by Mia Ford
She shrugged one shoulder. “I’m here for at least the next few months. Then, who knows.”
“There are worst places to be,” I said with a smile.
“Yeah, Mosul.”
My cellphone was on the nightstand. When it buzzed I ignored it, but Pope, like most women I knew, couldn’t just let a phone ring.
“Let it go,” I said, stretching out my arms, trying to stop her.
“Just let me see who it is,” she said, picking it up and staring at the screen. She held out the phone so I could see the screen. “You might wanna take this. The caller ID says Uncle Seth.”
I stared at the screen for a moment. Uncle Seth was my mom’s younger brother, and the only member of my family from either side that I had stayed in touch with over the years. He was like the father I never had, even though my father lived in the same house I did.
I pushed up onto my elbows and took the phone from Pope. I knew why he was calling. I could feel it in my bones.
“Uncle Seth?”
“She’s gone, Shane,” he said, crying into the phone. “Your mama. She’s gone.”
CHAPTER 4: Annabel
Buttercup the mare delivered the fold without any issues, although she certainly took her sweet time doing it. It always amazed me how animals just instinctively knew what to do while humans needed a team of doctors and nurses and classes and books to have a baby. More amazing to me is how quickly non-human babies get up and move on their own. Buttercup pushed the fold out of her womb and within minutes the fold was standing up on its spindly, wobbly legs.
Mr. Gibbs and I watched from outside the stall because unlike human women who wanted their husbands hovering over them during delivery, and every living relative waiting in the hall to tell them how cute their ugly baby was, mares did not appreciate human intervention when they gave birth. It made restless. It was as if they were thinking, “Just leave me alone and let me do this.” So, I waited and watched from afar. I’d only get involved if the mother or fold were in distress.
Buttercup had been restless for hours, indicating that she was getting ready to give birth. Mr. Gibbs said she would lay down, then stand up and tromp around the stall, then do it all again. When she started sweating and lay down on her side, I knew the fold was about to come. After twenty minutes and one good push, the fold gushed out of her in what looked like a giant condom. Buttercup lay quietly for a few minutes, resting, catching her breath, getting her heart and blood pumping again. Finally, she got to her feet and started licking and cleaning the placenta off the fold. I stepped in to make sure mommy and baby were fine, then stood outside of the stall with Mr. Gibbs to watch them bond.
“It’s a beautiful thing,” the old man said lovingly, using a long, bent finger to push back the brim of his worn Stetson on his high forehead. He was tall and thin to the point of being gaunt, but his skin was the color and texture of saddle leather after decades of baking in the hot Texas sun. His bushy eyebrows and the stubble that covered his pointy chin and hollow cheeks were as white as the hairs curling out over his ears from beneath the Stetson.
“What’s that?” I asked.
He let his head bob as he watched Buttercup and her baby. “The bond between a mother and child. Nothing like it on earth. It’s a true miracle.”
“It is,” I said, resting my arms on top of the stall and setting my chin on them. I stifled a yawn on my arm and wondered what time it was. It was dark outside. I felt as if I’d been up for days.
“Speaking of, how are your folks?” Gibbs asked.
“They’re fine,” I said, watching the mare as it cleaned afterbirth off its baby’s sleek nose. “They’re both retired. Mama keeps busy keeping daddy in line. And daddy is just as ornery as ever. All he wants to do is hunt and fish and get on mama’s nerves.”
“Huntin’ and fishin’ can keep a man young,” Mr. Gibbs said, chuckling as he scratched his whiskered chin. “Oh, did you hear that Irene Mavic passed away yesterday?” He said it matter-of-factly, as if he were just asking me if it rained at my house yesterday.
I blinked at him because I had not heard the news, which was odd given the small-town gossip chain that ran through Gulf Breeze like a super highway. Irene Mavic was Shane Mavic’s mother. Shane was my high school sweetheart, at least until I caught him with Juju Wheeler at the end of our senior year. Seeing them together like that, her big tits hanging out, her mouth around his cock, his hand fishing around inside her… well, that pretty much drove a stake through my heart and killed any feelings I’d ever had for Shane Mavic. I never spoke to him again, although I still thought about him from time to time. I reckoned you never forgot your first love, no matter how badly they screwed you over or screwed you up.
It did not escape me that Juju had serviced both of the men I’d loved while they were supposed to be faithful to me. Juju was the class slut, though she strutted around with her nose in the air like she was belle of the ball. She had been spreading her legs for the boys since she was old enough to sprout hair between her legs. She was a total cunt that didn’t care who got hurt so long as she got whatever she wanted.
Supposedly, she had found Jesus while I was away at vet school and had changed her ways, but I knew better. Once a slut, always a slut. Only now when Juju cried out for Jesus while somebody else’s man was fucking her the Good Lord might answer the call with a lightning bolt or two. The next time she brought her little Maltese in for its shots I’d have to ask her how Jesus was since he never paid me much mind.
“Irene Mavic died?” I frowned at him. “I hadn’t heard that. How? When?”
Gibbs blew out a long breath that smelled like chewing tobacco and rye whiskey. “I reckon she’d been in a home in Galveston for a while now. She got lung cancer a year or two after Clint passed on, you know. Second hand smoke, the docs said, because she never smoked a day in her life.”
“Clint smoked like a chimney,” I said without bothering to hide my disgust for the man from my voice. “He beat the poor woman for years and killed her with his cigarettes. It’s a goddamn shame.” I realized I was thinking out loud. I glanced over to find Gibbs staring at me from under his bushy eyebrows. I huffed a tired smile to excuse my behavior. “Sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“That’s okay,” he said with a grin that was missing its front teeth. “Everybody knew what a mean sumbitch Clint Mavic was.”
“And yet nobody did anything about it,” I said, rubbing my eyes till they were red.
“Not much you could do,” he said, quietly.
“I guess.” I could picture Irene Mavic’s downtrodden face in my mind. I don’t think I ever saw her smile, not that I was around her more than a handful of times. Shane rarely let me come to his house and only did so when his daddy wasn’t home, and even then, he wouldn’t let me stay long. He never talked about what a house of horrors it was, though I knew something dark and evil lived there. The few times I asked him about the bruises on his back and ribs he’d just blame it on football.
“Well, his boy tried to do something about it,” Gibbs said, his head bobbing on his long neck. He cleared his throat and spat tobacco juice in the dirt. “And look where that got him.”
“Yeah,” I said, watching the fold struggling to get to its feet. “Look where it got him.”
CHAPTER 5: Shane
Gulf Breeze, Texas, population 6,273 according to the faded sign on the highway leading into town, was a little nothing spot on the Gulf of Mexico (where there was always a breeze, duh) just south of Freeport and north of Matagorda. The old folks liked to say that Gulf Breeze was in the middle of nowhere, but had one hell of an ocean view. Old folks said the stupidest things sometimes. I knew the number on the sign was wrong because my old man and my mother had died since it was last updated. Probably a lot of other folks, too. The population never went up in Gulf Breeze because old citizens died faster than new ones could be born.
I was born and raised in Gulf Breeze by a dad who spent his life working on oil rigs
and a mother who spent most of her time trying to keep the fuck out of his way.
My old man, Clint Mavic, was only 5’9 and smoked three packs of Lucky Strikes a day, but he was built like a Texas bull and had the temper of a nest of hornets. He was short and stocky, but I’d seen him lay-out men six inches taller with one good punch and not break a sweat. You never worried about anyone bothering you when you were with him in public. People gave Clint Mavic a wide berth because they knew he could go off like a stick of dynamite with a short fuse at any minute.
His old man beat the living shit out of him in the name of good parenting and he did the same to me, although his beatings had nothing to do with teaching me right or wrong. They were just him taking out his frustration and anger and meanness on the person who seemed to get on his nerves the most. He’d beat me until I couldn’t take anymore, then start in on my mother. And if that didn’t get it out of his system he’d go to a bar looking for a fight.
I walked on eggshells all the time when I was a young, skinny kid, I was so afraid of pissing him off. It was a waste of time because you never knew when he was gonna blow. He was like a volcano that would erupt without warning. Calm one minute, punching you hard in the face the next. He was careful never to break any bones or do anything that would leave a permanent mark. He never hit me in the face until I joined the football team in high school. I guess he figured the black eyes and busted lips could be blamed on a tough scrimmage.
He never touched my little brother Kenny, but I was his punching bag from the time I was old enough to walk and get knocked down and get back up again. He beat the living shit out of my mom, too. I’d seen him grab her by the neck and shake her till she turned blue. Then he’d toss her aside and head toward me again if I was coming to. I got really good at playing possum. I’d lay there like Texas roadkill and let him kick me in the back without screaming till he tired himself out.
I always swore that one day I’d put him on his ass. I’d hit him so fucking hard he wouldn’t ever get up. One day I’d be big enough and strong enough and have balls enough to put my fist into his nose and the tip of my boot into his ribs, just like he did to me.
That moment came and went in a flash. I remembered getting a momentary rush of satisfaction as the son of a bitch lay there on his back clutching his nose as blood squirted through his fingers. Then the cops came and hauled me away. The judge, a fishing buddy of my old man, gave me two choices: a year in jail or four years in the military. I told him I’d take whichever option got me the fuck out of Gulf Breeze, Texas.
Two days later, a deputy sheriff and the Navy recruiter out of Galveston were putting me on the Greyhound bound for Michigan. I left Gulf Breeze and never looked back. Not until today, 4,110 days later. I had left an abused, angry, vengeful boy. I was returning a disciplined, tough as nails, motherfucking Navy SEAL.
I was coming home to bury my mother and sell her house, then I’d leave Gulf Breeze for the final time. Good riddance to bad memories.
CHAPTER 6: Annabel
I had loved Shane Mavic for years, ever since Mrs. Owens, our first-grade teacher sat us next to each other on the first day of school. I think she did it because we sort of favored each other. A lot of the teachers thought we were brother and sister. We were both stick-skinny, with coal black hair and deep brown eyes and the honey-colored skin lightened by the generational thinning of our Cherokee blood.
I was a typical little girl, all bright eyed and bouncy, but Shane was a quiet little boy who never said anything unless there was a reason to. While the other kids were bouncing off the walls, Shane would sit silently at the table and watch them with fascination twinkling in his eyes, as if he was trying to figure out what they had to be so happy about. I didn’t know for years what went on at Shane’s house behind closed doors. I didn’t know his daddy was a sadistic son of a bitch and his wife a pathetic doormat who allowed her oldest son to be used as a punching bag. Shane had a younger brother, Kenny, who his father doted on. Kenny got all the love. Shane got all the abuse. But I never saw him cry and never heard him say a bad word about his brother. Shane loved Kenny as much as a big brother could. Sometimes I think he took the abuse for them both so their father would leave Kenny alone.
I always felt bad for Shane, which made me love him even more. Even as a little girl I wanted to take him into my arms and rock him to sleep, like I did my baby dolls. I wanted to cradle him to my young bosom and tell him it was all going to be okay, even though we both knew it wouldn’t be because his daddy was off somewhere getting drunk and would be looking for him when he stumbled through the door.
I was horrified at the bruises on his body the first time Shane took off his shirt in front of me. We were fifteen and going swimming at the lake. He had deep purple bruises along his rib cage and back. I didn’t have to ask what they were from. I knew. Everybody knew.
I also knew it would come to a head someday when Clint was either too drunk to narrow in on his target or Shane had finally taken enough.
I always figured one day Shane would kill his father. And somehow that was all right with me because it would mean Shane was set free.
* * *
Shane and I started dating somewhere around the tenth grade. We never really made it official. He never gave me a ring or anything. It was just understood that we were together. We’d loved each other for years, so in my mind it was simply the logical progression of our relationship. I had it all planned out. We would date through high school, I’d go to college while Shane worked the oil rigs, then we’d get married and have kids. There was no other scenario in my mind. I never considered any other option.
Call it timing or simply convenience, we became a couple about the time puberty hit. I remembered our first kiss. We were ten and had no idea what we were doing. We didn’t even use our tongues because I said that was gross. My boobs came in when I was fourteen and I proudly let Shane touch them. I think he actually came in his jeans because when he squeezed my tit (a little too roughly) his face contorted and he quickly crossed his legs and said he had to go. Funny how things start. By the time we were sixteen it was routine for us to be buck naked and sweaty in the back of his mom’s car. Or in the lake. Or in the handicap stall in the boy’s restroom. Or in my bedroom. Or anywhere else we could steal away for a few minutes and fuck like little rabbits. We used a condom the first few times, then I convinced my mother that I needed to go on the pill for “health reasons”.
I loved having sex with Shane. He had a long cock that scared the shit out of me the first time I saw it. “You want to stick that thing in me?” I remembered asking as it sprang out hard from his jeans for the first time. “The whole thing???”
I had to laugh now, all these years later. But when you’re a sixteen-year-old girl who had never seen a cock up close before, especially one so big, it was a scary thing… for a moment… then it was… amazing…
* * *
The first time we went all the way we were parked at a secluded spot above Gulf Pointe, where the kids with cars liked to park. We were in the back seat of his mom’s old Chrysler. Naked. Sweaty. Clawing at each other like hungry animals. The car windows were steamed up. The radio was on, the country station out of Galveston. It was a Saturday night in the middle of summer and hot as hell. There was a full moon out. It shined through the rear glass, bathing our naked bodies with its glow. I could smell the sweat coming off Shane’s skin. I could feel him growing in my hand. The air was thick and moist, rolling in from the Gulf like a heavy fog that made it hard to breath. Or maybe it was what we were doing that was taking my breath away.
“I want you inside me,” I said, my hand moving slowly up and down the length of him. We’d played these naked games for months. I’d suck his cock or jack him off and he’d lick my pussy or finger me till I came. Fuck it, I said to myself, it’s time to put up or shut up.
“You sure?” Shane asked. He was lying back in the seat. He got up onto his elbows and gave me a serious look. “I mean, I do
n’t wanna do anything you don’t wanna do.”
“I wanna do it,” I said, leaning down to plant a kiss on the head of his cock. “I want us to pop each other’s cherries.” I gave him a smile that told him I was sure and I was ready. “You bring that rubber?”
Shane always carried a condom in his wallet. All the boys did. It was a status symbol for a boy to have that little circle worn into the leather of his wallet, even if the prospects of using the rubber were remote at best. Shane reached into the floor to find his jeans. As my hand kept him hard, he fumbled with his wallet. He held up the rubber and smiled at me.
“Gimme,” I said, reaching for it. I took the rubber and tore open the pack with my teeth.
“How do you know what to do?” he asked, watching me, licking his lips.
“Mandy told me how to do it,” I said, referring to my slutty best friend. I gently placed the rubber on the head of his cock, then slowly rolled it down the shaft.
“Fuck… don’t make me cum,” Shane said, sucking in a quick breath as he grabbed my wrists. “I’m about to pop.”
“Well, pop inside my pussy, cowboy,” I said playfully. My pussy was soaking wet and the condom was lubricated. Shane’s cock would slip in easily enough, virgin hole or not. I’d just have to bite my lip and push through the pain because I was determined to fuck this boy till his balls turned blue.
“Okay, let me get on top,” I said, straddling his hips, my pussy hovering over his flagpole of a cock. I took his cock in my hand and guided the head to my hole. “Okay, slow now, let me do it, it’s not all gonna fit…”
