Neither This Nor That Box Set 1

by MariaLisa deMora

  Mix well in medium bowl.

  Preparation

  Coat the oysters in the breading and deep fry in a hot grease or oil. I like a light canola, but use what you want.

  Split and butter a po boy bun on both sides and toast. Can brush with oil before toasting for extra crisp on that bun.

  Dish up your hot, fried oysters, dab on some tartar, add chopped onion greens, fresh sliced sweet onions, sliced tomatoes, diced medium hot red chilies (hotter if you like it that way), and shredded lettuce (if you like greens on your sammmach).

  Enjoy!

  Treading the Traitor’s Path:

  Out

  Bad

  Neither This Nor That

  Book #2

  MariaLisa deMora

  Edited by Hot Tree Editing

  Photography: Wander Aguiar, Photography

  Model: James Clippinger

  Cover design: Debera Kuntz

  Copyright © 2017 MariaLisa deMora

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.

  First Published 2017

  ISBN 13: 978-0-9983267-7-1

  DEDICATION

  Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

  ~Neale Donald Walsch

  Some stories lie too close to the bone to be easily collected. To those of you who join me on journeys such as these: Thank you.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Po’Boy is quite the character. Near the end of Twisted Pain, he told me a secret that nearly made me drop the idea of writing this book. Something so abhorrent in biker culture, it seemed wrong to write it. Dude’s persistent though, and he wore me down, putting people in my path who showed me that the times they are a changing. Once he got me on board, however, it was balls to the wall and full steam ahead as he pushed my comfort levels and boundaries.

  I’ve come to love him. I know I probably say that about every character. Well, nearly every one of them. Some are unrepentant jerks who don’t deserve the headspace. But Ralph Lewis, or Motorboat as I affectionately call him, is unique in my head. He owns an interesting dichotomy of characteristics that I’ve not seen in a single character. He can be a cold-blooded killer, a ride or die brother, a friend like no other, and a caring and sensitive lover.

  If nothing else, he’s taught me two things:

  Lesson One: There will always be someone who feels like you don’t deserve the things you’ve worked for and earned.

  Lesson Two: Fuck ‘em.

  The thank you section comes next, y’all hang around and give these folks some love, okay?

  Thanks to Wander Aguiar for the image on the cover, it’s an excellent capture of a phenomenal model, James Clippinger. James embodies the exact look and attitude I imagined for Po’Boy, and a picture find like this is rare. He’s kinda my version of a unicorn. :makes with the jazz hands: It’s magic! Thanks to Debera Kuntz for her work on the cover, her artistry was critical in helping set the tone of a series theme.

  Hot Tree Editing and Becky Johnson worked their wizardry, making me look so much more intelligent than I am. This is a team I’m proud to have behind me, and I can’t thank them enough.

  Thanks to my alpha and beta team, Missy, Kori, Megan, MirandaPanda, Jamey, Kristen, Jesse, and (my slow friend) Kay. Your encouragement and insight provide so much more than mere amusement, I promise.

  Thanks are also due to you, the reader. You’re the one who keeps opening these covers and drinking down the words inside. The ones who inhale the story and breathe out a demand for more. I appreciate every single one of you more than you’ll ever know, because while I write these damn things for me, I’d be lying if I didn’t say the finished product is (mostly) just for you.

  Finally, fuckin’ finally, there are thank yous needed for the folks in the life who put up with my Ed and Kay brand of special shit. You haven’t killed me yet, and for that I’m grateful. But, you did saddle me with Tinker, so there’s that, too.

  Love alla y’all. Except Tinker. :P

  Woofully yours,

  ~ML

  Chapter One

  A groan slipped from the bound man’s lips, and Po’Boy reached out, bending over to grip a fistful of hair at the back of the man’s scalp, lifting the heavy head as it lolled on a suddenly lax neck. Bloody spittle drooled out of his open mouth, splashing to the floor between their boots. Jesus, he thought, least the guy took a serious lickin’ before he went tits up. He shook the man’s head slightly, feeling the pull of weight like a pendulum. “Tick, tock,” he muttered, impatient, flexing his other fist. Open, then closed, fingers tightening as the splits at his knuckles painfully complained. “Tick, fuckin’ tock. Get off the clock, man.”

  When the guy’s fluttering eyelids opened to slits again, Po’Boy, known to the government as Ralph Lewis, was ready. “There ya are.” He gave it another second, waiting until he saw recognition in the man’s gaze. “You know who’s puttin’ the pressure on, my man. I needa know what you got in your head. Gimme somethin’, Jones.”

  “Fuck y—”

  Po’Boy yanked back on Jones’ hair, stretching his neck near to breaking and stalling midsentence whatever words the guy had been about to spew. The leather straps binding him to the metal chair creaked and strained, the legs of the chair screeching across the cement floor. “Heard enough of them words. Stop postulatin’ and fuckin’ talk!”

  Eyes locked on his, Jones found enough slack in Po’Boy’s grip to shake his head back and forth the barest measure, indicating a crystal-clear unwillingness to do as Po’Boy demanded.

  “No chatter from you? Then, man, you know how this is gonna go.” Fuck. “You about to pull the trigger on yourself, man, and it ain’t gonna go easy. I just need a fuckin’ name, man. Gimme a name, and I’ll move on, track down the next piece of work to get what I need. It’s a fuckin’ name. Ain’t worth your life.”

  “I’m no traitor.” Hissed words using up the thin amount of air in his lungs, the man again sagged in Po’Boy’s grip, wheezing in another scarce measure. “No traitor like you are.” Lids closing partway over glazed eyes, his head became a heavy weight in Po’Boy’s hand again.

  “Jesus. You fucking are.” Po’Boy shook his head, releasing the hold he had on the man, a quick flick of his wrist shaking a few strands of blond hair from his fingers. Talking to the unconscious man, he muttered, “If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have been where I could scoop you right the fuck up.”

  With hands on his hips, Po’Boy missed the comfort of feeling the bottom edges of his cut skim the inside of his wrists. The supple leather would have been cold to the touch against his heated skin. The man in the chair had on a similar leather vest to the one Po’Boy normally wore, but the back of his carried a different patch. That very difference leading them to where they were now. Po’Boy recognized parts of himself in Jones and knew he wouldn’t get anything from him. MLH&R wasn’t just a patch on their vest; loyalty, honor, and respect were how they lived their lives. “You ain’t gonna give it up, are you?”

  A soft groan was his only answer.

  “Jesus. What the fuck else am I supposed to do with you?”

  Pulling a wide-bladed knife from its sheath on the man’s hip, Po’Boy swung it back and forth experimentally, testing the balance and weight of the weapon. The lack of a vest on his back made him feel exposed, naked, off in a way that was hard to define. I ain’t patchless, just anon. His thoughts were meant to be reassuring, missing the mark by a mile because here he was alone, not surrounded by brothers. Same as Jones, only he’s on that side of the blade, and I’m here.

  On the final side-to-side pass, he extended his arm a
nd executed a tiny arc modification, stepping to one side in a move that felt choreographed. Done this shit a thousand times. Over the next ten minutes, he stood, watching and listening, waiting for it to be done. If he could, it was what he did, offering respect to the final moments of whoever had gotten his lasting attention. This man, flaunting a patch from a dead club, using names he shouldn’t know to gain entry into a private club in Incoherent territory? He had definitely gotten Po’Boy’s attention. Five minutes after that, Po’Boy was back on his idling bike, sending a text to the Incoherent clubhouse.

  Chapter Two

  Po’Boy came awake with a start, forcing himself to lay flat while struggling to calm his breathing, panting rasps of sound filling the tiny room. It was always like this when he drank. Sober or stoned, his dreams were easy, a way for his brain to sort out whatever he’d been doing recently. Nothing to concern himself with. Sober or stoned, his dreams were good. Always. A drunk dream, however, was an entirely different thing. They always circled the one pain in his life he would never fix. Could never get past.

  Sabrina Rotain’s voice was loud, taunting him from the other side of the door. When he’d heard her coming, he’d darted into the locker room bathroom that faced the grade school playground, hoping to avoid a confrontation. No such luck. Not today, at least. Ralphie leaned his forehead against the metal door, listening, feeling the burning blaze of mortification in his cheeks.

  “Ralphie, you in there alone? Got you a little friend in there with you, Ralphie? Got a little friend?”

  Why won’t she just go away? Soundlessly he thumped his head against the door. She went through the same taunting routine two more times, finally tiring of her game when he refused to respond. Silence filled the room, and from outside he heard the rhythmic squeaking of the chains on the swings, the solid thud of the teeter-totter hitting the ground. Another ten minutes and the bell would ring, calling everyone back to classes and leaving him a chance to escape, finally.

  A quiet knocking on the door, then another girl’s voice calling gently, “Ralphie? She’s gone.” She hesitated, then softer, sounding embarrassed, said, “I gotta go. Can you come out so I can go?”

  Swallowing hard, he reached up and drew back the bolt, fingertips easing the metal knob to settle silently against the door. Cautiously pushing against the surface with both hands, he opened it an inch, then two, only seeing the one girl waiting outside. She smiled at him, and then her eyes flashed nervously as she looked beyond the door and he knew. She didn’t have to piss. She was the bait to get him out into the open.

  No chance of going back now. Shoving the door wide, it thudded against something before it hit the cement brick wall and Ralphie heard a short curse, knowing in that instant he was right. He stepped out and then Sabrina was there, one of her crew of girls slamming the door at his back, cutting off any hope of retreat. He put his head down, trying to push past them, but Sabrina grabbed his hands and, laughing loudly, put them on her tits. Right on her tits, firm globes under his fingers and he gasped, lifting his gaze to stare into her face. Face tight, mouth pinched like she tasted something bad, she asked, “Like what you feel?”

  Shocked, with an involuntary shake of his head, he tore his hands free from hers, stepping backwards. The sneer on her lips told him what was coming next, and sure enough, the word that most terrified him blazed through the air.

  “Faggot!”

  His response was instantaneous, and the sudden movement caught her off guard. Then his palm was stinging, and his eyes were filling with tears as fast as hers, the bloodless mark on her cheek rapidly flooding with red.

  A heavy hand on his shoulder whipped him around, and Ralphie stared into the angry whiskey brown eyes of the most beautiful boy he’d ever seen, just before that boy’s fist connected with the point of his chin.

  That had been tonight’s dream. The beginning of the most important friendship he would ever have. The beginning of the biggest lie, too. A blast from the past, that action was all back before George Bell became Twisted, one of the scariest motherfuckers to roll twos in Louisiana.

  Po’Boy shook his head, levering his legs off the thin mattress and letting his feet dangle to brush against the chilly floor of his apartment. Tapping his bare soles against the grimy tile, he lifted and stretched his shoulders, rolling his neck, chin to his chest. Goose bumps raised along both arms, and he sighed. Memories were the absolute worst, especially in the middle of the night when all his defensive walls were down. Even now, five minutes into being awake, he still remembered the thrilling shock of seeing George for the first time, feeling the rush of adrenaline that accompanied the moment.

  George had beaten his ass, knocking Ralphie to his back in the dust of the playground, wooden seats and metal chains of the swings clanging against each other over his head. Then George had done the damnedest thing. Changed my life. Stunned, for one long moment he’d laid there, glaring up at the boy who’d bloodied his lip. Ralphie had been busily plotting his next move to get out of the predicament in which he found himself, then a breath later, he could see the fire dampen in George’s eyes, and the boy had held out his hand. They weren’t friends, weren’t even friendly, but it was a clear offer, and not one Ralphie would have ever expected.

  In an instant, his mother’s words had run through his head, and he repeated them aloud again now, “Nearly always easier to be someone’s friend than their enemy.” She’d meant them as a warning about his attitude towards her husband, Grover, but they’d been as true at that moment as they had been in this one. He’d hooked his star to George and never looked back. Decades later, the legend of Twisted and Po’Boy walked the bayous, deeds and attitudes granting them a larger-than-life status.

  Fuck, kiddie school was a trip. Hard to even remember being Ralphie. Big but soft, he had been the target of every schoolyard bully who felt they had something to prove. Shouldn’t have been a shock when not all of those bullies had been male. Bitches were sometimes more brutal than a man ever thought to be.

  A different memory of Sabrina Rotain flooded his mouth with bile, of the night he’d struggled to maneuver the weight and heft of the barrel into which they’d folded her lifeless body. It had taken him three tries to get it pushed up and over the lip of the boat, sinking her into the deepest channel in a remote bayou. She’d fucked herself by playing games with Twisted’s family. Pulled her own trigger, like Jones from last night. A memory of the arcing, pulsing stream of red raced through his head. Always comes down to the red. The remembered weight of the modified machete he’d used made his arm ache. It had been Jones’ own weapon, an old trademark of the Vicar’s Wrath MC.

  What a fucked up, longass night. With a sigh, Po’Boy pushed up from the mattress, standing tall and stretching hard, pushing the arch of his back until his muscles trembled from the strain. Experimentally, he clenched and unclenched his fist, feeling only slight swelling in his knuckles remaining. He slid his phone out from under his pillow and thumbed the button to wake it, wincing when he saw it was not yet 3:00 a.m. Fuck, it’s gonna be a longass day.

  Two hours and four cups of coffee later, he sat with his elbows propped on a folding table in the Mandeville clubhouse’s main room. He’d gone to the house to use the weights in the back lot, exhausting his body in a satisfying way. Feeling almost like his usual self only lasted until the door opened and he looked up to see the faces of the men walking in. Jesus, I just want to fucking sit for five minutes. He tilted his head, acknowledging them, seeing from their expressions they were on the tail end of their night, while he was on the starting end of his day.

  “Got more of that?” Wildman pointed to the mug on the table in front of Po’Boy. When he didn’t get a response, Wildman shook his head and laughed. “Jesus, you awake, man?”

  “Fuck you.” Po’Boy lifted one hand and flipped the bird at Wildman who walked towards the coffeemaker on the back cabinet. “Don’t ask shit you can figure out for your ownself by just looking across the goddamned room. U
seless sack of shit.”

  “Jesus, what crawled up your asshole and died?” Busk, another member who’d walked in with Wildman, pulled a chair out from the table and flung himself into it beside Po’Boy. “Get me a cup of joe, Wild.”

  “On it.” Wildman’s response came immediately, and Po’Boy grinned at the holdover habits from the man’s prospect period. “You take two sugars, right?”

  “Jesus, gonna ask me if I want my cock sucked, too?” Busk laughed, then leaned forwards over the table, cradling his head on his crossed forearms. “Not that I’d turn down any action these days.”

  “What’s up with that?” For as long as Po’Boy had known him, Busk had an old lady, a pretty little woman called Junebug. “Ole lady holdin’ out?”

  “She’s preggers, man. Had some spotting, so we’re holding off. Doc said it’s safe to fuck, but I don’t wanna take a chance.” Wildman placed a full mug of coffee beside Busk’s head, and Po’Boy grinned when the man didn’t even open his eyes or move. “I’m gonna grab a couple hours of shuteye here, then go home and check on her before work.”

  “Shit, you shoulda said something. Wild and I could have handled the housekeeping.” Po’Boy reached out and traded his empty mug for the full one. “You don’t need coffee. You’re asleep on your feet. Find a bunk.” He realized his gaze was tracing the lines of Busk’s shoulders and arms, the arched angle of his neck. Fuck. Slurping at the sweetened drink, he grimaced as he said, “Wildman, I’m outtie. I got shit to do for a couple of days. Let Twisted know when he surfaces from his weekend with Yousa.” It was past time for him to make a New Orleans run if he was drooling over his brothers, the men who could never, not ever know his secret.