Maddox

 

I wake on Saturday morning with a huge grin on my face. It’s a grin that still feels odd. The leader of The Miseryed doesn’t grin like that! I tell myself. The leader of The Miseryed wakes up with a grimace on his face! The leader of The Miseryed wakes up spitting and groaning!

 

I sit up in bed, reach across to the side table, and take the glass of water. As I sip it, I can hear a few of the men in the bar. Irish lets out a long laugh. Somebody drags a chair across the floor. Pool balls click and then thump as they hit the padding of the table. Markus grunts something loudly. I place the glass down and try to wipe the smile from my face. I don’t want the men to see. They can’t get it into their heads that their Boss has gone soft.

 

Is that it? I ask myself, leaning against the headboard and staring at the window. It’s half past nine and morning sunlight shines through the blinds. Am I soft now? I know the answer is no, but I’m definitely changed. That’s undeniable.

 

I remember sitting with Eden in the car after we fucked. I thought it was just going to be a quick fuck, bang-bang, done. A quick burst of pleasure and then it’s done. I didn’t expect…

 

“Stay,” she said.

 

“Why?” I asked, my cock already growing hard again. Does she want more?

 

But then she said, “So we can talk.”

 

This is the point where, with any other woman, I’d be gone. To talk? I’d get out of there as fast as I could, ride away, and never look back. I’m not the talking type when it comes to women. Eden is a wildcat; a woman who feasts on pleasure, and that should be enough. I should have laughed, smirked, something. But instead, I took my hand off the car door and turned to her.

 

“About what?” I asked, looking into her eyes. She looked at me so openly I was sure she’d seen right through me. Had seen through all the bullshit directly into my chest. Maybe she’d somehow pried open my blackened ribs to take a look at my decayed heart. The thought made me swallow a massive lump.

 

The night was dark, and we’d sat under a broken streetlamp. We were in near-total darkness except for a shaft of moonlight, which speared down and glinted off the bumper.

 

Eden shrugged, her bra strap falling down, that gesture which is cute and sexy all at once. “Anything,” she said.

 

She made to bite her lip, her lips parted, but then she closed her mouth, making her lips into a straight, determined line. A moment later, she said, “Or not.”

 

Did she think she could pout with me? I’d thought. Make me care? Leave, Maddox! Show her you don’t care—

 

But I couldn’t leave.

 

“Let’s talk,” I whispered. I searched my mind: what is it men ask women? I’d never been on a date, a proper date, so this sort of thing was new to me. “Tell me about your childhood,” I finally said.

 

She grinned at me. “You’re really trying here, aren’t you?”.

 

“I am,” I admitted. “Is it that obvious?”

 

“I think you’re doing alright.” She raised her eyebrows quickly, playfully. “For an outlaw biker.”

 

“Are you going to tell me or not, Red?” I grunted.

 

“Sure.” She shrugged. “I was born here, in LA. My father was a computer programmer—”

 

“Like you.”

 

She nodded. “Like me.”

 

“My mother was a stay-at-home mom.”

 

I let out a gasp, and she grinned mischievously. “Yes, I know, right? Here I am, desperately clinging to feminism, studying gender theory, and my mother was a stay-at-home mom. I know what you’re thinking. Were there problems? Is that why I became a feminist? Nothing as exciting as that, I’m afraid. I respect my mother a great deal, but I never wanted to be like her. I guess that’s pretty normal, isn’t it, not wanting to be like your parents?”

 

I stroked the thumb of my right hand over the knuckles of the left. “Pretty normal,” I agreed. “Where are they now?”

 

“Malta,” she said. “Well, my dad is. He moved when I was twenty-one. They had me when they were quite old. They’re retired. My mom lives just outside town. I see her every now and then. What about you?”

 

“What about me?”

 

“Your parents…”

 

“Ah,” I muttered.

 

I stared down at my tattooed hand. She leaned across, touched my chin, and turned my gaze. “You can talk to me,” she said.

 

“Can I?” I breathed; hardly able to believe where this has ended up. One moment, we were grinding, panting. The next I was spanking her, and she was moaning into my neck. Then the next, she was probing into my past.

 

Do you want to tell her? Really? I’d thought.

 

“Yes,” she said firmly, stroking my face.

 

“My mother died when I was two. I don’t remember her, except that she sang to me sometimes. That’s all. My father was…” I sighed. “He wasn’t a nice man, Eden. That’s all I’ll say. I can’t be too hard on the old man. He taught me how to fight, how to take care of myself. But he wasn’t a good man.”

 

I stopped, my mouth suddenly dry.

 

“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to say anything else.”

 

I nodded, reached up, and touched her hand, pressing it hard into my face.

 

I open my eyes back in real time, to the morning sunlight, shaking my head.

 

Eden is a wildcat, a woman who needs sex just as much as me, but it’s more than that. It’s like I’ve found a friend who’s as hungry for sex as I am. That alone should thrill me. But it’s not just the sex; the talks afterward are almost as important to me. After that night, talking afterward became the norm. We didn’t stray to parents again, but I learned a lot about her. I learned that she’s an only child, she was obsessed with computers as a teenager, and that she’s never had a serious boyfriend. I learned that her favorite genre of video games is role-playing games and that she’s completed Knights of the Old Republic three times. I learned that she’s allergic to crab and her favorite food is Hawaiian pizza.

 

But what has she learned about me?

 

That one’s murkier. She knows I like to ride, but that’s about all. When she asks about me, I usually change the subject, and we end up talking about nothing in particular. Just talking for the sake of talking. Which is fine by me because I like the sound of her voice.

 

I stand up and stretch out.

 

Time to get to work.

 

It’s the day of the party, after all. One of the biggest gigs The Miseryed has had in a long time. I can’t waste time overthinking about a woman.

 

But she’s not just a woman.

 

No, she’s not, but that doesn’t make any difference.