Page 27 of Axton
The hot water trailed down my body as I felt my release coming. My eyes were shut and imagining Belle’s lips around my cock, and the vision of it provided me with a recipe for such an intense orgasm that caused my legs to grow week, and I had to lean against the shower wall.
After dinner with Belle, I had to get Faye on a video call and try to focus on what I knew of her body to erase the girl from my mind, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t even get hard, but at least Faye came to the sound of my voice, and I got to watch her face as she gave herself an orgasm. I needed a release and the only way it happened was to my own palm, along with my imagination. I stared down at the drain as the remnants of what I just did was washed away. Jesus fuck, I never felt so unsatisfied even though I came hard. My situation was growing worse, and the only person to talk to and explore what the fuck was wrong with me, was one of the last people I had any desire to speak to about my problems.
I slept with Valerie years ago, and she was hot as hell in the sack, but it was a one-time deal. Then, while on a mission, she was captured and raped. I couldn’t express how it felt to be the oneto cut her from the rafters after several terrorist raped her. She wasn’t just bleeding from being sodomized, but also bleeding from the very place I once devoured with my lips then sank into with my cock. After I cut her down and handed her off to Irons, I couldn’t count how many throats I sliced on that terrorist compound as rage took over my mind, body, and soul.
Valerie was almost a decade older than me, but she was beautiful and intelligent. We agreed to keep our past between us when we were assigned to the same unit. Things were never really awkward between us, but then she was raped, and I couldn’t even look at her. It took me a few years to come to terms with what happened and build up a new form of friendship. Sometimes I wondered if she had moved on to a place where our night together never happened. Out of all the relationships built on Creed’s Lake, I was most happiest for Val because she found Darren Rossi. He was Morgan’s uncle and probably the best man I could have dreamed up for Val.
She was a psychiatrist and also who we leaned on to provide therapy to our operatives. But out of all the Original’s, Creed was the only one that felt comfortable seeing her for his trauma. Maybe because his trauma wasn’t of a sexual nature. She saw Val’s rape as a violation, but didn’t allow the emotions in to see her as a victim, but a survivor instead. That was the mission that changed all of us, and led to the creation of Creed’s Lake.
When I was near Belle, I felt great, but then my body began reacting to her which pissed me off. She wasn’t like Morgan, Steph, or Wrenly. She wasn’t the girl next door, she was spiritual, yet I felt desire pour off her like I never felt from any other woman. It was ridiculous to feel that much attraction to a woman that damn fast. She was open to me, when she couldn’t even handle a man going anywhere near her bedroom door. Sheseemed to trust Dr. Ford, but that didn’t say much because he was in a trusted profession. She reached around her own brother for me when she was scared, and I didn’t understand why.
Once the strength came back into my body, I finished my shower then dried off before wrapping a towel around my waist. I wiped the fog away from the mirror and studied myself. I looked down at the shaving kit and saw a pair of scissors and a razor. Would Belle feel safer around a man that was cleaner cut? I picked up the scissors then stopped myself. Why was I even considering it? I never wanted to shave my beard before, why suddenly was I thinking about it? I pressed my hands on the counter and leaned in to study myself in the mirror, then shut my eyes. Memories played through my mind.
Natalie always laughed and found joy in anything, but would go home to addiction and abuse. She tried to find the happiest things about life despite her circumstances. She had dreams of going to college and someday living in New York City. She wanted to be an attorney, and sometimes I think she was the one that inspired Kayla.
A memory of tackling Natalie down and tickling her just so I could hear that contagious laugh played through my mind. She was smart, ambitious, and the sweetest girl I ever knew. We would get off the school bus at the same place every day and I’d walk with her while Kayla trailed behind us. We lived on a country road with run down trailers that were separated by about a hundred feet. Many times, a tarp served as a permanent fix for a leaky roof. Old cars sat in the driveways, most with not just parts missing but also doors and trunks. Most sat on blocks because they sold their rims and tires. Just about all of them had dogs living on chains that had to walk around in their own shit. They would all bark and growl at us as we walked downthe narrow road. Those things weren’t necessary to look at when Natalie was walking right next to me. She was everything that was worth looking at. Her blond straight long hair was always pulled back into a ponytail, and she would walk with her arms around the books she carried against her chest. Her big green eyes would glance at me, but I couldn’t help but stare at her. There we were a clean cut boy and a darling young girl that had dreams for our futures.
She wanted to be an attorney, and I dreamed of being a pilot. I wanted to see the world, but I wanted to see it with Natalie. She wasn’t my girlfriend, I was way too shy to ever ask her, but she was my best friend. I was the one she ran to when she found her mom overdosed on pills. I was the one she ran to when her dad got arrested all those times for drinking and driving, assault, domestic abuse, and possession. She came to me when she was sick, and her house wasn’t calm enough to let her rest. It was me that tried to help her clean the house where she was expected to live.
My house was run down, but at least I tried to keep it clean and was able to do so, but not Natalie. They had animals in their home, there was trash stacked up so high they needed a trail to move around from one room to another. She didn’t have a bedroom, but slept on an old couch in the corner of what would have been a living room if it wasn’t piled with trash and old car parts. Their refrigerator smelled horrible, and her mother would have a fit every time Natalie tried to throw things out. Her two older brothers were nasty slobs that did almost nothing but sit around and smoke pot and drink beer. Her older sister had three kids by the time she was eighteen, and they all lived in that nasty house. There were cats, dogs, rats, and even a raccoon that once lived inside it. It was nothing to step inside that house and see a chicken roosting on the faucet of their kitchen sink. Walkingthrough the house you’d see shit everywhere and the smell of piss burned your nose. Her younger siblings ran around like wild animals.
I worked my ass off to take care of Kayla, but she wasn’t the only one I took care of. I bought Natalie clothes from the second hand store, just like I did Kayla’s. I gave up my bed to her and slept on the old piece of shit couch when Natalie’s family threw parties, or the cops were there for a domestic violence call. When I had just enough money to buy a meal for my sister and myself, I gave mine to Natalie. Fortunately, the older I got, the more I could work. Before I was of age to legally work, I stole things. I also made money by collecting aluminum cans and cashing them in for pennies. I rode my stolen bicycle into town which was an hour each way, and mowed lawns. Once I was old enough where people could legally hire me, I worked at Walmart gathering carts from the parking lot, and I also worked in a tire shop. I would ride that bike through storms and winter weather to make it to my jobs. In the summer, I kept working at Walmart and the tire shop, but also worked for a landscaper. I was able to pay rent and the electric and water, but my mom would sell our food stamps and spend our monthly TANF check on booze. I couldn’t count how many drunk men my mom brought home, but those were the nights I made Kayla sleep with me. I would lay there and hear my mom sharing her body with total creeps and it was disgusting. The walls were like paper in that trailer. If there weren’t strange men in our home, mom was gone and didn’t care what happened at home. My old man wasn’t the only man to beat on my mom, and I remembered sitting on the front porch holding Kayla as random men were walked out of our house in handcuffs, but my mom always saw herself as the only victim in life. Mom had no excuse. She came from a good family in Charleston, but she alienated us from them. Instead of livingclose to people that loved us, we lived around my old man’s family, and they were all pieces of shit. Even his mother was a nasty bitch, and her husband was even worse.
Natalie didn’t have a job, but that helped me tremendously because she watched Kayla for me and did most of my homework. Memories of her laugh and her teasing put a small smile on my face as they danced around in my head. Those were the memories I hung onto for dear life.
I looked back down at my shaving kit then back to the mirror. I was afraid of what I would see if I shaved my beard. Would I see that love-struck little boy that looked at Natalie with stars in his eyes and hope for a future, or would I see the young soldier that was weighed down with grief and guilt? The young man that felt responsible for the death of the girl next door?
I didn’t especially like my beard. It itched at times, and I hated grooming it and thought it would just be easier to shave every day. The beard hid the dimples, the ones Natalie teased me about, but she loved them. She was an innocent and smart girl, and I never suspected she was capable of that level of betrayal.
I hadn’t spoken to Creed and decided against it. If I received a certified letter, I’d get it when I returned. It wasn’t Creed’s business, and the investigation and lawsuit would be handled privately. I would bury those people from my past. An investigation was already done, and I was at work during her estimated time of death. I may not have been there when she took her last breath, but I was ultimately responsible. That was already established, and I took responsibility, but I sure as hell wasn’t giving that family a damn dime. I would never give anyone on that mountain anything, they’d have to pry it from my cold dead hands.
That was what gave me the motivation I needed to make a few phone calls. Ones that would eventually force me to go back to that hellhole and face my past and Natalie’s death.
Belle
I slept well, only waking a few times to use the bathroom. I was able to get myself up and walk, which was painful but necessary. I needed to grow my strength, so after visiting the bathroom, I tiptoed in the dark. I found the kitchen and living room, where a dim light showed me a man sleeping on the sofa. It was a man with a beard and tattoos on his body. I stood near the hall and leaned against the wall as I watched him sleep. He had his arm behind his head and near his elbow was the birthmark. It was exactly like mine, in the shape of God’s giving hand.
It was surreal to see it with my own eyes after being told my entire life that a soldier with that very mark would someday come for me. Papa told me I would be safe with him, and I should fully give myself to him. There was no mistaking that birthmark, it matched mine exactly. It was the same size, shape, and color. It was also in the same spot on his body as it was mine. Although it was surreal, the birthmark wasn’t what surprised me the most. No, that was his presence and the fact that I could feel him before I ever even opened my eyes. I lived my life fearing men, hating the way they looked at me, and not trusting any of them except my brother. There were times I didn’t even trust my father because of some of the laws he put into place. Not Michael, I trusted him the moment I felt him in the room with me.
For me, desire was only felt in the darkness. The one place where nobody could look at me, and the place I never felt judged, yet earlier I felt it in the light. Desire leads to lust, and it was something taught to me as a sin. Women weren’t to desire anything other than pleasing their husband and worshipping God. I never felt desire when I went to church around men. I never felt it in college when I had to sit next to men. I neverfound it in books or when I passed a man in the street when we would take trips to town. Only in the darkness when I dreamed of masculine hands leaving the heat of fire under them as they explored my body.
All I ever knew about human reproduction was found in textbooks. All my mama told me was to lay back, spread my legs, and my husband would plant a seed inside me. She warned me it would hurt, and it was not a pleasurable act, but the reward of a child was worth those few moments of pain. As I looked at Michael and his bare chest, I doubted what she said was always true. I didn’t mind the art he created on his body, in fact, I found it attractive. I may have even craved the act with the right man. My papa had a few tattoos. One of the giving hand of God from his first marriage, the cross from the day he became the bishop and made his papa proud, and another of an archangel when his fortieth child was born. In fact, all the men were given a tattoo of the hand of God on the day of their first marriage, even Koty. It was done as a ritual that only men attended, it was to commemorate the day they became men and accepted God into their hearts. They had to have God in their hearts before they could plant a seed in their new wife.
I didn’t stand their long, choosing to suppress my constant curiosity. I went back to bed, and then woke when I felt Koty holding my hand. He once again apologized for my injuries, but they weren’t his fault. He had a cell phone that did not belong to him, and we called my mama.
She warned us that Jeremy sent all the men from our community to find us, he was on the warpath and vowed not to stop searching until he found me and dealt with Koty. She said none of my brothers protested because they believed Koty was involved with sinners that wanted to destroy them and theirfamilies. I was not able to speak with my papa because he was further along in his journey. He was asleep, the death rattle I heard before when several of my mother’s passed away, could be heard in the background. I cried when mama held the phone to papa’s ear, and I told him I loved and forgave him. That surprised Koty, and as soon as we ended the call, he wanted to know why I needed to forgive papa. He believed I was more faithful to papa than I really was, but most of that started when I met Michael. He confirmed the things I felt were wrong with my papa were indeed wrong. I needed to forgive papa for his laws and suppression. For arranging children to be brides, and for punishing innocent women for having ambitions. I had five sisters and six brothers I never met because he shunned them. They wanted a different life, but they couldn’t have that life and be a part of our family at the same time. They couldn’t join another faith and be a part of our family. I needed to forgive him for choosing me as his caregiver, for forcing me to bathe his body and clean up after his bodily functions. I missed my students and my friends, he took me away from them to care for his ailing body. Before I left home, I refused to acknowledge those suspicions and bits of anger, but that was before I was forced onto a motorcycle then met Michael.
Koty and I cried, then prayed together, and discussed his future. He had no future planned out and he was praying for an answer. As for me, I wanted to teach. I knew by that point I could have that someday, once Jeremy no longer searched for me.
Koty told me he was ready to accept what was in the future of our brothers. That the government would punish them for their faith and lifestyle. I wasn’t quite there yet, but I was disappointed in them for giving their support and blessing to Jeremy. Koty said if their imprisonment was a price to pay to keep children safe, he would do what he could to help.
Valerie entered my room and asked if I wanted breakfast in bed or at the table. I chose the table so I could use my muscles. I knew it would cause pain like it did overnight when I walked, but I also knew I had to use my muscles in order for that pain to decrease. It was the injuries to my right side that caused so much pain, but I was lucky not to have been killed. She helped me to the bathroom, although I said I could do it on my own. She carried my IV bag and guided me to the bathroom in the hallway. She provided a toothbrush and toothpaste, which felt good to get them brushed. After that she brushed my hair and wrapped a small blanket around my shoulders to use as a shawl and cover my breasts.
I saw the glimmer in Michael’s eyes when he saw me, but it quickly faded then he looked away. It was replaced by something I saw before in my brother, Koty’s, eyes and it was shame or maybe guilt. I didn’t know why he might have felt that way, everything he was doing was to help us and I couldn’t have doubted him if I tried. He was quiet through most of breakfast, until he updated us about our travel plans. He was headed back to Flagstaff to turn in his rental truck and pick up a small motorhome with a tiny bedroom, sofa, tiny kitchen and bathroom. He said I needed a place to rest and when I protested because of the expense, he explained that he only wanted to stop for gas. Koty and I were not to leave the vehicle for any reason and risk being seen. There would be a bathroom on board because it would take us almost thirty or more hours to reach our destination. I understood, but I didn’t want Michael to leave and pick up the vehicle. I was scared something would happen and he wouldn’t be with me to help. The thought of more men on motorcycles scared me, and there was so many people looking for us. I felt safe when he was near, and I didn’t want to let him out of my sight.
After breakfast, Dr. Ford arrived and examined me while Michael was gone. There was also a nurse, and she said she was married to one of the men outside that was keeping me safe. She cleaned up my wounds and removed my IV after Dr. Ford examined me. He said I was doing good, but still needed to rest and drink plenty of fluids.
I asked if someone could retrieve our bags from the truck that was in impound, but Valerie said that was too risky and the impound yard could be watched by the men on motorcycles. She didn’t know if the people working at the impound lot could tip them off and they could follow them back to where we were hiding. Michael didn’t want to leave when the sun was up, so we had to wait. Groceries and supplies were loaded into the small motorhome while it was parked in a barn, and all I could do was pray. I wasn’t tired enough to sleep because I didn’t want the liquid medication. Nobody would let me do much, so I was idle and used the time to pray. One of my father’s laws was that our minds and hands should never have been idle at the same time.
