"Bennie, I could use a breather. Do you mind walking with me for a few minutes?"
The big man knew what this was about. Though he'd have prefered to keep drinking with Whiskey, he figured it was best to tackle this issue now rather than let it fester for too long.
"Sure," Bennie replied simply, putting his cup down on the table nearby. He wasn't even remotely drunk yet.
"I'll just go put this one to bed... Be back in a flash."
Bennie grinned. "Don't fall asleep while you're putting her down now," he warned her. "I need someone to get drunk with tonight, remember." With that said, Bennie gestured for Amy to follow him down the hall, towards the bridge. Once they'd made it halfway down the hall, well out of earshot of everyone else, Bennie looked to Amy in the corner of his eye. "What's on your mind, Amy?"
"You know damn well what it is!" Amy hissed, her polite demeanour gone in a flash. "Sandra has just lost her best friend, she was held captive for days by a maniac. Now, she's having to adjust to a whole new life among a bunch of strangers, because I'm trying to protect her, and you just take her out to flash her in front of Payton's men without me? What the fuck?!"
The height and bulk difference between them in no way discouraged Amy from getting right up in Bennie's face.
Bennie's expression remained unchanged as the smaller woman lambasted him. He looked right into her eyes with an apathetic frown. "She's a Maiden now, Amy," he reminded her, "she follows her Captain's orders. All things considered, she did pretty well today. She kept a level head in a trying situation. You should be proud of her." Looking back down the hall, he continued towards the bridge. "You think I was sending a message when I took her down there without you? Well, maybe I was, but that wasn't the main reason I did it."
"I don't know who the fuck you think you are, or what message you think you need to send!" Amy spat back. "Yeah, she has to learn, she has to pull her weight, but she's my responsibility! You want this..." she gestured between them "to work? You want us to tolerate each-other? You don't piss on that. Not now, not ever."
Bennie offered a condescending laugh. "And what is 'this'?" he asked, mimicking her gesture. "In order for there to be some kind of deal between two parties you generally have to give the other person something. What can you offer me outside of a massive headache?"
"Well, Pixie always seemed to find a use for my talents..." Amy goaded him, a cruel smile on her face. "Besides, that do you think the party is all about, dumbass! I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to make the Maiden's feel like a family again, while you're off being all distant and stoic, trying to make up for the fact that everybody knows you're Payton's ***** until he says otherwise; and that, even if you weren't, you wouldn't have a fucking clue where to take us next! But know, please, carry on about how I'm the problem!"
That had to sting, but Amy wasn't quite done yet.
"I told you before that I care about this place, so I'm trying to help you get it back on its feet, despite the fact that you've never done a single fucking thing to make me feel at home here. Now though, I'm drawing a line. You've already taken one person I care about away from me. God help you if you even think about driving Sandra off as well!"
Bennie shook his head, clearly irritated, and groaned. "I'm not trying to drive Sandra off, Amy," he told her. "I don't play games with people like you do. You want full disclosure? Fine. I'll recount the whole conversation we had about you if you want. I'll tell you about my history with Wilkes-Vines. Hell, I'll even tell you what happened that night at Carlos' place." He ignored Amy's shocked expression and continued. "You're right about one thing here, Amy. I have not made you feel at home. I tried to offer an olive branch and I failed."
Stepping onto the bridge, he scanned the dark room before gliding across it, towards the window. "This is all because of Pixie," he said, his voice much calmer now. "If there wasn't this fucked up shit between the three of us I don't imagine there would be any issue at all. Well you know what? Pixie ain't here right now, so fuck it. You want this all to work? Okay, so do I, so let's make it work."
Amy was ready to scoff at Bennie's proposed innocence. 'Don't play games'? Fuck that! Everyone with power was always using it to squeeze the people beneath them for all they were worth; and here was this hypocritical bastard, trying to trick her into thinking that he was this one-in-a-million, straight-up and simple guy? Not likely.
His mentioning of that night, however, threw her off guard. When she'd interrogated Bennie about it before, she'd got nothing but awkward evasions and deflecting accusations. Now he was ready to talk? It made no sense. This was him playing games, it had to be...
"It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened." she replied, though not sounding on as sure a footing as she did before. "You come back into her life, dragging all this fucking 'history' that you're both still so hung up on with you, that I had to sit and listen to like it justified anything. She was vulnerable because of Axel and Lilith being in danger, and all that shit with Austin; and you took advantage to get your end away. It's hardly an original story!"
She turned away from him, not really wanting to hear what he had to say for himself. Storming through a door behind her in order to get away, she found herself staring at the close, claustrophobic walls of a supply closet. Wheeling back around, Amy tried to get out and storm off back down the hall, but now Bennie was in the way.
"Move." she growled, biting her lip and shaking all over.
Bennie clenched his jaw. "I'm finally willing to give you what you want and you run away?" he asked in a harsh tone. "You two are a lot a like, you know that? Neither of you are willing to accept the ugliness you've brought upon yourselves. You're always running away. Well, you know what? I'm fucking tired of dealing with this shit. Grow a goddamn spine and listen to what I have to say or continue to gorge on that self-serving bullshit you feed yourself; it makes no difference to me."
"Shut up!" she snarled "Don't..." she turned away from him "Don't you dare lie to me."
"Like I said, Amy... Pixie isn't here," he repeated. "I'm not keeping her secrets any more. You want the truth? Swallow that knot in your throat and look me in the eye."
It took a couple of seconds, but eventually, Amy looked up, half defiant, half pleading.
Bennie sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose before beginning his tale. It was difficult, but he saw no other option. He had to tell her. "I didn't tell you before because... well, I still love her obviously and I wanted to protect her," he explained. "You already know how fucked up she was, so I won't waste your time explaining that, but I will tell you that she's... when she sees a loved one in pain, she has a habit of forgetting everything else. She saw the way I looked at you two. She saw what it was doing to me and it hurt her. So that night, when we took the crawler out, just the two of us, we had a conversation."
He chuckled sadly. "To be honest, I barely remember what we talked about now," he admitted. "I know what I told her in the end though. I told her I loved her, and I gave her all the reasons why. She'd been hesitant to address the issue until then, of course. She didn't want to ruin what she had with you. But you know, like I said before, when she sees someone she loves suffering like that, she tends to forget everything else." He sighed again, deeper this time. "She told me she couldn't be with me and begged for my forgiveness. She kept begging and pleading and then, in some desperate, final gambit, she thought fucking me would make up for it. I slapped her and brought her back to her senses before anything could happen, but had I not done that it... it would have happened." He relaxed his shoulders as if a huge burden had been suddenly lifted off them. "We didn't talk about it again after that."
Amy wanted to reject it, to spit everything Bennie had had just said back in his face, to call him a pig and a liar. Her hands shook as she ran them through her hair, pacing back and forth like a caged animal.
The thought that it had been Pixie, the same Pixie she promised so much to, who'd held and comforted her that very same night, had been trying to force herself on somebody else while Amy had been back in their bed trying to think of what she would say to reconcile their differences upon her return... Amy was full to bursting, and something had to give.
With a roar, she turned and slammed her fist fight into the middle of Bennie's face. The impact went all the way up her arm, likely hurting her just as much as it hurt Bennie. Still, it was probably no fun for him either.
"WHY?!" she screeched at him, tears cascading in rivulets down her face. "WHY DID YOU DEFEND HER?! SHE LEFT BOTH OF US! SHE SCREWED US OVER, AND YOU LET ME HATE YOU ALL THIS TIME FOR HER MISTAKE?! WHY?! WHY DID YOU... WHY DID SHE DO IT?! WHY DID SHE DO THAT TO ME?!"
She came as him again. Only, instead of an outburst of violence, she fell against him, crying her eyes out at, or for, Pixie. It was several minutes before she calmed down, slumped on her knees in the closet.
"Did I really make her hate me so much?" she asked quietly, her head hung down and her face a mess. "Is this all my fault?"
His face still stinging, Bennie wiped the blood from his nose with his bare forearm and patted the small woman on her back. "No, it's absolutely not your fault," he told her in a sympathetic tone. "Pixie's... she's fucked up. She's really fucked up, Amy. I--I'm sorry I didn't tell you before." The big man rested his forehead on her shoulder. "I am not going to begin to guess what her thought process was when it came to your relationship, but there was something there. Trust me, I saw it and it hurt me. What she did, it may hurt to hear this, but it had nothing to do with you. Pixie is selfish and short-sighted. That's all it was."
Pulling away from her slightly, he searched her eyes. "But listen, she ain't here. She doesn't matter right now," Bennie said. "This party of yours? It's proof of that. There are people here that care about each other. They care about you. Screw Pixie, you don't need her, and neither do I."
Bennie only half-registered what he had just said. Surely that was hyperbole, wasn't it?
"It broke her heart to leave." Amy continued "To leave the Maiden, Axel, Lilith, her family... God, this is going to sound so bad, but I got so fucking sick of hearing how important and magical her family was to her, when I was the one sharing her nights, keeping her secrets, only ever asking in return to be loved like that by her. Me though, me personally? I honestly can't tell if she's thought about me at all since then. I obviously didn't satisfy her fully, did I?" she laughed bitterly. "The last time we talked, she made out like she was doing me a favour!"
Shakily, Amy got to her feet, using Bennie's arm for support.
"Thanks; and... sorry about the face." she murmured, sniffing "I, I need to go and get cleaned up."
Exiting the closet, she turned back to face Bennie.
"Captain..." It was the first time she'd called him that without mocking him. "Please don't tell Axel about any of this. I need to think."
"Of course not," Bennie promised her. Then he grinned. "Anything that's said in the closet stays in the closet."
=========================================================================================================================
Sandra was giggling at a joke Talahassee had just made, as they half-tumbled through the door into his room. They were both getting rather hands-on with each-other at this point, but nothing lewd had happened yet.
"So, where's all the hooch you promised me?" She asked, breaking away from him and going to sit down on the small, threadbare couch at the corner of the room (not the bed just yet). She stroked the space next to her with her hand as she sat there, legs crossed, checking out her pull from afar. She didn't mind how much of a tease she was being. Tal would get more than enough for his trouble if he could keep the charm coming, but she didn't want to put out too soon. After all, the night was still young. They had plenty of time to play games.
Walking over to his night stand, Tallahassee crouched down and swung open the cabinet. "What are you in the mood for?" he asked as he got to his feet holding an assorted collection of bottles. Placing them on the night stand, he glanced over his shoulder at his guest. "I can mix something for ya'."
"Hmmm..." Sandra pondered, a finger twisting in her hair. "You think you can mix me up a Martini?"
"Comin' right up," he announced. After mixing their drinks, the cowboy joined Sandra on the couch and offered her the Martini. "Bottom's up." He chirped as he tilted his head back and downed his drink in one go. Thankfully he'd made himself two. "I'm sure you're no stranger to it, but we take booze very seriously on the Maiden. Drinkin' Pixie under the table used ta' be one of my favourite pastimes."
"Ha! You're not getting me flat on my back that easily." Sandra japed, taking a moderate sip of her Martini. "I'll take you word for it. Myself, I prefer to... savour, the experience."
The look in her eye was positively devilish.
"So," she said, leaning forwards and brushing the edge of Tal's knee lightly with three fingers. "I'm dealing with a Champion huh, capable of felling the mighty Meredith Monroe herself?"
Tallahassee chuckled. "Yeah, once 'er twice," he offered with a shrug. "To be honest though, I got lucky. That ***** 'as a mean gut." He began sipping his second drink. "Brock's a good opponent too. Not as tough as Pixie, but he's a big fella. We used ta' get rowdy like those typical bandit, macho types. Arm wrestlin', drinkin' contests, really stupid knife stuff... we did it all. Think we've mellowed out quite a bit since then... either that 'ar we ain't as stupid as we used to be. Well, Brock might still be."
"Thank God you didn't know each-other when you were teenagers." Sandra teased. "I can just see you two in the sowers together, comparing who's is bigger."
Yes, that was where her mind was going. What of it?
"You don' 'ave ta' be a teenager to get up to stuff like that," he suggested with a wry grin. "But yeah, technically we were teenagers. Well, most of us anyway. Cranston and his sister were the only two 'real' adults in the beginning."
Sandra stopped in the middle of her drink, her eyebrows raised in genuine surprise.
"The Cook had a sister?" she asked "Really?"
"Had? More like 'has'. She ain't dead so far as I know." he told her. "Fuck, I'm not even drunk yet an' you already 'ave me runnin' my mouth." He shrugged. "People 'round here don' talk about her much. In fact, I reckon myself, Pixie and Ruffles are the only three left who were around back then. I'm not even sure Bennie knows about her."
Sandra got the feeling this was a sensitive topic, and tried to backtrack.
"I'm sorry." She said "I don't want to go poking my nose into private business, especially if it's stuff that's better left in the past."
Tallahassee shook his head before taking another sip of his drink. "Nah, it's no big deal," he assured her. "Her and Pixie had a... nasty fallin' out. Cranston was forced to pick sides an' he chose Pixie. It's ancient history now, but I wouldn' recommend bringin' it up in front of Pixie... assumin' she ever comes back."
"What happened?" Sandra asked, slightly more inquisitive. She was aware of Pixie's reputation for ensnaring people, but for The Cook to have chosen her over his own flesh and blood... That must have been some drama.
"Pixie was as much his family 'as his sister by that point," he explained. "Chromey lost his daughter a year or so prior to the start of all this. Pixie was there to help pick up the pieces. She kind of... well, she was basically his new daughter at that point. He was a lot easier on her back then than he was later on. Overlooked a lot of bullshit that he didn' start crackin' down on until later."
Slouching forward, the cowboy rested his elbows on his knees and looked into his palms. It wasn't often he spoke of the past like this. Not this far back, anyway. "Cranston's sister was ex-Lombardi navy. One of the best ship captains that ever lived," he said. "Piper 'Beatrix' Russo. I am sure you've heard of her. Most people don' know the two are related, but they definitely are. No one else on the Rock can stare you down the same way those two can. She was technically the Maiden's original Captain, but that didn' last long."
"Well, I suppose I should have figured Pixie didn't learn how to pilot this ship through trial and error." Sandra replied. Tal obviously had a lot of stories to tell. However, she wasn't sure if this particular one went down a path that would make her night more fun.
"Yeah, well that's not really my story to tell. I've probably said way too much already," he admitted. "I guess I've just had my mind on the past lately. Fuck, listen to me... you don't want to hear me mope." He chuckled sadly. "Tell me about yourself, Sandy. How'd such a fine lil' lady like yerself end up flyin' around the ashlands in this rusty crate?"
Now they were back in business. Sandra smiled as she resumed drinking.
"I didn't always look so fine." she told him. "I grew up in this little Hick dome that'd make Boomhower look like high society. Youngest of..." She took a moment to count on her fingers "Seven siblings, think there was only about five years between us in age though. My mom was one of those ladies. She treated us alright though, with what she had, unlike my Dad. He was a piece of trash if you ever saw one; and, when money got so bad, it became a choice of another round at the bar, or putting enough food on the table for his kids? Well, he decided he didn't really need all of us."
Despite it not being a particularly nice story, Sandra didn't seem all that put out by it. As far as she was concerned, it was ancient history that she was glad to have left behind.
"Lucky for him. The local bandit group who pretty much ran things there started taking an interest in me when I was about twelve. They offered good money for me, and then when they were done with me for themselves, they got their money back by renting me out to others‏. Things stayed that way until I was sixteen, when the bandits ran afoul of The Gentleman. I don't know the fine points of it, but it didn't work out well for them. Never really does, it seems. When he was the only one left standing, he offered all the girl they'd been keeping a choice. He could set us free to make our own way from scratch, or we could come work for him. He told us that he only catered for a higher class of clientèle than what we were used to, that nobody would get to treat us like dirt again. It might not seem like much of an improvement to someone who doesn't already live that kind of life, but most of us, Me and Georgia included, ended up taking his offer. That was how I first met Amy; and pretty much since then I've been living the high life, so to speak. You know, once I'd learned how to talk so you'd never guess I'd grown up poor. A lot of nobles like playing dirty, but only when they think it's all a million miles away from the sort of place where I actually came from."
Tallahassee nodded along as if he'd heard this same tale a dozen times. When she was done, he shook his head and scoffed in disgust. "Pampered fuckin' cunts, all of 'em," he muttered. "I'm sure you're grateful to be away from that crowd now, yeah?"
"Eh, they weren't all bad." Sandra remarked. "Besides, it's not like the bandits or the people they sold me to were any better. At least I got my money's worth with the rich pricks."
Leaning over towards Tal, Sandra placed her now empty glass on the side table just beyond him.
"I like where I am right now though." she said, one hand now firmly on his thigh, and the other playing with the collar of his shirt. "In fact, I like it quite a bit."
Her eyes seemed very big as she smiled at him, their faces now no more than a couple of inches apart.
Tallahassee grinned almost sweetly. This woman worked fast. "I'd like it more if you came just a little bit closer," he cooed. The cowboy traced his fingers up Sandra's spine. "You know what my favourite Maiden tradition is?"
"Why?" she replied, shifting her body upwards until her eye height was just above his, and their lips were almost touching. "Am I about to find out?"
The smooth talking cowboy smirked, and without another word, he leaned for a kiss. Holding her waiste in one hand, he cupped her face with the other and pulled her in closer. She tasted so sweet.
The make-out session lasted a long time, as both parties eased into it, taking all the time in the world to explore the choice parts of one another's bodies with their hands, accompanied by playful and encouraging noises from Sandra whenever she same up for air. Eventually Sandra shifted to bring her legs over, so she was now sitting across Tal's lap. Picking up on the cue without needing to be told twice, the veteran Maiden, stood up, taking the younger girl with him, and carried her the short distance to the bed, where clothes started shedding at intervals.
"Don't get too excited now." Sandra teased him, during a brief lull in the action. Nevertheless, she wriggled her hips seductively beneath him. "I don't think I want this night to end for a while."
"That's the thing about fuckin' in the Maiden," he told her between excited breaths. "Sound travels like a ***** in here. Even if it's short lived fer us, everyone else'll be experiencin' it fer the rest of the night." After kissing her neck a few times he chuckled and added, "Not that it'll end fer us anytime soon."
"Well, the music was playing pretty loud back there..." Sandra said, As Tal's head began retreating back under the sheets, kissing her all the way down. "If you want them to hear us, you're gonna have to do something sp-" Sandra gasped, followed by a long, shuddering exhale.
Who the hell needed words anyway?
Tallahassee took his time. Love making was delicate work, after all. He'd learned a long time ago how important proper pacing was for a woman. First he'd tease her and get her flustered, then he'd bring it in all close and personal, kissing and nibbling, appealing to her emotionally, and then, once he had her heart, he'd go in hard. He'd go slow and steady at first, only speeding up when her moans suggested it.
It had been a long time since he'd been with a woman as fine as Sandra. He hadn't slept with Pixie or Cam in months, and none of the call girls he'd seen in that time had really done it for him. Suddenly he was feeling a whole lot better about having new Maidens around.
Holding the back of her head firmly, he buried his face into the side of her neck and sped up his tempo. She was louder than he'd anticipated.
Not that that was a bad thing.
They certainly made a night of it. By the end of it all, clothes were strewn both on and off the bed, and several more drinks glasses either stood or lay on their side, all empty, on the night stand. At the centre of it all, Sandra and Tal had got all tangled up in the sheets. Sandra's tone and pitch increased higher and higher, as she wrapped her legs around her lover's waist, while he held her hands down behind her head, their fingers interlocking, while he nuzzled her neck and chest all the while, where they stayed until the finish.
For a while, neither of them said anything as they cooled down, Tal having practically collapsed on top of Sandra, sweat shining of both of them in the half-light, as they both, slowly, got their breath back.
"Was that... as good for you as it was for me?" Sandra joked, rolling the man over and smiling a very satisfied smile at him, as she gently stroked his chest with her fingers.
"Better, I reckon," he replied with a smug grin on his face. "Yer a whole lot of woman, Sandy." Shimmying his arm under her neck and around her shoulders, the cowboy brought her in close. "Give me twenty minutes an' a white russian an' we can go again." He chuckled.
"Just make sure to keep fixing me up as well, big guy." she said, taking a moment to properly give him the once over (at the risk of sounding like a schoolgirl, he really was an impressive specimen), before nuzzling into his chest.
This was nice. Not that what had just happened wasn't extremely welcome, but... lying here, in a good man's arms, this was the stuff. Sandra felt safe. She felt at home.
