9. Watcher
9
Watcher
F our names. I shot for men. “You want to explain this?”
“When Jeremy leaves,” Jessica says. She crosses her arms and purses her lips in a way that I know I shouldn’t push too much harder. I need to ease her into my way of doing things.
“I need to go,” Jeremy says.
I open the door but put my hand on his shoulder when he tries to leave. “I’ll be in touch.”
Jeremy nods. “Yes, sir. See ya, Jess.” He leaves, and I close the door.
“Wait.” Jessica goes to the whiteboard and, for a moment, looks as if she might erase the names. “What just happened in here? I can’t believe you made him stay and watch you fuck me.”
I shrug and let a little laugh escape. “I told you, I’m into some weird shit.”
“Seriously?”
“We’ll talk about it later,” I say, but she shakes her head. I’m not going to win this argument, and considering she’s not my old lady yet, there’s not much I can say about it. She was going to find out sooner or later. I point at the board. “These are the four men I shot.”
Jessica nods. “They are.”
“What are you planning?”
She crosses her arms and sticks out her chest and chin as if she’s about to give an inspirational speech to her team. “The girls and I are going to pay them a visit and get payback.” She points at the first name. “We’re heading to his house first. We’re going to follow him and see what’s up.”
I’m careful not to laugh. “I’d try to talk you out of doing such a stupid thing, but I know you won’t listen.”
“What would you do, Watcher? Sit on your hands and let them get away with it?”
“I shot them, Jess. I doubt they will do it again.”
“I need to make sure they don’t!”
I hold out my hands in surrender. “When are we leaving?”
“We aren’t. The girls and I are.” Damn, fucking her makes her extra stubborn.
I grab the marker and write 1-5 on the board.
“What’s that?”
“The number of years you can get for kidnapping. Some of those big bitches on the inside would love a shot at you.”
“I’ll be careful.”
I write 10-Life on the board.
“Ten years to life for murder,” she says. She loses the intensity in her face.
“If the DA thinks for even a minute that it was premeditated, he’ll go after the death penalty.”
“The girls and I think they need to be punished.” She goes back to her desk and gets her car keys. “I need to do this, Watcher.”
“You’re making a mistake, Jess.”
“And you’re avoiding my earlier question, Watcher. What the fuck happened in here. Why did you make Jeremy stay?” Her jaws clench, and I know this isn’t going to go well.
“To turn your little ass on,” I say. “It worked, didn’t it?”
She rolls her eyes. I fucking hate it when women roll their eyes at me. “It did. But what’s your end game with this?” She tilts her head a little to the left and narrows her eyes. “You like to be watched, but your name is Watcher. Son-of-a-bitch. You want to watch like Jeremy did.”
“I enjoy a lot of different things, Jess.”
“You want to watch Jeremy jerk off?” She scrunches up her face. “I need to go.”
I put my hand on her arm, and she pulls away. “Don’t follow me, and don’t interfere. We want to do this as a club. As a team. Just like the Brothers of Chaos do.”
I bite my tongue to not say anything stupid. “Okay.”
Jess squeezes past me and starts down the hall. I can see Diablo watching us, concern on her face.
“I’ll wait here,” I say.
“Don’t bother,” Jessica says and leaves with Diablo.
“Jessica.”
She leaves the rink, and I find Kentucky sitting in the stands.
“Let her go. I tried to talk Diablo out of doing it. Pretty much told me to fuck off.”
“Hellcat is a good name for her.” I sit on the bottom row and lean back. “She’s not going to like the shit I’m into.”
Kentucky moves down a few rows. “I’ve never asked you about that stuff. Why?”
“Everyone’s different, Kentucky, just like where you’re from is different from where I’m from.” I shake my head, looking at the rink, thinking I’d found something different. “You ever been to a kink club and seen some of the fucked up things they do?”
“Not my vibe, man.”
“I was sixteen the first time I put a leash on a girl. She was my neighbor, two years older than me. She just graduated high school, and we were out for the summer. She was having a problem with her car, so I went over to help her.” I’d never shared the story with anyone and wasn’t sure why I was doing so now. “I got in and started the car. She’d had a loose wire. I glanced in the backseat and saw a spiked collar and leash. Fuck, I thought she had a dog. She didn’t.”
“Don’t know if I want to hear this, brother.”
“I need you to. I need you to understand why I am who I am.” I look back, and Kentucky nods. I’m guessing there are not many kink clubs in the hills of Kentucky. “She saw me looking and asked if I was into anything kinky.”
“You lied,” Kentucky says.
“Damn straight.” We both laugh. “My sixteen-year-old dick sprang to life right there in that car. It clicked in my head right away that I could put the fucking thing on her. It was during the day, and her parents were at work. She grabbed the collar and leash and closed the garage door.”
“Don’t tell me she put it on you,” Kentucky says.
“No, not that time.” I get up and lean against the railing, facing Kentucky. “She put the collar on, and I attached the leash. She purred like a fucking cat, Kentucky. She then led me into the house. We went upstairs to her bedroom and closed the door.”
“My mother threw this stuff out, but I saved it,” she said, pulling a large box from beneath her bed.
“When I saw the fucked up stuff in that box, I almost shot a load standing right there in the middle of the room.”
She grabbed a paddle and said, “You ever spank a woman?”
I shook my head. “She fucking knew I wasn’t into anything and was using me as her own personal whipping boy.”
“You didn’t stop her,” Kentucky says.
“Of course not. Still on the leash, she handed me the paddle, pulled down her shorts, and bent over the bed.” I rub my face, and Kentucky laughs.
“Your first shot at pussy.” Kentucky laughs.
“Pretty fucking bushy back then, but I didn’t care. She watched me staring at her snatch and laughed. Then I paddled her ass until it was blood red. That bitch liked it.” I shake my head. “I didn’t understand at first. Who the fuck wanted to be spanked like that. When I was finished, I stepped back and stared at her wet pussy. I was in heaven.”
“You fucked her, right?”
I shake my head. “No. Not the first day. It was all about the kink. Over that summer, she taught me about dominance and submission. She taught me about trust. Trust was the most important thing between us. Late one night, I snuck out of the house, and she took me to a sex club. I’d just turned seventeen, but she lied to get me in. She shit I watched that night blew my fucking mind. I saw people acting like animals on leashes, men and women being spanked. I even saw bloodletting. And the fucking sex! Men with multiple women and women with multiple men.
“I’m not talking about gangbangs. I watched this one woman who had four men on leashes. One of the men was the obvious alpha, and the other three were convenient pets. They waited on her hand and foot. She went to the bathroom at one point, and they followed.”
“Now I know why you’re so fucked up,” Kentucky says.
“I watched everything that went on that night and the dozen other times she snuck me into the club. I felt right at home with the people in that club, Kentucky. Like I feel at home with Brothers of Chaos. Those people gave my life meaning.” My phone buzzes and I see it’s Beast checking in. I let him know everything is okay.
“I saw that Jeremy prick come out of the office with his pants all fucked up. That why Jessica left pissed off?”
“Yeah, I made the little bastard stay and watch me fuck her.”
Kentucky shakes his head. It’s hard for an outsider to understand. He'd avoided the topic even as long as we’d known each other. People don’t want to talk about things they don’t understand.
“Kentucky, that girl taught me more about life than anyone has ever taught me.”
“What? That’s it’s okay to catch a disease?”
“It’s not like that, man. We were always careful. Used protection when it called for.” I hop over the rail and stand on the rink, looking up at the banners. “That girl taught me it was okay to be different. To be who and what I am. She taught me that hiding behind something caused more damage than owning who and what you are. There’s always going to be those who judge because they think their shit don’t stink.”
“Diablo was talking about some weird shit,” Kentucky admits. “I told her I wasn’t interested.” He nods at me. “But I get you, brother. You gotta do what makes you happy because, ultimately, only you can make you happy.” He points at my arm. “That’s the girl.”
“It is.”
“Where is she now?”
“I shit you not. She’s a sex therapist. I looked her up a couple of weeks ago.”
“Damn.” Kentucky looks as if he’d had enough. “You gonna let Jessica go?”
“I think she’s headed toward something that’s going to get her in deep shit, Kentucky. Her and Diablo both.”
“You can’t save those who don’t want to be saved, Watcher.”
“True, but I think we need to keep them out of prison.” I pull the list of men from my pocket. “I got the names and the addresses.”
“Damn. She’ll be looking for that list.”
“I copied hers while she was in the bathroom.”
“Fuck,” Kentucky says. “Let's go save the world.” He stops me before we leave. “I’ll never be into the shit you’re into, brother, but you do you. Be who you are. I got your back.”
We climb on our bikes and head across Memphis, the sun almost tucked into bed. Night riding is the best, and as I lag behind Kentucky, I appreciate what he said. I just hope Jessica will appreciate the explanation I have. Ultimately, it’s all for her. Everything will be all for her. She’ll eventually understand, just like my sixteen-year-old self understood.
Harrison Rich’s house doesn’t seem to be anything special, at least based on the houses in his neighborhood, though Kentucky and I park two streets away. Jessica and Emily sit in a Camry across from Harrison’s house. Diablo is on her bike five houses up the street. Stalking is not a skill any of them have.
“He’ll see them as soon as he walks out,” Kentucky says.
“Maybe that’s what they want.”
We stay hidden behind a group of trees and wait. Eventually, a car pulls into Harrison’s driveway, and a beautiful woman gets out. She’s wearing a tight skirt and a tight shirt. Her high heels echo through the neighborhood. Our boy has ordered himself an escort.
Jessica and Emily cross the street. Diablo gets off her bike and joins them before the three disappear around the side of the house. I step out, but Kentucky pulls me back when a police cruiser rolls by. Another cruiser arrives from the opposite end of the street. The second cruiser stops at Diablo’s bike. The first cruiser pulls next to the Camry.
“They’re cucked,” I say.
“Nothing we can do right now,” Kentucky says.
The officers get out, flashlights in hand, other hand on guns.
Diablo runs out from the side of the house, and an officer grabs her. He throws her to the grass and has her in cuffs in one single motion.
“I’m gonna kick her ass,” Kentucky says.
Jessica appears next, screaming at the cop pinning Diablo to the ground. She goes after the cop, but the other officer grabs her and slams her to the ground next to Diablo.
“Where the fuck is Emily?” I step from the trees but stay hidden. We’re close enough to hear Jessica cussing like a sailor. Diablo tries to get her to shut up, but Jessica isn’t listening.
“There’s Emily,” Kentucky says.
Emily steps into the shadows, and neither officer sees her. Jessica tells the officer she was the only one in the car.
Jessica and Diablo are loaded into cruisers, and the police leave.
“We can’t let Emily leave in the Camry.” I step around the wooden fence hiding me and run down the street toward Emily, who is running for the car. “Emily. Stop!”
Scared shitless, Emily stops on the sidewalk next to the car. ‘Why’re you here?”
“You’re welcome,” I say.
“We had it under control.” Emily grabs the car door and I stop her from opening it.
“Another cruiser will be by shortly. They’ll patrol the neighborhood the rest of the night. If the Camry is gone, they’ll know someone was with Jessica.”
Emily looks as though she might get pissed but seems to reconsider. “Okay.”
Kentucky and I lead Emily back to the bikes, and she climbs behind me. Not every woman I’ve had on my bike feels right. Emily should have gone with Kentucky.
We stop at the rink and leave Emily behind, insisting she not go to the jail.
“Now what?” Kentucky asks. “We bail her ass out, and she’ll know we followed her.”
“Emily will eventually tell her we saved her ass.” We’re fucked regardless of what we decide to do. “Fuck it, let’s go get them out. She’ll just have to be pissed.”
We roll into the station parking lot twenty minutes later to find a stretch limo in the parking lot. We park the bikes where they can’t be seen and walk toward the entrance. Through the glass, I can see Jessica’s father chewing someone’s ass. Money may be the root of all evil, but it can quickly wash away evil, too.
“Let’s go,” I say. “We’ll head back to the rink and see if we can talk some sense into Emily.”
It’s a fucked up situation. That’s all I can make of it. I care deeply about the woman but can see she’s a bird leaving the nest and needs room to spread her wings. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad for me. I resign myself to the fact this thing may not work out after all. We caught lightning in a bottle and then let it escape. It wouldn’t be the first time for me.
On the way to the rink, I think about my son and him being stuck caring for his mother. That’s no way for him to lead his life. Maybe I should step in and help. Or maybe I just need to call and ask him if he’s okay. Tell him I love him and my door is open anytime he wants to come down. Assure him I’m not a bad guy. Lost every now and again, but not bad. I’m a hard guy to understand, much less love. I know that. At least, I can admit it.
Several cars sit in the rink parking lot, and we question whether or not we should go in. If they really want to be a club like the Brothers of Chaos, they need to figure out their shit on their own.
"We should go," Kentucky says.
I sit silently for a moment and then nod. "You’re right.”