Petals and Chrome

by Alicia Pierce

  I pushed the heavy, flaking door open and stepped nervously inside …

  Chapter Three

  The moment I set foot in that bar, it felt like every pair of eyes in the place turned to look at me. I know how much of a cliche or exaggeration that sounds, but it was true. As I made the short walk to the bar, I felt so acutely aware of my body, of my bare legs, of my bum and my small breasts, and I hoped to God that points of my nipples weren’t visible beneath the flimsy cotton my sun-dress as like an idiot I’d decided not to wear a bra. I could feel my ponytail swishing behind me as I walked, and I kept my head held high, pushing my shoulders back, retaining as much confidence and composure as I could muster, even though inside my heart was absolutely hammering in my chest, my breath shivering in my throat.

  The roadhouse was dimly-lit, with a long bar at one side, and chairs and tables at the other, a pool table and a jukebox and a small scuffed dance floor at the far end. All the people in the bar were men; I realized with a start that I was the only female. And the men seemed to be divided into two distinct groups. There were guys who looked like truckers, I guess: dressed in plaid shirts and dirty jeans, swilling back large pitchers of foamy beer, and then, over at the other side were the bikers, a smaller group, maybe ten or twelve of them, all drinking beer and shots of whiskey, some of them with shaved heads, some with extreme flesh-tunnels and piercings, some with long sculpted beards, and all of them with tattoos and leathers, emblazoned with that same rose symbol I’d seen in the parking lot.

  “What’ll it be?” the bartender asked me, in a surprisingly soft, gentle voice. He was dressed in a beer-stained checkered shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, and despite a few faded blue tattoos on his forearms, he looked like a nice guy, his hair greying at the temples, just like my Daddy’s did, and his stubble a comforting salt and pepper color, his skin sun-browned and the lines around his eyes becoming prominent as he smiled down at me.

  “I’ll have a bottle of beer, please,” I said, so acutely aware of my cut-glass English accent, which seemed to ring out like a bell in the bar, standing out above the rhythmic, pulsating growl of the rock music.

  “One beer coming right up,” he said cheerily, popping the cap off an ice-cold bottle of Bud. As he set it on the bar and told me the price in a loud voice, he then quickly leaned in and continued speaking in a much lower tone. “Listen, missy,” he whispered, “you’d better drink that up real quick, okay? There’s trouble brewing in here and I really don’t want you to get caught up in it. Just drink your drink, fast, and then get out and don’t come back. Trust me. You don’t want to be part of what’s about to happen …”

  I held his gaze.

  “Thanks for the advice,” I said with a smile. I turned to leave the bar, then span back on my heel. “Actually, make that a whiskey, too,” I said.

  He raised his eyebrows, then poured out my shot, the amber liquid quickly filling up the grubby little glass.

  I downed it in one, feeling the harsh liquid burning in my throat as it made its way down, and I tried to suppress the shudder but couldn’t quite manage to. I washed back the foul taste with my ice cold beer, then turned and walked down the room, past the group of bikers, past a long table of truckers, towards the jukebox in the corner.

  As I walked, I wondered if perhaps I was taking my newfound freedom a little too far.

  I knew I was flirting with danger just by being in here, and now here was the bartender giving me a friendly warning to get out, too. I knew deep down that I should follow his advice, but another part of me was enjoying herself, finally, for the first time in weeks, in months … No, scratch that: for the first time in my whole fucking life.

  Because what had I really done, up until now?

  I’d diligently attended a boring girls school.

  I’d taken my exams and gone off to University.

  I’d studied hard and done everything I could to make my parents proud of me.

  I’d met James.

  I’d lost my virginity to him.

  I’d taken a boring job at a boring fucking call centre, in order to save up the money to come away on this supposed “once in a lifetime adventure” with him and his friends.

  And that was it: that was my whole fucking life, up until this point, and it felt like everyone had always been making my decisions for me, first my parents, then my school, and then James. Well, all that is over, I decided, right there beside the jukebox in that filthy, dingy bar. From now on, Rose Adams, you will be in charge of your own destiny. You will make your own fucking decisions …

  Just then, the song finished on the jukebox, and spurred on by my new fearless attitude, I fed a couple of quarters into the slot, resting my beer bottle on top of the ancient machine as I flicked through its selections. It was almost all heavy metal and blues rock, but right at the back of the selection cards, I found one old R’N’B collection and keyed in a slow dance number from it, my heart still hammering as the song began to play, spilling out sensuously from the speakers of the jukebox, causing all the bikers and truckers to look over in my direction for the second time that evening.

  Feeling a slight heady buzz from my large whiskey shot, I found myself closing my eyes and swaying softly in time to the song, shifting my hips, letting myself get carried along in time to the sexy, sultry beat, my floaty cotton sundress swishing around by my bare thighs. I was just about losing myself in the music when a voice came out of nowhere.

  “Hey, slut.”

  The low growl rang out across the bar, heavy with menace and pent-up aggression.

  I opened my eyes and looked in the direction it came from. A huge hulk of a man — one of the truckers — was lifting himself up from his seat, his eyes fixed on me. I stood, rooted to the spot, as he lumbered towards me, his chin wet with beer, his sizable gut hanging a little over the front of his dirty jeans, and his eyes burning with an uneasy mixture of lust and anger as he headed towards me.

  “Think you can come in here and dance around like that?” His voice was loud and firm.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  I was frozen with shock. This was fast getting out of control.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came from it. I gulped and shook my head meekly, my heart pounding, my skin prickling with sweat, wondering if I’d bitten off more than I could chew this time. Why hadn’t I just done like the bartender had advised? Drank my beer and gotten the hell out of there? But no, high on the excitement of my new little adventure, I’d taken things way too far, dancing around to try and catch the attention of those stupid bikers.

  And now this.

  This guy.

  Hulking towards me with something downright mean smoldering in his gaze. His piggy little eyes were bloodshot and I realized with a shiver of dread that there was no goodness in them whatsoever. As if on cue, the song I’d chosen on the jukebox finished just at that moment, and the whole bar now was plunged into a tense, uneasy silence.

  “So, you enjoy being a little cock-tease, is that right?” he growled.

  The whole bar was watching us now. I didn’t know what to do. Again, I shook my head.

  “And what would happen if I want more than a tease? What if I asked you to get down on your knees, right here in this fucking bar, and suck my dick? Would you do that, little girl? Would you be a good little slut and do that for daddy?”

  He hissed the words out with pure venom and I could tell, with a queasy pang of dread, that he actually meant them.

  I shook my head and took a step past him, in the direction of the door. I knew I just needed to get the fuck out of there — and fast.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he barked, grabbing my arm with his bloated, sausage-like fingers. “And just where in the fuck do you think you’re going?”

  Once again I tried to speak, but the words were frozen somewhere deep down in my closed-up throat. His grip was so tight, his dirty greasy fingers digging hard into my arm, that I began to squirm and whimper with pain.

>   “You just stand right where you are until I say you can go, okay carrot top?”

  The insult caught me off guard; I’d not had anyone make a comment on my hair color since my schooldays.

  I looked over the trucker’s shoulder, towards the bar, for help. The grey haired barman just looked back at me sadly. There was clearly nothing he could do. He’d warned me, and I’d ignored him. And now I was suffering the consequences. With a churning dread, I thought about just how alone I was out here: deep in rural America, in the middle of nowhere. It felt suddenly lawless. People made their own rules. Did whatever they wanted.

  “So let’s just see how much of a little fucking whore you really are,” the dirty fat trucker growled, the venom burbling in his voice, the hate burning in his round, bloodshot eyes.

  He reached deep into the pocket of his jeans and brought out some kind of slim, shiny object. He touched a button on it with his thumb and in a flash, a razor sharp blade had flicked from it, glinting menacingly in the low lights of the bar.

  I felt a wave of nausea. This had gone way beyond a joke. Was this really how it was going to end for me? Stabbed to death in some godforsaken bar in the middle of nowhere? Right at that moment, I wished I was safely back in the RV, playing another boring game of cards with James and Dave and Jenny. I’d made one colossal fucking mistake.

  Holding the knife out between us, he took a step towards me. With his free hand, he grabbed the left shoulder strap of my sundress in his grubby fist, tugging it roughly away from me then slipping the blade beneath it. The strap slit easily, the razor-sharp knife slicing through it like butter. He did the same to my right strap, then let go. I caught the dress as it began to fall, holding it to my body, pressing my hands to my breasts.

  “Let it go,” he said.

  I looked down at the knife blade, glinting menacingly between us, then let the dress fall to the floor, leaving me almost completely naked, save from my battered old trainers and a tiny black thong. I shivered, covering my small breasts with my hands, feeling my nipples — stiff from the icy air of the room — pressing against my palms in hard little buds.

  “Arms down by your sides,” he barked.

  I dropped my hands, feeling a twinge of embarrassment. I looked around the bar, my cheeks burning with shame. Every eye was on me; all the truckers, all the bikers. They were all leering at me, at my lithe young flesh, at my puckered, erect nipples.

  “Turn around,” the trucker growled.

  I did as I was told.

  “Slowly,” he commanded.

  I slowed down, feeling his hungry dirty eyes on my arse. I heard my breath shivering as I took in the smoky air of the bar in thin, shaky gasps, my whole body trembling now with a heady mixture of shame and fear. I was practically naked in front of these men, just the flimsy cloth of my knickers covering my most private place. The only person who’d seen me naked before today was James, and now all these dirty bikers and truckers had too. I felt my cheeks burn with white-hot embarrassment.

  “So, slut …” the trucker growled, once I’d done a full turn and was facing him again. “I’m gonna say it one more time …” He held the knife up between us, touching the blade to the rock-hard bud of my small left nipple. “If I asked you to get down on your knees and suck my dick, would you do it?”

  I looked at his horrible bloodshot eyes, at his mouth twitching with venom, at the glinting blade of his knife, then, almost imperceptibly, I nodded. I knew I had to. It was that or worse.

  “You fellas see that?!” the man bellowed, his voice ringing out in the silent bar. “The little slut nodded! Said she’d get down here on her hands and knees and suck my dick! Well, I for one don’t believe her … What about you guys? You believe this lying little whore?”

  A few men cheered and jeered, and I noticed with mounting dread that the trucker had actually begun fumbling with the buckle of his big brown leather belt with his free hand. He tugged it open, then began unbuttoning his pants. He took a final few lumbering steps towards me, so close now that I could smell his vile, acidic breath as he huffed and puffed, tugging open his pants, his hand stuffed down the front of his stained old boxer shorts.

  “Get down on your fucking knees,” he hissed.

  I took a deep breath, wondering just how in the world I was going to get out of this.

  Chapter Four

  I looked once more at the room of men, all watching me hungrily; no one stepping in, no one intervening. I looked once more to the bartender, but he wouldn’t meet my eye. I looked over at the group of truckers in the lefthand corner, all drunk and red faced and watching eagerly to see what would happen next. I looked over at the bikers to the right — all watching me coldly, impassively. I knew right then that I was helpless.

  Very slowly, I got down onto my knees, so that my face was only inches from the trucker’s filthy crotch. He grunted then scooped his dick and balls out from his shorts and I felt a deep shudder of disgust run through me. His cock was long and thick and a deep gnarled purple color, the veins standing out prominently, and what looked like small brown scabs — perhaps flea bites — around his balls and pubic hair.

  “Open your fucking mouth,” the trucker commanded.

  I did as I was told.

  He shuffled towards me, gripping his cock so hard in his free hand now that the head of it bulged and glistened, engorged with blood. The knife glinted in his other hand.

  As his dick got nearer, with it came a pungent, unwashed scent and I gagged, just as he slid his cock past my lips, the hot throbbing head of it sliding onto my tongue and filling up my mouth completely.

  “Now suck,” he growled.

  Very slowly, I began to suck his dick. It was so much thicker and harder-feeling than James’s, the only other cock I’d ever known, and with a shudder of disgust, I felt it grow even more in my mouth, so large that it began to strain my jaw.

  “That’s right, slut,” he murmured.

  I closed my eyes and wished I was anywhere else, my stomach swirling with nausea. I was right on the brink of tears and I held them back for all I was worth. It could only have been a few seconds but it felt like an hour - and then … Then I made a decision, one which would change everything, acting on it quickly, before I could change my mind.

  I bit down hard, feeling my teeth sink into the spongy head of his cock, piercing the skin, the hot coppery blood quickly flooding my mouth and spilling over my chin.

  The trucker howled, pulling himself away from me, dropping the knife on the floor as he clutched at his gushing dick with both hands. The blade skittered away from me. He quickly snatched it up, one hand still clutched to his bloody groin, the deep red blood pulsing out from between his fingers and spreading on the floor beneath him in a sickening, spattering puddle.

  I crawled backwards away from him, spitting the blood from my chin, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, looking around the bar for help, trying in vain to get to my feet and away from the knife-wielding trucker.

  He was about to make a lunge for me with the blade, but just before he was able to make his move, something exploded in a shower of glass over his head and he crumpled like a rag doll to the floor. Standing there behind him, the broken handle of a glass pitcher still clutched in his grip, was one of the bikers, his face lost in shadow, his slicked-back hair shining in the low lighting.

  There was a moment when it felt like the whole world froze … and then it was as if the bar erupted in chaos at once. The truckers and the bikers leapt to their feet and began swinging wild punches at each other, the bartender ducking for cover and escaping towards a back room, perhaps to make a phone call to the emergency services or the cops, while I scrambled to my feet, looking for the safest way out of there.

  Before I could make a run for it, I felt a hand once more grabbing my arm. This time it was the biker — the one who’d cracked that pitcher over the trucker’s head.

  “Come with me,” he shouted, tugging me roughly towards the doors that led back
out into the parking lot.

  We burst out into the night, and the air was so cold I gasped as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water over me. My nipples felt almost painfully hard, and my whole body broke out in goosebumps. I realized once again that I was almost completely naked — just my thong and trainers — and once more I covered my breasts with my hands. At the same time, I fought back a sudden wave of nausea as I tasted the blood in my mouth.

  “Here,” the biker said, “put this on.”

  He slipped off his scuffed black leather jacket and offered it to me.

  He was clad only in a simple black vest now, his tattooed arms sculpted and muscular.

  “Thanks,” I said, slipping the jacket on, savoring the comforting warmth of his body heat, which the leather seemed to retain. “And thanks for what you did for me back there …”

  He didn’t acknowledge this, just looked out across the deserted parking lot for a moment, lost in thought.

  “You’d better come with me,” he said. “Things are gonna get a lot worse around here, before they get better.”

  I realized that he’d already made up his mind; that he had not taken into account the fact that I might not actually want to come along with him, that I might actually have a mind of my own. I was about to say this, but this time something held me back. Perhaps it was the shock, that was still just registering in my brain, that I’d actually just bitten into a guy’s dick after being forced to suck him, or perhaps it was the simple thought that I was so far out of my depth — absolutely nothing in my twenty two years on Earth could have prepared me for this moment — but whatever it was, I decided to keep my mouth shut this time and take his advice.

  I followed him over to his bike, a huge, hulking beast of painted black metal and burnished chrome, and felt a strange thrill, deep in my stomach as he jumped onto it and turned the key in the ignition, the engine roaring violently to life.

  Back in the roadhouse, I could hear the shouts and curses, the crash of bodies through tables, and the sickening crunch of flesh and bone as the brawl continued, showing no signs of abating.