34. Jaxson
34
Jaxson
L auressa writhes under me. Body flushed red. Hands gripping my arms tight. Legs spread. Toes curled. Half aborted moans escape her as she fights for the breath my cock continues to steal away.
“Jaxson,” she moans my name, lifting her hips to meet my thrusts.
Fuck, I will never get tired of hearing her moan my name when she’s like this. It’s almost enough to make me come in her right now. But I have some control left. Enough to hold myself off as I reach between her legs and tap lightly on her clit.
Lauressa keens, arching upward and then folding in on herself as her orgasm over takes her. Her walls clenching around my cock, leeching me of the final vestiges of my control. I let out a stuttered groan as I come in her for the fifth time today.
I really did wait too long to finally claim her as mine. I can’t get enough of her now that I’ve had her. I can’t focus on anything else. It’s going to be a while before I can adjust and reprioritize. But it’s hard to prioritize around Lauressa when she is the top priority.
I’m careful not to crush her as I gaze down at her, soaking in the sight of her in the afterglow of sex. I run a hand through her dark hair and a lazy smile comes to her lips as she closes her eyes and relaxes. I pull out of her, deciding to let her rest. I’ve worn her out.
Feeling a little worn myself, I decide we both could probably do with some food.
“I’m going to order us food. Anything in particular you want?” I ask her
“It’s Christmas. Even if I did, I don’t have that many choices. The only places open are all the Chinese food spots. But no. I’m going to my parents’ house for Christmas dinner. I won’t hear the end of it if I don’t show up, and I need to go home to shower and change.” Lauressa yawns and adds sleepily, “Right after this nap.”
“I’m not opposed to that.”
“To the nap or me going to dinner with my parents.”
“Us going to dinner.”
“Well too bad. I’m going to take a nap,” Lauressa says with a laugh. She goes silent, and I assume she fell asleep just that quickly. But then she says, “Wait. Us? Who is us?”
“You and I,” I say simply.
“You and I?”
“Yes. You and I going to your family’s Christmas dinner. Any special traditions that I should be aware of and will need to participate in? Should I bring a gift?”
“You’re not going,” Lauressa insists. “I told you. My mother has a rule. Unless it’s serious, she doesn’t want to know anything about my relationships or want me to bring him home.”
“Good thing I’m planning to marry you one day. Lauressa Devine. Has a nice ring to it. ”
“Sounds terrible,” Lauressa says, just to be contradictory as always.
“We’re seriously dating. That should satisfy your mother’s rule.”
“We’re not dating. I’m letting you have sex with me because you won’t give me a choice otherwise.”
She’s right. I won’t. But I find this banal banter with Lauressa entertaining.
“For someone who doesn’t have a choice, you were sure an active participant when you twisted your hips on my cock earlier and—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Lauressa says, her already rosy cheeks turning redder as she throws an arm over her eyes like it will stop me from seeing her shame.
“Language, Lauressa.” Then, “You’re not ashamed of me. Are you, Snow White?”
“Extremely.”
“Best find a way to handle it then. Because I’m either going with you, or I’m showing up. Either way, your family is going to know that I’ve made you mine tonight.”
Lauressa is either too sleepy to argue or understands the futility in doing so. Regardless, she doesn’t argue with me about it and succumbs to sleep instead.
Hours later as we’re pulling up to her parents’ house, Lauressa says, “Please don’t do anything to start an argument or stir trouble. I just want to get through family dinner and go home.”
“I’ve spent my entire life not stirring trouble for the Sovereignty. I can navigate one dinner,” I assure her .
“Excuse me for doubting you when the only thing you ever do is argue with and against me.”
I don’t respond. I don’t have a defense. She’s right. I do spend an inordinate amount of time arguing with her. At least, until I tire of it and force her to see my way. But I don’t make a habit of showing my weakness to anyone. Especially not Lauressa, who I have no doubt will exploit it like she has many times since we’ve met.
Lauressa has a key to her parents’ house and lets us in. Her brother and his wife are already there along with his wife’s parents. Also, there is Loving Eden’s Bishop, his wife, and their young daughter, apparently conceived after years of infertility. It’s a story Bishop Mavis likes to tell any time he has a chance. Likening him and his wife to Abraham and Sarah. I wonder if he likens his mistress and their son, who live in Perry, to Hagar and Ishmael. Jacob is sitting in an armchair, watching the football game.
“Hey,” Lauressa says. She couldn’t sound more unenthusiastic about this if she tried.
“Hello, Res,” Jacob says with a quick glance in her direction before he does a doubletake and looks directly at me. “Jaxson.”
“Jacob,” I nod.
“His family is back in Chicago, and he didn’t have anywhere to go for Christmas, so I invited him here,” Lauressa lies easily.
David laughs and says, “Sure. You bring a man home for Christmas for the first time ever, and it’s just because he had nowhere else to go. I’m sure that was it.”
Lauressa glares at her brother. But before she can open her mouth, her father speaks .
“The more the merrier,” Jacob says approvingly. He smirks at me and says, “Never imagined she’d find a man to tame that mouth and attitude. You’ve restored hope in me that I might actually walk her down the aisle one day.”
“We’re not dating. He’s just a friend. One Humanity has been working with the Sovereignty,” Lauressa grumbles.
For once, I don’t argue with her. The last thing I’m going to do is participate in her father’s petty humiliation and disrespect of Lauressa. Even if I did agree with him.
“I’m happy to join you,” I say instead.
Lauressa’s mother comes out of the kitchen to greet her, only to stop short upon seeing me.
“Mr. Devine,” she says. “My husband must have invited you.”
“Lauressa did,” I correct.
“Oh,” she says and then looks at Lauressa.
Lauressa rolls her eyes. “He’s a friend.”
The rest of her family may be willing to let that go, but her mother isn’t.
“Well, regardless. Good you’re here,” she says. “Come help me with this gravy. You know I can’t make it like yours. Abby,” she says, calling David’s wife. “Why don’t you join us? Maybe you can figure out what it is that Res is doing that I’m not.”
Abby immediately heads to the kitchen but Lauressa protests and says, “I was actually hoping to watch the game.”
I’ve watched Lauressa through my camera feed of her apartment enough to know that she doesn’t watch football. Her mother must know that too because she tells her that she can watch the highlights later and walks off, expecting her daughter to follow along.
Lauressa rolls her eyes but goes to follow. But not before whispering to me, “Behave.”
“Always, Snow White,” I assure.
I sit in the space that Abigail vacated next to David only for my phone to vibrate. A burner phone. A heavily encrypted phone that gets only communications from my security and spies. I silence it. I’ll deal with it later. Except, it vibrates again almost immediately after. I don’t bother excusing myself. Everyone else is too engrossed in the game to care.
I go outside to take the call and as soon as I answer, I say, “This better be good.”
“It’s far from good. But definitely important,” Abner says.
The fact that it’s Abner calling and that he called again when I didn’t answer is enough for me to believe him.
“What?” I ask.
“You know that case you sent me about that brother and his sister who hates him. I think she may have good reason for hating him. I’m sending it over to you. It’s… It’s really fucked up,” Abner finally settles on.
“What is it?”
“I’m sending it to you now,” he says. “But whatever interest you have in Lauressa Kleen, don’t let it make you do anything stupid when you see this.”
Abner hangs up the phone, and already there is a file dropped into the dark web cloud servers on the phone .
I open the file to a gallery of pictures.
I’m incandescent with fury just from the thumbnails, holding the phone so tightly I almost crush it.
I enlarge the photos and swipe through them. My vision becoming redder and redder the more I scroll through them.
Something J said to me the day I took him in comes to mind.
“David is a creep. All those church fuckers are.”
It wasn’t the last time he called them creeps, particularly David Kleen.
I use my main phone to call J, who is having Christmas with some friends he met three weeks ago.
As soon as he picks up, I snap, “What exactly do you mean when you call David Kleen a creep?”
“Jaxson?” J asks. “What’s—”
“Just answer the question.”
“Exactly what it means. He’s a creep.”
“What kind of creep?”
“A creep who likes touching little girls. Or people he thinks are girls anyway.”
“Has he—”
“He tried. Once. The beating my dad gave me for punching him in the balls was worth it,” J says like it’s a fond memory. Then he gets serious and asks, “Why?”
“Do you know anyone else he’s tried that with?”
“No. But guys like him? They do it once? They either have done or will do it again. So. He’s a creep,” J says in a way that makes me sure he’s shrugging. “Why all of a sudden—"
“Nothing. That’s all I needed,” I say and hang up the phone.
I look back at my burner, hoping the images have changed. Hoping I’ve imagined the images of Lauressa’s brother sexually abusing her as a child.
Fuck.
She can’t be more than five in some of these. Does she know? Does she even remember it? Is that why she’s so cryptic whenever I’ve asked why she hates her brother? Does she not want to talk about it?
None of that matters. All that matters is that I’m going back in that house to carve her brother into pieces like a god damn holiday ham while he screams and cries in pain and terror like his sister probably did when he abused her. I open the door to go back inside. Fully intent on snatching David out of his seat, dragging him to my car—witnesses be damned—and taking him straight to my altar.
Lauressa is standing on the other side when I open it.
“There you are,” she says. “Dad said you went outside to take a call and that you’d been gone for a while. Everything okay?”
Everything is the furthest from okay that it possibly can be. But seeing Lauressa temporarily cools my rage. Allows me to reign my temper back in. Allows me to rise above my emotions and think clearly about the best course of action. Ironic, considering Lauressa is usually the reason I lose control.
I could confront her brother, forcing her to confront his abuse. I could drag him out of this house and to my altar and torture him for hours. But not only would that draw attention to me and the Sovereignty, and no doubt make it up to my father, but also to have that knowledge revealed to her in such an unexpected way in mixed company would humiliate Lauressa. She’d be devastated. Someone who cares so much and wants so much to see the decency in people, despite them having shown her time and time again that they aren’t worth it, can only be devastated by something like this.
No matter how this goes down, it’s going to end with me torturing her brother to a very painful death. To hell with allowing him to live in suffering. But Lauressa deserves to learn about this in private. Away from the scrutiny of her family, who will no doubt try to downplay this revelation and make excuses if their past track record is to be believed.
“Jaxson?” Lauressa repeats.
“I’m fine,” I mutter, leaning down to peck her on the lips, her family watching us be damned.
“J—”
I place my finger on her lips.
“No arguing. Remember?” I ask.
She frowns, but lets it go.
******
It takes every bullshit lecture, every bullshit proverb, every bullshit analogy about not letting emotions dictate me and “rising into the emotional apathy of the Supreme Force,” to get through dinner without causing an incident. It also takes a fair amount of daydreaming about what I’m going to do to David for me to smile and not glare death at him when he speaks to me. I think about how I’m going to start at his toes and fingers and cut him up one small piece at a time. Then I’ll grind him all up and send the ground meat of his body to my father to feed his pigs. Maybe Lauressa will help since she hates him so much anyway.
We get through dinner and sit in the living room with wine and sparkling cider for Bishop Mavis’s daughter.
“You bought that dry stuff, didn’t you?” Lauressa asks with a frown. “I’ll drink the sweet cider like a child, thank you.”
“I’ll take some too,” I add, holding out my cup.
“This is actually perfect,” David suddenly says, holding his wine glass and holding his wife’s hand as she clutches her drink. Also cider.
I narrow my eyes. There’s no way.
“Abigail and I have another Christmas present for the family,” David announces. “But it won’t be here until the end of July. Maybe even beginning of August.”
Lauressa’s mother and David’s wife’s mother let out identical shouts of excitement, instantly realizing what’s going on. Jacob and Bishop Mavis’s wife realize it next, while the bishop himself is still confused.
“She’s pregnant, honey!” Bishop Mavis’s wife exclaims while Lauressa’s mother gets up to hug David and Abigail.
While everyone celebrates, the only thing I can think is that David is going to have free reign over a child. A child he might very well hurt like he hurt Lauressa, while making Lauressa think she was crazy for hating him like she didn’t have a good reason. A child he might hurt just like he might have hurt many more. Who the hell knows? Does he have more pictures of other little children being abused by him somewhere? Of children he ministers as the Deacon of Youth at Loving Eden?
“Jaxson,” Lauressa says while everyone is distracted. “Can we talk in my room, real quick?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer, knowing that I’ll follow.
When we arrive in her old bedroom, I take a cursory look around, and realize this was where she was when we spoke for the first time over video call.
Lauressa doesn’t close the door all the way, but closes it enough so that we have some privacy.
“What’s your problem? You’ve been acting like you want to take someone to that damn altar of yours since you took that call? Going to tell me what’s going on or does it have nothing to do with me?” she asks.
I should say that I’ll tell her when we get home. Where she can have her breakdown in peace and away from the prying eyes that might very well judge her for it before they care about helping her. But what little control and restraint I have left is being used to keep myself from kidnapping her brother in full view of nine witnesses.
I take the burner phone out of my pocket, open the photos Abner sent me, and hand Lauressa the phone.
“What’s th—”
Lauressa swipes through the phone, eyebrows furrowing in confusion before they loosen and her mouth falls open in consternation.
“Lauressa,” I begin.
“Jaxson,” she whispers. “Please tell me these are some kind of sick AI generated images that you’re using to try to manipulate me. ”
“I’m a cruel, depraved man, Snow White. But there are lines even my cruelty and depravity won’t cross,” I state.
“I—” Lauressa chokes on the rest of her words, body trembling as she’s overcome with the very devastation I knew she would be overcome with.
“Lauressa, I’m going to handle it. You know I am,” I promise.
“No,” she snarls, sounding like something out of the horror movies she made me watch with her leading up to Halloween. “I’m going to handle it. Right. Fucking. Now.”
She stomps out the room, evidence of her brother’s transgressions against her in hand.