Chrome and Shame A Short Story

A closeted biker scams men and uses women — until betrayal, crime, and karma catch up, leaving him broken, exposed, and utterly alone.

Copyright © Priya Florence Shah

Rain hit the asphalt like spit on a coffin. Cold, greasy, unrelenting. Kenny lit a cigarette with a trembling hand, shielding the flame beneath a chipped leather glove.

His Harley — black as regret, loud as guilt — growled beside him like a pissed-off panther. He didn’t feel the cold, not really. He felt like he always did: angry, hollow, and wired tight like a rusted spring.

Behind him, the bar lights flickered in neon pink: The Stallion’s Den. The smell of wet leather, whiskey, and sweat rolled out of the door every time someone stumbled in or out.

A man in his fifties — heavyset, salt-and-pepper beard, leather vest patched with The Iron Colts — whistled and winked at Kenny as he passed.

“See you inside, sweetheart.”

Kenny hated the endearments. Hated being seen. Hated them — the men he slept with for money, the women he used for rent and rides, and most of all, her. The woman whose voice lived in his head like mildew in drywall.

“Don’t come home without cash, Kenny. And don’t pretend you ain’t pretty. You got that soft skin from me.”

Three days ago, Kenny met Ram at a chop shop off East 9th. Ram had this smirk that said he’d watched you bleed before and probably came to it.

Muscular, mocha-skinned, covered in tattoos that meant something violent in a language Kenny didn’t speak. He handed Kenny a beer and introduced him to the “brotherhood.”

“All of us are running from something,” Ram had said, his voice a deep, lazy drawl. “Some of us from the closet, some from the cops. Most from bitches who broke us young.”

Kenny didn’t need convincing.

Kenny lied like most people breathed. Said he was a contractor. Said he had a girlfriend who was “crazy” and lived in Arizona. Said he used to box.

In truth, he lived off Angela, a nurse he barely touched. She paid rent, bought groceries, begged him to open up. He’d grunt. She’d cry. Repeat.

He’d sneak out most nights, answering Craigslist ads or DMs for “private wrestling,” “massage therapy,” or “party favors.” Whatever paid cash. Whatever let him feel wanted without the fucking strings.

Ram, meanwhile, ran the Iron Colts. Not your standard biker gang — these guys were polished but perverse. All men. All damaged. All with that same twist in the smile that Kenny saw in the mirror.

They didn’t just ride; they hunted. Their newest game?

Scamming closeted men with something to lose. CEOs, judges, cops. Get them drunk, get them filmed, get them extorted.

“I call it a ‘charity collection,’” Ram laughed, passing Kenny a burner phone. “You want in? You gotta deliver.”

The trap was set at a motel on the outskirts. Room 206 smelled like bleach, piss, and desperation. They’d set up lights, a phone hidden in the vent, lube packets on the dresser like candy samples.

Kenny wore tight jeans, no shirt, just a silver chain Angela had given him. Their mark was a conservative councilman who once got caught tweeting anti-gay slurs.

Tonight, he wanted to be called “baby boy.” He arrived drunk, reeking of cologne and fear. Kenny played his part well — moaning, teasing, tugging. But when the councilman leaned in to kiss him, something snapped.

Kenny shoved him off. “Don’t fuckin’ touch my face.”

The councilman blinked. “W-what?”

Ram burst in seconds later, camera in hand, grin wide. “Smile for the camera, Councilman Douchebag.”

The man scrambled for his pants. “You sons of bitches—”

Kenny watched it unfold like a dream dipped in battery acid. This was power. Using men like they’d used him. Owning the shame. Flipping it.

Except something in Kenny twitched. That familiar, acidic voice again:

“Don’t come home unless you bring home a win. Use what you got, Kenny. You were born for this.”

Things went downhill faster than a grease-slick road in December.

The councilman didn’t cave. He called in a favor instead.

Two weeks later, DEA agents raided the Stallion’s Den. Not just for blackmail. The Colts had ties to drug-running, stolen bike parts, even two disappearances — some closeted kid from Duluth and a sex worker from Toledo.

Kenny didn’t know about that part. Or maybe he did and just didn’t care to ask.

Angela found the money stash in their closet. Found the burner phones. Found the latex gloves and fake IDs. She screamed until her throat cracked.

“You used me!” she shrieked, hurling his helmet at his head. “You don’t even like women, do you?”

He didn’t answer. Just walked out, and never went back.

On the run now. The gang scattered — Ram vanished, a few others were arrested, one was found in a ditch with his face half caved in.

Kenny rode hard and silent, chain-smoking and paranoid. He ended up in Memphis, then Baton Rouge. Slept in hostels, hustled at rest stops, picked up cash gigs. Always looking over his shoulder.

It all ended outside a Waffle House at 2:13 a.m. Kenny thought he was meeting a rich businessman in a sedan. Turned out, it was a setup.

Cops surrounded him before he could blink.

“Don’t move, asshole. Hands where I can see ‘em.”

The irony? The arrest warrant wasn’t even for blackmail or prostitution. It was fraud — Angela had reported him for identity theft and draining her savings.

In prison, Kenny didn’t talk much. Didn’t need to. People could smell the kind of man he was — the kind that wore masks so long he forgot what his face looked like.

Ram was there too. They kept their distance.

One day, a prison therapist asked Kenny why he hated women.

He stared at the concrete wall, jaw clenched.

“My mother,” he finally muttered. “She loved her legs more than me. Spread ‘em for men who hit me. Who hurt me.”

The therapist didn’t speak. Just waited.

“And I became her,” Kenny whispered. “Just with a dick and a better bike.”

Years later, Kenny got out. Older. Grayer. A shadow of his former self. No Harley. No scams. No Angela. Just a halfway house and a job mopping floors.

Sometimes, a young man would flirt with him at the shelter. He never responded.

He’d just shake his head and mutter, “Ain’t nothing free in this world, kid. Especially love.”

And when he walked past mirrors, he never looked in.

Because even now, he didn’t want to see what he’d become.