CONTENT WARNING:
The following story includes parodic depictions of white supremacist persons, language and political views which may make some readers uncomfortable. Similarities to any actual persons or organizations are, beyond the broadest political concepts, purely coincidental. Depicting these views does not imply endorsing or condoning them in any way, nor does it imply painting all skinheads with a white supremacist brush. This story also contains strong
Non-Consent / Reluctance
content and depictions of blackmail, questionably-consensual sex and BDSM and various other nasty and reprehensible acts. Depiction of these acts should likewise not be construed as condoning them; no real person should ever be subjected to these kind of acts in the real world. Be warned before you read on. All characters depicted in sexual scenes or referred to in sexual contexts are over the age of 18.
1.
The concrete suburbs of Blossomville were in the doldrums of a Midwest summer's day, the sun looking on down from a cloudless sky with a gaze made up of heat and spite and boredom. The three-storey buildings of the Village Park Apartments hunkered under the solar bombardment like a collection of shabby drunks leaning on one another for support, perhaps reminiscing about long-gone glory days when landlords cared about the little niceties like painting and cleaning and maintenance and building codes.
For the most part the inhabitants were gone to ground indoors, seeking refuge in beer and television and game consoles, in the futile cooling labours of undersized electric fans. Such was true of the local branch of the Slammerskins, whose life here -- a precarious product of the razor-edged balance between the purchasing power of the welfare check and the sweetly numbing temptations of the liquor store down the street -- was bound up on a day like this with the endless viewing of MMA videos, street fights on YouTube and marathon sessions of
Hatred
on Xbox.
True for most of them, maybe... but not all of them. Enter Cami and Lennie, the resident skinbyrd heart-breakers who'd recently bid the halls of Franklin High a not-so-fond farewell, and had just now given their deadbeat boyfriends in the building behind them an even more resolute
"Fuck you, I'm bored as fuck"
as they'd been driven to the extremity of coming out in the Apartments' sun-baked courtyard, Pilsners in hand, to seek some other kind of entertainment.
They emerged from the innards of Building Nine with Cami in the lead, walking along whistling a few bars of the old Pressure Point classic that any skin in good standing knew by heart:
"See that girl walking down the street, boots and braces, she looks so sweet..."
The petite blonde fit the profile to a tee. The immaculate bangs of her Chelsea hairstyle framed a heart-shaped face and blue eyes animated with the kind of confidence that came of never having to wonder whether you were gorgeous. She was dressed about as scantily as the height of 'byrd fashion would allow in concession to the heat: a buttoned-up red-and-white plaid t-shirt, red suspenders holding up the tight denim shorts that stretched across the adorable bubble-butt that was the most remarked-upon feature of her otherwise toned and athletic bod, red knee-high athletic socks and low-top steel-toed Docs with red laces. Colourful tatties wreathed her arms and radiated out from the Celtic cross at her throat. She grinned hard at the world as if determined to out-sun the sun itself with merciless brightness, a beer in one hand and four of its cool, refreshing mates dangling from the other.
As usual, the olive-skinned brunette Lennie was just a step behind, her gait as outwardly confident as her best friend's but her positioning the product of a constant internal war between the urge to move in step and the urge to follow after her golden companion. She was no less gorgeous and petite than Cami was, her Chelsea no less perfectly-styled, but she was cursed with the self-doubt that often afflicted teen girls with curvaceous figures: too conscious of the way her black polo tee stretched so tightly across her high, firm double-D's and the way her denim skirt showed off her equally generous rump, walking briskly in her black and white Samoa trainers as if to deny the seductive sway that came so naturally to her pinup-worthy frame.
She was quieter than Cami to be sure. Sparing with her smiles, accustomed to looking in the mirror and seeing the adorable little gap in her front teeth and the distinctive cleft in her chin as flaws instead of enhancements. Used to being nervous about the mildly Mediterranean cast of her skin which prompted endless "jokes" about being "part eggplant" or a "stealth Spic" from White Power skins like the ones huddled in the apartment upstairs. Even her boyfriend, sometimes. Painfully aware of being singled out even by the fact that she'd actually
graduated
from Franklin -- and with the best grades her spotty attendance record would allow, no less -- instead of simply dropping out as most of her friends had done. Even her ink was more sparing, a subtle monochromatic half-sleeve on one arm and a dusting of "SFFS" and "SKIN" beneath her knuckles.
It was at moments like this, though, dragged in the undertow of Cami's killer looks and indestructible self-assurance, that she felt the strongest. The two of them had made a good team, Lennie thought as she took a sip of Pil and watched her bestie sauntering on ahead. Through years of high-school delinquency after they'd moved out from under the parental yoke as soon as they could legally manage it, they'd lived free if not exactly easy, playing yin and yang in each others' worlds: Cami prone to rushing in where angels feared to tread, Lennie more likely to think things through and see consequences.
To a point, anyway
she reminded herself ruefully, thinking back on Eddy, the rapidly fattening lunk she was supposedly "dating" and who'd been too drunk for the past month to even contemplate getting it up. As they struck out into the Apartments' central courtyard, Lennie could feel weeks' worth of accumulated boredom and frustration -- both sexual and existential -- boiling inside her, and found herself hoping that Cami's redoubtable talent for getting the pair of them into some flavour of trouble would bear fruit today. She sorely needed the excitement.
Admittedly the courtyard wasn't promising as a source of amusement in itself, abandoned and barren as it was, its smattering of shade trees struggling to live up to their name under the pall of some wasting disease that left their bark scabrous and their leaves prematurely age-spotted. But it was far from the main attraction. That role was reserved for the sound wafting over the buldings opposite, originating in the parking lot beyond: the music that had tempted them out into the sun in the first place.
Inside, it had been the hint of a beat and a scattering of melodies and steel drums right on the edge of hearing, the whispered promise of something unexpected on a bleak Tuesday afternoon. Now it resolved itself into the unmistakable lazy strains of reggae, someone blasting Bob Marley on a car stereo of no inconsiderable power. Cami cocked her head as she heard it, her grin hitting a brighter wattage than before.
"How 'bout that, Lennie?" she said. "I do believe I hear the sound of hippie fuckheads. Shall we?"
This of course meant
"Shall we fuck with them?"
and was the kind of pronouncement Lennie had learned to be cautious about. It often preceded fistfights and muggings and other such shenanigans... but sometimes caution won out and sometimes it didn't. Today, the spiteful heat of the day stifled any reservations and she found herself just smiling back.
"Lead on, MacDuff," Lennie said. "Sounds like fun."
As they strode across the courtyard and into the welcome shade between buildings at its far end, Lennie's ears picked up the clamour of a gathering. A pretty large one. She wondered what it could be... but none of her wondering prepared her for the sight that greeted them as they negotiated the narrow path of flagstones that guided them to the northern limit of the Village Park Apartments and brought them out to the wide expanse of the parking lot beyond.
There they found at least fifty people, all of them on bikes, milling together in that parking lot. And in what had to count as the more unusual of sights in suburban Minnesota that she could recall, they were all naked.
