Wanted: An Outlaw Anthology

by Lane Hart

  Step one: My breathing picked up to a near pant.

  Step two: Unobstructed and nearly free.

  Steps three and four: I reached for the handle of the door.

  I never made it to step five.

  Rome slammed his hand above the doorframe, preventing me from opening it wide enough to get out. The breath left my body in one big whoosh as I stood there trapped inside the lion’s den with no means of escape. He wasn’t touching me, yet his close proximity to my body was invasively oppressive. His heady scent was surprisingly intoxicating, a mixture of sweat, recent sex, and man. Even though I still hadn’t raised my head, I could tell he was completely naked, which made sense since I’d just interrupted his evening exercise. His warm breath fanned across my face as he leaned in closer and spoke to me in a rough, smoky voice.

  “You scared away my fuck toy for the night, baby girl,” he growled. “Disrupted my fucking privacy… and cost me my nut I was close to havin’,” Rome accused.

  When he put it that way, it did make me sound kind of bad. Nevertheless, this certainly wasn’t the time nor the place for us to discuss his missed nut or my lack of etiquette in regards to keeping safe distances. Which, I might add, he was currently guilty of himself.

  “I’m sorry, Rome…” My apology was interrupted by a low hiss.

  “Open your eyes, baby girl, and lift your fucking head.” I felt him leaning away, his forearm still in place above my head against the door. The loss of body heat left me feeling cold and empty.

  How odd.

  “No… I can’t….” I begged.

  “DO IT!” Rome barked. Rough and commanding. “You’ll like what you see… I promise.”

  My eyes flew open at the same time I pressed my back against the closed door hoping I could blend into the wood somehow. Rome stood directly in front of me naked as the day he was born, sporting a proud erection hidden beneath the ribbed plastic of a prophylactic. He was a sight to behold unlike anything I’d ever witnessed before. His chest was an intricate canvas of swirling colors coupled with scrawls of words and phrases. I wished I could make them out in the dimness of the light; perhaps it would give me a better sense of who he was. If that wasn’t beautiful enough, he sported two gold rings pierced through his nipples that contrasted against the various pigments. I licked my lips to ease the sudden dryness, causing Rome to groan and return the act. I had my chance to walk out, to leave and never look back, nothing was stopping me. Except, that wasn’t what I wanted. I was frozen in place, mesmerized by this god of a man unwilling to shift or speak until he said it was okay.

  “Don’t move a muscle, or you’ll ruin my concentration.” Rome yanked off the condom and threw it somewhere on the floor behind him. “You owe me, baby girl.”

  He stroked his hardness from shaft to head, groaning earnestly, while he waited for me to comply. Somehow, someway, it wasn’t up to me to decide what to do. My body took its orders from an unknown source and wasted little time in bending to Rome’s will. I watched his slow, sure ministrations but refused to meet his eyes. I leered as he battered his cock inches from my chest. His moans of pleasure could be heard above my erratic breathing. I spared a glance at his magnificent face, his head thrown back in concentration as he searched for his release. My palms itched to reach out and help him on his way, to feel the silkiness of his foreskin as we pumped together in unison.

  I drew in a deep breath to calm myself.

  It didn’t work.

  “Told you you’d like it,” he grunted. “Your nipples are hard. I can see them through your nightshirt. I bet they taste like candy, the sweetest of treats.”

  “You’re wrong,” I somehow managed to squeak. “I don’t—”

  “Hmmm… I’m right, and you know it.” Rome leaned in closer but still wasn’t touching me. “Don’t you wish you had my mouth on your tits? Sucking, licking, biting? I bet you do, baby girl. I can see it in your eyes.” He bent slightly in order to scrutinize my wandering eyeballs. “I can smell your pussy... Mmm.” Rome licked his lips.

  “Maybe you should stop and think about what you’re doing,” I weakly probed.

  “Can’t,” he ground out. “Feels so good… you feel so good.” What? How? Me?

  Rome gave one last fortifying tug and released himself with an inhuman roar. I yelped in surprise as long ribbons of come splashed across my nightshirt in warm spurts of sticky wetness. We were both breathing as if we’d just swum a mile in the ocean, my body as spent as his, minus the orgasm, of course. Rome leaned against his forearm to catch his breath. His muscles twitched and flexed as he gathered himself. I felt so tiny beneath his large frame, untouched yet spoiled, separate yet somehow together, in this fucked-up game of keep-away. I wanted him to talk to me, to hold me, and tell me what he was feeling other than the obvious. Satisfied.

  Rome did neither of those things.

  He opened the door and forcefully pushed me out of it with a harsh grunt. His jaw flexed as he declared with a scowl, “Don’t ever come back in here unless you’re invited inside.”

  Whack.

  The slam as he shut me out was the last thing I heard before I slunk back into my room alone and confused. It took me some time to change out of my ruined pajamas. Rome’s come stain prompted the thin material to cling to my bare skin beneath, then cooled by the still air inside my bedroom. Before I thought better of it, I dipped a finger inside the pool of wetness and bought it to my lips for a small taste. It was heavenly with a hint of the forbidden mixed in for good measure. I wished I had more to sample, enough to bathe in while I pleasured myself to the visions of Rome leaning over me, touching me, fucking me.

  I waited and prepared.

  That crippling fear that always seemed to follow me at every possible turn since the hazing was out there somewhere, coming to ambush me. I wasn’t a victim this time, not like before, nor did I feel like one. Rome never forced me into anything. I was a willing participant and not the helpless victim I had been on campus. That urge to run and hide? It never came.

  Neither did the sleep.

  Dread

  I hadn’t felt this reckless and out of control since I was seventeen years old walking around with a shit attitude and a hard-on to match. Back then, I at least had an excuse for acting like a dick. Teenage boys liked to do stupid shit, or ‘It’s just hormones. I’ll grow out of it.’ Fuck, I even used that only child syndrome bullshit once to get way with some shit. Not now, though. Now I was just a fucking asshole who went around looking for people to hurt for no good goddamn reason just so I could maintain my street cred. I’d simultaneously fucked up my job and my apartment in a span of twenty-four hours. No way could I stay in Remington after that.

  Thought I could hack it, stick around long enough to get paid and show those motherfuckers down at the shop the what for, them and that bitch barmaid. After a few hours of come to Jesus, a back-alley blowjob, and a few shots of tequila, I’d made up my mind to blow this shitty-ass town and save myself the embarrassment of being run off. If it wasn’t someone at Masonry Ink, surely that old lady landlord would have something to say once my housemate started flapping her gums. Left or right, didn’t matter. I’d fucked up big time. Nothing to be done about that. Only one thing stood in my way, and that was the transfer permission from the town’s probation officer I’d been assigned to. I found his fat ass sitting behind a desk drinking what was probably his fifth cup of coffee for the day, and it wasn’t even noon yet. The weather was fairly brisk outside, but his sweaty pit stains and slicked-back hair were a dead giveaway he needed to cut back on the pork products or he was gonna die of a massive heart attack real soon.

  Poor bastard.

  “Ah, Mr. Red,” he greeted, fumbling around with a bunch of papers on his desk. “I don’t believe we were scheduled to meet today. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m leaving. Need you to transfer my probation to another office. I’ll let you know where when I get there in a few days.”

  “Oh, I see.�
�� He grabbed my file and looked it over. “Says here you are gainfully employed with appropriate housing. I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “It’s not for you to understand, motherfu—” I took a deep breath and prayed for calm. “Just give me my transfer, so I can hit the Forty North Expressway before rush hour.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible, Mr. Red,” his nervous ass declared. “Frankly, I’m surprised you were allowed to transfer from your previous location. You see, your probationary period will be over in a matter of weeks. By the time I submit all the paperwork required, you’ll no longer be obligated to the state in which you were convicted.”

  “The fuck? So you’re saying I’m stuck here?”

  “Surely, you can see yourself to finishing out the sentence without incident, Mr. Red,” he joked, as if any of this shit was funny. “I have faith in you, my good man. Enjoy the rest of your day and don’t forget to check in next week as scheduled.”

  I walked out feeling the noose tightening around my neck, constricting my airways to the point of passing out. Took me a little more than a week to fuck everything up when the finish line was so clearly in view. The only thing I ever wanted to do was prove my old man wrong, live free, unchained from the horror of my past mistakes. Instead, I found myself making all new ones, the reality of which had me living inside my head more than I should. I sat in the front seat of my car surrounded by the only thing that ever bought me peace. My artwork. A leather-clad sketch pad with my name stamped across the front lay on the passenger side. It dared me to open it, something until today I’d refused to do. So many times, I’d thought about burning it to ash, destroying it once and for all along with the memories it held. Instead, it was the first thing I packed when I was set to disappear and the last thing I thought about when I reached my new destination. Letting it go should have been easy once I was convicted for assault, yet there it was, still in my possession. Safe and sound. I loosened the straps of the binding and opened it to the first blank page before I got up the nerve to push forward.

  There she was staring back at me.

  Fucking beautiful.

  My breath hitched harshly as I followed the lines of her striking features and remembered the day I’d drawn it. The old man had hated seeing happiness in his household, especially from his own son. Justine had tried to make my life under his watch as bearable as possible, but we’d both known it was a lost cause. She hid my love for drawing from my father and used her own money to buy me my first ever Smythson Portobello Sketchbook. The very one I held in my hand. We played our individual parts when that bastard was home, always watchful and accessing, getting off on our misery and pain. We tipped around on egg shells or pretended to ignore each other, so he believed the rouse and felt powerful. He was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. One inkling that Justine and I had established a relationship, and one of us would’ve had to go.

  Namely me.

  She’d had a way with him, catering to his whims and outbursts as if he were an overgrown child who needed his mother. He ate that shit up, never once believing it was all a bunch of bullshit. The minute he left for work, we would breathe a sigh of relief and celebrated the temporary reprieve from his constrictive prison. We’d sit and talk for hours, all alone, about our lives and what we each wanted out of them. I was surprised to learn that even though Justine had married my goon of a father, she’d always dreamt of becoming a teacher. She used to tell me that she hadn’t given up on her aspirations and she was happy she’d put them on hold for the time being just so she could spend more time with me.

  I’d learned a lot from Justine.

  She’d made me the man I was today.

  I finally found the courage to keep turning the first few pages and take in the many sketches earnestly and with fondness. Staring back at me was a smiling Justine, young and wholesome. She’d showered me with encouragement and support when I told her I drew them from memory. Her eyes popped from the pages and held an air of mystery to them, hidden secrets that only she could disclose. Page after page was filled with nothing but my characterizations of my adoring stepmother. Everything from her hands to her beautiful long hair that always smelled of clean laundry and new life. She was my friend, my confidante, and my co-conspirator where my father was concerned. She was the standard to which I thought all women should’ve been held, and I vowed to find myself a wife just like her one day. I loved her more than I’d ever loved anyone else in my life. I loved her to death, you could say.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Jesus fuck.

  Who the hell was knocking on my goddamn window? That’s what the fuck I got for having my head so far up my own ass I wasn’t paying attention. I slammed the portfolio shut and threw it in the back seat of the car right in time to see whose ass I was about to kick. The parking lot to the probation office was damn near empty, which made it easy to spot the black Chevy Tahoe sitting idle a few yards away. What the fuck was he doing here, and how did he find me? Those were my first thoughts when I stepped from the car with a noticeable scowl on my face.

  “You lost? Or is it your check-in day, too?” I greeted my soon-to-be ex-boss.

  “Nah…” Fox leaned against the hood of the car and casually folded his arms across his chest. “Figured you’d try and run. Shit gets hot, the first thing a con wants to do is escape to freedom, start over, or fuck shit up enough to land his ass back in jail for the long haul. Figured I’d wait and see which one you decided on.” He smirked.

  “Told you from the start Masonry Ink wasn’t the place for me,” I reminded him. “Thought I’d save you the trouble of firing me in front of the whole crew, seeing as how I insulted your girl and all. Made her feel shit for trying to be helpful.”

  “Did you now?” Fox rumbled. “Well, that’s not how we do things at Masonry Ink. We fuck up, man up, and have the balls to learn from our mistakes and move the fuck on.”

  “I’m sure baby girl don’t see it that way,” I challenged.

  “Angelica’s heart is limitless in its capacity to care for others. She won’t throw stones.”

  “She don’t fuckin’ know me, and neither do you,” I fired back.

  “Fair enough.” He adjusted his relaxed stance away from the car and invaded my space. “You have a gift, Dread. Wanna fuck it up and throw it all away? Be my guest.” He pointed a stern finger at my chest. “Hear me, kid, and listen well. Knew what you did, who you did it to, and how you went about doing it ten minutes after you walked into my shop. The only thing I didn’t know was why you did it, and that, my friend, is something I’m only willing to hear if it’s coming from your mouth. No one else’s.”

  Fox walked toward his car but suddenly stopped and shook his head.

  “You’re young, you’re smart, but you have a lot to learn about trust, kid. Your job is waiting for you if you want it, Dread… along with so much more. Might as well think about it since you’re grounded here for the next few weeks,” he ended with a knowing look.

  “Yeah? Why even bother with a piece of shit like me, Fox?”

  “’Cause I think you’re worth it… and so does the rest of my crew.”

  Once he pulled off in his fancy-ass truck and left me standing there holding my dick, I replayed everything over and over again in my head. Either Mace Fox had a motherfuckin’ crystal ball in his back pocket or the man was somehow connected in all the wrong circles. That accounted for why he never bothered to ask about my past when he hired me, but it didn’t explain why he was still so willing to have my back. Trusting the wrong people in prison would’ve cost me my life, so I chose to spend my time alone. This wasn’t lockup. I wasn’t stuck behind concrete walls expected to eat, shit, and sleep when the corrections officers told me to. I acted like a slopping-wet cunt to that girl who served the drinks. Angelica. Pushed up on her like a rabid dog in heat, then flexed on Fox when he called me out on my bullshit behavior. I was turning into a prison-made savage, a bully who only felt good when others
felt shit. I was becoming my old man, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do on my own to stop it. Fox was offering me a lifeline, a second chance if I chose to take it, or I could live like an animal until the day I was put down or locked up again.

  Given that choice, it was simple.

  I was never going back.

  Michelle

  “Thanks for meeting with me outside of group, Hank. I really appreciate you taking time out of your day. I know how busy you are.”

  “Nonsense, Michelle, I’m glad you called. I was in the area anyway, and I love this place.”

  “Yeah, you say that now but… anyway, thanks again for coming.”

  The morning after the incident with Rome and his houseguest, I’d reached out to the only other person I felt comfortable with sharing my feelings. Thankfully, he’d agreed to meet with me at one of the area’s new bistros that specialized in imported coffee. I hadn’t gotten much sleep, and I needed the caffeine to make it through the rest of the day, so it worked out well. The waitress arrived to take our orders, a plump middle-aged woman who shamelessly flirted with Hank before finally stepping away. Her little interruption gave me enough time to think about the reason why I’d called this little meeting in the first place. Rome.

  Before Hank could properly adjust himself in his seat, I started to spill my guts about everything that happened. I started with the ridiculous sex noises coming from Rome’s room and didn’t stop until I filled him in on my desperate act to shut it down. I purposefully left out the part about the subsequent masturbation catastrophe. I wasn’t ready to reveal that bag of worms just yet. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed over that unfortunate situation; I merely wanted to keep that part to myself for the time being. To his credit, Hank never balked or conveyed his contempt during my little tale of woe. He was good about letting us express ourselves without interruption, but I was anxious to hear his thoughts after my little rundown and transfixed him with an uneasy stare.