The Bodyguard

I took a couple more peeks in the rearview mirror while her face was in profile so she wouldn’t freak the fuck out and think I was ogling her. But I had to admit, once I allowed myself to look, it was hard to look away. That should’ve been my first warning sign.

I’m not one to get snagged by a woman’s beauty. I’ve had my share and knew that shit didn’t always run deeper than the outward appearance. I like my women to have a little something between the ears. But then again I’ve fucked a few only for the pleasure of what they held between their thighs even when their conversation left much to be desired. I didn’t know fuck about what she was packing under those jeans, but I did surmise that she was more than a little bit smart.

Her hair was a mix of honey and platinum, that you might be fooled into thinking was a bottle job, but I knew for a fact was real. I’d heard one of the makeup people gushing about it for some fucked up reason at four o’clock in the morning.

She had the kind of lips that women were paying doctors to inject them with poison to achieve. Full bottom lip and the top shaped like a half bow that just sat perfectly on top. And pink. Once she wiped the day’s makeup off, her lips were a soft inviting pink, soft being the operative word.

Sitting back there that day, she’d looked young and vulnerable, nothing at all like the twenty-three that she was purported to be. She must’ve felt my eyes on her or some shit, because in the middle of one of my perusals she’d turned her head and looked dead at me.

I’m not psychic, not even close. But swear to fuck I read something in her eyes. In that moment she looked like the loneliest, saddest person alive. She blinked and looked away but that look stayed with me and fucked with my equilibrium.

Something shifted in me; don’t ask me what that something was, because I don’t know myself. All I know is that one minute I was minding my business, doing the job and the next thing I know, I felt a softening in my heart. Fuck if I didn’t want to jump out the car and run. I knew even then that that shit meant trouble.

Now you have to understand why something like that would freak out a man like me. I’ve prided myself on not giving a fuck; of the thirty-three years of my life, I’ve spent maybe the first five caring. After that I pretty much said fuck it.

The world had been doing a pretty good job of shitting on me up to that point so I decided to hit back. I was too young to do much of anything back then, but I plotted and planned in my head, who I wanted to be and how I was gonna get there. Back then I only knew what I didn’t want to be, and that’s what I already was. Poor and fucked!

Both my parents were alcoholic fucks who didn’t give a damn. I was a little young, but not too young to know that the way I lived was fucked and far from the norm. And if I didn’t know, the assholes at school who had picture perfect lives schooled me.

Lying fucks. Their world was just as screwed up as mine. Their parents just did a better job at hiding their shit than mine did. I learned to fend for myself and my only goal from then on was to get out as soon and as fast as I could.

My dad stopped using me as his punching bag when I was about thirteen and learned to hit back. I had more hate and anger in me than he ever could, and I didn’t need cheap booze to fuel that shit. He’d been just as surprised as me that day. He had no idea that I’d been training, and I had no idea that I’d come so far. My dad was not a small guy.

There was this old guy in the neighborhood who had one of those old fashioned gyms. The grimy ones that smell like sweat and the cement walls aren’t covered by anything but cobwebs and scars. He also had a boxing ring.

I guess he’d seen the need in me, because one of the days that I’d snuck in to watch the men and older boys sparring, he’d called me over to him. I thought he was going to send me packing since I’d snuck in. Back then I thought I would’ve died if I didn’t have this.

I didn’t know the rules back then, didn’t know if you had to pay to be there or not. All I knew was that I loved watching the men pit their strength against each other. I would stand back in the shadows and learn everything I could by just watching, before going home to my empty room and trying out the moves I’d seen. But then I got caught.