Heart Like a Lion

Out in the offices, it stayed quiet for a minute or so after Marcus had returned to his marathon S-and-M session. Finally, though, the figure who'd been hidden just behind the door of his office, and who'd narrowly escaped detection when Marcus had poked his head in, allowed himself to breathe again and quietly, carefully, stepped out into the hallway.

He was clutching a R.A.M.S.-issue taser in one hand, and his cellphone in the other. Sonny James still had no clear idea what he was going to do... but whatever it was, he was here to do it.

The strange part was that he had been free and clear. Well shot of the whole thing.

Not that the glimpses Sonny had caught of the naked, frightened girls being marched to their doom by his crazy brother hadn't affected him. In more normal circumstances, and if the arresting "officer" hadn't been his brother, he would have spoken up. He was sure of it. He would have called out for all to hear that something dodgy was going on. Sonny might even yet have done it for his brother if nothing else, an attempt to save the poor, deluded bastard from doing something that would eventually get him caught and charged.

But his instincts had been conflicted. He'd also seen the girls' Chelsea hairstyles, their neo-Nazi tattoos... and it had been that more than anything else that had frozen him. Skinheads, not to put too fine a point on it, freaked him out. Not that they'd ever picked on him as a kid -- he'd been too popular, his brother too large and intimidating for that -- but the simple knowledge of people in the world who seemed to build their whole identities out of the hate of people born like him... well, it had always been a bit much. Had always angried up his blood and made him instinctively turn away.

In those two naked, handcuffed girls being marched down the concourse by Marcus, he'd found a perfect storm of contradictory instincts: of course his prick had swelled in admitted sympathy with the enormous hard-on Marcus was sporting, because they were undeniably gorgeous, skinbyrds or not; other, more humane instincts told him that they looked to be barely out of high school and that he should intervene; yet others, the instincts of loathing and contempt, told him that they were skins, that they wouldn't do the same for him, that he should just walk away. His business at the Mall was done, after all.

At first, the last instinct won. If just barely. He couldn't shake the images from his head, but he'd made his peace with them. Had been driving on his way to his next appointment, chatting with his co-producer on the test shoot scheduled for an hour's hence in the afternoon, with plenty of prep work to be done. At least there was some filming to get done, something to keep his mind off things; he'd been ambivalent about booking work on this leg of his trip, but was suddenly glad he'd done it.

"Okay," his fellow producer A.J. had said. "Well, I've got good news and bad news."

"Bad news first," Sonny had said automatically, trying to tease a little extra speed out of his rather long-in-the-tooth Korean hatchback. Trying to get westward-bound from the All-American Mall as fast as he could. Thinking on the churning in his stomach, he immediately corrected himself: "No, scratch that. Good news first."

"Went that well with the crazy relatives, huh?"

"I do not even want to talk about it," he'd said with feeling.

"Fair enough. Good news first, then. The... uhhh, Rosewood Avenue?" A.J. was consulting with someone in earshot. He confirmed: "The Rosewood Avenue Gangster Disciples are here--" He paused as someone spoke rapidly in the background, then amended: "Are in effect, they want you to know. They're ready to shoot when you are--"

A.J.'s voice cut off as someone abruptly grabbed the phone from him. A rough-sounding voice said: "Yo what up, dis Sonny?"

"Um, yeah." He'd felt a bleak humour welling up, and played along. "Dis Sonny. Who dis?"

"Yo what up, G. Dis muthafuckin' Mau Mau G reppin' Rosewood straight up and down, you feel me cuz?" The Ebonics accent was almost spot on, Sonny mused to himself. If anything almost too perfect. Like the speaker had learned from watching hip-hop videos. "We ready to straight wreck some white bitch pussy up in here, fo' rizzle, nizzle. You gon' show an' prove?"

It was the "fo' rizzle, nizzle" touch that brought Sonny to the verge of outright laughter... except he could feel the hysteria behind it, and tamped it down. "Mau Mau G, I got that right?"

"World famous, nigga, fittin' to represent, you know what I'm sayin'?"

"I think I've got some idea." Sonny smiled humourlessly as he wound his way through the midday crosstown traffic -- even in Blossomville it was murderous -- before saying: "Now here's what I know. If you don't put my fucking producer back on the phone in double-quick time, nobody's wrecking any 'white bitch pussy.' Not today, not this week, not this century. I'll turf the lot of you so fast your pointy heads will spin, and I will make goddamned sure you never book an adult picture as long as you live. Do you 'feel' me?"

"Um." Mau Mau G was briefly at a loss, but after a long, nonplussed pause he finally managed: "Uh, yeah. I feel you, homie."

"Then do what I told you, 'homie.' Oh, and how's about dropping the bullshit accent and telling me your real name while you're at it."

"Uhhh.. yeah, whatevah... uh, I mean, sure. Uhhh, it's Morris." The badass gangster had vanished from the other end of the line as quickly as he'd arrived. A fumble-tongued college boy youngster from the Midwest had taken his place. "Errr... sorry, Mister James. I'm... kind of a method actor, you know, I like to get in character, really sink my teeth into the motivation--"

"Yeah, you can shut the fuck up now, Morris. Put A.J. back on the line." There were shifting sounds as the phone returned to its owner, and Sonny said: "A.J., man, what the Hell? I thought keeping the talent in check was your thing."

"He just got a little carried away, is all," said A.J. apologetically. "You know, they're really theatre students, most of them. Bit on the nerdy side, they're just super-excited about this whole thing."

"How many of them?"

"Uhhh, seems to be eight of them, as promised... and they look camera-ready, if their dicks work," A.J. confirmed... but his voice got a little more sombre as he said: "Which is... well, this is where I come to the bad news. The, uhhh, number of actresses."

Sonny had gritted his teeth, but said: "Go on."

"Well, as of now, it's kind of... zero."

"What." Sonny came close to losing his concentration, braking hastily at the red light he'd almost just sailed through. "They all cancelled. Seriously?"

"Both actresses and the fluffer." A.J. sounded as stressed by uttering this sentence as Sonny was to hear it. "Apparently they were going to this protest before coming here... some World Naked Bike Ride thing? One of them called me, practically incoherent. Something about skinheads and a chase and her friend getting 'hit by a car on the way back' and she needed friends to be with her as they were checking her into hospital." He could practically hear his producer's shrug of bewilderment. "I honestly couldn't get a word in edgewise. She babbled at me for like five straight minutes and was gone. So, well, I'm not expecting them."

Goddammit. GODDAMMIT. "So the whole day is a miss, then. That what you're telling me. After we put down a deposit on the location and hired catering and everything."

"Yes, Sonny, that's what I'm telling you. Less you know anybody else you can call."

"Fuck. Fuck. FUCKFUCKFUCK. Fuck.FUCK!" Et cetera. Sonny went on in that vein for a little while before finally saying: "Look, I have to pull off the road and think, here. I'll call you back." He'd pulled into the parking lot of a Piggly Wiggly, repeatedly pounding the dash in his frustration, wondering how this day could get any shittier.

Those actresses had been damned cute, too, he'd thought. He remembered the audition videos: every one of them had sported firm, petite sun-kissed bodies, perky tits, little touches of ink here and there, and faces almost runway model perfect but with little flaws -- one freckle too many, a mildly snaggle-toothed smile, a just-slightly-oversized schnozz -- that along with their diminutive size would probably keep them out of the mainstream fashion industry's eye. And of course they'd all had those adorably dorky white-girl dreads. They'd been pretty much perfect porn-girl material; Sonny wasn't about to just go cruising bus stops and offering out wads of cash to try to replace them, he had standards.

At that moment, it had caught at the corner of his mind. Bike Ride, A.J.'d said. World Naked Bike Ride.

Sonny's mind went back to his dead race out to the Mall concourse, pounding his way up two levels of escalators to get a vantage point on what was happening. Two streakers. Girls on bikes. The skingirls had been on bikes. It could have been just a coincidence... but, "something about skinheads and a chase" had come up in the call to A.J., and a picture started to snap into focus in his mind.

He took out his phone, did a Net search for "World Naked Bike Ride Blossomville." Hit the "news" tab... and came up with a report that had just been filed several minutes earlier. It was from a local news feed and said "Pandemonium Erupts at Blossomville's First World Naked Bike Ride." The report itself was sketchy: an attractive reporter holding herself steady and shouting through a sea of bedlam, a chaos of milling people and police uniforms. Some people in the shot were bloodied, as if they'd just been in an altercation. He popped in his earbuds, wound the feed back and listened to the beginning.

"Blossomville's first World Naked Bike Ride wasn't even out of the starting gate here at the Village Park Apartments before disaster struck. Police are still piecing together what's happened, but it seems to have begun with assault and robbery of two Ride participants... and escalated from there into at least one car accident and a very, very large brawl."

He stopped it, read through the accompanying text again. There were conflicting claims about the incident that had kicked off the "very, very large brawl." Some claimed the robbers were men... but others said they were definitely female. Two skinhead girls, one blonde and one brunette, who'd rode out stark naked but for their shoes and socks. And reading that, the picture snapped into focus. The bikes weren't a coincidence. Somehow, those girls had stolen those bikes from people at the Ride. It was all connected.

And then an idea had popped into his head.

It was a terrible idea, skittering like a dung beetle out from the arse-end of his id. He tried to shake it out immediately, but it stayed stuck in there. Marcus' Most Wanted back at the Mall had, unwittingly but unerringly if what he suspected was true, just fucked over his shoot.

And now they were trapped back there with Marcus -- and probably his disturbingly busty female colleague with the creepy eyes -- and it wouldn't exactly be right to leave them there, would it? He did have a responsibility to go back and help them, didn't he?

And, of course, the kicker: they might even be grateful to someone for helping them, wouldn't they? Might even be willing to him a favour in return?

The more he tried to reject the idea, the more it solidified. If he could get those girls away from Marcus, he was pretty sure he could talk them into replacing the actresses on his shoot. It would be wrong, it would be manipulative... but it would be doable. Even with skinbyrds and particularly with traumatized ones. And they were gorgeous, he'd seen that much... even hotter than the girls he'd lost. He remembered meeting the brunette's eyes as she'd been going down the escalator into Marcus' domain, remembered the strange, electric sense of connection he'd felt despite everything. It was doable.

And, whispered that dark corner of his id as it lobbed the idea toward him over the netting of his better sense, they do kind of owe it you, don't they? It's really only fair. Be a great angle for a video, too, you have to admit. An interracial gangbang shoot with authentic neo-Nazi skinhead chicks as the female talent? Never been anything like it that I ever heard tell of.

He shook his head, whacked the idea back across the net. No, I am not doing this. No fucking way. There's a point beyond which I will not go.

The idea came soaring back over, now in the form of a new title for the movie: Race Traitor Fuck Dolls #1. The first in a series, my man. The first in a very profitable series. Porn history.

Sonny sent it back again: Accessory to kidnapping and false imprisonment. Profiteering from suffering. Recruiting talent under duress. I can't do it.

But his id sent it back at him once more in a return volley: You're a porn merchant, fuckhead. You profit from suffering and exploit damaged people every day. Don't kid yourself. And with these ones, you'd be rescuing them from kidnapping and false imprisonment -- you get a good deed out of it to salve your conscience, you get what your production needs, those little honeys get to make up their debt to you and get a nice little payday out of it to boot. Everybody wins!

He tried to think of a way to volley that back, but nothing came to him. He sat there a moment more as the idea seeded itself and blossomed, taking roots and filling in cracks and crevices in his mind, spawning sub-plans and timetables. But he was still struggling. He wouldn't commit to this. No. He wouldn't commit... but at least part of the idea was inescapable, wasn't it? He did have a responsibility to go back and get the 'byrds out of Marcus' clutches. Right? For Marcus, for them, for everyone it would be the best possible thing.

Wouldn't it? Exactly.

And after that... well, after that he could decide if he wanted to go through with the rest of it. Right?

That's the ticket, said his id. Yeah, you're just going to go back there and do the "responsible" thing, that's it. Let's go with that.

Shut the fuck up, he told it. I am not agreeing to this! I'm just... going to do what absolutely needs to be done, just the bare minimum and that's all. That's all. Everything else is just... just speculative at this point. Okay? ... Okay. OKAY.

Picking up the phone again, he'd called A.J.: "Listen, I have to go back to the Mall and do something. Just keep the, uhhh, 'Gangster Disciples' on ice there and keep 'em happy, I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Right, and what about actresses?"

"I don't know. There might be some possibilities. I'll keep you posted... oh, and could you do me a favour?" He surprised himself with the question: "Could you make some calls on where we could get neo-Nazi flags and posters for set dressing?"

"Uh... okay. Like, what did you have in mind?"

"You know: swastikas, iron crosses, Rhodesian and Confederate flags, Skrewdriver posters... that kind of stuff." It's just research. I'm not committing to anything.

"Um, sure. Mind if I ask what for?" A.J. sounded as confused as Sonny felt.

"Couldn't really say yet. Just have the info for me when I call back, if you can." As he said it, he was pulling back on the road. At the beginning of a quest to perform either the most heroic or most villainous deed of his life... or maybe both at once.

So, okay, he hadn't been feeling exactly like the cavalry as he pulled back into the Mall's parking lot. But he had most certainly been feeling the urgency, every cell of him vibrating to the necessity of figuring out how to make this work.

The first instinct had been to head straight for the basement offices. But Marcus wasn't stupid; surely the office doors would be locked if he was doing what Sonny assumed he was doing. And then a brief flash from earlier had come into his mind: the beautiful blonde plowing her bike into one of the R.A.M.S. guards and then storming after his fellow like an avenging angel in steel-toed boots... one of which had promptly connected with his nuts and dropped him.

Infirmary. The word rang in his mind as he dashed into the Mall, found the first map he could and looked up the word. There was one right at the centre of the first floor. He had made the fastest time there that he could without outright sprinting.

In those antiseptic, carefully banal precincts he'd come face to face with a Head Nurse names Oakes with a hard, craggy battle-axe face and a frame like a linebacker. After mumbling out his name and his connection with Marcus James, he'd seen a hint of contempt flash in her eyes, but she'd directed him to the room where R.A.M.S. Security Professional Teyson Udall was -- with the help of his loyal brother -- convalescing. He'd pondered what he would say as he made his way back through a hallway that was all whites and pastel greens and bright linoleum.

When he'd finally arrived, he found Teyson lying in a cot, whacked out on painkillers, with Kyson beside him playing some game on his smartphone. Kyson had looked up at him, and seemed curiously unsurprised: "Oh. It's you."

"Uh, yeah. Surprise."

"Yeah, the days around here are just full of surprises." Kyson's voice had been surprisingly bitter as he shut down his phone and pocketed it. "Sonny, right? What do you want?"

"Well." A battery of possible lies competed with each other in Sonny's throat. The one that got out of his mouth was: "Listen, I... uhh, accidentally left something in the offices downstairs. Something personal. I need access to retrieve it."

"Do you," Kyson had smiled without mirth. "Wish I could help you out, but I'm under orders to stay by my brother's side. Until Boss James tells me otherwise, of course."

Something in his voice told Sonny that it might be safe to take a chance, so he hazarded: "Really. That happen often?"

"Least once a month." Kyson's lip curled. He hesitated, then said: "Pretty much every time they catch a hot girl of legal age doing something snaky, as a matter of fact. There's always something me and Teyson have to be off doing. Something that won't let us return lest we get an all-clear from the Boss."

Sonny had looked at him, saw the resentment, realized: He knows exactly what's happening down there, at least he's guessed at it. He doesn't even disapprove of it. He disapproves of getting cut out. Experimentally, he said: "Marcus always had trust issues, you know. As his brother, I can attest."

"Yeah, 'trust issues.' Good way of putting it." Kyson grimaced. "Been working with him for three years, helped support his nomination to Senior. And he's still got 'trust issues.' Or maybe 'sharing issues.' Hard to tell with a guy like that."

"No doubt," Sonny agreed fervently. "You should have heard the fights we used to have over the Transformers toys." He hesitated a moment, then added on the fly, his mouth running away with him: "You know, I might be able to work something out with him."

"That so?" Kyson gave him a skeptical look. "Funny. I didn't get the feeling you were all that close."

"Not like you guys, for sure," Sonny admitted, then: "But he's not about to tase me on sight or anything, I can tell you that. And, well... if I were to walk in on him, say, in the middle of something... well, who knows what could happen?"

Kyson's expression stayed sour-frozen for a moment. Then he brightened a bit. "Oh. Okay, yeah, I get you." Then fell again. "But I can't leave here. I really can't."