Page 5 of Dirty Beasts: Chance

Where am I? I’m not very coherent when I wake up, at the best of times, and these are far from the best of times.

I blink my eyes open—a TV, unfamiliar, set to the home screen of a streaming service, showing the last thing watched, a documentary. I’m on a couch, covered by a thick, soft blanket, fleece on one side, sherpa-lined on the other.

Where am I? Shit, I don’t remember.

I’m stretched out on a comfortable leather couch; I sit up, and my hair feels wild…or, wilder. In my face, in my eyes, poofed everywhere. I brush it out of my eyes and look around. An industrial kitchen, fairly high drop-tile ceiling, incandescent can lights rather than fluorescent.

Ah, I remember. Alvin. The club. Being sent to fetch a girl for him—he’s got this uncanny ability to spot people who are users, who will want what he’s offering and are willing to pay his price. She took one look at him, knew what he was offering and what he wanted, took it and paid his price.

Gross. I shudder in revulsion, remembering all too vividly.

Alvin, tossing me around. Being a dick, but it’s not like he has any other setting. He’s set to full dick, all the time.

The huge guy, Chance—Yeah, mama. Like you and me.

Falling asleep.

I stretch and twist, assessing.

There are people in the kitchen. Men. Two women.

A lot of men—a lot of intensely, bizarrely hot men, hypermasculine, massively muscled beefcake men.

Two blondes, not twins but for sure brothers, both of whom could easily play a Hollywood superhero. A copper-haired man sits with them, with features alike enough to the blondes that he’s their brother as well. Put the three together, and a lesser woman might just have spontaneous orgasms just looking at them—the jawlines, the light eyes, the ridiculous musculature…they’re shirtless, wearing workout shorts and nothing else, sitting together sipping coffee and looking tired and grumpy and fucking delicious.

Those three are at a table on their own. At the other table, more male hotness, and two beautiful women. The men: one is nearly as tall as Chance, with brown skin and a wide short mohawk, shirtless, with muscles sculpted by the good Lord himself; another man with brown skin, but he’s much shorter, perhaps under six feet, but his shoulders are broad and his arms thick, his hair inky black and long and loose, hanging to his shoulders in a glossy raven’s-wing sheet, with a long black beard coming to a neat point at his chest and a debonair mustache which curls up at his cheekbones, also shirtless in shorts with his ripped torso on display; a blond man, long hair brushing his shoulders, with a fairly long, bushy blond beard trimmed in a neat U, again bare chested, and he’s pure brawn, mountains of muscle piled upon mountains of muscle, veiny, hard, bulging, sculpted; Chance, shirtless as all the others, and his tattoos begin at his shoulders and cover his whole upper body, both arms to his wrists, down to his diaphragm, and not a single image is exactly the same as any other.

Chance, fucking hell, the man is beautiful. He’s not ripped, nor is he jacked. He carries a layer of fat over his muscle, but only a blind person could look at him and not see that as the thin layer of padding it is. His hair is loose, his beard thicker than yesterday. He’s sipping coffee, looking sleepy and slow-moving, like a bear emerging from hibernation.

One of the women sits on one side of the man with the mohawk. She’s leaning against his side, head on his shoulder, sleepily peering into a mug of coffee, and they’re having a quietly murmured conversation—she lifts her head, sips, puts it back on his shoulder. He peers down at her, an affectionate smile touching the corners of his mouth. She’s blond, stunningly beautiful, wearing a purple tank top, and since she’s on the other side of the table I can’t see her bottom half.

The other woman is Indian, again remarkably beautiful with fine, regal features, her hair neatly braided back, wearing a plain white V-neck T-shirt. She’s sitting close to the huge blond man with the thick beard, also sipping coffee, also having a quiet conversation with him.

The scene is familial. They’re all comfortable with each other, at ease in silence as they wake up.

Chance, straddling the bench so he’s in profile, one elbow leaning on the table, twists to look at me. “Mornin’, Annika.” He indicates people as he points at them. “Anjalee and her man Kane. The blond lady is Myka, and that’s her man Rev. The man with the fancy mustache is Lash. Me, you know already. At the other table we have the Brothers Antisocial.” He laughs. “Really, they’re just not morning people. Or afternoon people, or night people.” Another snickering laugh. “The one with the scar is Saxon, the other blond is Solomon, and the one that looks like a young but cranky Robert Redford is Silas. Everyone, this is Annika Scott.”

“Another stray we’re adopting?” This is from the scarred blond, Saxon. “When do I get a hot chick to rescue?”

“Ignore him,” Chance says. “We’ve had a weird few weeks.”

I stare. “Is there a bathroom I can use?”

“My room is unlocked. Down the hall, first door on the right.”

My knee is always stiff and achy when I first wake up, so I’m less mobile in the mornings—limping, shuffling, leaning heavily on my cane. I feel the eyes on me, the attention, the curiosity, the questions. They keep them to themselves though, and I make my way to Chance’s room.

It’s small, nothing more than a bedroom with anen suitebathroom. Just a large bed, a six-drawer bureau, and a bathroom. Pale gray-blue walls, the same gray epoxy flooring with blue flecks as in the common area. The bureau has a few personal belongings on the top: of primary interest is a framed photograph of a group of soldiers in camouflage gear, carrying big fuck-off guns and wearing bucket hats; some of the men are smiling, others are serious, one has his gun held against his shoulder, showing the camera his middle finger with his free hand; I spot Chance in the photograph—it’s easy since he’s by far the largest man in the group, although in the photograph he’s quite a bit leaner and clean-shaven, with short hair under his bucket hat. Rev, the mohawk man from the common room, is beside him, leaning an elbow on Chance’s shoulder with casual, affectionate familiarity, one foot propped on its toe across his other shin. They’re in Afghanistan, if I had to guess based on the spiked, serrated ridges in the background.

The only other thing in the room other than the bureau are bookshelves, floor to ceiling, stacked with books two deep and two high—dog-eared and battered paperbacks mostly, with a few hardcovers and trade paperbacks here and there. Two of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves are across from the bed, with a smaller one in the corner beside the bureau; two nightstands on either side of the bed are also two-shelf bookshelves doubling as nightstands, each overstuffed with books stacked two deep and more stuffed in on their sides. Clearly, the man likes books—unexpected, which is, perhaps, an unfair assumption based solely on the fact that he’s huge and brawny and powerful and sexy as hell.

My attention goes back to the photograph, but I feel like I’m prying, looking at it, so I go into the bathroom and do my business.

Back out in the common room, Chance gestures at the kitchen. “Help yourself, mama.”

“Don’t call me that,” I snap. “I’m no one’s mother, least of all yours.”

“Just a word. Don’t mean nothin’ by it.” He sips his coffee, and then lifts the mug in my direction. “Coffee?”