Playing With Monsters

by Layla Wolfe

  “These houses were all state of the art when they were built in the thirties,” said Eastwood. He was at the porcelain sink trying out the faucet. “Unfortunately, nothing has been maintained since. Let me know if anything doesn’t work. That’s my job here—facilities.”

  “Okay, I think we can take it from here,” Roman said rudely, unappreciative of Eastwood’s neighborly help.

  Gudrun didn’t seem so eager to get rid of the silver fox. “But there’s hot water, do you think?”

  “I’ve got hot water, of course. I assume you do, too.” Eastwood felt the water that he’d kept running in the sink.

  Roman frowned. “Gudrun wants to get settled in,” he said, more forcefully, walking about the kitchen opening the steel casement windows to get some air. “I’ll call Madison to bring you a suitcase of stuff.”

  It was as though Gudrun didn’t even hear him. “I wonder if this house has a wine cellar too, do you know?” she was asking Eastwood.

  “I don’t know!” he said, hearty. “Let’s take a look. It’d be this door here…”

  Roman rolled his eyes as the couple vanished behind the cellar door. Holy shit on a sandwich. They were supposed to be going to the mattresses, on lockdown, and the one guy for ten miles had to be a fucking silver fox on the make. Roman didn’t trust him at all. The guy wore LaCoste shirts and slacks, for fuck’s sake. His clean, holier-than-thou life was probably looking pretty good to a girl like Gudrun who had been through the wringer.

  Stepping out onto the red tiled open-air patio in the back, Roman dialed Ford. The landscape was astounding from here. The best of the Pure and Easy red rock spires were visible like the landscape of some distant planet, even pitted with purple craters, steeples, and cones. From this angle, you could pretend you were the last person left on earth. If it wasn’t for that asshat Reg Eastwood’s house just yards away. Eastwood had a picnic table out back with an umbrella, as though settled in for the duration.

  Maybe Eastwood was Gudrun’s real type. He didn’t know a thing about her dead husband. Maybe that guy had worn alligator shirts and loafers too. Roman didn’t trust anyone in loafers. True, he didn’t trust anyone in engineer’s boots with his wallet on a chain around his waist, such as Roman himself had. Tony Tormenta had had such a wallet. Tony Tormenta was an Italian who thought he was the biggest White Power guy in the Southwest. Dante Serpico had been his muscle for a long, long time. Dante had left his family in ’05 in order to amp up his sicario activities for Tormenta. So, like Slushy, he’d been protecting Yvonne by leaving her. If he was going to become a hitman for one of the biggest kingpins in Arizona, it wouldn’t do to put his wife in everyone’s sights.

  “Ford? It’s Roman. Yeah, sorry about that. Sorry about storming out. I get a bit hot-headed, and when you mentioned Tormenta…” Suddenly Roman didn’t care that much about Tormenta. Tormenta was yesterday’s news, and he’d be the big headliner for many a day to come. Right now, Roman had different questions. “What’s the deal with this Eastwood guy? You’re sure he’s reliable?”

  “Oh, absolutely. We’ve kept people out there before and not a word has leaked out. Once in a blue moon some lookie-loos come by for an inspection, a tour. They barely go inside, and Eastwood will let you know way ahead of time. He’s a good man. Just has a little weakness for crystal. He comes by my office once in a while to shoot the shit. He’s completely harmless.”

  “If you say so. Listen, can you have Madison come by with some stuff for Gudrun? Stuff women might need. She’ll know.”

  “Sure, she’ll know. No problem.”

  “Hey, what…tell me what you know about Gudrun. Being Slushy’s daughter and all.”

  “Very little. You know how Slushy plays everything close to the vest. The only way I even knew he had a daughter was right after I met him, I confiscated his wallet. He had a photo of her in there. I kept the photo for leverage, because I didn’t really know who he was, either. Anyway, now I know a little about Gudrun. Her husband was a photographer—she was a model—and by all accounts he was a good guy. Got in a drunk driving wreck.”

  “Oh, some drunk driver hit them?”

  “No, I think the husband was drunk.”

  “Oh, shit. I’ve got to go.”

  Gudrun and that slimy Eastwood had come up from the cellar. Through the casement window Roman could see that each one of them did have a wine bottle in their hand. Roman didn’t like the looks of this at all, so he cut it short.

  “Thanks for taking me in, Ford. I won’t let you down. I would like to be allowed to be in on the takedown of Tormenta, if you know what I mean.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. You’re in, Roman. I have to say, it was pretty impressive, that video of you carrying Ms. McGill down the street. It was meant to make us look like crass murderers, but I think it mostly succeeded in making you look like a hero.”

  Roman tried to play it down. “Well, Wolf did take out those three goons…didn’t he?” Roman didn’t want to go back inside the kitchen. He didn’t want Eastwood overhearing his conversation. Looked like Eastwood was rummaging in the drawers for a wine opener, though.

  “Yes, those three guys were dead as MySpace. I read the news report the next day. I ran a little intel and they were associated with Tormenta, too. So we’re on the right track.”

  “Good. Got to go.” Roman thumbed the END button and stepped into the kitchen.

  Gudrun was saying, “I don’t know much about wine, but I know I like red.”

  The asshat said, “Well this here is a Napa Valley cabernet. I remember visiting this winery during my trip there in ’11. Or was it the ’09 trip? Well, this one stood out as being particularly oaky and full-bodied.”

  Steam practically came out of Roman’s ears to hear such fucking swill. What a bragging egomaniac. Roman hadn’t even done anything as phony as wine tasting in Napa when he was a famous rock star. Worse, Gudrun was falling for it. She was doing that thing where she sashayed her shoulders from side to side and blinked up at the guy from under her sooty lashes. Only, Eastwood wasn’t as tall as Roman, so it was harder for her to look up.

  “Oh, in my modeling days we used to drink cabs all the time. One of our favorites was a Chimney Rock—”

  “Yes!” cried Eastwood, pointing at her with a wine glass. “That winery was always on my itinerary. We always stopped in there.”

  As though that made them butt buddies. Roman had to put a stop to this. He literally stepped in between the two and held his hands up at Eastwood, as though surrendering.

  “Look. Gudrun can’t drink any wine.”

  “I can’t?” Gudrun whined around Roman’s shoulder.

  Roman removed the wine glass from Eastwood’s hand, and the corkscrew as well. “No, you can’t. You’re in severe pain and on painkillers, and the two don’t mix.”

  Gudrun made a lip fart. “I wish I was on painkillers. Madison wouldn’t give me very many. She wants me to have another MRI. I keep trying to tell her, it’s not going to show anything.”

  “Madison knows what she’s doing,” said Roman, steering Reg toward the front door. “Listen, Reg, can I get your phone number? Can you type it in here? That way we can buzz you in an emergency instead of knocking on your door.”

  “Oh, it’s no big deal if you knock on my door…”

  Finally rid of the turkey, Roman steered Gudrun back into the kitchen. She had followed, practically stumbling over Roman in her eagerness to say goodbye to that buzz-headed twatwaffle, and Roman was angry. He didn’t know why, but that entire encounter rubbed him the wrong way. He angrily screwed the wine opener into the cork.

  “You can’t keep gushing all over fucktards like that, Gudrun! The reason we’re hiding here is that we’re hiding. We don’t need to give Mr. Gung-ho Eastwood the story of our lives.”

  “Was I?” Gudrun twirled a hunk of hair around her finger. She was pert and shapely as ever in a tank top of Madison’s. Madison’s bras must have been too small, but Gudrun had managed to fi
nd a sports bra to encase her voluptuous knockers, and now she bobbled them about, a nervous habit of hers. “Was I gushing all over him?” She seemed pleased by this observation.

  “Yes, you fucking were! Now I’m beginning to see why you got into this trouble in the first fucking place! You have no moral meter when it comes to judging men. You have no judgment at all!”

  As the cork popped from the bottle, Gudrun remained silent. Roman was about to pour a glass, but looked over to her instead. Her eyes were rimmed with tears! What the fuck did I say? “I mean…”

  “You’re calling me some kind of a slut? You’re referring to the incident at Riker’s trap house, aren’t you?”

  “No, not a slut, of course not! I’m just saying you’re too trusting, Gudrun. That’s it. You have no moral meter to determine how trustworthy a guy is or isn’t.”

  But she was already careening on this sobbing tangent, and could not be stopped. A tear escaped from her eye and trailed down her face. “You’re saying I shouldn’t be trusting you? Are you the one I shouldn’t be trusting? I picked my husband out of a crowd of thousands of photographers and he never stabbed me in the back once!”

  “Yeah, until he went drunk driving and almost killed you.”

  Oh, boy. Immediately Roman knew he’d blown it. The deeply injured look on her shocked face spread. As he looked on, Roman swore he could see the shame and the pain expand down her neck, flushing her chest, stretching down into her arms, her fingertips. He had hurt her deeply, to the core, and there was no smoothing this over easily.

  “Oh my God!” She was gone in a flash, running out the back door.

  Of course Roman followed. She was his charge, his prisoner basically. He was responsible for knowing where she was at all moments.

  She must have remembered her status, because she only made it as far as a bricked-in fire pit. She leaned with both hands on the bricks, her head hanging down as though hyperventilating. Roman approached cautiously. His hands hovered over her shoulders, unsure whether to touch her.

  “Gudrun,” he said lamely. This wasn’t his forte, soothing women, or even speaking in intimate, emotional terms. The rock-n-roll world was harsh, blunt, to the point. People had lots of hissy fits, for sure, but they were usually more along the lines of a rage-filled rampage, the typical trashing of hotel rooms. No one talked about soft, tender feelings. That was probably why Roman had fit in so well with the motorcycle club.

  He tried again. “Gudrun,” he said, hoping more flowery words would follow. “Listen. Of course I wasn’t calling you a slut. And I’m sorry about the husband crack. I think I’m just jealous because at least you had happiness with someone else. Me? The chick I thought I was in love with turned out to be a rat, a traitorous bitch. Not only did she not want to stand by me when I made a choice to quit the music biz, she went out of her way to tweet about Tony Tormenta murdering my dad—to get everyone into even more trouble.”

  A gasp tore through Gudrun’s lungs. As though she’d been holding her breath, she suddenly breathed in raggedly, her shoulders shuddering. Roman grasped this opportunity to let his hands land on her bare shoulders, petting them like a cat. Her skin was as smooth as silk sheets, his hands effortlessly gliding down them to her elbows.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “You’ll be fine. I know this is a huge adjustment for you. I just changed my whole life around, too. But you know what? You’ve got us. You’ve got the club. You couldn’t ask for any better protection. You’re going to feel safe, secure, and protected. Not one brother in this club is going to let anything happen to you, Gudrun.”

  Was she crying? Her whole torso shook as she leaned forward on the bricks. Each ragged inhale and exhale seemed to tear her ribcage a bit more. “Oh, God! I caused so much trouble without thinking of the consequences!”

  Roman held her closer to his chest. One of his arms sort of slipped around her front to pinion her to him, clasping her opposing shoulder in his palm, keeping her quiet, calming her. He was spooning her as though they were sleeping. When he realized his hand was just inches from her outstanding knockers, his cock began to swell. Completely outside the realm of his will, need, or desire, the damned thing elongated inside his jeans, charging him with an erotic shiver. His cock was pressed so closely to her flank that when it lengthened it rubbed itself against the swell of her ass.

  Horrified, Roman didn’t pull away. He even sort of rubbed his mouth near her ear. It seemed like a soothing thing to do. “It was lucky, Gudrun, because it led us back on the track of Riker and Tormenta. It was fucking meant to be. The Pure and Easy chapter was looking for Riker and I was looking for Tormenta. Now we’re going to find them. You did us a favor.”

  Her head didn’t hang down any more. Gudrun stood straight, pressing her shoulder blades to Roman’s chest. “By being a slut? I was so desperate for drugs I was willing to go off with a disgusting stranger.”

  “It’s not your fault you’re in pain.” He touched the tip of his nose—that big old honking nose that had been as much his trademark as Pete Townshend’s had been—to the shell of Gudrun’s ear. His fattening prick pulsated against his leg and he was dying to dry hump the curvaceous nurse’s assistant.

  Then it struck him. He was getting a hard-on for his stepsister.

  Jesus Criminy. How wrong was that? Yet nothing about it other than a part of his brain felt wrong. He luxuriated in the lusty shiver that caused his balls to harden and draw up close to his body. Endorphins were being pumped into every muscle in his abdominals, tightening his nipples, causing his heart to beat faster. Gudrun fit against his body perfectly, like she had been poured into a chocolate mold.

  She did that jiggling thing with her shoulders. The heaviness of her big boob swayed below his hand. “I could have sought a third, a fourth opinion. I could get the MRI Madison suggested. Maybe I don’t have to be in pain.”

  “Well,” Roman breathed in her ear. “You’ll do that. Madison will make you an appointment.”

  Something moved in Roman’s peripheral vision. Instinctively, he swiveled his head a few inches to see what it was.

  Fucking Reg Eastwood. Reg was standing on the mesa that was his backyard, hands on hips, staring right at them. As if no one would notice him!

  While shocked at being caught red-handed, Roman didn’t release the girl. If anything, he rocked his hips against her ass even more noticeably, causing her to gasp. Taking the bull by the horns, he slid his greedy hand down over the slope of her breastbone. A sports bra and tank top covered the delicious tittie, and like the impatient, self-indulgent former rocker that he was, Roman grabbed a giant handful of the flesh. Automatically his thumb went in for the nipple, the nail scraping against the pebbled ridge. The boob was too much for his large palm, but he knew off the bat it hadn’t been surgically enhanced. Gudrun was one authentic woman.

  He was gratified when Gudrun arched her back, pressing her butt against his crotch. Does she see that motherfucker watching her? That possibility amped up Roman’s arousal by about three hundred percent. Most rockers were born exhibitionists and Roman was no exception. In the early days when it hadn’t been too dangerous, he’d often brought chicks onstage to simulate various sex acts involving him and his guitar. Now Roman played on those memories, using his hand on her knocker as a sort of steering wheel, turning her another quarter turn to face that fucker Eastwood. He would rub it in, but good.

  “Ah, Roman,” Gudrun sighed, her voice all whispery and reed-thin.

  He couldn’t tell if she was protesting or encouraging, so he nipped her earlobe between his teeth. “That fucking pervert can’t get enough of you.”

  “What perv—oh,” breathed Gudrun, opening her eyes to see the distant figure on the bluff. “Oh God, who cares. There’s nothing else to do out here.” She giggled. “Here. Give him something to masturbate over.” And she yanked up the edge of her tank!

  She grabbed the lower edge of the sports bra on her way up, revealing both knockers to the warm high deser
t air. Roman had to remove his hand briefly, but it was worth the short wait to fill his palm again skin-to-skin with the warm flesh. The other tit, he cradled like a picture frame, displaying to that square douchemonkey that which he could never possess.

  “God, you’ve got a great rack,” Roman said stupidly, nuzzling her neck.

  “I know,” she purred. “But we shouldn’t be doing this.” Despite her words, she jounced her boobs even more energetically, undulating her shoulders as though she wore tasseled pasties on her nipples.

  Groaning, Roman rocked his erection against her pillowy ass. His cock throbbed so heavily, a few drops of jizz had already spurted inside his briefs, lubricating the head as he swiveled it against her. He was this close to yanking down her panties and mounting her by the barbecue, and not just for the benefit of that twisted voyeur.

  He hadn’t fucked a woman in over a year, and he was more than ready for it.

  But just as he was about to twine his torso around her and take a big bite from her tittie, it was all over. Just as quickly as she’d revealed herself, she yanked her bra and shirt back down. Twisting out of Roman’s grip, she spun around to face him, the injured and confused look again sweeping over her face.

  “I thought you were celibate!” she cried in a hushed tone. “And besides…my father is married to your mother!”

  Roman’s jaw dropped. He was so shocked by the double whammy of her accusation he backed away, his hand still in the shape of her tit, his prominent hard-on bulging the crotch of his jeans. Yes, both allegations were true. Roman had done a fucking good job of remaining celibate for a year, even in the face of some pretty damned hot sweetbutts such as Myrna Pennyloafers. And yeah, Slushy was still legally married to Yvonne, and trying to make it work between them.

  “I’m sorry,” he stammered. But Gudrun was looking at something else over his shoulder, so he spun around.

  “Ah,” said Madison. She stood by the dining room corner of the house, a big carry-on bag in her grip. Cheerful, she called, “Gudrun! I brought you some things!”