Vic Vaughn is Vicious by J.A. Huss

CHAPTER SIX - DAISY

Everyone rallies around me. Every single waitress, every single bus boy—hell, even Judy is trying to comfort me with positive thinking as the afternoon hours tick off.

“She’s OK, darling,” Carla keeps saying. “She just wandered off. She’s around here somewhere. We’ll find her.”

The Fort Collins police are here. The sheriff is here with six of his deputies. The Anna Ameci girls are here, since it’s just right next door and they are all a bunch of nosy gossipers. Hell, even the manager of Big City Burrito is here. He’s been trying to date me all summer.

And even though I appreciate this support, I can’t really appreciate this support. I can’t think straight. I can’t think about anything but my missing child.

I want to curl up and die, that’s how sad I am right now.

“Ms. Lundin?”

I look up at the sheriff. “Did you find her?”

“No. Not yet. But we’ve made some flyers and we’ve got a whole troop of people out looking for her right now.”

Oh, my God. Flyers have been made. My child is officially missing.

I begin to cry.

“Now, now.” The sheriff pulls up a chair and sits down next to me. He kinda pats my shoulder, but it’s one of those I-don’t-really-want-to-touch-you pats. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

His radio crackles on his shoulder. “Sheriff Madison?”

“Go ’head. I’m here, dispatch.”

“We may have a sighting of the missing girl.”

I grab the little radio right off his uniform and press the button. “Where!”

“That you, Sheriff?” I can hear the dispatcher’s smile. This is not a time for smiling.

The sheriff grabs his radio back and points a finger in my face. “Do not touch a man’s radio, Ms. Lundin. Unacceptable.”

“Sorry,” I mumble.

“Go ’head, Rosa. What do we got?”

“Yes. Well, let’s see. We’ve actually had several sightings. Someone saw her eating donuts at an AA meeting this morning.”

“What?” I can’t even wrap my head around that.

“Then someone reported her getting coffee at the Bohemian Poet’s House.”

“What?” I say again.

“Then she was at the art building on campus. Um. Sheriff? Can I get a private moment with you?”

“Private? Why does Rosa need privacy? Whatever she’s got to say, I deserve to know.”

“You hold on there, Ms. Lundin,” the sheriff says. “I’ll be right back. It’s probably got nothing to do with your girl.”

He walks off talking low into his radio and Carla sits down in the chair next to me. “She’s gonna be fine,” she says, picking up right where she left off the last time she told me that.

I watch the sheriff closely. He appears confused. Looks out the front window. Looks back at me. Looks at the flyer in his hand. Then nods his head and starts walking this way.

I stand up. Something is happening and I don’t like it.

“OK. We do have several sightings of the little girl.”

“You do?”

“Yes, ma’am. She’s been making the rounds, it seems. But I have one question for you, Ms. Lundin. Before we make everyone go crazy over a missing child.”

He just looks at me and no question comes forth. “What? What question?” I ask.

“Do you have any kind of personal relationship with the Vaughn family?”

My heart skips a beat. This isn’t happening. I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry. “W-why would you ask me that?”

“Because it appears that your daughter is in the company of one Vicious Vaughn.” He nods his head to the tattoo shop across the street. “Did you ask him to babysit?”

“No! What the actual fuck? He has never even met her! She does not know him! He is a stranger! And he needs to be arrested, right now!”

“Well, we sent the local PD over to the mansion, but the only person home is the grandpa and he’s quite crazy. He’s shootin’ BBs at the officers as we speak.”

“He’s what?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. He does this all the time. But I’m trying to get a hold of one of the other inhabitants of that household. It seems your daughter spent the day riding go-karts with the grandpa. Did you know about this?”

“What?”

“I will take that as a no. So, here’s the thing. She could still be inside. But the neighbor recalls seeing Vicious put her in the sidecar of the grandpa’s motorcycle and shoot off like a bat out of hell about two hours ago.”

“None of this makes any sense!”

He shoots me a look. “Doesn’t it?” Then he holds up the flyer. “Now listen, Ms. Lundin. I understand that sometimes things happen that you wish did not happen.”

“What are you talking about?”

“And I’m not saying one way or another, but this child here?” He points to the flyer. “Looks just like that child there.” He holds up a picture on his phone of some other little blonde girl. “And that child there, she’s the niece of Vicious Vaughn. There’s a whole pack of these nieces. They live up in Bellvue and attend school at Saint Joseph’s. So if by chance your little girl is related to these little girls, well. What we have here is just a simple misunderstanding and not a manhunt.”

I take a moment to parse all those words and look for their hidden meaning. He’s not going to do anything if I say Vic is her father. He’s going to walk away and that’s all the help I will get. And that’s not how this day ends. So I say, “Absolutely not. She is not his child. He is a kidnapper. And I want him arrested immediately.”

His eyebrows go up. “That’s your story and you’re sticking to it?”

I nod. “That’s my story. Arrest him.”

He looks at me for one long moment. Like maybe I will come to my senses and change my mind.

But I will not.

Vic Vaughn might be her biological father. I never did a paternity test. He has no idea Vivian even exists. So there is no way in hell this is just a simple misunderstanding.

The sheriff leans into the radio on his shoulder. “Dispatch.”

“I’m here, Sheriff.”

“We’re gonna need an Amber Alert for one Vivian Lee Lundin. Last seen riding sidecar in a dragon motorcycle heading towards the Bellvue swap meet. She’s wearing a black leather jacket painted with unicorns and a white helmet covered in Sick Boyz stickers. She’s in the company of one Vicious Vaughn. He’s wearing the same, minus the unicorns.”

I turn away from him. I can’t even process what is happening right now. How? How did Vic know? How did he get his filthy, ink-covered hands on my little girl? It doesn’t make any sense at all.

She spent the entire day with him?

And he… what? Took her to an AA meeting? Got her coffee at the BPH? Brought her to some art show? Passed her off to his crazy grandpa and now he’s scootin’ her around town in a fucking sidecar?

I have to be dreaming. I’m still at home. My alarm is about to go off and then I will get up, get ready for work, wake Vivi, and we will end up right here in the Pancake House, but she will not go missing and Vic Vaughn will not be her father!

“Well,” the sheriff says. “It’s done. The alert should go out shortly.” He stares at me, those eyebrows still raised. “You’re positive that Vic is not her father?” I open my mouth to deny it, but he puts up a hand. “I know. I get it. He’s a dick. I hate that man. I hate that man’s entire family. So I get it, Daisy. I really do. But if he is her father, then this is gonna get messy. Did you ever have a relationship with him?”

All I can manage to do is shake my head. If I say another word, I will break down crying. Because this is not fair. After the shitty year I just endured, I do not deserve this.

“OK.” He nods at me. “I have a feeling they will end up at the Bellvue substation. So I’m gonna head on down there and you can follow.” Then he tips his cowboy hat and walks off.

I suddenly realize that Carla is still sitting in the chair next to me and she just heard everything. We lock eyes. She says, “OK. I’ll drive you. And now that you’ve proclaimed it to be true, you do not change your story, girl. Do you understand me?”

I nod.

“No matter what, you do not change that story. You do not remember ever sleeping with Vic Vaughn.”

SEVEN YEARS AGO

HALLOWEEN NIGHT

VAUGHN FAMILY MANSION

Everything about this man is sexy. His voice, his leather jacket, his helmet—which I am wearing instead of him, because he only had one. His ripped jeans, his old-ass boots. I mean, his costume is top-notch. It even comes with a bike.

But when we pull up to a huge-ass mansion on Mountain Avenue and he casually leads me around the front yard filled with people who are not college students and introduces me to his brothers as Peep, I quickly realize—he is a biker.

Like. The real deal.

We drink a couple beers—and not keg beers, either. The guy who owns the local famous microbrewery brought cases and cases of beer. It’s like these people are legit and this party is where all the pretty people end up. Not the kids from college who think they are hot shit. But people in the real world who know it.

He leans in to my ear and says, “Wanna go inside?”

His voice. I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s just… hot. He makes me hot.

I have the mandatory hesitation. Should I? Shouldn’t I? But it’s not real. There is no way in hell I will pass up a chance to be with this man, even if he’s just using me the way he used my art-class TA. I’m just not capable of walking away from this right now. And it’s got nothing to do with the beer.

I will never meet a man like this again. Bumping into him today was fate. It was destiny saying, Daisy, the world is your oyster. Let this man take you home to his biker clubhouse mansion and fuck your brains outuntilyou scream.

OK. Maybe a little bit of this is the beer. But it’s so tiny, it hardly matters.

I want this man.

So I let him lead me up the porch steps, through the front door—and he does not even pretend we’re not going to fuck. There is no, Would you like a drink? Should we chat on the living room couch?

No. None of that. He leads me to the stairs. And we climb them in silence, just the music blaring The Kids Aren’t Alright outside as our background soundtrack.

Then next thing I know, I’m being led into his massive bedroom. It looks exactly the way a tattooed biker’s bedroom should look. One wall is nothing but aged and battered sheet metal. Large rivets run haphazardly up and down the wall, connecting the metal together. The wall opposite is paneled with old barn house wood that looks like it’s got a story to tell. There are naked women on that wall, but not posters. No. This guy isn’t into cheap-ass posters. They are sketches. Like he drew these bodies. Like he conjured these women up in graphite.

And they are framed, like they are art and nothing at all like porn.

In the far corner there is a motorcycle. A fat bike with big tires and a cherry-red tank with fancy script lettering that says ‘Vicious’ across the side. A string of skull lights hang from the ceiling above it and their eerie faces shine in the glossy red fenders.

To the right of the bike is a large window covered in gauzy gray curtains. They look like something out of a haunted house, tattered and torn. This whole mansion is something out of a haunted house. I walk up to the window because I want to feel the fabric. But it’s not a window. It’s a set of French doors that lead out to the balcony that overlooks the front yard.

He opens the doors. It’s a dramatic thing that comes with wind and makes the gauze curtains billow towards us. Something out of a movie. Something scripted.

But nothing about this night is scripted. It’s all just… real.

“Wanna go out there?” he asks me.

I don’t know what to say. I mean, not particularly. I don’t want to go out there. I want to stay in here with him.

I want to study every inch of this room.

I want to know this man.

Turning away from the open doors, I shake my head a little and once again concentrate on all the things in this space that give away hints to who and what he is.

The bed is just a mattress set on top of stacks of wooden pallets. It’s not made. But that just makes it more interesting, not less. His sheets and pillowcases are light gray satin, but his comforter is a dark gray luxurious velvet. I can only imagine what it feels like to sleep in his bed with those two contrasting textures on either side of your body.

Then I picture what it would feel like to lie next to him in that bed. To be his.

I let out a breath and allow my eyes to wander up the wall where there are more framed pictures. Magazine covers. Tattoo magazine covers, specifically.

And his face.

Vic Vaughn is Vicious, the cover in the center reads.

He’s standing next to me and I cannot stop the quick rotation of my head in his direction as I realize just who I am with. “You’re… him.”

“Him?” He smiles coyly. Then he nods his chin at the magazine covers. “I’m him. Wanna run away now?”

I shake my head, then whisper, “Not a chance.”

He closes the short distance between us, slipping behind me. And when his lips lower down to the exposed skin on the back of my neck, I have to suck in a breath and try my best not to shiver. His fingertips slide up my arms and then he slips them back down, taking my coat along for the ride. I turn to face him just as he slips his jacket off too. Then he walks over to a large, open closet and hangs them both on wooden hangers.

I don’t know why this simple act makes me tingle all over, but it does.

And he knows it does. I can tell by the way he’s looking at me.

“How old are you?” I ask.

“Way too old for you. What about you? Wanna admit to it?”

Not sure if I do. But I say it anyway. “Nineteen. Do you want me to leave now?”

“I think I want you to stay forever.” He smiles at me and we just stand there for a moment, staring at each other.

Then, suddenly, the music outside stops and a new song starts. The Offspring turns into something else. Something slow and vintage, just like this room.

“You like the Eagles, Peep?” He asks this with his eyes locked on mine as he walks towards me. The room is dark. Aside from the string of skulls, there is only one light on in the corner, a very industrial-looking light made of vintage iron pipes and fastenings and with a single Edison bulb inside a metal cage. It doesn’t light up the room so much as throw off an atmosphere. So I can’t really see his eyes too well until he’s right up in front of me. Until his hand goes around my back and pulls me close with a jerk.

“Well?”

“Eagles?” I ask. “That’s what this song is?”

“Hotel California. Ever heard of it?”

“Sure. Everyone’s heard this, right?”

He pulls me even closer, tighter, taking my hand in his. And I realize that we are now dancing. Slowly. Very slowly. Our feet barely moving, our bodies pressed together, our hips slightly grinding. His mouth dips down to my neck and he whisper-sings the song in my ear as we sway in the middle of his room.

I have to take a deep breath and close my eyes to steady myself. Because my legs are quivering and I’m suddenly afraid I might pass out.

He begins by kissing my neck. That’s where his seduction starts. And all I want to do is lean in to him. To let him possess me. Not like a thing, but like a woman.

Our dancing is intimate. Like we’ve been dating for years instead of being able to count our time together in minutes.

His heart beats against my breast, a slow, steady rhythm. Like this is no big deal. Just slow-dancing with a random stranger in my cool, industrial biker bedroom.

When the song ends, he backs me up towards his bed and I do not offer up one ounce of resistance. When the back of my shoes hit the pallets, he steadies me, but it is clear he wants me to sit.

So I sit.

His fingers mess with his belt, making it clink and clang as it comes undone. He pops the button on his jeans, drags the zipper down and pulls his t-shirt up just enough to give me a glimpse of the fuzzy trail of hair that disappears into his jeans. He stops there, allowing me to get a good look. Allowing me a moment of fantasy.

Then he bends down in front of me and a flutter comes to life inside my belly. I’m so out of my league, but I do not care.

His hands rest on my knees as his eyes track up my body to meet mine. “Do you need another beer?”

“No,” I say. And it comes out earnest. Or sexy, maybe. Because it’s a throaty no. One filled with permission.

I bite my lip, a little bit nervous.

His hands slide down my calves and I almost moan, it feels so good. Then he takes my foot in his hand and begins unbuckling the straps of my strappy shoe. Never taking his eyes off me.

I don’t look away either. Not when he slips the shoe off my foot, not even when he places it gently down on the pallet and picks up the other one.

Then he smiles at me, his hands running back up my legs, over my knees, under my petticoat dress, until they come to a rest on the top of my thighs.

“The stockings are a hard one,” he says.

“What?”

“If they have garters, they stay on. But if they are elastic”—he pauses to swipe his tongue across his lower lip—“I like to slide them down.” And just as these words leave his mouth, his fingertips have gripped the elastic of my cheap stockings and he drags them down my legs. Not all the way down, though. He stops just below my knees, letting them hang there, like something discarded.

And again, I don’t really understand why this turns me on, I just know it does.

He leans forward and his hands go right back up my thighs as his chest presses against my breasts. His mouth finds mine, but he doesn’t really kiss me. He just lingers there, barely touching. “The panties are hard too.”

I can’t wait to hear what he wants to do with my panties.

Then his hand slides down the inside of my thigh and suddenly his thumb is pressing against the cotton fabric between my legs. He presses a little and I feel the wetness slip out of me. He grins, pushes harder and then… I don’t know what happens.

Actually, I do.

I come. It’s like he pushed a button and that was that. My orgasm is an abrupt explosion and comes with a squeaky moan.

“Oh, Peep. You’re about to undo me with that little display.”

“Sorry.” I am breathless. And slightly mortified that he can control me this way.

“Don’t be. I’m not disappointed. I want you to come a hundred times tonight. And trust me, it’ll happen.”

It did happen. Just the way he planned.

And six weeks later I was leaving school and moving home. Swollen with Vicious Vaughn’s baby in my belly.

My parents didn’t even get mad. I think my dad was relieved, actually. Not about the baby, but about college. I didn’t realize how much he was sacrificing to pay my tuition. And I was his little farmhand growing up. Free labor, that’s why farm families have kids. It’s a lot of work. He was struggling. But when I came home, things got a lot better for the farm. He used my tuition money for the down payment on the farm upgrades.

And when Vivian was born, my parents fell in love with her. They had fertility problems, so even though they’d wanted a big farm family, they only had me. Vivi was the light of their lives. Everything was pretty great for a while and I forgot all about Vicious Vaughn and the way he slowly, gently seduced me that night.

Until everything changed and I had to move back to town.

And see him, of course.

And then I just felt hate.

Because his life was something charmed. Free and easy. Special and out of the ordinary.

And I was nothing but a cliché.