The Bare Bones (The Bare Bones MC) (17 page)

“No,” said Ford. He’d been in Juvie as a kid which he knew didn’t come close. He’d been there for murder, but still, it was Juvie, not the big house.

“Yes,” said Turk. He’d served a year in Kingman on a weapons charge, a game-changer for a man as beautiful as him.

“Well, let me tell you. It’s no late night guest spot. And I never narked about anything to anyone, even if it meant someone was going to pop it in my toaster. No offense.”

Why was Slushy apologizing to Turk? Ford was distracted from further questions when the phone in his hand buzzed—a text. Ford read it, but it didn’t make any sense to him, so he showed it to Slushy. When understanding dawned on Slushy’s face, it wasn’t the good kind.

Slushy threw the phone back at Ford. He screwed up his one remaining good eye and whined. “God fucking dammit! What sort of karma am I paying back? Why, God, why? I knew I never should’ve played doctor with that neighbor girl, or stolen those Ding Dongs from Raley’s, or skimmed off the top of Ochoa’s meth-making business!”

“Wait,” said Ford calmly. “What was that?”

Slushy really did look like a giant baby. Someone had made a bow of the drawstring at the waist of his sweatpants, and had the sense of humor to give him a powder pink T-shirt. “Laura Groper! She wasn’t really into it, so I know I forced myself on her! My father was a doctor so I stole his stethoscope and—”

“Not the playing doctor part.” Ford was running out of patience. “That last bit, about skimming off Ochoa’s meth profits.” That could be the key to why Cropper wanted this guy so badly. He could have a shitload of cash stashed somewhere.

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Slushy dabbed at his upper lip with the tissue. He was slumped over, utterly forlorn, his tennis shoes dangling out of the high truck cab. “I took some off the top. No one ever noticed, so I took some more. The feds didn’t even get me for
that
part. I was nabbed under RICO just for working for Ochoa. Nothing specific they nailed me on, which is why I only did six months.”

“What does the text mean?” Ford turned to Turk. “It says to go down to a place called Hardscrabble Ranch and get a key from a Soledad Jonas. Where’s this ranch, Slushy? Wild Man, get the man a beer.”

They always kept a cooler for emergencies in the back, so Wild Man vanished out the driver’s door.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Slushy kicked his feet aimlessly. “It’s just a ranch, down south.”

“You’ll have to be more specific,” said Ford.

“It’s a ranch in Nogales. Guys, why can’t we just invest in laser tag? It’s the wave of the future. Look at all the up sides to it. Clean, simple, not much overhead, why, the profit potential is outstanding! You’ll need control stations and phaser packs—”

“We already have an archery range for that,” said Turk. “Why do we want to get a key from this Jonas woman, Slushy?”

Slushy kicked his feet some more and gladly chugged half the beer Wild Man handed him. He wiped his mouth on his forearm. “Oh, I don’t know. A tunnel.”

Turk and Ford looked at each other openmouthed. Ford said, “A
tunnel?”
Nogales was on the Mexican border.

They looked back to Slushy. He was obviously not eagerly anticipating revisiting this Hardscrabble Ranch. He seemed as depressed as a sloth on speed, and Ford couldn’t blame him. He’d probably thought he was home free when he’d served his sentence. “Yeah, a tunnel,” he said reluctantly.

“As in, a tunnel under the ground?”

“Yes. That sort.” Slushy chugged the rest of the beer.

Brightening up, Ford and Turk shared happier looks.

“Well, then,” said Turk, slapping Slushy on the arm. “Let’s go.”

Ford said, “Hey, look on the bright side. You’re out of the joint. You’re with us. Nothing will happen to you when you’re with us.”

Slushy was still sullen. His swollen lower lip made him look petulant. “Why do I doubt that very much, judging from the looks of you?”

MADISON

I
was going to the worst and most glorious place in the world, and I didn’t even know it yet.

You probably don’t believe that I didn’t see any deceit coming from a mile off. You must think I’m the biggest most gullible doofus on the planet to have agreed to Cropper’s deal.

I needed to save my brother. A week of my own servitude seemed like a feeble price to pay for saving Speed from an entire year of it.

Cropper also appealed to my professional integrity. Examining a bunch of sluts would be for the betterment of mankind.

For one, I didn’t think they were going to take my phone and car keys away. I protested how was I going to get down to the lab, but Cropper solved that problem by having Ziggy chauffeur the blood and piss samples down with my authorization. Positive chlamydia results were rampant, making me worry about the state of Ford and therefore me, but that’s a different story.

Getting the women to stop having sex for a week was another. I couldn’t force the antibiotics on them, and I had to appeal to the men, especially as potential carriers, to refrain for a week.

That was probably the last nail in my coffin, telling the men to refrain. There was an enormous wave of protests that first day.

Riker protested the loudest. “Crop, why the hell’d you bring her in here if she’s just going to tell us to stop burying our bones?” Riker stopped suddenly and chuckled to himself. “Well, I
know
why you brought her here. But it’s the
principal.
”

What did Riker mean by that? The old WWII hangar was getting mighty claustrophobic by the end of the second day. There were two wings of offices on either side of the hangar proper, both accessed by flights of stairs. The views of the red rocks out the plentiful windows were enough to make you weep with religious ecstasy.

The juxtaposition of the degradation and sloth going on inside the rooms against the backdrop of the confectionary layers of the red buttes was something to behold. One wing was for private—if you could call it that—activity, the other for business. So there’d be a couple of guys daisy chaining with a sweetbutt while smoking a hookah and in the background there’s this blazingly brilliant Biblical sunset going on. I could see why artists came to P&E.

I mostly stayed in the private wing, with many trips across the hangar to give full reports to Cropper in his office, seemed like every hour on the hour. It was during one of these trips the second day that I began to have misgivings about my decision.

I was about to leave when Cropper commanded, “Face me.” Standing, he came around the front of his desk, looking me up and down like he wanted to wear my legs as a scarf.

I’d purposefully worn a sweater dress with no buttons up the front. I’d realized too late that the only bras I possessed were the push-up ones I’d loved to taunt Ford with.

So what does Cropper do? “I don’t like this dress.” He whipped his knife from its scabbard and sliced a new neckline in my dress! Of course the new neckline began just a few inches above my belly button and ended in the jagged tear of the knit fabric at my Adam’s apple. My abundant tits spilled out, and Cropper beamed with pride at his work. Of course I shrank back and held the split halves of my bodice together.

“What’s wrong with you? We agreed no touching.”

“Am I touching?” Cropper’s smile never quit. “Is it wrong of me to want some better scenery while I work? You’ve got an amazing pair of jugs, Cookie.”

I didn’t like Cropper calling me Cookie. He’d overheard Ford call me that, our private joke on him accidentally calling me “sugar cookie” that day in the pool. In Ford’s mouth it sounded divine. Coming from Cropper, as with everything else he said, it just sounded lewd and deviant.

Holding my own tits somehow wasn’t any less suggestive than just letting them jut out of my torn dress. “You promised me no perverted stuff.”

“Did I? I don’t think I promised anything like that. Why would I promise to alter my entire personality for a worthless slut?”

“If I’m such a worthless slut why are you always pursuing me?”

He smiled crookedly. “Isn’t that my favorite type?” The smile vanished abruptly. “Listen. You’re going to have to follow my rules if you want to make it through this week. Otherwise your beloved brother is going to be lying in his apartment with no food or money and unable to go get any more ‘cause he smashed up his pretty ride. So listen good, bitch. Put your hands against that wall.”

“Why?”

“Did I tell you to ask questions? We don’t like it when sweetbutts ask questions, or have you not noticed that?”

“Maybe that’s why they don’t want to tell you when they’ve got cottage cheese oozing from their slits. You’re so uninterested in them, they know you don’t care. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

Cropper looked thoughtful. “Matter of fact, I
am
. And it’s not wise to argue with a man holding a buck knife. Now up against that wall.”

He was right. How could I argue with that knife? After all, what had I really expected of this bunch of depraved sinners? They took
pride
in their perversions, and it wasn’t really likely Cropper would let me just doctor a few sweetbutts to reinstate Speed in his rightful spot in their twisted hierarchy.

I had known it wasn’t going to be as easy as the TV Guide crossword puzzle. Cropper was an arrogant, willful ass who always got his own way. He’d already told me not to tell Ford that I was spending a week here. Ford had gone to the prison in Florence to retrieve some lawyer who was going to work for the club, taking Turk and Wild Man, the only other two members with a bit of human emotion. Faux Pas was all right, some sort of French Canadian special effects man who created zombies and other gore-riddled creatures for film. He got his bloody ideas from real life experience, and he was such a horndog he seemed to have a permanent hard-on. There was talk it might be a medical condition.

As a nurse and a formerly abused child, I knew how to grit my teeth and bear a lot of things. I had to call upon those talents now as Cropper, predictably, kicked my feet apart as I leaned on my hands against the wall. Predictably, he raised my dress salaciously over my ass and ran his hand over my glute.

“Perfect,” he sighed. “Juicy and slappable.”

I made one last feeble attempt. “You promised no touching.”

He had a ready answer. “Since when does the Bare Bones Prez keep his word? If I did that I’d be out of business.”
Slap
.
Slap. Slap.
“Mm. Might give even more resistance and make a louder sound if I did
this
.”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I didn’t even breathe as he sliced through the flimsy panty material as though it were butter. A rush of air cooled my vagina, and his next few slaps hit me right on the sensitive outer labia.

“This’ll show you,” he oozed, “how to deny me my God-given right to molest my son’s old lady. You thought you’d stop me from feeling these plump, juicy titties? I know you never told Torino what happened between us, so I figured you were ashamed. Good. Be ashamed. You should be. Letting me watch you shower, knowing I was behind the wall watching you tickling your taco all those times? You should be ashamed of yourself. Ah. Nice fat knobs.”

As you can tell, he was squeezing my bare tits by now, so he must’ve put down the knife. There wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it. He was so lost in his own arrogance, he had no clue that the only reason I’d never told Ford was to avoid a fresh murder. I knew Ford had committed murder as a teen and I knew it had something to do with Cropper, so it was likely he might do it again, if enraged enough. Ford wasn’t famous for controlling his temper. None of them were. Cropper had been smart to send Ford off on that errand that anyone else probably could’ve done. How hard was it to drive a lawyer back to P&E?

So I held my breath until all I saw was the rosy glow of sheer anger. Cropper had broken my nose back in Cottonwood when he’d bashed my face against that garage wall. I’d seen him hit my mother a few times, although I did nothing to stop it, since she always hit me. Cropper wouldn’t hesitate to use force again. He could always tell Ford I’d fallen down or whatever. Now I held my breath and tried to imagine something pleasant as Cropper slapped my vagina and mauled my breasts.

At first I automatically thought of Ford. I didn’t want to associate him with this warped act, so I erased his image from my mind’s eye and thought of surgeries instead. I was always calm, almost sublime during surgeries, in complete control. That’s why I liked it. I could control the outcome. From a chaotic childhood where absolutely nothing was guaranteed and disaster lurked around every corner, I went into a field where we controlled everything with our tiniest action.

So that day I thought about balloon angioplasties. I loved the godlike, life-or-death feeling of moving the coronary guide wire through the artery. What a superior, controlling feeling.

Cropper was muttering perverted stuff as he “punished” me for being such a slut back in the day. I found I could remove myself, take myself so out of the scene that I almost felt like I was floating above it all, somewhere up near the ceiling. I felt as though I were looking down on the scene, watching Cropper alternately spank and then feel my white, now reddened, ass.