Taken on Thanksgiving

by Annabelle Winters

  9

  THREE YEARS LATER

  AMY

  I hold my two-year-old twin boys Aiden and Argan close and stare at the lawyers in disbelief.

  “We don’t know what else to say,” they tell me, shaking their heads as I look at my boys and wonder if they’re old enough to understand that Mommy is about to lose her shit, about to go psycho-killer, that she’s waited and waited and waited, only to hear . . . to hear . . .

  “They denied his parole,” I say through gritted teeth and a clenched jaw, pulling my fidgeting sons into line as I question my own ability to hold on to my sanity. The past three years have been hard—really hard. I got fired after the arrest and everything. The next job I got didn’t pay enough and didn’t offer shit for benefits or childcare, so I bounced around from job to job, sometimes holding down two gigs at once.

  I sold my house (at a loss, but I did get some cash out of it) and moved back in with Mom. Surprisingly, that hasn’t been so bad. Mom is totally in love with her two grandsons, and to my surprise she’s become a doting Grandma and even a more loving mom to me—more than I ever remember her being! She’s even cleaned up her personal life now that she’s got me and the boys in her house. Hell, she’s been with the same guy for the past three years—which is like an all-time record for her. He was living with her, but moved out when I moved in with the kids. That surprised me—even made me think he might not be such a loser.

  “Who woulda thought I’d be the one in love with a tattooed criminal, going through metal detectors with his born-out-of-wedlock kids during visiting hours at a freakin’ prison?” I’d joked with Mom about a year ago when I realized that two years had gone by and in just twelve more months we were all going to be together.

  Mom had laughed and hugged me before gathering her grandsons and smothering them with kisses until they were squirming and giggling from Grandma slobbering all over them. Then she’d looked up at me with that sly old look in her blue eyes—a look that reminded me she’d been dating bad boys for a lot longer than I had, that she was very comfortable with the wildness in herself, even if I was only just coming to terms with the truth that maybe she’d passed some of that on to me.

  “Well,” she’d whispered back then, glancing at my kids one by one and then up at me. “If you ever get tired of waiting for Angus to get out, let me know.”

  I’d frowned and raised an eyebrow at Mom, not sure if she was joking or not. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Oh, nothing, my good little girl,” she’d teased, winking at me and pretending to look at her watch. “Come on. You’re going to miss visiting hours. The kids can’t wait to see Daddy through the bulletproof partition, can they?”

  But now as I get home stunned like a swatted fly, barely able to hold back the despair when I tell Mom that my life has turned into a fucking soap opera from hell, that the worst of it isn’t even that Angus’s parole was denied and he had to serve out the full five years. Nope, turned out that when Angus heard the board’s decision, he fucking lost it, punched out a prison guard! And that’s real assault—like first-degree assault. Now instead of another two years, he’s looking at two plus another five!

  That’s seven years from now!

  “It’s not that I won’t wait or can’t wait,” I sob into Mom’s warm bosom, bawling like a baby as my own babies start howling at the sight of Mommy crying. “I’d wait a lifetime for Angus, Mom. But I’m so worried about him, you know? The last time we visited, he was so happy, so looking forward to coming home for the first time, to getting married, being a father, a husband, a . . . a family. But I’m scared this has broken him, Mom. I mean, it’s been hard for me, sure. But I’m out here. I’m with my children. I’ve got you. He’s alone in there, Mom. All alone and pining for his family, yearning to simply live his fucking life, just play baseball with his sons in the yard, for heaven’s sake! How is this justice?! How the fuck is this justice?!”

  Mom pets my hair and lets me sob for a moment, let out that pent-up emotion, vent a little. But then she pulls back and looks me right in the eye and frowns. “I don’t think they play baseball in Australia, hon. Maybe you’re thinking of rugby. Or cricket—though I don’t know what that is, honestly. In America crickets are just annoying little bugs that will not shut up when you’re trying to get to bed after a long night of drinking.”

  “Ohmygod, have you been drinking?” I scream at Mom, clutching my head and staring at her in shock. “This is so not what I need right now, OK?”

  But Mom’s eyes are clear and focused, and I blink in surprise when I see a strange mix of love and urgency in her look. “What you need is your man,” she says in a firm whisper. “And what your sons need is their fucking father. You followed the rules, followed the law, acted like the good girl you are for three years. Now it’s time to say to hell with all that, you understand? You’re my daughter, Amy. I know what’s inside you. You’ve got that wild streak just like I do. You’re just scared of it.” She raises her head and smiles, a glint of admiration in her well-lined face. “Well, maybe not that scared of it. I’ve seen you with Angus. Even in a room where you aren’t allowed to touch each other I see what he brings out in you. Awakens in you.”

  “Mom!” I gasp, color rushing to my face as I stare into her eyes and wonder what’s happening. “What are you—”

  But Mom’s already talking fast, talking furious, talking crazy, and it’s all I can do to not hyperventilate when I focus in on what’s gushing from her mouth.

  “. . . and he’s got connections with unions all over the country,” she’s saying, talking about her boyfriend, who seems to travel a lot for his job—which is a subcontractor for other contractors or something convoluted (and sketchy . . .) like that. “Dock workers, waste management, and prison systems,” she finishes.

  My heart almost stops when I think back to that offhand comment she’d made a year ago about letting her know if I get tired of waiting for Angus to get out.

  “Wait, are you saying what I think you’re saying?” I gasp, wanting to feel horror but instead feeling straight-up adrenaline, a rush like I haven’t felt since . . . since I had a gun pointed at me three years ago, just after I’d been claimed in the kitchen, knocked up against the countertop, taken on Thanksgiving . . .

  “You’d all have to leave the country, of course,” Mom is saying, biting her lip and blinking as I realize she’s fucking serious. “Which works, since your man is Australian.” She frowns and takes a breath. “Both your passports will be locked down, of course, so you won’t be able to fly. Which means you’ll have to make it to Australia by sea. Stowaways.”

  Now I know Mom’s totally senile. “By sea? You mean sail away to Australia after breaking Angus out of prison?!”

  “I think that’s too many italics in your sentence,” Mom says with a raised eyebrow. “But yes. Of course that’s what I mean. My boyfriend knows guys at some of the smaller California ports. I bet he can get you guys stowed away on a cargo ship. You know that thousands of cargo ships still criss-cross the Seven Seas to carry stuff, don’t ya?” She snorts and shrugs. “It’ll be like a cruise. Think of it as a wedding gift from mother to daughter.”

  I blink away tears that are part disbelief, part straight-up love for this crazy woman whom I’ve never been more proud to call Mom. And I just keep blinking as I watch her get on the phone and talk to her boyfriend, who calls her back in twenty minutes with a plan. A real plan.

  And three days later, when I’m packed and ready to head to San Pedro, California, one of Los Angeles’s smaller ports, it finally hits home: I’m finally leaving home, finally growing up, finally becoming my mother’s daughter.

  And I’m gonna go out there and get my man like a grown fucking woman does.

  I followed the rules and waited for my happy ending.

  And guess what? It didn’t come.

  So fuck it.

&n
bsp; I’m going to grab it by the throat and never let go.

  10

  THREE WEEKS LATER

  ANGUS

  “Don’t you dare let go!” Amy shrieks from behind me, her voice barely audible over the howling wind, the screaming gulls, the cackling dolphins.

  Yes, dolphins.

  I’m holding my two boys as they lie flat on the ledge so the can look down from the foc’sil of the container ship that’s been our home for the past sixteen days. There’ve been dolphins following our ship for a couple of days now, and those scamps love to get out in front and ride the frothy surf that gets churned up as the massive ship cuts through the ocean. Those beasts can easily outswim the ship, and this is like lazy surfing for them.

  I grin as the wild wind ties knots in my long beard, whips Amy's open hair all over the place, almost rips the shirts off my boys Aiden and Argan. But I’m holding them tight and firm, and finally Amy relaxes and slides her arms around my waist as we all peer over the ledge and see the dolphins smiling in glee as they ride the surf.

  The past weeks have been like a fucking dream. I was on the brink of despair after I lost my cool and broke that poor prison guard’s nose when he taunted me for being a fuck-up and a loser. But three days later I’m being smuggled out past the prison walls with the prison garbage, taken to the local dump, transferred to a semi-truck and hauled across the goddamn country to California, to freedom, to my family!

  “My family,” I whisper under my breath as I look down at my boys, feel the warmth of my woman, sense the love that surrounds me. In some way I’m almost happy I had to do three more years. Maybe there was still something inside me that felt I had to repent, that I needed a bit more penance before I could forgive myself for what I did ten years ago.

  “You still haven’t asked me why I ended up in jail the first time,” I say to Amy later in the night, once Aiden and Argan are out like little lights in the alcove of our tiny cabin below decks. The two of us are crammed into a single bed, which is just fine with me. After being ripped away from my woman just after I found her, I have no intention of ever being more than a millimeter away from her body, her breasts, that beautiful ass.

  “I know you think I'm joking or being sensitive or whatever. But I really don't want to know. It doesn't matter, and the only way I can prove that it doesn't matter, that it'll never matter, is if I never know what it is. Besides, it's too late for that," She pauses and shrugs, looking over towards the makeshift partition behind which our treasures, our twins, our forever are gently laying. "Yeah, it’s way too late for that,” she says softly as I pull at her neckline, my cock already hardening again even though I’ve fucked her three times since dinner. “There’s nothing you could have done that’s gonna make any difference, Angus. I already know what kind of a man you are.”

  “Oh, really?” I growl, pulling away her loose top and groaning as I gather her big, heavy breasts in my bigger, heavier palms, squeezing until she starts groaning too. “What kind of a man is that?”

  “A bad, bad man,” she whispers as I kiss those perfect lips. “I knew it when I saw you in that room, at that dinner table, the way you were staring at my boobs like you hadn’t seen a woman in ten years.”

  “Well, I hadn’t seen a woman in ten years,” I grunt, pushing my tongue into her mouth and sliding one hand between her warm thighs at the same time. I spread her legs, almost blowing my load when I smell the earthy musk of her pussy rise up to me in the stuffy little cabin that’s better than a honeymoon suite at the Four Seasons. “And I still want you as badly as I did all those years ago. Still want to claim you in every fucking hole, babe. Still want to take you again and again, get you so goddamn pregnant that Oz will be overrun with our kids.”

  “Well, that sounds lovely, mate,” she moans in a bad imitation of an Aussie accent. “But aren’t we fugitives on the run? Wouldn’t it blow our cover if we’ve got a thousand kids who look like us running all over the Outback?”

  I grunt as I run my thick finger up along her wet slit and firmly press down on her clit, making her breath catch, making her eyes roll up in her head, her tongue hang out as I smell the arousal in the air, feel the need in my balls. “Statute of limitations is only seven years. Maybe longer with the prison break and my repeated violations. So let’s say ten years just to be safe. After that, no fucking DA is gonna spend taxpayer money prosecuting us if we return to the US. We aren’t kidnappers or murders. Our case wasn’t all over the news. We’re home free, baby. Off and away.”

  “Repeated violations . . .” Amy murmurs as I push two fingers into her cunt and curl them up towards her g-spot—which I can now find with every part of my body from my pinky finger to my big fucking toe. “Oh, that’s the sexiest thing you’ve said to me, honey.”

  I laugh softly as I rub my rough beard on her smooth cheeks and neck, licking her bare breasts as I drive my fingers hard into her, wriggling out of my pants at the same time. The physicality of our reunion over the past three weeks has been so explosive that I can barely see straight when Amy’s in my line of sight. I want her all the time. It makes sense, given that we had to stare at each other longingly in crowded visiting rooms for three long years, our need building and building to a crescendo that I don’t think will ever be truly climbed.

  Now my face is down past her belly button, and the aroma of her sex is taking me back to that place where it’s just the two of us, where it doesn’t matter where we are as long as we’re together. And now I understand what she means when she says she doesn't want to know what I did ten years ago. I've done my time, and I need to let it go. She's right--I'm a bad man but I'm not evil. I made a mistake, but we all make mistakes. She wants me to forget the past. Forgive the past. Let it go. Fucking bury it.

  I almost cry with the ecstasy of releasing that guilt, forgiving myself now that I know I've paid my dues.

  Bury it, I think with a grin, and a moment later my face is buried in her bush and she’s coming all over my beard as I hold her hips down and taste her like the animal I am. I let her come hard in my mouth, and then I grab her and flip her onto her stomach, bringing my palms down flat on her round ass.

  “Ouch,” she yelps as I smack her divine bum once more, groaning as I watch her asscheeks jiggle like twin beachballs on Bondi. “What was that for?”

  “That was for waiting three years before breaking me out,” I say sternly as I raise her ass, raise my right hand, and then bring it down hard and firm. She yelps again, and I grin and lick my lips before spanking her twice more on each cheek and then massaging her buttocks as she moans and pushes her ass up into my face.

  Slowly I part those gorgeous cheeks, my cock almost exploding all over the sweaty sheets when her dark rear pucker comes into view, clean and round like the moon, shining with dark light like the sun during an eclipse. I lick her rim until she’s wet and glistening, slowly fingering her asshole until it opens up for me.

  “Oh, fuck, Angus,” she moans into the pillow. “You filthy Aussie bastard.”

  “Guilty, guilty, and guilty,” I whisper softly as arousal fills me like a valley being flooded. I pull her asscheeks apart and spit on her asshole, and then I’ve got my cockhead lined up and I’m pushing into her, going slow but firm, waiting for my pre-cum to ooze into her canal and lubricate the way before I ram all the way inside and empty my balls into her. Into my woman. My mate. My . . .

  My wife, comes the thought as I slide my cock into her anus, feeling her tense up as she howls into the pillow, digs her fingers into the hard mattress until the sheets almost come off. My eyes glaze over as the arousal consumes me, and in my mind I see that ring, the ring that I carried for ten years, the ring that I was about to give to my woman on two separate occasions before it was taken from me. I dropped it at Aunt Raff's house when I was arrested, and she probably found it after getting back from the hospital. Must be sold off by now, though maybe she still has it.
<
br />   In some ways the ring is fucking meaningless, a symbol for a love and commitment that is so clear that I don’t need a goddamn symbol to prove it, to lock it in. But in some ways I do need that symbol, and I wonder if that’s why I haven’t formally asked her to marry me even though it’s clear that we’re together for life, that we’re one unit, joined together with a bond that’s beyond the law.

  Yeah, way beyond the fucking law, I think as I pump into my outlaw American woman, that sweet, shy, curvy girl who bore my sons, broke me out of prison, and is now taking a one-way trip to a new life across the world without demanding that I put a ring on her first

  Amy comes all over the bed just as I explode into her depths, my climax so strong my head almost blows up, my balls jerking so hard I think I’m having a seizure. I drool all over my fucking beard as I see my thick white semen overflow as I pump into her distended asshole, dripping down her crack and onto the dark pool of wetness that she just squirted. The sex has been filthy and wild beyond belief, and I groan again as I finish in her and then collapse, pressing down with all my weight and burying my face in Amy’s hair.

  “I love you,” I whisper as I feel the ship rock gently, roll slowly, glide through the open seas towards the Australian coast. A streak of excitement goes through me as I think about what’s to come, about what we’re going to do, about how I’m going to support a family in a country I left almost fifteen years ago. “I love you, Amy. I love our sons. I love our fucking life. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Then I think a moment and finally say what hasn’t been said. “Except for one. I want you to be my wife. Proper and real. With a ring, Amy. With that ring. I’m going to get that ring back, and I’m going to put it on you.”