Текст книги "Tank"

Автор книги: Carmen Jenner

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

I wake to a loud bang and startle in my sleep. My bed is wet again. I feel the stickiness between my legs, the once-dry, warm flannelette sheet beneath me now cold. I push back the covers and climb out of bed, fumbling around in the dark for my cupboard. I’m quiet, so I won’t wake my dad. If he sees I’ve wet my bed again, I’ll get another beating. Mamma says it doesn’t matter; she says it’s just stress that makes me do it, but Dad tells her she’s babying me. He hits me when I piss the bed.

He hits me for a lot of things.

“There she is,” my dad bellows, and I freeze, knowing that he’s awake and could come in and find me wide-eyed and stinking of piss. His voice sounds funny, like it does when he drinks too much beer, and there’s another man downstairs that sounds the same. Drunk, Mamma calls it.

I don’t like it when he drinks, and I don’t like it when he brings his friends home from the bar. He’s not as mean, but he acts like a completely different person, and it scares me because I never know what will set him off and what won’t. And that’s a very dangerous thing.

“Baby, make us a sandwich, will ya?” Dad says, and I creep over to my door to hear them better.

“She’s a looker, Wayne. I thought she’d be a dog when you put her up for play.” The other man says this. His voice is slurred and gravelly, like Rock Biter in The NeverEnding Story. I used to watch that film over and over, until Dad gambled away our TV and VHS, along with all of our movies.

“Up for play?” Mamma asks, sounding confused. Fear prickles down my spine and I quietly move down the stairs, poking my head around the corner just enough to see, but not be seen. I don’t care that my pants are soaked and he will know that I pissed the bed again. I’m too worried about my mamma; something doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t feel right.

“Don’t worry about it. Just fix us somethin’ to eat, woman.” Dad wraps his arms around Mamma’s waist, but she shrugs him off and shifts away. He doesn’t look happy, but then again, he never does.

“You sly dog,” the man says. “You didn’t say anything about her lookin’ like an angel.”

“I like to play my hand down low,” Dad replies

The other man is tall and thin. He has a horse face, long with too big a nose, and big dark eyes that look hungry. He slaps Mamma on the butt as she’s bent over in front of the fridge, and she squeals and turns to them with the look she gives me when I’m behaving like a brat.

“What are you talking about?” Mamma asks.

“Wayno here lost another round of poker,” the man says, clapping my father on the back. He circles my mother and then slaps her on the bum again. This time she doesn’t yelp. Her gaze is fixed on Dad’s, and she’s turned white from head to toe. “You’re comin’ to keep me company, sweet pea.”

“What?” She drops the jar of mustard. It smashes against the ground and both the men laugh.

“Hope you don’t value your crockery too much?” my father says, and he knocks back the rest of his beer, and throws the can in the sink.

“I ain’t got nothin’ fancy for her to break anyway … except my heart,” the man says, and he laughs, and I see his gap-filled, rotted-out mouth. The monster laughs too.

“Wayne, you can’t be serious?” Mamma says. She searches their faces. I don’t understand why she’s so scared, why I’m so scared, but I want to take her by the hand and run away with her. I wish I were brave like Atreyu. I wish I could just stop reading and put the book down like Bastian when it got too frightening.

“Sorry, darlin’. A man can only gamble with what he owns.”

“Wayne!” My mother screams as the other man pulls her along with him. She slaps him across the face. His eyes grow very dark. “Stop it! Wayne!”

“Get her outta my fuckin’ hair,” the monster says. “I got a kid around here somewhere. Pathetic, snivellin’ fat little shit of a thing. You want him too?”

Fear seizes my chest and my eyes go huge and round as dinner plates. He’s taking my mamma? He can’t do that. She’s mine. She’s mine. I run down the hall and strike him. “Get away from her!”

The man’s knees buckle as my foot connects with them, and he yells, “You little fuckin’ shit.”

That’s when I hear the monster behind me. He catches me up in his big arms, crushing my chest beneath their weight. He smells like beer and cigarettes and something else sour that makes my stomach twist with fear.

“No!” my mother cries. “Let him go.”

I struggle in his arms, kicking out with my legs until eventually I get him in the private parts, just like when Johnny Dover kicked me and stole my lunch money, leaving me crying on the concrete. The monster falls to the ground, taking me with him, but I’m quicker and I jump to my feet, ready to protect my mum. Ready to take on a whole army of monsters to keep her safe, but when I look up she’s not there. She’s shrieking, kicking, and clawing at the doorframe as the man tries to carry her out of the house. He throws her over his shoulder and fights her the whole way to his car. And the entire time, she’s screaming my name. He throws her on the ground, like a sack of potatoes, and for a moment her mouth gapes open like a fish. She can’t breathe. I run towards them and kick him in the back of the knees again, but he doesn’t fall, and he’s so much bigger than me that when he turns and shoves me away, I fall hard on the concrete drive and skin my knees. It doesn’t hurt right away, it’s just sort of numb, and then when the sting comes it’s sharp as a knife’s edge, and it brings tears to my eyes. I’m frozen with pain.

The man leans over my mamma and punches her in the face, the way I’ve seen the monster do so many times before. He bundles her into the car and slams the door. I scream, and throw myself at the passenger side, but it’s too late. He’s already starting the engine, and he roars away on the sharp screech of tires and the smell of burnt rubber.

He took my mamma.

I run as fast as I can after that car. I run until my feet hurt, but I’m too slow, too late. Too small to stop it.

I never want to be small and helpless again, I think, as I stand in the middle of the darkened street, staring at all the houses around me. I don’t know where I am. Snot runs out of my nose, and tears sting my cheeks as the wind picks up all around me. I cry and curl into a ball in the middle of the road. In my mind, I’m still chasing those taillights. I chase them until the car stops, and a bigger, much older version of me pulls the man from the driver’s seat and punches a hole right through his face. Mamma runs to me, throwing her arms around me, though now I’m so big her hands no longer touch on either side.

In reality, I’m still curled on the hard bitumen when the old lady from the house across the street with the blue shutters comes out with a blanket and takes me inside. She asks me a lot of questions that I don’t answer. I’m too afraid to reply because I know the monster will find out. I tell her nothing. She offers me warm milk and cookies, but I don’t want them. I want my mamma, but the man stole her away.

I’m sleeping on the warm couch, cuddled up with the lady’s new kitten in front of a fire, when a voice wakes me. He’s here. He sent my mother away, and I know he’ll beat me for peeing the bed and kicking him in his private parts, so I run and hide. When they find me behind the couch, I cling to the woman. I don’t want to go back to that empty house. I wail. And howl like a dog caught with its foot in a trap. I want my mamma.

The woman tells me I have to go with my dad. But he’s not my dad. He’s a monster who gave my mamma away to another man. She doesn’t understand when I tell her this; she just pats me on the back and sends me off with him. I scream the entire way home. And then he slaps me hard across the face, and I don’t cry any more.

One day I’ll be big.

One day I’ll hurt him. I’ll squeeze the life right out of him and I’ll laugh when he begs and pleads for me to stop. One day I’ll be big enough to protect the people I love from the monster, and from men just like him.

The sound of my burner receiving a text wakes me. I carefully slide my arm out from beneath Ivy and ease off the bed. She came in at some point during the night, like a little kid seeking out a warm body to curl up next to. And though my cock is being tortured night after fuckin’ night pressed up against the smooth crease of her arse and denied entry at every turn, I don’t mind her sleepin’ in my bed one bit.

Wiping the crust from my eyes, I head into the walk-in wardrobe, push the boxes of old shoes and memorabilia—that isn’t even mine, but is just a cover—away from the safe, and punch in the code. I hook my fingernail in the left-hand far corner of the interior and pull. The metal slab comes away easy in my hand, and I reach for the phone strapped to the roof. I have a gun, fake passports and a shit-tonne of money hiding in there too, in case anything goes south. I take out the phone and scroll through to the message. There’s only one person who has this number, and there’s only one reason he’d text it.

P: Need you to come in and do the books. Early. Shit’s piling up real quick.

Obviously it’s code. Even with a burner we’re not dumb enough to take that kind of risk. “Doing the books” means I need you to come kill some motherfucker, and “Shit’s piling up real quick” means he needs that motherfucker dead. Yesterday.

T: Kinda got my hands full this mornin’.

P: Not my fuckin’ problem. Got no one I can spare. Get your arse in here.

Stupid. Of course he has no one else he can spare. There’s no one else he’d trust enough to send out on the jobs that I do. The boys go out all the time on runs; people wind up dead and they cover the evidence well enough, shoot anyone who might snitch to the cops, and get rid of anything that might lead the Feds back to the club. But Prez will only send me out on a job where the mark might be expecting it. Which means it’ll be bloody, messy, and fuckin’ dangerous. Jesus. So much for a lazy weekend.

I set the metal sheet back inside the safe and close it, sliding the boxes in front of it again, and I pull on an old pair of jeans and a black shirt that can be burned afterward. Then I stand in the doorway and watch Ivy sleep. She’s facing me. Her hair is splayed out all around her and there’s a wet patch on my pillow where her drool is soaking the fabric. So fuckin’ cute. I could spend all damn day lookin’ at her, but Prez will cut off my balls if I don’t haul arse to the clubhouse. I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do with her though. Can’t leave her here alone. Can’t take her to the clubhouse, and I can’t call someone in—yeah, because that worked so well the first time.

There’s only one option here. And she ain’t gonna like it one bit.

Ten minutes later I return from the garage and set my shit down behind the big wing-backed armchair in my room. I throw open the curtains. “Rise and shine, Warrior Princess.”

She moans and rolls over, throwing the pillow over her head with a grunt. Her arse is out of the covers and I tilt my head to the side in order to see her pussy better, then I lick my lips and move towards the bed. Ivy pokes her head up and glares at me. “Go away.”

“Can’t. I’m up,” I say, pointedly staring at the hard-on tryin’ to bust its way out of my jeans. “So you gotta be up, too.”

“Fuck you.”

I laugh. “You really shouldn’t tempt me.”

Ivy rolls away from me, covering her eyes from the window with the crook of her elbow. I climb onto the bed, and lower my head to her pert little arse and that fuckin’ delectable pussy that I haven’t had for far too long. I sweep my tongue along the length of her, from arsehole to clit, and then I shift closer, and bury my face deeper. She tilts her hips, squirms, but she doesn’t pull away, and she doesn’t try to stop me. In fact, it’s just the opposite.

I use my whole face to push her closer to the brink—my mouth, beard, even my fuckin’ nose is all up in her shit, and she’s lovin’ every second of it, if her moans and her fingers clawing at my scalp are anything to go by.

“Oh. Tank, oh yes, right fucking there.”

I listen to her breathing. The ragged inhalation and the soft moans as her breath catches in her throat tell me she’s close. I pull away and get to my feet, dragging her to the end of the bed and hoisting her up over my shoulder. She cries out in protest. “Why the hell did you stop?”

“Shut up,” I say, and dump her into the chair. Ivy squeals, and attempts to get up, but when she sees the need on my face she gives me a shy smile—rare for her—and drapes her legs over the arms, opening for me. I go to work, licking and sucking, shoving my fingers inside her.

I finger-bang her rough and hard, ensuring I catch that little soft spot inside her that makes her come undone. She shudders, trembling head to toe, her legs quaking in that uncontrollable way that women sometimes do if you treat them real nice. Her hands claw at my scalp, and I wince. I’m gonna have gouges in my skull soon if she doesn’t knock it off. Ivy throws her head back, her hips pumping in time with my thrusts.

“Oh God. I’m going to come.” She pants. I pull my fingers from her body and lick them clean, and then I ignore the obscenities she hurls at me as I pick up the rope that I dumped there earlier. Gently, I push her back against the chair. “What are you doing?”

“Making this fun,” I say.

She shakes her head, and replies in a breathless tone that has my cock jerkin’ in my pants. “I thought it already was?”

“Then I’m making it more fun,” I deadpan.

“Are you going to fuck me?” she whispers, and though I know she said she doesn’t want to, she looks hopeful.

“No,” I say, leaning down and kissing her mouth, because I can’t help myself. I want her to taste herself on my lips. I want her to understand how fuckin’ completely she possesses me. But that’s not why we’re here. I wrap the rope tightly around her body, crisscrossing it over her chest and around the back of the chair. She giggles as it slides over her breasts and slips into place beneath her big, beautiful tits.

“Tank I need to come,” she whispers.

“I know, baby, but you’re gonna have to wait a little longer,” I say, tying off the rope at the back of the chair and testing its strength. It’ll hold.

“What?”

“I got club business, and you can’t be trusted not to leave.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Her tone is low and bursting with bitterness.

“Wish I was. And I wish to fuck I didn’t have to run out and leave you like this, because fuck me, I want inside you so bad right now.”

She wriggles against her restraints. Let her try. She ain’t gettin’ outta that hold. I’ve done it a thousand times, tied up fuckers this way. Tied ’em to chairs, or strung them from a hook in the ceiling and split their bellies open, until everything just falls out on the floor, a putrid mess of stinkin’ bowels, guts and blood. They shake as they watch on in horror and disbelief. Of course they don’t watch on for long. Nobody ever got out of one of my ropes, and they all had a lot more to lose than Ivy.

“You can’t leave me here, Tank,” she says.

“Actually, I can.” I kiss the top of her head and she yanks away from me, but her restraints keep her from going very far.

“Tank. Fuck. Tank, don’t leave me here like this. Tank!” she shouts, and I won’t lie, the sound practically breaks me in half, but I got a job to do and I’m not risking her runnin’ again. Last time I found her out in the middle of the road, high as a fuckin’ kite. It’s been a few days since that headfuck. Some things have changed, some haven’t, and I don’t know with one hundred per cent certainty that she would run again, but I can’t say that she wouldn’t either. And that’s enough for me.

Ivy’s a resourceful girl; she may not have any money, a phone, or a whole lot of self-preservation, but she’s got a killer rack, legs that go on for days and the sweetest fuckin’ pussy I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting. It wouldn’t take her very long to find trouble. Trouble would happily find her in a heartbeat. And what’s more, she’d probably like it.

I can’t risk that shit again. No. This way she might be mad, but she’ll still be fucking me by the end of the day, because I don’t plan to just untie her when I get home. I’m going to take that fuckin’ pussy any way I want, and she’s gonna damn well fuckin’ enjoy it. I’ll make sure of it, ’cause I’m done fucking playin’ games with her. I want her so bad my balls ache, but I want more than that too—I want the fuckin’ bullshit fairy-tale. I don’t just want to possess her body; I want her heart, too. Which means I’m fuckin’ screwed. Any way you paint that shit, I’m screwed.

When I get back, Ivy’s sleeping. I lean in the doorway and watch her for a moment. She has dark circles around her eyes and her skin is pale and sallow, but she’s still the most fuckin’ perfect thing I’ve ever seen. I step into the room and she startles. I smile down at her and she gives me a sleepy little grin and then she remembers where she is and thrashes against the restraints.

“You let me out of here, you fuck,” she says, through gritted teeth.

“Oh, I think I should probably keep you tied up a little longer,” I say, grinning like a fuckin’ idiot because looking at her, seein’ her tied up in my bedroom, just made every single one of my fantasies come true. “Come to think of it, why have we never done this before?”

“Fuck you.”

I sit on the bed opposite her and reach out, squeezing her knee, sliding my hand up her thigh until she squirms. “Maybe it’s because I know I don’t need it to keep you here.”

“Yeah? Tell that to the rope cutting into my flesh, arsehole.”

“Face it, Ivy,” I say. “You might be in love with my brother, but I don’t gotta do half the shit he does to you to get you off. Why is that, do you think?”

For a second it looks as if I just slapped her upside the head. It’s as though she’s never thought about it, but she can see the truth in my words now, and she’s not happy about it. Without missing a beat, she lurches forward and snaps, “Because I fake it with you.”

I laugh. “Bitch, you can’t fake the leg shake. There’s no faking that. I call bullshit.”

I kneel between her legs, placing my hands on her knees and spreading her thighs. Her nipples form two hard little peaks and I reach out and slide my warm hands across one of her glorious tits. She tries to pull away, but she can’t on account of being tied to the fucking chair. Exactly where I want her. “You been holdin’ out on me too long, baby. Does it make you feel good? Does it make you feel powerful to know that I want you?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Here’s the thing—right now you’re powerless. I can do whatever I want with you. There’s no one around to hear you scream, and no one is coming to rescue you, especially not Kick. I can have you any way, any how, and there’s nothing you could do about it.”

“So what? You’re gonna rape me?” She laughs. “Been there, done that. Had the fucking abortions to prove it.”

I flinch, because hearing that shit makes my heart hurt. Who the fuck am I kidding? It rips my heart right in fuckin’ two.

“I ain’t gonna rape you, Ivy. I have no interest in taking you against your will. I want you to say yes.”

“What?”

“I want you to give yourself over to me.”

She shakes her head. “What the fuck difference does it make if I give myself over to you? You’re big enough; why wouldn’t you just take what you wanted?”

“Because I want you to want it. Not that fuckin’ kinky shit you’re into. I don’t wanna hurt you. There’s enough arseholes at the club who’ll do that. I want you to feel something other than abuse.”

“I can’t—”

“Just try. You owe me that much.”

“I don’t owe you shit, Tank.”

“Maybe not. We both know you’d be dead right now if I hadn’t taken you to hospital the last time you OD’d, and we both know you can’t do this without my help. You wanna get clean? You need me. And I need this.”

“So what, you’re blackmailing me? Fuck me the way I want and I’ll get you to quit taking drugs? I’d rather take the drugs, thanks.”

I stand, bending to untie the ropes, and because I’m an arsehole I make sure my junk is all up in her face as I do it. Why shouldn’t the little bitch see the way she affects me?

Ivy is out of the chair and launching herself at me the second I get her untied. She pounds her fists against my chest and screams her frustration. “I hate you. I fucking hate you. You’re an arsehole, Tank. Fucking worthless piece of shit who gets off on making me feel small.”

I don’t try to defend myself. My arms automatically go around her and I hold her tight, though she struggles. I know what it’s like to feel small, and it was never my intention to do that to her. I just see how badly broken she is, how much she needs the pain, and I can’t help but want to fix it. I want to lift her up instead of beat her down. I want her to want more, to be more. I want her to know that she’s not sick because of all the things he did to her—she’s strong, and that’s a beautiful thing.

It’s also possible I handled that shit badly. I don’t know how to help her. I took away the drugs. I’ve tried playing hardball when it comes to sex—but she has me beat there. I even tried getting her to open up and talk to me, but I’m falling short at every fuckin’ turn, and it scares the shit outta me, because one more mistake, one more fuck up and I’ll lose her forever.

“I hate you,” she sobs. Her tears fall onto my chest and I feel every one of them. I relish them. I kiss the top of her head and hold her as she falls apart. I don’t care how long I have to stand here. I’ll stand for an eternity. I’ll be a sentinel against her pain, her fear, her sadness—forever, if I have to. If she’ll let me.

“Why are you doing this?” she says, after her sobs have quieted.

“Isn’t it fuckin’ obvious?” I ask in a whisper, afraid that if I talk too loudly, I’ll ruin the moment we’re having and scare her away.

She looks up at me through tear-filled eyes and leans up on her toes to kiss me. I don’t open my mouth. Bloody pussy that I am, I don’t want to fuck her now, ’cause that isn’t what she needs, and though my cock would strongly disagree, it isn’t what I need, either. We need this moment, now. I need to hold her and connect with her on some level other than just fuckin’, because we’ve never really done that.

For months, I’ve been sittin’ on this. Too selfish, stupid, and too afraid that someone would find out how I felt about her and use it against me—even Kick. I was afraid that if I showed weakness, if I showed her how I felt about her, my brothers, my Prez, and even Ivy would take advantage of that. They’d use my love for her against me. I’d always seen love as a weakness, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe making yourself vulnerable to someone else was the bravest thing you could ever do. Or maybe I just need my fuckin’ head checked.

Ivy tries to deepen her kisses but I place my hands on either side of her face and stare down at her. “I’m not gonna fuck you now.”

“But I thought—”

“Not now,” I say, scooping my hands under her arse. I lift her up, and walk us back to the bed and lay her down, resting between her legs for just a minute, and then I roll onto my back and drag her into the crook of my arm.

“Tank?” she murmurs. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“I never had anyone just hold me when I cried. My father drugged me, or he touched me in order to shut me up, and Kick used to—”

“I don’t wanna hear about them right now.” I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss her knuckles, and then her long fingers one by one. “Someday, when you’re ready you’ll tell me about your father.”

“Someday,” she agrees. “I’ve never had someone care for me—not the way you do.”

She climbs on top of me and stretches her small body against mine. Despite her being completely fuckin’ stark naked, she doesn’t try to make it sexual. She just burrows in against my chest and I hold her. A short time later, Ivy presses a kiss against my neck as she traces the tattoos on my shoulder with warm fingertips. I wrap my arms tightly around her.

That’s the thing about the broken ones—they’re never too far beyond repair, even though it might seem that way. They just need a little glue and the right pair of hands to stick ’em back together.