Page 15 of Deserter

Everything had changed.

If I went off on my own, I could hurt the wrong people. I’d never had the urge to inflict pain on someone until tonight and now that it had been awakened, I worried that I’d end up like Manson or Bundy out on the streets.

If I patched in, maybe I could channel the urge and only use it against club enemies.

There was also a chance that I’d wake up in the morning and never want to lay a finger on another person again.

Before I could come to any sort of resolution, the shower curtain was yanked back by a gorgeous redhead who couldn’t have been but a couple of years older than me. She shimmied out of her bell bottoms and tank top and stood naked before me, like a culmination of every one of my wet dreams.

I watched in awe as she stepped into the shower with a grin and dropped to her knees in front of me. “Wolverine appreciates what you did tonight.”

With that, she took me into her mouth and demonstrated said appreciation before ensuring that I stayed in that shower until I was no longer a virgin.

After that, my decision was made.

I was a biker for life.

Chapter Four

Jamie: 1982

“Do you remember when I told you why I named the club Silent Phoenix?” Wolverine stretched out on the couch, amid the buzzing of tattoo guns, and took a long drag from the joint in his hand.

“Yeah.” The needle clawed at my skin and I closed my eyes, welcoming the sting of pain it brought. “You said it was because the phoenix dies and is then reborn into something else, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, but we almost went with something else. We’d been sitting around, drinking beer, trying to decide what the fuck we were going to do. We were the lucky ones, of course. Most of our buddies came home in pine boxes or not at all.

“We liked riding together well enough, so we decided to make it a club of sorts and started designing our colors. One of the guys, he says he wants a bald eagle. Me? I didn’t want a bald eagle. I’d had enough of that patriotic bullshit to last me a lifetime. If we were going with a bird, then I wanted one that really meant something.”

I grinned. “You telling me this now because I’m getting it inked onto my back? Like some fucked up bedtime story?”

It wasn’t my first tattoo. Hell, it wasn’t my tenth tattoo either. I craved the feel of that needle on my skin almost as much as I craved the feel of bones breaking beneath my fists or a tight pussy wrapped around my dick at night.

Wolverine had been right. Club life was the best life. Anything we wanted, we took and if the fuckers fought back, well, that just made it all the more fun.

He flipped me the bird. “Fuck your bedtime stories. You earned your ink, now you’ll sit and listen to me wax poetic about the past. It’s a rite of passage, asshole.”

He said the last part with a smirk and took another hit. “Like I was saying, we founded SPMC just to be able to do something to make us feel alive again. I liked being in a group and I liked secrecy, just like most of the other guys. We couldn’t get a fuckin’ job thanks to our time in the service, so we looked for other ways to make a living. We didn’t advertise what we were, but if someone knew and liked what we had to offer, then they could hang-around or prospect for us.

“Back in the early days, we were known more for smoking dope and getting into bar fights. You liked pussy and partying? Then, we were your club. Now we’ve got chapters in seven states and an enforcer who’s known in every one of them.”

I smirked. “You trying to get in my pants, Pres?”

That earned me another middle finger before he barked, “Take the fuckin’ compliment, Jamie. I told you that story to tell you this one. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to it and you’re eighteen now, I think it’s time you got your road name.”

I’d been waiting for it since I patched in the morning after killing my old man. I thought I’d get my new name then, but the club felt that it had to be earned. Most people prospected for a year before patching in, giving the brothers plenty of time to come up with something. Now that I was legally an adult, it seemed fitting.

He walked out and returned with a comic in his hand, holding it up to show me as I straddled the chair. Along with the image of flaming red hair and a green and gold suit, the cover boasted that it wasThe All- New, All- Different X-MEN,with the tagline,In the mutant heroes’ hour of maximum peril… ENTER: THE PHOENIX.

“Jean Grey?” I questioned with more than a little disappointment.

A chick?

The Pres was losing his touch.

He laid it on the couch and sat back down. “Yeah, Jean Grey. Don’t sound so excited.”

I sighed, “I guess I just expected something better; like Beast or fuck, even Quicksilver.”

---