Tainted Rose (11 page)

She felt like crying but she knew that it would do no good. It wouldn’t help. Serge was obviously trying to make like she was his girl for the day and it might hurt his ego if she made a scene. He might get mad. She didn’t want that. What had happened to Jérôme’s face could just as easily happen to hers.

They seemed to be waiting for something and a few minutes later she learned what it was. The president of the Val-d’Or chapter, a real tough biker in his early sixties that went by the name of Deuce came to the door of the office at the far side of the room and called Serge over. Serge left her alone at the bar and went into the office.

Rose sipped her beer and waited. The two guys at the pool table paid her no mind and continued with their game.

She looked across the bar at Fat Boy and saw that he was leering at her suggestively. He put his two fingers up to his mouth and stuck his tongue out between them, mimicking the action of licking a woman’s pussy.

“Fuck you,” Rose said.

Fat Boy just laughed. “Fuck me?” he said tauntingly, “fuck me?”

“Yeah,” Rose said, “fuck you, Fat Boy.”

Fat Boy just laughed. He went back to washing glasses but he kept looking up at Rose, suggestively running his tongue over his lips, winking at her, making kissing motions with his lips.

While most members of the club would be too scared to flirt with Serge’s girl, it seemed that Fat Boy got a kick out of it. He liked to live dangerously. Two years ago when he’d snuck into her room and raped her, he would have known that the president or vice-president was supposed to have the honor of first fuck. He’d got a kick out of living dangerously that night too. That was his thing. He wanted to touch what he wasn’t supposed to touch. Now he was doing it again. It excited him.

He came over to her and said under his breath, “Remember the time I showered you in cum?”

“You say another word like that to me and I’ll tell Serge,” she said.

Fat Boy just laughed. “Fuck that,” he said. “You think Serge gives a fuck what I say to you. If he liked you so much he wouldn’t have you turning tricks out at the Cat for a couple hundred bucks a week. You’re not Serge’s girl, you’re just a whore.”

Rose knew there was some truth in that. She knew that there was no way the vice-president would whore out his main girl, and Fat Boy and everyone else knew it too. The fact that she was a dancer out at the Cat meant that no one gave a shit about her, no one was laying claim to her, least of all Serge. It also meant that any member of the club who wanted her could just take her.

But Serge had been getting so jealous lately that there was no telling how he might react. He was unpredictable. He’d been acting out of character, doing things he wouldn’t ordinarily have done, like beating the crap out of paying customers at his strip clubs for one thing. That didn’t make a bit of sense. It would be one brave or foolish biker who decided to hit on the girl who’d rode in on the back of Serge’s bike.

“Maybe you haven’t heard,” she said to Fat Boy with as wicked a grin as she could muster, “but Serge had been getting pretty jealous lately.”

“That’s with customers you stupid cunt, he wouldn’t get jealous of one of his brothers.”

As if to prove his point, Fat Boy took a hold of Rose’s face and pulled her close to him. Then he stuck out his tongue and licked her across the mouth. It wasn’t a kiss, a kiss would have at least had some sort of dignity to it, he just licked her like a horrible animal.

Rose hated it. She hated the feeling of his wet, slippery tongue on her face. She also hated the memory that it brought back of that night in the motel. She cringed.

“See, you stupid bitch, I can do whatever the fuck I want to you. You’re club property, in case you haven’t noticed.”

She knew it was true. Any member of the club could take her, right then and there, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.

But she also knew that Serge had been going off the handle, getting wildly jealous for no good reason. He seemed to be sweet on her, at least today he did. It wasn’t like him to take a dancer from one of his bars into town with him. It had to mean something.

“Well, why don’t you prove it, you fat piece of shit,” she said to Fat Boy.

“What did you say?”

“If you can have me,” she said, “prove it. Take me. Right here on this bar, give me that long hard cock of yours. Give it to me good.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” Fat Boy said.

She knew she had him. She’d called his bluff. He was crazy but he wasn’t that crazy. If he tried to fuck a girl Serge had brought in he was likely to get his balls blown off with a shotgun.

“Come on, show me what a big boy you are, Fat Boy. Show me just how fat you really are. Fill me up with that special sauce.”

“You’ve lost it, you crazy cunt,” Fat Boy said.

He was afraid now. She could tell. If Serge came out of that office and saw this he might lose it.

Rose took Fat Boy’s hand and pulled it onto her chest. “You like these?” she said as she held Fat Boy’s hand on her breasts. “You want them?”

She looked into Fat Boy’s eyes and saw that he was genuinely panicked. He was afraid of Serge after all. He was all talk. No one could flirt with Serge’s girl and if she rode in on Serge’s bike, that made her his girl, at least until Serge made it clear that she wasn’t.

And then the office door opened and Serge came back out, holding a white package wrapped in paper.

“Hey,” he called out across the bar.

Rose and Fat Boy and the two members playing pool looked up.

“What the fuck are you doing with my bitch?” Serge called out to Fat Boy.

Fat Boy didn’t know what to say. He’d been caught with his hand on Rose’s chest. It served him right for being such a prick.

Before Fat Boy could even say anything, Serge was striding across the room. He slammed the package he was carrying down on the bar and then vaulted over it into the serving area.

“Serge,” Fat Boy said, holding his hands up in front of his face.

It didn’t do him any good. In a single, fluid motion, Serge was on top of Fat Boy.

Serge moved like an animal, a killer animal. He was fast and he knew exactly what he was doing. It was like he knew he couldn’t be hurt. He didn’t even think about that. He just got on top of whoever he set his sights on, moved like a cat and was on them. Before anyone even realized it, the fight was over. Serge never lost.

He had his fist in Fat Boy’s flabby face and in the same, fluid motion had his other hand on the back of Fat Boy’s head, his fingers gripping the thin, greasy hair. He brought Fat Boy’s face down into the solid wood of the bar, right in front of Rose. With his other hand he had a pint glass and it came crashing down on the back of Fat Boy’s head. Rose saw the glass perforate Fat Boy’s scalp.

“Apologize,” Serge said.

Fat Boy didn’t even know what was happening. He couldn’t understand how he had gotten himself into this situation so suddenly. He said nothing. His brain couldn’t work fast enough to tell him what to do.

“Apologize to this slut, right here, right now,” Serge said. “She came in with me you fat, stupid fuck. Didn’t you see that?”

“I’m sorry,” Fat Boy gasped but Serge was already looking across the room at the two members who were playing pool.

“Hey,” he said to them, “you two saw me come in with Rose, didn’t you?”

“Yes sir,” they both said.

“Well why the fuck didn’t you say something to Fat Boy here?”

They didn’t answer.

“You done apologizing?” he said to Fat Boy again.

“I’m sorry,” Fat Boy blurted out again.

Serge smacked his face against the bar and let Fat Boy’s limp body slide to the ground. Then he walked around the bar and picked up the paper package he’d brought from the office.

“Come on, bitch,” he called back to Rose. “Don’t make me come around there and get you.”

X

R
OSE FELT STRANGE GETTING ONTO
Serge’s bike behind him. Everything about him told her to detest him. He was violent, he was aggressive, and he’d captured her and forced her to work for his club as a stripper. She’d seen him beat that poor trucker’s face to a bloody pulp for absolutely no reason. Then he’d just smashed Fat Boy’s face in. She knew that was partially her fault but it didn’t change the fact that Serge was an out of control animal. He’d raped her. She’d been little more than a quivering mess on the floor of that booth the other night when he’d forced himself inside her and pleasured himself. He was the kind of man who she imagined probably couldn’t get it up unless some form of rape or violence was involved in the transaction.

Serge was a monster. She knew that. But she also knew that he was taking an interest in her. That was more than she’d had in a long time. She’d never wanted a man like Serge. Not ever. She liked tough guys, you couldn’t grow up around Montreal’s rough biker culture without having something for bad boys. She was attracted to biker guys. She liked the swagger, the confidence, the fact that they lived on the edge of the law. She was also attracted to the fact that they weren’t afraid to stand up to society for what they wanted to be. She knew that they often broke a few laws, fell foul of many of society’s standards, but she also knew that most of the bikers she’d grown up around were strong, brave men who lived and died by a certain code of honor.

She didn’t see any such code when she looked at Serge. He didn’t seem to live by the same standards as the men she’d grown up admiring. When she was a little girl, back when her father was still alive, she’d been impressed by the men he’d chosen to surround him with. Those men protected each other. They were true brothers. That was why it had hurt her so deeply when Rex Savage had betrayed that code by selling her out to the DRMC.

Serge and his crew seemed to be different. They didn’t serve each other. No bonds of brotherly loyalty seemed to hold them together. She could easily imagine Murdoch selling out Serge and the rest of the club if he thought he could get away with it. The only thing that seemed to keep DRMC members in line was fear.

Deuce was the worst of all. Rose had only heard the stories. She’d never even spoken to him. He spent most of his time down in Montreal, even though he was president of the Val-d’Or chapter. Rose didn’t really understand that but she was glad of it. From the stories she’d heard, she didn’t want Deuce to be getting too close to her. As far as she knew he’d never even been out to the Cat and she had every reason in the world to hope that never changed.

She got on the back of Serge’s bike and put her arms around his muscular waist and wondered if she could ever love a man like him. He was brutal, he was mean, and he was aggressive, but he was also strong. She needed someone to look after her. She needed someone to rescue her. She was dying where she was. She knew that if she was forced to spend too much longer alone with Murdoch at the Cat, stripping for five dollar tips in front of a bunch of truckers and loggers, she would completely lose herself. She wouldn’t be able to keep a hold of the person she was, of the person she wanted to be.

The question was, would she be able to keep a hold of that person if she was forcing herself to love a man like Serge? She knew she was getting ahead of herself. She knew that she didn’t even have much reason to think that Serge was going to make her his girl, but she still wondered what it would be like if he did.

Everything would change for her. She’d be
rescued
, in a manner of speaking. She supposed it wasn’t exactly rescuing if the man who’d captured her and put her into this slavery was the man who took her out of it. But at least her stint at the Cat would be over. She wouldn’t be fair game for any member of the club anymore. They wouldn’t be able to rape her whenever they felt like it. She could move into the town, live in Val-d’Or and have the respect, or fear, of the other women of the club. She might even be able to make a few friends. There must have been about fifteen club members in Val-d’Or. She could make friends with their girlfriends, maybe even start a family with Serge.

It wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t even what she wanted. She knew that her father would turn in his grave if he saw her end up with a guy like Serge. Serge was the type of man that her father had spent his life fighting against. If his grandchildren were going to be fathered by a man like that, it would be a cruel legacy. But then, her father never would have wanted her to be working as a stripper in a place like the Cat either, getting raped by Murdoch and Serge and the rest of the DRMC every chance they got.

If he’d still been alive, if he’d been there to do the job of protecting her, she wouldn’t have to make a decision like this. Maybe she didn’t have a choice anymore. Maybe it was simply a matter of survival now. She could either give in and shack up with a brute like Serge, or curl up and start the long, painful process of dying. She didn’t know anymore which was the worse fate.

*

T
HE AFTERNOON HAD WORN ON
and it was a little cooler now than it had been when they’d left the Cat in the morning. Spring might be coming but it hadn’t arrived yet, not by a long shot. Serge must have noticed because he gave Rose his helmet to wear.

He drove down the Rue des Pins in Val-d’Or and pulled up outside a timber-framed bungalow.

“Wait here,” he said to her.

He took the keys with him. She waited on the bike while he went into the house. She was holding the paper package that Deuce had given him earlier and she wondered what was in it.

When Serge came back out he had her full-leather body suit. It was the suit she’d been wearing when she’d rode up two years ago. As soon as she saw it her eyes teared up. She couldn’t believe it was still there. It was like a lifeline connecting her back to her past.

“Oh my God,” she said. “You kept this?”

“I thought you might be cold,” he said and handed it to her.

She lifted it up to her face and inhaled, breathing in the comforting, reassuring smell of the leather. Maybe this really was happening. Maybe Serge had decided to make her his girl.

She didn’t know if that was something that should have made her laugh for joy or shudder in the worst type of fear.