10. Res
10
Res
T he tricky part about compiling a bunch of Sovereigns who once championed Raphael Holione as the next Oracle is that I don’t want to get the ones who have completely deconstructed from the Sovereignty. I don’t want to give any Sovereigns who might listen ideas about leaving because I don’t want to dismantle it. But I do want to give the right Sovereigns the idea that their current Oracle is a false prophet; that their grievances with their organization can be directly attributed to the man in charge because he’s not ordained by their god.
Normally, I don’t put so much thought into it when I choose people to platform on High Demand as long as their hearts are in the right place and they aren’t bigots. I don’t typically police where they decide to fall when it comes to the issue of religion for themselves. Some have disavowed all religion and spirituality. Some are agnostic. Some go on to join other religions, sometimes even other cults. But I need a very specific type of person if this plan is going to work.
I spend just about every waking moment in the office Jaxson gave me, going over the portfolios of the dozens and dozens of former Sovereigns who supported Raphael that remain alive. It’s tedious and time-consuming work. But it’s challenging and takes me using all the knowledge I learned about behavioral psychology and even some sociology to pick out the best candidates.
By the time I look up from my work, satisfied with the candidates I picked, I realize that I’ve been cooped up in this office for days. Five to be exact. I’ve only taken breaks to sleep on the futon couch for a couple of hours a day and to take a shower a couple of times. I’m surprised Jaxson hasn’t dragged me out of here already or at least come to bother me about my progress.
I find him in the first place that I look after I take another shower: in his office, with his shirt unbuttoned and his sleeves rolled up, looking as disheveled as I was just twenty or so minutes ago.
“What are you doing?” I ask, going over to his desk to see what he’s looking over before he can answer.
It’s a bunch of numbers and financials.
“Well, would you look at that? A rich man actually doing his own work,” I say, because in the time I’ve known him, I’ve never actually seen him work, even though he apparently owns, manages, and invests in several commercial real estate properties around the country.
As far as I know, Shelly is the one who deals with all the financials, and Jaxson has a bunch of people loyal to him that he’s hired to handle most other business dealings. He just gets a check every month and whatever remains of the profit every year after he hands out huge bonuses. That is, if Shelly didn’t lie to me about that before I knew she was spying on me for Jaxson.
“I’m not actually,” he replies. “At least, not that kind of work. ”
“Then what is it?” I ask, trying to see if I can glean anything from the papers spread out in front of him. But it’s little more than a bunch of printed-out spreadsheets and a collection of what looks like monetary transactions.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” Jaxson says. “But now that you’re out of your cave, you can tell your sister-in-law to come by.”
“Abigail?” I state. “Wh—”
I cut myself off. There’s only one thing Jaxson has anything to do with that concerns Abigail.
David’s body.
I mentioned to him what she wanted the morning after my parents’ funeral when we were lying in bed, cocooned under the comforters in our own little world. After that, I’d honestly forgotten about it, so consumed with coming up with a viable plan to discredit Jaxson’s father. Apparently, Jaxson hadn’t.
“Right,” I say instead, taking out my phone to call her right then and there.
I tell her that I want to talk to her about what to do with David’s body, and I want to talk to her face to face. She arrives promptly twenty minutes later. Jaxson says nothing as he leads Abigail and me down into his survival bunker, the one that’s a cover for his little torture and murder dungeon, his altar, even further below. But rather than going to his altar, he directs us to a large walk-in refrigerator, filled with all sorts of preserved, cured, and vacuum-sealed meats. And in the middle of it lies a body on a table under a sheet.
“Is that…?” Abigail trails off.
“Your dead husband,” Jaxson confirms.
Abigail makes her way to the side of the table. She looks not at Jaxson but at me for approval. I nod, and the next thing I know, she uncovers David’s face.
It’s terribly burnt and scarred to the point of being unrecognizable. It’s a wonder they managed to recover a body and not just ash. But even still, I somehow recognize him. I recognize that this body is my brother. Used to be my brother? Is the remains of my brother. I can see that smug smirk I so despised on his charred lips. I can see that stupid charming smile that pissed me off even though I didn’t know why.
My heart clenches, and suddenly it’s not a burnt-beyond-recognition body that I see. It’s a living, talking, breathing man. Towering over me as a child. Poking his cock into my lips, unsympathetic as I rubbed my wet and red eyes because I just wanted him to leave me alone on my birthday. His fingers stroking my clit and feeling confused when I was even younger because I didn’t know what the sensations were that he was making me feel. Just that I didn’t want to know.
“Lauressa.”
Jaxson’s voice pulls me out of my head. His hand in mine grounds me here in reality.
“Are you here with me again?” he asks.
I shake my head and mutter, “Yeah,” before looking back to where Abigail is, looking down at David’s body with furrowed eyes.
“What are you thinking?” I ask.
“I’m thinking,” she begins, “that we’re going to need some axes. And a fire pit. And lots of wood.”
Later that evening, well after night has fallen, we’re huddled up in coats behind Jaxson’s mansion. Well, Abigail and I are huddled up in coats. Jaxson is standing out in thirty-degree weather in only trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, like the coldblooded northerner he is. Assembled with us are three axes and a wicked sharp machete. Behind us is a roaring fire pit.
Abigail has asked no questions so far about how Jaxson was able to get David’s body. She only nods when he informs her that she should probably go ahead and start the official process of getting the body they left in place of David’s cremated. Her lack of questions makes me have questions, but like Abigail, if she has any, I refrain from asking.
“Now what?” I ask.
Abigail picks up two axes and hands one to me before nodding her head to the body.
“Want dibs on the honors?” she asks me.
“He was your piece-of-shit husband,” I say.
“And I wasn’t the one who had a flashback after his body was uncovered,” Abigail says, proving that once again I’ve underestimated my sister-in-law.
I scan over David’s deformed body. Looking at his body like this—seeing his flesh as a literal burnt husk of the terrible man he used to be—makes me realize he was just a man. Blood and flesh and meat just like anyone else. And now he’s dead. And he has no power over me. And like I was helpless to stop him from violating me as a child, he’s helpless to stop me now. Helpless to stop me from committing what most would see as a violation of the dead. Because the dead aren’t here to defend themselves.
They also aren’t here to visit any possible retribution.
I huff a laugh.
Fuck the dead.
“Any part you want for yourself?” I ask.
Abigail shakes her head.
I drop the axe and pick up the machete. Then I approach the body and grab onto my brother’s shriveled-up and burnt penis. It’s a wonder any part of it survived. Then I take the machete and slice it up in one swoop.
Abigail lets out a whoop and raises her axe, cheering me on as I walk over to the fire pit and drop the appendage into the fire. The fire flares as it burns the already burnt flesh to char.
Abigail lets out a shout as she turns to the body and chops my brother’s unrecognizable face in half. I join her and whack his face with the machete. We alternate chopping up his face until it’s in pieces. While Abigail grabs a chunk of the disfigured face and throws it in the pit, I move on to other parts of the husk. I sever his entire right hand before proceeding to chop off all his fingers in a couple of imprecise whacks, letting out a loud scream each time.
Abigail comes back from watching the first piece she dropped burn and proceeds to whack at the body again, this time going for his chest.
We eventually decide to finish chopping the body into as many manageable pieces as we can first. We run into a little trouble with the thigh, though. Neither Abigail nor I can work up enough force to cut through the remaining flesh and bones in the thighs.
I turn to Jaxson, who has thus far been content watching Abigail and me with his arms crossed. I hold out my machete to him.
“Do it for us,” I demand, feeling drunk on the catharsis of chopping my brother’s body to pieces so far.
Jaxson raises an eyebrow.
I roll my eyes and pout my lips as I whine, “Please.”
He walks past me without taking the machete. Instead, he picks up one of the axes, tosses it in his hands to test the weight, and then, unceremoniously, whacks through the thigh and femur bone in one blow.
Abigail and I whoop in excitement and egg him on to cut each half into two more pieces before moving to the other thigh.
It takes a little while longer to chop up the body, but eventually, we end up with a pile of my brother's body parts between us while Abigail and I make a game of tossing pieces into the roaring firepit and seeing who can make the flames grow bigger with each toss.
“That,” I say as I pick through the few remaining chopped-up body parts to find a good piece to toss, “was surprisingly cathartic.”
“More cathartic than killing him in the first place?” Abigail asks as she tosses a finger into the pit.
“Can’t say I never dreamt of it,” I say, continuing to deny Abigail’s suspicions.
“You can stop denying it,” Abigail says, tone exasperated. “I know the two of you did it. You can admit it. ”
“If you’re so sure that we did, you know very well that we couldn’t,” I say, finding a suitable piece. Based on the size and precision of the cut, it's a piece of the thigh. I toss it back and forth between my hands.
“But you can get your boyfriend to steal a dead body and have it replaced with a false body so we can chop it into pieces and play a sick game of toss with it?” Abigail asks.
“What are you going to do? Tell someone? This is your crime. We’re just conspirators at best,” I tease. Then, “For someone who thinks we’re murderers, you sure are comfortable with it.”
Abigail shrugs. “They taught us growing up that adulterers and fornicators should be flogged to death, thieves should be enslaved until they pay off their debt, and cities should be burned for homosexuality. They never told us what should happen to child abusers.”
“Because it’s not an explicit crime in the Bible. Hard to make it a crime when they were marrying off twelve-year-olds,” I mutter.
“Were they really?” Abigail asks as she tosses another piece of David’s body in the fire. “They didn’t teach us that in Sunday school.”
“There’s a lot they didn’t teach us in Sunday school.”
“Well,” Abigail declares as she tosses another piece of my brother into the fire, “as far as I’m concerned, you corrected an oversight. Abusers should be burned at a stake or something. And then their bodies chopped up by their victims and turned to ash.”
“It has to be biblical,” I remind her. “So we should burn them on a cross and then do the other stuff. ”
Abigail laughs as she grabs another piece, the final piece, of David’s body.
“Wanna do the honors?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I got the first piece. You get the last.”
Abigail nods and tosses the piece into the flames. It flares once more before settling down into a steady flame.
“Alright,” Abigail says. “This is as much winter weather as I can take.”
“You’re staying the night, right? You shouldn’t be on the road this late,” I say.
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Abigail says as she starts to make her way to the house. “Ugh. I wonder if there’s some late-night barbecue open somewhere. All that burnt flesh got me wanting some smoked brisket.”
When she’s gone, I look at Jaxson, who’s been mostly silent through this entire ordeal.
I lean up and kiss him on the cheek before saying, “Thank you. For doing this. For Abigail.”
“I didn’t do it for any altruistic reasons,” he says. “Not even for you.”
“Oh trust me. I’m aware of that,” I say, because he offered Abigail the opportunity to get the body long before I told him that’s what she wanted.
He has an interest in Abigail. Not the obsessive interest he had in me when we first met, but like a potentially useful pawn that he can use in the future. The way he sees Magdalene or Shelly or J or a member of his security team. He only does acts of kindness as far as they can benefit him in the future. The question is, what’s his plan for Abigail?
“I’ll kill you if you hurt her or my future niece,” I warn.
Jaxson chuckles as he pulls my head into his chest so he can bury his head in my hair.
“You would try,” he says patronizingly.
“I mean it!” I declare, knowing full well I wouldn’t be able to kill him even if I tried with all my might.
“Don’t worry. Any plans I have for your sister-in-law involve keeping her alive so long as she doesn’t do anything to harm you.”
“Can I know exactly what those plans are?” I ask.
Jaxson doesn’t answer, which is answer enough. He’s not going to tell me.
Rather than try to change his mind, I look back to the fire, watching as it starts to die down now that it’s consumed the rest of my brother’s body with nothing left to feed it.
It’s final. There’s nothing of my brother that remains. Just ash that Jaxson’s men are going to have discarded in the morning, and then nothing.
“It’s almost unfair,” I say out loud. “He gets to be dead. In hell, if Loving Eden’s teachings were true, but probably just like an eternal sleep. Nothingness. And yet I have to live with what he did. I have to live with all the things he ruined for me.”
“What things did he ruin for you?”
I shrug. “I can’ t remember.”
“You can’t remember what he did. You do remember the things you hate because of him. You remembered why you hated the family fun center. What else do you remember hating because of him?”
Jaxson’s right. I don’t exactly remember the abuse in detail—just bits and pieces that I’ve been able to recall. But not everything that he did. I do remember things that I hated, simply citing that my brother ruined them. Those things I can recall.
“Ferris wheels,” I say instantly, vividly remembering getting on one with him as a child, and the next thing I remember is getting off and never wanting to ride one again. “Easter.”
“Loving Eden celebrated Easter?” Jaxson asked.
“A heavily modified version of it. We didn’t look for eggs. We looked for pieces of a doll that looked like Jesus, and the first one to collect all the pieces of the body got to be the disciple to reveal that he has risen,” I say with a laugh.
Jaxson chuckles. “They thought collecting body parts was better than collecting chocolate eggs?”
“The same way they thought a Hell House was a viable alternative to a haunted house on Halloween,” I say. Then I ask, “Does the Sovereignty celebrate Easter?”
“They believe the resurrection is symbolic. A prophecy of the next Oracle being chosen. So no,” Jaxson answers.
“I think my brother just ruined any type of hide-and-seek and tag for me in general. I was willing to do the hunting, but never the hiding.”
“What else? ”
“The stars,” I whisper. “There was a camping trip with Loving Eden. It was cold. We shared a really large sleeping bag when we didn’t have enough since we were siblings. He did something while I lay there wishing the stars would come get me and carry me away. I’ve been pissed at them ever since for leaving me there.”
Jaxson is silent for a long time before finally saying, “The stars are out tonight.”
I’m very well aware. The stars are always bright and visible here. I despise it.
Suddenly, Jaxson has me flat on my back. I get one glimpse of the stars in the sky before closing my eyes like I always do when they’re in my view.
“Look at the stars,” Jaxson commands me.
“No,” I snap, knowing that won’t be the end of it.
“Open. Them,” he warns.
“I just told you why I hate looking at them, and the first thing you do is make me?” I snap. “Tell me how you’re better than my brother again.”
“If I have to ask again, I’ll tie your hands behind your back and tape your eyes open to force you to look,” Jaxson says.
I open my eyes, but not to immediately look at the stars in the sky. First, I glare viciously at Jaxson because how dare he, and then I force myself to look at the stars.
Instantly, I feel what I always feel when I look at the stars build up in me. Despair and dismay of something I was never sure of but now know is my brother’s abuse. Anger that I can’t be up there with them. Finally, resignation of the terrible thing happening to me, though I could never recall what.
Suddenly, I’m back there. In my seven or eight-year-old body, sharing a sleeping bag with my brother as he takes my hand and slips it into his underwear. Forces me to touch his cock until he—
A slap to my suddenly bare fucking cunt snaps me back to the present. In the short time my mind got lost, Jaxson has managed to get my jeans and underwear off and spread my legs, exposing my cunt to him, illuminated by the fire pit behind us. The fire pit that makes this cold winter night bearable, even now that I’m naked from the waist down.
“Stay with me,” he says. “You understand?”
“Okay,” I say in a quiet voice.
“Look at the stars,” he directs.
I look back up at them again, and before I even think about slipping away again, the sharp sting of Jaxson slapping my cunt brings me back. The pain stings and is accompanied by a hint of pleasure. But nothing that overcomes my fear of looking at the stars above me. I feel my body start to shake and tears come to my eyes as I’m forced to look. Even though I know it’s irrational. Even though I rationally know that what I’m really afraid of, what I really hate, isn’t the stars at all.
Jaxson’s fingers stroke up and down my cunt, and my trembling is no longer just from looking at the stars as pleasure starts to zing through me. But I can’t even focus on enjoying it because being forced to look up at the stars is detracting from it .
When Jaxson slips two of his fingers inside me, I decide to fuck looking at the stars. Fuck it for ruining my pleasure. I want to enjoy this. So when I feel myself coming close to an orgasm, I close my eyes so I can fully enjoy it, only for Jaxson to suddenly stop.
I snap my eyes open and snap, “Why did you stop?”
“I didn’t tell you to stop looking at the stars, did I?” he asks.
“Jaxson.”
“Look at the stars,” he orders again.
I huff and look up at the stars again, trying to control the irrational fear I have while looking at them. Jaxson starts to pump my cunt with two of his fingers again, slowly working me up to an orgasm again. But yet again, right as I’m about to come, I can’t bring myself to look at the stars while doing it, and Jaxson promptly stops, waiting until I open my eyes and look back at the bright, clear, starry sky, and I come all the way back down to start fucking me again.
The third time, I get close. But as soon as I do, I have to rip my eyes away. Because it suddenly feels not like pleasure from a man that, beyond all reason, I’ve learned to trust, but like I’m seven and lying next to my brother, and suddenly that pleasure feels like a violation, and I don’t want to come. I won’t. And the only way to stop it is to close my eyes and pretend—
Jaxson stops. Waits for me to come down. Waits for me to open my eyes. Inserts his fingers again.
By the sixth time I’ve turned my gaze from the stars above, Jaxson’s mouth has joined the assault on my cunt, and I’m so wound up tight it’s painful. It feels like I might die if I don’t come. But I can’t. I won’t. I —
“What are you afraid of?” Jaxson demands, calm as ever, but I can tell there’s a bit of underlying frustration. “Your brother is dead and gone. Burnt to ashes behind us. He can never hurt you again. So why are you so afraid?”
He doesn’t give me a chance to answer, simply shoving two fingers inside me again, causing me to let out a choked sob from the denial and the irrational fear I feel as I look up at the stars. But Jaxson has given me something to consider. Why? Why am I afraid? Why is my brother’s body burnt to ashes in a fiery pit behind us, and I’m still so afraid of feeling like I’m being violated by him? He’s dead and ashes, and yet I’m still keeping him alive in my head.
It's irrational. It makes no sense. I can’t let it have power over me.
I won’t.
So despite my irrational fear, despite my terror, despite feeling seven years old and helpless, when I feel myself about to come this time, I keep my eyes on the stars. And when I feel like I want to close my eyes again, I don’t. I bite my lip so hard in concentration that it bleeds.
I finally come, literally seeing stars. I let out a sob as my body arches up and off the ground while Jaxson fucks me through my orgasm. I sob from the intense pleasure that overtakes me. From the intense fear that overtakes me. From the feeling of despair and violation.
Only to remember that I’m not seven and helpless. That the one who made me feel that way is still burnt ash in the fire behind us.
“He’s not here,” I chant to myself. “I’m not there. ”
“No. You’re not there. You’re here. With me,” Jaxson mutters to me. “And what did I promise you?”
“You promised… You promised you’d protect me.”
“Exactly. Even from your own fears. The only thing you should fear is me. No fear should keep you from pleasing me,” he growls to me, jealous like the god he claims to be.
He spreads my legs wider as he settles between them, sliding his cock into the place his fingers vacated.
“Keep looking at the stars,” he orders.
A sob escapes me as he begins his relentless thrusting into my cunt. An orgasm builds in me. My toes curl. My body trembles. I keep looking at the stars, even though my heart is practically racing out of my chest as I unconsciously try to hold back my orgasm again. But there’s nothing to be afraid of. My brother was ash the first time Jaxson made me come while looking at the stars, and he still will be after this second time.
Finally, I relax. As much as I can with my limbs involuntarily twitching and my stomach clenching as a knot of pleasure winds up tight inside me. Jaxson’s hand joins where his cock fucks into me. And after just one stroke, I see stars—both literally and figuratively—as I come, dragging Jaxson’s own orgasm from him at the same time. More sobs escape me in between my moans. But the fear is less than before as I feel Jaxson’s cock pulse in me. His groans of pleasure as he comes and continues to fuck into me, somehow still hard.
Another orgasm is building in me, but this time I don’t fight it. This time, I use my hands to touch Jaxson's body. His hard muscles. His pecs under his shirt. Only stopping to get rid of his shirt and then get rid of both my coat, sweater, and bra. Both from the danger of overheating from the exertion but also from the need to feel Jaxson’s body against mine. So I’ll remember the feeling of his skin against me as I look at the stars. The sound of his grunts in my ear. The smell of us mingled together. The taste of his skin when I lick the side of his face. I experience all of him as I come again, eyes on the stars, the fear still mingled with the pleasure. But also Jaxson. The feeling of his hot come spurting in me as my orgasm drags yet another from his cock.
As long as Jaxson is with me, I have nothing to fear. Nothing can get to me without going through him first.