Page 102 of Red's Peril: Part 1

Placing my hand on her cheek, she leans into it for a moment. After receiving sufficient tactile comfort, she backs into the room. I close the door for her, then continue along to my own.

Wraith’s got a kid, I remember, and another on the way. For a moment, I wonder about ringing him and asking advice from Sophie.

But does Clare need suggestions on how to deal with her baby? It hadn’t seemed that way. Maybe it is just a kid thing and moms automatically know what to do.

And what could I say to Wraith anyway? How could I explain Clare away?Hey, I met a woman who resembles a chick who ran out on me. I’m thinking of making her my old lady.

Am I? Am I, really?

I pace my room. If Delly hadn’t gotten sick, there’s a good chance I’d be balls deep inside Clare right now, if she reciprocated my feelings of course, and the only indication is how she responded to my kiss.

Sure, she’s great with the club, and the club accepts her, but that’s on the basis we’re harbouring her temporarily. Would they vote her in, knowing her connection to the law? A connection that’s yet to be broken.

What’s really driving me? Is it just my dick? A chance to go with a woman who’s not a sweet butt or hangaround. Is it my head who’s building her up into a reincarnated Cheryl? Or is it the revenge I could get by going with Skull’s woman?

Perhaps Delly has done me a favour tonight, stopping my dick’s impulse to just get inside her. I shouldn’t let this go further without being able to answer the questions I’ve just asked myself.

Maybe it’s best for a prez to remain single. Though Demon and Drummer don’t seem to be less than they were now they’ve taken their old ladies, Snatcher and Lost seem to be doing fine remaining bachelors. I’m lucky in that Rosa takes charge of the social aspects of the club. In that, I don’t need an old lady.

My dick can get release anytime it wants it. Even now I could march along the corridor and pull one of the sweet butts out of their bed—they’d suck me off or spread their legs or whatever my preference was.

Would my life be better with a woman in it?

Would my life be better with Clare?

Can I really say I can’t live without her, or that if she left, she’d still be on my mind years later?

Could I ask her to compete with a ghost?

Oh, I know the Cheryl I’ve built up in my mind doesn’t exist. Had it been the great love affair, I’d have gone after her, or would have tried harder to persuade her not to leave. However much I look back on that time as me having made a mistake, I know my head’s twisted the image I have of her, making her out to be such a paragon, no one else can live up to the picture my brain can’t forget.

Perhaps a therapist would say I’m using her memory as a way to protect myself from falling for anyone else. Even with Clare, I wouldn’t be able to give all of me.

It’s not fair to measure any woman against my idealistic vision that I’ve made Cheryl into. Hell, I don’t even know if she wanted kids, or whether she’d be a good mother to them. Why is it that she seems to be perfection to me?

Though I tell myself what I could have with Clare could be the real thing, will my preconceived notions convince me she’s a poor substitute?

Am I fated to ride through life alone?

I stop pacing, sit on the bed, and put my head in my hands.Why won’t Cheryl leave me alone?It’s been fifteen years since I last saw her. She’s probably happily married to a man from her Podunk town, with kids of her own.

Does she ever think of me?

I fucking doubt it.

I snort, knowing I can never let my brothers know how fucked up I am.

Grabbing a whisky from the stock I keep in my room, I down a shot, hoping it will relax me. When I shower, my hand goes to my cock and starts sliding up and down my shaft. It doesn’t take long before my practised motions have the desired effect. But when I come, is it Clare’s face I see?

No, it’s the image of Cheryl who’s in front of me.

Fuck my life.

Still, the whisky and my release have relaxed me, and I have no trouble getting to sleep. I wake still undecided whether I want to pursue Clare, and whether I’m serious about having her in my life, or am I just using her to replace a woman I’ll never have?

I’m sliding into my cut when there’s a knock at my door. Opening it, I see a tired-looking woman standing there, the baby in her arms agitated and screaming.

“I think Delly needs a doctor, Red.”

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