by Hazel Parker
I did. But there was one problem.
“Well, yes, but what happens when Dom comes back?”
“He won’t,” Joseph said. “I’ll make sure of it. One second…”
He reached back down for his jeans, grabbed his phone, and unlocked it.
“Huh,” he said. “Apparently Dom’s going to spend the night at the club. Says he drank way too much but managed to set up an orgy.”
“Jesus, that boy,” I said.
“He’s young and free,” Joseph said.
“Do you ever get sick of him bringing back so many girls?”
Joseph shrugged.
“It’s pretty private, and he’s pretty good about not being a total whore,” he said. “Like, if he brings someone back, he’ll do it at two in the morning, not five in the morning. It’s been rare that I’ve had my sleep disrupted.”
“I’m sure you love hearing different women moan.”
Joseph laughed.
“I just love hearing one woman moan, and that’s you.”
“Aww,” I said, kissing him. “You finally said a corny line that was sweet instead of awful!”
“Hey! I’ve had plenty of those!”
We both laughed at that. It was good to laugh. It was good to end a night in a better place than I had started it.
“I do have to leave early,” I said. “Like, by seven in the morning. Can you do that?”
Joseph looked into my eyes and giggled.
“Sure,” he said. “If you can do something for me.”
I smiled.
“Go for round two.”
Who was I to say no to a request like that? Who was I to say no to the opportunity to have many more orgasms and feel more closely connected to Joseph, most especially after he’d seen me at my weakest?
As he climbed on top of me, kissed my neck, and began moving down to eat me out again, I couldn’t help but laugh.
Wherever the fuck this good fortune had come from, I wanted to tap into it. Because I could not get enough.
It was too fucking good.
Chapter 13: Pork
Actually, we went about four rounds.
When we finished our second time, it was just before one in the morning. Our third time came an hour later, and we had planned on going to sleep at that point.
But the funny thing was, around three-thirty a.m., Tanya leaned over and asked if I was sleeping. I wasn’t, though I was decently close to falling asleep. But given the option of sleeping for two or so hours or having sex again, it wasn’t difficult to make a choice. I rolled over, found a condom, and went at her for the fourth time.
I almost didn’t come that round. I’d expended all of my sexual energy, and when I finally did come from her oral sex skills, I was spent. I told her I needed until at least the evening the next day. Tanya just laughed and told me I’d find the energy before dropping her off.
Alas, when five came, and she tried to get me to go, though I was able to get hard and get her off, I wasn’t able to get myself off. Still, four orgasms in the span of about six hours was a deal I was more than happy to take. Most of the club girls only went twice, and most of them were like starfish in bed. But not Tanya.
Oh, heavens no, not Tanya.
It left me in a warm glow as I walked with her to the elevators to my bike. When we got inside, we didn’t have the energy to make out, but we did for her to lean against me. Things were looking pretty damn good.
“Best part is, we can do this all again tonight,” Tanya said.
I pretended to be nervous, but I was really just overwhelmingly excited for more sex. No girl at the party was worth passing up the chance for Tanya Reed, and that had little to do with the physical aspect of the sex. Not that I was going to say that too much out loud—I didn’t want Tanya to get scared with how much I was feeling for her.
“Oh, trust me, we’ll do it again, and again, and again, and again!”
“Four times, huh?” she said. “I thought you were too tired for sex?”
“Oh, I’m too tired to come, but I don’t need to come to feel good during sex,” I said with a smirk.
“Now you’re a man I would hold on to,” Tanya said. “The other boys have no idea what they’re missing out on.”
“None of the other boys have the balls to go after what I did.”
That was quite aggressive for me. But then again, I was quite aggressive for Tanya.
“Well then,” Tanya said with a laugh. “That’s what I like to see out of my Joseph.”
My Joseph. I like that.
“Don’t worry, you don’t have anything to worry about,” Tanya said. “Between the single boys, it’s you, Dom, and Krispy. Dom’s just ridiculous, and Krispy is an out-of-towner. I don’t do that.”
Krispy.
The traitor to the club.
I knew I couldn’t just ignore it and let it be. Much as I wanted my mind to remain on the sex and the evening ahead, I couldn’t just ignore everything that had happened with Krispy. If anything, I especially had to take care of it, given that the very fate of our club depended on it. I could ignore Tanya for now, and I’d still get to be with her later; if I didn’t take care of the Krispy issue, though, there might not have been anything else to it.
“Tanya,” I said. “Can I ask you about something?”
“Sure, babe,” she said, though a nervous tone filled her voice. “What is it? Was it something I said?”
“No, no, not at all,” I said. “It has to do with Krispy, though.”
I didn’t see any way to say it without being too blunt. To try to beat around the bush was to insult Tanya’s intelligence and to not actually strike at the heart of the matter.
“In my opinion, I think Krispy is a rat. I think he’s talking to the Degenerate Sinners to get us killed.”
“Seriously?”
She stopped dead in her tracks, about fifteen feet from my bike.
“Seriously, Joseph. Seriously?”
I bit my lip and nodded. I did my best to speak without emotion and in an honest, objective fashion. Anything else, even with the woman I wanted to call my girlfriend, would color me as having an agenda besides protecting the club from traitors.
“I need to outline it to you in full detail, and I need to trust that you can keep it a secret until I’m ready to reveal it,” I said. “I’m telling you this because I trust you. I’ve always trusted you, Tanya, but I need to really know I can trust you now. Because I know what happens if I’m wrong.”
“You get kicked out of the club for making a false accusation.”
I nodded. I was more or less prepared to make that accusation. But it would have been nice to have support from Tanya so that if I made it publicly and got pushback, I wouldn’t be alone.
“You can trust me,” she said. “But don’t ask me to take the witness stand for you. I haven’t seen anything yet to suggest anything nefarious from him. And believe me, you know I have this club’s interests at heart. I’m not gonna let some similar-named club from down the road take charge of us.”
“I know,” I said.
But I glanced over what she had said too quickly. Once she said I could trust her, I barely paid attention to anything else that was said. It would come back to bite me in the ass later.
“Twice now, I’ve seen Krispy talking with members of the Degenerate Sinners, once leaving a work shift, once coming to it, each on separate days,” I said. “Both times, he had his cut off, as if he didn’t want anyone passing by associated with us to know that he was talking with them. The Sinners had their cuts on, so I know it for a fact that he knew he was talking with them.”
“And do you know what they were talking about with him?”
I shook my head.
“Do you?”
“I already said that I haven’t seen anything from him,” she said, a little annoyed.
“Sorry, I’m just eager to make sure that if he’s betraying us, he gets taken to task.”
Tanya did not
look like she was in full agreement with me. I apologized again for having not heard her before—I knew one of her biggest pet peeves was when people did not listen, and she had to repeat herself.
“To answer your question in further detail, I’ve seen Krispy around since he and Trace and BK came down. I have honestly not seen a single thing that has made me suspect he’s working with the Sinners. Nor has Richard said anything. No one has said anything. While I believe you when you say you thought you saw him—and maybe you did see him—I don’t think you have enough to put him up as a rat. You make this accusation, Joseph, and you’re a one-man show against the entire club.”
So there it was.
The only person whose voice would carry more weight was Richard’s, and he wasn’t about to start loving me as Mama had. I knew that if I walked in on Thursday evening and accused Krispy of that, I was by myself.
“I understand.”
* * *
But just because I understood didn’t mean I spent much of Wednesday and Thursday morning and afternoon wondering if I still needed to bring it forward.
Maybe if I called him out in public, Krispy would somehow spill the beans. Maybe nothing would happen at the meeting, I’d get evicted, and then proved right anyway. Maybe all of this was bullshit, I’d just misidentified Krispy, and then I’d leave the club, but the club would still be on high alert.
Maybe, maybe, maybe. But nothing definite.
The maybes fucked with my head and hurt my sex drive with Tanya. She didn’t call me out for it, and it wasn’t like I got ED or performance issues. But it did mean my desire for sex wasn’t very high; in fact, on Thursday morning, I left without having sex with her. I couldn’t focus on sex when the issue of club safety was at hand.
As I got on my bike and prepared to race Dom to The Red Door, I was still undecided on which way I would go. I felt strongly that I saw the truth, but I also realized everyone else felt strongly they knew the truth. Was it worth my standing in the club?
When I walked in the door, I vowed to keep my tongue bit as long as I could. If, at some point, I couldn’t manage it any longer or Krispy had a tell, I would pounce. I didn’t care if the timing came during the poker game or in the middle of the show. I needed to do it for the sake of the club.
I took my seat, waiting for everyone else to come in.
And wouldn’t you know it, Krispy entered first.
Dom and I had come in together, but Dom was off at the bar, grabbing a drink. Mama had told me she and Richard were talking. Who knew where Barber was—probably on some club work or in taking care of Cassie. I would have really liked to have known where Trace and BK were.
“Enjoy your break?”
He was fucking taunting me, goddamnit. He only would have done that if he wasn’t on my side. Which doesn’t mean that he’s working for the Sinners, you idiot.
But I wasn’t looking for arguments to prove me wrong. I was looking for confirming evidence, and it wasn’t hard to see it in spades right now.
“Yes, I did,” I growled. “Did you enjoy your side adventures?”
Krispy looked up at me, smirked, and shrugged.
“Not really for you to know, is it?”
Goddamnit. God fucking damnit!
“You’re a fucking rat, aren’t you? That’s why it’s not for me to know!”
Well, it was now officially too goddamn late for me to put the genie back in the bottle. But I didn’t want to put him back; I wanted to pummel him and teach him a lesson or two for being such a traitor.
“I’m sorry, the fuck did you just say?” Krispy said. “Let me hear it right so I can light you up fucking right.”
“The only thing that’s getting lit up,” I said, standing up, “is your jaw for betraying the Savage Saints.”
“You seriously think I’m a goddamn rat?” he roared.
“I do!” I shouted. “I saw you with the Degenerate Sinners! I know what your game is, Krispy! You might have fooled everyone else, but—”
And then Krispy lunged across the table and shoved me. It was a weak shove, but we both cleared the table and were at each other’s throats. I had a size advantage on him and drove him back to the wall, but he was an elusive fuck and slipped out of my grasp before delivering a shot to my body. I threw an elbow back that got the top of his forehead, drawing blood but not knocking him out.
“Maybe if you spent more time fighting like this and less time trying to be a fucking comedian, you’d actually help the club!” Krispy roared.
“I knew we shouldn’t have taken you fucking California assholes in!”
I heard the door swing open behind me. Seconds later, Dom, Richard, Tanya—now in full Mama mode—and Trace had entered. Dom and Richard restrained me, while, much to my severe annoyance, Mama and Trace held Krispy back. I shot a look at Mama, but she wasn’t paying attention to me in the slightest.
“What the fuck is going on?” Richard said, his voice calmer than ours. “What the fuck is the cause of this?”
“That asshole right there, the clown, called me a fucking rat,” Krispy said. “Didn’t you, Porky?”
Dom and Richard let go of me, but only because I stopped resisting. Mama and Trace did the same to Krispy.
“Yes, I did,” I said.
And now, if I hadn’t sealed my fate before, I had officially thrown a brick wall over it to keep it in place.
And I was more than happy to do so.
“You better be aware of what you just said,” Richard said. “One of you is leaving this club. Krispy, if it’s you, you’re dead. Pork, if it’s you, you’ll be dead to us. Take a seat.”
I sat in my usual spot while Krispy refused to sit.
“You levied the accusation, Pork,” Richard said. “Present your case.”
And so, much as I had told Mama, I told everyone at the club there. The whole time, I kept at least one eye on Krispy. He seemed completely unfazed by what was happening. I could understand him looking such a way at first, but the longer that went by without him seeming to care, the more concerned I got. Wouldn’t he have expressed worry at some point?
He either was an incredible double agent, or he was innocent.
When I finished, I leaned back in my seat, a whole lot less confident about my story than I was when I started. I still believed in what I had seen, but maybe there were plans going on I didn’t know about. Maybe, once again, the fog of war had caused me to do something fucking stupid.
“Does anyone have any evidence they wish to provide to corroborate Pork’s accusations?”
I didn’t look at her. I couldn’t look at her. But I could listen in case Mama said anything.
But when several seconds passed by without a word, I realized I’d made a critical, fucking stupid mistake. Mama may have believed what I had said… but she had also said there wasn’t anything she could add to the case to make it look like I was right. She wasn’t going to sacrifice her integrity for me just because she had fucked me. We had lasted about three days so far; she was soon going to be going on her third decade with the club.
Well, fuck me. Once again. Fog of war gets to me.
And this time, I’m not going to blame anyone else. It’s my fault.
I stood up without even waiting for anyone to say anything else.
“Pork, we’re not done,” Richard said.
“There’s nothing to be done with,” I said, pushing my seat in. “I recognize now that I’ve made an accusation that no one else will corroborate or stand by. I recognize that I only have my own testimonial, and nothing else. You all will believe him. I know the rules.”
And the rules state that, once again, you are kicked out of a brotherhood that would have done anything for you if you had just let it.
“Goodbye, everyone,” I said as I walked out the back door and to my bike.
It was only when I got home that I realized that I’d left my cut on the whole time. I was supposed to leave it for the club.
Oh well. Dom could tak
e care of it.
If he were still willing to be my friend.
If any of them were still willing to be my friend.
Chapter 14: Mama
I wanted to help Joseph in that meeting.
I really wanted to reach out to my right, put my hand on his shoulder, and explain to the table that he was not someone who would levy a baseless accusation.
But the question wasn’t about supporting his character. It was about supporting his claim with any evidence of my own. And I had none.
Maybe it was a mistake to put the club over one person. Maybe it was something I’d come to severely regret down the line.
But that was not going to be the case today. For at least right now, as Joseph stood up and walked out the door, I accepted that I had made a difficult decision, but I felt confident it was the right one.
I still intended to try to make it work with him, no matter how awkward that made things with the club. As I had told him at the very start that I liked to keep my home life and my work life separate. But I knew that was a bit wishful thinking on my part.
I knew that a lot of what I was thinking right now probably amounted to some serious wishful thinking on my part.
“Just so we can get one thing fucking clear,” Krispy said, having the audacity to take Joseph’s old seat, “I am not a rat. Richard and I have worked on something for some time now. I have my phone that I will unlock. I will show you every person I have ever called, emailed, or texted. You will not find anyone associated with the Degenerate Sinners.”
In fact, he proved just that, unlocking his phone, putting it in the middle of the table, and letting anyone go through it. Richard went first. He said it was clean. I trusted Richard, but thankfully, Dom was a little more thorough. He went through the phone, examining it for several long, tense minutes before he finally flipped it back over.
“It’s fine,” Dom said. “But what’s not fine is whatever secret, covert shit is going on here.”
I bit my lip. I was usually the one to call out bullshit in the club. But I already felt like I was going to risk exposing us if I so much as said Joseph’s name, even if I called him Pork. To defend him like this would have raised the suspicion meter to the highest level possible.
