Free Riders - The Road To Ruin (I) by K.M. Liss Page A

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disappointment.
    No man was gonna ruin me. I was driven by
what was in my head, and definitely not by my heart. I was
extremely guarded, suspicious of men and cautious about letting any
guy get close. Apart from Johnny. He'd found a way in via the back
door. He started out as a friend. We may have slept together, after
a drunken night at campus party, but that had been a big let down.
It was clear, after a few weeks, that we weren't destined to be
together that way.
    A sea of faces appeared before me as I
rushed around serving bottles of beer, soda, wine and spirits.
    It started to quieten down a little after
nine, as the drinking pace slowed and the lightweight drinkers
drifted off. It was still pretty full, mainly with guys, and one
group of girls who were having a rowdy party in a booth.
    “Go have a five minute break,” Mickey said,
sending me off to the restrooms, with a squeeze of my backside.
    He was such a sweet and generous boss.
Not.
    I nipped in and out of the restroom quickly.
Having missed dinner, I was hungry, so I sneaked into the kitchen
to eat the sugar covered donut I'd brought with me. We weren't
allowed to eat in the bar; it was a liquid environment only. Mickey
was very strict about rules.
    No time-wasting. No girl chat. No phone
calls. No food. No drinking alcohol. No chewing gum. No sucking
mints.
    No breathing maybe...?
    Starving, I stuffed the donut in my mouth
greedily, the sugar coating spread just about everywhere round my
lips. I ran a glass of water to wash down the dough, which was
stuck in my throat.
    I leaned against the counter as I drank,
licking my sugary lips, gazing around.
    My friend Julia worked in the kitchen.
During the day the bar was a diner and she was the chef's
assistant. Julia was the one who got me the job. She knew they were
looking for a waitress, and I'd been a waitress in Manhattan, up
until a month ago, when the restaurant I'd worked for closed
down.
    I turned up for the interview with Mickey,
but he immediately told me the diner waitress position was filled,
and offered me a job bartending and cocktail waitressing instead. I
was very pleased as he described it as a much better one; better
pay, and the opportunity to make a lot more in tips.
    Little did I know what he was grooming me
for.
    I snorted in disgust.
    Not the kind of tips I wanted to earn.
    There was no way was I going to get involved
in what went on in the back rooms; the rooms where the looser of
Mickey's bar girls earned a lot of extra tips by sharing intimate
body parts with guys.
    Still, a job was a job. It was just a shame
I didn't get to work alongside Julia. I was looking forward to
that. I couldn't say I was too keen on many of the girls I worked
with in the bar. I liked Sally, the cleaner, and particularly newly
wed Jessica, who tended bar. I'd spent a while chatting with her in
the restroom. But the other half a dozen were either bitches or a
whole load of immorality. Not the kinda girls I wanted to associate
too closely with.
     

Chapter Two
     
    The low rumble of motorcycles shook through
the building like an earthquake. Their glaring lights moved past
the windows, then died.
    Excitement grew inside me as the silence of
anticipation descended on the bar. I served someone with a round of
vodka shots when the door flung open and there they were.
    The Riders.
    A bunch of guys after whom the bar was
named. They were Mill Creek Ranch hands who rode real horses on the
ranch for a living, and packed some serious metal horsepower on the
road.
    A tough bunch of guys if there ever was one.
Apparently, from what I'd heard from Julia, one of them usually
ended up in jail on a Friday or Saturday for some reason or
another.
    Christie, Cherry and Lola descended on the
four of them as they arrived. The girls sounded like squealing
stuck pigs, as they competed with each other, covering them with
kisses and draping arms everywhere. The men moved through the
throng, shaking off their female entourage, as they