Page 67 of Ink's Devil

Fucking Beth. And fucking me. My desire to protect her had me doing just that, when more thought may have stopped me acting impulsively.

Why had Beth appeared, at that time of night and at that place and carrying what I know now, and at the time assumed, were drugs? Is she not the innocent civilian I’d thought her to be? Nothing about her behaviour seemed to suggest otherwise. But I could be wrong. Take Skull, for example, he’d lived a double life which none of us had ever expected. Was Beth an undercover cop? No, unlikely. She works for the government, yes, but does something with Mel in the land registry department. From what she’d said, and Mel would have caught her out in a lie, she’d worked there since she’d left school.

Was she not as innocent as she’d appeared? Was she in cahoots with her father and was he responsible for the drugs flooding into Pueblo? Unlikely. The way Beth and her mom had talked about Phil, nothing would have convinced either to get involved with him. Unless both women were good enough actors to be nominated for an Oscar, there’s no way they had me fooled.

Had Beth known I was going to be there behind Tits Up tonight? Devils run the strip club, it was obvious some of us would be around. But unless there was provocation, and in this case, the drug dealing which I hadn’t told her about, we were unlikely to frequent the alleyways behind the club. So, no, my presence had to have taken her by surprise.

How did she know the dealer was going to be there? Is she earning extra money by being a courier, or even dealing? After all, working for the government is not the highest paying of jobs. While I hate drugs with a passion, having seen a childhood friend get hooked and finally overdose and die, she might think they’re fairly innocent. Fuck it, no. Who could look at that shit in a rosy light?

My head drops into my hands as my brain goes around in circles.Connor.That waste-of-space brother of hers. It makes more sense he’s involved. Both him and his father he thinks so much of and works for. Could he have put pressure on Beth? Persuaded her to drop drugs off with the dealer? Was Connor there himself tonight? Was it an associate of Connor’s who I’d passed the stash over too? If so, why the fuck is he involving his sister in that shit? Or, are they in it together? And why the hell hadn’t I insisted Cad drop everything else and investigate him and his father?

Fuck my life, which now as I know it could be over. The cops are going to throw the book at me. After all, I was found with drugs in my hand. Enough witnesses in uniform to properly finger me for whatever they want. They won’t go easy on a Satan’s Devil.Fucking hell.I’m done for.Will I ever see the outside of a prison cell again?Age wise there’s every possibility, not that I know offhand how long a sentence for possession with intent to sell would carry, but say even if it was thirty years, I’d be sixty.Christ, Hellfire’s age or thereabouts.Trouble is, while I’ve not been inside, I’ve known people who have, and some who’ve never gotten out. Being a Devil would plant an immediate target on my back, everyone wanting to be the big man and take a member of an outlaw MC out. It’s quite possible I, too, wouldn’t be alive at the end of my sentence.

I didn’t serve my country to go to prison for a crime I didn’t commit. But it now seems, because of Beth, I might.

I should have stood by and let Beth take responsibility for her actions, but I hadn’t. Now I’ve got to live with that. I only hope she knows how she’s fucked up my life.

Would I rewind the clock if that were possible?

Of course I fucking would.

A drunk rolls over, falls off the concrete slab covered with only a thin plastic mattress that serves as a bed. He’s so out of it he doesn’t even wake up. I move over to take advantage of the suddenly vacant space. An automatic action which doesn’t interrupt my train of thought.

I imagine Beth sitting in a similar cell, along with whores and drunken women. I see her cringing, her arms wrapped around her long legs as she tries to make herself invisible. I can almost hear her quiet whimpering of fear as she faces the unknown. Then she’d go to jail and become someone’s bitch and be bullied and ridiculed. She wouldn’t fight back, she wouldn’t know how. It wouldn’t take long for that sparkle in her eyes to dim, and for her joy of life to seep out of her.

She’d deserve it.

I conjure up Beth’s face, but surprisingly it’s not the image of her lying beneath me as I thrust into her that’s the strongest memory I have. I’m not recalling the way her tight cunt squeezes my cock. No, I’m remembering just talking and listening to her, the way she smiles, the feel of that long silky hair, and thoughts of that evening I spent with her and her mom.

I’m in here because my instinct was to protect her, like an old man does his old lady. Rhythmically, I start banging my hand against my head. She’s not my old lady, not yet. But it seems a part buried deep inside me believes that she is, and it was my duty to care for her.

I’d known in an instance Beth wouldn’t be able to cope, locked up. Me? Well, I’m better equipped. I can look after myself. Mentally, would I last? I’d have to.

IfBeth is the woman I believe her to be,ifshe got caught up in something it was impossible to stop, then no, I wouldn’t want to turn back the clock. My only regret is that she didn’t feel she could come to me.

It’s just sex,I’d told her. How was she to know it had turned into more?

But if—again I bang my hand against my head—if she’s involved in running drugs. If I’m taking the rap for something she did willingly, then… I grin evilly to myself… the club is going to make her life a fucking misery, or what’s left of it. Her life, for the best years of mine.

She must have an excuse.

A man, clearly locked up for being drunk and disorderly, awakes and noisily uses the open toilet on the other side of the room. The sound wakes a couple of others, one rushes to push him away and vomits, but misses the bowl. My surroundings are dirty, disgusting, probably vying with some places I’d been on my tours for the worst I’ve ever seen.

The thin plastic mattress I’m sitting on feels sticky with substances I don’t want to imagine when I accidentally touch it with my hand. The jeans I’m wearing, I’ve already decided, will go straight into the trash.

That’s if I have the choice. I may be exchanging them for an orange jumpsuit any day now. All for the sake of one woman. A woman who should be here instead of me.

Tonight should have gone smoothly. Tomorrow, I should have been teaching Beth how to ride a bike, then, taking her to my room and fucking her. If it had gone to plan, I’d have suggested us starting a relationship, and one day soon, asked her to be my old lady. What would she have said?

Ignoring the unpleasant sights, sounds, and odours around me, I let my mind run amok.

“Yes, Ink. I’ll be your ol’ lady.”

“Ink, I’m pregnant.”

“Ink, we’re having a son.”

As I summon up the words that I once thought would make me run a mile despite my environment, there’s an unidentifiable feeling churning inside. Something that has a kernel of excitement, of expectation and… longing. Now when my future is distinctly likely to involve me doing serious time and I’ll have lost any chance of ever hearing those words from Beth, I admit they wouldn’t make me jump on my bike and ride as far away as I could. No, I’d want to stay and hear her repeat them. If, that is, she’s the woman I thought.

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