Savage Saviors: The Complete Boxset (Savage Saviors MC)

by J. C. Allen

  “You’re still fucking Derek—what?—every goddam night, and yet you can stillask me that sort of question? How can a chick who scratches her pussy that frequently ask me why I ain’t applying to the nunnery?”

  Now I was getting frustrated, which defeated the whole point of the conversation. There was a world of difference between sex drive and selling yourself for sex, and it bothered me that Tara either couldn’t see the difference or willfully ignored it.

  “I didn’t mean the sex part,” I defended, shaking my head. “Of course I love sex. Who doesn’t? I’m sure some but most love it. I meant how can you still be interested in whoring?”

  “‘Cause I’m still interested in money, too,” she said with a smirk.

  I sighed, annoyed by this response but thankful all the same that I wasn’t finding myself unsettlingly guilt-ridden or awe-inspired this time around. There was something about Tara’s simplistic honesty, her disarmingly straightforward nature, that made it difficult to keep my aggression and aggravation toward her. It was hard to get more basic than “because it pays.”

  Except…

  “But doesn’t it make you feel…?”

  “Make me feel whorish?” she offered, grinning. “Believe it or not, Eve, being a whore makes me feel sexy.”

  She kept going, ignoring my surprised look—being a whore made me feel the exact opposite, like I wasn’t sexy, but that my body was a product. Nothing more than what a chicken breast would be on the meal—something with sexual words in it but not actually sexy, meant for consumption only.

  “You never had a chance to really ease yourself into it, you know? You got blind-sided into the life, I’m afraid. In your spot, I don’t blame you for hating this life, especially with your brother putting you in it. But me? I was hooking on my own for a while—my own boss, you could say—before the Black Falcons brought me in, and when they did it sounded like a much better gig than it turned out to be. Plus, I was always in it for me. It wasn’t about somebody else’s debt or owing something to someone. I got off lucky—so to speak—in that sense.”

  She smiled, this time reassuringly, almost motherly. I think she and I both discovered the split in opinions on it—I had gotten thrown into the life and only saw those in similar circumstances, while Tara got the rare and atypical experience of choosing to become a whore.

  It was nice to know our girl’s day out wasn’t going to be ruined by a silly philosophical argument about sex and prostitution.

  “But… yeah! I always liked sex—liked getting guys off even when I was a sophomore in high school—and the idea of getting folks to part with their hard-earned dollars by doing something I already enjoyed was… well, I guess you could say it kinda turns me on. People got their fetishes, and at an early age I discovered that being a whore was mine.”

  I stared, stunned.

  “How… how early you say?”

  “I dunno, high school?”

  “You’re shitting me,” I said. “High school is when you discovered being a whore was a fetish? As in…”

  She shook her head as I trailed off, more or less unable to complete the train of thought that crossed my mind. I also had lost my virginity in high school, but that was a world’s difference than discovering that whoring was a fetish. It was like the difference between discovering you liked basketball at six years old and going onto the same court as pro players at six years old.

  “I shit you not, baby-girl. I was sucking dick at an early age, and, this one time, I got a little too excited and started blowing this guy I’d been sorta, kinda seeing right in the middle of the living room at this party we were attending. Wasn’t even drunk or drugged! Nothing! I just, I don’t know, got horny from him rubbing on my ass—I already knew others could see it—and he could see that look in my eye, I’m sure. He leans in real close, lips to my ear and everything, and says, ‘bet you won’t blow me in front of everyone.’”

  She smirked and winked. Even though I knew where this story was going, even though it sounded more like a bad porno than real life, I couldn’t help but find myself in shock at the nature of the story.

  “And so I did just that. Everyone was shocked, sure, but nobody more than him. I went all out, and everyone was just watching and cheering. Now, that night I’d been a slut in the traditional sense—damn proud one, too—but they were all chanting ‘whore.’”

  Tara began to pump her fist in the air and parrot the memory, “SUCK IT! SUCK IT! WHORE! WHORE! WHORE!” the chant becoming a sort of rhythmic sound—one, two; one, two, three—and Tara’s grin grew wider. I found myself glancing around, hoping no one stared at the two girls talking about sucking dick in the middle of a strip mall. Tara couldn’t have cared less, as usual.

  “He lasted, like, twenty seconds. Nutted right in my mouth, getting all grunty and shaky and stupid—just like men do whenever they bust a nut. Everyone was just screaming, cheering, and I flashed the room the wad on my tongue before gulping it down.”

  “Jeez!” I gasped, offering a nervous chuckle in response to the story. “That’s a bit… extreme.”

  That was an understatement. I had never, ever, ever heard of anything so insane, and I almost felt a bit unsettled hearing it.

  But, it was Tara. She nodded and offered a shrug, as if saying “it was crazy, but no regrets.”

  “Stupid kid doing stupid kid shit, I’ll admit, but it was the night I learned that sex empowered me. I didn’t feel demeaned or used; didn’t even feel embarrassed. Hell, if anybody should’ve been embarrassed it was the guy! Mister ‘Can’t Last More Than Twenty Seconds!’ Can’t remember his name now, but I just remember feeling… strong. I never feel more like a woman than when I get to show off my eroticism and get a guy off.”

  She shrugged again and patted my back, and I was glad to note that it didn’t seem to carry any hint of condescension or anything of that sort.

  “I’m not saying there aren’t women who regret being in the business—hookers, strippers, porn stars… all of those sorts—but that don’t mean that all of ‘em do. When a guy walks up to me—chooses me—to be the one to make him feel good, and then I’m able to do it for him—maybe even better than anybody else he’s ever had—that makes me feel proud. And, yeah, it makes me feel sexy. And if they’re handing me a wad of bills after the fact, then isn’t that all the better? Fuck the gold stars and the thumbs-up, I’m getting money as a direct reflection of my performance. It’s all so… so hot!”

  Tara blushed then, seeming embarrassed by the excitement she was exhibiting, and she leaned back again.

  “I can understand that it’s not your thing. I wouldn’t expect it to be. Not after why and how you wound up there. But I also wouldn’t expect you to notunderstand why it would be someone’s thing.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” I said, begrudging that, once again, she’d managed to make sense. “And I’m sorry if I came across holier than thou. I definitely didn’t want to do that. I guess it’s just… you know, the way the world views us… well, not us, but…”

  “I know what you mean, Eve,” Tara said with a gentle giggle. “And, frankly, I don’t care. People would say that all this, the fact that I like what I do, says something about me. Something negative. They’d say that I was traumatized as a kid or that my daddy must’ve diddled me or that I was rewarded for being slutty or that I just want attention. People always say shit like that. Granted, they say that without knowing what real trauma looks like, or, worse yet, they have trauma of their own and choose drugs or alcohol or something to cope.”

  I wondered if this was about to be a reveal of something that she had not yet spoken to me, some secret she kept close to the vest, only now revealed because of the honest conversation we had had.

  I should’ve known with Tara that wasn’t going to be quite the case.

  “They’d be wrong, though, about all of it. I had a normal childhood. Fought with my old man, sure, but what teenage girl doesn’t. The culprit—the realculprit—is pleasur
e! I like to feel pleasure and I like to give it. So, yeah, people would say all sorts of awful things about me for liking being a whore, but those same people are afraid to fuck with the lights on. They’re afraid to talk about sex, afraid to admit that they like it, and it throws the whole subject into this fucked-up realm where we are somehow dirty for it; where we should have something to be ashamed of. Literally one of the most natural things our species does… and they’d want me to feel guilty for not only doing it, but actually making a living off of it, too.”

  I actually smirked at that. Damn. Tara was not the type of girl you’d see get A’s in physics and math classes, but she had a kind of intelligence to her those kids would never have.

  That I never had until I got thrown into the fire.

  “So then, if I may continue to play the devil’s advocate… why not just be a slut—steal boyfriends and husbands from the lights off chicks who’d want to shame you—and get paid to do something else?”

  “Stupid fucking question,” she said, but she said it with a smile. “I do it because I can; because doing both is better, ain’t it?”

  “Well, put that way… I guess so, huh?”

  “Good, then let’s get some fuckin’ lingerie!” she said, grinning wickedly as she led me through the shop.

  I had to admit, though I could never go back to a life of being a whore—no matter how many jokes I had made to Derek about it, there was no chance of it—I could see how Tara enjoyed it. That didn’t mean I actually understood it, as some part of me deep inside wondered if she was repressing something that I did not yet see or realize. But at least our conversation made me better able to empathize with her and where she stood on this.

  Like I said, she had a form of intellect that your typical nerd didn’t have. And that was very valuable in its own right.

  If nothing else, she’d saved my ass already, so I owed it to her to be more open-minded.

  We both tried on multiple outfits, sharing jokes about who would look sexier and what Derek and other boys would do if they saw us in our outfits. As we finished shopping for lingerie, we made a stop at the bookstore and I grabbed a few more books, grabbing a few for Tara as well—mostly erotica and other books on sex.

  Wanting to also start a conversation that perhaps didn’t sound as harsh and judgmental as our previous one, when we settled in for an afternoon coffee, I asked her about her current life—albeit while makings sure we sat away from other people.

  “So, how is the brothel going?” I asked.

  “Really great,” Tara said as she flipped through one of the books. “We are booked solid every night and the girls are great, really. If ya ever feel like ya wanna come back, you let me know.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said and glanced down.

  I knew Tara didn’t mean it, but the idea of going back to my past life triggered thoughts of what I had done in those previous days—not just the sex, the beatings, and the rapings, but the things I had done.

  Saving Derek multiple times. Sneaking behind Rock’s back. Killing Tyler…

  Like the dream I had…

  Or distracting that man just before Derek shot him, another dream I had…

  “Hey, Tara… can I tell you something? Off topic, but I need to get it off my chest.”

  “Sure, what’s up?” she asked.

  I took a deep breath. This was quite a departure from conversations about brothels, to say the least.

  “I just… I’ve been having these horrible dreams lately where I’m back at the scene where I have to save Derek. But instead of saving him, I fail. Like with Tyler, for instance. I had a dream that I pulled the trigger and the bullet bounced off his skull. He turned, laughed at me, and then killed Derek. And then he came over and… well, he raped me.”

  I sighed.

  “It’s like these dreams are telling me that eventually, my old life will catch up with me and kill Derek. And when that happens, it’s going to drag me back into the hell that I’d fought so hard to escape. I’m terrified, Tara. I’m terrified that Derek is going to get killed and you and I are going to wind up back in the hands of the Black Falcons. Yes, I was able to play it off some last night and this morning, but… it’s not something I can just escape so easily. You know?”

  Bless Tara, though she could be foul-mouthed and a bit crass at times, she also had an enormous sense of compassion when the situation necessitated it.

  Like now.

  “Oh, Eve,” she finally said. “I’m so sorry. I have dreams like that from time to time. They’re brutal, but they do eventually fade.”

  I’m sure they will once we win.

  If…

  No, once.

  “Have you talked about this with Derek?”

  “Not really,” I admitted. “I’ve been worried about stressing him out. He’s got enough to worry about, like recovering from getting shot and planning his next mission.”

  “Oh, ya dummy,” she said, wrapping her arms around me. “I won’t lie and say I’m not worried too… but we’ll get through this. Together. Okay?”

  It was her solution to everything—to get through it together.

  And I’ll be damned if it didn’t make me feel better every single time.

  “Thanks, Tara,” I said, feeling better from both her hug and her words.

  “Next time you have that nightmare, tell someone, k?” she said, glancing down at me. “Don’t wait for girl’s staycation to make me realize you need some therapy.”

  “I will, I promise,” I said, glancing down at my watch. “But on a more chipper note, I’m hungry, and I know how you are, you are too. Where do you wanna eat?

  “Uh, bitch. Didn’t you say there was a Medieval Times here?” she said, glancing over at me with another “are you stupid?” expression.

  Fortunately, this one seemed a lot nicer than the previous one.

  “I did, yeah,” I said, smiling. “Shall we go see if there’s a showtime soon?”

  “Uh, bitch, yeah.”

  “Uh, bitch, OK,” I said, and we were both laughing together like two old girlfriends in no time.

  Turned out, there was one in less than an hour, and we easily snagged two seats. I paid extra for the VIP package that was similar to the celebration passes. I wanted to get good seats for Tara as well, wanting her to enjoy the experience as much as I had.

  After all, Derek didn’t have VIP control over my life, even if he had VIP access to the best parts of it.

  “This place is so, damn, awesome!” Tara said as she explored the castle entrance.

  “Isn’t it?,” I said, the memories of my last visit returning. “When Derek and I came here, he got super jealous about one of the knights giving me a rose.”

  “Oh? Well, this time he won’t have to, ‘cuz I’ll be getting that rose,” she said smugly. “Ain’t no knight gonna see me and pass me up.”

  I smiled at her excitement and glanced up as they announced seating would begin. We made our way to our door. They led us through and we were seated right up front again. I glanced around and smiled, realizing we were sitting at the opposite side that Derek and I had been at. It was like I was getting the full experience.

  “I think we are sitting at the knight I was booing last time,” I said.

  “Booing?” Tara asked.

  “Yeah, notice these colors? We all get a knight who represents our section,” I said, smiling.

  “Oh! Well, I hope our knight is hot!” Tara said.

  The rest of the afternoon was spent with Tara fawning and cheering our knight—who, honestly, I didn’t think was that hot, but I think Tara had committed herself before hand to getting into it. I couldn’t help but laugh at just how into it she’d gotten, especially when, as she said she would, she got the rose.

  I was also glad when the knight had given her a rose because I was worried that she might jump over our table and run after the poor man if he didn’t. Knowing Tara, it was a distinct and real possibility.

  Afte
r finishing our meal and the show ended, we made our way back to the car, exhausted.

  Though Tara and I could sometimes have our differences, in stressful times like this, it was nice to know that no matter what, I had her by my side. I was reminded of the time that Rock had mocked her for thinking that the girls in the Falcons would stand up for her.

  Well, I could never speak for the other girls, but I could say that Tara would have stood up for me.

  “Well, today was a ton of fun!” Tara said, waving the large amount of shopping bags she carried. “All love, Eve, but let’s face it, I’m more fun than your man.”

  I just laughed. What else could you do with the ridiculousness of Tara?

  “It really was amazing.”

  “Good thing we got this, too, helped quell some of my itch for a fight.”

  I looked at her askance. A fight?

  “I think the Saviors got it, Tara—”

  “Uh uh, don’t you go telling me what Derek told me too! I grew up with a rifle, you know. Dad taught me how to hunt and everything. I know how to handle myself! If we get into a spot where the Saviors gotta split up, I’m taking part!”

  I tried to keep a positive spirit alive, telling her that I loved her energy.

  “I’m serious, too,” Tara said, her words more focused than before. “I’m getting as thirsty for revenge as a thirty year old virgin is for some pussy. I can’t keep myself together much longer.”

  “Uh huh,” I said.

  I was slightly weary of having too many rambunctious, impetuous friends running into battle without thinking about the consequences. First Derek, and now Tara? Was Matty next?

  But then again, at least Derek was pulling back. Derek would listen to me. Tara?

  I had a better chance of corralling a hungry grizzly bear after stealing her cubs than I did keeping control of Tara.

  We’d just have to see if that led to more days like today… or if today was one of the last such days.