31. Res
31
Res
T wo and a half months ago if Jaxson had made me the offer he just did, I would have told him to go fuck himself. Or laughed in his face. Or… something derisive to get a reaction out of him. Or anything to make me feel like I put up a good fight before he inevitably got the best of me in some way.
Today?
Today, I actually consider what he says. Not like imagining with shock or horror or disgust. But pondering it like agreeing to join the fucking Sovereignty for him is actually a legitimate choice on the table. Like it’s a choice that I could make under just the right circumstance when two and half months ago, I would have chosen death first. Maybe even three weeks ago, I would have chosen death.
But something has changed in me since three weeks ago. Or maybe it was changing and three weeks ago I realized it. Or even maybe it was always there and I never noticed because I’d never been put in the circumstance to notice it until Jaxson.
Regardless, the last three weeks probably count as some of the worst weeks of my life. Without Jaxson to be the embodiment of everything I hate, without him to be my antagonist, without him to have to resist and fight back against, I’m left with my own thoughts, reflections, and intrusive thoughts.
It’s the last place I want to be. So I’ve been working overtime at work. So much that I don’t have any work to do right now. I’m so far ahead of all my deadlines that I’ve started helping Taina with some of her managerial tasks. I’ve also started taking interviews for High Demand again, even though I won’t get around to posting or editing any of them for months to come. I’m at One Humanity every day after work and on weekends. I’ve turned into the workaholic that I’ve always said I don’t have the desire to be.
When I don’t have work to do, I binge watch anything and everything I can on all the streaming platforms I have. Needless to say, documentaries on cults and high demand religions are not one of the things I binge.
It’s still not enough.
At some point, there’s no work to be done. At some point, I have to rest. When I do, I have to sit with the fact that I’m not as different from Jaxson as I purport myself to be. That when I told him not to put me on a pedestal, the truth was I was already on one of my own making. Jaxson’s just been trying to knock me down a notch or two. To bring me to his level of hell and depravity. Because deep down, his level is where I want to be.
I want to have the control and power Jaxson does. I want the influence. I want the money. I want to be as cruel and ruthless as he is. Just not for my own sake. I want to be the person who is as ruthless, obstinate, and unyielding in my zeal to help and protect others as the people who usually have those qualities are in order to hurt.
It's even more irksome to have that realization and then see Jaxson today. For him to make sense and put a voice to things that I can’t argue against. For him to say things and not be able to accuse him of putting ideas in my head because the ideas are already there. Just simmering around in my head, threatening to boil and then explode. Jaxson just observed it.
When Jaxson takes the cart of chicken out to the grill, I quickly busy myself with cleaning our station properly and then making rounds to the other stations to taste food, to suggest seasonings, to figure out how to make do with what we have available.
After Jaxson comes back, I put him to work on cutting the items needed for the salad because salad can survive a few misshapen vegetables from him not being able to use a knife. Not to mention, for all that he may not know much about the kitchen, I can trust Jaxson to have some sense about it. He’ll put as much effort and zeal into doing the task as perfectly as he can manage like when he helped with the Halloween event and the coat drive.
He doesn’t try to goad me into talking again. Just silently does as I instruct. I get the feeling that it’s part of his plan to convert me. Or maybe I’m just a paranoid bitch now after everything he’s put me through these last weeks.
There’s no time to think about it as we realize it’s crunch time and everything needs to get done or the food won’t be ready in time for dinner. I make sure the chicken is on the grill; instruct someone to take the bean patties and soy patties out the freezer for the vegan burgers; start to organize the assembly line, making sure nothing will cross contaminate for the special requests we got to accommodate allergies.
Like every time I throw myself into a task, my brain shuts off everything else in service of the pressure to meet my immediate goal.
Hours fly by, and the next thing I know, most of dinner is passed out, and June is shoving a plate in my hands and putting me out the kitchen, citing that if disaster was going to strike in my domain, it would have by now. I scowl but take the plate.
Despite it being early December, it’s warm outside. Probably the final warm days for this region before the cold officially sets in for the next three months. So I decide to take advantage of it to eat outside. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one with the same idea.
David is out there, surrounded by a bunch of pre-teens and teens, including an annoyed looking J. They’re all talking and laughing, but something fiercely irritating as well as protective wells up in me.
Despite not wanting to be anywhere around my brother, I walk over and say, “What’s going on?”
David’s face reflects my irritation for just a moment before it disappears. He looks at me with a wide grin and says, “Hey, Res. In a better mood now that you’re not acting as a dictator over your kingdom?”
The children laugh at the joke.
“Been in a better mood for a while. Things went much smoother when you left,” I state. Then, “What are you guys doing?”
“Telling these guys about my adventures being the older brother to a frantic and dramatic little princess like you,” David says .
It’s supposed to be a joke. But there’s nothing funny about it.
“Oh yeah. What did you tell them?”
“You remember that time you lost your shi-Oh sorry. Lost your mind because I touched one of your dolls.”
“No. I don’t,” I reply evenly. I don’t remember a lot about my childhood actually.
“I do. It was hilarious. Mom told me to help you clean up your toys from the living room at the end of the day. I picked up your doll, and you lost it. Kept screaming how I wasn’t allowed to touch your doll. Mom had to bribe you with ice cream to get you to calm down. But after that, you always made sure to put your dolls and toys away. Never had to worry about you making a mess in the living room again,” he says, shaking his head and laughing fondly. “You’ve been a little drama queen ever since. Making big deals out of nothing. Just like today in the kitchen.”
“Or maybe it is a big deal, and you aren’t dramatic enough. Maybe you’re wrong,” I snap.
David chuckles
“Laugh a little, Res. As a matter of fact, sit down. You can tell embarrassing stories about me.” He looks at the preteens who are watching us interact with amusement and interest. For some reason, that enrages me more. “She hates me. So I know she has a bunch.”
“Don’t you have to go home and rest for church tomorrow?” I ask instead. “Getting kind of late for you. Isn’t it?”
David rolls his eyes and says to the children, “See. Dramatic. She’s acting like I need fourteen hours of beauty rest or something.”
The all giggle .
I open my mouth to snap something that I probably shouldn’t and that will likely get me in trouble.
“Lauressa. There you are,” Jaxson interrupts.
I turn around to face him standing behind me.
“Come on. There’s a bench and table over there no one is using. We can eat there,” he says and grabs my arm to drag me off to said table.
I go through the motions of eating baked beans when we’re sitting, trying to calm myself like I always have to after dealing with my brother.
“While before I might have wanted to know about your relationship with your brother for the sake of manipulating you, now I’m actually curious to know. Why do you hate your brother? I promise not to use it to manipulate you into anything,” Jaxson says.
“I didn’t lie. I really don’t know,” I mutter. “Hell, sometimes the depth of my hate for him surprises me. Definitely didn’t get better after I left home and Loving Eden.”
“You’ll be pleased to note that despite my extensive research of you—”
“Stalking,” I correct halfheartedly.
Jaxson continues without pause. “—that I never was able to uncover why you left Loving Eden.”
“Because I think it’s all bullshit. You know that.”
“Yes,” Jaxson admits. “But what was the thing that made you realize it was all nonsense and that you weren’t going to stay because of it.”
“I rather not talk about it. ”
“I told you about the lie when I was six.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m obligated to reciprocate,” I point out.
I’ve never spoken about it without anyone. Maybe because looking back on it, the whole thing was stupid. I was stupid, and despite being over it, I still have a fair amount of shame and embarrassment about it.
But I suppose, of all people, Jaxson is the one person I don’t have to worry about shame and embarrassment with, seeing as he’s done more to humiliate me than most people have. At worst, he’ll get off on it. At best… Well. There is no at best for him. Because the only other option is that he gets offended on my behalf and decides to enact blood atonement. It’s more reason for me to keep my mouth shut.
I find myself opening my mouth to tell him anyway.
“There was this boy in church. I was seventeen. He was eighteen and about to go oversees for some kind of Christian mission work before he came back to go to college. We’d secretly been dating because dating isn’t allowed at Loving Eden. It’s this bullshit courtship thing. And technically, by the time he came back from his mission in a few years, I was supposed to have been married. Which is to say, there was no way we were going to end up together in any long term capacity.
“But he was nice. And we were teenagers. And we were curious. In the end, we ended up having sex for a while. Months actually. He was going to go on his mission and no one would have known anything about it. But then I missed my period. I waited for two weeks for it to come. But it didn’t, and I didn’t know what to do. So I told my mom what had been happening. I just… I needed her help is all. But she made a big ado about it and told my dad. They told the Deacon Board who called me into a meeting and grilled me about intimate details on how many times we had sex exactly and when and where. As if I’d been keeping track,” I say with a roll of my eyes.
“If that wasn’t bad enough, they shamed me for being an “unwitting temptress and pawn of Satan” to take a good young man down a wrong path,” I parrot word for word as if I were only in front of all those adults telling intimate details about my sex life just yesterday. “Instead of defending me, said good young man lied. Told them how I pressured him. How I wouldn’t take no for an answer. Lied about me doing things with other guys. And then my parents used that as ammunition against me for why I shouldn’t have wasted my virginity on someone who didn’t really care about me. And told me that’s why I should court and all that puritanical bullshit. Suddenly, what had been a relatively good experience, a choice I made about my body and felt good about, was something traumatic.”
Even now, all these years later, an uncomfortable and shameful feeling settles in my stomach. Even though I know I didn’t do anything wrong and everyone who I thought I could trust failed me, a lump forms in my throat, trying to block the words and protect myself from scrutiny.
“My ex got off with just delaying his mission for a year under the guise of wanting to knock out a year of college first. But I had to repent. Part of that was to stand under the altar, under that stupid gold statute of Jesus on the cross and confess my sins before the believing members of the congregation. On one of the very pulpits that women aren’t even allowed to stand on except for her humiliation or on Christmas to offer up a pray of gratitude for God giving us his son.
“I stood up there, watching everyone look on in shock that I was there because they knew what it meant, and something came over me. I don’t know what to this day. But instead of tearfully repenting, I told them they could shove their fucked up rules up their hypocritical asses and fuck themselves with it and stormed right out Loving Eden down the center aisle. I went home, packed a bag, stayed with a friend from high school, and never went back. Took me a few months to realize I wasn’t going to hell for it and I wasn’t an agent of Satan, though.
“And you know the fucked up part about it all? If I’d just waited one more day, everything would have been fine. My period came that night,” I finish wryly.
Jaxson says nothing. In fact, he has that blank look on his face. A look that promises he’s going to maim and torture someone. Despite the gravity of what will happen if I can’t convince him not to, I laugh.
“Don’t you go hunting my poor ex down. We talked it over years later. He ended up leaving too. He’s a social worker now. Really making a difference. Wife. Kids. He’s not that same boy anymore. He was scared and young too. The deacons gave him a convenient scapegoat. You know as well as I do that’s how it is in these places. So maybe don’t do the blood atonement thing on him. Besides, without this whole ordeal, you would have never met me. I’d probably have been married off before I was twenty-one and never started a podcast to catch your attention and fly to Chicago to meet you.”
Jaxson smirks. “That’s where you’re wrong, Lauressa. Our meeting, was divine providence.”
“You don’t believe in divine providence,” I remind.
“No. But even I can admit there are some things beyond our control. You eventually crossing my path is one of them, Snow White. We would have always met, and you would have always been mine.”
I don’t debate with him about being his. I don’t have the energy today.
“Even if I was already happily married?”
“Yes. Because I would have made him atone for taking for himself a woman who didn’t belong to him.”
Three months ago, those words would have horrified me. Been a red flag to run—no fly on a fucking jet in the other direction. Now, they make me swoon. Because no one’s ever been willing to fight for me. Jaxson may be a depraved cultist, but he’s got that going for him.
“Of course, you would have,” I finally respond. “Is that your answer to everything?”
“Only in extreme cases.”
“I think you and I have different definitions of extreme,” I mutter.
“No. There’s just no extreme I wouldn’t go to for you. You’ll get used to it.”
I ignore him and get back on topic, “Regardless, you see why now I’m not particularly eager to join up with another cult? Because I’ll commit a blood atonement with you before I ever get married and have children in a cult that lets my daughters or sons go through that bullshit. None of it changes. No matter who’s in charge.”
“I wouldn’t let that happen either.”
“You don’t—”
“You know I don’t think like you. But you also know that I’d never do anything that jeopardized my power or control over the Sovereignty. Needless cruelty when I could just endear those who stray without hurting others with a show a mercy is more effective than fear—in a situation like this, anyway,” Jaxson adds. “Regardless. Nothing like this will happen under my rule as Oracle. Even if it’s only to keep you with me in the Sovereignty. Think of all the girls just like you who won’t have to go through that because they’ll have you to speak up for them. Like no one spoke up for you.”
I’m glad we’re out in the open. With my brother and children just yards away.
If he’d said this to me in my apartment, in his house, or anywhere private, I can’t say that I wouldn’t end up begging him to fuck me by the end of the night. Because he sees right through me. Every time, he sees through me to the heart of the matter.
It’s all part of his manipulations. The logical part of me tells me that. But the logical part also tells me that even those I let in, even my two closest friends, don’t see through me the way Jaxson does.
Still.
On principle, I open my mouth to argue but Jaxson interrupts.
“I won’t ask you to make a decision about it today. But maybe now you can see that our ideologies don’t have to make us as incompatible as you say. ”
Jaxson gets up and walks back into the center, once again leaving me to bore into the back of him as he leaves me with more things I don’t want to consider or think about in his wake.