My sister and I are what're known as bikies. We both own 500cc Kawasakis and enjoy getting out on the open roads when we have a day free. There's nothing quite like cruising down a highway on a sunny day.
Not that my sister or I ever speed. God forbid. We stick strictly to the speed limit. We might occasionally find our speed edging up a little but that is all. Just kidding. The facts are that no-one has ever caught us speeding. The key word being caught.
We're not amateur riders. We've both been through proper training courses at a racetrack near us and we can handle ourselves in races.
I didn't introduce myself properly. I'm Sophia, nineteen, normally called Soph, and my sister is Alexandra, eighteen, normally called Alex. (Not Sandra. Never Sandra.)
It was a lovely Saturday afternoon and we were playing tag down a highway. The speed limit was one hundred and we rode at one hundred. Sometimes. Halfway through the afternoon it was getting a bit hot so we diverted into the mountains to cool off under the trees.
There was a river that passed near where we were and when we came to the bridge that crossed the river we came off the road we were on and followed an unmade road (rough track) down to the actual river. There was a bit of a park there and we decided to have a bit of a picnic. We had some supplies in our saddle bags.
We did consider going in for a dip but there were a couple of fishermen there, hunting for the elusive trout. Catch us stripping down to our undies with strangers right there. That'd be the day, no matter how well the undies covered us. For some reason men who won't even blink at a skimpy bikini get all excited over underwear. Strange animals, men.
We sat down at the picnic table the site supplied and had a sandwich and a drink. (Non-alcoholic. We were riding our bikes, after all.) We dined and chatted and observed our surroundings. I happened to see a kingfisher dive into the river, emerging with a small fish in its beak. (A fingerling I think they're called.) I also noticed that the kingfisher seemed to have better luck than the fishermen.
Lunch finished we slipped off our boots and socks and headed over to the river to dip our feet in the water.
"Oi. What do you think you're doing?" bellowed a voice.
We looked at each other, and then looked around. No-one else was around.
"I think he means us," I said.
"I do believe you're right," Alex said. "We play dumb."
We turned and looked at the two men.
"Do you mean us?" Alex asked.
"Do you see anyone else around?"
"Ah, yes. You two are here."
"Why would I be yelling if I was speaking to Bob?"
"How would I know? That might be your normal way of speaking."
The poor man face-palmed and gave Alex a filthy look.
"What are you doing?" He enunciated it slowly and clearly.
Alex gave his a puzzled look. "Ah, talking to you?"
While he was looking frustrated Bob was laughing.
"He means what were you intending to do before he interrupted you?"
"Oh. Why didn't he say so? We were just going to paddle in the river to cool down. If you cool your feet your whole body cools down."
"Oh, I wouldn't recommend that. The fish might mistake your toes for fat little worms and bite them."
"Are you calling me fat?"
"Certainly not, but I'm not a short sighted fish."
It looked like Alex had met her verbal match. I decided to give her a hand.
"We'll just make a lot of noise and scare the fish away," I said, knowing that was the last thing they would want. Before they could say anything Alex chimed in.
"That won't work," she scoffed. "Fish are deaf."
Not-Bob got into the conversation. Silly thing for him to do.
"What do you mean fish are deaf? What makes you think that?"
"Well der. No ears," she said, touching her own and giving not-Bob a pitying look. "How are they supposed to listen? I've talked to my goldfish for ages but he just doesn't hear me."
Both Bob and not-Bob were looking a little stunned by this logic. Bob took control again.
"Listen girl, look at that snake next to you. He doesn't have ears like you but he can hear just fine."
Even if it'd been stone deaf that supposed snake would have heard Alex's scream. I did a quick check and there wasn't a snake in sight.
"No snakes, Alex. You've been had. I think you've met your match for verbal duelling."
Alex glared at Bob.
"Well fuck you. Fuck you very much. We'll leave you to torture defenceless fish and be on our way."
"Your suggestion is acceptable to me. Is it acceptable to you, Frank? What about you, strange lady?"
Frank, now we knew his name, nodded. The last question was addressed to me.
"Soph," I said "and this is Alex. We'll be on our way."
"Hold on. You haven't said if Alex's suggestion is acceptable."
"I suppose so. Like we have a real choice."
"Good. Then let's get started. Take off your clothes."
We both gave him a confused 'what the hell' look. He smiled, suddenly looking a lot bigger and tougher than before.
"It was her idea. You heard her. 'Fuck you very much' is what she said and both you and Frank admitted that the suggestion was acceptable. So let's get down to it."
"She didn't mean it like that and you know it."
"She did mean it like that and it's going to happen. I'll attend to Alex and you'll have to make do with Frank."
"Time to beat feet," I snapped, and Alex and I turned and headed towards the bikes. Once we reached them we'd be gone. It turned out that we had a real problem reaching the bikes. We were bare footed, with our boots and socks next to the bikes.
It wouldn't take long to put our boots on. Screw the socks - they'd go in our pockets. The trouble was reaching the bikes fast in bare feet. We were trying to watch where we were going, yelping when we stood on stones, while Bob and Frank were just barrelling along, not bothered at all by what was underfoot.
We all reached the bikes at the same time, which was the same as a loss. We didn't have time to put on boots or start bikes. The two men simply grabbed us. By grabbed I mean they just picked us up, slung us over a shoulder, turned, and carried us back to their fishing position where they dumped us on the ground.
"Ok, girls, time to strip."