Satan
By Jake Walker
It was getting late and the desert sun was blistering my eyeballs, hitting me full in the face as I blasted down the freeway. The heat had increased and my thirst was checking in, so I dropped off a random tight sweeping exit and just followed my nose to the nearest neon.
As I backed my Triumph hard-tail chopper into the space between a Harley and a Guzzi, I was only thinking about a shot of Jack and a Bud-back, with a side of naked dancer. I stepped off the bike and gave her my usual seat pat and murmured “Thanks”. She had been mine since I brought her back to life from a pile of boxes and a frame. I found her at a swap meet and had traded the guy a sheath knife, two square headlights and a hundred bucks. He signed the title over and I made six trips to get her all into my friend’s pickup. That was six months and hundreds of miles ago.
As I stepped into the cool, dark interior the music wrapped the bar in a cocoon of heavy bass as the strains of ‘Brick House’ blasted out of the footlocker-sized speakers. Smoke from cigarettes, pot and cigars, the sweet-sour smell of sweat, bathroom cleaner and over it all, perfume from the dancers combined into a heady mix that simultaneously put me at ease and made my radar come to full readiness.
I shouldered my way to the bar, grabbed my chosen poison and headed to “Pervert Row”. As I approached the ring of stools around the stage, I was assessing where I was going to sit. Since all the places were occupied, I picked my mark and headed to the far side of the stage. The gal dancing was in her second song and had her top off and she was ‘Trolling’; hoping for tips before the ‘Final’ when it would all be revealed.
I hollered and crowded into the chair I wanted, waving a bill in the gal’s direction. I was acting a little drunk and after she knelt down for the bill, I slapped the guy on his shoulder and hollered “Nice tits!” Then I bent down and started talking to him, loudly. After a few nonsense comments, I stood up and yelled out “Stop that grinning’ and drop that linen!
The guy stood up (he barely came to my shoulder and was soft around the gut), and looked me over. Starting at my red and white bandana, he looked down and took in the oily, patch-covered threadbare vest that covered the equally battered leather jacket under it. His gaze snagged at the ominous bulge at my belt line, black jeans sheathed in scarred black leather that ended at my scuffed black riding boots.
He looked me in the eye but then broke away and without a word, walked towards the bar. I saw that he had left several dollars on the counter and wasted no time in gathering them into my own meager stash as I sat in the coveted ‘Corner Seat’. Another “Yeehaw” broke from my throat and then died on my lips as a vision had emerged from the curtain.
Red hair to her mid-back, sultry face with a wide, thick copper-colored mouth, sensual lips that begged to be bitten in an erotic kiss. Her eyes were iridescent green hooded by heavy seductive lids. Makeup was minimal; impact was devastating on a road-weary scooter tramp. I couldn’t move and I was barely breathing as she started her first song. The bar was silent as a tomb and the music of ZZ Top started to windup and she DANCED! After a few moments, I recovered the ability to speak and I said “Elegant!” just loud enough for her to hear.
Her iridescent eyes sought the person that spoke and transfixed me with an unspoken challenge. I recovered my ‘cool’ long enough to grin and wink, take a pull at my beer and when I looked at her, she was dancing two feet in front of me. I had not tasted the shot of Jack Black, so I lifted it to her. She questioned me with a simple lift of an eyebrow.
“Jack” I roared over the music and with a smooth ease born of long practice, she snagged the shot, drained it and slammed the glass back down in front of me. The bar erupted in a rowdy, raucous acknowledgement of her brass. The music hammered on and she danced away towards the center stage. I watched her and saw that I was caught as so many others had been, just another ‘Mark’.
I peeled a ‘Fiver’ from my rapidly vanishing stash, laid it on the stage and took off my jacket and hung it over the back of my barstool. I caught her eye, nodded slightly and headed for the men’s room. I waited in the foul stench of the closet-sized pisser until I heard the third song start. As I made my way back towards pervert row, I saw that there was someone in my seat. I smiled and made my way through the packed bar until I was beside the barstool I had so recently vacated. He was stout, tall and had thrown my jacket onto the floor. He saw me coming but ignored me.
I smiled and leaned into him and said “Get out of my chair or I’ll kick yer ass.” He looked at me and smiled. As he stood up, I saw that she was watching us and I knew that it was now or never. I reached up and grabbed him by his short hair and drove his face into the barstool with all of the force I could muster. I followed with a swift hammer-punch to his kidney and as he crumpled, I looked for the bouncers. They were headed for us and did not look happy. Do bouncers ever look happy?
I threw his arm over my shoulder and dragged big boy with me. As the crowd parted like the Red Sea, I met them half way and yelled over the music “Hey, my buddy fell down, too much to drink. Could you help him out?” They gathered him into their ample arms and escorted him to the backdoor. I turned back and saw a slight smile on her face as she continued to gyrate and held the audience in her iron leg grip.
As I gathered my jacket and sat back into MY seat, the final strains of her last song were coming to a close. She looked at me with her sultry exotic eyes and I could see excitement mirrored there. I fished a $20 outta my flat wallet, showed it to her, creased it down the length and laid it on the stage in front of me. As the song faded into the background, she sashayed over and dropped on top of it. She leaned over and brushed my lips with hers. When she rose to stand, the bill had been ‘picked up’. She looked at me and mouthed “One thirty”.
Now, this was NOT my first rodeo, so as the dancers moved though the crowd I snagged one and pumped her for info about HER. Of course, the ten-spot that I gave her helped her to remember that she liked Dom Perignon champagne and motorcycles. Well, I had one covered and I still needed to find the champagne. When I left the bar, I headed to a few liquor stores and found that she had REALLY expensive taste in booze. I finally found the cheapest place and it was next door to the club. Go figure.
When I bought it, the tall skinny long-hair running the till grinned at me and said “That for Sparky? Ya better watch that one… She’ll break yer heart and watch out for her damned cat!” We stood there for almost half an hour and I learned a few things about the dancer everyone called Sparky. I never let on to the guy that I didn’t know her, I just let him talk and I would nod and laugh in the right spots. I thanked him and headed to the bike. It was only eleven and I still had an hour and a half to kill.
At 1:15 I slipped quietly into the unmanned side door and sat down at the booth closest to the door. A few minutes later a scantily clad waitress asked me if I wanted a drink. I beckoned her closer and said “Coke” into her pretty ear. Her raised eyebrow told me a lot but I just grinned up at her and laid two bucks on the table. As I raised the glass to my mouth, Sparky came stalking through the curtain and into the bar.
She was sheathed from shoulder to boot in black, snug-fitting leather. Her hair was tied back with a strip of blood red leather and the red bandana covered her head from her eyebrows and clasped her ears tightly to her head. She was looking from side to side, quietly looking for something, or someone. She gave a small shrug and stopped at the bar for a nightcap. She raised her glass to drink and she saw me, sitting in the corner, watching her.
I offered a small nod and pulled out a chair next to me. She walked towards me like a lithe cat, stalking her prey, while expertly balancing on six inch heels. Startling emerald eyes stared into mine as she dropped into the chair. The music volume had dropped for the end of the night ‘clean-out’ and several large men were herding the last of the customers out. One of the ‘Men-with-No-Neck’ looked at us and Sparky smiled and draped an arm around my shoulder. He shrugged and turned away.
We looked at each other and said simultaneously “You ready?” A wicked grin graced her face and was answered by my own. We stepped into the parking lot and she looked at my bike. She slowly walked around it, and then she ran soft gloved fingers from the tank, past the seat and bitch pad and ended at the rear fender.
“It’ll do” was her only comment. I threw aside the left flap of the beat-up saddlebags and showed her the contents. I had taken a triple garbage bag and stuffed it full of ice and set the bottle of champagne so just the gold foil cork peeked out. I had ridden to the bus station and rented a locker to hold my shirts and Levis that usually filled that side.
We ate breakfast and ended up at her house around three. I could smell cat but it wasn’t too bad. We popped the champagne and while drinking it, made love. We finished off the morning with a good belly slapping session. I was spent and collapsed into her arms. It was the first bed I had slept in for over 2 weeks and her sweet sexy smell and warm body lulled me to sleep quickly.
A few hours later, I was dragged awake by my sense of imminent danger. The Colt 45 under my pillow was in my right hand and my left eye was slightly cracked open. I didn’t have to look far. On the nightstand, probably ten or twelve inches from my nose sat a large cross-eyed Siamese cat and he was emitting sounds that were obviously meant to frighten me. A long drawn out “HHHnnnnnuuuunnnnnggggg” was coming from deep within his scrawny, thin and pathetic looking body. He had an oddly misshapen head and brilliant, wide open blue eyes. They were crossed, very close together and staring at me with undisguised malice as his tail slowly swept from one side to the other.
I cracked a grin and reached out with my left hand to give him a friendly scratch. A gasp from beside me and a “NO!” were a second too late, and I pulled back the bloody stump of what used to be my hand. That cat had hit me FOUR times with a fist-full of lethal weapons, before I could even withdraw my hand from the battle ground. I yelled a cursed, threw my naked body out of bed and was just winding up to smack him full in his lumpy head… and I pulled up short. He had not MOVED! His tail was now LASHING from side to side, his jaw hung unhinged, opened onto his chest like some weird snake-cat and the eerie noises had stepped up in intensity. He was saying “Bring it, naked boy!”
There I stood, six-foot four inches and 180 pounds of hard muscle, stymied by a twelve pound piece of fur from Hell. He knew that I didn’t have my armor on and that I knew HE knew my ‘jewels’ were making a very tempting target. Sparky groaned in a close imitation of the cat’s voice and said “Satan, knock it off… table!” Immediate silence descended. He glared at me, hopped down and swaggered the short distance to the kitchen table, his black tail held high and jumped onto the cluttered surface. He cleared a spot to sit with a wicked swipe at the leftover trash, turned and sat down, glaring at me with his crossed blue eyes.
“You named your cat Satan?” I asked her incredulously. I started the cleanup on what remained of my left hand. There were 16 slices on it, laid down into my skin with unnatural precision. She yawned again and stared at me from the bed.
“He was a kitten when I found him under my car two years ago. I think he had been run over by a car because he had blood coming out of his ears and his head felt kinda weird. So while he was unconscious, I took him to the vet. Idiot thought I wanted to put him to sleep. I told him to rearrange his skull as best he could and look for other breaks. Asshole charged me $400, so I gave him my last $200 cash and gave him a rubber check for the rest.
“He is the smartest cat I have ever seen. He can get out of locked rooms, he knows when someone is coming to the door, he can get up onto any high surface, he lurks in the dark and attacks without warning. He was actually giving you his ‘Nice Cat’ treatment by not jumping on your face. Oh, he hates bikers. So yeah, his name is Satan and he lives up to it. You want breakfast?”
She dragged her athletic body out of the sack, had a bone-popping stretch that gave me carnal thoughts of what I would like to do to her. She looked at me, grinned slyly and said “Down boy, breakfast first. Play later.” I smirked at her bare butt, gathered my clothes and got dressed while she started cooking. She left the stove to shrug into a tee shirt and shorts and within a few minutes, she dropped a plate of eggs, potatoes and sausage in front of me.
“So, what are you gonna do now?” She asked me the question around a mouthful of sausage and watched me with a calculating gleam in her eye. Obviously, this was not her first rodeo either. I thought about it while I ate and as I sopped up the last of breakfast I answered her question.
“Well, I thought that I would just sponge off of you for a couple of weeks. Stay at your place, give you a ride to and from work, have great sex with you and torture your cat for clawing my hand.” This was delivered with as serious an expression as I could manage while laughing inside.
She shook her slowly and mumbled “Well, at least you’re honest. You can stay with me until I’m bored of you, find your own money to live on and Satan is off limits. Watch the little shit, the last guy that was stayed with me lost his right eye. He likes to sit on the fridge and swipe at ya when you walk by. I work from 5 until 1:30. If you’re late or you don’t show, I don’t want to find you here. Got it?”
“Yes my Lady, all is clear.” I rose from my chair and bowed low to her, then dropped to my knees and looked into her fascinating eyes. I wormed my way between her knees and started to kiss her legs, then I slowly started upwards and the next hour passed in a most pleasurable way. Satan sat on the nightstand and observed us, eyes wide with only an occasional comment.
I dropped her off at work and then went for a ride in the slowly cooling desert air. While riding around town, I found a small dive called the Mint and I downed a couple of beers and a couple of hours later, I climbed back on the bike and went ‘home’. As I came in the door, I was ready for the Spawn of Evil. I cracked the door open and put my boot against the opening to stop any attempts of escape. Nothing. Just as I was starting to poke my head in, a movement at eye level caused me to dodge by pure reflex. It was also reflex that sent a quick jab at my attacker.
Satan had been sitting on the top of the bookshelf by the door and when he crashed to the floor from my jab I threw, he was caught off guard. He hissed at me and lashed his tail but did not back away from me. I came in, locked the door and turned to look down at him crouching on the floor. His lumpy head, skinny body and crossed eyes, combined with his total lack of fear of me gave me a grudging respect for the deranged cat.
I wandered into the kitchen, rummaged through the fridge and pulled out the eggs and sausage. I rustled up some grub and saved a couple of pieces of sausage for Satan. He had been watching me from the bed and I dropped the pieces into his bowl. As I approached the bed he hissed at me, jumped down and gave my boot a quick swipe as he disappeared into the kitchen. I smiled when I heard him gobbling the bits in his bowl.
I set the alarm for 12:30 and passed out. When the alarm went off I sat up, looked for the ‘Insane One’ and he was right there. On the night stand and staring at me as if he was carving me up for the freezer. When I reached over to shut off the alarm, he hissed and raised his lethal paw, ready to strike. I just looked at him, gave him a growl and eased my hand into his ‘Zone’. He watched me with a feral light in his crazy eyes but did not strike as I slowly shut off the screaming alarm.
“Thanks” I said. I climbed out of bed, shed my clothes and hit the shower. Damn, that feels good. You just don’t know how good a hot shower feels until you don’t have the luxury of climbing into one. I toweled off, straightened the bathroom up and wandered back into the house. Satan was waiting for me, just outside the door and as I walked towards him he started in on his “HHHHhhuuunnnnggg” sound. I looked down at him and said “Get over it. I’m here for a while, I’ll leave you alone if you’ll leave me alone. Got it?”
As I walked passed him, he swiped my ankle with his lethal weapon and dodged the kick that I didn’t throw. I turned around, went back into the bathroom and washed the slices that were made in my left ankle, bandaged them with the last of the band-aids and threw on my riding clothes. As I was leaving I told him “Watch the house Satan.” He just stared back at me and gave me a tail-lash.
Over breakfast, I told Sparky about what had happened when I went in the front door. I apologized for smacking her cat and when I looked up from my plate, her eyes were really round and she said “You HIT him?”
I started to explain that it was all pure reflex and I didn’t feel good about whacking her cat, when I realized that was not the cause of her amazement. She told me that NONE of her lovers had EVER been able to even touch him, much less actually hit him. She said that one had chased him around the (small) house for ten minutes and it had gotten so funny, she started laughing at them both. The guy then turned on HER and was going to beat her except that Satan had landed on his bare ass and had torn him up.
I was laughing so hard I almost choked and she pounded me on my back until I was gasping and gulping coffee. When we finished eating and went home, I held my finger in front of my lips in the classic “SHHH” gesture. As quietly as possible, I unlocked the door and thrust my hand into the room. I had wrapped my bandana loosely around my right hand and sure enough, Satan fell for it. As soon as his claws were embedded in the folds of the cloth, I yanked down and he fell to the floor.
I had to bite my cheek to keep from laughing at the bewildered look on his misshapen face. Sparky however, started laughing and Satan got up with all the dignity he could muster and proceeded to ESCORT us into the house, tail held high and just one glance back to make sure we were following. He sat by his bowl and let out the first ‘Meow’ I had ever heard that grumpy cat use. It sounded like a demon gargling broken glass and nails and it was really LOUD!
That was it for me, I started choking and huffing and then let out a howl of laughter that just wouldn’t stop. The top of the refrigerator had a space that was about six inches tall and it was at least 5’10” from the floor and that was one of his ‘safe’ places. He made the jump from the floor, turned and hissssssed at me from the recess. As I snagged a brew from the fridge, I looked him in the eye and said “Sorry for laughing.” I dropped a small piece of sausage in front of him and he snagged one of my fingers in payment for my laugh, small price.
We had a great time that night, our second together. It was a small slice of heaven that I knew wouldn’t last. I have always been a ‘Working Man’ and told her I would be up and gone to work early but that I would be home in plenty of time to take her to work. It was 3:30 AM when I set the clock for 5. The cat didn’t shred my hand when I turned off the alarm and I left him another small piece of sausage in his bowl before I locked the door and was at the “Day Labor” office in plenty of time to get a day’s work chipping brick.
In those days, they paid cash at the end of the day. Minimum wage was $1.35 an hour but I was working for $3.00 an hour if I did a pallet of bricks. I stopped at the store and bought beer, bread, eggs, sausage, some canned cat food and a catnip mouse for the ‘Cursed One’ in the house. I let myself in, dodged his half-hearted swipe at my head and put the groceries away. Then I opened the can of cat food, set it on the floor by his bowl and walked away.
Sparky had just stepped out of the shower and she called “We need to pick up some eggs and…” She had just walked out with a towel around her head and I was in my bliss. A wet headed, fresh smelling dancer had just stepped into the room and she was speechless. I was drinking a beer, a half smile on my weathered face and her cat was eating from a can at my feet. He was making noises similar to a lawnmower running over bricks and when I showed her the catnip mouse, she just kinda melted.
The next two weeks passed in a haze of loud gargling-demon meows, hard labor, fantastic love making, riding and visiting her friends. I told the ‘Day Labor’ place to hold my money for a week. Gasoline was 85 cents a gallon; eggs were 35 cents a dozen and a six pack of Bud could be found for around a buck. How much money did I need? I was staying with a dancer that could make two weeks wages in a night. She was very, very good to me and I paid her back every night.
Satan continued to be a pain in the ass, taking swipes at my feet and ankles. Lurking under the bed and on the fridge but his attacks lacked the original ferocity. His LOUD glass-gargling meaoowww was what I heard more than “HHHHhhhuuuuunnnnnggggg” and the catnip mouse had been shredded and hidden in some dark bolt-hole of his. I had picked up another but it lacked something so he would stalk by it, then turn and in a weird frenzy knock it across the room.
Living with an exotic dancer is not for the faint at heart nor for the timid. She was a fun drunk until she hit a line or two of toot. That would send her off into ‘LaLa’ land and then she would need a ‘Lude or two to ‘let me sleep’. We had already had a mix-up or two about it and I was having trouble with my own ‘Demons’. In those daze, I never met a drug I didn’t like and I was of the opinion “If one is good, three are better!” I had learned the hard way (always the hard way) that booze, pot, coke, speed and downers mixed really well. Of course, when they were mixed inside of me I become a COMPLETE asshole, nothing more is needed.
It had been two weeks since I had rolled off that off-ramp and had fallen into a small slice of bliss. Two weeks since I had met Satan, the Demon cat on earth and his keeper Sparky. In that time, I had never laid the Hand of Kindness on that lil demon, nor had I been able to purge the Demon that rode my back with steel claws and headlight eyes. The siren call of the Road was upon me and all I had to do was saddle up.
On Friday I had collected $98; my wages for a week of hard labor, eight hours a day chipping mortar off bricks and stacking them on a pallet. I picked up Sparky at work, we had breakfast and I paid. As we walked out to the bike, she looked at me and asked “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” I kicked the bike to life, got on and she climbed on behind. She held me very tight as we headed for home. When we got to the door, our ritual was the same as always. I unlocked the door and stuck my bandana wrapped hand in first.
For the first time, Satan was sitting in front of the door. He meowed his glass-gargling greeting and walked to his bowl. I shucked my leather onto the kitchen chair and took off my boots. Sparky wandered in behind me and went to the bathroom and shut the door. As I walked into the kitchen, I went to the cabinet where the treats for demon cat were. I pulled a few out, dropped them into his bowl and when he sauntered over to munch them, I leaned down and gave him a stroke, from his gnarly lumpy head all the way to his black tail.
He gave a low snarl and then he made a sound I had never heard. Imagine rolling several steel balls inside a glass jar and that would be close. He was purring. That is when I knew I had to leave. Sparky came out dressed in her ‘nightgown’, a white tee shirt that fell to her knees. She turned her brilliant green eyes to me and said “You never answered my question. You’re leaving aren’t you?”
“Yep, I’m riding out tomorrow.” I continued to pet Satan and her eyes widened. She watched us for a moment, then demon spawn lashed out and scored my right wrist. He stalked off, tail rigid and showing me his backside. He jumped up into Sparky’s arms and then hisssssed at me from the shelter of her arms. Her face had hardened and her eyelids had hooded those emerald eyes into a mean glare.
“Well, if you’re leaving, why don’t ya just get out now?” She turned her back to me, crawled into bed and lay facing the wall. I slid into my boots and gathered the few things that were mine, shrugged into my leather and I removed the key she had given me. I dropped it on the table and as I stopped at the door, I said “Thank you, for all you did for me. I have to go now.” I opened the door and she was suddenly holding me and kissing me… goodbye.
It was 3:30 am. I had $90 in my pocket, a full tank of gas, a half pint of JD, a fat sack of weed and clean clothes in my saddle bags. My true Mistress was calling as I kicked the bike to life. I looked back at the bedroom window and I saw a sight that I hope never fades. She had her hand pressed against the window and so did Satan.
November 11, 2012- -
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