Bang Gang (4 page)

“An orgy,” Debbie blurted. “Mandy had a gang bang last night. Three men to herself!” The others looked horrified, but Debbie shrugged. “It’s all over Facebook, it’s hardly a secret…”

I nearly spat out my coffee as I giggled, but they weren’t joining in. I looked around the faces. “Seriously? For real? Three men at once?”

Mandy shrugged. “It was a… fantasy… of mine…”

Isn’t it everyone’s? Three hot guys at once. Ripped and well hung and well aware of what to do with it…

I stared at her, willing her to tell me everything. This kind of shit was like balm for my frazzled, chore-shackled soul. I could practically feel the restraints of Mum-Jodie slipping away at the thought of some decent sex-gossip.

I leaned in, elbows on the table. “So? Was it…
good?
”

Mandy nodded, and her face lit up like an arcade after dark. “It was absolutely. Fucking. Amazing.”

Tonya coughed, shook her head at Mandy and my stomach did a weird little flip. “What?” I said. “Why the weirdness? What’s going on?”

Debbie smiled straight at me. “So, how was your morning?”

I laughed. “My morning sucked, same as every other school morning. Only
this
morning I found the washing machine had decided to go all kamikaze overnight and take a load of school uniform down with it, Ruby had a tantrum over black socks, I found out Mia hates high school and
then
found out Ruby’s been taking anger-management classes from her father.” I sighed. “
But none of this is even remotely as interesting as taking three guys at once, and you all know it, so what’s the big deal?”

I waited, again. They said nothing — again.

And then Steph checked her phone. “Ooh, is that the time?” She downed her coffee and gathered her bag, and the others followed suit, except Tonya who stayed put.

“What?” I said, and then I saw it. The empty cake plates. The almost empty mugs. They’d been here before me, much before our regular time slot. I felt ridiculously hurt.

“We’ll meet up again next week,” Debbie said. “Catch up properly.”

“But it’s not even eleven…” I said.

I watched in silence as they all said their goodbyes, dumbstruck as they air-kissed me and told me to have a
great week
. I was watching them across the street when Tonya sighed.

“I’ll get us another coffee,” she said.

I grabbed her wrist. “I don’t want another coffee, Tonya, I want to know what’s going on. What time did you get here?”

She held up her hands. “This wasn’t me. I didn’t know you weren’t in on the earlier start time.”

I folded my arms. “I’m hardly a prude, Tonya. Is that what they think? Do they think I’m a prude?” I shrugged. “I’d love to hear about a bloody orgy, same as everyone else around here.”

She stared right at me. “I said they should just tell you, you’re going to find out soon enough anyway. Mandy’s vague Facebook status got over fifty likes last night,
PM me
comments all over the place.”

I hadn’t checked Facebook the evening before, I’d
been too busy watching old films with Nanna. I pulled out my phone, typed in Mandy Taylor.

Best night ever,
her status said.
Some fantasies are even better in real life!
Then a load of hashtags about bucket lists and being a bad girl.

It seemed the whole village knew about this shit already, but not me. Clearly this gossip wasn’t for me.

I asked the obvious question. Spat it out like a rotten egg. “Who was it? Who did she fuck?”

“Buck,” she said, and that made sense. Buck and Mandy had been flirting all summer. I’d seen it as well as heard it.

“And?”

“Little Petey…”

My stomach dropped. Petey was new, Trent’s young apprentice mechanic. Cute and blonde
and Polish. A nice guy.

She didn’t need to continue, but she did.

“And Trent.” She groaned. “Mandy fucked Trent last night.”

I shrugged, pretended it didn’t matter. “Trent’s a free agent. He fucks loads of people, so I gather. That’s his prerogative.”

She shook her head. “Not like this
, not three on one.”

I thought it through, Trent, Buck, and Petey, with Mandy Taylor. Trent doesn’t even like Mandy Taylor. Mandy’s nice enough, but she isn’t his type, not that I knew.

Maybe I didn’t know.

“She paid them,” Tonya said. “Trent’s running a gigolo service down there. They call themselves the
bang gang
.”

The thought made me snort-laugh. “The
bang gang
? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Trent’s no bloody gigolo, he struggles with people skills at the best of times.”

“Not with
these
people skills, he doesn’t. Not according to Mandy.” Tonya looked so sorry. “It was him, Jo. She gave them three hundred, and that was a massive discount apparently.”

“Three hundred quid?! For a fuck?” I still couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t imagine it.

She nodded. “Worth every penny, Mandy said. She’s planning on a repeat performance when her wages come in.” She sighed. “I don’t imagine she’ll be alone, either. Not when she’s finished mouthing off about how brilliant it was.”

I put another sugar in my coffee. “Everyone knows?”

“It’s Mandy Taylor. I imagine it’s reached the valleys by now…”

I looked around the coffee shop, the regular tables of regular people, and they were looking. Looking at me.

Everyone
fucking knew.

“The kids,” I said. “What am I going to tell the fucking kids when they start asking if their dad fucks for money?”

Tonya leaned in. “Maybe it’ll go over their heads? Maybe they won’t know anything about any of it? They’re young… It could blow over without them knowing…”

I raised my eyebrows. “Mia is at high school now. She’s fully aware of where babies come from. Somehow I doubt it’s still the fluffy, biologically slanted version of the birds and the bees that I told her.”

She stopped trying to make me feel better. “He probably didn’t know,” she said. “That Mandy would blab like this, I mean. He hardly knows her.”

“I’d say he knows her pretty fucking well from the sounds of it.”

“She’s probably exaggerating… you know what she’s like… you can’t take her side of the story as gospel…”

“No,” I said, and downed my coffee. “I can’t take her word for it. Which is exactly why I’m going to hear it from the stud himself.” I grabbed my bag. “Right now.”

She grabbed hers, too.

Tonya let out a gasp as I swung my trusty little Ford into Trent’s yard. The adrenaline had me on edge, over-steering enough that I nearly clipped Betty Baker’s old Mini Cooper, but from the looks of the bumper on it, another little knock would be the least of her concerns. I pulled up with a screech beside Darren’s hulking black beast of a truck, and Tonya opened the passenger door right next to it, swung her legs out to give her a clear view of the garage entrance, then lit up a cigarette.

“I’ll wait here and block his exit,” she said. “Holler if you need me.”

“Enjoy the show,” I snipped.

She blew out a long plume of smoke. “I’m here as your cheerleader, not for entertainment.”

I rolled my eyes.

My legs felt weird and shaky as I crossed the tarmac to the garage office, mood veering between rage and this nasty little shard of hurt that wouldn’t stop stabbing. Darren Trent, trusted local mechanic, father of two. Foul-mouthed, arrogant, loyal, hardworking, infuriatingly stubborn, brooding, blunt, honest,
hot…

… Gigolo.

Gigolo.

A fucking man-whore.

I still couldn’t quite believe it.

I tried the handle, but it was locked. Impossible. No way would Darren close up on a Monday. And his truck was here, bold as brass. You couldn’t miss the fucking thing.

I tried the handle again and it rattled
but wouldn’t budge. I pressed my face to the dirty window and peered inside and there was nobody, just an empty counter. I knocked. Nothing.

What the fuck?

I walked around the side to the main shutters, and my heart did a flip as I saw the sports car there. A red Porsche, the kind of car that screams money. I checked out the badge and the licence plate — expensive and new and definitely not from these parts. I took a step towards it, checked out the scarlet paintwork, peered inside to see a woman’s jacket there, her makeup bag still open on the passenger seat. The shutter doors were down and bolted, the whole place closed up tight.

But Buck’s estate car was in its usual spot.

I rapped the shutters, then pressed my ear to the metal.

Nothing.

I rapped again until they rattled and shook.

Nothing.

I stepped back, looked around
, scoped out my options as my heart thumped.
He was fucking. Of course he was. The woman from the Porsche.

I shouldn’t care. Didn’t want to care. But the girls…

The village…

I hammered on the shutters again and this time there was rage in it.

“Darren! I know you’re in there! I need to talk to you!” Nothing. Not one fucking sign of life. I hammered again. “Darren! It’s about the girls!”

A clank from inside, and I knew he’d heard me. I folded my arms, waiting for the doors to open,
not truly ready to believe he was fucking some posh Porsche-driving bitch in there on a Monday morning, but of course he fucking was
.

She strolled out as soon as they cranked up, ducking a salon-blonde head under the door with a lipstick-smudged smirk on her face. Her dress was crumpled and her hair was greasy, and she had a black smear across her insanely huge cleavage.

Her diamonds caught the light and twinkled, and her toned legs looked so tanned. Her lips were plumped, and her eyes were glazed and cock-hungry.

She looked me up and down as she passed, and her snarky smile told me everything. She’d weighed me up in an instant and found me lacking, and suddenly I felt plain and awkward, my fingers brushing at the butter stain on my top even th
ough she’d already seen it, already seen the circles under my eyes from a night up with Ruby’s night terrors, already seen the limp mousy hair that hadn’t seen a bottle of dye in years and the eyebrows that drastically needed shaping.

She’d seen me, and she’d judged me. Signed me off as a plain Jane battering down her ex’s door.

She shot a glance back towards the garage before she got into her car, blew a kiss and gave a big smile. “Till next time, boys.”

And then there was Darren, half-clad in the same pair of tatty old overalls he’d been wearing since he’d opened this place, yanking down the plain black t-shirt he’d certainly just pulled on over his head. His arms were as toned as they’d ever been, the dark lines of his tattoos twisting up around his elbows, smeared with oil.

He barely even nodded in Porsche Bitch’s direction, gave her nothing but the faintest hint of a grunt in farewell. His eyes were fixed on me, heavy with questions and that bristle of brusque he’s so fucking good at.