Page 107 of Devil’s Disciples

He wasn’t my neighbor, nor was he familiar. I didn’t care. He was willing to listen, and that was all that mattered.

“He’s…” I heaved to catch my breath and pointed toward my house. “He’s trying to…rape me.”

Before I had an opportunity to explain further, the biker was half the distance to my porch, chasing after my stupid ex, who was running toward his Mercedes-Benz.

The biker tackled Marvin as if he were stopping him from scoring the game-winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. Filled with confidence that the stranger would keep my asshole ex from attacking me again, I walked toward the two men. By the time I got there, Marvin was flat on his back, and the biker was sitting on his chest.

I leaned over them. “Who’s getting fucked now, asshole?” I asked in a sarcastic tone. “Not me.”

“She’s my wife,” Marvin lied. “I was just…”

“We’re not married, you liar,” I bellowed. “We haven’t been for almost four years.”

With his knees against Marvin’s arms and his hands holding his wrists, the biker looked up at me. “What the fuck’s going on?”

“She’s out of her fucking mind,” Marvin said. “I’ll tell you what’s going on--”

“Shut the fuck up,” the biker demanded. “Nobody’s talking to you.”

“We divorced almost four years ago,” I shouted. “I’ve got a restraining order against him! I haven’t seen him in eighteen months, and he showed up tonight and said he was going to fuck me. When I said no, he did this.” I touched the tip of my index finger against my swollen cheek.

The biker studied me. Upon seeing the damage that Marvin had done to my face, his expression changed from concern to rage. Without saying a word, he removed his helmet, tossed it aside, and then yanked Marvin to his feet.

“You hit her?” he asked through clenched teeth.

During my marriage, I was convinced that men didn’t exist who were bigger than he was. The biker stood as proof that I was wrong. He towered over Marvin’s six-foot-two frame like a bearded giant.

Marvin looked at me, scoffed, and then looked at the biker. “Sometimes, women need it. She needed it.”

It wasn’t the answer the biker had hoped for.

His fist plowed into Marvin’s face. A flurry of punches from the biker followed – each of which caused Marvin to crumble closer to the ground. After the last swing – a wild right hand that came crashing against Marvin’s jaw with a crack, his legs gave out, and he fell against his beloved car.

Then, without throwing a punch or saying a word, Marvin slumped into a pile at the biker’s feet. The lop-sided fight took fifteen seconds, if that.

Marvin covered his bloody face with his hands and moaned.

There’s not a victim of abuse that doesn’t wish she’d be given an opportunity to kick her attacker in the balls without fear of repercussion. If given a chance, any woman would jump at the occasion.

So, that’s what I did. I jumped. On Marvin’s nuts, that is.

With all my might, I stomped my heel into Marvin’s overly active male anatomy. The air shot from his lungs with a grunt, and his body wadded into the fetal position.

“Damn.” The biker looked at me. His mouth twisted into a smirk. “That was cruel.”

I wasn’t cruel, Marvin was cruel. After we divorced, he’d often stop by and threaten to burn down my house or kill my cat. My house was never touched, but one day my cat disappeared. I despised him. I wished he would be hit by a passing truck while changing his tire on the Five.

A recurring daydream of bits and pieces of his body being strewn along the freeway from Los Angeles to San Diego brought an odd sense of comfort when it came to mind.

His leg in Costa Mesa for fucking the tattooed skank of a bartender at Twin Peaks. An arm in San Clemente for repeatedly dipping his dick in the anorexic receptionist at his office. His head in Oceanside for the fling with the nineteen-year-old Vietnamese girl who believed his promise of getting her legal citizenship.

He didn’t have enough body parts – nor were there enough cities along the interstate to toss them – for all the fucked-up shit he made me endure.

“Cruel?” I folded my arms over my chest. “You don’t know him like I know him. What he did tonight was nothing compared to what he’s done to me for years.”

His face went stern. “He’s done this before?”

“In so many ways that I lost count many years ago.”