ok?” He grunts.
She sucks in her breath painfully, pressing her fingers into a new cut on her forehead. When she pulls her fingers away, she sees the blood and turns furious eyes on me.
“You stupid bitch!” She screeches, lunging at me.
Bane has a firm grip on her shoulder, though, and holds her back. “Whoa, whoa,” he says, sounding like the horse whisperer. “Let me handle it.” He pulls her in and brushes his lips intimately over hers, and I look away blushing. “Now scram,” says Bane, patting Coco on the ass and shoving her away.
Coco glares at me over her shoulder but obediently retreats back to the kitchen, passing the other chained bartender and leaving us both frozen in her wake. We stare at each other, the other bartender and I. Those wide blue eyes are on me again, and I read understanding.
“You!” Bane’s hand cups my chin, forcing me to look at him. He’s inches away from my face and I see the same angry sparks still in his chocolaty eyes from last night.