The Girls Club (22 page)

“Oh Rosh, oh Rosh. Thank you, thank you, thank you” sobbing and muttering she had waited until the room had cleared before taking the blindfold from Rosh’s eyes.  Rosh’s eyes appeared black, Sarah had forgotten the drugs she had given her and staggered back a step.

“REALLY I AM!” she hurled blood soaked cotton wool down onto the dusty floor.

“Listen, I think this needs stitches, oh, Lord. When they’re better we’ll look at getting you plastic surgery. It’ll be like they were never there.”

She hadn’t looked down.  Even in her high state she knew it felt as though her skin had been peeled back and salt rubbed in.  Sarah bagged all the stuff she had taken in with them, including the knife. 

Then she had taken Rosh to a ‘friendly’ doctor to get her taken care of.  The smallest of stitches possible.  That’s what Sarah had asked for. Like it made a world of difference.

Rochelle had been deposited back at the flat, Denise had been calling her cell and getting no answer all night, worried, it wasn’t like Rochelle.  Not at all.

She remembered Sarah leaving her at the entrance to apartment complex, “Take a few days off babe” Rochelle muttered to herself, still sat in her perfect reverie of that night.  Rochelle hadn’t been in charge of her faculties, Sarah had known enough not to take her to her door as Denise would be there.  She had gotten into the lift and her cell phone had cheeped at her, “Come get me, outside” she muttered again.  The Rochelle in the lift swaying, the light so bright, searing into her scalp, making the ceiling loom like it was coming down.  She had feinted, never heard the door
boing
as it slid open and Denise had been stood there.  Waiting.  Denise had picked her up and took her into the flat.  There was blood on Rochelle’s skirt, Denise’s first nightmare thought had been that she had been raped.  She got a cold wet flannel and patted Rochelle’s face with it, she had pushed up the skirt to see the damage.  And was greeted by two neat rectangles of bandage, slightly spotted in places with blood.  Whatever had happened to her partner had been done and dealt with.  She had sat for what seemed like forever with Rochelle on the couch, Rochelle’s pallor grey, her breaths shallow but regular.

A tear rolled down Rochelle’s face as the next moment came back to her.

She had awoken in Denise’s arms, Denise’s eyes were wild.  “Hey honey” she croaked, in time with her memory.

“Hey honey” she whispered back down to her and kissed her forehead.

“You want to tell me what happened?”

The coke, the pain, the light anaesthetic she had been given, it had all conspired for her to tell to the truth to her partner. 

Denise had wanted to kill Sarah.  Had leapt off the couch to grab her jacket.  Her face, her face went brick red and she was crying freely.  Tears of rage and anger. 

“You can’t. You mustn’t” she told the shadow in the crook of her arm as she saw herself sit up on the settee, straining to look alright, straining to make Denise see it wasn’t really
that
bad.

She had elicited a promise from Denise that night.  That it was over.  Done and dusted.  There’d be no more trouble and she promised never,
ever,
to let herself be put in that situation again.

“Oh Denise” she sighed.

She took her arm from over her eyes and black spots danced for a while in her line of vision.  The promise had held for two weeks.  Denise had been itching for a fight with Sarah about the marks.  One night as she had been waiting outside Tarkingtons to run Rochelle home, her legs still hurt too much to drive, Sarah Steiger had been leaving the building.  She wouldn’t make eye contact with Denise, just walked along the street to the end of the kerb to wait for whoever she was getting finger fucked with that night.

“That’s right” Denise mumbled round her cigarette.

“Sorry?” she turned then to look at Denise.

“I said that’s right.” she had dumped her smoke and got up from the car she’d been leaning on.

“I’m sorry, I don’t get you?”

“I bet you don’t.” and she had gone strutting over to Sarah Steiger with every intention of giving her a kicking.

“Ah. Listen, before you go playing the macho card with me I will tell you this just the once. I asked her, she did it. End of. Proceed to touch me and I’ll put you in a fucked up place she-man” Sarah had fumbled her cell out of her inside pocket, Denise smacked her bag to the ground and with her next lead through punched Sarah squarely on the jaw.

Rochelle came out in time to see the second punch to the head Denise administered, she might have been small and wiry, her cropped hair and multiple piercing
giving her a roguish look that screamed ‘lesbian’ but she was hitting Sarah with intent to kill worth twice her size.

“Denise! NOOO!” she had hobbled over and grabbed Denise’s arm.

“ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!HA!” she shouted and hooted.

Sarah was on the pavement.  Breath tearing in and out of winded lungs, blood at one temple and a respectable mouse rising under her right eye.

If not for the last insult Denise might have been spared.  She hawked and spat, right on Sarah’s face.

“Fucking bitch!”

Rochelle had put Denise in the car and demanded she leave while she tended to Sarah.

“I won’t fucking come home if you don’t!”

Having had her way in the end though Denise left.  She knew it was what Rochelle had wanted, even if she hadn’t realised it.  High tits bitch had it coming.  Sick cow.

Rochelle knew where to take Sarah.  They took Sarah’s car.  All the way there Sarah made scrubbing gestures at her face with a tissue.  More than anything else it was the being spat at part that rankled her.  Rankled her greatly. 

She had been treated for cuts and abrasions.  Nothing major.  No concussion.  Later that night she made a call to the Chain guardians.  There were ten in all.  She had each in her pocket, either by virtue of her snatch or of her wallet.  She emailed them all a picture of Denise.

$50,000.00 to the first who gave proof she was dead, she texted each of them personally.

Rochelle was oblivious to this.  She’d known Sarah was mad.  Maybe even slightly madder than she’d been about the ‘marking’ incident and the fact that the Chain elite had wanted her dead.

Rochelle had gone to work the next day with plans in her head about the two of them leaving LA together.  Not forever.  Just long enough for the bad blood to die down.  She had after all let herself be used so badly by Sarah, if Sarah had taken a few lumps and was still upright and breathing how could she really blame Denise for being protective of her?  They had talked most of the night.  Denise with her gruff demeanour finally wavering, the thrill of the fight gone from her.  Rochelle trying to explain that Sarah wasn’t someone you messed with, and that as much as she loved the fact that Denise wanted to defend her honour, she had done what she’d done to save Sarah’s life.

Denise had never been an office type.  She worked at a surf shack on the beach.  Taught people to surf, rented boards, peeled jellyfish off people.  They had met on the Chain.  In the right context the Chain was indeed a beautiful thing. 

One of the Chain meat heads spotted her running down to the surf with about half a dozen people two days later.  She called her favourite sparring partner, and waited. She was watching the people surf, watching the target.  Damn good surfer.  Pretty fucking hot in a wetsuit too.  Shame she came with a price.

The two meat heads.  One blonde and one brunette, stood at the rail and watched the surfers until the sun went down.  The blonde smoked cigarette after cigarette.  The brunette, stocky and short in stature drank copious amounts of coffee.

The surfers departed.  They watched her pack up the stands outside the hut.  Patient.  Observant.

As the sun went down on the last day of Denise’s life the two meat heads followed her into the surf shack quietly.  The brunette stood in front of the doorway and the blonde who was relatively small in size for a Chain guardian  took a body board off the rack and belted her in the back of the head with it.  Denise had not seen it coming.  They picked her up and carried her out to the blondes car.  A passer-by asked if she was ok, “Fell off her board” the brunette said gruffly.

On the outskirts of LA a new condo was being built, they would be undisturbed there.

The blonde sat in the back next to the unconscious Denise, blood running quite freely down the back of her head and over the knob of her spine. 

The brunette adjusted the rear-view, “Keep that shit off my seats bitch”

The blonde sat Denise forward.

They pulled into the empty building site and took her between them down into the lowest level of the condo.  Blondie produced a plastic tie grip.  Blondie passed it to the gruff brunette and pushed Denise up against one of the support struts of the building, pushing her arms behind her they found her arms wouldn’t come together close enough for the grip to go round her wrists.  Blondie fixed that by pulling both arms up quickly, the popping of her shoulders from their sockets shocked Denise awake.  There was nothing to do but scream, her arms felt like they’d been detached and she could feel fire running the course of her tendons and overtaxed muscles.

They took turns body beating her.  No real reason for this aside from the fact that Sarah had always rewarded viciousness.  They each posed for digital camera shots.  They took photos of each of her shoulders, they had both gone an alarming shade of purple, the left one looked very much like the skin had tautened to a degree that would mean its split was imminent.

Denise remained awake for the most part.  A panic bird like chattering in her mind convinced her that of she passed out again in the face of these monsters, they would kill her.  If she took her medicine, Sarah’s revenge, then she might just make it through.  There was no doubt in her mind about why this was happening. 

The pain.  The pain filled her mind, top to bottom and side to side.  Pain.  Blood roaring electrical signals of pain.  Blood and tears poured down her face, each time she sagged forward the pain in her shoulders and upper back making her cry out as stabbing pain lanced down viciously.

They hardly spoke. 

“Finish it” Blondie puffed, arming away her work sweat.

“Wait” Brunette.  Their hair colour the only real thing different about them, their black pants and white golf shirts smeared with dust and blood.

“A, I, a”

“Oh sweetness. You’ve been a treasure. But now its time for you to go” Blondie turned as if to walk away and when she turned back she had a revolver in her hand.

They had their photos.  They were almost through.  Denise could barely make out what it was she had in her hand but knew what the end looked like.

“Rosh…!” she screamed.

BANG! 
She went limp against the post and her knees sagged.  The left shoulder made a meaty gristly snapping sound.  The shot rang out against the walls and out onto the hills of LA in the night chill.  The shot had taken Denise at the side of the nose.  The effect had been an almost total facial collapse.  Brunette shot another photo and Blondie cut off her left ear.  The one that had 5 earrings in it.

Blondie then produced a can of lighter fluid and doused her with it.  With one match Denise was alight.  20 minutes after the meat heads left to go get cleaned up her shoulder left her arm entirely, the cooked meat becoming tender.  Her face hit the floor, the empty space made by the gun filled with dust and mites after the fire had burnt out.

Sarah created a whole fabricated story that the police had been all but convinced it was drugs or gang related when talking to Rochelle about it.  Consoling her in her time of loss, her office had actually been the first place Rochelle had come to after learning the news.  In her heart she knew it was Sarah’s revenge, even if her brain wouldn’t allow the thought room. 

She’d been shot in the face, a public statement made by all manner surf gangs.  She must have upset the wrong kind of people.  Sarah extolled.

Rochelle hadn’t believed it then.  She didn’t believe it now.  Denise had been beaten like a dog for going against Sarah and paid with her life.  A more mature and slightly selfish part of Rochelle thought Sarah was now perhaps getting her comeuppance.

She scrubbed her hands across her face.  Denise was not all that long dead, it was a lesson Rochelle had thought she would only have to learn once.  So why did it feel like a boomerang of bad luck, heading right back to smack her in the face?

“Shit!” the clock said it was time she didn’t have to be here any more.  She really had been on a long trip this afternoon and knew that whatever the future brought her now,  in order that she get to keep Karen, she’d have to leave Sarah to sort herself out.

And that was for the best.

Chapter 11

The apartment was filled with the smells of hot meat and boiled potatoes.  There was some disco playing on the stereo.  Rochelle’s personal favourite, Karen was more of an 80’s woman.  Rochelle definitely wore the platforms in that relationship.

“Hey there” Karen greeted her with a kiss.  She was as instructed.  Naked except for a frilly pink apron.  Rochelle almost wet herself, she had been joking about the naked servitude.  But Karen didn’t seem to mind at all.  With her slippers and apron she had all her bruises on display.  Rochelle scooched up behind her whilst she took the vegetables off the stove.

“Oy now, this has to be a health and safety issue, I’m gonna get hot water on my unmentionables”

Rochelle bit her ear and Karen slammed the pot down.

“Now you know that’s not fair” she leaned back so Rosh could get more of her ear.

“Putty in my hands”

“I…” it had always been one of her most sensitive spots.  The back of her ear, God bless Rosh for finding it so easily.

“Anything that will burn” she talked against the back of her ear.

“Er,” Karen flicked all the dials to zero, “Not now they won’t”

“Good” she put her arms under the apron, “Because we need to have a serious talk”

“Yessum” Karen let herself be lead from behind over to the couch where rather than put her on the couch Rochelle pushed her over the back of it.  Karen’s ass wagging in the air Rochelle pushed all the afternoons sombre and painful thoughts away.  She leaned over the back of the couch to see what Karen thought of this predicament she’d found herself in.

“Ok chief?”

Rochelle reached over and started to massage Karen’s pussy, paying attention to her clitoris with her index finger.  In this position she could give Karen full coverage.

Karen went still and gasped.

“Ah, not so cheeky now are you? Crazy Brit”

“Ah, er, ssst”

“That’s it. Shut up.”

Karen felt very strange indeed, all the blood rushing to her head and her pussy being tickled in the cold air in what felt like a million miles away.  Another quality past time Rochelle had discovered.  ‘Arse hang gliding’.  She started to laugh, Rochelle slapped her arse and redoubled her efforts.  The laugh was cut short.  This was way too serious.  When Rochelle felt Karen was close to her climax she took her ass in both hands and sunk her tongue into the tender pink flesh, Karen came almost at once.

“Who owns you huh?” Rochelle pushed her legs and she went all the way over the side of the couch.  Karen stayed on the floor a minute.  Letting her blood find a normal level in her body again.  Her head was fuzzy and her orgasm had shocked her a little, it had been sudden, the shock tactic. 

Must be love.

Rochelle went and picked a beer out of the fridge for both of them.  Karen pulled a chair out to sit down,

“Hey!”

“What?”

“Don’t you dare put your wet fanny on that chair”

Karen shook a dish towel over the chair and then sat down with a grin.

“That was some welcome home. I’m glad I showered, had a feeling you were going to molest me”

Rochelle sighed.

“What” Karen took her hand across the table.

“I, we…we should leave LA”

Karen looked down,  “Because of me, my fault, being stupid and pig headed?”

“Not just that. Sarah’s missing. Charlotte knows about the hand in the safe, when Sarah finds out she knows about that, she’ll have you killed”

Karen laughed. 

“Fuck off”

“Seriously” Rochelle drained her beer and got another one from the fridge.

“Ok so you’re not joking. How does Charlotte know about the friggin’ hand. I haven’t been in to see her yet”

Rochelle shook her head, “She was listening when I called you”

“Fack me” Karen drank her beer.

“So you see, Demi can be tied back to Sarah, or whoever was with Sarah when Demi was killed. You know something you aren’t supposed to crazy Brit. That makes people nervous. And I haven’t told you everything yet”

Karen stuck out her bottom lip.

“Tell you what. Lets eat first while the foods warm. Then we’ll go over whatever it is you want to tell me. Then I’ll book us a couple of tickets.”

Rochelle’s smile slipped a little.

“Sure”

Karen ate her dinner with her apron on, Rochelle picked at it and drank two more beers.

“Shit!” Karen threw her fork down.

“What?” Rochelle jumped up out of her chair.

“I forget to text Sky and tell her good luck” she nipped into the bedroom where her mobile was.

“Christ Karen, I thought you were having an embolism, shit” she got another beer from the fridge.

“I’ll not be a sec, I want to keep in contact with her if I can. I don’t trust that Huntiminge character”

“It’s Huntington-Wolfe”

“Like I said”

Sky - sorry missed you today. Enjoy yourself. Be careful. Any trouble call me. No matter what the hour.

Love - crazy Brit.

She hit send and put the phone down. Tidying up the plates in silence she was content enough to let Rochelle say whatever it was she needed to say before they made their plans.

Karen had never been a domestic Goddess but prided herself on her adaptability.  The way she had gone from being single and utilitarian to coupled and content really brought home to her how lucky she had been over the past couple of months.  All things considered.

She was washing up with her naked back to Rochelle when she came over and gripped her again. 

“Promise me that whatever I tell you, we still leave as planned”

“Wha…”

“Promise!” she squeezed her under her breasts.

“Promise”

“Promise me because you want me to come with you”

Karen put the sponge down.

“I promise because I want you to come with me, its what I’ve wanted for weeks”

“Good”, she kissed her shoulder, “Sarah is my maternal sister”

Karen counted to ten.

“Right” she said levelly.

“And she did make those marks. But it saved her life. Karen, you can take me away from all this and it won’t mean anything any more”

“Fine. But one more thing, just answer one more thing and then we don’t have to talk about it ever again”

Rochelle sighed.  She knew what Karen was going to ask.

“Did she, well, did she kill your last partner? The last person you were in love with?”

Rochelle lowered her head, Karen felt the tear from Rochelle’s eye go rolling down her back.

“And that’s why you went apeshit crazy when I got mad?”

Another tear rolled down her back and Rochelle shook her head.  Karen let her stay there, quietly weeping, hopefully the last of whatever poison tears she would have to cry for the Chain and Sarah ‘Sainted Twat’ Steiger.  Karen stood there, her arms against the side of the sink, cursing herself for her stupid arrogance.  Rochelle had consented to leave with her and make a new start.  That was all that mattered now.

Rochelle stood back and then placed a kiss on the back of Karen’s neck, another shivery spot she had discovered.  Then she was gone, into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.  She always showered with the door closed.  Noting weird about it, bathroom habits were personal to some people.  Karen was a private bathroom person too, unless of course there was going to be water sport of some kind.  A hot shower with a hot woman had gone right to the top of her favourite things.  She shuddered, Kelsey and her amazing strap-on flashed through her mind. 

“Sweet girl” Karen muttered to the rest of the dishes.  After wiping down the counters she tapped on the bathroom door.

“You alright?”

“Yeah. Heard from Sky?” her voice sounded even enough.

“Dunno” she went to check her mobile.

There was a message.

“Yeah” she went back over to the bathroom door.

“She says, ‘Heidi is one mean motherfucker?’”

She heard Rochelle laugh from inside the shower cubicle.

“Is that not bad?”

“No. It means she thinks she rad, ace, that kind of thing”

“Fucking weird taste” Karen typed.

How can you shag a bitch with bbq between her teeth?

Minging.
   

She was rarely this crude with Rochelle, but she knew Sky was a little bit more robust in that sense.

The text came back almost right away, she must have been in the restroom.

Easy. I wasn’t looking at her face.

“Fack shit, dirty cow!” Karen was still smiling to herself when Rochelle came out of the steamy bathroom.  She looked much better for her shower, more relaxed.  That was the burden of secrets, they hurt when they left you, but you felt damn fine once they were out and couldn’t fester any more.

“You look much better my dear”

“What else did Sky say?” she towelled her hair, looking very neat and completely ‘Goddess like’ in her white silk wrap.

Karen was staring at her.

“Well?” she smiled, her heart hurt for Denise who had looked at her that way too, untethered love.

“Heh” she opened the text message again, she’d forgotten what it had said, “I asked her how she could sleep with someone who had bar-b-que between her teeth, she said that she wasn’t looking at her face”

Rochelle scowled, “That’s our Sky”

Karen felt a tug on her heart strings.  She’d miss Sky.  Owed her a lot.  A fine teacher, good friend, excellent lover.  Maybe she’d come too?  But then again, why should everyone else’s lives be up-heaved, Sky was happy in her work and past times.  It sounded like her only time of woe had been when she’d fallen for Minnie.  No death and destruction in her time on the Chain.

“Are you coming?” from the bedroom, she hadn’t seen her go through.

“No, but you will be” she grinned.  She’d wear the apron to bed,  Hell.  It had been fun so far.

In bed by ten on a Friday night?  Bloody hell!

She wasn’t bothered by this in the slightest, sleep wasn’t on the immediate agenda.

“You’re not coming to bed wearing that thing are you?”

“What? You know this is hot” she wiggled her bare arse in the doorway.  The bruises on her side from the thumping had faded a little.  They were going to be alright.  Really alright.

Now it had been decided they were both eager to make the necessary plans to get away.

Rochelle would leave it till morning to explain why leaving the country was going to be a little difficult.

Her passport was at Sarah’s apartment.

And Karen hadn’t remembered her own passport at all.