Jamie Lou -3- Motorbike

“Why?” Dennis wanted to know, “why do you have an egg in your pocket?” He was still smiling at me. The dusty lane behind the school buildings seemed somehow a magical place just because of his smile.

“Um, for lunch?” I said. “I knew someone would likely take any lunch money I had, so I brought an egg they wouldn’t likely take away from me, you know? So I would have something to eat?”

He shook his head. “You won’t have to worry about those guys again. I’ll put the word out that they, and anybody else, should leave you alone.” He leaned his face in close, and before I could think about it, we were kissing again.

Less heat but more tenderness, and I discovered I liked that, too. What was happening here?

We changed positions on the bike at his urging. “You’ll be safer sitting behind me,” he explained. There was a sort of seat behind the seat with a bit of a backrest there and pegs for my feet.

“Hold tight,” he commanded, and I wrapped my arms around his muscular body, resting my cheek against the solidity of his back. And then we were moving with a suddenness that made me gasp, down the alley and through the bus park, out onto a city street a block or two from the school.

He shouted something over his shoulder at me, but the wind took away all meaning, so I just held him tighter in case it was a warning about some maneuver he planned. I fought against a kind of panic cause if things got any more exciting, I was likely to piss on myself.

That didn’t happen, but it was a near thing as we sped through the residential streets around the school and crossed some tracks to an industrial part of town. I really had no idea where we were, but it was an older, more rundown area than even the semi-rural street where I lived with my mother.

American City isn’t the most prosperous part of Florida, being in the far west of the Panhandle, near the Alabama border, and lots of the town is cut up with inlets, creeks and other waterways. We rattled across a few bridges before reaching a set of concrete block buildings that might be warehouses, but we stopped in a little courtyard between some smaller buildings that looked like houses. A faded sign read “Seaside Motel,” though it wasn’t actually at the seaside unless the muddy swamp across the road counted.

It took my brain a moment to think of what his stopping at a motel might mean. I got off the motorcycle when he said, “We’re here.”

“Um, where’s here?” I asked, trying to keep fear out of my voice. Maybe this all had an innocent explanation. Maybe he was going to kill me when he found out that I am a boy. It could go either way, I figured.

Dennis messed with parking the bike, locking it up and stowing his helmet, saying only, “Vikings clubhouse.”

Which made no sense at all to me. I debated making a run for it, but I still had no idea where we were. I hadn’t seen any road or street signs I recognized.

Dennis was walking toward me, smiling. “Hey, babe,” he said.

I winced and stepped back, but he came on toward me. “You scared?”

I nodded. He was so much bigger than me and older. He had muscles and a beard. He was a man, and he thought I was a girl.

“Don’t be,” he assured me, stepping up and putting an arm around my waist. “This is where I hang out with my buds.” He pointed at one of the buildings we were walking toward. “See? Vikings clubhouse.” And in fact, a sign in the window read just that.

He pointed. “See, the front buildings are businesses, the office is a pool hall, and Unit Two is a laundromat. It all used to be a motel, but parts of it have been taken by people for other uses.” He gestured. “Some people live in the back units, squatters, maybe, and Unit Three is full of junk and spiders.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to sound intelligent. “Um? What about getting to school?”

He laughed, leading me up to the so-called clubhouse, marked on the door with a brass #2. “I don’t think you should worry about school today.” His arm was still around me, and he pulled me in for another kiss.

I stopped thinking about school when he pressed his crotch against my thigh. “Dennis!” I squeaked.