Wind Therapy - A.J. Downey Page 0,7
their depths which she quickly quelled when my eyes met hers.
“What?” she finally asked when I didn’t say anything right away.
“We get in there; the guys and I are going into another room to talk. You don’t bother us for anything in that room. We’ll be out when we get out,” I told her.
She nodded. “Before you even ask, we’re clear. Crystal clear.”
I smiled. “Atta girl.”
We went in and the three remaining guys from the Eastern Washington chapter looked up from the table they all sat around.
“My boys and I are going to avail ourselves of your chapel for a moment. This is Marisol. She’ll be accompanying us back over the mountains. For all intents and purposes, she’s mine for the time being so keep it aboveboard if you don’t mind.”
“Cool, yeah, yeah,” Goner said, tipping back his chair like some high school kid rather than the dude in his thirties, or maybe even forties that he was. Goner was short for Gonorrhea, as in he had an eye for and fucked entirely too many skeezy hos back when he was a young buck and kept coming up with the clap. As far as I knew, he kept his dick clean now, but I didn’t want to chance him or anyone else thinkin’ Marisol was fair use among us.
These guys, if they ended up coming over the mountains with us, still weren’t from our chapter. Every chapter operated somewhat differently and ours, shall I say, was definitely more liberal than a lot of the other chapters in the area. We adhered to slightly different tenants, and I could tell my guys were dying to know what the fuck I was up to where Marisol was concerned. While we had the ability to pay for things like pussy if we wanted to, and there wasn’t anything wrong with sex work or sex workers – they knew it wasn’t my jam and this smacked just a little too much of human trafficking even for my liking.
Truth of the matter? I was probably projecting. The guys were probably curious, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were thinking any kind of ill of me. They were likely just waiting to hear me out on my reasoning. Trouble was, I wasn’t exactly sure my reason on this. Sometimes I just ran on instinct, and my instinct was there was a lot more to the pretty little Latina than met the eye. I had a gut feeling there was a lot more than good sex to be had, if she was on board for it that is. I didn’t do shit without consent. I wasn’t a fuckin’ rape-o piece of shit.
I followed my boys into the chapel, Marisol wandering the edges of the room, curious eyes roaming over pictures, plaques, and other sundry items tacked to the walls. There was a wall of proudly displayed mugshots of members current and past and she let her eyes rove the photographs with their printed list of charges below them on proud display.
I shut the door behind me and my guys and turned. Fenris, Squatch, Deacon, and Cipher all looked at me.
“We’re taking girls as payment now?” Deacon asked and I could tell he was on the struggle bus with his morals.
“It was a snap decision,” I said. “Something in her eyes just about every time we rolled on up through there was tellin’ me she wanted out but couldn’t get out on her own.”
“Just what do you plan on doing with her?” Cipher asked.
“I have no fucking idea. Probably have her cook and clean my place – something, I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. I always do.”
“She’s pretty,” Squatch observed carefully.
“If she’s down to fuck then I’d go there, but definitely not without her consent and I damn sure am planning on making it crystal clear that I didn’t ‘buy’ her with that intent.” I put ‘buy’ in air quotes where it belonged.
“Maybe she’s got family on our side of the mountains,” Deacon mused, pulling on his bottom lip.
“Maybe,” I agreed. “I’ll look into it.”
“She was pretty eager to volunteer as tribute,” Fenris said and the guys all glanced at each other. We hadn’t even bothered to sit down or really take up any places around the table. I sat on the corner of the table, bracing one boot against the cracked and unfinished cement floor.
“Glad you noticed that,” I said. “Something is off in that camp, but I couldn’t tell you what and while I’ll ask