Bad to the Bones

by Layla Wolfe

  They made plans to hook up at a truck stop along Highway 17 so Knoxie could take possession of the vials. Maddy could test them.

  In the upstairs hallway, Knoxie grabbed Bellamy as she was leaving her cubicle. He’d left things unfinished, just running out like that. But the last thing he wanted to explain was why his nipple pin had been yanked out and he had teeth marks on his pec. Let the damned thing heal and the incident would be forgotten. Until he could take his revenge.

  “Babe.” He pushed Bellamy back into the bright, sunny room. He liked how she had cut some guys from magazines to adorn her walls. It meant she was coming around to the real world again. She had probably not seen a gossip magazine in years. He made a mental note of an advertisement she’d taped up. The earrings the model wore must’ve been chocolate diamonds. He’d seen those advertised in the magazines left around his ink shop.

  He sat her on the windowsill. “Sorry about running out. When I feel dirty nothing gets in my way. Something about being an ink slinger, always cleaning skin.”

  Bellamy gathered handfuls of his T-shirt in her little fists. “It’s okay. I get it. That was amazing, Knoxie. I still feel like I’m glowing or something. Like all my feel-good hormones came rushing through me, giving me a natural high.”

  “Good.” Knoxie touched the tip of his nose to hers but didn’t kiss her. They’d never kissed. It wasn’t that type of relationship, according to Bellamy. “I want you to know it’s not all about penetration or pseudo-therapy. Sometimes sex can just be pleasurable.”

  “Oh, you mean opening up chakras? Because I sure feel like all my chakras just left their gates wide open.”

  “Sure, chakras, if that’s what you want to call it. Listen, you were dominated, told what to do. Well, what do you want me to do? You tell me. What would give you pleasure?”

  She looked flustered. Batting her eyelashes, she said, “I don’t know. It’s never been a subject I questioned before. Knoxie! You’re throwing me all sorts of curve balls.”

  He chuckled. She was right. One mind-blowing orgasm was enough for one day. “Listen, I was thinking. Your dad? You’ve been realizing he’s not the devil your mother made him out to be, right?”

  “Right. She kind of brainwashed me into thinking I’d been abandoned, but really, he had to move to LA for a new job. He never stopped paying child support. He wasn’t a deadbeat dad.”

  “Why don’t you call him? I’m assuming you haven’t had many, or any, conversations with him since you moved to Bihari. Now you can, now that you’re free of that brainwashing.”

  Bellamy tilted her head. “I’ve thought about that. I think I might try it. I know he married again but why should that stop me? I’m really trying to wrap my head around how he didn’t reject me like everyone has always told me. He just had to go live his own life. I’m an adult now, living mine. We can have a good relationship from here on in, you know?”

  “Yeah. Just maybe don’t talk too much about Virginia to him. I saw her up there, she looks good, but we’re waiting to make a firm plan on how to extract her. Meantime, listen. If we’re going to continue banging each other, you need to be protected. Don’t want you to wind up in Virginia’s predicament.”

  He was surprised when she stared at him with her doe-like eyes, then pulled away. She walked halfway across the cubicle with her back to him. “We—there’s really no need—no reason to fear that.” Sighing heavily, she turned to face him. Her features were back to the old, expressionless, heartless Bellamy, the one who was unaware there was any problem in her life, other than her dad’s alleged abandonment. “Bodhi and the other doctors up there made sure of that. There’s nothing to fear.”

  “What?” Knoxie didn’t understand what she was getting at. Doctors? Did they give her a Teflon IUD or something? A lifetime supply of Trojans? “Wait—how did doctors ensure you don’t become pregnant?” It hit Knoxie just as he said that aloud. No shit. They sterilized her.

  Bellamy confirmed the creepy old timey science fiction nature of his suspicion. She spoke like a robot, her eyes glazed over. “They had a building, a structure, called the bath house. This was where they ‘cleaned out’ women. I got pregnant almost right away after arriving there when I was seventeen. They sent me to the bath house.”

  Knoxie picked up where Bellamy had trailed off. “How to abort unwanted fetuses. Great, just great! Do you fucking know how great that is, Bellamy? What’d they do—tie your tubes?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “And it doesn’t piss you off? You had no say in it, I presume?”

  Her eyes were perfectly round and innocent. “No, I suppose I had no say in it. They just took me there, explained I’d be cleaned up inside out, and knocked me out.”

  His arms tightly folded, Knoxie sputtered. “Yeah. I’m sure they did knock you out. With granola, no doubt—with Haldol. I doubt they had the most cutting edge technology available to run around ‘cleaning out’ young women. That’s bullshit, Bellamy, do you know that?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose. At the time I didn’t question it.”

  “I’m surprised no one’s died on the fucking operating table, fucking Mickey Mouse surgical procedures like that,” Knoxie raved. “Forced sterilization? Where do we live, Muslim Africa? This is bullshit, Bellamy. Why don’t you seem very pissed off about it?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe because having a child was never in my cards, anyway. Knoxie, think about it! I was engaged to a man I didn’t love, and children were discouraged—”

  “I’ll fucking say!”

  “—and I’m fucking incapable of love anyway! That’s what Dr. Petrie has told me. I know I’m not supposed to talk about what goes on in my sessions, just like you don’t talk about club business, but Petrie has totally advised me against getting close to you. He thinks I’ll be hurt again and I’m too fragile right now and I probably shouldn’t even be boning you.”

  Knoxie’s rage became a smoldering ember in the pit of his stomach. How dare that woo-woo medicine man give her advice on her love life? “Oh yeah? And what do you think, Bellamy? You do know that’s the most important thing, right? What you think?”

  “Right. I do. I’m trying to do what my gut tells me to do, Knoxie. Just like you said. Earlier, my gut told me to ball the crap out of you. So I did.”

  That made Knoxie feel better. At least her instincts were leading her toward him, not away from him. But then she said,

  “Knoxie, you know we’re only about bonding. In that respect, it is therapeutic for me. You’re showing me how bonding can be fun, and sensual, and fucking mind-blowingly out of this world. That’s your gift to me, and I completely appreciate it. But that’s all. I can’t afford to get into any emotional entanglements right now.”

  “Of course,” Knoxie huffed. “I totally agree.” But he didn’t.

  Someone knocked briskly three times on the door before going ahead and opening it. Knoxie was prepared to flatten whoever had the nerve, but it was Faux Pas, the whacky Frenchman. Faux Pas was one accordion short of a polka band, but in a good way.

  Knoxie had never felt any threat from the special effects master, but now Faux Pas had that damned wooden necklace of Bellamy’s in his paw. He started to hand it to Bellamy but Knoxie was faster. He whipped it from Faux Pas’s palm so fast he must’ve left wood burns, and he glared at the round locket photo. Oh. He’d completely forgotten he’d asked Faux Pas to replace the photo of Shakti with one of him. It had been a semi-joke, but also semi-serious. Now it just seemed fucking ridiculous, and he stuffed it into his jeans pocket.

  “But wait, Knoxie,” said Bellamy. “Is that my—”

  “Later,” he warned Bellamy, before she dared say anything about it. At the same time, his phone buzzed. He was reading the booty text from Misty when Faux Pas said,

  “Great news. The Arizona Attorney General won a new round in his fight to have Bihari declared an illegal city.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Knoxie distractedly, thoroughly f
ed up with Bihari at the moment.

  Faux Pas said, “We might get that fucking place shut down through straight, legal channels.”

  “When shrimps learn to whistle. You and I both know it takes muscle like us to rid the planet of a pestilence that bad. Listen, I’ve got to get over to my shop. You okay, Bella? Good.”

  “You going to be spending the night here?” Bellamy called.

  Knoxie was already halfway down the hallway. He just lifted a hand that didn’t answer her question one way or the other. Truth was, he didn’t know. Between the Merry-go-round daimyo and Riker’s gang in Nogales, someone would be gunning for him. It would be easy enough for anyone to find out where he lived. At the very least, Shakti’s goons had already poisoned the judge and the councilman who was opposing the ashramite’s choice for the slot. And from what Rafael had told him, it sounded like they were cooking up some more salmonella in their little lab.

  Knoxie had no idea he’d wind up regretting leaving Bellamy so coldly that day. He was pissed that she insisted on keeping their relationship on a trivial level. He agreed she shouldn’t become emotionally entangled with anyone too soon, but that didn’t include him.

  He wanted her to become emotionally involved with him. He wanted Bellamy to fall head over heels, desperately, irrevocably, forever. It insulted his manliness that she wanted to keep it superficial.

  Most of all, it insulted him to the core that his love wasn’t reciprocated. He felt abandoned and rejected. I sure could use some therapeutic penetration now. He texted Misty back.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  BELLAMY

  “There’s no honor among thieves. Aside from us, naturally.” The lawyer Slushy chuckled as he sucked the straw to his orange carrot antioxidant juice.

  We had just met at the Public Works Department with a square, solid building inspector named Paul Goodhue. Apparently he was the flame of our old friend Emma Flantz. As a friend of the club but also a backer of anything good for the city, Paul had been trying to get up to Bihari for months now and had been thwarted every step of the way.

  He was sure there had been lots of structures built without permits, for one. Three times Paul had gone up to Bihari for appointments but had been blocked by conveniently broken-down heavy equipment in the middle of the road. My former brothers and sisters had been harassing Paul for years now, sticking nails under his tires, and once in the courthouse, Poona even stuck out her foot and tripped him, to uproarious laughter. I knew Poona as a vicious, unstable, nasty witch, and didn’t trust her even when I lived there. She had some medical issues that turned her personality sour. I often saw her with an IV drip in her arm.

  Slushy and Lytton had taken me out to meet with Paul. I gave him geographical information about Bihari, told him who to meet with, who had power, who didn’t. Of course I didn’t know anyone’s phone numbers, but now that I could talk to Virginia thanks to a phone Knoxie had given her, she promised to get me a few. I told Paul about the structures they were building for their upcoming spiritual festival. He was sure they were all illegally wired.

  We had gone a couple blocks from City Hall to have some smoothies. Though it was raining steadily under a blackened sky, Slushy insisted on his antioxidant juice.

  “I like the music here, too,” Slushy said. “It’s like black music that black people don’t listen to anymore.”

  “You mean jazz.” said Lytton. He himself had an açai drink. I liked looking at the tattoos on his arms that Knoxie had done for him. “Listen, Slushy. How can we prevent this situation from going all Ruby Ridge? The tension keeps rising, people in town are at the fucking boiling point. Something needs to be done and I don’t know if it’ll wait for ‘the proper channels.’”

  Slushy made a blade with his hand and cut the air above the table. “I appreciate you not filling me on the details of what this lovely’s old man has been up to in Krazy Kanyon.” He said to me, “In that respect I’m like an old lady. On a need to know basis. Gives me plausible deniability in the extreme case things go south.”

  I said, “He’s not my old man.”

  Slushy said to Lytton, “But I tend to agree with you, the wheels of justice turn very slowly. This lovely’s sister is in imminent danger, and that’s not going to be solved with a couple of stop work orders. Bellamy. You’d say they use coercive mind control manipulation up there.”

  “Oh, yes, definitely.”

  “They required you to give all your money and possessions to them.”

  “Yes.”

  “You were forbidden from reading critical literature. Everyone dresses the same. You were only allowed to leave infrequently, under supervision. Everyone believes in the exact same things.”

  “Why, yes.”

  “Boom bam, you’ve got a cult. Have you been in contact with Virginia? The vital question is, does she want to leave? If you don’t got that, you’ve got zip. Then you’re delving into kidnapping territory and it gets more squirrelly.”

  “Yes, I’ve talked to her once, yesterday. I’ve been positive and calm, and I’ve told her how wonderful it is at The Citadel.”

  Slushy chuckled. “Exaggerating, I see. Good. Well, if she’s willing to go, there’s no legal reason they can hold her.”

  Lytton said, “That would be imprisonment, and we could legally nail them in a hot minute. If she’s not going willingly, it’s called kidnapping. In which case the county jail will hold you.”

  Slushy cocked his trigger finger at the sergeant-at-arms. “You got it. Either way, I see your sister coming back to you within the week. Question is, will she want to stay? Can you offer her a better life than she has up at Bihari?”

  On that, I was confused. “Well, her cafeteria job was pretty decent, but her new composting job is stinky and dangerous. I keep thinking of all those germs floating around.”

  Lytton said, “I’ve got a pretty big spread on Mormon Mountain. It’s just me, June, and a couple Leaves of Grass employees. There’s plenty of room for Virginia.”

  “When are you guys going to make me an uncle?” demanded Slushy. “Maddy and Ford are afraid to have another child due to that hereditary illness that claimed the lives of some of the other Illuminati boys. Duji and Dominique say they’re too old. Tuzigoot and Brunhilda already have three. It’s time for a new baby, hot stuff. I need a reason to go to Babys’r’Us.”

  There was talk that Slushy had a daughter somewhere. The Bare Bones had saved him after he’d done time cooking books for the Ochoa cartel. It was some complex, shady scheme where the Bones sort of purchased Slushy and some valuable intel he had about a tunnel. It seemed the Bones got the unshitty end of the stick because Slushy, contrary to his fluorescent green shirts, wild ties, and bad comb-over, was actually a capable lawyer.

  To my surprise, Lytton said, “We’re thinking about it, Slushy. June’s still recovering from, you know, what happened last year. Don’t worry. We’ll deplete your stock of onesies yet. So you’d advise Bellamy to convince Virginia that our way of life is better?”

  “Yes,” said Slushy, “the healing and the mind control is up to you, Bellamy. Knoxie seems to be the expert in the deprogramming field. When I first met you, you didn’t have all your dogs on one leash, understandably so. But he’s done a remarkable job. You’re not spouting stuff about your anal beads of nothingness anymore.”

  I surprised myself by laughing. “It was the photograph that was nothingness, not the beads,” I said, still a bit defensive.

  “Well,” said Slushy, “hand me a hash lassi and I’ll believe anything.”

  Slushy had to get back to work in his office behind the archery range. He was working on some articles of incorporation for the Illuminati brothers. “Stay vertical,” he advised us before we went separate ways.

  “Well,” I said to Lytton as I opened up my umbrella, “it sounds like if I can just convince Virginia to leave, which I don’t think will be that hard, we can get someone to pick her up at one of the gates.”

  “That’
s the best case scenario. But after what happened to you on that mesa, I hope they’re not planning on making any more transient drop-offs.”

  I sighed deeply. “What a Mongolian clusterfuck. Or taking her to the bath house.”

  “What’s the bath house? Hey, look. Here’s Knoxie’s ink studio.”

  I looked up. We were standing right under The Missing Ink, a storefront on Rael off Bargain Boulevard, with blacked-out windows and giant glossy posters showing Knoxie’s work at Hell City, apparently a tattoo expo. I was mesmerized by other photos of him standing proudly by inked citizens. Lots of bikers and rough sorts, but also many glamorous or average folk.

  “He’s very good at biomech,” mused Lytton. “That, and Asian. He blends those two styles.”

  I didn’t know biomech from Justin Bieber, having been so out of the loop for so many years. But in some of the photos, Knoxie posed shirtless, and that was enough to grab anyone’s attention. A painful hand squeezed my heart as I went all melty at the sight. I had to lean my hand against the glass, practically breathing steam on it, and Lytton came closer, instinctively being protective.

  God, Knoxie was beautiful. I had never really admired a man for his physical beauty before. He possessed an eight-pack of abs, his nipples brown and flat in juicy pecs that boasted just the right amount of silken chest hair. He was so carved his hip bones stood out above his low-slung belt, and the thought of his long, fat cock made my pussy flutter again.

  He hadn’t spent the night at The Citadel the night before, and I was worried. There had been no word from him or about him. Lytton must have picked up on this, because he said, “Let’s drop in. If he’s working, we’ll just say hi and split.”

  I cheered up immensely. “Okay.”

  Lytton, being a gentleman, held the door open for me as I closed my umbrella. The expectant, happy smile on my face froze as I was slammed in the gut with a sight so horrible it felt my brain was bleeding.

  Knoxie was on top of some bimbo on one of the tattoo beds.