Too Rough For Love

by Adair Rymer

  I heard someone punch someone else. “Watch your fucking mouth. Have some fucking respect.” My gaze was still numbly transfixed on Remy.

  “Fuck, Tee! That hurt. Nah shit... I'm sorry, Remy. Bren... Bren was a real good—”

  “Yeah.” Remy looked out past everything for a moment, then he snapped back, all business. “Tee, help Crutch back to his bike and see if Twatch can patch him up enough to ride. Dollar, you string that piece of shit to the back of my bike. I want to litter the road with his fucking corpse.”

  The edge that crept into his voice made me shiver all over.

  “What about Bren?” Tee asked.

  “I'll bring him to Top. He'll want to be the one to take him to Muse's place. Hoze, Black Nicky, tear this fucking place apart. There will be no more surprises tonight.”

  “You got it Rem,” Black Nicky replied.

  Remy's eyes fell on me. He saw right through my hiding place, saw right through me. I was in shock, salty tears streamed down my face. Again I couldn't breath. My bottom lip bled from how tight I bit it. He lifted his gaze like I didn't exist.

  “Back's clear, start around the side.” His words were so matter-of-fact that I wondered if he had actually seen me or if I just imagined it. When he disappeared behind me, presumably to pick up Bren's body, I was able to finally take in air. He had me, I knew it! Why didn't he say anything? I didn't have much time to ponder, it was only a few minutes later that I felt someone's filthy hand grab my hair. Right then it became real. I knew that this was the end.

  “Well well, what do we got here? Good thing I doubled back.” My flimsy pallet shelter toppled as Hose put a shoulder into it. His greasy hand, full of my hair, caused my head to bounce off the opposite wall. I was seeing stars. It was a miracle that my glasses stayed on. I screamed and thrashed as he dragged me out through the splintered wooden debris and threw me on the ground.

  He glared down at me. “You see my boy, here, kill your boyfriend?” I tried to say “No” but nothing came out. He pulled out his gun and leaned in so close that the chewing tobacco he had in his lower lip spattered my face when he talked. “Speak up, bitch. I ain’t got all night.”

  “Fuck you.” I think I was as surprised as him when those words quietly escaped my mouth. I knew how this was going to go. I wasn't going to walk away from this.

  “This cunt's got a mouth on her. Oh, how I wish I had the time...” Hose dragged me to my knees and pushed my face hard into the crotch of his pants. I felt the heat through the denim, his bulge grew as he dragged me back and forth over it. Then I felt the barrel of the gun pressed against the side of my head.

  “Let her up,” Remy's voice boomed.

  “You're fuckin' with me, right? She saw you, man!” Hose argued, but Remy only narrowed his eyes. “Arightaright.” He sighed in resignation.

  Remy turned his attention to me. “You wanna die on your knees? Stand up.” I did as he said. I didn't want to die on my knees. I could at least do that much. Bren's body was propped over Remy's shoulder with a sense of reverent ease. Although he wasn't bulky for his height, Remy seemed to radiate a primal strength. There was some renewed shouting out front, followed by two gunshots.

  “Shit, Rem, looks like Top got the news.” Black Nicky shook his head.

  Remy looked past the other biker at the men by the pump, then turned back to me. That muted sadness crept back into his features. “You got dealt a shit hand, kid. Tonight wasn't supposed to go down like this.” He gave a long, low exhale. “I'll give you a choice. You can walk back to Top with me and try to settle your boyfriend's debt, or you can try to run. I can guarantee you, neither way'll be pretty. But, you come with me, you might see the sun rise again.”

  “Did they kill my Aunt and Uncle?” My mouth quivered when I asked him. I could barely see through my red eyes. He didn't reply, but I knew the answer.

  I slapped him.

  It felt like I was watching this all happen through a telescope. That wasn't me was it? Did I just do that?

  Remy smiled something close to genuine and brushed past me on his way back to his bike. “Bring her.”

  Hose grabbed me and dragged me behind him. When we passed the side window I could see the fire. It was spreading so quickly, once it caught the oil and gas containers in the garage the front lot was awash in brilliant yellow-orange light. Oily smoke flooded out of every opening. That and the heat shut my already irritated eyes to slivers.

  Leaning or sitting on their bikes, they waited for us. Twenty sets of hungry looked at me like I was a choice cut of steak. They either wanted to cut me up for what happened to their friend or eat me. I'm sure many wanted both.

  I tried to distract myself with my surroundings. I knew a couple things about bikes from the few that came in, but these had me at a complete loss. Most of these bikers were riding American bikes with the one exception of Remy's which looked Asian. All of them had either some, or extensive, customization done to them.

  My distraction was short lived. When I saw both the bodies, I just couldn't contain my sobbing. The whole thing felt real in a way and completely fake at the same time. I mean, I knew it was real. This was way too dark for one of those prank-based reality shows. It was just that I found myself feeling bad. Almost like I didn't really have the right to grieve over these people.

  I'd only been up here a few months for school. Aside from some weddings and a funeral that they flew out for, I really didn't know my aunt and uncle. In my twenty-one years on this planet I might have seen them five times at most. There was a college in their area that I liked, so to save money, my dad asked them if I could take their spare room. They happily agreed, and here I was.

  Originally I was going to stay local but after my scandal with Professor Jackson, my parents were far too eager to send me away. I really couldn't blame them. Johnathan's wife made our lives hell.

  Uncle was into politics so I once tried to read him some stuff from the Reddit Obama AMA off my phone at dinner. Turns out, he voted against him twice. The rest of the dinner I heard at length how the Obama Care was the downfall of western civilization. Aunty had to elbow him because he was getting too riled up.

  We never really talked all that much after that, and when we did, it would always be surface level pleasantries. They weren't bad people but we just couldn't relate to each other. Most of the time I was either at school, studying, or working at their gas station.

  Now they're dead and aside from involuntary crying, I didn't really know how to feel about it.

  Everyone that was wearing a bandanna removed it as Remy gently placed Bren across the gas tank on Top's bike. Top was openly crying when he grabbed Remy in a giant bear hug. Bren must have been really close. Remy wasn't a small man, probably five foot ten, maybe a hundred and seventy or eighty pounds, but in Top's embrace he looked like a little boy. Remy patted him a few times on the back and he began to tie Bren's arms and legs up and secure him to the bike.

  For a cold-blooded murderer he looked so solemn. Bren must've meant something to him as well. He couldn't be that deathly serious all the time, could he?

  “Why's this dead bitch standing in front of me?” When Top spoke in that tone, everyone stopped and listened. No one answered. I bet most of them, including myself, were wondering the same question. Why hadn't they just killed me already?

  “We're taking her with us.” Remy had just finished with Bren and turned to address Top.

  “And why are we doing that?” Top asked coyly.

  “She didn't kill Bren, that shit-heel did.” Remy cocked a thumb over to the corpse Dollar was in the process of tying off to Remy's bike.

  Top was getting angry. “I don't give a rat's dick if she did or didn't. Did she see you kill that shitheel?”

  “What difference does it make if we kill her here or there?” Remy shrugged it off.

  “Rem, I'm all for you gettin' your dick wet but there’s plenty of pussy at Muse's place. Hell, I'll have her drag all the girls out. I'm sure tonight w
e're all gonna need them anyhow.”

  “No. She stays.” Remy walked right up to the giant. Top looked down hard at the man, then started nodding his head. Before I knew what happened I was back on my knees with a knife at my throat. My eyes went wide, Top was faster than a man that large ought to be.

  “Top, wait,” Remy snapped. “I just need some strange tonight. I'm tired of those worn out whores.”

  “Okay.” He slowly pulled the knife away and pushed me onto my hands and knees. “But I get first crack at her, then when you're done the boys get to turn her out, too.” His concrete slab of a hand slapped my ass so hard that I lifted off the ground. After the searing pain it immediately went numb.

  “Yeah.” There was a bit of reluctance in Remy's voice but the roles were very clear. Although he had the balls to stand up to him, Top was the man in charge.

  “Alright, let's get the fuck out of here,” Top bellowed, as I'd imagine a Norse god would, and mounted up. Everyone else followed suit.

  The thought of what waited for me at this Muse place was unfathomable. These things don't happen to quiet, boring girls like me. This killer bought me another night but at what cost? By sunrise, I'd wish I was dead.

  “Get on the bike,” Remy said.

  He would have to help me up, because I was so sore I couldn't do it myself. “Please, help me. Please!” I blurted out meekly.

  “Shut up and get on.” Ice came out of Remy's mouth instead of words. He placed my glasses in my hand and pushed me toward the bike. I didn't even notice that I'd lost them. Once I was on, he checked to make sure the lead line attached to what was left of Todd was secured, then he hopped on, himself.

  There was a small, beaten up book sticking out of his back pocket. The title wasn't showing but the author's name was Lovecraft. I'd never heard of him or her. It looked like old literature. It struck me how odd that was for a biker to carry around. Who was this man?

  “Why are you doing this? You should have just killed me...” Rape, murder, my family burning. The horror of what was to come struck me.

  Remy said nothing.

  We rode for hours. The maddening, wet sound of Todd's corpse slapping and skidding along the pavement, mercifully ended a while back when the limb that anchored him separated. The remaining piece attached to the rope was completely drowned out by the bike's engine and the wind.

  It was hideous. Something out of a horror film. I'd never seen a dead person outside a funeral before. This was, of course, so much more raw. At several points the sound made me swallow vomit. My mom is an ER nurse and I would visit her a lot when I was younger so I was always able to deal with gore better than most people but honestly surprised I didn't pass out.

  Dragging Todd seemed like such an obscene overreaction at first but then some pieces started to fall into place. The way the other bikers apologized to Remy, Top crying and their morning embrace. It went beyond even close-knit camaraderie. I think that Bren was related to Remy and Top in someway.

  My old life melted farther away by the second. I didn't trust Remy or even like him. He'd stood idly by while my aunt and uncle had been brutally murdered. He was a monster that could kill at the drop of a hat.

  Once Todd's dragging weight snapped the tether, he pushed his bike that much faster. His bike, unlike the other Harleys and Choppers, had a surreal sense of speed. We were so far behind, that the rest of the gang's taillights were almost a memory and once Remy leaned forward and gunned it, the dark landscape became a blur. Remy, the bike, me, we were one body. Connected. I was terrified that we'd lift off the pavement and fly away. My God, the power...

  I was forced to hold on that much tighter, not only to stay on his bike but—and I hated myself for it—some part of me was squeezing him just to squeeze him. To feel him all around me. My legs, my arms, we could hate one another but on the somber ride to what was probably going to be my own hellish end, we were closer than lovers.

  We roared up through the sea of red lights and fell into a loose formation with the other riders. The road was hypnotic. His tires, gripping the asphalt along with the pounding engine, sent vibrations reverberating through my inner thighs. It rattled my ribs, lungs and chest. I had trouble thinking straight. That rhythmic drumming, raw and unyielding, escaped my lips with every exhaled breath.

  It dawned on me that this was the first time I'd ever been on a motorcycle, and as much as I tried to deny it, I felt a sense of complete freedom and... something else. Something darker. I thought it was danger or dread but it wasn't. There was a foreign ache that ran through my muscles. It was a wicked kind of excitement.

  The warmth of the man in front of me cut the bitterness in the air. I don't know if it was because I hadn't been with someone in so long but his scent was intoxicating. At first it was just the leather, gasoline and dust, but as I buried my face into his broad, muscular shoulders, I could really smell him. Although I didn't have the words to describe how I knew, he smelled like I thought he should have. Fresh sweat from exertion mixed with oil from the bike, the copper notes of old blood and anger. So much anger. Danger personified.

  I was lost in the enveloping sensation of being wrapped around him, his radiating heat, the steady, pulsating vibration from the bike, the abrupt roughness of the road and our subsequent jerks and thrusts. All of the horrible, horrible excitement. The bike's rumbling felt trapped within me. I squeezed Remy so tight I feared he thought I was trying to throw him off the bike. I found myself softly moaning, my panties getting wet.

  Swells of barely contained pleasure crashed against me like the coming tide. My muscles contracted against it. I refused it, willed it away but that ecstasy was relentless. It couldn't be stopped. The orgasm tore through me, it arched my spine causing me to straighten. I prayed that he somehow hadn't noticed. I was so ashamed.

  At eighty mpg, that shift in my angle caused the wind to hit me like a sledgehammer and threatened to tear me off the bike entirely. Remy's earlier warning flashed in my mind. My fingers slid off his hard chest, across his ribs, then slipped from him completely. My heart in my teeth, I could feel my thighs immediately give way. Holy shit, I was actually falling off his bike!

  I'll never forget that next moment. His deceptiveily strong hand whipped out behind me at the last possible second and slammed me into his back. His belt and rough denim jeans grated against the soaked-through cotton of my panties. My pussy quivered at every coarse fabric ridge before slapping back down on the oiled leather seat.

  Then he abruptly jerked us forward again. The engine screamed as we blew past the other bikers in the wrong lane of the highway. We were bathed in the deathly yellow glare of a tractor trailer's floodlights. My world went white. There was nothing except the light and a long, deep howl from the gigantic truck's horn. At these vicious speeds there would be no stopping the semi or us.

  Remy leaned forward again, his chest pressed against the gas tank with me flush on his back, he accelerated even more. He dared the mechanical megalith to blink. To jack-knife. I don't know. I mashed my eyelids shut and screamed from the core of my being.

  Mercilessly, Remy sailed us right, out of the path of the screeching truck. The hot slipstream of air behind it as we passed threatened to topple us. It was a testament to his skill and tenacity that Remy was able to keep us on two wheels at all. Rubber burned all around us, that of the truck's many tires and the two of our own. I couldn't handle anymore.

  I was screaming and crying. My whole body rocked with another orgasm and several aftershocks. I was never going to survive this man.

  Chapter 2

  Remy

  The road was where I felt most at home: the wind, the noise. On my Kawasaki, I was completely in control. I was a god.

  The Burnt Pig, although we just referred to it as Muse's Place, was home to at least a few of the guys. Top, Spare Rod, Fish and Twitch and Twatch. Normally, I'd be hard pressed to offer up a better place to spend a night, especially after such a shit day and a long ass haul across the pan handle,
but not tonight.

  That two-stage¸ neon sign with the pig rotating over the flickering flame, typically a sign of good times ahead, was now just a reminder of all the shit left to do tonight. I didn't want any of it. If I wasn't with my family I would have just rode past the square box of brick and glass that was Muse's. The bar wasn't much to look at but the attached motel was a totally different feel. A pool, valet waiting area, white columns and massive windows.

  We pulled into our lot behind the bar where Muse was already waiting for us. Twenty years ago she was probably a real knockout. Total Elvira-type chick. Huge fake tits, black dyed hair, black clothes, black everything. A real snake charmer, Muse could talk the moon out of its shine. Despite all the bullshit today, it was good to see her.

  She was at Top's bike with her arms out before he'd even thrown down his kickstand. He checked on Bren then swept her up into a big hug. She whispered something to him and I could see the man's eyes water. Top wore his emotions like the patches on his vest. Part of me envied that weakness.

  I killed the engine and had to pry this bitch's arms free to get off the bike. I traced her with my eyes. She was a small thing with soft, tight curves that were buried under cheap cardigan. I could wear her like a belt. Supple, was the word that came to mind. Her smooth skin, unblemished and radiant. I had to touch it to see if it was real.

  I lifted her skirt at the side of her waist and slowly ran a finger down the length of her thigh. Her body trembled slightly. Her heartbeat was so loud that I could feel it behind her knee. Her dark, shoulder-length hair was a tangled mess, and her glasses were comically askew. She was a disheveled wreck. Hopelessly overwhelmed. I couldn't help but smile.

  I walked around the bike to see if I could draw her gaze. She didn't move. Brushing aside her hair, I found her chin and forced it up at me. Her soft cheeks were marred with dust and streaked with lines of mascara. I liked it.

  There was a defiant intensity in her eyes that was invigorating. Much different from the slags I typically fucked. Their hollow eyes held only horny resignation and despair. I imagine that's what this girl saw in mine.