"Come on Gracie, put yer butt on that saddle and let's get on the road before that Route 80 traffic clots."

"Listen, you hairy mammoth, leave my butt out of your idiot small talk. After the way you manhandled it last night, you're lucky I'm goin' with you at all."

"Do you broads all read the same books? Damn, you're all alike. Same stuff, different babe."

Grace retracted her leg from her Sportster, glaring at Vic as he engaged the starter button on his Electric Glide. If looks could kill...

The explosion of uninhibited exhaust from the Electric Glide obliterated Grace's voice and started her ears ringing. She leaned her bike back on its kickstand.

"Up yours," she screamed. "Screw you. I'm stayin' right here."

"What's eatin' you, Gracie? Come on, light ‘er up n' lets roll."

"You're on you're own, you inconsiderate boob," she shrieked. She pulled the ignition key out, stomped back into the garage and clicked the door down.

Vic's rear tire screeched on the concrete.

"There goes another tire streak on the driveway. Just like his underwear."

Straight piped exhaust followed Vic's exit up and around the quiet, tree-lined street. Gear changes echoed through the neighborhood signaling the departure of a single Harley.

Vic was maintenance supervisor for the Golden Gate Bridge Corporation. Grace, his live-in girl friend, was a painter on the bridge, tough as quartz and just as engaging. She was close to being on parole from the county after an incident involving a nine-millimeter handgun and was considering a restraining order against Vic.

A woman that shapely sometimes needs a nine-millimeter.

Last year, about this time, they were the typical happy biker couple at ease on two wheels. Both had good incomes from their hazardous jobs on the bridge. Base wages started at over thirty-five per hour, but it was the overtime that put them on two new Harleys and a nice house in a good Marin neighborhood.

Dangerous jobs sometimes precipitate dangerous behaviors. Steroidal macho games and bravado banter on the bridge job, with its competitive one-up-man-ships with co-workers, often carried over into their private life. Not the gentile lifestyle of other San Francisco suburbanites in their neighborhood.

This seemed to be the situation as Vic and Grace started for the motorcycle show at the Oakland Coliseum that cool Saturday morning.

"Good riddance," Grace mumbled as she slammed her way into the kitchen. I'm not gonna dope up. I need to think. I'll soak in the Jacuzzi with a bottle of Jack."

Grace tossed her leathers into the den as she marched to the bathroom, disrobing as she went. A glance in the mirror confirmed that the red, yellow and blue cockatiel tattoo between her shoulders, down to the top of her sashaying tush, was still there -- a memento from last year's Sturgis rally. Her red hair matched her face.

She turned on the Jacuzzi and stepped in. A small yellow butterfly surrounded her navel with a sterling silver ring at its center above a faint thong tan line.

She opened the bottle of Jack snuggled in the corner against the tiled wall. Grace sipped, slumped into the hot, bubbling water and breathed in the emerging steam. The black and blue marks on her thighs submerged with her.

It was ultimatum time. She used to like roughhousing. Not any more. "Gettin' older," she'd say. It'd been a decade already, since she turned twenty-one.

That's the last time he's gonna act like that. Bastard. If he comes home and tries anything, I'll pull my automatic on him and show him how serious I am.

She felt so good. Hot water outside and Jack's warmth inside. Vic was gonna miss this place if he screwed with her again. She closed her eyes. Images of Hawaii drifted in and out of her thoughts.

It was much later when the automatic garage door opener started, bringing Grace to consciousness in the luxury of the king sized waterbed. She stretched, yawned and checked the luminous HD clock on the dresser. Two A.M.

That bum had better be clean and sober.

She confirmed the presence of the gun beneath her pillow, making sure the safety was engaged. Basso profundo exhaust rolled closer to the house, ending with throttle blasts in the garage. The door closer groaned. The night was quiet again.

Grace could hear Vic trying his key in the kitchen door. She heard the door close and Vic's strong exhales. He was a noisy mouth breather. She heard parts of his conversation with himself, something about spending the night in the den. She grinned and snuggled beneath the sheets, releasing her moist hold on the warm gun handle.

Sunday morning came and went. Grace heard kitchen noises so she threw on a T-shirt and shorts.

"I'm makin' frozen waffles ‘n eggs over easy," Vic said, in his usual, nearly unintelligible morning gravel voice. "Coffee's on, too. Interested?"

Grace often accused Vic of not being able to speak through his beard in the morning. She figured it was all part of his self-imposed image he liked to project. A diamond in the rough kind of tough guy image, or a holdover from the Vietnam days. She knew he could speak in a clear, unaffected voice if it pleased him to do so. But then again, she knew he could be just plain lazy, too. She also wondered, if he wasn't so much of a hulk, would he have been nicer? Have a better personality?

"Sure," she said.

They brunched, loaded dishes into the washer and straightened up before two-way communications ensued over the last of the coffee.

"You'd've liked some of the bikes on display at the Coliseum, Grace," Vic said. "There was one beauty there that reminded me of you as soon as I saw it."

"Why? Did it have a broad saddle?" She sipped the coffee dregs from her mug.

Vic overreacted to her tone with theatrical shock. "No, no. Nothin' like that. It had sleek, customized lines with red, yellow and blue bird feathers painted on the gas tank and fenders. It was you, babe."

Vic moved away from the table. "I'll be back. I'm hittin' the john, upstairs."

Grace turned. "No black and blue feathers?"

Vic was out of sight when she remembered the gun. Damn. Oh, well, he'll never notice it. It should be under the pillow.

"Nah," he yelled, and shut the bathroom door.

Grace was straightening the bed when he emerged.

"Vic, I'm gonna see a lawyer tomorrow." She was ramrod straight, eyes focused on his.

Vic's beard couldn't hide his surprise. His mouth opened wider. His eyes never blinked.

"I don't want to live with a gorilla, and I'm gettin' too old for your boyish macho pranks."

Vic eased onto the bed. "What do you need a shark for, Gracie? Tell me what's wrong."

"Friday night I told you to stop doing what you were doing. I told you to stop. You didn't. You told me I liked what you were doing. I said I didn't, and told you to stop."

Vic stared off into the bathroom. "Geeze, honey, I thought you liked it."

"I told you to stop, and you didn't. I know a woman lawyer in town and when I show her the marks on my legs, I'll have a restraining order against you that afternoon. You'll be sleeping at the Y, or someplace else, but you can bet your hairy ass it won't be here."

Grace watched Vic's surprised expression fade. It evolved into something else. He stood, turned, tore the bed cover off the bed and tossed the pillows at the wall, revealing the weapon.

"Jesus," he sighed and glared at Grace. "I know a lawyer, too." He jolted downstairs.

Vic was filling the coffee carafe when Grace entered the kitchen. He didn't look at her. "All this soap opera stuff may be unnecessary."

Grace responded with an unenthusiastic, "Oh?" and leaned against the doorway, arms folded tight under her breasts.

He rattled a wad of Peet's House Blend into the coffee filter, turned on the machine then fixed on Grace's eyes. "Look. You're my girl. We've been together a few years, and we're good together."

"Were," Grace said.

"Hell, we even have a good time workin' on the job together."

"I can transfer," she said in a low monotone. "Even quit."

Vic took her by her arms, filling the doorway. He lowered his face in front of hers. "I can quit, too," he said. "I can quit doin' what pisses you off. I can quit smokin' dope ‘n goin' out drinkin' with the crowd. I can do whatever I want." He let go of her and moved to the sink.

"Why would you do that?" Grace folded her arms again against her T-shirt. Her sardonic tone was just above a stage whisper.

Vic searched for a clean coffee mug. "I'm gettin' older, too."

"Funny what two or three gray hairs in a beard can do to a guy," Grace said.

"Let's do coffee in the Jacuzzi, Gracie."

"Suit yourself. I haven't showered yet, anyway."

At opposite sides of the Jacuzzi, coffee mugs on the side, with eyes closed, they both rested their necks on the ledge just above the water. The room humidity peaked. Grace could hear Vic's breathing over the hum of the tub.

"I want to have a baby," Grace said in a matter-of-fact voice.

The water vapor in the room lent an air of surrealism to the message. With her words slipping between trails of steam rising from the hot water, Grace thought Vic's noisy respiration had vaporized along with the steam. She was only aware now of the sound of bubbling water.

Vic smoothed his beard. His eyes and mouth remained closed. "Humph," he grunted. "You ready for a change of life? A change in life style, forever?"

Grace adjusted her head position just a tad. "Yeah."

"You sure?"

"Yup."

"This new concept isn't just ah, a temporary whim from a hangover?"

"I'm sure."

"Not just a hormone moan, either? You're about to get yer period, right?"

"Humph. Since when did you start countin' days? Anyway, I want to get normal, stay out of trouble, maybe even fit in here in Marin. I'm tired of drug testing worries and the possibility of some freekin' judge makin' decisions for me. I want a better deal."

Vic rubbed his eyes and smoothed his beard. "You thinkin' of me bein' the father?"

"I'm just thinkin'," she said.

Vic sat up and looked at Grace. "If I father it, that means no more mind alterin' substances for both of us. Including that fetal alcohol thing."

"Yup. Squeaky clean."

Vic rested his arms on his knees. "You want to get married?"

Grace opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. It was dimpled with drops of condensation. She began to float a bit. "To you?"

"Yeah."

"You swear to love, honor and respect?"

"Sure. Who loves ya, baby?"

"Nothing would be the same," she said. Her voice lowered half an octave.

"Absa-freekin-lutely nothing," Vic agreed.

"Yeah. Nothin'."

"Christ. Complete control," he said.

Grace closed her eyes, her body floated to the surface.

You love me deep enough to make me a bride, a mother, lots more than just another biker babe? I'm talkin' real respect here."

"I do. And if I'm gonna be a father, I'll want the best for him, or her." Vic took the bottle of Jack, got out of the water, inverted it over the toilet and drained it. "Get the stash. Includin' that home grown good grade of green, the four-hundred dollar an ounce stuff."

Grace emerged from the water as if in slow motion, fixing her stare on Vic's eyes, like a soaked Greek goddess, with piercings. "You're serious, aren't you?" she said.

"Absa-freekin-lutely. We flush everything, now or never, babe. Clean parenthood. Decide now, or shut up." Large pools of water formed on the floor around his hulking, hairy nakedness.

Grace felt a chill. "A deal," she said. She got out of the water and leaned against his birthday suit.

Vic engulfed her.

Grace whispered, "Guess I can give my gun to my sister."

Vic ran his hands over her cockatiel. "I'm the only automatic you'll need from now on."