KING(9)

I opened my fist and grabbed his balls, squeezing them with all the strength I could manage.

“You bitch!” he yelled out.

Releasing me, he dropped to his knees in the grass. Hands cupped over his privates, he fell onto his side and raised his thighs to his chest. I raced up the steps that led into the house.

“You f*cking bitch! You’re going to f*cking pay for that!” he called as I disappeared into the house sliding past a ton of party-goers. I took the first set of stairs I came across and ran all the way up to the third story. I tried the handle of several closed doors down a narrow hallway, but they were all locked. It wasn’t until I was almost to the end of the hall when one finally gave.

I hadn’t even taken a step inside when I quickly realized the room may have been dark, but it wasn’t empty.

A smattering of neon paint on the walls made the room look like as if it were glowing. I couldn’t see much in the way of features, but I could make out two bodies in the center of the room. At first glance it looked as if someone was standing behind another person who was lying down. It took me a second to register it, but after I did, there was no mistaking what it was I’d walked in on.

Skin slapping against skin. Moaning. The smell of sweat and something else I couldn’t quite place. It seemed like hours I’d been standing there, but in reality it wasn’t more than a few seconds. I should’ve turned around and closed the door the instant I realized the room was occupied, but I couldn’t tear myself away from the scene playing out in front of me.

A magnetic pair of eyes locked onto mine. Under the artificial lights, they glowed bright green. The man stared right through me and much to my surprise he didn’t blink or look away. Faster and faster, his hips slammed against hers. His eyes bore into mine as he thrust over and over again. When he closed his eyes and threw back his head with a long throaty groan, our connection was severed.

The man collapsed onto the girls back and released his grip from her throat. He’d been strangling her? She was moaning when I first walked in on them, and then she had fallen silent.

Dead silent.

I quickly remembered I had feet and closed the door, fleeing back down the stairs. I hid beside the water heater under the house, beside all the cars and bikes, where I sat for over an hour, running the gravel through my hands and hoping to come to terms with the shitty direction my life was heading in. As much as I wanted to take off into the night and run I couldn’t go far, my overwhelming fear of the dark held me captive at the house where I may have just witness a murder, but it least I could find light.

Fear had seriously f*cked with my priorities.

It was that fear, as well as my growling stomach and light-headedness that reminded me of why I was there in the first place.

Basic survival.

I am desperate, and desperate people don’t have the luxury of options.

I sucked in a deep breath. I had to do what I had to do, even if I didn’t exactly know what that was. I mean, I knew the mechanics of it. But my brain was like a car with the mileage turned back to zero. A clean slate that I was about to make filthy dirty.

I may have been homeless and starving, but I was determined to get myself off of the streets and into a real life someday. A life with a soft bed and clean sheets. Once I didn’t have to worry about my safety or my stomach, I could focus on finding out the truth about who I really was.

I made a promise to push through the here and now and do what needed to be done, then I would never think about this time ever again. It would be a small spot on the radar of my life that I vowed I would never dwell on.

I stood up and brushed myself off and began my internal pep talk. I was going to do this. I was going to make it. I was going to have to fake like I knew what I was doing, like I wasn’t afraid, but pretending like I wasn’t scared shitless wasn’t something new for me, I’d done it every single day since I woke up with no idea of who I was.

I would be a biker whore because it was what I needed to be. I would be a tightrope walker if that’s what it took to stay alive.

With newfound determination, I walked back around to the bonfire, grabbed a beer out of the cooler, and cracked it open. The cool liquid lubricated my dry scratchy throat. I darted around from biker to biker and the girls who had their attention. I found myself particularly interested in a girl straddling the lap of a biker who must have outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds.

It was the look on her face I was intrigued by. The smile she wore that said your dick would feel great jammed down my throat. I mimicked her demeanor, and hoped it was enough to get the attention of someone who would take an interest in me.