Page 22 of Property of Thrasher
Instantly this fierceness washed through me. “Nope. I’m not claimed. I’m not owned and I don’t want to be. Why would anyone want to give up their freedom to a man?”
The ladies all laughed.
“Babe, learn this quick. Being tied to the club isn’t a bad thing. They take care of their girls, from the bunnies to the old ladies.”
“Bunny?” Lyric asked.
“You two really were sheltered,” this came from Trinity. “We’re the club bunnies. We hang around and provide the men with the release, companionship, bar tending duties, cleaning, or whatever else may come up. In return we have a safe place to stay, protection if we decide to work the street, and now this job to make legitimate money.”
Quickly, I read between the lines. “You sleep with all of them?”
Tamra nodded, “the ones who are looking for that, yes. Some of them no. Sweeper is one. He’s tied to his old lady, Faye, and does not stray, ever.”
I didn’t know what to think or say.
“They keep us out of the problems we left in our pasts and we don’t get dragged into any new messes.”
“Where we come from, women aren’t protected from anyone,” Lyric explained somberly.
There was a long, thick silence.
“We all come from somewhere,” Lexi shared. “No matter what sits in your past, as long as you do right by the Kings, they’ll do right by you.”
“I can understand that,” I muttered more to myself than anyone.
“Pussy has power,” Tamara said with a bright smile breaking up the seriousness of the mood. “And thank God we all got some great snatch.”
I didn’t have a chance to process her words or let this new life I found sink in. Lexi’s phone pinged with her lunch alarm signaling our break was over. Everyone let out a sigh, but rose up to head back inside.
Nancy came in taking over my shift at the desk which put me back to housekeeping. I had a particularly challenging room. I literally scrubbed the bathroom tiles until my knuckles bled. There was something sticky under the sink along with some kind of oil that made the floor far too slick to be safe. I didn’t ask questions, not even in my mind. Some things were better left without an explanation.
When my shift ended and I returned to our room, the fatigue of the day, of our life had consumed me. I noticed absently Lyric was gone. A note sat on my pillow written in her picture perfect cursive:
Gone to the clubhouse with the girls. Don’t wait up. Love you.
My chest tightened. On one hand I was glad she had found herself comfortable enough here to venture out. Afterall what kind of life would we be leading sticking to ourselves? The point in leaving Montana was to be free not tie ourselves down in a smaller prison.
Still I worried. I found myself pacing and telling myself we were going to buy phones first thing in the morning. We hadn’t done it yet because one there was no one to call us, why spend the money, and two we worked where we slept, we were never apart. This distance even short as it was left me concerned and wishing I had a way to reach her. Tiny had provided us phones, but neither us felt comfortable using them for anything but work since it was a company provided thing. I guess if she didn’t turn up in the morning, I would have to call that number.
Eventually I forced myself to lay down, staring at the ceiling fan while listening to the distant sounds of motorcycle engines as they came and went into the night.
I didn’t sleep. Not really that was. I considered it more of a dozing on and off.
Lyric made her way home around four in the morning. Climbing in bed she smelled like smoke and man’s cologne. She didn’t say a word. Neither did I.
It didn’t take her long to fall asleep. I sat up and watched her.
She smiled.
In all the chaos of leaving home and the things she left behind, here in a run-down hotel room, engrossed in a whole new life, she smiled a genuine expression of the peace she found.
And suddenly in her peace, I found my own drifting into the deepest sleep I had since we left Montana.
6
MELODY
One Month Later
