Chapter Fourteen
Axton
T he hot water trailed down my body as I felt my release coming. My eyes were shut and imagining Belle’s lips around my cock, and the vision of it provided me with a recipe for such an intense orgasm that caused my legs to grow week, and I had to lean against the shower wall.
After dinner with Belle, I had to get Faye on a video call and try to focus on what I knew of her body to erase the girl from my mind, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t even get hard, but at least Faye came to the sound of my voice, and I got to watch her face as she gave herself an orgasm. I needed a release and the only way it happened was to my own palm, along with my imagination. I stared down at the drain as the remnants of what I just did was washed away. Jesus fuck, I never felt so unsatisfied even though I came hard. My situation was growing worse, and the only person to talk to and explore what the fuck was wrong with me, was one of the last people I had any desire to speak to about my problems.
I slept with Valerie years ago, and she was hot as hell in the sack, but it was a one-time deal. Then, while on a mission, she was captured and raped. I couldn’t express how it felt to be the one to cut her from the rafters after several terrorist raped her. She wasn’t just bleeding from being sodomized, but also bleeding from the very place I once devoured with my lips then sank into with my cock. After I cut her down and handed her off to Irons, I couldn’t count how many throats I sliced on that terrorist compound as rage took over my mind, body, and soul.
Valerie was almost a decade older than me, but she was beautiful and intelligent. We agreed to keep our past between us when we were assigned to the same unit. Things were never really awkward between us, but then she was raped, and I couldn’t even look at her. It took me a few years to come to terms with what happened and build up a new form of friendship. Sometimes I wondered if she had moved on to a place where our night together never happened. Out of all the relationships built on Creed’s Lake, I was most happiest for Val because she found Darren Rossi. He was Morgan’s uncle and probably the best man I could have dreamed up for Val.
She was a psychiatrist and also who we leaned on to provide therapy to our operatives. But out of all the Original’s, Creed was the only one that felt comfortable seeing her for his trauma. Maybe because his trauma wasn’t of a sexual nature. She saw Val’s rape as a violation, but didn’t allow the emotions in to see her as a victim, but a survivor instead. That was the mission that changed all of us, and led to the creation of Creed’s Lake.
When I was near Belle, I felt great, but then my body began reacting to her which pissed me off. She wasn’t like Morgan, Steph, or Wrenly. She wasn’t the girl next door, she was spiritual, yet I felt desire pour off her like I never felt from any other woman. It was ridiculous to feel that much attraction to a woman that damn fast. She was open to me, when she couldn’t even handle a man going anywhere near her bedroom door. She seemed to trust Dr. Ford, but that didn’t say much because he was in a trusted profession. She reached around her own brother for me when she was scared, and I didn’t understand why.
Once the strength came back into my body, I finished my shower then dried off before wrapping a towel around my waist. I wiped the fog away from the mirror and studied myself. I looked down at the shaving kit and saw a pair of scissors and a razor. Would Belle feel safer around a man that was cleaner cut? I picked up the scissors then stopped myself. Why was I even considering it? I never wanted to shave my beard before, why suddenly was I thinking about it? I pressed my hands on the counter and leaned in to study myself in the mirror, then shut my eyes. Memories played through my mind.
Natalie always laughed and found joy in anything, but would go home to addiction and abuse. She tried to find the happiest things about life despite her circumstances. She had dreams of going to college and someday living in New York City. She wanted to be an attorney, and sometimes I think she was the one that inspired Kayla.
A memory of tackling Natalie down and tickling her just so I could hear that contagious laugh played through my mind. She was smart, ambitious, and the sweetest girl I ever knew. We would get off the school bus at the same place every day and I’d walk with her while Kayla trailed behind us. We lived on a country road with run down trailers that were separated by about a hundred feet. Many times, a tarp served as a permanent fix for a leaky roof. Old cars sat in the driveways, most with not just parts missing but also doors and trunks. Most sat on blocks because they sold their rims and tires. Just about all of them had dogs living on chains that had to walk around in their own shit. They would all bark and growl at us as we walked down the narrow road. Those things weren’t necessary to look at when Natalie was walking right next to me. She was everything that was worth looking at. Her blond straight long hair was always pulled back into a ponytail, and she would walk with her arms around the books she carried against her chest. Her big green eyes would glance at me, but I couldn’t help but stare at her. There we were a clean cut boy and a darling young girl that had dreams for our futures.
She wanted to be an attorney, and I dreamed of being a pilot. I wanted to see the world, but I wanted to see it with Natalie. She wasn’t my girlfriend, I was way too shy to ever ask her, but she was my best friend. I was the one she ran to when she found her mom overdosed on pills. I was the one she ran to when her dad got arrested all those times for drinking and driving, assault, domestic abuse, and possession. She came to me when she was sick, and her house wasn’t calm enough to let her rest. It was me that tried to help her clean the house where she was expected to live.
My house was run down, but at least I tried to keep it clean and was able to do so, but not Natalie. They had animals in their home, there was trash stacked up so high they needed a trail to move around from one room to another. She didn’t have a bedroom, but slept on an old couch in the corner of what would have been a living room if it wasn’t piled with trash and old car parts. Their refrigerator smelled horrible, and her mother would have a fit every time Natalie tried to throw things out. Her two older brothers were nasty slobs that did almost nothing but sit around and smoke pot and drink beer. Her older sister had three kids by the time she was eighteen, and they all lived in that nasty house. There were cats, dogs, rats, and even a raccoon that once lived inside it. It was nothing to step inside that house and see a chicken roosting on the faucet of their kitchen sink. Walking through the house you’d see shit everywhere and the smell of piss burned your nose. Her younger siblings ran around like wild animals.
I worked my ass off to take care of Kayla, but she wasn’t the only one I took care of. I bought Natalie clothes from the second hand store, just like I did Kayla’s. I gave up my bed to her and slept on the old piece of shit couch when Natalie’s family threw parties, or the cops were there for a domestic violence call. When I had just enough money to buy a meal for my sister and myself, I gave mine to Natalie. Fortunately, the older I got, the more I could work. Before I was of age to legally work, I stole things. I also made money by collecting aluminum cans and cashing them in for pennies. I rode my stolen bicycle into town which was an hour each way, and mowed lawns. Once I was old enough where people could legally hire me, I worked at Walmart gathering carts from the parking lot, and I also worked in a tire shop. I would ride that bike through storms and winter weather to make it to my jobs. In the summer, I kept working at Walmart and the tire shop, but also worked for a landscaper. I was able to pay rent and the electric and water, but my mom would sell our food stamps and spend our monthly TANF check on booze. I couldn’t count how many drunk men my mom brought home, but those were the nights I made Kayla sleep with me. I would lay there and hear my mom sharing her body with total creeps and it was disgusting. The walls were like paper in that trailer. If there weren’t strange men in our home, mom was gone and didn’t care what happened at home. My old man wasn’t the only man to beat on my mom, and I remembered sitting on the front porch holding Kayla as random men were walked out of our house in handcuffs, but my mom always saw herself as the only victim in life. Mom had no excuse. She came from a good family in Charleston, but she alienated us from them. Instead of living close to people that loved us, we lived around my old man’s family, and they were all pieces of shit. Even his mother was a nasty bitch, and her husband was even worse.
Natalie didn’t have a job, but that helped me tremendously because she watched Kayla for me and did most of my homework. Memories of her laugh and her teasing put a small smile on my face as they danced around in my head. Those were the memories I hung onto for dear life.
I looked back down at my shaving kit then back to the mirror. I was afraid of what I would see if I shaved my beard. Would I see that love-struck little boy that looked at Natalie with stars in his eyes and hope for a future, or would I see the young soldier that was weighed down with grief and guilt? The young man that felt responsible for the death of the girl next door?
I didn’t especially like my beard. It itched at times, and I hated grooming it and thought it would just be easier to shave every day. The beard hid the dimples, the ones Natalie teased me about, but she loved them. She was an innocent and smart girl, and I never suspected she was capable of that level of betrayal.
I hadn’t spoken to Creed and decided against it. If I received a certified letter, I’d get it when I returned. It wasn’t Creed’s business, and the investigation and lawsuit would be handled privately. I would bury those people from my past. An investigation was already done, and I was at work during her estimated time of death. I may not have been there when she took her last breath, but I was ultimately responsible. That was already established, and I took responsibility, but I sure as hell wasn’t giving that family a damn dime. I would never give anyone on that mountain anything, they’d have to pry it from my cold dead hands.
That was what gave me the motivation I needed to make a few phone calls. Ones that would eventually force me to go back to that hellhole and face my past and Natalie’s death.