Sterling nodded, and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a business card, but then turned it over and placed it on the table, picking up the pen once again. “This is my private cell number,” he explained, as he jotted the digits onto the back. “If you call me on this, I promise that I’ll answer right away - day or night.”
Sterling’s eyes clouded slightly as he finished jotting down the number. “I always told Elizabeth that she could call me at this number,” he reflected, holding the card between his fingers for a moment. “I told her that no matter how much trouble she was in, no matter where she was or what she had done, she could call this number and I would pick up. I would be there to help her, no matter what.”
Carol reached out and ever so gently lifted the card from Sterling’s fingers. Her other hand rose up to touch his upper arm, a soft touch of comfort and shared anguish. “We will find her,” she promised softly. “We will do whatever it takes.”
The senator nodded, and followed the female agent out of the room. He was still filled with fear and worry, but this woman in front of him had shown a core of surprising resolve and determination. She truly was committed to this case, and something, some unspoken and unquantifiable quality about her, told Sterling that she was completely deserving of his trust.
☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
When I was led outside of the motel room, I stepped directly into the blaze of the afternoon sun, and my unprepared eyes squeezed shut. Shaking my head, I tried to adjust, gazing down and blinking furiously. After a few seconds, I was able to see again, and I quickly looked around to try and gather information about my location.
There was a bench situated right next to the entrance to the motel room, sitting on the poured concrete slab of the patio. Two men were lounging on this bench, and they both turned to look up at me, grins spreading across their faces.
The closer man to me was shorter and more wiry than both Roads and Slammer had been, and he looked decidedly scruffy. He wore a leather vest with only tattered openings where the sleeves had been; it looked almost as if a wild animal had savaged him and ripped away the fabric. His hair was short and spiked up in a maze of frosted tips, contrasting powerfully with his large and pointed beak of a nose. He wore a large, thick iron chain around his waist, through the belt loops on his pants, and it clinked as he shifted position to scrutinize me. “So, is this our little captive songbird?” he grinned up at me. “The senator sure did a good job making his daughter, I’ll say that!”
The man at the far end of the bench grunted at this. This fellow was black, the first black member of this gang I had seen so far. He was a giant, but while Roads and Slammer both looked as though they had been carved from a solid block of muscle, this fellow leaned decidedly towards fat. He didn’t seem to have any sort of neck; his head, bald and hairless, sat on top of his shoulders like a grape. Even his own black leathers seemed to be stretching to try and accommodate his bulk. He was lazing back on the bench. He merely grunted again, his small and deep-set eyes running briefly over me. I wasn’t holding any food, so he quickly lost interest, returning his gaze back down at the pile of hair in his lap.
Wait. Hair? I blinked and looked again. Only then did I realize that there was a third person on the bench - a woman! She was lying down on the bench, and her head seemed to be buried in the fat man’s lap, so all I could see was the pile of blonde hair and a denim jacket. She seemed to be bobbing up and down slightly; I could see that one of that fat man’s hands was resting on the back of her neck, helping to guide her. What was going on?
The big man let out one more grunt, this one a little louder and longer than the others, and I watched, my eyes wide, as his fingers tightened in the woman’s hair. He hauled her upright, and I suddenly realized what was going on. The man had been getting a blow job from this woman, right out here in public! His cock was revealed as it slid out of the woman’s mouth, and I could hear her gasping and pulling in air. As her face was finally turned so that I could see her, I saw drops of white liquid hanging out of the corners of her mouth, rolling down her face as she sucked in air. The woman’s features were young and tight, and with a shock of realization, it hit me that she had to be right around my age. She couldn’t have been older than nineteen!
The smaller, skinnier man at the other end of the bench cackled. “Damn, Biggie, you sure blew that load fast, huh?” he snickered.
The big man - Biggie, his name must be - didn’t respond to this barb. Instead, he merely grunted again and struggled up to his feet. The bench let out an audible creak as he rose, and he reached down and began strenuously hauling his pants back up to cover his now-sagging cock. I tried not to stare. I had never actually seen a penis outside of the films that I occasionally stumbled upon on the internet. My father had always taught me to be responsible, to not rush into relationships, and although I’d had boyfriends through high school, we had never progressed much past necking in a parked car.
Biggie’s penis was dark-skinned, just like the rest of him, although the head of it looked a bit redder in color. When the girl had pulled it out of her mouth, I would have sworn that it was well over half a foot in length, but it now seemed to have shrunk down to just a few inches.
There was another snicker next to me. Startled, I turned and looked down at the skinny man with the frosted tips in his hair, who was grinning back up at me. His grin didn’t seem too friendly, however. I was uncomfortably reminded of a wolf. “Looks like our little captive has an eye for cock!” he announced loudly. “She can’t take her eyes off of it!”
I felt my cheeks suffuse with color, and pulled my eyes down to the floor. The man reached out and grabbed my chin, however, pulling my head back up. “How about I show you what a real dick looks like, huh?” he suggested. “Little Rachel here hasn’t finished - we paid for both of us, and now it’s my turn!”
Releasing my chin, the man reached out and grabbed for the girl still sitting on her knees on the bench next to him. Rachel, this poor girl’s name must be. The skinny man grabbed at her denim jacket and pulled it roughly down her shoulders. When he did so, I realized that the girl wasn’t wearing any shirt beneath! Her tits, small and seated high on her chest, were suddenly exposed to the open air, and I saw her nipples harden and contract from the cool breeze.
The man stood up and his hands swung down to that chain that wrapped around his waist. With a clink, the links parted in the front, and the man yanked out his own penis. He shoved the erect rod forward at the girl, and her eyes rolled around to focus on it. Submissively, she opened up her mouth, and the wiry man grabbed at her head and forced her down onto his knob. She made a gagging noise as he crammed her head down as far as it would go, but she didn’t make any sort of effort to fight back. I pulled my eyes away in revulsion.
Behind me, Roads had been doing something inside the motel room, but he now stepped out behind me, and I felt his hand on my shoulder once again, steadying me. “That’s Biggie and Chainz,” he commented, as his hand gently guided me further away, past the horrifying sight. “Guys, wrap it up. We need to hit the road.”
“Hey!” Chainz complained. “We payed this bitch for a full hour, and I haven’t even gotten my turn yet!”
“Not my problem,” Roads responded. His voice was still level, but I could hear the slightest hint of a rumble deep in his tone, threatening to rise up if he kept on getting back talk. “You should have thought about that before paying her. Besides, if you payed her for a full hour, what are you going to do for the other fifty minutes!”
This sounded like an insult, and for a second, I saw Chainz’s eyebrows narrow and his lips pull back in a snarl. The expression was only there for a second, however, and he relaxed into that wolfish grin. “Well, I can always grab another bitch at our main haunt,” he said, and his hand relaxed its grip on the teenager’s head as she squatted in front of him. She pulled back immediately, once again gasping for air as his cock came out of her mouth. Still smiling, Chainz reached forward and plant
ed both of his hands on her naked chest, squeezing tightly at her tits. “I’ll be back, babe,” he said in a half-whisper, leaning forward to speak into her ear. “And when I get back, you’re gonna be doing a lot more than giving me head!”
Roads kept up the gentle pressure on my shoulder, and we walked out further, towards the parking lot. In the spots in front of our motel room, I could see a bunch of motorcycles, parked close to each other in unsteady rows. “Our chariots,” Roads announced, and I swore that I could her the slightest bit of self-depreciating humor in his voice.
“Good, you got our little kitty out.”
I knew that voice, and couldn’t hold back a shudder. I turned as Slammer came striding up, two other bikers close behind him. Trying vainly to suppress the shudder of fear running through me as he approached, I focused instead on inspecting the other two bikers.
The man on Slammer’s right was short but muscled, and he looked like he spent a lot of time in a gym. His hair was buzzed short, vaguely reminiscent of a military haircut. He wore a pair of glasses on his face, which made him seem a little bit nerdier than the other bikers. Judging by how his arms bulged with rolling muscles beneath his jacket sleeves, however, I didn’t doubt that he could pound anyone who called him a “nerd” or “geek” into the pavement with relative ease. He gave me a quick once-over, but didn’t seem particularly interested in me one way or the other. Instead, I caught him turning around and glancing out at the road several times, a nervous expression on his face. Perhaps he was starting to understand just how much trouble they were getting themselves into, kidnapping a senator’s daughter.
The person on Slammer’s left was definitely a biker, but she was also definitely a woman! The woman had bright reddish-orange hair, cut short and swept across her head. Her face had a few hard lines on it, and she wore a scowl, but she still had an angular sort of attractiveness. More than that, however, she seemed to exude an air of barely contained anger. She wore a sleeveless leather vest, dipping low enough to show a hint of cleavage, but both her vest’s shoulders and her leather gauntlets were covered in spiked metal studs. These weren’t simply gleaming decoration, either; I swore that I could see dark stains discoloring the bumps on her knuckles. As I made eye contact with her, she glared back and slowly cracked her knuckles with a loud popping sound.
“So, this is our meal ticket?” the woman said, her voice sounding scornful. “She doesn’t look like much. Honestly, Slammer, this whole thing seems like a dumbass idea.”
“Shut your mouth, Flamer,” Slammer replied. He didn’t raise his voice, or even turn his head, but the woman did as he asked, her jaw slamming shut with a snap. Her eyes were briefly filled with rage, but she merely tightened her fists in those leather gauntlets.
“Toss her onto my bike,” the big man went on. “We’re getting out of here.”
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and shifted my gaze over. Biggie and Chainz had both gotten up from their bench and had approached us. Of the teenager, Rachel, I didn’t see any sign. She must have run off as soon as they let her go. I felt a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach, thinking about what I had seen her doing. Chainz returned my eye contact and leered at me. I wanted to be wearing a blanket, something to cover myself up from his roving, perverted eyes.
“No,” Roads replied. “I’m taking her.”
☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
Slammer’s eyebrow twitched for an instant. “What?”
“You heard me,” Roads repeated. “I don’t trust you with her. I’m going along with this plan, but I’m going to make sure that she gets returned without any harm. She’s coming on my bike.”
The man in black in front of me took a challenging step forward. “Roads, you’re out of line! Don’t forget who’s the leader of this gang! Or do you want to challenge that?”
Roads’ hand on my shoulder pushed me aside - thankfully, nudging me more towards Flamer than towards Chainz and Biggie. With me out of the way, my protector also took a step forward towards Slammer. The two men, both standing over six feet, were barely an arm’s width apart. “I’m trying to do what’s best for this gang!” Roads shouted. “And that doesn’t involve getting us all on the Most Wanted list for accidentally killing the daughter of a prominent politician!”
Slammer’s hands had rose up to his chest, tightening and balling up into fists. Roads’ hands were still at his sides, but I could see them pulling into fists as well. The men stood and glared at each other, two alpha males sizing each other up and watching for any sign of weakness. I sensed that this was much deeper than it seemed; this was a power struggle that affected the entire gang. The other members were standing around, not moving forward to get involved but also keeping their eyes peeled and watching every detail of what transpired.
“Listen to me,” Roads spoke up again, not breaking eye contact. “I’ve gone along with your plan this entire time. And I know that you want to do what’s best for the Outlaws. I do too. But I just want to make sure that nothing goes wrong, that we can get our cash and get out of here without having the Feds chasing us for the rest of our lives!”
Slammer shook his head. “I think that you don’t trust me,” he hissed, his eyes piercing like daggers. “Do you trust me, Roads? Because if you don’t, well, we’ve got a problem.”
For a long minute longer, Roads held the gang leader’s gaze. But then, he let his eyes drop down, looking down at the ground and breaking eye contact. “I trust you,” he said. Each of those three words sounded as though it was forced with monumental effort, but they came out. His hands were still pulled into fists, and I could see his knuckles turning white as his fingertips bit into his palms.
The answer seemed to be enough to please the gang leader, however, and Slammer took a step back and relaxed his pose. “Good,” he said. “And you better keep on trusting me. Or else, if one of these days I find out that you’re going behind my back, well, your punishment won’t just be a beating. You know that?”
Roads didn’t respond, but Slammer kept going. “If you cross me,” he went on, “I’m going to fucking kill you.”
“If I disagree with you,” Roads replied, “I’ll make sure that you know it. But the girl’s still riding with me.” His eyes rose back up to meet Slammer’s.
It didn’t matter any more, though - I could see that the leader of the bikers felt that he had won. He had made his opponent back down, and that was what mattered. “Fine,” he said, shrugging and waving away the issue with a hand. “We’re all going to the same place anyway. Back to the haunt.” He raised his voice and waved one hand towards the bikes, parked in the lot. “Let’s ride!”
As the other bikers nodded and headed towards the choppers, Roads once again stepped up to me. “Come on,” he whispered down to me. “That red chopper, parked up in the corner? That one’s mine. Have you ever ridden on a motorcycle before?”
I stared at the bike that he had indicated. It was huge, a giant piece of gleaming red metal, black leather seating, and shining chrome. Wordlessly, I shook my head. I was definitely intimidated.
Roads stepped up to the bike, and threw a leg over it. Straddling it, he used his weight to shift it upright, off of the kick stand that was holding it up, one hand steadying the front wheel by resting on the handlebars. He turned towards me, and his other hand patted the leather behind him. “Climb up here,” he said, not unkindly. “See these pegs at the sides? Those are for your feet to rest on. It’s just like sitting on a see-saw at a jungle gym.”
Yeah, except see-saws don’t contain an engine and go roaring out from under you at seventy miles per hour. I climbed onto the back of the hog, putting my feet up on the little foot rests that Roads had indicated. I saw a problem, however. “What about my hands? What do I hold on to?”
Despite the situation, Roads grinned briefly at this. “That would be me,” he replied. “Go ahead and wrap your arms around me - trust me, I won’t be bothered if you end up squeezing tightly.”
&nbs
p; Around me, loud roars marked the other bikers firing up their machines. I glanced around at them. Biggie was on a massive black cruiser that seemed to be riding especially close to the ground - although that might just be his weight, forcing the shocks to their maximum compression limit. Chainz was on a chopper that seemed to be all gleaming chrome, blinding in the last rays of the setting sun. Flamer’s chopper was bright orange, a clashing but somehow fitting match to her burning hair. And the last man, the one with the glasses, had a slightly smaller blue bike with saddlebags hanging off the sides and a hard-shelled container on the back behind him.
Roads opened his mouth to say something, but his words were washed away in a thundering roar, and Slammer pulled up alongside us. The gang leader sat astride a massive chopper, bigger than any other in the gang. Painted a matte black color, something about it just looked, well, angry. I noticed that there was a ram’s skull strapped to the front, above the front wheel and between the handlebars, just above the large, single, angry headlight.
“Is this the little kitty’s first time on a real bike?” Slammer asked in a mocking tone. He grinned at me. “She’s in for a treat! You sure you can handle her, Roads?”
“I’m fine,” Roads replied shortly, and then, grabbing the handlebars with both hands, I saw him mash down a button on the right grip, and between my legs, the bike suddenly roared into thundering life.
In shock at the sudden noise and movement, I threw my hands around Roads, clinging tightly. I felt the man’s chest shake, and looked up. Wait a moment. Was he laughing?
He most definitely was. The man turned his head to glance back at me as I clung to him, wide-eyed and scared as the machine rumbled between my legs like an angry panther. “Just try to hold on!” he called out. “Focus on keeping your grip, and ignore the rest!” And then, before I could respond, the man twisted his right hand on the throttle, and the bike leapt forward beneath us.
The Stolen Girl Page 3