by Jamie Knight
Most people listened to music as they ran. I could certainly understand that, despite it never really holding much appeal for me. Goodness knew I had tried. Yet the simple fact was impossible to avoid. I preferred audiobooks.
According to family legend, my cousin, some big shot art director for a Las Vegas graphic design firm, had a similar aversion, despite the large number of successful musicians and composers in our extended family. My aunt was a semi-famous opera singer and my other cousin was one of the vocalists for Dante Street Massacre.
When it came to listening material, I preferred classics. Not only did the writing previous to the 20th century have an interesting sort of rhythm, a lot of the titles were either cheap or free to download, something that would likely surprise most people to find was a concern for me. But being thrifty was a large part of how I ended up where I was.
That day, in preparation for the unholy judicial beat down I was about to administer to the forces of evil, I opted for the good old King James and skipped to the latter parts of Revelation. Nothing like a good smiting to get the blood pumping.
I could hear the shower echo through the house as I came through the door. I had gone through the ritual of a cold shower before heading out for my run. But it never hurt to have another.
Knocking before I went in lest she think me a psycho killer, I entered the bathroom at her invitation, taking off my running gear as I went, glancing at my pedometer and my number of steps as I did so. She was already bent over when I got in the shower. Hands pressed flat against the cool porcelain, she offered herself to me in love and trust.
Cupping my hand up between her legs, I held still, letting her know that I was there and that I loved her. She gasped in pleasure, as well as surprise.
Stroking her lightly until she hummed with sounded like joyful contentment, I got on my knees behind her, partaking of her sweet tenderness. Making her moan and scream in ecstasy. Just when she was about to cum, I stood again, replacing my tongue with my thumb as I did so, and slid my rock-hard cock deep inside her.
She took it like a champ, only letting out the quickest and quietest of moans as I pushed in until my pelvis was pressed lightly up against her ass. Pausing as Addie prepared herself, taking several deep breaths, getting to the same rhythm she had reached when I had her meditate. I could actually feel her relaxing.
Putting my hands on her hips, I started to pump, gently working my cock deep inside her precious pussy. Leaning her head back, she started moving with me, pushing herself back against me as I fucked her.
It didn’t take long before we were fucking really hard. My cock pounding her inner depths, Addie yelped her approval and joy. I could feel myself getting really close to coming. Addie was pretty close herself, judging by the sounds she was making.
I considered for a moment whether I should cum inside her. She had clearly enjoyed t when I had done it before. I also reasoned that if she was going to get pregnant, she would be already, and it wouldn't make much difference whether or not I did it that time.
We came in unison, our bodies in near perfect sync, her head going back as again as she was taken by a body-wracking orgasm. I was already holding her, so it was an easy thing to keep her upright after her knees buckled. It was something I had figured might happen.
Turning off the shower, I got Addie out and wrapped her in a towel. Drying us both off, I swooped Addie up and carried her into the bedroom.
I thought she might be too spent to get into the lotus, but she managed by putting her back up against the wall. Sitting across from her, I once again lead in deep breathing exercises.
Her technique had gotten a lot smoother since the first time. I wondered if she had been practicing. Bringing us both into a calm and open state, I laid may hands on her forehead and chest, zeroing in on the focal points. I tried to send her all the positive energy as I could.
I knew there were people who would laugh. Some of them already had. They thought it was just New Age mumbo jumbo. But it was real and actually tested by real scientist. The only provision was that one of the people involved had to be an empath. Everything on Earth gave off some kind of resonance. That had been shown with various forms of energy meters.
The thing was, humans were no exception, giving off resonance like everything else on this little blue rock of ours. It was just that it was at a frequency that was out of range for most. Empaths, estimated at roughly 2% of the human population, were the ones who could pick up the frequency, allowing us to both receive and, in extreme cases, send out emotional resonance.
I was one of the extreme cases able to sense, as well as literally feel, the pain of others. It had a tendency to make me want to be gentle.
But right now, all of this could wait. There was something else we had to do. Somewhere else we needed to be.
“Ready, Pumpkin?”
“Hell yeah.”
Chapter Fifteen
Tobias
The quarantine had been lifted a few days before, which was why we had the court date we did. Dave was pushing to make it soon as possible, no doubt to keep us from having time to prepare. He had clearly underestimated me.
I had sent the most damning evidence to my lawyer via email almost as soon as I had received it from my contact. He had been spending the week building the best case he possibly could. Considering his Harvard Law education and quadruple-digit hourly fees, it must have been very good indeed.
“Tobias,” our lawyer said with terse nod, having given up on handshakes some time ago.
“Mitchell,” I said, returning his nod.
“You must be Addie.”
“Hi,” she said, looking at the tastefully carpeted floor.
The feeling I was getting from her was one of embarrassment. I couldn’t figure out why until I realized that Mitchell had seen the pictures. They wouldn’t be considered remotely erotic except to a sadist, but I could still understand her discomfort. I reached out and stroked the small of her back.
“I’ve gone over the, uh, evidence and I think we have a very strong case.”
“We’d better, considering what I’m paying you!” I joked.
“He seems - nice,” Addie attempted, as we went down to the courtroom.
“He does do a good impression. Trust me, though, he’s a pit bull. Just wait.”
Much of the hearing went as expected. There was standing and sitting for the judge, which I managed to do without giggling at the absurdity, opening arguments and all that rot. The opposing attorney played her part well. Of course, she called Addie, playing friendly with Addie while looking for a weak spot to stab, but the girl didn’t give her one. She got some shots in and threw Addie off a bit, but by and large the judge was unreadable through the most of it. Then came the big show.
“Defence calls David Harris,” Mitchell said, in his loud, clear lawyer voice.
Watching the man who had caused us so much grief go from smarmy confidence to a blubbering mess was beautiful. It happened slowly. Mitchell’s mostly rhetorical questions chipping away at Dave’s resolve. The oh-shit-I’m-fucked moment came when he argued that he didn’t know how the pictures got online and they had been taken consensually.
“Is that so, Mr. Harris? Then please do tell the court how it is that your IP address was found on the original upload to the website known as BeautifulTorture. Oh, no wait, let me guess. Your computer was hacked right? Some miscreant in Minsk stole the files and posted them for a profit.”
“Exactly.”
“Odd,” Mitch mused.
“What’s that?”
“These payments to your bank account for $1,200 apiece from VividImage, the company behind the BeautifulTorture site.”
“I-”
“Illegally sold the pictures without consent.”
“Okay, okay, yes, I sold them. I needed the money and she wasn’t exactly around to ask. I should have gotten consent to sell ‘em but I had it to take ‘em.”
“Interesting,” Mitch said, rubbing is
chin.”
“What is?”
“Oh, nothing really. It’s just that in at least three of these pictures. All from the same, er, ‘session’, there is clear to see a half empty vial of sedative on the floor and what looks very much like a needle mark in the back of Mrs. Harris’s thigh. In a hurry, were you?”
“I needed money. I owed money to some really bad guys.”
“Which you still do.”
“Yeah. 30 grand to the O’Connell brothers.”
“Tough customers,” Mitch prompted.
“You have no idea. Once I heard Addie was going on the show, I figured she was going to be getting a lot of money from it. I was trying to get it. They’ll kill me if I don’t pay.”
I thought the judge might pulverize the block with her gavel. Her righteous fury more than understandable. Because it was family court there was nothing she could do prison-wise except recommend charges.
But on the matter of his custody case, Dave was destroyed. Sole custody was given to Addie, and Dave was ordered to pay all of the court costs. Everything had gone as expected. Up to a point.
“Dave.”
He turned, looking like a truly beaten man with very little left to live for and not a whole lot of time to live in general.
“Addie?”
“Here,” she said, handing him a check.
“What?”
“For the O’Connells. Go pay your debts, Dave.”
“I-”
“Will never come near me or Duncan ever again,” she finished.
“Right, got it but I mean, why? Why help me after all the shit I pulled?”
“You are an asshole, Dave. You put me through hell, and I hate you, but – but you still don’t deserve to die.”
“Th-thank you.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
“Right, okay thanks.”
Dave scampered off to pay the price on his own head to live and drink another day. Possibly changed just a bit for the better.
“Who did you do it for?” I asked as Clementine pulled up to the curb.
“Me. Because it was right. Because I don’t want to hate people.”
I put an arm around her shoulders, squeezing her tight., Addie put her head on my shoulder.
“C’mon,” I said, guiding her to the car, “Let’s go get your son.”
Chapter Sixteen
Addie
It was like walking through molasses. I was going to see my baby again after nearly two months. It was longest we had ever spent apart since he was born. I had worried a bit that Dave might try to take off with him before we could get there before the social worker arrived. But he didn’t, finally comprehending the extent of the power held by Tobias. Something that was still being revealed to me, on astounding layer at a time.
My mind reeled imagining all the crap Dave was telling him in that time. Trying to poison his mind against me. I, of course, didn’t know if he had been doing that, but it made logical sense.
His original plan must have been to take Duncan for good, to make me either have to get back with him or pay child support. Even back when I only worked at the factory, I had a steadier job and more money than he did. Or maybe it was some kind of blackmail scheme. Get custody of Duncan and then make me pay to see him. Or maybe then, by the goodness of his heart, suggest to the court that I get visitation, but only after I had paid him to do so.
Either way, it had always been about money, and then when he found out about the show, it was about a whole lot of money. It was just like him to exploit others to try to get what he needed.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Dave was an ardent student of Objectivism. The copy of The Fountainhead he had been reading when we first met, sticking up out of the pocket of his tweed jacket like a name tag saying, ‘Hello, My name is DOUCHE,’ really should have been a red flag. Alas, I was too young and naive to read the signs. The spider thereby was able to capture me in his nefarious web of wit and charm.
Still, even with it all, I actually couldn’t hate him. Not on a basic, existential level. I never wanted to see him again and the thought of him made me sick. It was a revulsion that would later turn to amusement with the healing nature of time as well as the further tutelage by Tobias of his Absurdist ways. But I had meant what I said when I gave him the check. I didn’t want him to die, especially not the ways the O’Connells would have done it. They were infamous for their agonizingly creative methods of dispatch.
I couldn’t in good cognisance let anyone going through that. Not even him. In a strange way, knowing the full story had given me more understanding of Dave and his ways. It wasn’t quite sympathy, but at least I knew there was something resembling a good reason behind his actions. Self-preservation in the face of imminent death was something I thought everyone could understand. I didn’t condone any of the things he did, but I understood why he did them. He wasn’t a psychopath just getting his jollies.
He was an arguably normal, if selfish, guy trying not to be horribly murdered and doing many bad things in the process. I only hoped with the spectre of death lifted from his shoulders he might be able to be halfway decent again. I had loved him once. I couldn’t anymore, but part of me still wanted good things for him.
“Ready?” Tobias asked.
“Not really, but it doesn’t matter.”
He kissed me sweetly on the cheek in a way that made me smile and opened the door to the library.
“Mommy!”
In an instant, my big, brave 12-year-old who usually squirmed when I tried to hug him in public, was wrapped around me like a baby koala. I rubbed his back and stroked his hair. The cynic in me wondered what terror Dave had committed to bring about such a reaction. My logical mind to it to shut the fuck up, Duncan just missed me.
“How have you been?” I asked, when Duncan finally released me.
“Lonely. I mean it was fun for a while. I had the house to myself a lot, but I didn’t like it much after a while. I wanted to see Dad more, but he didn’t want to do that. He was cool when he was there, but then he would go out. Sometimes all night.”
“I know what you mean, baby.”
“Mom, don’t call me that.”
“Never,” I teased, giving him a loving kiss on the forehead, which he immediately wiped away.
“Who’s he? The lawyer?”
It wasn’t a bad guess, really. Tobias was wearing an expensive looking suit and talking on a cellphone, telling Clementine to bring the car around. His simple question brought up another much more difficult one. How was I going to tell him about Tobias? It really was a pretty odd situation that I was still trying to figure out myself in a lot of ways.
“He’s a friend,” I said, not sure of ‘boyfriend’ was not quite the right word and knowing for sure that ‘fuck-buddy’, while accurate, was a bit too truthful, “I-I live with him.”
“Why?”
“Well, remember me going on the show?”
“Yeah.”
“During the lockdown we had to do the show from inside. The hotel was closed, so I went to live with Tobias at his house. Then I had to deal with the trial and decided to stay around in town.”
“Are you going home?”
He didn’t say it, but ‘home’ was our apartment on Long Island. The one I had taken to after being released from the hospital and laid him in the crib my granddad had built for my mom, in the nursery that Mercy and I decorated ourselves with what little money we had.
“Tobias’s house is home now. We already had all our stuff sent over.”
“Oh,” Duncan said, deflating her so slightly.
I don’t think it was the loss of the apartment that really affected him. He was a Long Island baby and it was what was familiar to him. It was where all his friends were. Not to mention Mercy, who had acted as his ‘cool aunt’ all of his life.
“Will Mercy be there?”
“I don’t think so, baby, we—”
“It is a big house,” Tobias pointed out
, “we could ask if she would like to.”
“Really?” Duncan and I asked in unison.
“Sure. Clementine already lives there in the east wing. She has her own entrance around the back.”
“Wow! You must be a millionaire!” Duncan enthused.
“Billionaire, actually.”
“You and the who and the what-what?” I asked, totally confused.
“You’ve seen my house.”
“I thought the network paid for it, you know, like, a perk or whatever.”
“Oh, I own the network too and a couple of others. Some cyber security firms, oh, and some very desirable property in Europe. I use my estate in France as a vacation home. It is literally a castle.”
“Cool!” Duncan said, looking like he might faint with sheer excitement.
“I know, right?”
“Can I live in a castle, mom?”
“I-I don’t -”
“Do you speak French?” Tobias asked, taking the lead again.
“No.”
“Well that could be troublesome, the castle being in France and all.”
“Oh.”
“I could see if I can find a castle in England,” Tobias offered, “though it would mean leaving New York.”
“Oh. Are there any castles in New York?” Duncan asked, ever the pillar of logic.
“Not that I know of,” Tobias confessed.
Clementine was there when we pulled up. The back door was wide open. Duncan broke away from us and leapt into the backseat, bouncing on the black, leather seat.
“Went well?” Clementine asked.
“All’s well that ends well,” Tobias replied.
I wasn’t sure what to expect as we drove back to the house. I figured Duncan would look out the window or pepper me or Tobias with twenty questions, never quite losing his inquisitiveness. What came as a surprise was his easy banter with Clementine, who kept up with his hyperactive enthusiasm with little trouble.
