AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Anxiety will not destroy me.”
Chapter Five
“Have faith in what will be.”
When we arrive at my brother’s club, on the outskirts of San Luis Obispo, I’m grateful to him for choosing to drive me here in my car rather than putting me on the back of his bike. After making me take a sobriety test of walking in a straight line, which I failed, he decided that it would be too dangerous for me to even try and hold onto him for one mile let alone the thirty we had to travel. Now all I had to do was get my car keys from where he’d tucked them in his pocket, show my face, lose my brother, and then hide, with the dregs of my wine bottle, in the car for the rest of the evening.
I can feel the onset of a panic attack starting as we walk toward the entrance to a compound in the middle of a field, covered in tire tracks, and surrounded by countryside and bikes. Everywhere I look, there are bikes. Hundreds. Fuck! How many people are going to be here?
“It’s not a big party is it?” I ask my brother with a little trepidation but trying to keep it light.
“We’ve got the South Dakota chapter here for a few days, so yeah, it’s a biggish party. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought you. Just make sure you stick close to me, ok? If anyone asks, you're with me.”
“With you?”
“Yeah. They won’t mess with you then.”
“Ok.” ‘Mess with me’. What the fuck! ‘Mess with me’. Holy shit. Five: So many bikes, even more helmets, a couple of cars, what must be at least ten barrels of beer, a couple kissing - is she wearing any clothes? ‘Mouth, you are banned from ever speaking again without brains permission. Understand?’ Al opens the car door, and a wall of loud rock music almost forces me backward. He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me into the building. Four: spotlighted ceiling, filthy floor, black walls, shit! - couple having sex on a leather sofa. Mental note: don’t sit on there later. Three, three, I need to do three: banging music - just my type; so many voices - mostly male and deep; skin slapping on skin, and I’m back to the couple on the sofa, again. I feel sick. Two: crisps - I could do with some food; dick - omg, she’s sucking that man’s dick, and he’s pierced. That must’ve hurt badly. One: wine. I turn the bottle upside down and bang the bottom of it to get as much out of it as possible. Fuck! There’s none left.
“Al,” someone calls out from across the room. My head turns to see a group of men sitting around a table, which is loaded with bottles of beer, some empty, some full. “Who’s the chick?”
My brother pulls me closer.
“Someone you fuckers need to keep your hands off.” He greets the group of men with slaps to the back and fist bumps.
“How was Monterey?” one of them asks. I look at the man who’s even bigger than my brother, if that’s humanly possible. He wears a cut saying, ‘President’.
“Good. Got exactly what you wanted me to get,” my brother replies, “I’ve left it at the warehouse for safekeeping.” A blonde, wearing little more than a bra and panties, brings him a beer. I look down at the ripped jeans and oversized ‘Black Stone Cherry’ t-shirt I’m wearing and suddenly feel overdressed.
“Can I have a beer, please?” My mouth works again before my brain is engaged. My heart’s racing at being this close to so many men, despite my brother’s presence acting as a kind of security blanket. I need more alcohol to combine with the Citalopram, which I took before I left home, in the hopes I go numb and just enjoy myself. It’s a long shot, but I can hope. My brother hands me his beer, and the blonde rolls her eyes at me before giving him another. I scowl at her.
“Thought you didn’t like beer?” my brother queries.
“When in Rome?” I smirk at him and take a long sip. I try not to gag. This stuff is seriously disgusting. Maybe, if I mixed it with a bit of sugar, it might taste better.
“I’m guessing this is your first time in a biker’s club,” one of the other men speaks. Looking up at him, I am distracted from contemplating a whole new recipe for beer involving lemon and sugar. He’s big like the others, but there’s a softness, or rather humility, about him. His large brown eyes stare straight through me, and it sends shivers down my spine. They’re not the usual chills that rack my body. These are something different, foreign. This man also has a cut on, illustrated like my brothers with a jade motorcycle, but this man has ‘Sergeant at Arms’ written on his and the word ‘Heat’.
“Heat?” I ignore his question and reply with my own.
“I asked the question first,” he replies. His voice is forceful and leaves me with no uncertainty that I must answer before I’ll get a reply to anything I ask him. I pray brain and mouth work together and open my mouth.
“I’m Aladdin’s sister. I don’t get out much.” I hear a hiss from beside me, and then the six men burst into fits of laughter. I step back, wondering what I’ve done.
“Fuck!” one of them exclaims. “Is she shitting us?”
My brother turns to me with a face of fury.
“The first time in ages you call me by my full name, and it has to be in front of my brothers.”
“Brothers? Full name?” I’m confused.
My brother grabs my beer. “I think that’s enough for you.”
“But...” I reach out for the beer and snatch it back. I drink half the bottle in one go before putting it down on the table and letting out a loud belch.
“Pardon me.” I put my hand over my mouth.
“Jesus. Why the fuck did I bring you here? I can see why you never go out. You're a complete lightweight.”
