The man collapsed onto the girls back and released his grip from her throat. He’d been strangling her? She was moaning when I first walked in on them, and then she had fallen silent.
Dead silent.
I quickly remembered I had feet and closed the door, fleeing back down the stairs. I hid beside the water heater under the house, beside all the cars and bikes, where I sat for over an hour, running the gravel through my hands and hoping to come to terms with the shitty direction my life was heading in. As much as I wanted to take off into the night and run I couldn’t go far, my overwhelming fear of the dark held me captive at the house where I may have just witness a murder, but it least I could find light.
Fear had seriously fucked with my priorities.
It was that fear, as well as my growling stomach and light-headedness that reminded me of why I was there in the first place.
Basic survival.
I am desperate, and desperate people don’t have the luxury of options.
I sucked in a deep breath. I had to do what I had to do, even if I didn’t exactly know what that was. I mean, I knew the mechanics of it. But my brain was like a car with the mileage turned back to zero. A clean slate that I was about to make filthy dirty.
I may have been homeless and starving, but I was determined to get myself off of the streets and into a real life someday. A life with a soft bed and clean sheets. Once I didn’t have to worry about my safety or my stomach, I could focus on finding out the truth about who I really was.
I made a promise to push through the here and now and do what needed to be done, then I would never think about this time ever again. It would be a small spot on the radar of my life that I vowed I would never dwell on.
I stood up and brushed myself off and began my internal pep talk. I was going to do this. I was going to make it. I was going to have to fake like I knew what I was doing, like I wasn’t afraid, but pretending like I wasn’t scared shitless wasn’t something new for me, I’d done it every single day since I woke up with no idea of who I was.
I would be a biker whore because it was what I needed to be. I would be a tightrope walker if that’s what it took to stay alive.
With newfound determination, I walked back around to the bonfire, grabbed a beer out of the cooler, and cracked it open. The cool liquid lubricated my dry scratchy throat. I darted around from biker to biker and the girls who had their attention. I found myself particularly interested in a girl straddling the lap of a biker who must have outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds.
It was the look on her face I was intrigued by. The smile she wore that said your dick would feel great jammed down my throat. I mimicked her demeanor, and hoped it was enough to get the attention of someone who would take an interest in me.
Someone who could help me survive.
* * *
“Hey there,” a deep voice rumbled against my ear.
When I turned around, I was eye level with a wall of leather with white patches sewn into it. One read VICE PRESIDENT and the other, BEACH BASTARDS. The man wearing the vest had long blonde hair that draped over to one side of his head, revealing the shaved area beneath. He had a beard, not stubble, a full-on beard that was a few inches long and very well groomed. He stood well over six feet, his frame lean yet very cut and muscular. I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were because his lids hung heavy and were slightly reddened. His entire neck was covered with colorful tattoos and when he went to light a cigarette I noticed that the backs of both of his hands and were covered in ink as well.
“Hey,” I answered back, trying to assert my newly found false confidence.
He was beyond attractive. He was gorgeous. If I had to end up in someone’s bed, I imagined that being in his wouldn’t be half-bad. He sniffled, drawing attention to the light dusting of white powder trapped in his nostrils.
“They call me Bear. You belong to anyone?” he asked seductively, leaning in toward me.
“Maybe…you?” I winced at my choice of words. Of all the fucking things I could have said, THAT was what came to mind? Stupid fucking mouth. Nikki was right. I spoke first and thought second.
Bear chuckled. “I’d love that, beautiful, but I got something else in mind.”
“Oh, yeah? What would that be?” I asked, trying to keep my tone light although my mind and heart were racing.
“This party? It’s for my buddy. And he was down here for a total of thirty minutes before he hightailed it upstairs to drown himself in a bottle of Jack. He’s like a cat in a tree, can’t seem to talk him down. It’s understandable, seeing as he’s been away a while, but I figure you can help me out.”
He hooked his finger into the front of my skirt and slowly dragged me toward him until my nipples were flush up against his chest. He pressed his fingers into the skin right above my public bone and I resisted the urge to jump back by biting down on my bottom lip.
“The BBB’s have never really been his thing.” He paused when he saw the confused look on my face at his abbreviation. “Beach Bastard Bitches.” He explained. “But you? You’re new. You’re different. You’ve got this cute little innocent thing going on, but I know you’re not or you wouldn’t be at this kind of party if that was your deal. I’m thinking he’ll like you.” Bear brushed his lips against the side of my neck. “So maybe you go up there. Make him happy for me. Make little him happy by wrapping those gorgeous lips around his cock for a while. Then when you’re done, bring him back down here to civilization. And maybe later, if you’re a good girl and do what you’re told, we can go back to the clubhouse and have some real fun.” He grazed his teeth along my earlobe. “Think you can you do that for me?”
“Yeah, yeah I can do that,” I said. My skin prickling from his touch. And I could do it.
I think.
“What’s your name anyway?” Bear’s hand slowly traveled up the back of my leg, pushing up my skirt, it came to rest on my ass cheek, which was then exposed to anyone who might have been looking in our direction.
“Doe. My name is Doe,” I breathed.
“Fitting.” He said with a chuckle. “Well, my innocent looking little Doe.” Bear leaned in close and surprised me by planting a soft kiss on the corner of my mouth. His lips were soft, and he smelled like laundry detergent mixed with liquor and cigarettes. I was just beginning to think that the kiss meant that he’d changed his mind and didn’t want me to send me away to his friend, but no such luck. He pulled away abruptly and turned me around by my shoulders so that I was facing the stairs. He swatted me on my ass, propelling me forward. “Up the stairs you go, sweetheart. Last room at the end of the hallway. Be good to my boy, and me and you will get to play later.” He sealed his words with a wink and as I made my way up the stairs I turned back and flashed him a fake smile. I hoped the guy at the end of the hallway was like Bear, because then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
Then a thought hit me that had me fighting back the tears that sprung from my eyes with a sudden force that almost took me to my knees.
I’d officially sold myself, and the price was far more than any dollar amount.
Chapter Four
Doe
Boom. Boom. Boom. Ba-boom.
It was hard to tell where the bass ended and my pulse began.
I wiped my palms on the tattered skirt I’d lifted from the Goodwill donation bin and maneuvered through a sea of bodies rhythmically writhing up against one another. A thick layer of smoke lay trapped under the low ceiling. Hauntingly robotic party goers danced and gyrated under the flickering lights on every available inch of floor space.
In the dark, with only the pulsing of the lights to guide me, I made my way up the stairs, and as Bear instructed, to the door at the very end of the hallway.
The door to my salvation.
The door to my hell.
I turned the handle, and the hinges shrieked. The only light in the room was courtesy of the dim and muted TV on the far wall. The heavy scent of pot wafted from the room.
“Hello?” I squeaked into the darkness, trying as hard as I could to make my voice sound as sexy as possible, but failing miserably.
A voice, deep and rough, broke through the silence, his words vibrating through to my very core. “Shut the fucking door.”
Snaking its way into every crevice of my already fragile mind and body, an entirely new feeling enveloped me, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. I’d expected to feel hesitant, nervous, and even anxious.
But what I felt was far more than that.
It was fear.
Heart racing. Pulse pounding. Red alert. Fear.
The impulse to turn and run as fast as my trembling legs could carry me was overwhelming, but any thoughts of immediate escape were interrupted.
“Door,” the voice commanded again. I hadn’t moved an inch. As much as I wanted to run, my desperation propelled me forward.
I closed the door behind me and the chaos downstairs disappeared with a click of the latch, shutting out the noise as well as the possibility of anyone hearing my cries for help.
“Where are you?” I asked hesitantly.
“I’m here,” the voice said, offering no indication of where here really was. I took a deep, steadying breath and then a few steps toward the TV until I was close enough to make out the outline of a bed in the middle of the small room and a pair of long legs hanging over the edge.