36. Res
36
Res
J axson was right about my apartment needing to be cleaned. It wasn’t a pig stye by any means. But a good seasonal cleaning was long overdue by four or five seasons. Things like cleaning the ceiling fans. Dusting the furniture. Throwing out old things. Moving the furniture to vacuum.
Abigail is only too happy to do those things for me over the next few days while she stays with me. She deep cleans both bathrooms. The kitchen. Cleans the grouts between the tiles. Buys a step stool to clean the ceiling fans. Takes down the blinds to clean them in the tub of the hall bathroom. And a bunch of other things I never would have thought to do in the first place, let alone how.
The only reason I don’t tell her to stop is that she seems to know her limits. She takes frequent breaks to rest, eat, and drink. If not for her sake, then for the sake of her pregnancy. Besides, her life has fallen apart as much as mine has in the last few days, and cleaning the entire apartment seems to be the distractions she needs.
The distraction I need comes when my vacation is finally over, and I have to go back to work after New Year’s. A few months ago, I had been looking forward to this break and planned to get a million things done that I hadn’t had time for during my normal schedule. Now, I’m just glad it’s over so I can have something to distract myself.
I get to the office earlier than normal, eager to get to work, only to scan my badge into the door and it not to work.
I frown. That’s weird. Did I accidentally leave it against my phone or a credit card and mess up the magnetization?
I try again, only for the little light above the sensor pad to flash red. I’m about to try one more time when Taina walks up.
“Res, you should have told me you were coming in to clean your desk, I would have had someone meet you at the door,” she says.
I frown. Clean my desk?
Before I can ask, Taina lets me into the office and says, “The badge cards deactivate as soon as they take someone out the system.”
Take someone out the system…
“Why would I be out the system?” I ask
“Your resignation,” Taina says. “Though, to be fair, I wanted to murder you when I found out about it. To be poached by one of our actual clients? But alas. Our goal isn’t that you stay in the same place forever. We want you to grow and change and advance your careers. Even if that means you grow beyond here.”
“Wait. I… what?” I say, confused. “I didn’t resign.”
“You definitely did. Effective after New Year’s,” Taina says.
Before I can answer, Shelly comes up to us.
“Oh no. Res must not have caught you before you could put her resignation into effect. There was a mix up with the hire dates. It should have been next week. But that’s fine. I’m sure I can make our HR push through a hire date of today so there won’t be any gap in your paychecks,” the woman says.
If Shelly meant to clear up what the hell was happening, it’s had the opposite effect, because I’m even more confused.
“What?”
“We’ll be out your hair in a few minutes,” Shelly assures. “We just left some files here. Thanks for letting us in, Taina.”
Shelly drags me to my desk where a box is waiting for me to clear it. There’s not much there. I was never overly attached to the small cubicle or the office.
“Shelly. What?” I ask.
“I’ll explain outside,” Shelly assures.
“Explain what?” I ask as I dump into the box my calendar, a mug I was using as a pin holder, and a specialized mouse pad and keyboard because I’ve been battling carpal tunnel flare ups for the better part of a year now.
“Res.”
“No,” I snap. “Tell me what the fuck is going on, right now.”
Shelly looks around the office and says, “I really don’t know. I just did what Jaxson told me to do. He was supposed to explain it all to you. He didn’t?”
I frown. “Jaxson?”
“Your boyfriend? I guess. He didn’t tell me what you all are now.”
“Why would he tell you? Why would you even be talking to him? You don’t know—” I abruptly cut myself off as it dawns on me. “Fuck. ”
“Res—”
“You’ve been working for him all this time. You’re with the Sovereignty.”
“I am but—”
My stomach twist into knots, more knots than it’s been twisted in already, with the second betrayal in just over a week. Shelly is… She’s Sovereignty? She’s… All this time?
“You’ve been spying on me for Jaxson,” I accuse.
“Not spying,” Shelly says slowly. “Just keeping an eye on you.”
“That’s the same fucking thing,” I snap.
I snatch my box off the desk and make my way out of the office, ignoring the stares of those watching me walk out. Doesn’t matter. Apparently, I resigned anyway.
“Res,” Shelly says running to catch up with me. “Res wait. Just listen!”
I stop and turn on my heel to face her. Shelly barely manages not to run into me, surprised by my abrupt stop.
“What’s there to listen to?” I yell. “You’re Sovereignty. Which means this whole fucking time, I thought you could have become my friend. I thought you were my friend. But all this time it was fake.”
“It wasn’t fake! I really did like you. I really do want to be your friend. As soon as I understood why Jaxson liked you, I wanted to—”
“Oh, so you can only have friends your stupid cult leader approves of?” I snap.
“You’ve misunderstood all this. The Sovereignty isn’t…” Shelly trails off. “He thought the Sovereignty would be good for you, and I’m sure he’s told you that he doesn’t really believe in the Sovereignty. Not the way I do. But when I met you, I realized he was right.”
“I’ve misunderstood,” I snap. “Loving Eden tried to convince me of that when I told their whole congregation to fuck themselves and stormed out. I assure you. I haven’t misunderstood a damn thing. You’re Sovereignty, and Jaxson sent you to spy on me! That fucking asshole. I can’t believe I—”
I cut myself off and observe Shelly. Really observe her. And it dawns on me that while she understands that I feel betrayed, understands that I’m angry, she really doesn’t believe that she did anything wrong. She followed the orders of her superior in the Sovereignty. She did what Jaxson told her to do. She did what she was raised to do. What she was raised to believe is the right thing to do, no matter how wrong it might be. She isn’t the one who deserves my rage.
I turn on my heel again and sprint back to my apartment. I don’t bother taking my box upstairs. I just throw it in the backseat, get in the car and rage out the parking garage headed to Jaxson’s mansion.
As always, the gates open for me automatically as I approach, managing to be finished opening so I don’t tear up my car from not slowing down on the way in. I can’t say the same for my tires as I speed up the gravel before getting past the gate and reaching the long, pave driveway.
I bring my car to a screeching stop and jump out the car, not even bothering to turn it off or lock the door behind me. I just wrench open the heavy front door, and storm into the house to find Jaxson. He’s not in his office. Or in his bedroom. But I know he’s here. Waiting for me. The gates and doors wouldn’t have been open and waiting for me if he didn’t know it. Whether by the men who he has watching me or by Shelly.
I find him in what looks like a cozy, intimate conference room. He’s having a meeting with his security. His staff apparently didn’t suffer from the loss of seven men who he killed for the sin of seeing me naked.
“How fucking dare you?” I scream as I make a beeline for him and punch him in the jaw with all my might. It’s enough to make his head snap to the side. Or at least, that’s what I allow myself to believe in my haze of indignant anger. “You had no right. I don’t care who the fuck you think you are.”
I pull my fist back to punch him again, but he catches it this time and says, “Clear the room.”
His men instantly obey, clearing out the room and closing the door behind them.
I don’t say anything as I wait for his explanation, chest heaving with the fire of indignation. He knows why I’m here. He knows what he needs to explain.
“Lauressa,” he finally says, like he owes me nothing.
“I don’t know how the fuck you did it, but you made my job think I resigned to go work for whatever stupid fake company you set up to get Shelly to be able to spy on me.”
“The company isn’t fake. I own and have investments in several real estates and properties, and the man managing my books decided to steal from me. Once I took care of him, I promoted Shelly. She’s spent the last few months going through the arduous task of auditing the last ten years of my business’s financial holdings. It also just so happened that you worked for a public financial firm,” Jaxson says.
“You couldn’t have known I would get the project.”
“I looked into your performance reviews and the projects you’d done in the past. You were your firm’s top performer. It was only natural they gave the project to you.”
“And if they hadn’t?”
Jaxson shrugs. “I would have made them.”
“You had no right,” I snap.
“To you. But why are you surprised? Why are you so angered by this? I promised I was going to invade your entire life. Did you think your job was exempt from that?”
No. Of course it wasn’t. That much was made obvious by the men he had following me to my job and watching the place from across the street. But I never thought he’d figure out a discreet way to get someone on the inside. I never thought it would be someone I liked and thought was my friend.
“That’s not even the point of this,” I snap. “I don’t have a job now because of you.”
“You don’t need one anymore.”
“Why? So you can take care of me? So you can control me?”
“Because it was the only thing left tethering you here,” he answers. “The only thing stopping you from belonging completely to me. And while I’ve humored you and your resistance, I can’t any longer. The longer I’m away, the longer my father grows suspicious of me. I have to go back to Chicago soon. And you’re coming with me.”
“Chicago? Are you insane? Jaxson, I have a life here! ”
“What life?” Jaxson asks, standing to tower over me. “A life at a job you hated? A life maintaining a strained relationship with a family you can’t stand and who hid that your brother abused you? Maintaining civility with people from a congregation who saw you humiliated for doing nothing wrong? That life?”
“It’s fucked up. But it’s mine.”
“That’s a pathetic excuse.”
“You’re one to talk. As if you don’t hate the Sovereignty and the people in it for the same reason I hate Loving Eden.”
“But the Sovereignty can give me what I want. Loving Eden has nothing that you want.”
“I’m not going with you to Chicago.”
“And what else are you going to do? What else and who else do you have?”
“I… One Humanity.”
“You cut all ties to them effective after Christmas for personal reasons.”
I look for something. Anything that could possibly tether me here. Anyone that might miss me and find it suspicious if I went to Chicago of all places. Anyone that I could go to and tell the truth about Jaxson and everything he’s done and… and what? Protect me? Jaxson has proven that he’ll spy on people, get close to people, ruin people’s lives to get to me. Kill to keep me with him.
There’s nowhere for me to run. Nowhere is safe.
I should have kept driving that day I disappeared to Savannah. Kept driving and driving to start over somewhere. It would have been hard, but not impossible. I’ve helped dozens of people anonymously through my podcast. I know who to ask for. Who to talk to. Where to go. I could have gotten an entire identity set up and started a new life.
But not only is it too late, it’s also not what I wanted. I’ve never run away from a fight. Never run away from a challenge. And if it’s to be my downfall, so be it, I suppose. I don’t have a choice but to accept it now.
Jaxson smirks as he backs me toward the wall.
“You see it, now,” he says. “I’ve kept my promise to you. I’ve invaded your entire life. I have consumed you. I know your every want, desire, need, and fear. Your life is shattered into pieces, and now, I’m about to put it back together for you. The only thing you need to do is thank me, Snow White.”
“Thank you? Thank you? You ruined my life! I was fine before I met you. I wish I hadn’t met you at all!”
I wish I hadn’t agreed to that stupid interview. I wish I had deleted his stupid email and gone downstairs to watch movies with my mother.
“And then what?” he asks. “So you could live under the delusion that you were happy? So you could pretend to tolerate your family? So you could just pretend that the reason you hated your brother was just silly sibling rivalry and not that deep down you knew he raped you as a child?”
“As if you’re any better than him?” I snap. “Or do I need to remind you of what you did the moment you had us alone in the back of a truck?”
“Don’t you dare compare me to him,” he growls as he grabs me and shoves me against the wall. “Your brother is a sick human being. An animal. Maybe below that. Because at least an animal wouldn’t rape the young children of their family. Everything I’ve done to you was nothing you didn’t already want.”
“No—”
“Don’t lie to me, Lauressa. Your boyfriend couldn’t make you come. I did,” he says as he tears the buttons of my sweater open.
“No.”
“You hated your boyfriend.” He throws my jacket and sweater on the ground. “You hated your job.” He wrenches off my bra. “You hated your family.” He tears my tights and panties off. “I freed you from all of that. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you. So you can become the person you want to be but was too afraid of being. You think you’re angry with me when really it’s yourself that you’re angry at. Angry that before I came into your life, you couldn’t take what you wanted in life. You’re angry that I’m everything that you want to be.”
“No,” I scream, finding a burst of strength as I slap him in face and shove him away. I try to head for the door, but he doesn’t let me get far.
I struggle against him. Pull at his clothes. Scratch at him.
“Go ahead. Let it all out. Take it all out on me,” he encourages, hand finding my cunt and shoving two fingers up my slick walls.
I hate the way my body seizes and leans into him, eager for more of the intrusion .
“I can’t… I…”
“You say you don’t want this. You don’t want me. But your cunt is bleeding for me. You’re getting off on me taking control of you. Of your life. Of molding you into the person you want to be.”
I open my mouth to deny him, but the shameful truth is he’s right. About everything. Always has been.
I hated my life. And while part of me still hates him for ruining it because as much as I hated it, it was still mine, part of me relishes in the fact that Jaxson came in, made an assessment, and took control. The only reason I fought against any of it was that it didn’t feel like my choice. That he didn’t ask. Just took control and did what he knew was best.
He may have forced me every step of the way. Assaulted me. Bullied me. Shattered me. But he paid attention. He put in the effort. He romanced me. Wooed me. Offered me everything I ever wanted.
He is my tormentor. He is my savior.
I mewl as Jaxson forces an orgasm from my body with his fingers. Then I fall against him, the fight gone out me.
“That’s right,” he says as he picks me up and lays me on the small conference table. “All that you have left is me. You just have to accept it, Snow White.”
Snow White. The pet name he gave me when I refused to give him my name. I thought it was fitting back them. It’s even more fitting now.
He is the prince and the huntsman. His pretty, manipulative words are the shiny red apple. I know it’s poison. But I don’t care. Because I’ve lost everything, I’m hungry, and the apple he’s offering me is the only thing I have to eat .
I decide to bite the poison apple.
I don’t fight him after he’s stripped himself naked. As he puts his huge cock in me. As he relentlessly fucks me. As he doesn’t let my body get accustomed to the stretch of his fat cock again after an entire week of not having it. As with every thrust, there’s both pain and pleasure. Or I think it is. They both feel the same right now as far as I’m concerned.
My body seizes against him as Jaxson fucks me. My body arches toward his. And though I said I wouldn’t fight, some primal part of me still wants to. Some part of me wants to resist his poison. I grab onto him. Rake my nails across his back. His arms. Pull him down to kiss me so I can bite his lip until it bleeds and the coppery taste of blood explodes on my tastebuds.
“It doesn’t hurt enough,” I mutter against his lips. “Make it hurt. Make me hurt. I survived a cult. I survived being raped by my brother. I can survive you. I can take it.”
“Yes,” he says. “You can.”
He bends down, takes my nipple into my mouth and bites.
I let out a shout of pain.
“Do it again,” I beg.
He does. Twice more. Then gives my other nipple the same treatment before pulling back and slamming his cock into me harder, as far up as my cunt will allow him, hitting my cervix and scooching me up the table some with every thrust before pulling me back to him.
Tears stream down the sides of my face. Tears of pain. From Jaxson’s relentless fucking. From the sorrow of everything I’ve lost in the last three months, especially in the last week. Tears of pleasure. From Jaxson’s cock scraping the walls of my cunt just right, as the skin of his pelvis meets my clit with every thrust. From the pleasure of the freedom I’ve gained from everything I hated in the last three months.
It's all too much. It’s building up inside me too fast. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t—
“Jaxson. I can’t. It’s… It’s…”
He doesn’t stop. He just says, “You can. You can because you are powerful, my love. You are my power.”
It all explodes in me with the next thrust. I let out a wretched sob as my body seizes with both intense pain and pleasure. As I temporarily lose my breath and see white.
When I come to just seconds later, Jaxson is still pounding into me, and I’m moaning pitifully as I continue to experience the aftershocks of my orgasm.
Jaxson roars through his orgasm. His come so abundant, it leaks out of me as he continues to fuck me through it.
The poison does its job. But I don’t die. I’ve been reshaped and reborn to accept my new reality. Even if it is a delusion. I willingly succumb to it. A pleasant dream of everything I ever wanted and needed.
And before Jaxson takes me to Chicago to start our new life, I’m going to make my dream someone else’s nightmare.