Page 6 of Karma

Too small a word to have an impact.

He shakes his head. “We gave it a good try. But it’s over.”

He gives me one last look then walks back into the noisy, putrid bar.

I want to run after him and beat him until he sees reason again. I want to curl up on this dirty ground and cry myself to sleep. I want to scream until my throat bleeds. I want to turn back time and do it all over again. Do it better.

He can’t be serious.

But I know he is.

I lost both my lovers under that bridge, by that cold black river. I’ve known it ever since. I just haven’t admitted it to myself. And no amount of raging, crying, or wishing will change that. No amount of talking or begging will either.

So I just walk to my bike. All my stuff’s still on it because I knew we wouldn’t be staying here long. I just didn’t know I’d be leaving behind the most precious thing left in my life when I rode away.

But that’s what happened.

3

Scorpio

The cemetery was fine. No hard to digest flashbacks, only regular memories. All told, I have more good memories of Honey than I do bad ones. Even though she was a sidewalk hooker with a very unhealthy love of drugs, alcohol, and bad men. But she taught me how to survive on the streets and she gave me a pretty good example of who I don’t want to grow up to be. Plus, all her stories about her glory days with Satan’s Spawn MC, the club my dad was the sarge at… it all kinda made me feel like I had a family. Until she died when I was fourteen and I had no one.

At her gravesite—just a plain grey stone marker surrounded by thousands of identical ones—Joker went on and on about how we wouldn’t know anything about our fathers if it wasn’t for her, how she was a saint, how we should have her dug up and given her a proper grave.

I mostly just enjoyed the breeze rustling the trees all around and thought about how peaceful the place was. Honey didn’t have a lot of peace in life. I figured she has it now.

After the cemetery, Joker and I went our separate ways, agreeing to meet up again on the way back to Cali. Or in Cali, if it comes to it. He’s eyeballs deep in Mission Eden, which is what he calls the seduction and planned abduction of the daughter of the man who is the root reason why neither of us have a family and why we only got to hear about them from a whore.

He’s in Phase One of the mission—the seduction—which involves chatting with her online and reading all her favorite books because she’s a horrible bookworm. For his part, he’s regaling her with pictures and videos from his cross-country motorcycle ride to make her crave adventure. I had to take a bunch of those pictures of him, in most of which he wanted to be shirtless, and I’m ready to be done with that part of this trip too.

I wonder how long it’s gonna take him to fall in love with her for real… the way he’s going about this, I’d say not much longer. She’s a hottie and a total nerd… exactly his type. I told him to be careful. He got mad. And I’m glad to be alone on the open road now.

It takes me as far as Mandy’s Rest Stop, an out-of-the-way haven for outlaws on some lake in rural Illinois. It’s made up of about ten wooden cabins right on the lake, a bar that only serves beer and bourbon and doesn’t have any kind of entertainment other than what you bring with you.

Joker and I found this place when we were fleeing Chicago after killing the owners of that house under the train tracks. The Fosters. A fitting name for those two monsters.

Back then, Mandy herself was still alive to run the place and she let us winter here in exchange for doing odd jobs around the place. Our stay here was healing. And I’m in need of some healing again after the trip to Chicago and all the shit it brought up for me.

Now that her son runs the place, it’s missing a woman’s touch. But the bar’s deck that stretches out into the lake is stillas sturdy, peaceful and empty as ever. Lounging on it under the vast midnight sky feels like I’m floating on a raft in the middle of the lake and it’s exactly what I needed tonight. That and the bottle of Jack I brought with me. I have a couple more back at my cabin. But I might just spend the night out here. It’s nice to be out in nature, under the clear sky, watching the stars after the filth and heat of the city.

Now if just that rowdy bunch of bikers in the bar behind me would decide to call it a night and I could have the deck to myself… that’d be just perfect.

And just as I think it, they get even louder, cat calls and wolf whistles invading my peace. The woman who wandered into the testosterone overloaded sausage party in there better be ready to get fucked like she’d never been fucked, if the loudest of them are to be believed. I wouldn’t believe them. They were falling down drunk when I got here four hours ago and they sound even drunker now.

“I just want to have a drink in peace,” she tells them. She’s being much too reasonable. And sober.

They don’t like the sound of that. Suddenly, she’s everything from a cock tease and stone-cold ice queen, to a butch dyke that just needs a good hard cock to show her the light.

And I’d tend to agree with all of the above.

She can be all of that. But she’s also the hottest and most intriguing woman I’ve ever met and if she’s getting any cock tonight, it’ll be mine. Not that I’ll get that lucky. I never have before.

I take the last swig from my bottle and get up, my muscles stiff from sitting on the hard planks for so long. But they warm up nicely as I spot Karma at the very edge of the counter inside the bar, the guys in there swarming around her like hyenas, the picture complete with the mad gleam in their beady eyes.

She’s got eyes only for them so she doesn’t see me standing out on the deck. Wary eyes. Not scared, just vigilant. Assessing her surroundings, figuring out her best next move. I like this excuse of getting to look at her. She seems somehow taller than she used to be, her skin-tight leather riding jacket beautifully outlining the top part of her hourglass shape. And the light grey skinny jeans tucked into riding boots take care of the rest. Her long blonde hair is only braided on one side today and cascades down her back in a way that would make any fairytale princess jealous. Her gorgeous heart-shaped face would too.

But she’s no princess, unless she’s the ice kind, and most of her creamy skin under that riding get-up is covered in tattoos—beautiful pictures that I’d love to spend days checking out from up close. Or licking. Or both. She never fails to make my dick at least half hard and it’s no different tonight.

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