THE DEVIL’S BABY

by Naomi West

  “If you say his goddamn name, I swear I’ll drop you,” said the thin-voiced man.

  Say his name? I wondered.

  I sniffed the air, picking up the scent of whiskey, cigarettes, and motor oil. It was a scent that I associated with bikers.

  “Dakin?” I asked, the word slipping out.

  “How the fuck did she know?” asked the gruff-voiced man.

  “You dumb motherfucker! Well, if she didn’t know before, she sure as fuck knows now.”

  “Please tell me what the hell is going on,” I said, tears streaming down my eyes down to my jaw.

  What the hell did Dakin have to do with what was happening to me? Was he bringing me back to the house to do God-knows-what with me? Fear had fully settled over me, and I felt more scared and helpless than I’d ever felt in my life.

  “Aw, she’s crying,” said the gruff-voiced man. “Always tugs at my little heartstrings when they do that.”

  I heard a sigh.

  “OK, listen, girlie,” said the high-voiced man. “You’re not gonna die, and you’re not gonna get raped. So just chill the fuck out.”

  “Let me go!” I shouted, struggling against my restraints, but accomplishing nothing.

  “Last chance to shut the fuck up,” said the high-voiced man. “If you don’t calm the fuck down, we’ll put another restraint on that fuckin’ mouth of yours.”

  “I’ve got a few better ideas with that mouth,” said the gruff-voiced man.

  “Keep it in your goddamn pants,” said the high-voiced man. “You know what happens to anyone who fucks with the merchandise.”

  “I know, I know,” said the first man. “Still, no crime against looking.”

  The van rumbled on, and not wanting to have a dirty restraint shoved into my mouth, I kept quiet.

  “Hey, how much longer till we’re there?” shouted the high-voiced man.

  “Ten minutes!” came the reply from the front seat.

  I wanted to scream, and the panic gripping me felt like cold hands on my lungs. But all I could do was keep quiet and not let these assholes see me cry.

  After around ten minutes, the van pulled a long, slow turn, coming to a stop. The driver killed the engine, and the two men heaved to their feet.

  “Here we go, toots,” said the gruff-voiced man, grabbing me by my upper arms.

  “Yo, you sure you we’re can’t just take her down into the woods for a quick, ah, ‘quality control’ session?” he asked. “She’s fuckin’ cute.”

  “No shit,” said the high-voiced man. “But you know the rules. I mean, if you want to risk getting’ your boys snipped, then be my guest. Just don’t get me involved.”

  “Ah, fuck it,” said the gruff-voiced man. “No piece of pussy’s worth that.”

  “Then get her the fuck outta the van! We got more pickups to make, and the auction’s at midnight.”

  Auction? I thought. Just where the hell am I?

  But before I could consider things for too long, the other man grabbed me by my legs and the two of them together carried me out of the van. In addition to being terrified, I felt ridiculous; I was being carried like a rolled-up carpet.

  Soon, a door opened and we were indoors. The men carried me down a long hall and eventually opened another door. Once we entered, I heard muffled crying and sobbing, and I could sense the presence of other people.

  “Let me go!” I shouted. “Now!”

  But instead, the men sat me down on a hard metal chair, pulling my arms over the back of the seat.

  “We done?” asked the gruff-voiced man.

  “We’re done,” said the other.

  “Good; let’s go get the next one then, I guess.”

  This exchange was followed by the two men leaving the room and shutting the door behind them. Then, it was just me sitting there, still bound, still blindfolded. But now I was in a room with God knew how many other people. And I had no idea what the hell was going to happen to me.

  But before I could spend too much time freaking out, a door on the far end of the room, the room opposite the one I’d come in from, opened. More footsteps sounded, two sets, these landing lighter than the others. Were they women? Soon they came to a stop only a few feet in front of me.

  “Take the blindfold off,” said one.

  Sure enough, it was a woman.

  I felt a presence move close to me, then cool fingers slipping under my blindfold. The fabric then was lifted off of my face, and I gasped when the room was revealed to me.

  It was a large space, windowless with brick walls, lit with soft white light, almost like what you’d imagine in a museum. The floor was bare, and to my left was a long wall lined with makeup vanities. What was on the right side of the room—or should I say, who—was the real horror: all along the right side of the room were metal-barred cages, each with a young woman around my age trapped within. There had to be about ten girls in that room, and the cages closest to me were empty.

  I guessed that one of them was for me.

  “What’s going on?” I demanded, struggling against the chair.

  “You want a mouth gag, little missy?” asked the woman standing in front of me, a heavily-made-up, slender middle-aged woman dressed in a halter top that showed off a gym-toned stomach and a pair of jeans so tight it looked like she’d been poured into them. At her sides were two girls, both young and pretty, both with vacant looks in their eyes. Her voice was that hillbillyish accent that I recognized right away as from the rural middle of Florida.

  “Just tell me what’s going on,” I said, my words now coming out in a pathetic plea.

  My eyes darted around the room, moving from caged girl to caged girl, each of them staring at me, each with a gag stuffed in her mouth.

  “Here’s the deal, young lady,” said the woman, cocking her hips to the side and placing her hands on her waist as she looked me over. “I’ll say it blunt-like: you’re not a free person anymore.”

  “What?” I asked.

  The words sounded strange to me; they didn’t make any sense.

  “Am I … under arrest?”

  The woman let out a bark of a laugh, the two younger girls smiling at her side.

  “See?” she said, pointing to me. “Didn’t I tell you two that’s what she’d say? That’s always what they ask. They want to know if they’re in jail; they just can’t imagine that anything but the damn police could take away their freedom.”

  She turned her eyes back to me.

  “No, cutie pie, you’re not under arrest. But as of now, you’re property. Actually, let me rephrase that: as of tonight, you’ll be property.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, still pleading.

  The woman said nothing, instead backing away from me and looking me over.

  “Pick her up and tie her to the pole.”

  The two girls moved to my side, each grabbing me hard by an arm. They pulled me off the chair and moved me over to a nearby pole that connected from the floor to the ceiling. One of the girls opened a segment of the pole that allowed her to move my hands over it. She shut the segment, and I was now stuck in place.

  “Come over her and give her a look over,” said the woman.

  The two girls moved to her side.

  “Well?” she asked. “Tell me what you think.”

  The girl on the left looked me up and down, her eyes narrowed.

  “I think she’s pretty,” she said. “Very pretty.”

  “Well, all the girls here are pretty,” the middle woman said. “That’s why we got ’em. I need more than that.”

  The first girl cleared her throat and looked momentarily frazzled.

  “Um, well, she has great hair.”

  She then walked over to me, grabbed a handful of my hair, and looked carefully at my scalp

  “No roots; she’s a real blonde.”

  “Real blonde,” said the middle woman. “That’ll add a few thousand to her going price.”

  My what?

  The s
econd girl stepped over and stared at my face like she was one of those people whose job it was to confirm that paintings weren’t forgeries.

  “Doesn’t look like she’s had any work done, either,” she said. “Very natural, pretty face. I love those lips; plenty of women would pay tons to have full lips like those.”

  “Anything else?” asked the middle woman. “She does have a body, you know.”

  The woman in front of me closed her eyes and nodded, as if remembering something she’d forgotten. Then, to my shock, she slipped her hand up my shirt, under my bra, and grabbed onto one of my breasts, giving it a firm squeeze like a cantaloupe at the grocery store.

  “Wow,” she said. “Real breasts.”

  “I would’ve sworn those were fake,” said the second girl, taking a squeeze of her own, her fingers grazing my nipple.

  The second girl pulled up my shirt and looked at my midsection.

  “Not a drop of fat on her,” she said.

  The two girls then returned to the middle woman’s side.

  “Well?” asked the middle woman. “What’s the verdict?”

  “She’s stunning,” said the second girl. “I think she’ll be one of our top offerings this evening.”

  I was still so confused as to what was happening. Why were they referring to me as “merchandise”? Why were they talking about getting a price for me? They’d mentioned an auction … is that what this was?

  “You know, I think I agree,” said the middle woman, scanning me hard one last time. “I think she’ll be one of our most coveted girls this evening. Send the boys into a bidding frenzy.”

  Having seen all she needed, the woman then turned around and began walking towards the door she’d come in from.

  “Okay,” she said. “Put her away. We got a long night ahead and Mama needs a drink.”

  With that, the two girls removed me from the pole and led me to one of the free cages. One of them opened the door and the other tossed me in. Once I was inside, the girls shut the door and both of them took one last sneering look at me, as if to flaunt the fact that they were free and I wasn’t.

  Soon they were gone, and it was just me and the other girls, all of us exchanging the same wide-eyed look of confusion and fear.

  Chapter Three

  Tank

  “Goddamn!” Cruiser said, looking at the cut on my arm, a long slice that cut red and straight into my tricep. “The fucker got me!”

  “Quit being such a pussy,” I said, rolling the whiskey around in my glass and preparing to knock it out in one swig. “That’s a fucking flesh wound if I’ve ever seen one.”

  “No way, man,” said Cruiser, dabbing at the cut with a wad of cocktail napkins. “That shithead came at me with a goddamn steak knife; if I wasn’t so damn good on my feet he might’ve snuffed my ass out right there in that diner.”

  “Well,” I said, “don’t pick fights with roughneck truckers if you don’t wanna risk bleeding out on a linoleum floor while waitresses look down at you.”

  “Man, I’m telling you,” said Cruiser, banging his fist on the bar, the thud so loud it drowned out for a second the rock music blaring over the speakers, “he’s the one who started it.”

  “‘Mo-om,” said Ripper, one of the other brothers in the Warhawks, the motorcycle club I’d founded and served as president of; his voice was mocking, his mouth in a wide smile, “he started it.”

  “Oh, fuck off,” said Cruiser, tossing the wad of cocktail napkins at cruiser, the blood-dabbed sheaves flying every which way.

  It was later in the day. Me and the rest of the boys were celebrating our fight at the diner. It wasn’t really clear just who’d won since we’d had to book it before the cops showed up, so we couldn’t really celebrate that. But a fight was a fight, and me and the rest of the boys didn’t really need much of an excuse to get the drinking started. I was at the bar keeping an eye on things. The rest of the guys were here and there, playing pool, downing shots, and carrying on.

  “We oughta go back there, Tank,” said Cruiser, standing up as if he was ready to track those truckers down right then and there. “I’m telling you; I’ll fuck them all up myself.”

  I shifted in my seat and faced him. Cruiser stood tall and bulky, his frame an even mixture of fat and muscle. He was an old-fashioned MC bruiser with a hulking physique and a pug-ugly face that had come out of the womb looking rough and only got worse after decades of fighting. His wide nostrils were flared; he reminded me of a snorting, pissed-off warthog. And he was just as bald and ugly as one.

  “Have some more whiskey and calm it down,” I said.

  I knew he was pretty much all talk, but Cruiser was always itching for a fight. I wouldn’t put it past him to throw his drunk ass right back on his bike and head down to that diner to see what other kind of trouble he could get into.

  Cruiser took my advice, plopping back into his seat, ordering another shot, and downing it as soon as it was put in front of him.

  “You excited for tonight?” asked Ripper, sipping his tall glass of beer.

  “Fuck yeah, I am,” I said. “Why the hell you think I’m not getting fucked up right now?”

  “I gotcha,” said Cruiser, nodding knowingly. “Pacing yourself—not a bad idea.”

  “Take a look at these clowns,” I said jokingly, gesturing to the rest of my crew. “We got a few hours still and they’re already getting shitty-wasted. Not the best situation for being a shrewd bidder, you know?”

  “That’s why you’re the boss,” said Cruiser, slapping me on the back and taking another long sip of his beer.

  Tonight was the big auction, and I was fucking excited. Every year one of the crews was tasked with scoping the region for the choicest fresh meat, snatching them up off the street and getting them dolled up real nice for us. Then the rest of the MCs get together and had ourselves a little bidding war. And I was ready. Last year I’d had my eye on a little brunette piece from West Palm Beach that the Stone Masons had brought in. Fuck, she’d been a goddamn looker. So hot, in fact, that I’d saved all my money just to bid on her.

  Little did I know, Fang from the Jackknifes had his eye on her too. After the bidding war to end all bidding wars, he came out on top, but just barely. See, I had my finances tied up in a gun-running operation that I and the rest of the boys had been planning. So, once my limit was hit, Fang walked away with the prize and I was empty-handed. Last I’d heard, Fang still had the chick—got her real good and turned-out. He wouldn’t give me much in the way of details, but from the little shit-eating smirk he’d get on his face whenever I’d ask him about her, I got the distinct impression that she was taking real good care of him.

  This year was gonna be different. The gun-running operation that year had put a shitload of money into the Warhawk’s nest egg, not to mention paying off pretty goddamn nice for my own accounts. And the rest of the year had been a real banner one. The money from the gun running had allowed us to finance more operations, even giving us the scratch to invest in some more legitimate ventures, like real estate. Things were paying off real nice for us, and I was well on the way to making the Warhawks one of the most powerful MCs in the whole fucking state. I’d even bought a swanky new pad outside of Orlando.

  And tonight, we were gonna celebrate our kick-ass year. I wasn’t planning on getting outbid—no fucking way.

  As I sipped my whiskey, letting the booze play in my mouth, I thought back on the diner fight. I’d known my boys could handle a few beer-bellied trucker, so I’d mostly kept back, making sure that no one got too crazy—not to mention making sure that we were long gone if cops showed up. And while I was watching the fight, I happened to spot a real sexy little number just sitting there by herself in one of the booths. Really sexy. She had straw-blonde hair, eyes as green as a grassy field, nice full tits, and big, pillowy lips that just begged you to think about them wrapped just what you wanted them to be wrapped around. We made eye contact, but she was out of there by the time the fight was wrappe
d up. I asked her waitress if she knew anything about her, and all she told me was that the fucking girl had run out on her check. Pretty damn funny, if you asked me. Well, I had a soft spot for working girls so I slipped the waitress a hundred and told her that I’d let the girl know that I was covering her meal.

  Well, the girl from the diner might’ve been long gone, but she’d left me with a hunger. I’d have to keep my eyes open for a blonde tonight so I could scratch this particular itch. A real blonde, too—not one of those fake types.

  I checked the time and saw that the evening was getting on. We had an hour’s drive ahead of us, so we needed to get a move if we wanted some primo seats at the auction. I slammed my whiskey, settled up the tab for me and my boys, and called out over the music and commotion for them to finish up and get ready to move out.