Not Looking for Love: A Cowboy Romance (15 page)

“You got nothing better to do with your time?” Richie asked Logan as he plopped himself down on the tailgate of Logan’s pickup.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Logan said as he handed Richie a longneck while sitting in a lawn chair in the bed of the truck.

“Thanks. Where’s Doug?” Richie scanned the area.

“He’s around.”

They were on Doug’s property. Doug and his twin, Dave, owned a rundown piece of property they inherited from their parents. After their father died, no one took care of the place. Their mom still lived in the ramshackle house that sat a good few acres away. Both Doug and Dave were mechanics and old dilapidated trucks and cars were strewn all around the property, with a tire here, a motor there.

It had rained heavy the past two days, making just about most of the property ripe for some ATV mud racing. No one got a call it was going on. They just knew that whenever it rained heavy, Doug and Dave would take their ATVs to ‘the pit’ as it became known. It was a long stretch of dirt that the boys deepened a bit so the water would pool. Anyone who wanted to was welcomed to come play.

“Kara make it back all right?” Logan asked.

“Yeah, she got in yesterday afternoon.”

“So how’d she take it?”

“I didn’t tell her yet.” Richie said as he scanned the crowd. “Man, doesn’t anybody work anymore?” Richie looked at all the vehicles parked any which way and heard rock music on one side of them and country music on the other side of them. He wasn’t sure why he noted it but he also noted that even though the girls were pretty on the rock side, the girls were way prettier on the country side, but he laughed inwardly, he was being bias.

Logan gulped his beer down. “Are you kidding?” He watched the back of Richie’s head as he shook it. “Richie, I’m pretty sure that’s her source of income. The longer you wait the harder it will be to explain.”

He turned to him. “She’s got that book cover business I told you about.” He sighed when Logan didn’t say anything. “I know.” He conceded.

Logan’s eyes widened, a small smile crept up on his face. “Holy shit! You’re scared.”

Richie turned his attention back to the races ignoring him and downed the remaining three quarters of his beer in one gulp then tossed it in the pail next to Logan.  “Hell, I don’t know.” He leaned back against the side wall of the truck. “I know I should have told her, but…”

“But what?”

Richie didn’t answer. Logan scrutinized him then let out a boisterous laugh. “You’re hooked.”

Richie nodded again and admitted what he’d been denying all along. “I’m hooked. I don’t want to lose her so I gotta get this right.”

“Oh, Richie, Richie, Richie. You’re in deep.” Logan shook his head grinning. “So now what? She your girlfriend?”

“No… Nothing exclusive yet. I enjoy being with her… a lot, but neither of us is ready for that step right now.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, brother.” Logan let out a laugh and looked beyond Richie.

Richie followed his eyes to see two guys, one looked like Doug, stuck in the middle of the pit trying to gain traction. It looked like they were floating.

Finally both drivers were able to hit ground and move, kicking up mud all over the place.

“Thank God we’re far away from that,” Richie said.

“What’s the matter, pretty boy, afraid to get dirty?”

“Hah!”

“You used to like getting down and dirty in the mud.”

“Yeah, but now I like to get down and dirty in the mud with a chick.” He grinned.

Logan grinned as he reached for another beer and handed it to Richie. “So, what’s the plan?”

Before Richie could answer, Doug drove up on his ATV. He was covered in mud from helmet to boots. He stopped and popped off his helmet and grinning, he said, “Wooofff, that was a tough one. Did you see that? Me and Oscar lost traction, the water was so deep.” He laughed as Richie and Logan chuckled and nodded.

“You boys just gonna sit there?” Doug asked.

Richie and Logan looked to each other.

“Throttle up!” Richie said then he jumped down and ran to his truck and pulled out his ATV as Logan jumped on his.

That Friday Richie flew out to see Kara.

“You did what? How dare you? Richie, that’s my livelihood. You had no right. How the hell am I supposed to pay bills now?” Kara was ranting. It looked like her head was about to explode. She had been fuming all day. She had called the studio that morning to make sure Danny was really gone, then told Diamond D she would be in and if she could get some work. Well, Diamond D told her she no longer was employed there but did not know why, just that the order came down from Poppy himself. As soon as Kara hung up with Diamond D, she put a call into Poppy. To hell with not disturbing him while he was drying out. Unfortunately, he didn’t answer and after trying a couple of more times she gave up.

When she saw Richie coming in the house with a bag of groceries in his hands that evening, she told him she was unemployed, fired. That was when he told her.

She turned and walked toward the kitchen.

“We’ll work something out.”  He followed her and set the bag down on the table.

She looked to him then spun around and looked at the kitchen sink not really seeing anything. She was seeing red. “You need to call Poppy and reverse this.” She was hyperventilating. She had just moved into a new home. She had a mortgage to pay for the next thirty years, her taxes were high, and her debt, though it came down substantially, still needed to be paid off.

“This profession is not for you.”

She whipped back around. “That’s not for you to decide!”

“Damn it, Kara, have you seen your face lately? The bruises on your arms…your back? For God’s sake, it’s not normal.”

“It is what it is, Richie. I need this job.”

“You don’t have to…” He stopped short and looked around trying to find the right words, but they did not come to him so he continued with the first words that popped into his head. “You don’t need to fuck strangers to make a living. Going back to school to finish your education is what you should be doing.”

She got in his face. “Fix. This.”

He got the feeling she didn’t hear anything he said. Now he became angry. “You want me to fix this? You really want me to fix this? Yeah, you are good at spreading your legs, aren’t you? Even Danny knows that.”

She brought her hand up and slapped his face, tears slipping from her eyes. “Get out,” she said. “Get the hell out of my house.” She was heaving. The nerve of him to buy out her contract with Velocity.

At that moment this sweet girl turned into a force to be reckoned with. They had a staring contest and as he witnessed her breathing slow down, he didn’t expect her next words.

“You need to go, Richie. We’re done here, and give me back my key.” She put her hand up, palm out.

He continued to stare at her. When she realized he wasn’t going to drop the key in her hand she walked around him and out of the kitchen.

“Kara?”

She walked into the living room and up the steps to her bedroom.

“Kara!” his voice loud.

She ignored him, and just before slamming the door closed she said, “Leave my key on the kitchen table.”

Richie blew out a breath and slammed his fist on the wall by the kitchen, angry with himself for not handling this better, and angry at her for walking away, away from him, and if she truly meant it, away from their relationship. He dropped the key on the table, right next to the bag of groceries and walked out.

When he got in his car he called her. Of course, she didn’t pick up. Frustrated, he threw his phone on the passenger seat and drove off. With no clear picture of where he was going he found himself in the parking lot of the studio. There were no cars in the parking lot. He didn’t need to get out of the car to know the place was closed. It was just as well, he knew he wasn’t going to reverse what he had done.

He didn’t want to go to his house in Newport Beach. For what? He only liked being in California because Kara was there. Having picked up the rental at the airport, he drove back there again and hopped on a flight back to Texas.

Hoping she only needed more time to absorb what he’d done, he decided to give it a few days. He had no right. He knew it, but he couldn’t bear to see her hurt one more time. What he did was for the best. She didn’t have to worry about money, he’d provide. He didn’t tell her that yet because that would be another fight, and she really didn’t give him time to either. She was independent and he even lauded that about her and knew she’d fight him.

Kara leaned against the bedroom door, shaking. Did she really just end it with Richie? Three-plus years of sharing each other’s bed, dreams, and body. Her head was going in two different directions; run down to him and take back what she had said, and how dare he.

She heard the front door close. After waiting a few more seconds, she opened the bedroom door and stuck her head out. Moving closer toward the stairs she listened. Nothing. He was gone. She began to walk down the steps but paused when her phone rang and went to see who was calling. It was him. She ignored it. She went down into the kitchen. Yep, the key was on the table, right next to the bag of groceries. She rummaged through the contents of the bag. A pang went through her. All the fixings to make fajitas, one of his favorite meals. It was the meal he had made her the last night she was at his house. An image of him in his boxer briefs popped into her head and she sighed as she put the chicken in the refrigerator.

She had planned to take out her checkbook and go over her finances but she went back upstairs instead and lay down. The tears that slipped down her face turned into a river. She’d lost him and a job all in one day. She fell asleep and didn’t wake up till the next morning.

It had been almost two months since Kara had spoken to or seen Richie. When he tried to call her in the first couple of weeks she had ignored the phone and his messages, and he had stopped calling. Now she wondered if she made the right decision. She couldn’t stop thinking about him and even after all that time found herself missing him deeply. Mad as hell with him still, but missing him nonetheless.

She often wondered just how many discs of her movies were out there. According to Poppy there were a lot. Just how much was a lot? Oh, what the hell did it matter, there was no way she and Richie would work anyway. When it came down to it, he wouldn’t want to be with her on a permanent basis. Every time they were out together she worried someone would come up to her and out her as a porn star. That was probably the main reason why she hadn’t picked up the phone and called him. It kind of felt liberating now not having to be afraid of that.

Sitting at the kitchen table and going through her finances again she started to hyperventilate. Her book cover business picked up… a little. She calculated she had roughly four months of funds before she would run out.

Against her better judgment, she called Poppy and begging for her job back to no avail. He kept referring her back to Richie. When she hung up with him she was angry at Richie all over again. And when she was angry she often didn’t make the best decisions. She had remembered Kenny ‘Bang Bang’ telling her he worked for another, smaller, production company when he needed extra cash and they were always looking for girls. You didn’t even have to try out; they put you to work instantly. She called him.

*

Kara pulled up to a small, rundown warehouse, much smaller than Velocity’s, in a dirtier looking and seedier part of town. She almost didn’t get out, but she saw Kenny by the door and he motioned to her.

Nodding, she got out and looked around as she hit the lock button on her key fob.

“Hello, beautiful,” Kenny said before he gave her a quick peck on her lips.

“Hi, Kenny. Um… I think I made a mistake here. I don’t—”

“Nonsense, doll. Everyone is excited to have you here. They’re familiar with your work.”

She reluctantly nodded as he escorted her in.

It hit her like a ton of bricks. The stench of urine, sex, and something metallic hit her nose. And it didn’t look much better than the outside. She was standing in a large, dimly lit room with a king size bed. The walls, wherever the paint wasn’t peeling off, were filthy. Tripods with cameras on them surrounded the bed, not the professional cameras she was used to either. As she turned around, she spotted a rack of sex toys, spiky things, and whips, and a chill went through her. The toys didn’t bother her it was the thought of them being unsanitized.
Ewwwee!

Moaning from the TV that was setup on a portable table near the bed got her attention. A porn movie was playing. One man was jerking off by the face of the woman blowing another man.

“Augie, she’s here,” Kenny said to the tall, thin, greasy haired middle aged man with rumpled clothes who was making his way over from the back room.

Kara turned her head from the TV where she counted four men doing one woman. Something was off, and the woman had a look of agony on her face instead of ecstasy.

Augie’s yellow teeth grin unnerved her. She backed up a step and turned her attention to the TV when she heard the woman scream. Did she really just see one of the men snap the woman’s head back by her hair as he rammed her from behind as another one called her a cunt and smacked her face with his dick before shoving it in her mouth? The camera panned to a close up of the man behind her and he was in her butt, then panned to the girl’s face. She had tears running down her cheeks.

No time to process, she turned back to Augie. The unusually large obsidian eyes due to the thick lenses around black circular framed glasses looked all too familiar.

“Oh, yeah, yeah, very nice. Nice to see you again, dear. Turn around,” he said to her.

Kara looked from Augie to Kenny.

“It’s alright, Simone. He just wants to see your beautiful bod.”

She wore a little white skirt with a big belt and a white, cropped, sleeveless V-neck, showing off her round breasts. Her legs, a sheen to them, looked long and lean in her beige, spiked, lace-up shoes. 

She nodded slowly as she turned around.

“Oh, beautiful,” Augie said as he stuck his hand under her skirt. “Let’s see that fuckable ass.”

She whipped around so fast she crashed into Kenny. “What? No.” She pulled back and smoothed down her skirt as she looked from him to Kenny, then back to him again. “I don’t do anal.”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say, honey.” He snapped his fingers and a big, wide guy, gut showing below his stained white t-shirt and hanging over his jeans, came up to them with a clipboard and handed it to Kara then backed away.

“These are the payout rates. Look them over, the more you do, the more money you’ll make,” Augie said. “Make a quick decision, I want to get started in a few minutes.”

Her eyes shot up from the clip board, to him, but he had already been barking orders to the big guy as he made his way to the back room.

Kara wasn’t ready to start filming and made up her mind to get the hell out of there as soon as she could. But curiosity got her and she looked back to the clip board and began reading as she heard a loud rumbling outside. She looked to Kenney, to the door, then back to the clipboard. Blow job was the cheapest, blow job with cum shot, then came fucking, girl on girl, anal, DP, and gangbang, nothing out of the norm. Her eyes widened as she read on. Beating, urinating, asphyxiation. Alarms went off in her head just as the front door opened, and at the same time, Augie grabbed the clipboard from her. She looked to see four large men walk through the door then to Augie who quickly walked to the back room again. Looking back toward the front door she studied the men. They all wore the same black leather vests or cuts as she knew them to be. These guys were the local chapter of the Steel Devils, a motorcycle club originating from Nevada. Her body shook. What had Kenny gotten her into? What had she gotten herself into?

It looked like three of the men were in a formation to protect the fourth one behind them. The man in the middle was the shortest of the four, who by no means was short at all. With the widest girth, he looked the scariest with his long frizzy gray hair meshed with his frizzy beard on a weathered face with a massive neck covered in ink. He had a ‘Sergeant-At-Arms’ patch over the left breast of his cut. The man to his right was tall and thin, and young and bald with deep blue eyes and a little facial hair in the form of a well-kept goatee. He had a patch on his cut that read ‘Secretary’. The biker on the other side looked to be in his mid to late forties. He had a full head of black hair with some gray at the temples. The lines by his eyes were prominent and he was handsome even with the scar running down the left side of his face from just below the eye all the way to his jaw. According to his patch he was the Vice President.

She made eye contact with each one, noting the grins on their faces, and as the fourth guy and she made eye contact, he shoved the Sergeant-At-Arms aside and nodded his head in the direction of the back room. Kara’s eyes followed the Sergeant-At-Arms as he made his way to the back and was surprised to see Augie had returned, looking pale as he kept shifting his eyes. She turned back to the man who had been behind his friends and locked eyes.

He slightly tilted his head and his soft looking, dark blond hair cascaded down to just above his patch, the one that read ‘President’. Straightening his head he smiled, bringing out the dimples in his cheeks, as he walked closer to her. A stuttering Augie made the introductions.

“D-D-Dee, I want you to meet S-Si-Sim—”

“Shut up, Aug. I know who she is.” Dee’s smile faded as he looked to Augie. He looked back to her, smile in place, as he held out his hand. “We’re familiar with your work. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Simone. I’m Dean Wheeler.”

Ah, and now Kara knew why these men were grinning. She tentatively placed her hand in his and nodded once as she stared into his green eyes, trying not to tremble or show fear as she heard the men chuckle.

“Augie, why didn’t you tell me you got the beautiful Simone to come work for us?” Dee didn’t look his way, he couldn’t look away from Kara.

“I, uh, I was—” Augie sounded like a sniveling idiot.

“Oh, no, no. I was just leaving.” Kara removed her hand. She made a move toward the door, but the two remaining guards were, well, guarding it.

She stopped and turned around just as the Sergeant-at-Arms dragged out the big man from the back by his collar and practically shoved him in front of Dee. He then handed Dee the clipboard that was in his other hand. “I caught him trying to bury this under a pile of papers.”

No one moved or uttered a word as Dee silently read from the board. Then he looked to Augie. “What the fuck is this? Beating? Choking? Urinating? That why this place always smells like a fucking bathroom?” He thrust the board into Augie’s hands and took a couple of steps around the room, pausing now and then. “So, what the fuck have you been doing with our money, Aug?”

“We’re, um, almost done with the movie, Dee. Sal, go get the tape.” Augie said addressing the big guy with the small dirty t-shirt.

Dee put out his hand and grabbed Sal’s shirt before he could take a step. “Quick, go with him,” he said to the biker with the Secretary patch. Then he softened his look and smiled as he reached for Kara’s hand and walked over to a couple of dirty looking director chairs. “Have a seat. You being an expert, I’d like your opinion on the tape.”

“Oh, I’m not an expert.”

He just smiled at her.

Wearing white, the last thing she wanted to do was sit in one of the disgusting chairs and when she hesitated, she heard Dee snap his fingers. He pulled her back up before her ass hit the chair and laid down a towel on the seat then nodded.

“Thank you.” She nodded and sat, not sure where the towel came from but was grateful it looked cleaner than the chair. He sat in the other chair.

Quick came out with a tape and Dee watched as Sal slightly nodded to Augie and Augie mouthed the word ‘shit’. The vice president grabbed his arm when he tried to walk toward the back doorway.

No one said a word as they waited for Quick to switch out the tape from the machine and hit play.

The picture was quite dark and grainy, not at all professionally made. A cage, hanging roughly three feet off the ground, held three naked women, a blonde and two brunettes. Kara noticed they looked scared. Acting? Their bodies were marred with black and blues, and scrapes. Their hair was matted and they wore no camera-ready makeup. A large hand unlocked and opened the cage door and the camera panned to the man attached to that beefy hand. It was none other than the wide guy, Sal. Naked and hard. He harshly grabbed at the girls who were trying to move back, and got hold of one of the brunettes. He yanked her out of the cage and she fell to the floor. Laughter came from somewhere out of the camera shot. The girl didn’t move and after he locked the cage door, he grabbed her by her hair and dragged her, and the camera followed them over to a good-looking well-built man with long blond hair. He was also naked and grinning as he knelt on a bed, stroking himself.

For the next five minutes, Kara watched as the men double penetrated the woman with no preparation. The camera panned to close-ups of the action and when it panned to the woman’s face, Kara saw the agony on it. This woman wasn’t acting; she was clearly in pain as the two men pounded her.

The well-built man uttered demeaning things to her, switching from English to a language Kara didn’t know in-between moaning and grunting. Kara cringed. She made eye contact with Kenny who hadn’t made a move or uttered a word since the bikers walked in, furious with him for getting her involved in this.

Dee looked to her and grabbed her hand. Until he did, she had no idea her hands had fisted. She glanced his way then looked back to the screen and continued to watch this poor girl being abused.

“You sick fuck,” Kara addressed Sal as she made to get up when he bit down hard on the girl’s left nipple and she let out an ear piercing scream. Dee held her down.

  After both men pulled out of her and came, the well-built man stood off to the side laughing as he watched Sal grinning with his dick over the woman’s back. The woman lied face down on the bed, and it took Kara a moment to realize what Sal was doing. Kara flew up and out of the chair.

“Turn it off!” She was addressing the one called Quick, as she stormed over to Augie and slapped his face. “You pig.” She punched him in the chest. “You fucking bastard. Is this what you film?” She paused as she looked from him to the doorway of the back room and saw the brunette that was being abused on film.

The woman, who was barely covered, looked frightened. Her eyes were red, and it occurred to Kara that this was filmed a little while ago, perhaps just before she had gotten there. She looked up and scanned the ceiling and saw a large hook sticking out of it, just off to the side of the bed. She moved over to Sal and unleashed her fury, punching and slapping. When he tried to fight back, the V.P. held his arms down and grinned. As she was bringing her hand up to hit him again, someone grabbed it and she felt an arm around her waist.