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Sophie cleared her throat and stood up, caught off-guard. She smiled and put the rag into a soapy warm bucket of water she had near her feet. “Oh, hi there! No sir… you mean the courier, across the road there?”
But the policeman wasn’t laughing. “He’s no courier. He’s a member of the local motorcycle club, that one is trouble, he is the scariest of them all.”
“The… what?” Sophie leaned her head forward to peer out, too, widening her eyes.
“Yeah, Phantom, they call him, because no one knows where he came from, doesn’t speak… he’s exactly the kind of man you don’t want staring you down like that, you don’t want to meet in an alleyway at night.”
She pursed her lips together. “Huh?” She tried to sound vaguely curious rather than hugely invested in what the police officer was going to say next.
“He’s the bringer of death, that one, if he gives you any trouble, you come straight to us, okay? Why is he staring?” The police officer frowned back as Phantom looked on, unblinking. Like a lion staring down its next meal.
Sophie cleared her throat. “Oh, he’s just excited for the shop to open tomorrow, he likes ice cream,” she said, trying to sound casual.
The police officer snapped his head back to her. “That’s what I guessed, anyway, as, you know, he doesn’t speak… and all that…” she trailed off lamely.
The policeman nodded, and his eyes skimmed over her, not checking her out, as if he expected her to drop dead at any moment. “Well, you be careful around them, the Black Coyotes rule the town-”
Firstly, she was intrigued about the MC. A motorcycle club. An outlaw motorcycle club, no less. There wasn’t one in her hometown, a quiet, rural place, a few hours’ drive back down in southern California.
“An MC, you say? All I know of MCs is the stuff on the TV shows… I bet they aren’t really as bad as the media make them out to be-”
“Oh, yeah, these boys are bad alright, I recommend you pay them protection money when they come asking for it, and they will come, believe me…”
She listened to the rumors about them that the police officer was only too happy to divulge. About how they kept the town in order, drug free, but also how they were responsible for all kinds of trouble locally, how they worked with local gangs and how they moved guns, drugs up the state. Some people said they were bad news, trouble makers.
She didn’t know how much to believe. She’d heard a few motorcycles rumble up and down the street, where her little shop was, and she’d looked at the men on top of those bikes, clad in black leather with helmets on, visors down. Or the one lady, with cute little bunny ears on the top of her helmet that Sophie imagined drove the men wild. They were all intimidating, untouchable, intriguing. They rode like they owned the roads.
“Where is their clubhouse?” Sophie asked.
The policeman smirked. “The old Creekdale hotel, just up the road, yeah, I went once, wildest night of my life, didn’t come home until 7 a.m., still can’t lie on my left side… they own other businesses, too, a sex club-”
“A sex club?” Sophie repeated, eyebrows shooting up.
“Yeah, it’s a private members club, like $30,000 annual membership or something ridiculous…”
Secondly, she was turned on. She’d been in danger, in a vulnerable position with the big bad biker. That this mysterious, damaged soul had had his head turned by her… she bit her lip and tried not to let her emotions and imagination run wild. This was exactly the kind of thing her parents warned her about, but exactly the kind of trouble she liked to get herself into.
The trouble she could get into with him. The biker, Phantom. The kind of man the policeman had said she shouldn’t be alone with, in an alleyway, on a dark night. Well, she had been very alone with him, on a dark, rainy night. She’d stood next to him. She’d invited him into her shop. Hell, she would do it again if he darkened her door in the future. She felt special to have met one of them, to have met the ‘scariest’ of them all. Maybe she wanted to be scared. Maybe she wanted to be downright terrified.
The sole reason he got there early the next morning was to watch her. She arrived early, too, wearing leggings and a T-shirt. She looked good. She had poise and grace. Yoga, or Taekwondo maybe. Something requiring inner strength. He knew muscles, how they worked. He could look at a person and tell a great deal about them from how they moved. Over the flesh or under the flesh, he’d seen enough of the human body to know poise when he saw it. And he watched her very carefully. She had unlocked the door with a little satisfied giggle, as if she couldn’t believe her luck at having her own place. She must have worked hard for it. She must have been excited; her carefully laid plans coming to fruition. He had watched with bated breath now as men arrived with the sign, true to her word, and hefted it up on ladders, drilling it into place above the empty shop next door. Sophie’s Soft Scoops. Pink swirly lettering on a background of turquoise Caribbean sea. True to her word, the sign had gone up and she had opened her doors.
“Hi there! Do you want to try some? It’s free!”
“...That’s right, vegan, no dairy at all, so it’s low in calories, and good for the environment! Yes, I know!”
“Of course, I make it all myself!”
“Yes, you can choose how many scoops… I’ve got cones, too!”
“Well sure I have sprinkles! What kind of ice cream parlor would I be running if I didn’t have sprinkles?”
She kept it up all day, cheery, bright, full of energy, full of passion for what she was doing. He could hear it, hell, feel it from across the street, her excitement, her pride. Her little voice was like a fairy, tinkling like a bell, velvet soft over an iron fist of determination. A real life brunette little Tinkerbell. A little sugar plum fairy. People flocked around her. And something about that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He knew he had no right to be possessive… something was setting him off. He scanned the crowd. Men, women, children. On the surface it looked innocent enough. Yet, something in his gut was ringing warning bells. Something felt off about it. He sighed and adjusted himself on his bike, trying to let it go. He was meant to be keeping an eye on the pharmacy next door. He was struggling, watching her.
His mouth was watering. Maybe that was the feeling in his gut. Hunger. Nothing more, nothing less. But there was no way he would go over there and talk to her, grab a sample. In his mind he did. He sat stoically on his bike, anyone walking past might think he was simple, lost in his own head. Zombie, freak, psycho. That’s what he’d been called before. No, he was imagining what he would do, what he could do, if he wasn’t the monster he was. In his head, he strode over, confidently, a smile on his face. She would smile back at him. He’d say something witty and irresistible to her, she would laugh flirtily, high pitched, like a little sugar plum fairy. He’d take a mouthful of that creamy cool ice cream and it would melt on his tongue, slip down his throat… then his fantasy cut to them, alone, together. His imagination was artless and unsophisticated, it cut straight away to them having sex. It was night. He could only bear to imagine being with a woman in the dark. They were in the shop, he had her with her back pressed against the wall, he was holding her up, her legs wrapped around his waist. Powering himself home into her, she would be breathing his name, her hot, tight pussy engulfing him. He shamelessly stared at her from his vantage point across the street, while in his mind he was coming into her, both of them screaming, sweating, killing each other with their appetites for each other.
That is what happened in his head, he played it out like a YouTube clip of his favorite band. And he was a fucking obsessed roadie fan girl, over and over again. While he sat opposite, watching, saying nothing. She didn’t seem to notice him. He knew it was a fantasy, a completely made up scenario. He’d never have the confidence for any of that. He was an ugly monster who would never be able to speak to the likes of her. An angel, a fairy of light and warmth and happiness. No, his place was brooding in the darkness, out of sight. He didn’t deserve to even think about approaching her. He didn’t deserve her. Not her smile or her laugh or a moment of her time.
* * *
