It was easier to let them go on believing it was just a really neat clubhouse.
The other reason the bar was a good choice for the club was the fact that there were apartments above. Sure, they were shoeboxes, but there were six of them. And the guys didn't mind squeezing in together. For no other reason but to avoid having the cost of an apartment in the area. So they were all shacked up about five to each of the six apartments.
And I went ahead and set myself up in the basement.
Were the cinder block walls and cement floors glamorous? No. But it was private. It gave me space and silence to be able to think. The perk was that tapping into the water and plumbing hadn't been too rough, so I'd had some of the guys drop me in a private bathroom. Because sharing a bathroom with my men was, quite simply, unacceptable. I was pretty sure they didn't know how a toilet brush worked. I wasn't a neat freak by any stretch of the term, but there were just some spaces that had to be kept clean. Like your bed. And your bathroom.
So, yeah, while I did have my own private space with a walkout, Dutch was right. I never brought anyone home.
Part of that was because no man would walk into the clubhouse and not imagine I'd fucked at least half of my men. Which was a surefire way to create a dead dick. Especially if they happened to catch Grandpa naked, since the bastard had nine inches of intimidation to boast about.
It had a lot more to do with psychology than that.
See, I'd learned really early on that most men saw sex as something that was done to women, instead of something done with them.
So bringing a man back to the clubhouse, back to my room, would have them thinking that I was getting something done to me, rather than having mutual fun with a man. Which, in a messed up and mostly subconscious way, would make them see me differently than their fellow men who did the fucking.
Maybe it was me thinking about it too much.
But the one time one of the mother club's men had seen me with a man, he'd done nothing but rib me relentlessly about it for months while he went on and fucked a new clubwhore each night.
So I didn't let my men see me bring home men. Or even go home with them. I did let them see me flirt and then shoot down men because they could see that as a power move. But, in a twisted, patriarchal way, me fucking made me lose power, while they gained it by doing the same thing.
My sex life was private.
Though, admittedly, it had been practically nonexistent for a long time now.
What can I say? Building a new chapter was hard fucking work. I barely had time to sleep and get a decent workout in, let alone go out, find some guy, and go a couple rounds.
"I don't have time to bring anyone home, Dutch," I said, taking a long sip of my beer. "Unlike all you fucking slackers, I have shit to do."
"You're here now," Dutch said, shrugging.
"Only a man would think that my five-minute break is long enough to get even halfway satisfying sex," I told him, pushing off the bar. "Way to call yourself out for your shitty sex game," I added, moving away from him.
I'd say that being a president had hardened me. But the truth was, being a little girl raised in a club had done that. You didn't get the luxury of having emotions. Not the soft and gushy kind, and definitely not any with tears. And not even the hot and fiery sort with angry words either. See, women didn't get to be emotional without being called hysterical.
So I did the only thing I could do that solidified my power.
I got colder than them.
I was the first and last to strike out with sharp teeth and lethal venom.
That was how you got to come out on top.
That was how you got a group of men to fall in line.
See, they didn't know what to do with you when they couldn't get a rise out of you. I made it my goal in life never to let them see that happen.
"Not enjoying Shanny's new tit piercings?" I asked, dropping down at a table with Grandpa. Who wasn't my grandfather, of course. It was his road name. Mostly because his son, Pops, was in the club. As was his grandson, Junior.
Grandpa was a silver fox if I'd ever seen one. Tall, fit, inked, with sexy salt and pepper hair, and the mystery and wisdom that came with his fifty-five years.
There was a family resemblance with his son, Pops, who, at thirty-six, was a black-haired version of his father. And Junior, at just barely eighteen was a somewhat scrawnier version of both of them with far less ink. But he was working on that.