Auto Erotica Ch. 06

Another "filler" chapter with no sex but important character development. You can, however, skip to the next chapter which has explicit sex if you prefer.

***

I was quiet on Monday and Cal was too, I guess it had been a rough weekend for us both. When I thought of letting Patrick spank me I blushed scarlet to think of how much of a slut I'd been. What was it about that man? Every time we got together we turned into animals, and I couldn't afford any distractions.

My parole had been transferred to Chicago and though I was twenty five, Michigan law had me on parole until I was twenty six. I had one year left to go and a plan to see through then. I needed money, as much as I could get, and when the end was near I was going to commit Andy. Once I had power of attorney, the kids were going to their mother's family. Andy's trust fund was getting split in 3, 1 for him, 1 for each kid. Cal was getting the business and I was going to disappear.

Until then I liked knowing I could keep the LC from coming into Chicago. I liked keeping gang members tied up, it was a hobby. Still, if the cops were onto me, then maybe it was time to move on. I don't know where I could go, anywhere I supposed. I'd miss the kids, some of the people on the circuit, but that was it.

The Viper was proving hard, everything was custom, after market, had a stand alone fuel system, a hell of a way to blow 10 Gs, and too much for an LC. Cal didn't seem to notice, but that meant little.

I spent half the fucking day ordering parts, and Cal pulled the beast apart. The knock came at four. Cal just looked up at me and went to the door.

"The cop," he said as he came back.

"Fuck." I wasn't ready for anything.

"What do I do?" Cal asked, lost.

"Close the curtains and pretend we're not home." The last time I'd let the wolf, ha ha, no, Gunnar the wolf, in, I'd almost fucked him too. Cal blinked at me so I just pointed to the car.

He left at five and I left right after, my eyes out for a tail. I had the Nova but I didn't take it to the safe house where it was kept. There was no one in the mirror, but I did think I was being followed.

I drove around for a while until I found myself outside Patrick's garage. Fuck. I parked on the side and wandered in. There were three bays and they were all filled, and I saw Patrick in the back.

I walked over and peaked inside the Supra he was bent over. "Two JZ engine, nice."

He stood up and grinned. "Told you you'd be back."

"Don't congratulate yourself just yet. You need a ball bearing turbo to make this one great."

He looked at the kid staring at me in wonder. "Knock off, Mike."

The kid scrambled and Patrick turned to me. "So what is it, Aileen?"

"There's a cop following me. Actually, it's that Gunnar." That wiped the smile from his face.

"What do you need?"

"A car. I've got a man coming for mine, and I'll drop whatever you can give me off in a hour."

"Don't worry about it. Take whatever you want out back."

I looked past him through the barred window. "Tempting, but simple will do. I'll take the F150 if that's all right."

"Fine. That piece of shit yours?"

"Yeah, the Nova's mine. Don't bother tracing it, it really belongs to a friend."

He smiled, the only man I knew who could look sexy in coveralls. "Figured. You'll have to owe me, then." He leaned in close but I looked around and no one watched us. They liked the boss, then.

"Fine, just don't go overboard, Patrick."

"I help you with your needs, you help with mine. Simple."

"Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I'll walk."

He grabbed my arm. "Lighten up. Maybe I want to race the 'Stang some time."

"You'll lose, you know."

"I meant I'd be driving."

"Shit, that's more personal than sex. How about my first born?"

He smiled the devil's smile. "Dibbs."

I blushed and stormed off but had to turn around when I realized I didn't have the keys. He held them up, jingling, and laughed. Fucker. Carlos was outside and I tossed him my keys. He took the Nova left, I took the Ford right.

If Patrick was any good there was a tracker on it, so I went to where he already knew. I parked in the public lot and went up to my condo. I showered, called home, and flopped on the couch to watch TV.

Nine o'clock came with a nock on the door and I pulled the gun out. It was a Glock 17 and it would stop a rhino if it had to. I checked the video and the peep hole. Fuck.

I opened the door to Patrick who smiled. "What the fuck do you want?"

"It was easy to find you. There's a common wall between the garage and the one for this building, this building even rents overflow spaces. So I ran a check and found six Reillys in the building, but only one apartment that was owned by your brother's company. Nice place." He pushed past me and came in.

I stayed at the door staring out. "Make yourself at home." I meant it sarcastically.

He was out of his coveralls, I was still in mine. My day clothes were at the little house, all I had here were my racing clothes and this. He wore the usual t-shirt, jeans, and boots. How the fuck did he look so good? Oh, yeah, that's right. He went home at night to a mansion, showered in Burberry soap and expensive shampoo, and had everything money could buy.

"Tell me one thing, what's with the tattoo?"

He looked at his arm and shifted his body to hide it. "Long story, I'll tell you some other time."

"So why are you here?"

He looked around at the sleeper sofa, the TV on the milk crate, and the closet exploding. "You don't live here."

"No, I just keep things here."

"Like clothes and your car."

"Like clothes and my car, yes. Are we playing Trivial Pursuit, passive aggressive edition?"

He chuckled under his breath and sat on the sofa. "Hardly. Got anything to drink?"

"Beer, for me. Pop, also for me. That's it." I set the gun back in the cubby by the door.

"So nice to guests."

"I don't like guests."

"Give me a break, I'm trying here. You want the mechanic? Well, here I am."

Want was not strong enough a word. "I don't want anything. Thanks for the favor, what do you want in return?"

He sat forward, found the clicker, and turned the movie off. "Why are you so keen to avoid the cops?"

"Mainly I'm not sure what's the most illegal. The betting, the racing, the extortion of gang members, or receiving, transporting, or selling stolen property. I'm not anxious to make their acquaintance."

"You screw over crooks, the cops won't care."

How much did I trust him? "I can't afford any trouble, let's just leave it at that."

"God, woman, what is it? You're rude, you're pushy, I don't even think you like me, and you are up to your ears in bad shit. Why can't I stop thinking about you? Why is whenever you're around I turn into this mindless animal?"

"I'm pushy? I'm rude? You burst in here, you cornered me at a dinner. Why the hell can't I stop thinking about you? Why do I seem to go into heat whenever you're around?"

For a moment he stared and then his face broke into a grin. "Well, hell, at least I don't suffer alone. Why the hell does it have to be complicated? I want you, you want me. What's the big deal?"

"You are fucking Patrick Wolfe. Your family owns half of New York and a quarter of this town. It doesn't matter what you mark your body with or how much dirt you get under your fingernails, you'll always be a Wolfe. And don't let my car, my brother, my name fool you. I am a little punk off the streets of Detroit. I'm the one fucking crab that got out of the basket and any day they'll pull me back in."

He came to his feet and the smile was all gone. "Is this about the LC?"

"There isn't anybody I ran with left alive. Nobody knows me from Adam back there, but it's the life. My brother tolerates me because he can't handle his own money or his own kids. He needs me. And me?" Fuck, in for a penny, in for a pound. "I'm on parole for another year. I have to live with him so I have a keeper on paper. Okay? That's why I can't stand cops. I get collared and it's not a slap on the wrist, it's hard fucking time. I'll die before I go back. I mean it."

And that was the most of myself I had ever shared, and I hadn't meant to. I stalked off into the tiny kitchen and pulled a beer from the fridge, pulled the cap off and slugged a pull back.

"Just tell me one thing," he said behind me. I turned and Patrick was leaning against the door jamb, looking dark and pensive.

"What?"

"Why would you go into what you do, if you're on parole?"

I pulled another beer out, popped the top, and passed it to him. "I got collared when I was a kid. Old enough to get tried as an adult. I served time in juvy but the parole lasts until I'm twenty six. I have to have a relative, and my old man took off when I was four to parts unknown. I buried my mom when I was seventeen, my brother was all that was left.

"He took off when he got married six months later and left me alone, and broke. I was on the streets, I had no money for college, but I knew cars, inside and out. Harry gave me a chance and a place to stay, and a few of us made some extra money after hours. Cal came along, had a good head for business, and we made enough to open our own place.

"Cal's always been a racer and he trained me. You get into the lifestyle and you can't get out, but at first it was just tune ups, trick outs, things like that. We raced for the vig on weekends, and then Andy came back with no wife and two kids.

"I swore I'd never touch his money and because of the divorce his fund was shut off for at least a year. I bought the 'Stang and raced legit until no one would take me, and made enough to put a down payment on a place. Upkeep in that neck of the woods is fucking expensive, so Cal and I decided to race the newbies with the illegal wheels.

"Andy came through with the cash and by then I needed money to keep this place up and a few others. You get into a habit, no matter how bad, and you don't break it. What the hell could I do? I've only got one year of high school that wasn't in juvy or through the mail, who the hell would hire me?"

"So you're saying what you did was right?"

"Fuck your judgments. I'm saying I did what I did, what I thought was right. I have one more year I'm trapped in this state and then I'm free. I don't want anything tying me down."

"What are you running from?"

"Why did you buy a business in the name of Crilly?" He didn't answer me. "Exactly. You didn't want people thinking 'here comes pretty boy Wolfe with his money' you wanted to make your own way. Same for me."

"Pretty boy?"

"I think you have selective hearing. The point is I'm shit, and if you're smart you'll stay far away."

He stepped inside, set his half empty bottle down on the counter, and rolled up his sleeve. "I got this in the Brig, Pendleton."

I recognized it at last. Marine. "Shit." My father had been stationed at Pendleton when he was heading off to Vietnam, it was not easy. "What did you do?"

"Doesn't matter, I learned my lesson. Three years in the military prison system. My parents were so pissed, almost disowned me."

"Why did you go into the Marines in the first place?"

"I hated being a Wolfe. I hated having my ass kissed, I hated women dating me for my wallet, I hated never having real friends. I wanted to go somewhere where no one cared who my parents were or what my great granddaddy did."

"Three years, I'm guessing at the very least you didn't like blindly following orders."

"To say the least. The point is, Aileen, no one should be judged by their parents or siblings, or held to the past. I was twenty three when I did that, and I'm not the same man any more."

"Yeah, well, I'm not the same person I was when I was twelve, but here I am, still on parole, and in just as deep as I was."

"Twelve? What the hell did you do?"

I'd gone so far, in for a penny, in for a pound. I drank the rest of my beer and forced myself to meet his eyes. "I beat a man to death."

#

My mother married the bad boy, a Vietnam vet she'd met in college when she'd gone for journalism. They'd married before she dropped out and my grandfather cut her off, my dad not knowing she'd done it because she was pregnant by a professor who was already married, and who had no intention of leaving his wife.

All she had left was a trust fund she'd used up, and two for her son and later me. Somehow my mother decided my brother would be the great hope, be the one to go to college. After all, his father was a professor, mine a steel worker. I was pretty, what did I need with an education?

So she blew through mine by the time I was two, and when the money went my grandfather restricted her access to Andy's. With no money my charming father took off with a bowling alley blonde.

My mother sank into alcoholism and moved to Detroit following one in a string of lovers. We were lucky if we had a roof over our head, rarely did we have food, and I began to run with a gang for money. I was tall, I was white, I made a good driver, and I boosted cars.

But I hadn't just been boosting when I was eleven, almost twelve. I was a runner. The day was clear and at five thirty I made my pick up. I went to a house on the edge of Mexicantown and walked through the gates, the armed guards, the snarling dogs.

Inside I stripped down and was given the product, cut for sale. My clothes were searched and when they were clean I redressed with the package. I was dropped off near Greektown and went on my route. Drop off the coke, pick up the take from the previous day. Drop, pick, drop, pick, ten of twelve down.

He came out from a blind alley and swung the pipe at my head. I went down and my vision swam, I saw double. I wasn't going to fight it, I gave up the dope and the cash, expected him to leave me alone. He was homeless, jaundiced, smelled like ten days of shit. He had Hepatitis and probably HIV and I wanted him gone.

But he thought I was pretty with my milk skin, my bright red hair, those pretty eyes everybody seems to love and nobody's ever seen. I was five ten but starving thin, he was over six feet and grizzled.

I felt his hand on my ankles and I knew. I'd gone almost twelve years being pretty and delicate without being violated, and I'd rather die than suffer that. I fought with teeth and nails, I did everything I could but he had my pants off. People walked by the alley but no one stopped to help, no, two men spit on me and said that's what a snow white bitch got for coming into the city.

He unzipped his pants and I kicked, I got his nuts and scrambled away. He followed but I found the pipe. I hit him but he didn't go down, so I hit again. He still wouldn't go down. I didn't want to keep hitting him but I didn't stop until I couldn't lift my arms.

I tried to run but I got tangled up in my pants, and this man came out a doorway and held me until the police got there. They decided I'd been robbing the man of drugs and money, had pulled down my pants to fake the attempted rape story. I couldn't force it, if I had I'd have to admit I was carrying drugs and drug money.

The man lingered but his family was too poor to keep him on life support long and he died just before I went to trial on battery. They went to murder and the trial was fast. I begged my brother for money for a good lawyer, but my family wouldn't talk to me.

I got ten years and sent to juvy. They called it Children's Village and it was mixed sex. I was right in there with rapists and murderers who'd gutted children with knives for pleasure. The white kids called me a race traitor and the LC was afraid I'd talk. I spent the first six months in solitary because of the fights. It seemed like every minute someone was trying to kill me, or mutilate my face, or corner me in the showers.

I don't think I slept a full night, or ate a meal in peace in five years. There are places on this earth where it's a curse to be pretty, and that was one. No one came to visit, no one sent anything, no one helped me. I kept my back to the wall and my nose as clean as possible, and they paroled me when I was seventeen.

My mother died two days before that, and my nineteen year old brother got my custody. I buried my mother, finished up high school, and then Andy took off for Chicago. My parole officer got me transferred to Chicago to be with him and six months later he called me from Ireland to say 'good luck.'

I found Harry when I was hours from something really stupid and since then I've built my life up. There isn't a night that goes by that I don't wake up to some noise and worry some creepy guard is watching me sleep, or some LC is inside my room with a knife. There isn't anything I wouldn't do to avoid that, anything.

#

Patrick didn't say a word at the tale and I kept my chin up. "I'm not trying to be poor, pitiful Pearl. I just haven't been shown much in my life in the way of stand up behavior."

"Jesus, what about your grandparents? Wouldn't they have helped?"

"They knew my mother was an alcoholic, they knew we were starving. They arranged for my brother to go to school and get fed regularly, but they could care less about me. I was just the daughter of a bastard who abandoned his wife and kids. Why would the Hydes want anything to do with me?"

"Jesus, no wonder you hate rich people."

"Not to mention they only think of women as breeding tools. They've married women to breed like horses. Until jail the hope had been to offer me up as some sort of prize. I believe the reasoning was I didn't need much of an education and the thinner, the better."

"Jesus."

"Look, forget I said anything. I think now you can appreciate that there's nothing here for me. And I don't want any cops within a hundred yards."

He crossed the distance between us in two huge steps and pulled me against him. I don't know what I was expecting, but I burst into tears. I hadn't cried since I was a small child, and he held me while I made a noisy mess of myself. He held me and stroked me back, smoothed my hair, and made it too damn easy.

I wanted anger, revulsion, anything but calm acceptance. It felt like forever but when it was over he let me go and I shut myself in the bathroom. I ran cold water, splashed it several times and waited ten minutes until the redness and puffiness wasn't too bad. I dropped in some Visine and massaged under my eyes, and stalled another ten minutes.

Finally he knocked on the door. "You don't have to be embarrassed."

"Easy for you to say. I swear I haven't done that since I was a kid. It was stupid."

There was a pause and then the door opened slowly. "It's not stupid to have feelings."

"Jeeze, now that sounded stupid."

"Come home with me. I promise you can just sleep in a spare bedroom and I'll leave you alone. I can't let you sleep here in this crash pad, and if you want to go home I'd have to drive you and I'm liable to kill your brother. Come home with me."

Opening the door I steadied myself and looked into his eyes, searching for something I couldn't name.