Vanessa saw a lot of Tank for the next few months. She felt dumb asking if they were dating, but she didn’t see him with any other girls in the bar, and they spent a lot of nights together. Their sex life was amazing, and she opened up in ways she never thought she would with him. She sucked his cock in a fast-food bathroom; they fucked under the stars a few miles outside of town. They fucked a lot, hard pounding sessions that could stretch for hours until they were both sweaty and she had a couple of loads on her and in her. They never made love, but Vanessa was all right with that. She didn’t think Tank was the kind of guy who would ever be gentle with her.
He wasn’t romantic at all, but she could tell her cared for her. He treated her well, never raised a hand to her, and they never argued. The only source of contention in their relationship those first few months was the night Vanessa was sure she was about to see her boyfriend killed. It was a Thursday night, pretty slow for the Devil Dog, but Tank and a few of his Python friends were in the corner, laughing and drinking, she at the bar, when three men came in. They wore denim and leather, and all three had big bushy beards. They were obviously bikers. Two of the men went to get a table while the third came toward the bar. Susan was there too, and she mumbled under her breath.
“Oh shit,” she said.
“What is it?” Vanessa asked.
The man was almost to the bar, so Susan didn’t say anything, but she motioned to the two other men. They had turned, so Vanessa could now see the backs of their vests. The Pythons had the snake and skeleton sigil for their club; these jackets had a hornet on the back. These men were Yellowjackets.
Even in her short time being with Tank, Vanessa had heard all about the Yellowjackets. They were a somewhat local club and a rival of the Pythons. The Yellowjackets’ popularity had gone down in recent years, but just a decade or two ago the two motorcycle clubs had fought often. More than a few men had died in those scraps, and getting a Yellowjacket in the same room with a Python was sure to lead to trouble.
“Three beers,” the man who came to the bar said.
“Get on out of here. We don’t want to be cleaning broken chairs up,” Susan said, not batting an eye. “You know this is a Pythons place.”
“They don’t have claim to bars, now do they?” the man said. “Just looking for a drink, babe. Why don’t you get a few for me?”
“Get on outta here,” Susan said. The man grinned and turned his attention to Vanessa. She had been looking over at the corner, where Tank and his friends sat. There were four of them altogether, and they had certainly noticed the Yellowjackets come into the bar.
“Why don’t you get us the beers, you sweet little thing,” the man said to Vanessa. “Then come on over to our table. I’d love to see how you feel on my lap.”
“Get lost,” Vanessa said, but the man just laughed and reached across the bar for her. Vanessa yelled out and tried to twist away, but he was too fast, and he got his fingers curled around her arm.
“Come on, babe,” the man said. Vanessa opened her mouth to say something, but she never had the chance. Tank came out of nowhere, slamming into the man. And just like that, the fight was on.
There were a handful of patrons other than the men in the two clubs, but they stayed out of it. The three Yellowjackets took on the four Pythons. Punches were thrown, kicks were taken to the stomach, and then one of the Yellowjackets pulled out a knife and went after Big Tim, the oldest of the Pythons present. The blade sliced through the side of his neck, and blood sprayed in a crimson arc across the bar. Vanessa screamed, and Big Tim went down.
Susan was quick, on the phone with the cops. Earl, a big man who cooked three days a week, came out from the kitchen and kneeled next to Big Tim, pressing dishrags to his wound. Big Tim was screaming and, incredulously, trying to push Earl out of the way so he could get back to the fight.
Vanessa couldn’t take her eyes off Tank. She wanted to go to him, to help him, to tell him to forget it and run, that the fight had taken a horrible turn and she was scared for his safety, but she couldn’t. Her man fought with ferocity, his fists landing again and again on the knife man’s face, the blade dropped and forgotten on the floor after it was accidentally kicked under a table.