The Girls Club (7 page)

Rochelle poured into the seat beside her.  She was nearly dozing when they left the carpark, “Oy, I don’t know where you live mate”
I also don’t really know how to drive you there either but I gotta start somewhere.

So she got directions.  This way.  That way.  Left here.  Left after that sign.  Her mind was ultra alert, not one inch of concentration diverted from driving.  The office gopher was smiling quite largely at her, the crazy Brit, all but hanging over the wheel craning to see every inch of tarmac like it could fly away at any moment.

Giggling from the seat beside her.

“What’s so bloody funny?” Karen asked through her smile.

“You drive funny too!” and then she was laughing, making ouch noises because her split lips were pulling wider.

They were still both giggling when she pulled into the basement car park of the block where Rochelle lived.

Her companion moved on auto pilot and took Karen’s arm.

Here we go again.

How easily she went from leader to led.

Its because she knows the way stupid.

In the lift Rochelle was touching her lip lightly and making ‘hiss’ noises, “Thanks” she said finally.

“No problem” Karen liked the way those words made her feel, like a good job well done.  Saying them made her feel courageous.

“Ok” she opened her apartment door and led Karen inside.

“You want me to make something to eat?”

“You sure? You don’t have to”

“You kidding? You’ve never had my cooking before, you’ll love it! Brit food coming up”

Karen dug through the fridge and found eggs, ham and cheese and set to make an omelette.

What a strange arse day.  Again!  Is this your life now.  Lesbian sex.  Office politics and back room bonks.  Car park brawls.  Under wraps?

A frown passed across her face.  There and gone again.  Her life was suddenly full of difference and interest.  Whatever came her way she’d deal with it.  A ‘can do’ kinda person was Karen.

Rochelle came back through to the living area dressed in flannel pj’s.

“Veeeeeeeery nice” Karen advised, a chefs hat perched jauntily on her head, spatula in hand.

“At least I got pj’s”

“Bag!”

“What bag?”

Karen burst out laughing.

“No. Bag! Like baggage, nasty bag, horrible bag. It’s a name you call someone like ‘cow’ where I come from.”

“Funny, funny, funny”

“It’s a term of affection” and she instantly regretted putting it that way.  She hardly knew the girl, she went back to her eggs and Rochelle went to put the TV on.

When she was done they ate the eggs and Rochelle yawned expansively.

“You going to sleep on the couch” more statement than question again.

“Yeah. Try and get a good nights sleep eh?”

“Night Karen”

And then Rochelle bent over to kiss her goodnight.  As naturally as she had often seen her dad kiss her mum goodbye when he went off at night to drive his taxi.  She accepted the kiss,
love your friends,
wasn’t such a bad credo to live by. 

TV had gone a long way to further exasperate Karen.  A lot of it was satirical.  It didn’t make sense to her.  When she found a channel playing Futurama for the next three hours she was in hog heaven.  Sleep was far from coming.  It felt like that would be a failing in duty.  It wouldn’t do.  As absurd as it sounded.

At 4:20 am there was a thump, thump, thump at the door.  Her nerves were red alert in a nanosecond.  No friend thumped like that in the middle of the night.

Call Sarah!

At this time? 

She’d said hadn’t she?

But what if it wasn’t Demi?  What if was a totally different kind of visitor?

You mean Minnie perhaps?

She went to peek through the spy hole.  Instantly a fist flew into her line of sight.  An angry looking brunette with bloody knuckles was popping away at the door.

“Karen?” Rochelle called from her room.

No problem?

Fucking too right there was no problem.

“Call Sarah. I got this” anger that she’d felt all day began to re-surface at this small hour in the middle of the night.  The split lip.  How mad had it really made her?

She felt like she had to tell Demi that she had done a cowardly thing slapping Rochelle around.  Rochelle wasn’t the size of a bag of chips and this grated on her.  Bullies were cowards.  Karen had slung a few punches in her time.  Maybe she could make her mark right here and now by cleaning this Demi’s clock.

She opened the door.

“What the fuck bitch? Where is the little skank!” and she was pushed to one side.

Oh you stupid cow, if she messes with Rosh after you’re ‘sposed to be looking after her you’re going to look like a proper let down to the guys.

She grabbed after her and caught the cloth of her jacket.  The woman was like a viper, she turned to throw a punch at Karen, she ducked and double pumped a fist into her ribs.  Demi woofed air appreciably and Rosh stared wide eyed from the doorway of her room.

Get her out!

That sounded like a good idea.  She had an arm, unfortunately not the right one, a fist crashed into the side of her head.  Stars bloomed and she could hear ringing.

Open the door.  Let her in.  Master plan anyone?

Karen never lost her grip, she still had two fingers in the fabric of her jacket, Demi hissed like a scalded cat and flailed an arm at Rosh. 

“Shut your door!”

“NO! COME HERE YOU FUCKIN’ WASTE! COME HERE, FIGHT ME YOU FUCKIN’ SLUT!”

It sounded like someone was in the corridor dialling the police. Karen made her mission of the next few minutes just to hang on to this she-devil.

Using her body weight she slung Demi back against the wall, Demi spat in her face, on instinct Karen butted her.  Had she known the outcome of such an action she would have done it sooner.  Demi slumped down to the floor, blood flowing from both nostrils.

Her head still ringing she stuck her head into the other room to see if her new found colleague was ok, “Sarah’s on her way. She’s bringing the girls”

Oh-er.  Bringing the girls eh?

What where they, gangsters or fucking lawyers?  She found she didn’t care at this point, she dragged Demi into the living area.

Rosh stepped out into the hallway and Karen heard murmured words, ‘
its ok’, ‘thanks for your concern’, ‘night now’.

She had dispatched the onlooker back to their apartment, she left the apartment door ajar when she came back in.  Karen was hunting through drawers for some kind of binding material.

“
OHH! You’re bleeding!” Rochelle exclaimed.

She touched her head, blood on her fingers.  This bitch had swung hard!  She had fucked her chance now with the Chain altogether though.  Of that Karen was deadly sure. 

“Its alright. Got anything I can take care of this with?”

She handed her some strapping tape from the cupboard under the sink.

Why didn’t I think of that?

She flipped Demi over.  She was a pretty girl indeed.  Rugged.  Dark hair.  Frightful shame she was an utter bitch.  Hooking her wrists together she ran the tape round them a few times.  As an after thought she ran it round her ankles as well.

“You done this before?”

Karen laughed, “No. Never. But I’m doing a lot just lately I’ve never done before”

Karen went into the kitchen area and wet a dishcloth to put on the bump she felt rising.  Rochelle put a mirror under Demi’s face to see if she was still breathing.

“I didn’t hit her
that
hard!” Karen grinned, how silly did Rochelle look, like a vet in a field trying to determine if a sheep was dead or not.

“Girls” In molten tones came from the doorway.

They both turned to regard their boss.  Resplendent regardless of the hour, they responded to her presence with an deep ache in their hearts.  Flanking her where three decidedly ‘beefy’ girls.  Without a word they came in, picked the unconscious Demi up from the floor and carted her off.  Sarah stepped the rest of the way in and closed the door behind her.

“Well. Busy night girls”

“Yeah” Rochelle looked haggard in the lamp light thrown from her bedroom.

“Lumps for you?” she asked Karen.  Her head had been forgotten for the minute.  She had been quite distracted.  In her mind there was only the two of them.  She was asking Sarah just how much she’d like to be her more permanent companion. 

“Karen?”

“Er. Yeah.” grinning like an idiot.

“Why in the blue blazes did you open the door?”

Tell her the truth.

“I wanted to smack her. She’s nothing better than a bully, she was bashing the door up, drawing attention”

Sarah smiled approvingly at this.

“Karen was like, pow! Take that, and that! Pow!” Rosh was giving a caricature play by play.  Giddy by the man-handling and the late hour no doubt.

Maybe she’s just glad Demi didn’t get her hands on her, which could have happened by the way seeing as you let her in.

“Well it was foolish. You were both at risk then, we have ways of dealing with these things, it doesn’t include going it alone. Why should you when you have your friends?”

And she felt stupid then.  Part of being in a club meant having your buddies back you up.  Karen was going to have to learn to rely on the network.

“Well girls. The hour runneth late. Get some shut-eye. It’ll be time to get to work soon enough” Both girls groaned at this.

Sarah smiled at them both, “You didn’t think you’d get more time off did you? I’m still a blood sucking lawyer with a planet to run”

They were still laughing when she let herself out.

“Nice lady” Karen said.

“Yeah” Rosh sighed.

“Listen. Come sleep in the bed. I promise I won’t get up to dickens.”

And Karen didn’t think she was lying.  That was how for the second time in her life she ended up in bed next to a hot woman.  Just before her wandering mind let go entirely she laughed.  ‘Only in LA’ had flashed through her mind. 

Halfway round the world.  That’s all.  Find peace.  Strength.  Friends.  Love?

And the thoughts followed her down into a short but deep dream.  She had the distinct feeling she was Rocky Balboa.  She was definitely in a boxing ring and the crowds of people watching were all women.  There were jeering faces, smiling faces, a few winks.  Her opponent had so far kept a back to her, the opponent was wearing a green silk hooded top with gold piping.

Ding!
Her opponent shucked the hoody top off and turned to face her,
it was Sarah Steiger!

“Love your friends…let’s ROCK!”

And as Sarah loomed large in her field of vision she looked down and saw that rather than being clad in boxing gloves, her hands were tied at the wrists.

She called out,
“Hey! Hey, lemme out, OI, OI!”

POW!

The dream disappeared.  And while she didn’t remember the contents of it much during the following day she had a nagging sense of unease about the early morning events she had been part of.  Demi?  Where was she now and what about the ’beef brigade’ that had marched off with her? 

“Karen. Come through. I’ve got something that needs to go to Preston’s” A lead ball filled her stomach.  She thought perhaps some kind of Gay APB had been put out on her.  That she had shown red against one of theirs and they would have at her when she showed her face.

Dig these interesting times we’re living in my friend.

Shit fire.

Tap, tap.

“Come in”

Ask her.

Sarah looked at her openly though, disarmingly.

“You don’t have to worry you know.”

“Me. Nah”

“What happened earlier is of no consequence now. Sit down a minute”

She went over and sat at the big chair in front of Sarah like a naughty school girl.

“Cigar?”

“No. Thank you, I quit smoking”

“Oh yes, I remember you saying.” she stuck one on her own mouth and chewed it a moment.

“Hmm. The thing with Demi has been going on a while. It was inevitable that it would come to some grisly conclusion”

GRISLY!?!

“Rosh did her bit, Demi didn’t. Demi could never handle our equivalent of the office  ‘dork’ stopped her from getting on. Demi wanted to be a top scorer and although given time she could have made her way again she decided to get nasty about it.”

Ask her where she is.

“Demi has been shown the error of her ways”

!?!

“Its safe to say we won’t be seeing any more of her round here.”

The lead ball that had been sat in her stomach had rolled downwards and now seemed to be crushing her bladder.  She couldn’t warrant what she was hearing.  It was like, well, gangsters, ruffians,
‘won’t be seeing any more of her round here’
, sounded pretty fucking final.