Chapter 5 #2
I looked around the huge guest suite and realized I barely knew anything about his life anymore. I mean, I knew he left and went off with the Marines, and was later a Green Beret. Then, when he came back, he had an honorable discharge and the deed to the Diamond Rocks.
And honestly, I was there at the beginning, and it was probably more of a curse than a gift from that guy he saved the life of. But somehow, Jesse made it work.
He managed to make a profit. And when word got around that he had pulled off the impossible, it wasn’t long before he was offered other floundering businesses at cut down rates...
I guess I never put it together until now just how successful he was.
This house on Wolverine Lake, with the mountains in the background. It had to be a million.
Maybe two.
All that in the... I counted up in my head... Less than two years since he'd walked back into my life, offering a steady job and a way out of the mess that had crashed down around me since Kent’s funeral nearly a year before.
I shook my head, trying to get my thoughts straight.
“Where are my clothes?” I demanded.
“Right there. In that closet.” Jesse’s demeanor was calmer than usual and a shiver wiggled down my neck, slithering around my spine until it reached my toes. Something in his voice felt different, and I felt like I was about to be punked.
I eyed him as I walked into the closet backwards, one eye squinted his way.
Reaching behind me, I felt the cool metal of the door handle… turn, click... then I spun around and sucked all the air out of the room.
The friggin’ closet was bigger than most bedrooms, and mostly empty, but what clothes hung there were most decidedly not mine. My wardrobe consisted of tight jeans. Some blue, mostly black, paired with old concert t-shirts or newer ones with snarky sayings across the chest.
This closet contained no black. Nothing old or snarky either. It was the antithesis of the three-by-three foot space where I hung the items I called mine back at Jenette’s place.
White and pink, yellow and green, lace and ruffles, assaulted me from everywhere. If there was a perfect little girl’s closet somewhere in a fairy tale, this would be it. Only, the clothes were not little girl sized, they were my size.
“Where are my clothes, Jesse?"
"Those are your clothes, Kitty Kat."
"No, they're not. Joke’s over. Come on.” I poked my head out to see he was up from the chair and standing only a couple of steps outside the closet door, the mountain of his body blocking out much of the sunlight streaming through the window.
“This is it. For now. Pick something."
"Pick something?" I narrowed my eyes. "These aren't mine, Jesse, how am I supposed to--"
"These are yours. If you don’t pick something out, I will. Then I will proceed to put it on you, like it or not.” He towered over me and my mind raced for a reply. My heart pounded in my chest as my eyes danced over the strange closet filled with adult sized little girl clothes.
And they were adorable, but...
This couldn’t possibly be real. Was I in an alcohol withdrawal induced hallucination?
"These are mine?" I asked, not to Jesse but more to the universe, which, all of a sudden, seemed like one and the same.
"They're yours. I told you, I'm taking care of you now, and you're going to want for nothing. You need someone to watch over you, Kat, and that someone is going to be me, whether you like it or not. This is how I care for you. It’s a new foundation.
Do you remember ever being cared for when you were little? "
I felt tears starting to flow. He sounded so much like Kent did that day he finally got custody of me.
You don't have to be scared anymore, Katrina. I'm going to take care of you, and make sure you have everything you need.
Jesse's eyes were completely and utterly focused on me. I shivered under his commanding stare. His broad forehead began to draw together as he watched me draw up in frantic confusion. The pressure inside my head was unbearable. I didn’t know what to do or say.
There was a flicker inside me that found joy and comfort from all of this.
The teddy bear and the soft pajamas, the pampering and security and promise to always be there.
But it was quickly stomped out by the jaded, angry part of me that didn’t believe in happiness. No matter how it was packaged.
I bulldozed past him and began to tear apart the room. I looked in every drawer, under the bed, everywhere for something. Anything. My clothes. My underwear. My possessions. Some sign of my old life.
Where was it?
“Fuuuuuuck!” I screamed until my voice cracked, and I pulled at my hair, squeezing my eyes closed, trying to see nothing. My lungs were raw, my voice hoarse. "I don’t want this! I want my stuff! My life! I want out of here!”
I threw the Teddy Bear on the floor, fists balled as it looked back up at me with those big blue eyes and red felt tongue sticking out.
I smashed the heel of my bare foot into his fluffy nose.
Guilt smacked at my cheeks. That bear was the closest thing to a perfect gift I’d ever received. All the times I read AMITAH on Reddit came streaming back.
Am I the asshole for throwing a giant, soft, cuddly, perfect life-sized teddy bear on the floor and stomping on its face because I don’t like the new wardrobe the sexiest man alive that I’m secretly in love with just bought me?
"None of your own things are gone," he said calmly, ignoring my tantrum. "They're just put away for now."
"And what gives you that right?"
“You did. You promised, Kat. You promised you would trust me and do things my way. That is what this means. Now, stop it, right now, or you’re going to be punished.”
I glared. I stamped my foot. And then I stuck out my tongue and enunciated slowly in my broken voice: "Fuck. You."
"Kat... This isn't how we deal with our anger."
"I said." I drew a deep breath, balling my fists by my sides. "Fuck. You."
I hurtled toward the mountain of muscle and intensity with everything I could muster. As I pummeled his chest with my fists, he stood completely still for a few seconds, taking everything I had.
Then with catlike reflexes, he grabbed my wrists in one giant vice-like grip, spun me around and held my hands behind my back, bending me over slightly and sending lightning bolts of pain into my shoulders.
“Let go!” My voice was all I had under his might.
The hold he had on me with one hand was impossible to shake.
He positioned me perfectly so that there was nothing I could do to fight back.
If I tried to kick, I would fall down. My fists were immobilized by his grip and he pushed me over toward the bed.
“This is not you, Kat. Try to remember who you are. Stop reacting and start feeling. Now, stop it, right now.”
His voice was a low rumble behind me, infused with restrained power. In the midst of my anger, a fierce ember was lit in my belly. My eyes danced all over the thick, flexing muscle in Jesse’s arms as he held my hands behind my back.
The subtle movements of his lips, his jaw, the blink of his dark eyes, the glint of his straight white teeth. He gave the smallest of grimaces as he held a crazed badger, fighting against the very person who was trying to save her.
“Fucking let me go you fucking asshole jarhead! What do you care anyway, Jesse? Kent’s dead and I'm not your problem! You're not my brother!” I hurled my words like poison daggers because my voice was all I had.
I knew I was hurting him and I didn’t care.
I could never have him the way I wanted, so it was better if I just got out of here and never looked back.
When I was fourteen, and it was just Kent, Jesse and me, we all made a pact.
We lived together like brothers and sisters, and we swore to always be family.
Now I was using that against him. Denying that bond because I couldn't dare to let him in.
Because if I let Jesse into my heart, I was setting myself up to have that heart broken. There was no way he would ever want me the way I wanted him.
His voice was a deep rumble. “I’m the only family you have, little girl. I'm sorry. I wish it was different, but it isn't. You and me, we're it.”
I was almost out of breath from the fight and the way he was holding me pinned, bent in half, pulling my hands up behind my back. Trouble was, being in this position, so helpless and at his mercy, only made me think of other things. Things a sister should never imagine doing with her brother.
And sure, we weren't actually family. We weren't even step-siblings. Not really. But he had always been there, and the way I felt about him was wrong.
I could see him in the mirror, his eyes aflame and the tendons in his neck standing out like coils of steel cable.
If I were another guy, he would have knocked me out and left me laying in my own drool.
Why was he spending so much effort on me?
I had not done anything in the last few years to earn his protection or his loyalty.
“Kent never trusted you, Jesse. Not after what you did… What we did. He said he hated you for it.”
A silence like a nuclear explosion filled the room and my heart seized for a moment. I had crossed a line. There were things in the past that should stay there, never to be unearthed again.
But the words were out, like fifty lashes with a wire whip, and Jesse’s eyes told me just how he felt.
It was something we promised we would put away and never talk about again.
For me to throw it into Jesse’s face now was about the lowest I could go.
The flames in his eyes quickly turned and as I opened my mouth to say something, to fix the damage I’d done yet again, he spun me around and flipped me over his lap, face down and ass up.
This position was easier to assume this time but even as he tore off the bottoms of my pajamas, I kicked and fought.
I was no match for him.
“I'm... Sorry. I didn't mean that. Jesse...”
The force of his grip on the back of my neck reminded me that he was a trained killer. With just a flick of his wrist, I could fall into the great abyss.
“Stop trying to make me hate you, Kat. It won’t work.” He spoke deliberately and clearly as he worked my ruffled underpants down and tore them off my ankles, leaving me bare-bottomed once again over his knee.
This time, I knew what was coming, and somewhere deep down, I knew I deserved it.
I think I almost welcomed it. And when the first smack came, my entire body was enveloped, not only in the pain of the blow, but in an explosion of heat and relief, like a breath held far too long and finally released.
Jesse’s hand came down harder than the first time, the impact driving the air from my lungs as I gripped his legs to keep from falling.
The red searing whacks rang in my ears, sending bolts of ravenous pain down the backs of my legs.
I could hear my own voice, screaming and crying, but it was detached somehow.
It was like I was feeling the pain and witnessing the moment, but through the eyes of a different girl.
Four more smacks in calmly paced succession.
Each spank hurt more than the last, and at the same time, brought me more and more peace.
I knew my ass had to be screaming red. I could imagine the swollen hand prints from the force of Jesse’s blows, but somewhere in the brutal discipline I began to welcome the next blow as he took complete dominion over me.
The smacks came in rapid but controlled succession.
Smack.
Smack.
Smack.
Like an exquisite new form of Chinese water torture.
Just enough time between them for you to breathe, and wait.I inhaled, and the tears came like the spring flood out of a long-frozen mountain peak, rushing to find the life-giving river below.
Finally, I bellowed and raised my hips up to meet his hand, taking everything he could give me and demanding even more.
“Thank you,” there was a knot in my throat but I willed it to unravel so I could finish, “Daddy.”
And that is when it stopped.