by Tahlia Gold
After we finish, we rinse off together in the shower. What the hell am I doing? I need to get out of here. I’m going to be late meeting Road Dawg. I don’t want to leave though.
While we’re drying off, she asks me if I can drop her at the hospital because she needs to do a few things.
“Why don’t you take your car?” I ask.
“It’s in the shop,” she says. “I can take a cab if you don’t have time.”
I don’t have time. “You should have told me,” I say. “One of my buddies could have fixed it for cheap.” This is exactly the thing I’m trying to avoid. Sleeping over, showering together, favors, rides to work. This will be the second time I’ve given her a ride to work. Who gives the girl you’re fucking a ride to work?
A boyfriend. That’s who. No fucking way.
But what am I going to do? Say no?
17
Jess
Dylan pulls the bike up in front of the Emergency Room doors. A tech walking in is checking out his bike. Is it weird that I love the attention we get when I’m on his motorcycle? Yes, that is weird.
As I get off the rumbling back end I notice just how good I feel. My body is completely relaxed. One hundred massages from one hundred Thai ladies couldn’t do what this man did to me in one night. The sun is out, and the rays on my face feel perfect. The ride over made my heart sing with the wind rushing by and him weaving between lanes on the freeway. I can completely understand the appeal of riding a motorcycle. Maybe I should learn how.
I take the helmet off and hand it to him. There’s an awkward moment where I instinctively start to kiss him then I pause, unsure of the etiquette for a one-night stand. It’s silly. He had his penis so deep inside me not a half hour ago and now I’m getting nervous over a little peck on the lips.
But he’s so smooth. If he notices my awkwardness he doesn’t let on as he leans over to kiss me. Our tongues brush for the briefest moment. “Thanks for the ride,” I say.
He nods, smiles ever so slightly. “It was good to see you again.” He seems distracted.
“Yeah,” I say. “It was good to see you again.”
As his motorcycle roars off—the deep blast of the engine echoing around the parking lot—I wonder if that’s the last time I’ll see him. If I want it to be the last time I’ll see him.
When I turn to go inside, Webber is standing there in the doorway watching me. This is starting to get ridiculous. If she says something I know I might go off on her, so I take a couple breaths before I approach her with the biggest smile I can muster. Actually, I realize I don’t even have to fake it because nothing could ruin the mood I’m in.
“I thought I heard that motorcycle,” she says. “Is that your new boyfriend?”
I want to tell her it’s none of her damn business who my boyfriend is. That she should try getting laid sometime. It might do her some good.
But I don’t.
I just shrug and say hello.
“You know,” she says, “what I think about him. I remember who he is.”
I’m not even mad. I can’t blame her. In a way she’s right. He’s all wrong for me. But she’s going too far. “I respect your opinion when it comes to what goes on in this hospital but what you think of my personal life is irrelevant. So I would appreciate it if you would keep it to yourself.”
The rage flashes in her face but she keeps it under control. If there is one thing ER docs are good at, it’s pushing down their emotions in the heat of the battle. Later on, when you have time to freak out… well, that’s a different story. But in the moment, when somebody’s life depends on you being cold as ice, you do it.
Webber keeps her composure. She says in an even voice, “You’re not on the schedule. Why are you here?”
“I needed to finish some notes and pick up my textbook so I can study for boards.”
“You should be finishing your notes during your shift when the information is fresh. If you feel compelled to run off to be with someone before you finish your work, then that is my business. See to it that you always get your notes done on time in the future.” She shakes her head then stomps off.
I hold back a grin. It feels good to piss her off a little.
Madison comes over and whispers in my ear. “Tell me everything!”
We go into an empty room and Madison pretends to organize some things while I tell her about the night I had. I don’t go into detail about the sex. Well, not much detail. This is the main reason I wanted to come in. I had to tell someone and I knew she would be eager to hear everything.
“Was he good in bed?” she asks.
I look at her, slowly shaking my head. “I have never experienced anything like it. I really can’t even explain it to you.”
She throws her head back and lets out a noise. “He is so freaking hot. I need to get me one of those.”
“A man?”
“No. A biker. It’s been too long since I had a good deep dicking.”
I laugh. Her ‘too long’ is completely different from mine. If I told her how long it had been for me, she would probably freak out.
“It’s big,” she says, “Isn’t it?”
“I’m not going to answer that,” I say. But I can’t hold back the grin forming on my lips.
“You don’t have to. I can see it all over your face. Good for you. This is just what you needed. A hot guy that can please you whenever you want.”
Whenever I want. That could be nice. It could be a disaster too considering all the baggage it brings with it.
“When,” she says, “are you going to see him again?”
I shrug. “I’m not. It was a one-time thing.”
Her forehead bristles. “He said that?”
“No. I just think it’s for the best, you know?”
“No, I don’t know.”
I don’t know either, not really, but I can fake it until I make it. “For example,” I say, “we met up at that bar by my house?”
“Oh the hipster dive? Shoot me.” She makes a gun with her hand pretends to shoot herself in the head.
I laugh. We went there once together and she ended up going home with one of the guys. He didn’t even have a car, just his bike. She almost dropped him right there, but she told me her spidey-sense said he had a big dick. The next day she said she was right about the size but that she wasn’t doing the hipster thing ever again. I didn’t ask why.
“So, we’re at the bar,” I say, “and he gets up to take a call. While he’s gone this drunk guy starts hitting on me. I mean he’s totally wasted. Slurring his words. Probably at 250 blood/alcohol.”
“Ok,” she says, “not surprising. Please tell me Dylan kicked his ass or something. He did some biker thing didn’t he?”
“Well, when Dylan came back, he was totally calm. He was being real patient with this guy. Giving him an out. But the guy wanted to measure his dick I guess and he takes a swing at Dylan.”
“Shit!”
“But Dylan just very calmly steps out of the way and socks him right in the gut. The guy goes down and the whole time the expression on Dylan’s face didn’t change at all.”
“That is so romantic! He beat somebody up for you on your first date.”
“Umm. I guess so. But that’s not even the worst thing.” My heart is starting to beat faster just thinking about what happened next. “We get up to go because the guy’s friends notice what happened. And we make it outside okay and we’re about to leave but then all of the sudden we’re surrounded by these four guys.
“Dylan pushed me up against the wall and he’s talking to them. He’s still calm as hell. Like it’s no big deal. One of the guys says some things that are… well, he was a total asshole.”
“Ok,” she says, leaning towards me, her eyes pinned to mine.
“Then the asshole pulls a knife.”
“What? Jesus.”
“I know,” I say. The scene plays out again in my head. That steel blade sitting there in his hand, pointing it toward
us. I was so mad. “But before I can even think about reacting, Dylan pulls a gun out of nowhere. Just as calm as before.”
“Fuck! Then what?”
“The guy’s friends ran off. He was just frozen. Couldn’t move at all. Dylan says some things to him then tells him to beat it.” I leave the part out where he hits him in the head with the gun. I think even Madison would think that’s over the line.
“That’s insane. Were you scared?”
I think about it. I was amped up for sure, but for some reason I wasn’t scared. I felt safe with him. I shrug, “I was more angry than anything. Angry at the guy with the knife, then angry at Dylan for having a gun.”
“It’s a good thing he did. Wow, that’s so crazy. Then he took you home and made love to you. Come on! That’s so romantic.”
I don’t think what we did classifies as making love. My mind races over the three times—no four times if you count this morning—we had sex. It was hot, it was fast, but romantic? I don’t know.
“Anyway,” I say, “We have totally different lifestyles. He’s obviously comfortable in those kinds of situations and I have to assume it’s because he’s been in them a lot. He’s just not the type of guy that’s boyfriend material.” If I keep telling myself that, it will make it true. “And besides I don’t get the impression that he dates much. He’s more of a one-time kind of guy.”
“What a crazy night,” she says. “What are you going to do if he calls you again?”
18
Dylan
Vegas. I’m sitting alone in my room on the strip at Planet Hollywood, looking at my cell phone. I don’t feel like going out. Usually when we come here it’s a wild time, but I’m just not into it tonight.
I’m pissed.
There’s a loud banging noise on the wall behind me, followed by a squeal, then laughter. Road Dawg is next door with two prostitutes he picked up at the bar. I guess it would be more accurate to say they picked him up. He offered to buy me one. I declined. Suit yourself, he said. More for me. More for you, Road Dawg. It’s always more for you.
I’m not pissed off because of that though.
The trip to Vegas from Oakland should take about eight hours if you drive the speed limit. We got here in six. He didn’t say anything about me showing up late. If he had said something I wasn’t about to tell him the reason was a girl. That I was dropping a girl off at work. Hell no. I didn’t even ask why we were heading to Vegas. I knew it was business. If he wasn’t offering up details, then I wasn’t about to go snooping. Guys who put their noses where they don’t belong end up without a nose.
Straight away when we got here, he went to a gun shop and bought four pistols, .9mm. The owner didn’t blink an eye. There’s a reason you head to Nevada to buy weapons if you’re a California resident. It’s like the wild west in Nevada. They don’t give a shit if you know where to go.
Ok, I was thinking, Road Dawg is getting some guns. In our life, you can never have too many guns. But then we went to another place and he bought four more guns. The exact same make and model. Then we went to another. And finally another. I kept my mouth shut the whole time. A good soldier getting the VP’s back. But I was starting to wonder what the fuck was going on.
After we left the last shop, he had sixteen guns in total. I was carrying eight of them. Good luck explaining that to the pigs if we got pulled over. But still, not a word from me.
He takes us out of town to some fucking trailer park and I’m having flash backs to my childhood. I know these places like the back of my hand. Road Dawg bangs on the door of the most broken down trailer in the entire place. There’s junk all over the yard. A string of Christmas lights across half the roof with a single bulb on—red and blinking—like a cosmic warning to anybody looking for it: “Get the hell out of here.”
This meth head sticks his ugly face out of the door and looks around before he lets us in. I gather from the conversation they did some time together way back when. He and Road Dawg pack up the guns in several boxes with bubble wrap while I sit on a couch that looks and smells like he picked it up off the side of the road.
The meth head is a pack rat, apparently. Every square inch of the trailer is filled with crap. A lot of it is paper. I had to wade through a big pile of receipts to even find a spot on the couch. This mongrel dog that looks half Pit Bull, half Gremlin, keeps trying to hump my leg. Every time I kick him away he comes back. That I can understand at least.
“Don’t mind Boscoe,” the meth head says. “He’s a horny little fucker.” The guy is missing teeth and he has scabs all over his face. I look away.
Road Dawg reads out an address to the guy and he writes it on the boxes. I’m surprised the guy even knows how to write. It’s some place in Oakland. I don’t recognize the address. I’m getting more pissed off by the minute.
The MC’s main business is protection. Lately that’s meant protection for marijuana businesses who have to deal in all cash because the federal government hasn’t gotten their heads out of their asses and let these pot dispensaries put their money in a bank. It means they end up carting around tens of thousands of dollars and they become a target for any cholo with a pair of balls and a hand cannon.
That’s where we come in. Nobody is going to fuck with a pack of bikers. Nobody that wants to have a long and healthy life, anyway. And we do other things, like personal protection for example. Some rock star comes into town, sometimes they want to feel like a badass because they have real bikers watching their back. They get to feel cool and we get all the coke and groupie pussy we want. It’s win-win in my book.
And then there’s the strip club that’s attached to the clubhouse. I help out managing it and it’s more of a pain in the ass than it is a money maker but who can complain about an easy way to launder dirty money that comes attached to a stable of naked girls that like to fuck. Not a bunch of bikers, that’s for sure.
Those are our main sources of income. Guys are free to run their own sidelines to make money and they have the muscle of the club at their disposal if they need it, but in general it’s a don’t ask, don’t tell kind of situation. Drugs is the usual thing guys are moving. Slinging a little nose candy on the side can be profitable but for the guys that do it it’s usually more of a way to feed their habit. Bookmaking is another way to make money. People love to fucking gamble. They’ll gamble away their house if you let them. And we let them. A couple guys I know live in houses they got when some degenerate got in too deep. Them’s the breaks. It ain’t pretty but if they win, we always pay up. So we expect the same kind of treatment in return.
But there’s one thing we don’t do. And that’s guns. Guns are out of the question. Since 9/11 there is just way too much fucking heat behind it. Counter-terrorism gets all the budget money these days and guns are all over their radar.
That and the Soul Crushers have the market cornered. They supply all the gangbangers around Oakland with weapons so they can go shoot each other up and create the West Coast version of Fallujah. We stay the fuck out of it.
So, as I kick little Boscoe off my boot for the seventh time, my question is, why the fuck is Road Dawg buying guns in Nevada and shipping them back to Oakland? I know what I should do. I should mind my own fucking business. I wish he had never brought me here. I wish I didn’t know about this because for sure it’s going to put me in a fucking jam. I want to tell someone about it but I ain’t no snitch.
If Road Dawg wants to get into the gun business, that’s his thing. If he wants to deal with the heat to make a buck, I got no problem with a man making a living. But if it blows back on the club then everybody’s got a fucking problem. And if he’s trying to use the club to wipe out the Crushers then it’s a major fucking problem.
I think back to the beginning of the beef with the Crushers. Why did Road Dawg and I even go to that bar, a bar that’s one of the Crushers’ spots? It’s not their main spot, but everybody knows it’s under their control. It doesn’t mean it’s off limit to us but you sho
uld have a good reason to be there. He’d said we were collecting a debt and he wanted me along. But if I remember correctly the guy he was looking for wasn’t there. We should have just fucking left. But no, he wanted to stay and have a beer. Ok, fine. Then we got into a fight, I get sliced up, go to the hospital, get Jess to stitch me up, and all this shit happened. Was he planning that all along? Can I give him enough credit to be that kind of mastermind?
Before we leave the meth head’s house, Road Dawg explains to him that if this works out, he wants the guy to make regular runs to get the same shipment and send them to the same address.
I want to talk to someone about this. But even that’s a problem. What if other guys in the club are in on it with him? Fuck. And besides that, I’m no tattle-tale.
And now here I am, alone on a Saturday night in a hotel in Vegas, looking at my phone. I hear Road Dawg holler again from next door. Sounds like he’s having a good time. When he’d offered to buy me a whore, I wasn’t even tempted. And these are high class Vegas whores. Five-hundred dollars an hour—and that’s just to get them in your room; there’s all kinds of up-charges after that.
I want to call Jess. I’ve been going back and forth since I got in here about calling her. What I should do is delete her goddamn number.
But I can’t.
My dick is getting hard just thinking about her. That tight pussy of hers that can’t get enough of my cock. And besides that maybe she could offer some help with my little dilemma here. No, fuck that. You never, ever, discuss club business with someone outside the club. That’s rule number one.
But I still want to talk to her.
Fuck it.
When she answers, the sound of her voice calms me down. “Hello, beautiful,” I say.
19
Jess
