Allison

 

I sit at my apartment window and crack it slightly, letting the January biting wind whistle in through the inch or so space I have opened. I look down at the snow, which blankets cars and stores and roofs alike, and I trail my hand over my four-month bump. I think about the past months, think about how Rust and I have lived here for a few days out of the week and at his apartment for a few days. I have been by the clubhouse, too; and I have learnt that these bikers, far from being the scary men I thought them to be when I was too frightened to go to the clubhouse to find Rust before, are mostly just tough, but humane, men. I have met Zeke, who seems like Rust’s younger, slightly shorter brother to me. All in all, we are moving ahead. All in all, life has taken its course. Rust still talks about the unpatched, about Trent, the man who intimated me the day I met Rust, which seems like a long, long time ago now; as far as I can tell, the unpatched are still causing them problems.

 

“What about you, huh, Bump?” I ask, stroking my belly. Although Rust is convinced that the baby will be a boy, I find myself calling them Bump instead; it just feels more fair, until we know for sure. Typical man, I reflect, as I watch a fresh snowfall cascade past the window. The breeze is welcome. It is early morning, a Saturday, and I don’t have work for two blessed days. A few brave men and women walk through the snow, wrapped head to foot in coats and scarfs and thick trousers and boots; and then there are the others, the less privileged, the ones who come into my office with cold burn, shivering, and asking to be rehoused. “But let’s not think about that, Bump, not today, at least.”

 

I leave the window and go to the couch, stretch my legs out, waiting for Rust. These past months with Rust have been some of the sweetest of my life. At first, there was a distance between us, because after all we were strangers; the only thing we had, really, was our physical attraction. But now, I am sure something else is starting to develop. Of course, the physical attraction is still there, but there’s another element now, too. We share things: I have told him about my childhood, how my parents tried to force me into the career and a marriage they wanted; and he has told me about his far more tragic childhood. I think about his mother telling him to leave, and I clench my fist with anger. How could she do that to him? How could she do that to his father?

 

I think about when Rust told me, late on Christmas day, sitting at the window with a cigarette and me sitting at the other side of the room so I didn’t inhale the smoke. His back was to me, which I think is the only reason he could tell me. We’d had Christmas at the clubhouse and slept at his apartment, so he was sitting at his window which overlooks the outskirts of the city, breathing smoke into the night. And then, in halted, stop-and-start sentences, he told me about his childhood, about his father coming home with cracked skin on his hands and bags under his eyes, and then about the heart attack and his mother’s command: leave, and never come back; she was starting a new life. After he told me it all, I asked him to get rid of the cigarette, which he did; he threw it into the snow beneath the window and it extinguished with a hiss.

 

Then I walked across the room and sat in his lap, stroking his face. He’s grown his beard out, a big bushy tangle of brown-red; now he finally has a reason for his name. I’ve asked for his real name, but he just grins and tells me it’s his favorite color: the same answer every time. But one night, when he was drunk, he told me that when he left home he abandoned his name and took Rust because it was the color of his dead father’s eyes: a shade of brown which seemed red. He told me he didn’t want to remember the boy before he became Rust. And I understand that. He told me how he left his mother and ended up with Mouse, The Damned’ leader before Shackle, about how he learnt to fight and be tough. We’ve covered a great deal of ground in a few months, I reflect, stroking my ever-growing bump.

 

I’m thinking about all this when the door opens and Rust walks in. “Morning, little Mama,” he says, and without turning I can hear the smile in his voice. “I’ve got bacon or yogurt. Little Mama’s choice.”

 

“Since when did you start buying me yogurt?” I ask, climbing to my feet and joining him in the kitchen.

 

He steps forward, looking wild with his beard and his grown-out hair, and places his hand on Bump. “Since my little boy started getting bigger, little Mama. That’s when. Now, what do you want…yogurt or bacon?”

 

“Sushi,” I mutter. “I am desperate for a truck-load of sushi.”

 

Rust rolls his eyes. “Well, that ain’t on the menu, and if you think I’m goin’ to be one of those guys who go running back out into the cold because my whale is demanding some specific dish, you’re dead wrong.”

 

“Your whale?” I giggle, slapping him across the face. “I’d prefer to be a little Mama than a whale, you animal.”

 

He takes a step back and then juts his chin out. “Hit me again, whale woman, but really put your all into it this time. A whale like you should be able to hit harder than that.” He chuckles, black eyes glinting with embers of playful light.

 

“You’re an evil man,” I say, offering a melodramatic pout.

 

He takes the bacon from his brown shopping bag and tears it open with his teeth. “I thought I was an animal,” he says, spitting plastic onto the floor. “And now I’m evil, too? You need to make your mind up, whale-woman.”

 

I giggle and shove him in the chest. He opens his arms and wraps them around me, enveloping me, trapping me, but being trapped has never felt this good.