Bad to the Bones(33)
Oh, I might want to, all right. I was already planning on asking Maddy to download one of his videos. “I remembered one time Shakti shouting that I needed to be an obedient wife while encouraging Bodhisattva to bang me, like a football coach. I remembered him yelling, ‘Anyone who is in a positon of authority to you, you have to surrender to. Even if you know you are right, you have to surrender. Only if you are ready to drop your ego, your judgments, your intellect, can you gain enlightenment.’ Yelling that he would shape me, mold me into the perfect servant. Well, I never caved. I wasn’t moldable. I never truly gained this ‘enlightenment’ he claimed I would reach. I tried pretending I had, but I don’t think I ever did. He matched me with Bodhisattva because he feared and also belittled women. That was supposed to goad me into enlightenment.”
Rolling his eyes, Knoxie stepped behind me. Turning me to face the astounding beauty of the faraway mesas, he wrapped his arms around me. A shiver so strong it brought tears to my eyes traveled up and down my back. I twisted one hand around so I could touch the leather cuff around one of his wrists. His torso was like a warm granite slab. His breath feathered my ear, sending another wave of shivers down my neck, tightening my nipples against the flimsy cotton fabric of my nightgown.
“We were just talking about you at the clubhouse. Why don’t you move to The Citadel for protection, Bellamy? You could work as a wrench, with your skills. You could just do the Harleys and let Speed concentrate on the construction equipment. How does that sound? You’d get an hourly salary, of course, just like Speed, comparable to a union job.”
It actually sounded like a f*cking dream come true. Obviously, I’d never been paid up at Bihari. I dared to squirm slightly against Knoxie. I had no idea what I was doing. Maybe some of my teenaged tactics were coming back to me. Maybe I was remembering that I could be attractive, that I could be a tease, that I actually had powers of seduction. I don’t know. It had been so long since I had been made to feel like a desirable lady. I was probably doing it all wrong. But I wanted to literally get a rise out of Knoxie. “That sounds perfect, Knoxie. I’d like that, I really would. I remember Speed from the old days. He used to chase me around up in the buttes, try to kiss me.”
“Hmph. Did he?”
“No way. He was my friend’s brother. That was too much like incest for me. I remember swimming at Madison’s house, and Speed pushing us off the roof and into the pool. You know how childish boys can be. They mature later than girls. He used to make some killer bongs out of carburetor parts, though. And he used to love to make up words. He wasn’t very literate—none of us were, aside from Maddy—but he was good verbally.”
“Mm.” I know Knoxie was making a sound of agreement, but just that one tiny movement of air against my ear, and my * actually tingled. I couldn’t believe it. I was actually sexually attracted to Knoxie. Maybe it was because he was my savior. Nothing wrong with that. “He always says ‘gorklock.’ A gorklock is a cager on the highway who goes too slow and prevents you from passing.”
I giggled. My laughter had my tits jiggling nearly against his forearm. He had a beautiful swirly biomechanical tattoo there, as though his arm had been slashed open to reveal an engine’s pistons, cogs and belts. It was achingly gorgeous, and I wanted one for myself. “He always rode around in his little putt-putt Suzuki with dings in the tank and fairing until Ford’s dad got him a decent Harley. He was one of the first guys I saw on a Harley. He gained a lot of respect for that.”
“Mm.” Knoxie inhaled, as though breathing in my scent. His mouth was so close to my ear every sound vibrated my core. A trickle of itchy juice bloomed between my * lips. Without thinking, I slightly swayed my hips against him. It was then I realized with a delighted and terrifying shock, He’s got a hard-on. I was rubbing the globes of my ass against a stiff rod!
He must have realized the same thing. Inhaling in shock, he abruptly broke the arm lock he had around my waist. He stepped back from me as I turned to face him. He was wiping his face with his palm as though to erase his previous expression.
“Well, yeah,” he said seriously. “Have you thought about why you were booted from the compound? You now admit it was no accident, right?”
I hadn’t meant to scare him away. But he was right. I was in no way ready for any sort of sexual relationship, with him or anyone. I had some deep-seated shit I needed to work through first. It would be stupid to immediately start boinking when that was the origin of my trauma to begin with, right? I sighed. “Yeah, I admit they did it on purpose. They knew what they were doing.” I hesitated, looking instead at the farthest layer of canyon sediment to be revealed by the sun’s rays. The top layer was a black basalt cap, I remembered, laid down eons ago by primeval seas and lava flows. We’d be a lot closer to Flagstaff right now, worn away by erosion, were it not for that lava cap.
I was mentally rambling to avoid thinking of the answer to Knoxie’s question. Clearing my throat, I said, “My little sister turned up pregnant.” I shrugged. “I had the nerve to protest and, well…I guess they don’t deal so well with protestors.”
When I finally looked back to Knoxie, he was slack-jawed with shock. I shrugged again and meandered down the railing, trailing my finger along the iron bar. As though I could care less. Really, I had made a big stink about it. I did not know that Shakti—or whoever else—was penetrating Ginny. She was a chosen one in name only. She lived at Wang Cho House with me, but I’d never witnessed her participating in any of that so-called therapy. She’d never told me about any chakra healing or what have you.