an unspoken law that those of higher stations don’t get too close with those of lower ranks, and it’s frowned upon for someone like me to even think of ending up with a man of lower standing. It just wouldn’t happen, and if anyone thought it might, the pastors would put a stop to it if the women didn’t do it first by shunning the offending parties.
I find Monica’s choice to become a club girl both intriguing and sad. Sad, because I have a feeling that both her and Pip would choose another path if things were different. Pip’s prospect status means he’s not a full member, but even if he was patched in, Monica’s status would hold him back. He’d be like a newly appointed Deacon pining after a stable girl. Their relationship would never be accepted by anyone, and it would damage the relationships they had with everyone else if those in positions of respect didn’t simply find ways to keep them apart. Both of them exist in a station that makes anything more than casual sex impossible.
Understanding of her situation hits home full force, and the ache in my heart makes me long to hug her. Thoughts of Spider flicker through my mind, and I shove them back, hating the longing that creeps in on me. Longing that shouldn’t even be there, and which I know is utterly futile.
Later, well after nightfall, I lie in Spider’s bed on my stomach, the blankets left off. I’m sleeping naked, and the cool air from the AC caresses my bare backside. I don’t like sleeping naked, but my backside still stings, and it’s even worse after sitting all day. At least no one can see me.
I’ve left the lamp off so that only the moonlight from the bathroom keeps the room from being swallowed in total blackness. My thoughts spiral endlessly, confusing and weighing down on my chest like bricks.
Fresh anger with Spider rises like fire, then quickly burns itself out, snuffed out by its own impotence. It’s useless, incapable of hurting him, and does nothing but leave me drained and feeling all the more helpless.
I have no idea where my relations with Spider puts me in the club hierarchy. I’m not a club girl. He’s claimed me with an exclusivity that wouldn’t be possible if I were. He intends to keep me, he’d said. But I’m not an old lady, either. I am not special to him the way Dee is to Snake. I’m a tool for his pleasure, to be used as he sees fit, treated like a club girl, but without even the freedoms they have. Other men can’t touch me, but I can’t leave or refuse him either.
Nameless though it is, the permanence of my own station sinks in, painful and inescapable. The future stretches out before me, suddenly hopeless and dark as the night around me. What happened with Gary the previous day changed things with the women, and it’s somehow shifted things in Dragon’s eyes, but I can’t even say how. And based on the way Spider looked at me before he stomped off, I doubt they’ve changed for him. Perhaps, little sense as it makes, they’ve even changed for the worse.
That thought hollows me out, leaving me with nothing but despair in my heart and dread growing in the pit of my stomach. Things are different between Dee and me, and between Monica and me. But what will they be like between Spider and me when he returns? He’s stolen my future, my freedom, my dignity, and yet, I have a terrible feeling there is still plenty more he can take from me if he chooses.
I punch his pillow. Sleep doesn’t find me for a long, long time.
18
Heartless
I ride alone down I-15 toward Barstow, ignoring the big rig that blares its horn as it whizzes past. I’d just cut the driver off to switch lanes, but I don’t give a shit. I have places to be, and that means the roads belong to me.
It’s amusing to think that the driver of that truck probably wouldn’t have honked were he not driving a forty-ton vehicle that would squash me like a bug and turn my bike into scrap metal going head to head. With me in front of him, no way can he miss my Devil’s Outlaws patch. The sun won’t be setting for a couple of hours, and it’s blazing, shining right on the skull and guns. We have two chapters in LA,