by Meg Jackson
Anyway, when I woke up after that first night in Utah, I had no idea what time it was, and I was afraid to look at the clock. I felt well-rested, and hadn’t gotten to sleep until 8 that morning, so I figured it was at least 4pm. I didn’t know what I’d have to do to get to sleep that night; probably drink myself into a stupor.
Or, if Reign was going to come by again, he might be able to help me get to sleep…
That thought, drowsy and dreamy, jolted me awake as soon as I’d fully processed it. Reign. Utah. The money. Jeremy. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit!
What the fuck was I doing laying in this motel bed thinking about some motorcycle dude when Jeremy was probably after me by now, and I was probably wanted by the police for ditching that hotel room with the body in it? How could I possibly be thinking about sex?
Everything came back in a sickening rush. I let him take my fucking car…I’m such an idiot! Oh god, I’m such a stupid, stupid idiot! I’ve gotta get out of here!
All Reign’s lovely words and heartfelt promises from the night before now fell to the floor, as useless as clothes had been twelve hours prior. It was like waking up from some strange coma where I’d been fully aware of what I was doing for hours, but which no longer seemed to be real. There was no way I’d done that. Any of it. Not the drinking, not the cigarette, not the sex, not the long hours of talking afterwards. Not only was that just not me…it was fucking dangerous, and I couldn’t be the sort of person who engaged in that activity.
But what sort of person was I, then? Did I even know? Could I even answer that question honestly? Not really…I’d been Jeremy’s person, his property, for so long that I didn’t have my own person anymore.
I jumped out of bed like I’d slept through my alarm, the same panicky heart-racing feeling amplified by a thousand. My eyes darted around the room, seeing everything but not making sense of anything. All I had were the clothes I’d worn to work, my gym clothes, and my uniform.
Thoughtlessly, I threw on my jeans and the tank top I usually worked out in; it was form-fitting and a little dirty but I didn’t care. I hadn’t even stopped to put my panties back on. Once dressed, I felt a little better. But I still didn’t have anywhere to go, or any idea what to do.
What had Reign said the night before? He wouldn’t be up until 9? That left…four hours, I realized, finally looking at the clock. Four hours without my car keys, with no place to go…
Maybe I can break into the car and hotwire it, I thought, then realized how stupid an idea that was. For one thing, I had no idea how to hotwire a car. And, for another, if I just waited a little while I could just drive away with my keys…but the waiting, that seemed like unbearable torture. I knew that just sitting in the room would be hard enough, with my mind racing with constant thoughts of Jeremy and the police and all the trouble I’d be in.
Okay, okay, okay, I thought to myself, closing my eyes and willing my heartrate to go back to normal, my racing mind to slow down and be logical. There has to be something I can do…
As I focused on my breathing, I was surprised to feel myself actually calming down. A word seemed to emerge in my thoughts, repeating over and over, a word that I hadn’t thought of in years. Something that I’d picked up in college, before I’d met Jeremy, taking a course on Eastern Philosophy. I’d been very into meditation then, and had latched onto ham-sah as my mantra of choice.
But I hadn’t meditated in years, at least not since before my marriage. Life as Jeremy’s wife had taken that sense of peace and surety out of me. Now, I almost wanted to cry as I felt myself slipping into a calmer state, the world around me no longer spinning dizzyingly out of control.
I control my own fate, I thought, the words sounding far-off in my brain. I can do whatever I want.
It was so strange, to be in that hotel room, in what was arguably the most dangerous situation of my life, and still be able to find solace engaging in a practice that I’d dropped so long ago. But it was just like everything else that I’d felt since leaving Colorado; I was coming back to myself. I was indulging in the things that made me who I was. I was letting myself meet myself again, brand new and ready to leave everything behind.
Let’s take a walk, I suddenly thought, the words now sharp and clear against the stillness of my mind as I meditated. My eyes opened on their own, as though my brain was yielding to some greater part of me that knew best. Just as my eyes seemed to open independently of my telling them to, my legs moved me towards the door. As the trance-like effects of meditating wore off, I glanced at the clock once more and was shocked to see an entire half hour had passed by, though it felt like I’d only closed my eyes for five minutes.
Only three and a half hours to go, I thought, banking entirely on Reign’s promise that he’d sleep until 9. I should have gotten his phone number, I thought, realizing just how silly it was that I hadn’t; I wasn’t planning on risking my safety by turning my phone back on and potentially cluing Jeremy in to my whereabouts, but there was a phone in the room and I could have used it to call him.
But this time, when I thought about this lapse in judgement, I didn’t feel like a worthless piece of shit, which was generally how screwing up in any way made me feel. Instead, I felt like a normal person who’d made a mistake and didn’t need to commit seppuku over it.
I opened the door and immediately had to shield my eyes from the brightness outside. It had been so dark in the hotel room, my eyes ached as I blinked into the sun. The air was dry and hot, the desert stretching out for miles in all directions, mountains ranging across the distance. It was gorgeous, really, with that sort of sad, desolate beauty that only exists amongst the sagebrush and red rock.
The bar was circled entirely by motorcycles once more, all of them parked and gleaming in the sun. A few men stood outside smoking; they didn’t seem to see me. For the first time, I looked at the buildings that made up the actual motel, wondering how many other people were staying there. Judging by the lack of cars in any of the designated parking spots, it seemed I was the sole visitor to the Ditcher’s Valley Sun Lizard Motel and Bar.
The sign declaring the bar’s name hadn’t been lit up at all the night before, so this was my first look at it. The sign was well-worn and weathered, the shoddy paint peeling around the edges, a cartoonish iguana clad in a motorcycle jacket looking googly-eyed onto the main street. I walked towards the road and shaded my eyes once more, peering in the opposite direction of the bar.
The town seemed to have only the one street, and all I could make out in the baking heat was a glimmering parking lot, what looked like a gas station, and a building that could have been a bank. Assuming that my car was parked in the lot, I made my way towards it, no real plan as to what I’d do when I got there.
I was just following that idea that had popped into my head at the end of my meditation: take a walk. It beat the hell out of chewing my fingernails off in the motel room, and I wasn’t feeling up to the task of going into the bar and asking a stranger to tell me where I could find Reign – and my car keys.
The entire town was no more than a mile long, and most of the businesses seemed to be shuttered and closed for good. I thought about what Reign had told me the night before; that the club essentially owned the town, including the police force. I wondered if the lack of economic vitality was a result of the club’s dirty dealings, or an intentional façade to keep outsiders away.
The small municipal lot where my car was parked was dusty and lonely; my little Subaru looked out of place amongst the old vans and junkers that were its neighbors. Past the lot there was, indeed, a bank and a gas station, as well as a small grocery store, a repair shop, a dinky police station, and a library. A Harley store sat on the very end of the main street, after which there was nothing but miles of desert speckled with the occasional shack, trailer, or one-story house.
The side streets of the town all seemed to go nowhere, and the only other signs of habitation were a series of apartment buildings that fairly towered behind the groc
ery store. It was almost spooky in the town; there were few people out and about, and everyone seemed to be idling around with nothing to do.
I wondered where the hell people worked or what they did; there wasn’t even a movie theater. I assumed, correctly as it would turn out, that pretty much everyone in town spent their nights at the bar, and that the main source of work was the club. Even the sleepy gas station attendant wore a leather jacket bearing the name of the Black Smoke MC.
I was floored by the fact that an entire town could be run by an illegal operation, fueled entirely by drug deals and criminal pursuits. It really was like the Wild West; I wondered if the FBI ever tried to intervene in the club’s activities, or even had Ditcher’s Valley on their radar.
Walking the town only killed about half the time I needed it to kill, and soon I found myself wandering back towards the motel, no wiser for my stroll. Anxiety was creeping in again. I wanted to get gone, as soon as possible.
The fact that the town seemed to be entirely operated by the club didn’t actually help my worries; if anything, it made me more nervous. It meant that if Jeremy found out where I was, and came to get me, I could be ruining Reign’s life along with my own. And if I was responsible for bringing outside forces to Ditcher’s Valley, I suspected he couldn’t protect me from whatever revenge the club decided to enact.
Besides, the longer I thought about it, the less realistic it seemed to me that Reign was doing anything but using me. Girls like me certainly didn’t get to attract guys like him without an ulterior motive. He was so handsome, he could have any girl he wanted, and the fact that he chose me only meant that he thought he could get something out of me.
That’s the way it always is with fat girls, I thought sourly. We always have to settle for assholes like Jeremy, or get used by men like Reign. I was being blind and stupid to believe that he actually cared for me and wanted to help me. More likely than not, he had suspicions about what was in the duffel bag, and meant to get to it by pretending to be interested in me. And if I didn’t watch myself, I’d fall right for it, hook, line, and sinker.
But I still needed my damn keys.
11
Reign was having the best dream of his life. He’d had some doozies before, but this one was…spectacular. Mostly because of who was in it. That raven-haired, tan-skinned, luscious woman he’d been lucky to spend the night with – and now lucky to be dreaming of.
He was holding her by the waist, their mouths inches away from each other, their eyes matched perfectly. Her flesh was warm and inviting under his fingertips, seemed to crawl with life and pleasure, and her face was flushed with expectation. She had her hands on his backside, was pulling him into her, his manhood plunged into her welcoming sex, where it throbbed and throbbed with almost painful desire.
They were in the bar, or a bar, and she was seated on the table before him, completely naked, her large breasts perfectly shaped and pressed against his bare chest. He thrust into her, spreading her legs wide, making her eyes seem to grow larger and larger as he stared into them.
His whole being strained forward into her, like she was a vortex that led straight to paradise. And she just felt so soft, so warm, so wet and loving and accepting of him as he moved his hips back and forth, impossibly slow, feeling every rib and fold of her pussy caress his cock, releasing it only to pull it back in deeper and deeper each time.
“Reign, Reign, Reign,” he heard his own name coming from her throat, the words taking the form of glowing lights that surrounded his head. She was so close, he could feel her pussy clenching around his cock, could feel his body responding in kind, his balls churning and his thighs buckling as he plunged into her again and again, suffering beautifully on the edge of coming, wanting to stay hard inside her forever, to feel this awful bliss for every second of every day of the rest of his life.
The sounds coming out of her mouth suddenly changed, became short, sharp bleats. Violent against his ears. Her skin began to change, shift or melt, into something like fabric. She was going, she was leaving him, she was turning into…
“Gabriella,” he said, and his own voice finally pulled him from sleep. With a slap, he silenced the alarm that was bleating red, jagged beeps throughout the room. And with a groan he realized he’d been holding his comforter, that the only warm body in his room was his own. He looked over to the empty space in his king-size bed.
Why did I buy a fucking king-sized mattress if I always sleep alone, he thought, bitter and annoyed. He hadn’t slept long enough. That was all. He wasn’t mad because the dream was just a dream, he wasn’t mad about waking up alone, he was just cranky. He’d set the alarm for 8:45, planning to keep his word and meet Gabriella once more at 9:00. Now, he didn’t regret this choice, but he did regret staying at the bar so long earlier that day.
Reign was not a man who liked his sleep to be cut short.
But he wasn’t going to leave that beautiful woman hanging, either.
As he rose, shaking his head as though he could knock his hangover away, he thought about what it might be like to fall asleep and wake up nestled close next to a woman. A woman like her, mainly, but any woman. The other girls he’d slept with recently didn’t make the idea very enticing, but her…
What the fuck is going on with you, man? You never get this way over chicks. She’s just your type, sure, but there’s others like her, and you’ll never get to screw them if you settle down with her, he thought, distraught by his own heart’s hollow beating, its sense of loneliness. This was not a feeling Reign was used to.
Not by a wide margin.
Reign the playboy, Reign the hunk, Reign the drifter. Not Reign the boyfriend, or, worse yet, the groom. He didn’t need an old lady to take care of him. And there was certainly no lack of girls who were willing to give him what he needed in the bedroom. Even if those girls weren’t exactly what he wanted, and couldn’t really give him exactly what he needed.
No, he needed someone like Gabriella…
Or no one at all, he thought. It was good that she would be going, after all. Once she left town, he could get back to being his old self, unfettered by romance. His heart winced at the idea of waving her off as she drove down the road. But he was sure he could buy another night or two of her company.
And he really would be helping her. He already had plans for that car of hers. And, it would take some string-pulling, but he knew he could get her safe passage to South America. Hustling someone into Mexico was a hell of a lot easier than hustling someone out of Mexico.
Another night or two, he repeated to himself, trying to make that wince in his heart fade. It didn’t, only throbbed all the harder. If he already felt this way after one night, did he really imagine it would get better once he fell a little deeper?
Maybe I’ll get bored of her, he thought hopefully. Surely, once he’d gotten a few more chances to partake in the pleasures she offered, he’d lose interest and she would just be someone he was fond of, like a sister he’d be willing to go out of his way to help but who he no longer wanted to screw seven ways from Sunday.
He was surprised when even that thought, which should have comforted him, only made him sadder. What did she think of him, anyway?
The question hit him like a runaway truck on a steep grade in the dead of winter.
Since when did Reign give two shits about what anyone thought of him? Not just girls – anyone? He was his own man, he liked himself, as far as he was concerned that was the end of the story. No, Reign didn’t like that question at all. He didn’t want to have to wonder what someone else thought of him. Even someone special…which she is NOT, he reminded himself.
But, really, what did she think of him? Did she think he was just using her? Did she have feelings for him? If she didn’t already have feelings for him, would keeping up the romantic aspect of their friendship – if you could even call it that – make her start developing feelings for him?
And then would she think he dumped her like a bag of moldy potatoes?
Would she hate him?
Could she love him?
The minutes were ticking away, and he was just sitting on the edge of his bed, staring down at his two bare feet like they could provide those answers.
You don’t care about those answers, though, you care about you, and the club, and that’s it, he thought, but it was becoming more and more pointless. That voice in him that wanted to preserve the good thing he had going, that desperately wanted homeostasis, was getting softer and softer, as though he was walking down a long hallway and leaving that voice behind.
This new voice – the one with all the damn questions – was louder. And way more obnoxious.
Reign looked at the clock again. 8:55. Shit, he thought. Where had ten minutes gone? He didn’t want to be late – yet another newfound concern. Reign was never a punctual man. Now, he’d have to shower in the sink and brush his teeth on the toilet.
Groaning, still tired but thankful for the gradual waning of his hangover, he got to his feet and headed to the bathroom, where the shelves were nearly bare except for basics. Hangover remedy (aspirin and tums), shampoo, conditioner (he had to keep up the health of those long locks, after all), razor and cream. Toothbrush and toothpaste.
An image flitted in his brain of the bathroom in the house he’d grown up in. With a mother and two sisters, the family bathroom was girl-central. Tampons, seventeen types of shampoo, an arsenal of body lotions and sugar scrubs and exfoliators and razors and loofahs. It had been cluttered but…pleasant, almost. All those bright colors made the bathroom seem lively, especially in a house where “lively” usually meant Dad was home and drunk and screaming and about to punch you in the face.
