I took my mother’s hands in mine. “Mother, I swear to you, Ashley is the only thing I want in this world; I will never do anything to hurt her, or make her doubt me. I know I’m still only young, but I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life. I love her, and wherever I go, I’m not going without her!”
Mother looked deeply into my eyes for a few seconds longer, then smiled and patted my hand.
“I believe you. Now go, take Ashley with you, and poor Judy, I think I’ve terrified her out of a year’s growth! Be back in time for lunch, OK?”
I nodded. “Whatever you say, mother, or we could grab lunch somewhere, give you a bit more time…?”
She shook her head. “No, I want to have lunch with my children.” I grinned and went to collect Ashley and Judy.
“Nicky..?” called mother, and I turned back to her. “Yes mother?”
“Why don’t you call me ‘mom’?” she asked, a quizzical smile on her face.
I smiled sheepishly back. “I feel weird saying ‘mom’, it doesn’t fit my accent, it sounds phony when I say it, like I’m mocking you, and ‘mum’ probably sounds just as strange to you!” I said, watching her answering grin.
“Call me ‘mum’, then Nicky, ‘Mother’ sounds so… stilted, formal, you know what I mean?”
I nodded and grinned, just glad that we could still talk normally after the morning’s revelations. “OK, mum!” and she grinned back.
We took Judy’s car and headed to the nearest golden arches, Judy giving a sigh of relief as we left the house.
“I am so glad to be out of there! Next time, remind me not to be so fucking smug, I nearly fainted when your mom walked in the door, and when she asked where you were, I… kind of told her. Look, I couldn’t help it, OK? She’s just not the kind of person I can lie to…!”
We sat in a corner booth in the fast-food joint after we’d ordered and picked up our breakfasts. While the girls were finishing their coffee’s I ducked into the mens room, and when I came out two high-school boys were lounging at the booth, leering over Ashley and Judy. I noticed Ashley was flushing scarlet at whatever was being said to her, so I ghosted up behind them to hear for myself.
The taller of the two was dressed expensively, but badly, a lot of money had been spent on his clothes but he didn’t wear them well, and as I came up I heard him say to her “I think you should come with me and my friend here, everyone knows about you, what you are, but if you’re nice to us, we’ll be nice to you, both of you. How ’bout it, Rag Doll, you wanna fuck?”
OK, that did it. I clamped my hand over the back of his neck and squeezed, hard, while I smacked his friend in the crotch just hard enough for him to lose interest in things for a while; playing rugby for five years has its advantages….
“Who’s this fuck-wit, Darling?” I asked, and she looked at him with cold anger in her eyes. “His name’s Bobby Czyzyck, he’s a dick!”
I swung Bobby round to face me, and smiled brightly at him.
“Is that right Bobby, are you a dick? Tell you what, you apologise to the nice young lady, you say ‘I’m very sorry for being a little dick, Miss Lowry’, and I won’t kick you ’til your eye-sockets bleed, does that sound reasonable?”
Bobby gabbled out an apology, and then I frogmarched him outside and into the alleyway by the side of the restaurant, turned him round and gave him a kick in the plums that made two little lumps pop up on top of his head. As his eyes crossed and he started to fold over, I gave him an open-handed slap that spun him round and sent him flying into a pile of what looked suspiciously like dogshit. I stood over him and waited until the retching stopped and I’d got his complete attention, then spoke to him.
“Now you listen to me, you little dog’s cock; if you come within fifty feet of Ashley again, or look at her, or say anything to her, or try and breathe the same air as her, I promise that I will come and find you and fuck you up, and if you or anybody, doesn’t matter who, touches her, I’ll chop off your fingers. Think how stupid you’ll look, doing up your zipper with your teeth for the rest of your life, and how will you ever jerk-off again? Do we have an understanding here, Bobby? He nodded fearfully, trying to look like he wasn’t about to piss himself. Then I had an idea from a film I’d once seen, I think it was ‘Goodfella’s’.
“Give me your wallet, Bobby. Come on, hand it over!”
He lurched to his feet and passed over his wallet and I took out his driver’s license, tossing his wallet back to him.
“OK Bobby, now I know where you live, I can come and find you anytime I like. Remember what I told you; if I turn up on your doorstep, it’s because you did something to bring me there, so be very careful what you do, what you say, or where you go.” Hollywood definitely has all the best lines…
He lunged at me, trying to grab his license back, and I dodged him, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and rammed his face a few times against the wall, not too hard, just enough to split his lip, abrade him enough to leave a nice reminder, and possibly knock a few teeth loose, then spun him around and tripped him back into that same pile of dogshit; as he lay there, the front of his designer jeans darkened; it really wasn’t turning out to be his day. I stood over him and nudged him with my foot.
“That was stupid, and pointless, don’t ever try that again!” I told him pleasantly. “Remember, now I know where you live, I can come and have a little chat with you any time I want, would you like that, Bobby?” I watched the colour drain from his face, and he shook his head vehemently, little weasel eyes darting around in fear.
“Good,” I said, “Now we understand each other perfectly. We’re communicating, isn’t that nice. One more thing, you little maggot; never speak to or go near Ashley Lowry ever again, or any of her friends. That goes for you or any of your little maggot friends. If any of your pus-bag little boyfriends want to talk to me, send them over; when I’ve finished with them, I’ll come and find you. I think we’re going to be such close friends, Bobby, I’m looking forward to getting to know you really well. Oh, and remember, if you put your bastard’s breath in my girl’s face again, I’ll cut your face off and use it to wipe my arse, you hear me? Anything happens to Ashley, anyone makes her unhappy, anyone says anything out of turn, it’s going to be your fault, and I’m going to come and find you. She stays happy, you stay healthy, got that?” He nodded, thoroughly cowed. Good.
No, of course I wasn’t going to hurt him; I wouldn’t know how, I’m a mechanic, not a thug, and I’m certainly not my father; his response would have been to beat this boy into a body-cast, and for all that he was an obnoxious, stupid, spoiled little prick, he was still only a boy. No, my usual response to major confrontation is to run in the direction of ‘away’, sobbing like little Suzie. But he didn’t know that; for a bluff, it worked pretty well, though, and now, Ashley had a protector, someone who thought their own survival depended on keeping everyone else off her back, forever. I love it when everything goes right for a change…
I went back into the restaurant, where Bobby’s sidekick was still hunched over in his own private world of pain. I pulled him upright by the hair just in front of his ear, and he stared at me with wide, frightened eyes.
“Your boyfriend’s lying down in the alleyway, go and pick him up, just be careful where you put your hands, he’s covered in dogshit, and I think he’s pissed himself. What I told him goes for you as well, so I don’t ever want to see your face again, and neither do these ladies, understood?”
He quickly nodded, one step away from crying with fear, which was quite gratifying for me; I’d only ever been in three fights in my life, and I lost two of them…
I escorted him out, and sent him on his way with a ringing slap to the back of his head as a reminder, making him stumble as he walked away to retrieve Bobby.
I was getting the ‘my hero’ vibe from Ashley, and even Judy took my arm when we left, so I walked out of there pleased as Punch, with two pretty girls on my arm; if I’d grinned any wider the top half of my head would have fallen off!
As we walked back to the car, I asked Ashley what the story was with this Bobby character. She was reticent at first, but with Judy prompting her I finally got the basic story. After the rape, when she’d finally gone back to school, this Bobby creep had started pestering her, gradually getting more and more aggressive in his approach, making no bones about his intentions.
The fact that he was a low-forehead shambling idiot with the IQ of a bowling ball hadn’t deterred him. Most of the girls in the school had been on the receiving end of his attentions at one time or another, his step-father’s money shielding him from any major repercussions so far. Judy had once given him the knee, but Ashley had been a particular target of his, and he’d been at her constantly for two years now.