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Hard.
I have never, in my life, been hit by a man.
I got in a bitch slapping catfight at a Public Image Limited/Big Audio Dynamite double bill, but we were in a mosh pit gone bad. It was punk, it was expected.
Getting hit by a man hurt.
A fucking lot.
So much, I quit screaming and concentrated on the burning hurt that was radiating out of my cheekbone into my entire face.
“Teddy, for Christ sake. Are you nuts? She’s Nightingale’s. He’s gonna rip your dick off. This is supposed to go smooth.”
I opened my mouth to scream again and started back with the struggling.
Then Teddy was pulled away, someone touched me with something, and after that I didn’t remember a thing.
FIVE
CUPCAKES
Icame to feeling very funky and unable to move my limbs.
I focused on what appeared to be the ceiling of a car and heard voices from what sounded like really far away.
By the time the car stopped, I was able to move a little bit but not much. I was feeling tingly all over and my head was fuzzy.
The door to the car was opened and I was hauled out with hands under my armpits. Whoever hauled me out put me on my feet. My legs buckled and I nearly went down before I was caught. It was time again to lament the miniskirt, as a girl doesn’t want to be tossed around by bad guys while wearing a short skirt.
“Shit, hold her up, you moron.”
Two guys, one of them I noted was Goon Gary (not The Moron), dragged me by my upper arms through a tidy garage and into a house. I was shaking my head, trying to clear it and thinking not much of anything except that I wished I was wearing jeans.
I was taken into a room and heard a man say, “Jesus, what the fuck?”
The answer came hesitantly. “We had to stun her.”
“What happened to her face?”
This answer was more hesitant. “She bit Teddy so he hit her.”
“Christ! Which part of ‘I want this to go smooth’ did you not understand? Nightingale’s going to have a shit hemorrhage. Get her some ice then call Teddy, get him out of town.”
I was planted on a couch and not processing much of their conversation. I was focused on getting my fingers to move. I was together only enough to notice Goon Gary and The Moron making a hasty exit and that the couch I was on was a really nice couch, fluffy and covered in cream silk damask. I’d only just bought my couch a couple of months ago and I was still in couch assessment mode, the kind of mode that unconsciously comes whenever you make a major purchase.
I succeeded in lifting my head to look at the guy who’d been talking. He was wearing gray slacks and a maroon shirt with a monochromatic tie. He was short, had to be in his fifties and had jet-black hair with white at each temple. He looked like what I would guess a younger Grandpa Munster would look like, except a lot more creepy and definitely scary, but not in a comic way.
“You okay?” he asked me.
No, I wasn’t okay. I’d just been punched in the face and then kidnapped.
I just stared at him.
“I’m really sorry about this,” he said. “I’m having troubles with some of my employees.”
No shit.
I thought it but didn’t say it. I hadn’t recovered enough to form words.
