Page 21 of Being Lost

Patsy’s a fine woman, given her age. She’s kept herself in shape, that’s for certain. Maybe it had been the influence of living with her daughter, but her clothes, while not unsuitable for a woman her age, were young-looking and form-fitting.

The skin on her face isn’t as smooth as a young girl’s, but hey, who am I to talk about wrinkles? Her eyes are large and seem to draw you in, and that mouth… well, I could think of a few uses I’d like to put it to.

My thoughts find me moving my hand downward, fisting around my cock. I begin to work it while imagining her on her knees in front of me, her full lips stretched around my cock, my hand fisted in her hair. I pump my hips as though thrusting into her, imagining hitting the back of her throat. I tighten my hand, feel my balls churn and my cock swelling, then I’m coming, hard, white ribbons of cum hitting the shower wall.

Aiming the stream of water at the mess, I watch it disappear down the drain. My body feels relaxed, my mind experiencing a slight twinge of guilt at the idea of using her to fuel my release, but hey, what she’ll never know won’t hurt her.

Sliding under the sheet, I plump the pillows to get them as comfortable as I can, then relax back my head. I fill my mind with Dan and Patsy’s problems, wondering what that message meant, who sent it and how much trouble they might be in. Damn Patsy for giving their general location away. All this trouble caused by her need to contact her daughter. But then, given the circumstances, I can’t find it within myself to blame her. If I’d had kids, I might well have been tempted to do the same thing myself.

Conscious thought becomes harder, ideas not fully formed appear and disappear before I can take hold of them. My brain slows, I cease thinking at all as sleep overcomes me.

“This will be you, one day. When you fuck all this up.” The smell of flesh burning reaches my nostrils as the man in my dream continues to speak. “Will you be man enough to take it? Or will you be a coward like him?” He points to Poke, begging to be saved.

“I’m not going to fuck up,” I tell him.

“Of course you are,” he scoffs. “You’ll fuck up so badly, you’ll pay the same price as I did. They’ll burn your tattoo off your back and show no mercy when they do. You’ll fuck up. You’ll destroy this club.”

I turn, look him straight in the eye, then take a step back. Snake’s eyes are blazing, actually alight with flames shooting out of them.

“I only made you VP as I wanted a pussy who’d be so grateful to walk at my side, he’d do everything I told him without question. Did that well, didn’t you, Lost? So fuckin’ well, you made them all believe you could walk in my shoes. Don’t like it so much now, do you? You don’t have the balls for this job. You know it’s only a matter of time before you fuck everything up.”

“I am not going to fuck up,” I protest again. I know I’d give my life before I allowed harm to come to the club. “It was you who almost destroyed us.”

“Me?” Snake roars. “I’m a president. You are nothing. Nothing. You’re fucking Lost.”

He’s now a complete ball of fierce orange and red flame. With arms outstretched, he starts to float toward me. I go to move back, but my feet feel like they’re encased in concrete. I can’t escape as he nears, and I begin to feel the heat…

In my dream, I scream.

I toss, turn, try to rid myself of the images. I can hear myself whimpering, begging him to leave me alone.

I jerk awake. The sheet tight around me shows I’ve been restless once again. It’s still dark, still night, and I should still be sleeping. Instead I untangle myself, turning onto my side.

I know exactly why Snake haunts me. I don’t need a therapist to tell me I’m not really being visited by a ghost. It’s my subconscious reminding my brain of what I already know, that I’m not a man who deserves to have trust placed in him. I’m a fraud, an imposter.

It was never part of my life plan to join an MC, let alone rise through the ranks and lead it. Part of the problem was I’d played right into Snake’s hands. He needed someone he could keep fooled, who wasn’t clever enough to guess his plans. Who, as it turned out, had been completely blindsided when things turned sour. I hadn’t seen the betrayal coming, but I should have. The dream version of Snake, or rather my own subconsciousness, is right to warn me. The path I choose to go down won’t lead where I expect it to take me. When a fork appears in the road, I’m bound to take the wrong direction.

Yet every man here voted me in as the prez. Goddamn them. But I’ll give my all to do the job to the best of my ability. I’ll always give everything one hundred percent. I’ll be damned if I let any man in this club down.Damned you’ll be, alright.

I hadn’t seen through Snake, but he’d seen right through me. Fuck was I a good choice for him to make. Another man might have figured him out, would have realised what was going on. Looking back, all the clues were there. The secret meetings between Snake and Poke, and those between Poke and the other now out bad members. Whispered conversations hastily ending when interrupted. And yet I’d been oblivious to it all.

Can’t a man learn from his mistakes?

I sigh deeply. I’ve got to hope I can.

My eyelids droop even though I try not to give in to sleep again, having no desire to slip back into my nightmare. But it seems he’s tortured me enough for one night, as this time I fall into a deep and undisturbed slumber, from which I’m startled awake.

Rap. Rap. Rap rap.

I open bleary eyes and reach for my phone while simultaneously turning my head and glancing at the ancient clock/radio/alarm, a hangover from Bird’s time. “Yeah?”Shit.I overslept I realise, reading the numbers.

“Prez, you’ve got that meeting with the insurance company in an hour.” Curtis’s deep voice booms from the other side of the door. “Bones sent me up to remind you.”

Lucky, he did. I would have missed it. “Thanks,” I reply.

I listen to his boots thud away down the hallway and roll over onto my back, clasping my hands behind my head, thinking the role of the MC prez is not all it’s cut out to be. While being a one-percenter club we don’t give a damn about citizen laws, and however much we do our best to live outside them, it’s impossible to ignore them entirely as our businesses are open to civilians. At the very least, we have to have public liability insurance covering our buildings and employees. The feds and the cops are always looking for an excuse to say we’ve fallen foul of the law, so our paperwork is liable for extra inspection. Like anybody who runs any type of business, the MC likes to keep overall costs down. Hence my meeting today to complain about the increase in our premium.

I promise myself a nice long ride once I’ve finished with the formalities, and I doubt it will take much persuasion for Bones to come along with me. Neither of us likes being cooped up in an office too much. On my part, I did that for far too long in my earlier years. Just look where that had gotten me.

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