by J. C. Allen
Why couldn’t I get her out of my mind? She was cute, sure, but not like she was the cutest woman I had ever seen.
Honestly, it was probably just because she was a welcome contrast from the visions I usually saw while stopped and on the bike. I couldn’t say yet if that was, indeed, welcome or if it was a bad sign for my future.
The only thing I cared about in that immediate moment, however, was the future of booze in my belly. The sip turned into a chug, and as thoughts of the Savage Saviors… of Rooster… of the guns… of our supply problems… of my life… of Maggie… of my unborn child…
The drinks turned into a waterfall of sorts as I had a damningly bad time falling into. It didn’t take much to get me to turn from a gruff sober fool into a “who gives a fuck” drunk. This worked wonders for getting laid, but not for my well-being otherwise. If I could even call getting laid a good sign.
At one point, a curvy, voluptuous woman came over and introduced herself as Stephanie. She was bigger than I normally went for, but her tits were not very subtle, I was drunk, and she was more than eager to flirt with me.
“You have the perfect body I just want to lick right up,” she whispered into my ear, her hand running near my groin. “I want to be your next mistake, Derek.”
It occurred to me when she said those words, punctuated by a rubbing of my actual cock, how drunk I’d gotten that I had gone from thinking dark thoughts about my past to not even realizing what the hell I had said to get her as hot as she was in this bar. It occurred to me that when I said, “let’s go,” she had taken that to mean she could follow me back to my place.
I think she assumed that because I didn’t stop her as we moved forward.
But, fuck it. I’d bang. I didn’t want sex, but I was just going through the motions. I’d undress. I’d say dirty things, maybe. I’d come. Yay. The end.
But I wouldn’t have sex, not at least the way most men thought of it.
I had a bad feeling I would wake up in the morning regretting this. But I also had surrendered to the power of poor decisions and alcohol. Besides, there were no consequences I could suffer that would be worse than anything I had already gone through.
She already had her hands down my pants by the time the elevator opened up to my apartment. She already had my cock in her hands by the time we got to my bedroom. She already had her mouth around it before I could even start to lift my shirt off.
At that point, already at the point of no return, I played the part of horny, lust-charged man. We had sloppy, sweaty sex—and I don’t mind the hot kind, I mean the literally “my AC barely works and so it’s really fucking hot” kind of sex. She moaned like her voice was a microphone for the city to hear—I’m pretty sure much of it was faked.
Some element of her surely realized that I was not what she was expecting. She probably thought I was going to be some mysterious, dark man at the bar, only to emerge as a wild werewolf in the bed who would have her whimpering for more.
But no. I could give her some, but I could not give her enough.
At least, that’s what I imagined. Maybe I was full of shit.
Who the fuck knew? I was so hammered that I didn’t change positions for several minutes because I didn’t want to get dizzy sitting up or flipping over.
By the time I came, I’m pretty sure I was one eye shut toward falling asleep.
And I didn’t dare try and spend more than a half-second thinking about what, exactly, had actually gotten me to come.
Fuck.
The light wasn’t piercing through the window this morning. Not like days past. I was pretty damn sure I had not slept through the afternoon, but rather, had woken up several hours too early. Hopefully not to vomit my guts out.
Fuck.
I heard a giggle behind me. Forgetting what had happened the night before, I quickly darted out of bed into a fighting position, only to see a bit of a plump woman giggling again… but apparently asleep.
Fuck.
What the fuck did I do?
What the fuck do I do?
I did not know what to do about that, and so I did nothing about it.
Instead, feeling like something of a suddenly unwelcome guest in my own home—like a sloppy mistake, a cheap one-night stand, in my own bed; this girl, her name would come back to me eventually, was a better fit here—I simply stared out into the darkest corner of the room. I hoped that trying to force myself back to sleep might help.
It didn’t work.
Somehow, dark as it was, the shadows of my mind cast all the same, little wisps of darker darkness that glided hither and thither. There was just enough activity to keep my subconscious preoccupied and working my conscious mind into consciousness.
Enough to make me realize that, once again, for the perhaps seven hundredth time since that fateful day, I was not waking up next to Maggie.
And, for however many times someone else had been in bed with me, I was not waking up next to Maggie.
I never would.
The girl… Sarah? Sophia? Annie?… snorted, gave a fluttering sound, and gave a gentle kick underneath the sheets. There was something about her that made me want to wake her up, tell her to get out, and to begin the absolution of my sins for what I had done, but I didn’t deserve that. I was too bad of a person to deserve something so quick.
One thing was for sure, though. I was washing these goddamn sheets. I didn’t need to smell another mistake upon them.
Then the girl whimpered again, more pained this time around, and farted.
Fuck.
Seriously?
I actually watched the material of the bedsheet balloon out between her legs—swelling like a living thing and then sinking like a dying man’s chest.
To hell with washing the sheets. The whole bed had to burn. Better yet if the heaving, groaning, writhing, farting gal was still in it when it did. With any luck she’d keep the blaze going.
Vicious? Maybe. But for how this morning had started, with such a harsh reminder of my own inability to keep my shit under control, I didn’t want to give myself any courtesies. Just be blunt, I thought. It’s not like I would follow through with it.
Not waiting to see if my night’s mistake had toxified the air, I stood up on sex-numbed legs and hobbled out of the room. I wished I could have stormed out, maybe expressed my disgust and rage in some way, but post-coital joints and exhaustion have a way of turning even the most graceful man into a stumbling mess. Even if it would have only been for myself, it would have been something; something better than the ego-crushing walk-of-shame that I was forced to endure.
Yes, I knew no one else would see me, except maybe the girl, who would have no reason to shame me.
But I had to see myself and face myself. And that was a greater shame than anything I could face from Rooster, this girl, or anyone else I crossed paths with.
It had never occurred to me until now as I moved through my place naked how much the afternoon light made a difference. Trying to find my old wife, my old stereo, for a hopeful second-day reboot was a hell of a lot easier when I had the sun to assist me. It wasn’t so easy when it could have been anything from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m., depending on the actual sun’s position.
Then I found her, my old wife.
You have got to stop using those words, Derek. How the hell do you think you’re ever going to move on if you keep using the word wife when you’re not married? Get it together, you shithead.
Still, even with the intense self-hatred for myself, I was beginning to sober up a bit to realize that I might actually have needed to take care of myself a little better. The problem wasn’t going home with a girl I never would have looked at sober. The problem wasn’t having such a shitty morning that I wanted to burn her to the ground.
The problem was that I had already burned what little self-respect I had, and if I didn’t have any of that, then how the hell was I supposed to lead the Savage Saviors?
See, it wasn’t just that I burned the self-respect.
I hunted for some firewood, stalked out a campsite, moved past the protests in my head begging me to love myself and to consider my own emotions, draped enough oil on the firewood to power a diesel truck from here to Mexico, threw my dignity on the wood, lit a match, and then watched the thing go up in such intense flames that it felt like I’d burned off my face in the process.
I hadn’t just made a mistake. I hadn’t just met… God. Damn. What was her fucking—
Stephanie.
Had to be.
That sounded the most right.
Goddamn, for it to have taken this long… and I still wasn’t sure, but I was willing enough to gamble it being her name that I would call her that when she woke up.
Anyways, I hadn’t just met Stephanie, taken her home, and fucked her. I’d rather subconsciously poured myself many a drink, knowing what it would enable me to do, and shot my load into the firewood, giving it a final explosion that erased whatever I had.
Stephanie just happened to be the name of the firewood last night. It could’ve easily been Emily, Tara, Jessica, or any other common name.
Sighing, I pulled myself from the chair, aimed myself towards the liquor cabinet, and got my legs moving again. Maybe it was stupid to be drinking more only hours after getting so drunk—so drunk, in fact, I was still drunk—but I didn’t care. Again, what was gonna happen, I felt sick and vomited?
It was nothing to compare to the sickness I’d felt when she’d been murdered…
I was happy to find that my sex-numbed knees weren’t quite as jelly-like as before. Best of all, I managed not to topple…
And then, in an ungraceful run, my blind good luck finally ran out as I drove my shin into the corner of my coffee table.
“FUCK!”
I paused, listening to make sure I hadn’t awoken the slumbering fart-beast that was Stephanie.
Man, you’re on your asshole game strong today, Derek. You better treat her right when she actually does wake up.
But those weren’t the words that resonated in me the strongest at the moment.
Instead, it was Matty’s. They had gotten to me.
I couldn’t say exactly which one of his stabbing points had reached the deepest or which one had drawn the most blood, but many of them had stayed with me from the moment I went to the movie store up to this very one, my shin still throbbing, my eyes watering, and every part of my body yearning for release from the gin I’d driven down my throat last night.
The irony of these reflections was that I realized, in many ways, I had become my father, something I’d always aspired to do. I guess that gave me a sense of pride in some way?
Sure didn’t feel that way…
He was a visionary, a pioneer, a rebel, and, in a modern day of gasoline-powered ships and kickstands replacing peg legs, the closest thing to a pirate a boy could hope for.
And, as reward for being as awesome as he was, he’d landed my mother, a woman who somehow managed to fuse all the best traits of the quintessential biker babe with Betty Crocker and a healthy seasoning of Elvira. Perfect.
She was the perfect wife and the perfect mom. Together with my biker club-leader daddy, they were the perfect couple. By all accounts, between Dustin and I, we were the model family for a biker club leader, if such a thing ever could have existed.
So…
Why, now that I was in possession of my dad’s leathers and occupying his role in the club that he’d started…
Why, now that Rooster answered to me and looked out for me in the best way possible…
Why, now that my men loyally followed me, even when I didn’t feel I deserved it…
Why was I such a monumental fuckup? Why, after accomplishing my dream of becoming my father, was I like this?
I reached blindly into the cabinet and grabbed the first bottle that felt less than halfway empty. I caught myself aiming sightless eyes back towards my dead stereo.
Which reminded me of my dead wife.
Maggie.
That’s why.
I’d wanted—no, I needed—to become my father back when dreams of modern pirates and roaring, gas-guzzling land-ships were nothing more than a safe fantasy, something to be played out with the protective sphere of my father’s influence and power.
But then, abandoning fantasy and falling into a plush, beautiful cushion of real life, I’d found something else. Wants changed after that. What I wanted as a boy was no longer what I wanted as a man. I became “normal.” I found Maggie. I found a job outside of the club.
I had thought that I had found a life where I didn’t have to fear for the protection of it on a daily basis.
But, as the old song goes, you can’t always get what you want. Sometimes an eighteen-wheeler called “Life”—or, in my case, “Rock”—runs down your lovely list of wants and leaves you in a diesel-reeking cloud of darkness with nothing but a bumper sticker that says “Shit Happens”—or, for me, “The Saviors are dead”—to look back on.
And that was it.
Shit happened.
The Saviors are dead…
Shit happened, and in a truly horrible and bitterly ironic twist of fate, the shit that happened to me wound up hurling me into the life I’d once wanted with a fresh and ongoing resentment of everything that life represented.
And I actually thought that some trinkets that reminded me of Mom and Dad were going to help me through the breakdown. I thought that continuing to think of my stereo and my bike as my wives were going to make me feel better. I thought that taking on the role my father had given me peace of mind.
What in the actual fuck was the matter with me?
Too many things to count. Let’s be honest here.
“Sorry, Dad,” I whispered, even as the words went nowhere but into the bottle of gin I had popped open for consumption. I took a swig.
“Sorry, Mom.”
I took another swig.
“Sorry, Dustin.”
Another.
“Sorry, Maggie.”
Another.
“Sorry…”
It came back to me that I had never agreed upon a name with Maggie for our unborn daughter. I couldn’t even do that right.
I had done so well not to show emotion in the past 24 hours given everything that happened. But when I contemplated this, it just became too much.
My eyes became wet. I tried to drink the gin to get rid of the tears, but it worked to no avail.
Somewhere in the shadows, the mistake named Stephanie giggled. It seemed too appropriate. Even in moments of tender emotion, life just laughed at me, a big joke.
But there was nothing funny about how my family had all perished, leaving me the only Knight left.
There was nothing funny about the civil war that broke out, the traps laid, the funerals held, and the betrayals from the Savage Saviors to the Black Falcons.
There was nothing hilarious about the Black Falcons willing to go into the markets my father never would have allowed us to touch. Guns, hard drugs, human trafficking, mercenary work… to say nothing of the things Rock did to my family.
There was nothing funny about how Rock had killed my wife, my parents, and Dustin. He alone, more than anyone else, was responsible for my current lot in life.
“The Savage Saviors are dead!”
“Rock sends his condolences, Knight!”
It all left me with one soul purpose in life, one mission, only one thing I wanted to accomplish, and I didn’t care if it condemned my soul to hell or if it gave me penance to see my family in the afterlife.
I would kill Rock, or I would die in the process.
That, and only that, was the only way to end the suffering I felt.
I heard the sheets rustling in the other bedroom, knocking me out of my drunken and emotional haze. Wish it was the girl on the corner instead of you.
I was surprised to have the thought, not so much for the callousness of it but for the honesty of it—I hadn’t wanted a specific woman in some time, so for this to be
occurring was quite a shock. It didn’t mean anything other than that I found that woman in question particularly attractive, but still…
Nevertheless, I didn’t want anything to do with the actual girl in there, and enough time had passed that I was beginning to feel too fatigued to keep drinking or fighting.
So, I did the only thing that made sense in that moment. I went back to sleep, hoping I hadn’t condemned myself to a day of being drunk with the gin I’d just had in the memory of my fallen family members.
Both named and unnamed.
“Hey! Hey! You OK?”
I awoke to Stephanie’s arms aggressively shaking me. I darted up, looking at the door, thinking someone had busted in. I feared the worst—a Black Falcon, Rock, someone come to tear my home to shreds.
“What?” I demanded. “What is it?”
“Oh!” Stephanie blinked at my tone, startled at my being startled. “I thought… well, the way you were screaming and crying, I just thought it would be better to wake you. Are you okay?”
I blinked at the question in disbelief, but not of the aggressive kind.
Screaming?
Crying?
Well, so much for passing out for more peaceful times.
What did I say?
When I looked at Stephanie’s face, I realized I had done her wrong. I was an asshole. She may not have had the body type I went for, but that was a far cry from being someone worth capturing in a fire to bleach out the entire place.
There was concern—deep and genuine—glazing her eyes, and, judging from the way her tensed body was shaking, she’d been moving quite fast from the bedroom to see an end to my cries.
Fuck…
“I’m cool,” I lied, making it worse by adding, “I’m fine. Thanks.”
I knew she didn’t believe me. I knew the fact that I had come out here naked, refusing to sleep in bed with her, and that there was a gin bottle next to me probably told her everything I thought about her. But…
Fuck…
I could be such an asshole sometimes to people who didn’t deserve it. I didn’t mind being an alcoholic, but I did mind being this kind of a prick. It was too close to the kind of person Rock was.