by Cat Porter
We finally found a good spot to watch the night blast. The night blasts only happened twice a year, and as it was September, this one commemorated the death of Crazy Horse and the birth of the memorial’s sculptor. The laser show up first was entertaining, but didn’t do it for me the way the blast did.
An hour later, with Grace in my arms, her hands gripping my biceps as she pressed back against my chest, the show finally began. She flinched with the first popping blast that boomed in the cool night air, signaling the beginning. An orange ball of fire detonated and bloomed against the stone mountain and then another and another and another. The detonations went off with a slow deep cadence, a subtle tempo. Each and every bam was perfectly timed and balanced, lighting up the mountain, a ribbon of fire trimming its edges. Around and around, each blast exploded until it reached the top, leaving puffs of smoke in its wake. The contours of Crazy Horse’s ninety-foot-tall face erupted from the granite mountain, fierce in the flickering orange shadows, steadfast in the center of the fireballs. The pyrotechnics continued winding their way around the carved mountain with a heavy solemn grace, like a ceremonial drumbeat, an incantation, a ritual born of these very rocks.
It was noble, and yes, it was primal, just like Boner had said about the dancing. In comparison, traditional fireworks were only superficial high jinks. I glanced at my brothers, their arms slung around their women, their faces still, relaxed, touched with loose smiles. Not a care in the fucking world. You wouldn’t see that often when they weren’t riding, especially if they weren’t high or drunk. Here in the darkness, under that infinite star-filled sky, an immense wedge of clouds shifting overhead, all was indeed right with the world in this split second of quiet. The last exploding drumbeat faded, and the final fleeting blaze was swallowed up by the darkness.
Applause and hollering burst up around us, and we joined in. Grace pressed her head back against my chest, smiling up at me. I leaned over and planted a kiss on her lips and then her nose, and she giggled softly.
“I love you,” she whispered, her fingers pulling on my hair.
I cradled her beautiful face and slid my tongue between her parted lips, my one hand feeling up the swell of a breast through the mesh of her cotton sweater. All was right with my world.
Not for fucking long.
Once we made it to the campsite just south of Mount Rushmore, we set up our playground on a plateau on a high wooded hill where the burning leaves of autumn had already made their startling debut. It would be easy to secure and defend our spot if necessary. Always had to be ready for the unexpected. Every club parked their bikes like old-time frontier wagon trains, in a circle so that strangers would keep out. The vibrating drone of all those Harleys running together gave me a buzz.
A couple of clubs were here from Wyoming, as were the Broken Blades from Nebraska. Flames of Hell was here from Nebraska as well, commanding respect with their military-style riding formation, causing most of the common folk to stop what they were doing and watch. It was an intimidating ominous sight. I fucking loved it.
Other than my wanting to continue making inroads with Finger, the only thing on my mind and everyone else’s was having enough whiskey, beer, weed and all sorts of chemical entertainment to get us through the night of partying and live music.
Within an hour, the party was in full session. The crowd was screaming for Alicia in her bid to be crowned wet T-Shirt queen yet again. Of course they were. The woman had an impressive rack and an attitude to go along with it.
Two men splashed her with a large bucket full of icy water, and the crowd roared. She raised her hands high in the air, her eyes smiling, as her thin white T-shirt plastered to her body, her hard nipples blaring through the wet cotton fabric. Only a pair of red Western boots were visible on her bare thin legs.
She started dancing along with the music, jiggling her tits, with a porn-star grin on her face, swishing her long blonde hair. She squeezed her tits together and paraded up and down the stage, hips swinging, like an experienced super model. The crowd went wild. Alicia twisted around and leaned over, wiggling her small ass up in the air, the strap of a red thong barely visible. Jump, Clip, and Boner hollered for her, and Grace and I whistled loudly. She waved good-bye as the presenter introduced an overweight woman in jeans and a T-shirt who took center stage, waving and laughing her ass off at herself. Grace hopped up and down next to me, cheering her on.
I pulled her close. “Babe, your girl is gonna lose if you keep that shit up!”
“Alicia won’t lose. No way. Anyway, this woman deserves our cheering more! Woo!”
I laughed as I brushed the side of her face with my lips.
“Next up, ladies and gentlemen, is—what did you say your name was, hon?” The emcee bent over a short blonde and then popped his mic up once again. “Right, folks. Next up is Lissa!”
I shifted my weight. On the other side of me, Butler and Clip cheered and howled like desperate wolves.
Lissa strode to the front of the stage and whipped up her American flag T-shirt, flashing her perfectly round, perfectly new stiff plastic tits to the roar of the crowd. She laughed and jumped up on her toes, clapping, as two men tipped the bucket of ice water over her. She whooped out loud and then launched straight into shaking those tits at us. Damn, her nipples were huge and hard as rocks under the wet fabric now slicked to her skin. She twisted her body around, hands planted on her waist, and flashed her very round ass at us, her tiny denim cutoffs a second skin, swinging her curvy hips left and right. My insides tightened along with the crowd’s screams. She strutted up and down the small stage, her gaze suddenly spearing mine.
Don’t fucking do it.
She winked and wagged her tongue at me. Smiling huge, she shimmied her body like a practiced stripper dedicating her moves to her special client. Her hands skimmed her sides and then dragged through her platinum hair as she gave her tits one last shake. The crowd went wild.
My jaw clenched as Grace stilled at my side. Alicia shot Grace a look from the stage. Jump thumped my back, whooping loudly. Boner groaned, his teeth dragging along his bottom lip.
Twenty excruciating minutes later, Alicia thankfully walked away the winner, a hundred bucks in her hand.
“I’m not giving my prize money to you this time. No way, asshole,” she muttered to Jump.
He lifted her in his arms, rubbing her bare ass. “Come on, babe. I told ya, I’m gonna sock it away for that house-renovation thing Sister is putting together next month.”
“You know he’s just going to take it and fucking drink it,” Grace snapped.
Jump glared at her. I touched her elbow and pulled her away from them. She flinched back from me, and my shoulders stiffened.
“Of course I know,” said Alicia, her eyes gleaming down at her old man.
He roared with laughter. She grinned and tightly wrapped her arms around him, kissing him, and then biting his lower lip. I shook my head and slung an arm around Grace’s waist.
“Need a drink,” she said, peeling out of my arm, striding off toward the kegs.
My old chain, which was hooked on her jeans, flicked against her hips with her every long stride.
“Grace!”
She ignored me as she marched off into the crowd.
“Alicia, do me a favor.”
Her heavily made-up eyes flared at me. “Are you shitting me?”
“I don’t want her out there on her own,” I retorted, raising my voice. “And I think she’d rather talk to you than me right now.”
Alicia only made a face at me.
Jump smacked her ass. “Go on.”
“Hey, I’ll go, man.” Butler clamped a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll bring back more beers.” He jogged after Grace, catching up with her, and my jaw clenched.
His hand skimmed her arm for just a second. She jerked back and then relaxed, bumping her body into his, both of them laughing.
Fucker.
“Dig!”
Zed and four Broken Blades s
trode toward me. I had business to take care of.
As usual, this entertaining two-day getaway run was hardly about being an entertaining getaway. It was an opportunity for business to get done, and there was no way around it. Grace had accepted that, but she also hated it. Deals needed constant tending-to. Even the most sincere agreements often got unexpectedly violated with too much booze, pussy, and drugs in the mix.
“Brothers, good to see you.”
We shook, tagged fists.
Zed’s eyes settled on Alicia—or rather on Alicia’s knockers. She took in a slow breath, her heavy tits rising and falling slightly, as she slid up to her old man. Zed, wearing a faded old Boot Hill Saloon T-shirt that stretched over his bulky muscles, congratulated Alicia on her win, and she rewarded him with a million-dollar smile. He rattled on about the weenie contest earlier and how we’d missed such a good time.
What a fucking shame. I did not want to see Grace roped into that shit again. The memory from a barbecue last year up in North Dakota of her standing up on the back of Jump’s bike with Alicia driving, Grace’s open mouth reaching for a jumbo hot dog hanging on a laundry line shot in front of my eyes.
“They had the chicks do it topless for the final round. You should have seen this one bitch go at it. What a mouth! She deep-throated those hot dogs right off the fuckin’ line. Reminded me of the old days. Shit.”
Yeah, that would be the way good ole days before AIDS had come ripping through the party that was our never-ending good time.
Alicia and Jump laughed, and I nodded, grinning like an idiot. I definitely wasn’t drunk enough yet to appreciate a discussion about the finer points of a weenie suck.
Angel, Zed’s old lady, sidled up next to him, wrapping her hand around a thick bicep. She smiled at me, but I immediately shifted my eyes away. Her gaze cut to Jump, who smiled back at her. She thoroughly studied him from head to toe as if he were the hot new boy in class. Jump only smirked, his eyes lingering on her black leather property vest. Barely held together in the front by a loose silver chain, it gaped open to reveal the curvy swells of her bare tits underneath. Angel glanced at Alicia, and the two of them grinned at each other.
I knew where that was heading.
Zed’s heavy hand landed on my shoulder. “I like your weed best of all, Dig. You bring what I wanted?”
“Yeah, ’course I did.” I took out the large bag of homegrown he’d ordered special from me.
He slapped a fifty-dollar bill in my hand and took the bag. Nothing like a discount. We continued on with small talk. My eyes darted over the crowd once more. No sign of Grace and fucking Butler.
“Who wants to smack some ass or suck a titty?”
Notch, the VP of the Broken Blades, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, pulled a young brunette behind him by the hand. The girl couldn’t have been more than fifteen, sixteen years old at best. She had a lot of makeup on, a high ponytail, and wore a bikini with tennis shoes on her feet. A stuffed nylon fanny pack was slung over her hips. The girl smiled at us, her pupils pinned, her gaze drifting. She was high and not on weed alone.
“Whatcha doing, Notch? Giving your piece a tour?” Zed laughed.
Angel smirked, an eyebrow arching.
“’Course I am. This here’s Peaches, y’all. You can either suck the peaches up front here”—he swiped at a breast—“or these ones back here!” He smacked the girl’s ass hard, and she jolted forward, squealing. He grabbed on to a handful of her flesh, jiggling it. “Yeah, those are my favorite.”
My scalp prickled as several Blades snickered and moved forward. The girl’s eyes widened as two Blades grabbed at her behind, one smacking it, both of them muttering their approval. Another one palmed her tits, squeezing hard. The other then leaned over and bit her ass, and the girl cried out, her body jerking into the other Blade who was gripping a tit and licking it into a firm peak, his unusually long tongue fluttering grotesquely over her brown nipple. He sucked hard and loud as if her tit was a baby bottle, and he was a mighty thirsty toddler. The girl gasped. Laughter and grunts erupted.
The blood rushed to my head, swamping my brain with cold venom. “Don’t you think she’s a little young for this shit?” I bit out.
“Stupid sluts. They come looking for it,” Angel muttered.
My eyes pierced hers. “Look at her. It’s obvious she doesn’t get what’s going on.”
“She’s getting it all right!” Zed spit out, snorting loudly.
Notch shook with laughter. He held the dazed girl up by her upper arm and took a swig of his beer.
“And if she don’t get it now, she will soon,” said Angel, grinning.
More laughter, especially from the other Blade women. The girl struggled in Notch’s hold, her face fell, and she let out a cry tinted with that helpless, hopeless tone.
Bite marks and red blotches seeped over the girl’s pale skin. Her lips trembled, her shoulders twitched.
My mouth dried, and I licked my lips. “She’s too young.”
Zed scowled at me. “This place is crawling with these pretty things, Dig. Go find your own, and fuss over her if you want.”
My lungs slammed together, every muscle wired, coiling tightly. “I think you should let her go.”
Notch’s dark eyes narrowed at me. He pulled his rolled cigarette from between his lips. “Fuck off, man!”
“She’s a kid. Not your pet. Look at her.” My pulse throbbed in my neck.
The girl wavered in their hold as they pawed her, her limp smile fading, her eyebrows squishing together.
Notch’s face contorted into an ugly scowl. “Oh, I’m looking at her all right. What am I? Fucking stupid?” Laughter rumbled all around me. “Hey, she found me, bud, wanting some fun. She don’t know any better, not my problem.”
One Blade yanked at the front of the girl’s bikini bottom. “Whatcha got down there, huh?” He stuck his hand inside her bikini, down in between her legs, and hissed as she twisted in his rough hold. “Aw, it’s sweet and fresh down here, y’all. Yeah.” She struggled as he rubbed harder at her pussy. “You like that, don’t you, bitch?”
The other men pressed in closer, their weight shifting, tongues dragging across their teeth, snorting, mumbling to themselves and each other. All their attention, all their raw hungry energy focused on the girl. The Blade bent over and stuck his tongue in her mouth. She stopped squirming, her hands dropping to her sides. Suddenly, her body went rigid, and she gasped as his hand dug up inside her.
Notch cackled. “Yeah, not every day you find ’em uncooked, huh?”
I saw red. Acid seared my insides, and my blood roared. I lunged at Notch, tearing him from the girl, pounding at his face, his chest. My fist slammed against bone, jaw, paunchy flesh, taut muscle. All of it a blur of sensation—pain, rage, the girl’s face.
Her face.
“Dig! Dig! Stop it, man! What the fuck?” Wreck’s voice boomed from somewhere behind me.
His large hands on my shoulders pulled at me, heaving me to the side. His dark blue eyes flared at me, inches from mine. “Get it together, bro. What the hell you doing?”
My body shook, and I shoved at Wreck, but his hands were fisted in my shirt, holding me tight against him, his silver eagle ring glaring at me. His mouth moved sharply, sounds bobbed around me.
“You can’t do this. You cannot get in between that shit. You hear? You can’t save ’em all, Dig. Let this one go.”
My head shook on its own, and I stumbled in his grip. Couldn’t form words or connect thoughts. Pain slammed through the left side of my head. My breath cut short.
A warm hand slid around my neck, rubbing the corded muscles there.
Boner’s green eyes held mine. “Brother, he’s right. Can’t do this with the Blades right now. We need them in our corner. Let it go.”
Let it go.
If only I could. Goddamn, if only I could. I’d be a saner man. A man who could sleep, eat, and unwind like any normal man. A man who could fall into his bed, content
, at the end of the night. I wasn’t that. I was corroded.
Boner and Wreck shoved me backward, away from the Blades, several of whom had their knives out, their hands at their guns. Their faces were red, their nostrils flaring.
“No harm done. We’ve all had a lot to drink, right?” Wreck’s one hand stayed glued to my chest.
I stumbled back, shivering, gnarled.
“But that’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?” Wreck said.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, man? You insane?” Zed’s voice thundered. “Attacking us like that over a two-bit bitch and a little fun. Fuck no! Fuck no! You gonna tell us how to be? Fuck no!”
I forced air into my lungs, and it stung there. The pounding in my head surged through my skull. Hands grabbed at my shoulders, others at my torso, pulling me back, shoving me behind my brothers.
My eyes focused on movement. Jump had his hand on Zed’s shoulder, Alicia standing between them. Zed’s huge dark eyes pinned me to the spot. Several Flames of Hell members stood to his side. Finger, his chin tilted down, a scowl on his face, turned and strode away.
Fuck.
A blur of movement blocked my view. Two faces. Four hands holding cups of beer.
“Baby, what happened? You okay?”
My body recognized her warm voice before my brain did. My shoulders dropped, and my head sank.
Wreck leaned his face against Grace’s, whispering in her ear, his hand tight around her arm.
“Have a drink, man.” Butler put a tall plastic cup in my hand. “Go on.”
I drank the lukewarm brew in one go. Sour piss water. I spit it out on the ground, wiping a hand across my lips, choking for air. Grace swept an arm around my middle, pulling me close, her hand stroking my back. My gaze lifted to her greenish-brown eyes, and the numbness retreated by degrees. The young girl whimpered as Notch and his brothers dragged her off.
Grace’s warm hand cradled my face. “Baby, you okay?”
I nodded as I sat back on my chopper.
“Dig?”
“I’m just fine, goddamn it! Okay? Jesus.” My unsteady hands scrubbed over my face.