Torque

 

Torque grinned to himself as he pulled up in front of Spencer’s Shop. The night air was thick and hot, leaving his hair damp as he stepped off his bike. He slicked it back with one hand and then straightened his leather vest. He could see Blue through the window of her booth. She hadn’t drawn the curtains, displaying herself like a figure on a stage as she finished up with a customer and cleaned her area. He watched as he slowly walked up to the building, studying the way she moved her arms, the way she carried herself, the way she tucked a strand of her powder blue hair behind her ear after she removed her gloves. She was graceful and beautiful. If it hadn’t been for her hair dye, her piercings, and her tattoos, she would have looked very out of place in there.

 

Still, she made an intriguing picture, and he had finally managed to get in her tattoo chair. Blue was in high demand, but he would have her to himself for the evening. Sure, it was because of Spencer, but he would take what he could get.

 

As he came in the door, he held it for a woman on her way out. In her mid-forties, she had her cell phone pressed to the side of her head. “I’m telling you, Leslie, this girl is good! I never thought I’d get a tattoo in my life, and now I don’t know that I want to stop! My artist and I have already started talking about my next one. She’s going to draw up something to go across my shoulders.”

 

The curtain to Blue’s booth was open, but she had her back to him. Torque was content to stand there and watch her work for a moment. Her movements were swift, fluid, efficient. She bent down to get something out of a cabinet, her firm ass in the air, and it was all he could do not to grab her up as he had done back at her place. It was easy to imagine what might happen if he let his instincts take over. In his mind, he grabbed her by the hips and shoved his crotch against her. Blue was surprised, but she didn’t stop him as she cast a sexy look over her shoulder. She turned around, pressing her breasts against him as she unzipped his pants …

 

But he wouldn’t do that here. That’s what he tried to tell himself, but he knew it would be difficult. The two of them would be completely alone for at least a couple of hours.

 

“I hope this won’t be too boring for you.”

 

She jumped, turning to the doorway with flashing eyes. “Christ, you scared the shit out of me!” Blue’s fist curled, but she made no move to hit him. She looked away from again as she flattened the tattoo chair into a table. “Now, what are you talking about?”

 

He liked that it took so little to get her fired up. He had been with women who were as icy as the color of Blue’s hair, who didn’t let anything bother them. Torque knew guys who were into that because it meant they never had to deal with an emotional female. But Blue was different. She played it cool on the surface, but he liked making her react. “I mean the tattoo. From what I’ve seen of your work, you don’t do things in just one color.”

 

She gestured for him to get on the table while she put the right needle in her machine. “I’m sure it’ll be plenty boring, but I don’t always get to pick and choose what I want to do. Besides, Spencer said I get to keep the full price of this session without paying him a percentage.”

 

“I see. So it’s all about the money.” He took off his shirt, watching her as he did so.

 

Blue made a point not to look at him, scowling as she busied herself with her equipment. “No. But everyone has to make a living.”

 

“That’s true enough.” Torque laid on the table and relaxed his body. This wasn’t his first rodeo by a long shot, and he found that it was almost a soothing process at this point. “So what would you do if you didn’t tattoo?”

 

She took a long moment to answer, checking over the previous day’s work and wiping down his skin with a disinfectant. “I don’t know. I’m not sure there’s anything else I can do.”

 

“That can’t be true,” he argued. “You seem smart. You’re an artist, but there are other jobs. What about a graphic designer?”

 

“Do you want me to finish this tattoo or not?”

 

“I’m just making conversation.”

 

Blue rolled up next to him on her stool, her body so close to his but not touching. Her fingers were gentle as they pressed lightly on his skin. “I don’t think I could stand sitting behind a computer all day. And I don’t think I would exactly fit into the office scene.” Her voice was quiet, neutral.

 

Torque closed his eyes as the needles shuddered against his skin. He hadn’t minded having Spencer do the tattoo. The man was a good artist, and he didn’t try to run him hard just because he was a guy. But there was something far more intimate about having Blue do it. He wanted to roll over and grab her, pull her on top of him, and have his way with her. In his fantasy, she was happy to oblige, but she was difficult to read. Blue hadn’t stopped him when he had kissed her, but she had clearly been startled and disoriented. She didn’t even seem very enthusiastic about doing the tattoo.

 

“What about you?” she murmured. “What would you do if you weren’t a biker?”

 

“Investment banker.”

 

Her laughter echoed through the booth, and he grinned. “Is that so amusing?”

 

She paused for more ink. “I’m not sure I could see you in a suit.”

 

“Why’s that?”

 

Blue tipped her head to the side as she thought about it. “You know how these wrestlers and body builders get huge muscles, and then when they have to wear a suit or a tuxedo to a fancy event they just look like dressed-up monkeys? It’s kind of like that.”

 

Torque laughed, trying to keep it quiet so he wouldn’t move too much. “So I’m just a monkey, huh?”

 

“You know what I mean. The leather, the denim, and the tattoos all go together. You throw something else into the mix and it’s just weird.”

 

“Is it better when I wear nothing at all?” he challenged.

 

“You’re going to have to knock that shit off if you want me to finish this. I won’t have any more openings for at least two months, and I doubt Spencer does either. Even the high and mighty Torque might not be able to get in.”

 

He kept his face buried in his shoulder so she wouldn’t see that he was still smiling. Blue’s voice had sounded calm and authoritative, but he had rattled her once again. It only made him want to keep going. Their banter had been fun, but he knew he couldn’t push her too far. He didn’t need her passing out again, especially not with a needle in her hand. “All right. I don’t really know what I would do if I wasn’t part of Satan Seed. I’ve never really had much of a chance to even think about it. I’m sure not interested in being an investment banker.”

 

“Really? You’ve never had dreams of doing anything else?”

 

Torque pressed his lips together. His muscles were tensing, and he forced them to relax. Was she shaking him up, too? “I grew up in that world. It’s always been a part of me. My mother was a club girl, and my father was a biker. I was riding on the back of a motorcycle by the time I was five. My parents never sat down with me and told me I could be anything I dreamed of being, because we all knew I would end up doing the exact same thing my dad did.”

 

Blue made a noise, something that could have been a grunt of disapproval or a murmur of surprise.

 

“I got into my first knife fight when I was just twelve,” Torque continued, easily remembering that hot summer day. His fist had been sweaty around his knife. It was just a small blade that his father had given him after he’d won it during a card game, but it was everything to him at that moment. The other boy had accused Torque of stealing his wallet, and he’d had him pressed up against the fence. Torque had known the other kids on the old playground weren’t going to jump in and help him, and there had been no adults around. He’d been on his own, just like he always was. He’d whipped the knife out and slashed, landing a lucky strike on the boy’s arm. It had turned out the other kid was only tough when nobody was challenging it. “I won, and after that, everyone just treated me like an adult. They knew I could hold my own, and I didn’t have much choice but to back it up.”

 

“That doesn’t sound like much of a childhood.”

 

He wanted to shrug, but he stopped himself. “It’s just the way it was. I think it’s interesting, though, when I hear about people who lived with their parents until they were twenty-one and then still didn’t know how to take care of themselves.”

 

She gave a small snort of laughter. “Tell me about it. Some of the kids who come in here have just turned eighteen, and they think they’re adults. They can’t do their own laundry or cook a simple meal, and they think the world owes them a debt of gratitude just for gracing the face of the Earth. They still have a lot of growing up to do.”

 

“What about you?”

 

“What about me?”

 

“You strike me as the kind of girl who probably had things pretty stable.” He had wondered about that ever since he had first seen her. Blue seemed too innocent to be working in a tattoo shop. Her parents had probably hoped she would become a doctor or a lawyer and been very disappointed. With her gentle hands, she could easily have been a surgeon.

 

There was another long moment of silence. Blue could claim she was concentrating on her work, but Torque doubted it. He almost asked her if she had heard him.

 

“Do you really think I would be working odd hours in a small shop on the wrong side of town if I had a stable childhood?” she finally asked.

 

“You tell me.”

 

Blue sighed. “My life hasn’t been much different than yours. My mom was a club girl, but the only thing I know about my father was that he was a biker who left before I was born. I was on my own at about the same age you were, when my mom took off with yet another biker. This is where I ended up.”

 

“Oh.” Torque hadn’t realized what a scab he was picking at.

 

Her eyebrow twitched. “’Oh’ is right. So I’m sure you’ll understand why I try to keep my distance from men like you. My experience has led me to believe that bikers are nothing more than useless wanderers. They’ve kept my life from being anything but steady, and they’re only good for getting tattoos and lining my pockets. Honestly, I think being an artist here is the most stable thing I’ve ever had in my life.”

 

That brought up a question that had been burning inside him for two days, ever since he had seen the way Spencer treated her. “Is it Spencer? Are the two of you an item?”

 

She made an odd sound and pulled her hands from his back. He moved his head to look at her, figuring he had stepped too far over the line and she was no longer going to work on him. But Blue was holding her gloved hands out in the air and laughing silently. “You’re kidding me, right?” she finally squeaked.

 

For once, Blue had the advantage on him. “No. It doesn’t seem so far-fetched. The two of you work together, and he was very upset when you passed out. The way he talked about you, and the way you reacted to my kiss … It just added up.” When was the last time a woman had laughed in his face? There were no incidents that he could remember. Perhaps she could make him just as uncomfortable as he could make her.

 

“Lie back down and let me finish. Spencer and I just aren’t like that. For one thing, he’s married. His wife worked here until she had a baby, and that’s when I came on full-time. Even if he wasn’t in a relationship, we just aren’t like that with each other. He’s more like a big brother or a cousin. We’re close, but just as friends.” Blue paused for a moment. “Why? Did he make you jealous?”

 

“I don’t get jealous,” Torque growled. He smirked to himself, his face turned away from her once again. She was good; he had to give her credit for that. If he was honest with himself, he had been a little bit jealous of Spencer, even though he knew a man like that couldn’t compete with him.

 

A companionable silence settled over them, and Torque let himself enjoy the work of the needle and the close proximity of a beautiful woman. There didn’t need to be any more to it than that, but after a while he heard himself say, “Are you feeling all right? After the other night?”

 

“I’m fine. I’m sorry you had to see me like that. It’s not like blood really gets to me. It can’t; not in this profession. I think, maybe, it was just the whole situation. I’m ready for things to return to normal.”

 

Torque wondered just what normal meant for her. He wasn’t even sure what it meant for him anymore. He had been at Spencer’s Shop three days in a row, and he felt that this wouldn’t be his last time. Still, he would need to let his back heal before he had any more work done. There wouldn’t be any reason for him to come back. It didn’t seem like Spencer would mind if he hung out, but Torque wasn’t sure Blue would be too happy.

 

“You’re all done.” There was something about the finality in her voice that disturbed him. Their time together hadn’t lasted long enough, even though he hadn’t expected anything out of it beyond the tattoo. “I’m sure you know by now how to take care of these things. Let me just clean you up a little and I’ll take you at the counter.”

 

He knew perfectly well what she meant, but he grinned. “Ah, so you’ll be taking me? Funny, I always figured it would be the other way around.”

 

Blue ignored his remark as she wiped his skin off with a cool disinfectant that felt like a clean river running through a dry desert. “Let’s go.”

 

She was quick and efficient, just like she was with everything else, while she recorded his session in her logbook and took his payment. Blue’s azure eyes never looked at him for more than a fraction of a second during the process. “Oh, here. You gave me forty dollars too much.” She peeled two bills off the stack he had given her and tried to hand them back.

 

The biker closed his fingers around hers, pressing the money back into her hand. “Consider it a tip. You deserve it.” He turned and left with a heavy sense of regret. What more could he have done? Blue didn’t want him the same way he wanted her, and even if she had, they wouldn’t be right together. He was too rough; she was too delicate. They might have had some similarity in their backgrounds, but that didn’t mean anything.

 

As he walked to his bike and fired it up, he wondered why that mattered. There wasn’t anything wrong with meaningless sex, and he’d had his share of it. His body wanted Blue, but there was something stopping him from just taking her. It disturbed him, the notion burrowing deeply in his brain. It was easier not to think about these sorts of things.

 

But as he reached the edge of the parking lot, he turned his bike around and cut the engine. Torque straddled the machine as he watched Blue through the window once again from the shadow of a few scraggly trees. She was a much smaller figure this time as she cleaned, going through the exact same motions he had seen her do before. He wondered if she took comfort in the cycling process of design, tattoo, clean, repeat. He knew he didn’t mind watching it.

 

In the darkened corner of the parking lot, he took a moment to look at the entire building. Spencer’s Shop was situated at the end of a strip mall, one that didn’t get a lot of business. There were several slots that had been empty for over a year, and the discount store at the other end of the string of businesses was the only one that seemed to have a steady clientele other than Spencer’s. The asphalt was faded, with weeds growing up through the cracks and disturbing the painted parking lines that were barely visible. Was this all Blue deserved? What about him?

 

Just as he was about to kick his engine back to life and head for the clubhouse, he heard the roar of motorcycles. He hadn’t mentioned to any of the members of Satan Seed that he would be here today, so he wasn’t surprised when Rat and his thugs rode in. They revved their engines as they pulled to a stop immediately in front of the tattoo shop, just as Blue came out the front door and locked it behind her. Their timing couldn’t have been better.

 

“Well, well, well.” Rat’s voice carried across the near-empty parking lot. “If it isn’t the little girl who fucked up my arm. Just the person I wanted to talk to. Guess your boyfriend isn’t here to save you this time, is he?” Rat grabbed Blue’s arm and yanked her forward.

 

Blue’s hair swept crazily around her shoulders as she stumbled to keep herself from falling. She yanked at her arm, her jaw tight, but Rat had a firm hold on her. Even from such a distance, Torque could see that her eyes were wide with fear.

 

Torque’s heart thundered, and adrenaline shot through his blood. His body acted without the permission of his mind, kicking his bike to life and slamming the throttle. He shot across the parking lot, barely stopping before he collided with the other men’s machines. “Let her go,” he called as his feet hit the ground. He was barely off his bike before he had turned it off again.

 

“You’re never far from the call of danger, are you?” Rat sneered as he turned toward the other biker. His eyes was covered by a bandage, but the angry redness around it was unmistakable. He didn’t seem surprised to see Torque.

 

“I guess you must be doing too well with just one eye. Did you need me to take out the other one, as well? I’d be happy to oblige.” Torque was outnumbered, and the Dirty Bastards didn’t appear to have been drinking this time. Still, he wasn’t going to just let them attack Blue. He had to do something; he just didn’t know what it was yet.

 

Rat hadn’t let go of Blue’s arm, and he shook her as he spoke. “You just stay out of this, motherfucker. I’ve got business to take care of. She promised to fix my arm, and she’s going to do it, now. It’s the least she owes me.” His fingers closed tighter on her, digging into her flesh.

 

“If you and your men hadn’t been acting like assholes, none of it ever would have happened,” Blue reminded Rat, her slim eyebrows angry. “I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot needle.” She spat in his face.

 

Rat’s free hand impacted her face, throwing Blue’s head to the side. She staggered, only remaining upright because of her captor’s grip. Red fingerprints burned against the milky skin of her cheek.

 

Torque shot forward, not willing to put up with any more this bullshit. Rage filled his body, exploding outward in a series of blasts that cast a red glow to the edges of his vision. “You bastard, I’m going to kill you!”

 

Flame and Stubble grabbed at his arms. That wasn’t enough to stop him, but Rat whipped a pistol out of his waistband and pressed the muzzle to Blue’s throat.

 

“I suggest you stay back. I want my revenge, and I plan to get it.” Rat cocked the pistol and pressed it harder, making Blue cough involuntarily. The biker’s eyes were wild, his tongue darting out to lick the corners of his lips. He was here for blood.

 

Torque’s mouth worked in anger and frustration. He had been thinking of himself as Blue’s savior, as her guardian, but he had failed completely. Why had he left her at the shop alone, even for just a moment? Had he stayed with her, this might not have happened. “What do you want from me?” he hissed.

 

Rat gestured at his men with his head. A blow landed on Torque’s face, catching him off-guard. He hadn’t been watching the two thugs, keeping his concentration on the man with the gun. But they pummeled him now, knocking his legs out from under him and punching their fists into his flesh. His skin ground against the rough asphalt. The cold sensation of blood leaking from his body took over him, enraged him, and made him long to fight back. But he kept his eyes on Blue. One wrong move from Torque and her life would be over. The incident probably wouldn’t even make the newspaper, seen as nothing more than a fight amongst rival gangs. He let the kicks and the punches come, knowing they were the only thing that had a chance of saving her. Flame landed a blow with his boot to Torque’s ribs, his shrill laugh echoing through the parking lot.

 

As his left eye swelled, he heard the distant sound of sirens. Torque thought at first he was hallucinating, the high-pitched wail nothing more than a buzz in his ears. But Flame and Stubble suddenly let go of him. Rat threw Blue to her knees in front of him. She caught herself on her palms and gasped, reaching out for Torque’s hand.

 

“That will do for now,” Rat snarled. “You deserved it anyway, Torque, for interfering when it wasn’t any of your business. But don’t think this means I’ll forget what you did to me. I’d watch my back if I were you.” He and his men mounted up and roared off, the ground quaking underneath Torque from the rumbles of their bikes.

 

“Come on. We’ve got to get you inside.” Blue struggled to put her hands underneath Torque’s body and lift him, but her efforts were useless. He was so much bigger than she was. “Please, Torque. I can’t leave you lying out here forever.” She glanced over her shoulder as emergency vehicles went whizzing by on the main road. They passed the strip mall parking lot and continued on to their original destination. Nobody was coming after them.

 

Still, Torque got his knees underneath his body and allowed Blue to drag him inside. He staggered through the door, leaning heavily on her small form, and dropped onto the very same table where he had been getting tattooed. He cringed as he landed on his fresh inkwork, but that didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did.

 

He heard the distinct click of the door locking, and Blue swept into the room a moment later. She turned on the faucet. “Just lie still. I’ll get you cleaned up.”

 

It was one thing to have her work on him as a tattoo artist, and a completely different thing to have her play nurse. Her touch was still gentle, the warmth of her breath a welcome feeling against his aching skin, but she had a different purpose this time. He looked up into her cerulean eyes as she tended to his wounds, wondering how she could even stand to touch him after he had let this happen.