TSE, page 2
part #25 of Southside Skulls MC Series
“It’s nice to meet you,” she said. Jeremiah was still looking up at the young man with awe in his eyes. He finally turned to Ajei and said:
“Tse is my nephew.”
“Oh, how nice,” she said, trying to sound casual. “Are you here for a visit?” Rock smiled at her again and said:
“Who knows...maybe a week, a month, or a lifetime. Maybe the wind blew me here from New Mexico on purpose, to get to know the local flora.” She felt her cheeks burn, and the heat from them and the implications of his words began to spread through her body. She wasn’t experienced talking to men, especially men so handsome and so close to her own age. Fearing she would embarrass herself if she tried, unprepared, she said:
“Welcome. I hope you enjoy your visit with your uncle. Jeremiah, I’ll have Sunshine back before nightfall.”
“What about the horse?” Rock asked, playfully.
“Excuse me?” Ajei truly didn’t understand the compliment. She wasn’t used to flirting.
“You said you’d bring the sunshine back, I just wondered if you were bringing the horse as well.” He was calling her the sunshine, which sent another blush racing up her neck and into her face. It took a lot for her to pull her eyes away from his intense gaze. When she finally did, she turned Sunshine toward the hills behind them. She was breathless as she rode away, and she could feel her heart hammering into her ribcage. Her body was still filled with heat when she was a mile up the trail. She found herself torn between hoping he was still there when she got back and wishing he’d go back where he came from. The intensity of his effect on her was almost frightening but thrilling at the same time. She could feel all that self-control she’d practiced around other young men her age practically evaporating through her pores. She cursed her hormones and continued to ride until she came to the deserted, quiet little spot where a waterfall created a clear, constantly moving body of water.
She slid off Sunshine’s back and removed his blanket, letting him drink from the stream while she took off her sarong and tank top. She started to step in, but impulsively she also pulled off the swimsuit she’d been wearing underneath. It wouldn’t be her first time skinny-dipping at the deserted pool, and the encounter with Rock had left her almost bathed in her own sweat already. She stepped into the cool, refreshing pool of water and waded out to the center of it. It only came up to her waist, leaving her face, arms, and breasts bathed in the warmth of the sun. She closed her eyes and turned her face upward and that was when life came crashing down around her.
Ajei gasped when she felt the big arm snake around her waist and pull her backwards. She opened her mouth to scream, but a big hand immediately clamped down across it. It wouldn’t matter anyway; no one would hear her. She had to save herself.
Ajei twisted her body and tried to kick and claw at him as her body was dragged out of the water and viciously tossed on the ground, where her face slammed into a rock and the needles that had blown or fallen off the cacti and Joshua trees pierced her skin. She reached over her head with both hands and clawed at the dirt, trying to pull herself up to her knees. She’d barely gotten a few inches away when he grabbed a handful of her long hair and yanked her head back so hard she heard her neck crack. She was so terrified that she couldn’t imagine anything worse than what she was sure this man was about to do to her. But when he twisted her around and tossed her onto her back, she saw quickly how much worse things could get. She closed her eyes to try to block him out and also to say a prayer for protection from Mother Earth. She heard him laugh softly and say:
“You’ll want to keep your eyes open for this. You’re going to love it, My Heart.”
2
The next thirty minutes felt like hours and Ajei saw it all in clips, like trailers for a horror movie being turned off and on in her head. First it was the smell of his sour whiskey breath as he forced his mouth over hers and shoved his tongue practically down her throat, choking her on it and getting more excited with each breath that she had to gasp for. Then she was blessed with a few wonderful seconds of darkness, like maybe she had blacked out, or her mind had simply gone to another place. It was dark there, but it was quiet and safe. It was a place where just for a few seconds she couldn’t feel his coarse tongue licking at her skin or his fingers tangled up in and pulling at her long hair. But then she’d hear his voice again, demanding that she open her eyes, and if she didn’t, he’d pull her up by her hair and then bash her head down into the rocky sand over and over until she did. So many bad things were happening, but the worst was being able to see the look of sheer happiness and ecstasy on his face as he violated her. She knew if she lived through this she’d never be able to close her eyes again without seeing that face, and that thought made her guts twist and burn.
She tried to fight him at first, but he was so strong, so big, and for each time one of her tiny fists connected with his skin, she’d receive a backhand across the face, or a knee to the soft part of her belly. She was in so much pain already and he hadn’t even penetrated her yet, so finally she had to accept that he was going to do what he came there to do, even if he had to kill her to do it. While he violated every part of her body, he also called her names. He said that she was a “slut” and she had tempted him. He told her she had gone up there and gotten naked because she knew he’d be watching and she wanted it. She knew that none of that was true, but the more he talked, the more the seeds of self-doubt began to grow. Maybe in some way she was to blame. She had dressed scantily and she had been the one to strip off her bathing suit to swim in public. The more she had those dark thoughts the more some small part of her wondered if letting him just kill her wouldn’t be better all the way around. She wouldn’t have to wonder if she’d brought this on herself and she wouldn’t have to endure the excruciating pain that tore through her body when he roughly took possession of her virgin tunnel. She tried to pray when he began moving around on top of her like a rutting pig, but then she was reminded that she’d skipped church that morning so she could go riding and skinny-dipping, like a “whore,” as her uncle said.
The worst part of it all was that when she looked up at his face, he looked so happy about what he was doing to her. His happiness made her want to die more than anything. If monsters walked on earth who could revel that much in someone else’s pain and indignity, she wasn’t sure she wanted to live among them. He finally closed his eyes, so she closed hers again. She felt the warm tears squeeze out through her lashes and roll down her cheeks. The pain was so severe that she wanted to scream, but she was afraid that would only enhance his pleasure. So she swallowed the screams, nearly choking on them until the noise in her head was so loud that the sounds he was making were muted and she almost escaped again to that wonderful, dark, quiet place...
“Open your eyes,” he demanded again as he pummeled her harder between her legs. Ajei realized this was her only power and she shut them tighter so that not even slivers of the sun above them could penetrate. She could hear the change in his breathing and feel his body tensing on top of her. He kept slamming his big body into her and the back of her head slammed into the hard dirt with each thrust. She could feel the warm blood pooling underneath her and soaking her hair. Her nose dripped blood into her mouth and down her chin and the sheer weight of him on top of her body felt like it was crushing her ribs. But she knew that none of it hurt as much as watching his face when he released himself inside of her would, so she refused to give that to him.
“I said open your fucking eyes!” She continued to refuse. Maybe she was pushing her luck, but the thought of his being even a little bit disappointed with what he had done to her was too tempting. She gathered all the inner strength she had left and used it to force a smile. From her smiling lips she whispered:
“No. I’d rather die than see your ugly face.”
Her head exploded with pain then as the back of his fist slammed into her, and as she dangled by a thread of consciousness she heard him grunt louder and his breaths became ragged as he exploded inside her. It was only just before the darkness fully claimed her that she realized he’d just planted a seed of evil inside her, one with the potential to grow. Ajei knew that if she lived, she could never let that happen. She’d cut her insides out herself if she had to. She’d die a thousand deaths before she would allow her body to spawn the child of a man she now believed to be a messenger of the devil himself.
Rock wasn’t normally a man who chased a woman, but he was only in town for the day and his uncle was pushing hard for him to go after Ajei.
“Just go talk to her,” Uncle Jeremiah told him. “I saw the sparks, nephew, in both of your eyes. That happens once in a lifetime. Are you willing to chance never meeting her again?” His uncle was an old romantic, which was funny since the man had never been married. But he was one of those elders on the reservation who lived to dole out advice to the younger members of the tribe, and most of them took it to heart. Rock held back, just because the woman he’d met only briefly seemed like the kind of girl a man would have to court and eventually marry. He didn’t have anything against marriage, but he was eighteen years old and he had too much adventuring to do first. Hook-ups and one-night stands dominated his sex life so far and he was good with that—at least he thought he was, until he’d looked into the dark eyes of the girl called “My Heart.”
He was so confused and even a little anxious by the pull he instantly felt toward the young woman that by the time Jeremiah saddled him a horse, Rock was already astride his Indian motorcycle with his helmet on and ready to run. Jeremiah gave him a disappointed look and said, “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be free, but there’s also nothing wrong with experiencing freedom with the other half of your soul.”
Rock laughed. “I saw her for exactly five minutes, Uncle Jeremiah. I think referring to her as the other half of my soul is a bit premature.”
“Maybe, but how will you ever know if you don’t take that first step?”
“Next time, uncle, maybe,” he said. “I have things to do at home today. Koko needs her medicine, and I’m getting ready to take a trip out west.”
“And what are you searching for out there in California?” his uncle asked. Rock smiled and said:
“Myself.”
His uncle sighed and shook his head. “In my day we didn’t have to look any further than our own hearts to find ourselves.”
“It’s 1974, though, uncle, the times have changed. Thank you for the medicine, and Koko sends her love and thanks too.” Rock’s sister Koko suffered from a terminal form of bone cancer. She’d gone through the standard treatments and multiple operations, but just couldn’t seem to beat it. The doctors sent her home from the hospital with heavy-duty pain medications like morphine, and the family was told that managing her pain and keeping her comfortable was all they could do for her now. The problem was that Koko was so stubborn, she refused to take the morphine. She told Rock that if she only had a matter of months, or even years left, she didn’t want to spend them in a drug-induced stupor. That was when Rock broached the subject with her of giving marijuana a try. Talking Koko into smoking wasn’t easy; she was a control freak and she prided herself on not putting anything artificial into her body. Rock kept on her, though, and when her pain got too much for her to bear alone, she finally agreed to try it. Almost instantly her pain was gone and even Koko admitted that the mild high was a small price to pay for the relief it offered.
She was doing good for a while and Rock was even hopeful that her cancer might still go into remission. But Koko’s and Rock’s problems started once again when Rock’s dealer got busted and locked up for what might be several years. Rock was faced with the prospect of looking for someone else he could trust, and in that day and age, it was no small task. The Vietnam War was ending and soldiers were coming home by the boatloads. The demand for illegal drugs in America skyrocketed almost overnight and President Nixon’s war on drugs was in full swing. Worried about landing in jail himself, Rock turned to Jeremiah. He was the one person since Rock lost his father who always had answers for everything. Rock expected his uncle to try to solve the problem, but what he hadn’t expected was finding out that his uncle grew his own weed. He had a little greenhouse hidden behind a false door in his stables, and there he grew his own personal stash.
Once a month Rock would drive to Phoenix and pick some up for Koko. His sister worried constantly that he’d get stopped along the way and busted, but Rock wasn’t worried. He had done a lot of work to his old Indian motorcycle and had recently modified the pipes. The bike had a dual exhaust system now, except one of the systems was fake. The second set was just for looks and nothing hot ran through them. That was where he carried the weed, capping the pipes off on both ends with round steel caps that fitted down inside so there wouldn’t even be an odor. He was pretty proud of himself for that, not that he aspired to be a drug mule...but in Rock’s world, you did whatever you had to do when it came to taking care of your family. And just then, as much as seeing Ajei one last time appealed to him, he knew that he really needed to get back to his sister.
“Maybe I’ll run into her next time,” he told his uncle.
“How many times have you been here, Tse?”
“A few dozen, I suppose.” Rock’s father bought the used Indian motorcycle just weeks before he was killed in a mining accident. He’d planned on teaching Rock how to ride and they were going to fix it up together. It was something Rock had really been looking forward to and then before they could even get started, his father was gone. Rock was fourteen years old at the time and his five older sisters were in charge of the family then. They wanted to sell the bike for much-needed income but Rock begged them not to. Ultimately they realized how much it meant to their only brother and the bike was kept, and thus began Rock’s love affair with it. He got his first job busing tables at fifteen and as soon as he turned sixteen and got his license, he began making the short trek to Phoenix to visit his uncle every month, even before he came to pick up the weed. At such a young age, Rock already knew the pain of losing multiple family members and the importance of spending as much time with them as you could while they were still on earth.
Rock’s mother had died when he was eight of complications during the birth of his youngest sister. Rock had twelve siblings and he was right in the middle...the only boy. He knew people in their community gossiped about them; many of the women thought his father was responsible for his mother’s death because he’d gotten her pregnant so many times. Rock went to Koko in tears the first time he heard the rumor. She’d sat him down and pulled out a leather-bound book that he’d never seen before. It was his mother’s journal and the pages inside told of a woman deeply in love with her man, her children, and her life. She was the one that wanted the big family, and Koko assured her little brother that if anything had to take their mother from this earth, she would have wanted it to be as she was bringing life into it. He smiled now every time he thought of that, and he saw his mother every time he looked at his little sister.
Rock’s father worked in a copper mine just north of Tucson and after his mother died, Rock was raised mostly by his five older sisters. His father was home as often as he could be, and he did his best to spend quality time with his only boy but as Rock got older, he wanted to spend more time with his friends and less time with his old man. After his father died Rock was left with many regrets and he promised himself he would always find time for the people who were special to him. So far, he thought he was doing okay by his uncle and his sisters. He did have plans to go traveling, but not as long as Koko was sick.
Koko was already twenty-five and engaged to be married when their father died. She broke off her engagement because her fiancé wasn’t interested in raising her sisters and brother. She never married, or as far as Rock knew, even came close after that. His chest hurt sometimes when he thought about how she’d dedicated her young life to her family, and now when there was a light at the end of the tunnel, her beautiful life was coming to an end. His other four older sisters cared for the younger ones now. They had all made it to their teens and somehow the family had survived. Sometimes Rock had resented having five “mothers” growing up, but now that he was a man, he wouldn’t trade any of them for the world, and he’d never abandon Koko in her time of need.
While his thoughts ran rampant, Uncle Jeremiah was still talking. “You’ve been here dozens of times and you’ve only seen Ajei just this once. She has lived close to here with her aunt and uncle for about four years. I believe God was giving her time to grow up before he put her in your path. Are you truly going to ignore this opportunity?”
Tse chuckled again. “Okay, uncle, but if she thinks I’m a pervert for following her, you’ll have to tell her you urged me to go.”
“I saw the way she looked at you—she’ll be happy to see you again.”
Rock wasn’t sure his uncle was right. Ajei seemed so shy to him and even his little joke seemed to embarrass her. He would bet that she wasn’t very experienced and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. But he did want to see her again, so he got off the bike and onto the horse Jeremiah had saddled for him. Armed with his uncle’s directions, Rock started toward the path Ajei had taken almost an hour earlier. He had ridden about half a mile when he saw something up ahead that startled and then worried him. It was the horse Ajei had ridden...the one she called Sunshine. Rock got off his horse and tied him to one of the Joshua trees that lined the road. He advanced toward Sunshine slowly but the horse seemed nervous and before he reached him, he took off running. Rock noticed earlier that Ajei rode without a saddle. The blanket she had sat on top of was gone now and as he untied his horse and climbed back on, all he could think about was her lying somewhere in the desert, thrown from the horse and alone and injured.
