Used Read online

  Used

  by

  Bijou Hunter

  Copyright © 2014 Bijou Hunter

  Review Edition

  Dedication

  Freckles, Tigger, Pooh, and Roo for owning my heart

  Mustang Sally for inspiring me

  Birthday Girl Marvelous Miranda for having my back

  Saucy Sarah and Hardcore Patty for knowing the genre

  Illustration

  Cover design by Miranda Koryluk with

  a photo from Shuttershock and Andreas Gradin

  Bijou Hunter Books

  Damaged Series

  Damaged and the Beast (April 2013)

  Damaged and the Knight (July 2013)

  Damaged and the Cobra (October 2013)

  Damaged and the Outlaw (November 2013)

  Damaged and the Bulldog (2014)

  Damaged and the Saint (2014)

  Standalones

  Gator (February 2014)

  *****

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Epilogue

  Epilogue

  About Bijou

  Chapter One

  Bo

  Freedom Tastes like Prison

  What can a man do when his life is trashed and he’s the one who agreed to swing the wrecking ball?

  This is what I’m wondering when I get paroled from Hicks Correctional Institution after six years. The nineteen year old version of Bo Phelps was a dreamer. A chump really.

  After he landed me here by swinging that ball, I wanted to cut out his damn heart. Not that he’d change our path. No, he was always running head first into trouble, so our life was always going to be shit. Without a heart though, I might not feel I’d lost much these last six years.

  While every guy in the joint claims to be innocent, I really didn’t commit the murder I confessed to. Truth means nothing in life. I learned that early on, but it’s a lesson I get re-taught on a regular basis.

  During my mom’s first visit to the prison, she said doing time would make me a man. She was wrong though. I was already a man. Prison made me a jaded asshole.

  Mom’s decision to ditch me as a way to make her man happy was probably a good thing. She never saw me turn mean or bitter. She remembered me as her sweet natured, slightly stupid, younger son.

  Frances Phelps’s uglier, meaner son is older than me by four years. My grandmother used to call Cal the mistake that kept on giving. He was the kid our mom had with a bad man. I was the choice she made with a good man. Once my dad ran off and Grandma decided I came from shitty stalk too, she called us Mistake#1 and Mistake#2. Mom used to say her mother was losing her marbles and confused us with the Dr. Seuss troublemakers. Though I never doubted the old bitch was senile, the mistake shit was for real.

  Grandma was dead going on eight years, so she didn’t pull the mistake stuff for long. Yet I find myself thinking about it as Cal drives me home from the prison. My brother always fit the mistake label. He was a drunk and smoker by twelve. His first kid was born when he was fifteen and ended up adopted out. His second was born a few months later and died before she was two after her stoned mom left her unsupervised near a busy road. The next few kids were taken care of after trips to the clinic. I heard he had another daughter while I was in jail, but no one ever gave me the specifics.

  Yeah, Cal was a fucking loser who did odd jobs when he wasn’t working for the club. As crappy as my big brother might be, he stayed out of prison all these years. Though I suspect the club’s power kept him free, rather than any brain power on his part.

  “I heard you had a kid,” I say as we near the first exit to the Grove.

  Cal gives a little shrug. “Her mom named her Breeze, if you can believe that shit. They live in Florida with the grandparents and her new man.”

  “You ever see the kid?”

  “No.”

  His indifference is written all over his face, so I don’t waste time asking if he wants to see her. My brother hasn’t a fatherly bone in his body. Cal’s dad was that way too, so maybe it’s genetic. My dad liked kids, even his step-son. I hope one day I’ll be a good father too, but I doubt it. Whatever heart I had before prison is gone now. I look at Cal and see a stranger. If the truck crashes and he dies before my eyes, I don’t figure I’d feel much. Six years of hate will kill the good in a man. I know it has with me.

  Cal doesn’t take me to his apartment to settle in for the evening. No, I need to eat dinner with the man who killed my father. The same fucker who kept my mother from visiting me after the cancer was destroying her. Even hating Snake, I keep this fact to myself. No doubt he’ll end me as easily as he ended my dad.

  Tall, wiry, and sporting a stringy gray ponytail, Snake is pushing sixty these days. Old enough to be her grandpa, he introduces his girlfriend Kaitlin. She immediately tells me people call her Kitty which gives me a strong urge to call her Kaitlin. I don’t say anything besides hello as I sit down to enjoy my first meal as a free man.

  The menu is full of different options and I have trouble deciding. In prison, I got it set in my head that my first meal would be a burger and fries. Now, I don’t know. Everything sounds so damn good and I want it all. I’m leaning towards a steak until Snake says he wants one and tells Kitty to order one too. When she says she wants something else, he mentions she needs the protein for some fun he has planned for later. Right around the time she giggles, I choose a burger and fries. I’ll get a steak when I’m not surrounded by nasty freaks.

  “Johnny’s got plans for you,” Snake says to me when Kitty leaves to use the toilet.

  “What kind of plans?” I ask, glancing at Cal whose licking something off his fingers. When my brother notices me watching him, he flips me off before returning to gnawing at his fingers.

  Snake shrugs. “He’s gonna take care of you after what you did for his boy.”

  When our stepdad doesn’t get more specific, Cal starts talking about his girlfriend Milly who is coming by. He says nothing important, but his babble fills the void. Snake lets Cal finish then sighs really dramatic-like. I’m not impressed.

  “Your mama went quick. I hope someone told you that.”

  My gut twisting into a knot, I struggle not to show my hate. I give him the dead stare I perfected in the joint and say nothing for a full minute.

  “No one visited for the last five years. So no, I wasn’t told she went quick. I only knew she died when a Gutter did six months and saw me in the cafeteria.”

  “Yeah, shame we couldn’t visit more, but guys don’t like going near the prison. They think it’ll jinx them. Like people talking about death.”

  I give him a nod, but he’s full of shit. Snake’s also a cold b
looded killer who snuffed out my dad’s life. I see the evil in his eyes despite the fake smile he gives me. A fake smile I return because I have no interest in dying.

  Milly arrives after our food does. I barely take notice of her while I’m enjoying my fat sloppy burger. I do notice she’s a twitchy junkie. Cal has her eat a few bites of his food and she struggles to get them down. Besides the twitchiness, Milly is sporting a black eye that I suspect came from my brother’s fist. He always had a temper.

  The conversation goes nowhere. They talk about people I don’t remember doing shit I don’t care about. The world went on without me. People forgot I existed, so I don’t care if any of them lived or died while I was gone. The only person who mattered is dead and I didn’t even know until she was six months in the ground.

  After Milly wanders off, Cal looks at his phone while Snake stares right at me.

  “Johnny sent you a gift to say thanks. It’s parked at Cal’s apartment.”

  Tired, I only nod. “When do I find out about my new job?”

  “Tomorrow,” Snake says, standing up and snapping at Kitty. “Come by the bar and we’ll set you up.”

  I don’t know what to say to this man. Snake gives me a fake smile and I know he doesn’t want me to say shit to him. It’s all for show. He loved my mom and I was part of the package, so he pretended to love me too. In respect for my mom, he’s still pretending, but he wasn’t faking it well.

  Cal gives a head gesture to Snake when the older man announces he’s heading home. As soon as they’re gone, Cal looks at me and stares with his dark beady eyes.

  “Kitty can’t suck a guy off for shit. I don’t know why he puts up with her skank ass.”

  “What the fuck do I care? Can we go? I’m tired and want to get settled.”

  Cal stands and shoves his phone in his back pocket. “Daddy Snake took care of the bill. Let’s ditch Milly, so I can show you the gift. Then I need to see my girl Annie. Now, that girl can suck a cock.”

  “Don’t care, man. Let’s just go.”

  “Cranky asshole,” he says, walking outside. “It’s getting late, but tomorrow we’ll see about getting you laid. A good fuck might snap you out of the pouting shit you’ve got going now.”

  I say nothing. Not then or on the ride. Even when I look at my new black Harley, shiny like a jewel, I keep my mouth shut. Silence in prison worked well for me. I stayed alive and out of trouble. I figure silence will help me now.

  Cal’s apartment is a one bedroom box with a nice view of a pond. The living room holds a couch and TV. Nothing on the walls and the laminate floors are bare and covered in dust. The place doesn’t feel lived in. Cal never had a warm personality and his apartment matches him.

  “You’ll need to crash on the couch until you get a place of your own. I’ll be back later after I’m done with Annie.”

  Looking around, I see the fridge and hope it’s not empty. Cal follows my gaze and walks to the kitchen. He shows me the beer in the fridge and cookies in the cupboard.

  “If you want something else, you’ll have to wait and go shopping for it tomorrow,” he says, sounding restless. “Or take your Harley now. Either way, I’m outta here.”

  My brother leaves me in his ugly apartment where I spend my first night of freedom flipping through a thousand channels. Upstairs, the neighbors are tap dancing. At least, it sounds that way. I also hear a dog running back and forth.

  After showering in his dirty bathroom, I return to the couch to drink a beer and eat a cookie before trying to sleep on the lumpy couch. This wasn’t what I imagined my first night of freedom would be like. I thought I’d hang with friends and pick up a chick. Instead, I fall asleep listening to the fucking dog upstairs while watching shitty television.

  Freedom hasn’t welcomed me with open arms.

  Chapter Two

  Bo

  Gutter Got Your Tongue

  The Gutters Motorcycle Club does its business in two places. One is Johnny Reddy’s cabin house. The other is the Gut Shot bar. This is where Cal and I head after our awkward breakfast with his bruised up girlfriend #2.

  Growing up with Snake as a stepdad, I heard plenty about the Gutters. How Johnny and Snake did time in juvie together then skipped town and ended up in the Grove. Over the years, they built their power through killing and terrorizing the local area. The club owned the cops and the mayor.

  Most people in the Grove likely didn’t know a biker gang was in charge of their fates. Until my dad went missing and Snake moved into the house, I lived in such innocence and I still get nostalgic for those days.

  Johnny is in his fifties now, but still kills and fucks like a guy my age. He has an old lady, two kids, and a dozen girlfriends. Life is good for the bastard. He even has a head full of perfectly black hair. I suspect he colors it since his black beard is peppered with gray. Everyone must know he colors it, but who’s going to tease a man rumored to have killed the last mayor over a poker debt.

  “Bo, you look good,” he says all casual-like I’m returning from a vacation, instead of a prison stint. “Like the Harley?”

  When I left the Grove, I would have killed to get a Harley picked out by Johnny Reddy. He was the shit and I was a fool. Now, I nod like I could take or leave the bike. In prison, I learned nice guys got killed while hard fuckers lived forever. I didn’t plan to die any time soon.

  “Cal said you had a job for me.”

  Johnny nods and his gaze hardens. He sees I’m not the boy he played years ago. His demeanor changes and the guys around him act like I exist. They view me as a Gutter, yet still an outsider.

  “We’ll discuss that tomorrow. You just got out,” Johnny says, patting my shoulder hard. “You had any pussy yet?” When I shake my head, he smirks. “Cal didn’t share one of his bitches, huh? Greedy fucker.”

  Even sharing his smile, I tense when Snake enters the bar.

  “You were saying something about pussy,” I mutter, thinking about Johnny’s little girl and the original pussy of my dreams.

  Wendi is married now. I know this much from a Gutter who did a few months in Hicks on an assault charge. Johnny married off his princess to the son and VP of a nearby nobody club. Bitch deserved whatever she got in my mind.

  Johnny leans against the bar and downs a beer. His demeanor shifts again and I realize his old lady is behind me. She walks right up to him and takes his beer.

  “What were we talking about?” she says a little too loud in his face.

  Johnny doesn’t really react. His face is stone cold now and I can imagine a lot of people died looking at that expression.

  “Bo needs to get laid. Going to send him to a club whore, so he gets taken care of without any hassle.”

  Diane Reddy turns to me and grins in a real nasty way. I suspect a few people died looking at that expression too.

  “We call them club cunts because that’s what they are. Fucking cunts,” Diane spits out like she’s hoping to shower the whole bar. I realize she’s drunk at eleven in the morning as she adds, “Hope your dick doesn’t rot off.”

  What is there to say? I’m not defending whores or pointing out she’s a fucking lush.

  “How about sending him to Emmy’s for a good time?” Cal mutters from behind me while gnawing on his nails like a man starving.

  “No,” Johnny says, wrapping an arm around his old lady to keep her from falling over. “I think Emmy is Rick’s favorite whore. He won’t want to share.”

  Around me, the guys name off a few more whores. Every chick is someone’s favorite and apparently I’m not good enough to share club pussy with. Finally, Johnny sighs.

  “Go see Sydney. She’ll do you right and she’s no one’s favorite.”

  Once they’ve assigned the shittiest lay as my first fuck out of prison, the guys talk sports. I try to care about their bullshit, but give up. When I walk outside, Cal follows.

  “She lives over at the Deer Run Trailer Park,” he says. “Number twelve near the dumpsters. I think she gets
off work around three.”

  Staring out at the empty road, I want to say things I can’t say without fists flying.

  “I better stop by a store and pick up condoms,” I mumble when nothing else can be said.

  “Dude, she’s a club whore. She takes birth control, so you don’t have to,” Cal says, throwing an arm around my shoulders. “Unless you picked up some weird fucking disease in the joint.”

  I don’t know why this comment sends my fist into his jaw. Something about him has been pissing me off all my fucking life. I figure he’s due.

  Cal wipes his lip and grins. “Sissy. You’re lucky I feel sorry for you or else I’d knock your head off.”

  “Sure.”

  I walk to the Harley shining in the sunlight. It’s a beauty, but feels like a slap in the face after what I gave up.

  “Snake sold the old house,” Cal says, returning to the bar. “Some couple bought it. Just in case you were wondering.”

  I say nothing while he disappears inside. Even after years of keeping to myself and shutting my mouth when I wanted to speak, I can’t find the words now that I’m free. These men are scum and I sold my soul for them. What the hell does that make me?

  Before heading to the club whore’s place, I drive around the Grove. My hometown is mostly the way I remember. A few places I once haunted are gone, replaced by places I don’t recognize. When I roar into my old neighborhood, I see For Sale signs on homes that stayed in families for decades. The only way the houses would be on sale is if the old timers have passed on.

  My mom’s house is the home of a family with kids. Pulling up to the curb, I notice the bikes in the lawn and a single kid’s shoe on the porch. I grew up in this house, but it didn’t belong to me anymore. They’ve painted the ugly green siding to a friendlier yellow. The tree I used to sit in with Cal was cut down and new shrubs take its place.

  I’ve been gone only six years, yet everything is different. My friends, family, and neighbors have moved on. They moved away, died, and had families. They’ve lived their lives while my life remained frozen for over half a decade.