Christina ignored him, but Gabby kept giving Christina meaningful ‘can we kill him now’ looks. She kept telling herself that giving him attention was what he wanted and his comments warranted little, but contempt. They were nearly at the door to safety, when Mason shouted at her, “You know, Darth, I really don’t give a fuck about this town or anyone in it, but I do care about Riley. If you did too, you’d cut him loose.”
His words halted Christina in her tracks. She knew she should just walk away, but when he pushed the Riley button, all safety barriers were off. “You know,” Christina whispered to Gabby, “I was actually going to start being a grown up tonight.”
“Do it tomorrow,” Gabby hissed back. “I might even join you, but right now, I want to kick his repugnant, disease-riddled ass.”
Christina turned, facing Mason, walking back towards him. They eyed each other with loathing and both leaned forward, readying themselves for battle. “That’s all you’ve got, isn’t it, Mason?” Christina smiled. “Dirty talk and the knowledge that you’re so repulsive that you are actually a fate worse than a fate worse than death.”
Mason threw his head back laughing. “Tell me, Darth, when you’re acting in a professional capacity and fucking Riley, does that make you a high paid whore?” He pointed a finger and leered. “The critical question is, do I get to watch? I heard it. God knows everyone has and I rubbed quite a few out listening to your performance. It felt like we were having a threesome.”
Staring at Mason in horror, Christina’s mind cringed away from his words. The thought of him… she wanted to go home and wash in bleach. And then drink some for good measure.
“You really are a piece of shit,” Gabby snarled. Crouching at the knees, she wrenched her shoes off, and lobbed one at Mason, hitting him on the shoulder. He swore vociferously at her, but Gabby was undeterred. “That’s for Dina,” Gabby hissed, “and this is a bonus round.”
She threw her other shoe, but Mason deflected it and it hit the wall with a loud thud. “You little bitch!” Mason snarled. “And if that’s the way you want to play it.”
Mason started moving toward them and it sparked Christina from the horrors of her mind. She followed her sister’s lead, tearing off her shoes, and throwing one at Mason’s genitals. He managed to hunch over, so it hit him in the thighs, but she hoped it left a bruise.
“Bitches!” Mason shouted. “It is so on.” He thrust his hands down his trousers groping his genitals and then moved his hands to the back of his pants. He looked like a possessed demonic chimp, as he groped and grunted, leering at them.
“What’s he doing?” Gabby asked in horror. “Hey, stop that. You pervert!”
Christina knew what he was doing and what was coming. Ever the asshole, Mason had been bullied at school and devised a unique defensive strategy to keep would-be attackers at bay. He’d put his hands down his pants, infesting his hands with cock-ball-and-butt germs, and then challenged any would be contenders to fight him. No one ever did.
“Run, Gabby,” Christina cried. “Just … run.” Christina pushed Gabby in front of her so Mason couldn’t get her little sister.
The two sisters ran as fast as they could to the room at the end of the hall with Mason hot on their heels. In their haste, they almost fell through the door into the ‘Den of Sin’, but Christina managed to stay on her feet. Slamming the door shut behind her, Christina used her shoulder to keep it closed as Mason hammered on it, threatening her with all manner of things if she didn’t let him in.
Looking around, Christina’s eyes opened wide. “Holy shit,” Gabby muttered. Christina agreed with her. She didn’t know what was worse: the horror on the other side of the door or what was before her.
The room was filled with smoke, loud music, bikers, and half-naked women with white stuff on their boobs. “What is that?” Gabby asked. “It’s not-”
“Don’t ask,” Christina hissed. “I think it would be better if we didn’t know.” She wasn’t sure what the white stuff was and she hadn’t watched enough porn to give an honest assessment.
People fell silent and every eye turned toward them, leaving Collective Pitch’s music as the only sound in the room. The song playing was “Magnificent”, one of the band’s early hits that had gained notoriety in the underground circuit. Its original title and lyrics had to be modified for mainstream.
For some reason, Christina had always hated this song. It’s nihilistic, whiny, and mocking tone, coupled with its underlying misogyny about dangerous women, offended her sensibilities. Sung in her brother’s voice, it made her both uncomfortable and angry.
Christina tried to present as normal, pretending that she and her sister didn’t look like barefoot crazy people. Oh, and there wasn’t a perverted lunatic on the other side of the door. “Sorry for interrupting,” Christina started, defaulting to an absurd polite position. She hoped being polite might ensure the group didn’t hurt her and Gabby or worse: ask them to join in.
Mason, however, took that opportunity to start kicking the door behind her, making her jerk forward. She felt as if she was doing some strange dance of the crazy, with the kick/push rhythm she was in with the pig behind the door. “We’ll just be on our way. Nothing to see here,” Christina smiled awkwardly. “Really-”
“Dina,” a welcome and familiar voice giggled. “What the hell are you doing?” Bonnie sat on a couch with a large joint in her hand, surrounded by bikers. Mandy was standing behind Bonnie, giving her death stares, and making ‘help me’ eyes at Christina.
“We have a little situation,” Christina grimaced. “We had an… altercation with Mason and he’s gone you know.” She tried to point discreetly at her nether regions, but neither Bonnie nor Mandy were getting it.
Christina sighed, rolling her eyes. “He’s done the hands down the pants thing,” she blurted. “You know? He’s got cock-ball-and-butt germs and wants to wipe it on us.”
“Ewww!” Mandy grimaced. “I hate it when he does that. What do we do?”
“Open the door,” Bonnie giggled, standing up. “Hurry up, Dina. We’re going to play a little game. It’s called kicking Mason’s ass.”
Some of the bikers looked on warily, but if they had anything to say, they remained quiet. Christina opened the door, just as Mason went to kick. He lunged into the room with his leg outstretched, falling forward into nothing, and stumbling to regain his balance.
With his black hair flying around his face and his ungainly movements, Mason looked like the YouTube sensation, Afro-Ninja. What happened next, however, was reminiscent of an episode from Animal Planet. “Pig!” Bonnie shouted, slapping Mason around the head and shoulders.
“Aaagh!” Mason yelled, covering his head, and trying to grab Bonnie with his germ infested hands. “Bitches!” He hissed. “Get back, she-devils from a hell dimension. You’re vicious, venal, vaginas with teeth!”
“Bitches?” Bonnie laughed. “We’re warrior women. Bitches are scared of us.”
The women surrounded Mason slapping him, hurling insults, but trying to keep away from his cock-ball-and-ass hands. Mason, ever the survivor and dangerous when desperate, rolled onto his back, lashing out with his legs. Wild-eyed and furious, he staggered to his feet, sticking his hands down his pants, rummaging around with a determined look on his face.
“Ewww!” Mandy shrieked. “Stop him. Make him stop!”
Mason’s eyes landed on Mandy and his face lit up. Like the cunning, predatory, self-preservationist he was, he’d just identified the weakest link. Putting his hands out before him, he charged Mandy until she broke and ran toward the fire exit door. Bonnie, Gabby, and the bikers chased after them in hot pursuit, as Christina stood frozen in place.
Oh my god. She was responsible. Sure, she’d had help in creating this hot mess, but the onus was on her. She could have walked away. She could have stopped it. She could have exercised a multitude of options, but she hadn’t. She’d participated and helped inflame an already volatile situation.
Clos
ing her eyes, Christina counted to ten. Mandy was the heart of their group, Bonnie the will, but Christina was supposed to be the reason. She felt like a failure and as much as she hated to do it, because she really did want to see Mason get his ass-kicked, it was time she lived up to her potential.
**********
Riley
“What are you going to do, Psycho?” Carl Beaumont snarled. “Are you and your friends going to beat us up? What? Are you too chicken for one on one?”
Riley glared at Carl Beaumont. The man’s hypocrisy knew no bounds. Standing in his wife beater, trousers, and shoes, Riley’s breath left tendrils in the cold night air, but inside his temper was on burn.
Jed snorted in derision, holding a wad of money in his hand. “As much as we’d all like to beat you to death, it’s just going to be him. Unlike you, he doesn’t need anybody’s help in a fight. We’re just here to keep the peace.”
The group had grown from Riley’s crew and his enemies, to a few of the bikers that had sniffed trouble in the air. At first, Riley thought the bikers had come to join in on the fight and although that wouldn’t have deterred him, Jed and Steven had made sure that everyone knew the ground rules. The bikers were hovering on the edge of the circle and every so often, he heard someone mutter, “Twenty bucks on Psycho.”
“It’s just going to be you and me,” Riley growled. “I’m giving you more of a chance than you ever gave her. Three men on one woman? You really are spineless pieces of shit.”
“Whoa,” one of the bikers said. “You can’t be beating on women. That’s low.”
There were muttered agreements and Riley turned to stare at the speaker. He looked vaguely familiar, but Riley couldn’t place him. The guy was an older man with a shaved head and arms the size of tree-trunks.
“It was years ago,” Shane Palmer pleaded to the crowd. “We were just stupid kids. It wasn’t us anyway. It was Jason King.”
Riley’s smile turned deadly. “You mean the guy that’s conveniently dead? My sources say otherwise. I’ve been told you hit and kicked her when she was on the ground.”
Moving forward, Riley shouted at them, “There was blood on her face!” Palmer put his head down, but Beaumont tried to hold Riley’s gaze. Beaumont’s bravado was contradicted by the way he was rapidly trying to swallow his fear, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
Giving Beaumont an unwavering stare, Riley’s hands clenched into fists. Putting his legs in a fighting stance, he snarled, “Put your fists up! For once in your lives, you’re going to act like men.”
He remembered these guys from school and he’d never liked them. There was something dishonest about them. They presented as ‘everyday Joes’, but he knew they were cowards and bullies. They picked on vulnerable people, labeling it ‘sport’ and whenever they were called on their bullshit, they tried to downplay it as a joke.
Well, not this time. They were going to pay. Riley was going to leave them bleeding on the ground and then he was going to destroy their lives.
“We’re sorry,” Palmer begged. “We really are. We’ll do anything, please… just let us go.”
“Hmmm,” Jed snorted. “Words are cheap. Have you ever apologized to Christina for what you did?”
Palmer shook his head, putting his beefy hands on his face. “No,” he whispered, “but we will. We will.”
“That might be a reasonable compromise, Nick,” Steven stated quietly. “If they apologize to Dina and she accepts, then maybe we can put this all behind us? I don’t know, but it sounds fair to me.”
“No,” Riley seethed. He didn’t want to put this behind him, not until these guys suffered. Beaumont and Palmer had nearly ten years to offer an apology, but hadn’t. As far as Riley was concerned, any apology that was forced was meaningless.
“Hey, Psycho” another biker called out. The guy was blonde, tall and lanky with a ponytail. “Isn’t your old lady Shoe Girl? The little cutie that sings and can wrestle like a demon? She hangs out with a beautiful black girl and a giant red head with really big tits.”
Shoe girl? As far as descriptions went of the Witches Coven, it wasn’t very elegant, but it was fairly accurate. Riley sized up the biker and then it clicked: Tommy and Bones. Christina called them Biker 1 and Biker 2, and she was enormously fond of them. They were the guys that had given Christina relationship advice and sent her back to him.
“Yeah,” Riley muttered. “Shoe girl is my old lady.” He winced at the terminology because if Christina ever heard him describe her that way, he’d never hear the end of it.
Biker 1 and Biker 2 began a quiet discussion. “And these guys hit your missus?” Biker 1 asked. Riley nodded and the guys conferred some more. “We think you should give them a couple of smacks in the head,” Biker 1 shrugged.
“Maybe in the guts as well?” Biker 2 nodded. “They can’t be going around hitting your old lady without reprisal. That’s not kosher.”
Riley was impressed. Unlike most of his friends, these guys got it. They understood the Laws of the Jungle and that revenge was not a democracy.
Ignoring Steven’s warning, Riley pulled his fist back and cracked Beaumont in the face. Beaumont’s head rocked back and his nose started bleeding. His hands clasped his nose and he grunted in pain.
One in the guts? Why not? He punched Beaumont in the stomach, making him double over in pain, but it wasn’t enough. His bloodlust was up and he turned toward Palmer.
Palmer tried to run, but he was thrown back toward Riley by some of the bikers. “Come here, asshole,” Riley grinned. “There’s no escape for you.”
“STOP IT, RILEY!” Stephany Gilmore screamed. “Look at what you’re doing! This is crazy. Crazy. I knew this would happen. As soon as she comes back into your life, you become like this.” Stephany grabbed his arm, wrapping her body around him and holding on tight.
Riley didn’t want to hurt Stephany, but he did want to hurt Palmer. “Let me go, Stephany,” he said quietly in her ear. Clasping Stephany by the shoulders, he tried to remove her, but she started crying in his arms.
He tensed at the crashing sound behind him and spun, thinking Palmer and Beaumont might have reinforcements. It took a moment for Riley to fully comprehend what was happening. Surrounded by women and bikers, Mason looked like he was fighting for his life. Bonnie, Mandy, and Gabby were trying to hit him, but he was dodging their hits like an expert.
Scrambling onto a picnic table and kicking out with his legs, Mason bellowed. “Get back! I warn you. I will show you my ultimate form!”
“Red!” Jed called out. “Leave him alone, sweetheart. I know he’s a wanker, but he’s only little.”
Riley automatically looked for Christina and found her by the fire exit door. She was barefoot, holding one shoe in her hand, and staring right at him with a pained expression. His eyebrows drew together and then it dawned on him.
Stephany Gilmore was in his arms. He jerked away and then wanted to give himself an uppercut. He’d just made it ten times worse by acting like a guilty man.
“Dina!” Riley called out, but she put her head down, picking at the edges of the shoe. He knew two things: she was close to tears and he was in deep, deep shit.
“Well, well, well,” Mason laughed. “Isn’t this exquisite? It smells like delicious discomfort. One of my favorite things.”
**********
Christina
“I don’t care if he’s little. He’s a 100 pounds of pure evil and needs an ass kicking.”
“So, so, true, Bonnie. He was stalking Dina and Gabby because he’s a sick, obsessive freak. He did the hands down the pants thing and tried to touch us.”
“That’s a lie. I’m heavier than a hundred pounds. Unless, of course, you’re talking about my dick.”
“Liar. I’ve seen your dick. It’s definitely not a hundred pounds.”
Everything was background noise and the only thing Christina could hear was her heart beating in her ears. Her vision was taken up by what was before her. Riley. Ri
ley and Stefany Gilmore: in his arms.
What the hell was going on here? There were bikers everywhere, the Anys, Beaumont, and Palmer, all standing in the garden bar doing what god only knew. She also saw Johnny, Dave, Andy, Steven, and Jed.
In actuality, the only thing she saw was a semi-dressed Riley, with his arms around Stephany fucking Gilmore. The rest was immaterial. She heard Riley call her name, but she had no interest in his pretty words or explanations.
There would be one and it would be plausible, but as unsatisfying as a disinterested lover. She picked at the corner of her shoe because she was angry and wanted to get her emotions under control. She could think clearly if emotions weren’t involved, but if they were, all bets were off.
Her sole purpose for being here was to stop the ritual slaying of Mason Glenn. After that, she was going home: alone. If Riley wanted to talk about this, they could do it in the morning. Oh, and there would be words: quite a variety, in fact.
Against her sense of schoolyard justice, where Mason got his comeuppance, Christina put her hands up. “Enough,” she said evenly. “I think we’ve made our point and Mason has learned his lesson. So, we should all just keep calm, watch the fireworks, and then go home.”
Her comments were met with agreements, curses, and ‘what the hell are you doings’, but she stood firm, even while everything inside her churned like an angry sea. Predictably, and to her annoyance, Mason didn’t make it easy. “See?” he sneered. “You can’t take a joke. None of you can. Darth and I were just… having a moment.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever had a moment,” Christina stated, her face contorting. “It’s more like a series of awkward, inappropriate events.”
“What did you do, Mason?” Riley growled, stalking forward. “Tell me, asshole, because if you’ve done anything to her, you’re going to be sorry.” As he came closer, Christina realized there was blood on Riley’s clothes, and the anger was rolling off him in waves.
Ties That Bind Page 26