Saint's Sacrament - Sins of the Father

by Laveen, Tiana

  ~***~

  It’s happening again…

  Xenia held Isis in her arms and rocked her while she relaxed on the couch. The little girl was now fast asleep. She’d tossed her phone back on the coffee table after reading a message from Jagger. Relief set in. She hated herself for crying about it. Hated herself for being glad. This child, too, just like her sons, was gifted. She knew it was magical, and having given birth to the Princess of Life gave a very slim chance that Isis wouldn’t be gifted in some capacity, but a bit of her had prayed the little girl could live a normal life. She’d seen what Saint had gone through. He’d struggled his entire life with it, he didn’t want it, and he’d tried to hide and push it away. Now that he embraced it, he was constantly busy, more so than ever. She just wanted her husband back and she suspected, though he didn’t dare admit it, that at times he wished he could just be a normal guy, too. It was too late for that now though—he was who he was, and he’d moved too far along the path to retract.

  She looked down at Isis, smiled and kissed her cheek. The girl was levitating objects, just like Hassani, but she was less than two years old! Saint had told her these things wouldn’t show their existence until later. Obviously those rules didn’t apply with this little one. Xenia surmised it was possibly because of her birthright, hoping it was nothing more. She got to her feet and made her way back to the crib in the adjoining bedroom, placed Isis gently down into it, and covered her with a blanket. She leaned over to look at the precious one.

  You’re so beautiful… Mommy will always be here for you, baby.

  She wiped another tear away and returned to master suite to prepare the place for her husband’s arrival…

  ~***~

  Saint groaned in the back of the cab. Jagger had considered renting a car for the festivities, but there was no sense in it. The man would just blend in with everyone else that had too much to drink that evening. The cabbie surely thought Saint was another drunk who’d spent too much time at the local watering hole. He sat inside with him, biding his time as they drew closer to the hotel. Osaze had tried to speak to him, tried to thank him, but Saint was unreachable. In the commotion, Kyung Mi confessed her amazement, as well as confusion. The woman had a hard time grasping what she’d witnessed. Smoke pouring from mouths, the room changing temperatures so drastically, furniture shaking, lights blinking. It was like nothing she’d ever seen. Jagger wrinkled his nose as a foul stench crawled into his nostrils and instantly made him queasy. He looked at Saint.

  I hope this bastard didn’t shit on himself…or maybe it’s the sewers.

  Saint mumbled, leaned forward, then flopped back when the driver put his foot on the brake.

  “Sooosutfriedolemite,” Saint blurted, his eyes closed. More strange words left his mouth that Jagger couldn’t decipher nor decode. It had been an ordeal getting the man redressed. Saint kept shifting around and fighting him, calling him names as he became more and more delirious. All semblance of reality had been lost.

  When they arrived at the hotel, Jagger paid the driver and ushered Saint out the car. He had to hold him up through the hotel doors, across the vast lobby with its intricate, detailed furnishings, until they arrived at the elevator. Saint almost tripped over his own feet, and he seemed to be growing heavier and heavier, as if he were picking up invisible boulders along the way. Jagger struggled to drag him the rest of the way. The guy must’ve weighed a ton. The doors opened, and in a flash, Jagger gripped him around his waist then pressed the man’s back against the wall.

  The instrumental of, “The Spanish Flea’ by Herb Alpert played as elevator music.

  “Saint, you’re a mess tonight, bro.” Jagger chuckled while Saint grinned, half out of his mind. “You did great though, I’m proud of ya.”

  Saint raised an arm, his golden eyes hooded like a dope fiend after a long, delightful hit and pointed at him, barely able to keep his balance.

  “Jahhhhh! Argyle socks, fuckkkkkaaaa!!!” Saint looked up at the ceiling lights, screaming more strange obscenities, as if they, too, had done him some injustice.

  Jagger shook his head and continued to laugh until they reached their floor. Scooping the man around his narrow waist, they hobbled together like potato sack racers down the long, hallway, turning the sharp corner, skipping over a silver tray placed outside one door. All the while Saint cursed in a sing song voice. Before Jagger could knock on the door, Xenia swung it open, reached out as if her man was drowning and helped pull him inside the hotel room.

  “I heard him!” she bellowed. “He is going to wake everyone in the damn hotel! Has he been drinking?!” She helped Jagger drag the heavy load into the master suite bathroom where she’d drawn a hot bath with Epsom salt just as instructed.

  “I don’t want any sardiiiiines!” Saint screamed. “They staaaaaank and wear little straw hats!”

  Jagger shook his head in disbelief. “No. He hasn’t had a drop of anything. This is one of the symptoms after a rough healing that I warned you about. The healer gets a little delirious. He found some heart issues with your father-in-law, so it took even more out of him.”

  Xenia shook her head and looked down at Saint. The woman looked so sad, her eyes a watery pink and the lashes webbed together with moisture. Nevertheless, she also seemed relieved to have him back in her arms, regardless of his condition.

  “It should wear off in a few hours. I suggest you tape it because he’ll deny it even happened,” he joked. “Oh, and I’m not sure, but he may have shit himself. I got a whiff of something rank. That’s common though with healers, too. Not really sexy, but hey, you know?” He shrugged as he glanced over at the pile of flesh, his lips still moving about streaming words that had no business being in the same sentence.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ!” She rolled her eyes and smirked. “Thanks Jagger for keeping watch. You have no idea how much this means to me.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, her soft lips pressing into his hard jawbone, taking him by surprise. He patted the spot where her mouth had landed and smiled. A slick spot from her gloss remained.

  “You’re welcome. Hey, he’s really heavy; I doubt you can lift him by yourself. You want me to help get him in the tub?”

  “Do you mind?” She smiled weakly, and then her eyes did something he hadn’t seen—she drifted off and away, as if remembering something painful. Jagger had a sense she’d seen him in a bad state before, as if she somehow had lived out a part of this in the past. He wanted to dig, wanted to read her, wanted to know more about Saint. Sometimes the man was too secretive for his own good, but he knew now was not the time.

  “Yeah, I mind,” Jagger joked, trying to soften the mood. “…But he’s my friend so I’m going to do it anyway.” They both grinned at one another. Jagger hooked his hands under Saint’s long, limp arms while Xenia removed his shoes and socks and undid his belt. She got down to his boxers and gingerly peeled them down, bracing herself for what she may find. They both sighed in relief after seeing his underwear was clean and clear.

  “Must’ve just been a fart.” Jagger chortled.

  Xenia burst out laughing so loud she shushed herself. “Maybe, just glad I didn’t have to clean him up like I do Isis,” she teased. “He’d never live that down. Saint is really OCD about his personal hygiene. He would’ve been so embarrassed.”

  “Okay, did you light the black and white candles? Lawrence said that’s what he needed.” Jagger looked around the bathroom, not seeing any signs of them.

  “Yes, I’ve got them. I’ll bring them in as soon as we get him in here.”

  She unbuttoned Saint’s shirt and flung it to the floor, along with his undershirt. She left only his necklace on him. He was completely naked. A long, lean, muscular mass of a person who was completely out of his mind.

  “Stop shaving that pink dog like that you dumb ass motherfuckas!!!” Saint screamed out, his eyes dancing with fury, causing both of them to stifle a laugh.

  “Okay, Xenia, when I say lift, you lift.”

>   She nodded and held steady as if she were on a football field and going to swing the poor guy’s body like a hammock between two palm trees.

  “Lift!”

  Splash!

  Saint hit the warm water like a body in the Hudson. Xenia immediately fell down to her knees and propped the delirious man’s head up with a rolled up, fresh towel. His eyes drooped and his words slurred. Saint suddenly smirked and pointed at her, tapping her nose as she leaned over him as if she were some cute stranger he’d eyed from across the room. Here he was, totally out of it, and still trying to flirt.

  Some things never stop.

  “You look like dis fuckin’ apple I used to eat!” He licked his tongue out at her, flicking it like a snake…and hissed. Xenia shook her head in disbelief. “It was ripe like a pelican! Pelicans are ugly fuckin’ birds…they eat fish…fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads! Fish heads, fish heads, eat up, yuuuum!” Saint giggled in almost a high pitch squeal that had Jagger fucking cry trying to hold in the laughter. This was better than a damned movie.

  I remember that weird ass song. I can’t wait to tell Lawrence about this shit!

  Xenia shot Jagger a look. “Are you sure I’ll only have to deal with this lunacy another few hours?”

  Jagger cracked up, unable to keep it in any longer. “Look, everything I know, I do from Lawrence who prepared me for this visit. That’s what he told me. With Saint you never know though. He’s a strange one.”

  “I love puuuussssssy!” Saint squealed with exuberance as he splashed about in the water, as if he were trying to do the backstroke. “Here, pussy pussy! Hey!” Saint shot up like a rocket, wild-eyed and delirious, “Did anybody see that woman just flash me her titties?!”

  “Oh my God.” She covered her face and shook her head. “Well, thanks Jagger. I can take it from here.” She got to her feet and walked him to the door.

  “Xenia, if he starts wilding out, getting aggressive or you need any help, I’m right across the hall. Call me, and I’ll be right over, okay?”

  “Yes.” She reached for him and gave him a big hug, taking him off guard once again. “I will and thanks again.”

  He walked out the door and she locked it. After letting himself inside his room, he rushed to the bathroom and immediately took a long-held piss. As he removed his clothing to take a shower, he thought about the calls he needed to make and how much he missed Traci. He wished she was there with him so he could kiss her and make love to her. Walking out of the bathroom naked, a black shaving razor in his hand, he fiddled with the radio until he landed on a contemporary jazz station. It was different than his typical Rock ’n Roll, but he liked it just the same. He wanted something soothing. It had been a long night, and Saint’s antics had his nerves jumping. He returned to the bathroom where the steam had covered the mirror; he was unable to see himself any longer. He lifted his hand to wipe it clear, but hesitated. Instead, he drew a heart and wrote Traci’s name in the middle…

  I have to trust love. I have to take a chance. I’m scared. I’m a grown man, and scared of no one, and nothing…but for the first time in my life, you have me terrified. I’m so in love with you, and I think I wouldn’t want to be around anymore if I were to lose you. I’ve never met anyone like you in my entire life. We just fit so well together, like puzzle pieces. You complete me. I wish I was brave with you, I wish I could be strong. I hate this feeling, being petrified…I hate it more than almost anything in this world.

  He threw the razor in the sink, vetoing his previous plans to shave the sprouting stubble, and stepped into the shower. He wanted to know when fear had grown legs and walked into his life, making itself comfortable at his dining room table and demanding to be served. He wanted to know when he lost heart, and replaced it with the mask of a coward…and then he recalled exactly when it happened. It was the moment he’d looked into that woman’s almond-shaped ebony eyes and realized he was madly in love, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it…

  ~***~

  Xenia sat on the closed toilet lid, her hand under her chin, her legs crossed and the flickering candles shedding subtle light on the man that she loved with ever fiber of her being. Right now, her Korean and Egyptian stallion was a babbling cartoon and a part of her was sore from holding back laughter while another part of her was angry as hell at some of the ridiculous nonsense she was witnessing. She was also perturbed that she couldn’t talk to him about Isis right then. It would go in one ear and out the other.

  “Where you come from, girl?” He winked at her. He’d asked her that now at least five times. He drunkenly sloshed about, his arm hanging over the tub, and his eyes a bit more alert. He seemed to slowly be coming to, but from the looks of things, he still had a long way to go.

  “Margaret told me she wanted to get some of those hot wings from 42nd street. I told her they had too much sodium.” He said it matter-of-factly, as if Xenia knew who the hell Margret was, where 42nd street was, and gave a happy damn about food right then.

  “Where you come from, girl?”

  Xenia rolled her eyes and debated grabbing her phone and recording this shit, just as Jagger had suggested. Instead, she just sat there, watching him babble and soak.

  “Did I ever tell you about this chick I met? I wanted to bone her—not like debone, like take a fishbone out, fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads!” He laughed. “No, like gut it…” He laughed, as if he were being truly hilarious.

  Xenia rolled her eyes and stared at him. This was just too much.

  “No Saint, you never told me about the chick you wanted to bone,” she said lazily, as if boredom was her new name. She got up and turned on the radio, found a nice jazz station. When she returned, he’d picked up right where he left off.

  “Where you come from, girl?”

  Xenia rolled her eyes for now the one-hundredth time. “Saint, tell me about the chick you wanted to bone and please don’t ask me where I come from again.”

  Hell, if I can’t beat his crazy ass, may as well join him…

  “I met this chick, right?” He leaned back on the towel and moved his legs slowly about in the water, causing a soft sloshing noise that was semi-relaxing to the ear. “I looked at her, and she ain’t even see me.” His tone got real serious. “She looked right through me.” He closed his eyes, drifting away. Then he seemed to be slipping in a daydream. “I was in love with her as soon as I saw her. She had these…big breasts and this…pretty skin…so pretty, like toasty pecans,” he said in a deep voice. “She wasn’t darkskin or lightskin, more like, kinda in the middle, but it had a glow. She had the prettiest damn skin. I wanted to taste her skin…”

  Oh Lord, I don’t want to hear this shit. This is what I get for encouraging this behavior…

  “And she was nice at first, but…she didn’t see me, really see me. I had never felt like this toward anybody before,”—his lips curved in a wide smile—“but I liked it…and then do you know what this broad did?” His voice escalated as his brows dipped and a nasty scowl cracked his previously serene face. “She talked about my mama! She told me…” Saint pointed in front of himself as if someone were standing there in the doorway. “…How would my mama feel about me only datin’ black women ’cause you might not know this, but my mama was Asian. I’m half Korean. Can you believe that shit? That’s what she said!” He looked at Xenia like she was some person he’d met only five minutes ago—and she shook her head. A woeful, pitiful smile creased her face as realization set in of what this man was actually talking about.

  “And then, we got to fighting ’nd shit…I don’t…I don’t…shit!” He gritted his teeth in frustration. “I don’t remember where I was at…but I forgave her because she sure was so fucking pretty.”

  Xenia wiped a tear from her eye and smiled a bit wider. “What happened next?”

  “I…think I left and then I saw her again at a park somewhere.” The water sloshed a bit as he readjusted himself and scratched his upper thigh. “Yeah, a park
, and it was nighttime and she had on these, uh, what do you call them? I guess like…tight ass black pants that gripped her fat ass. I wanted to bite that fat ass!” He made snarling noises like a dog shaking a cat in its mouth. That was it—Xenia burst out laughing, throwing her head back, then tried to get quiet again, lest she wake the children.

  Yup. He is coming around, getting back to his old self. Crazy fool.

  She simmered down as he continued on.

  “But instead…” He shrugged, making the water splash. “We just…fooled around a bit. We made out, like teenagers. On the ground. I remember the blades of grass scratching my wrists and the lights…and music. I made her cum.” He smiled mischievously. “She didn’t like me, but she let me finger fuck her anyway. I guess she thought I was cute. That was nice of her to let me push my fingers up her vagina,” he said seriously. “Real nice, wouldn’t you say?”

  It was getting harder and harder not to lose it. “Yes, that was very nice of her.” She barely got it out before she started laughing again.

  “She smelled nice, too…I remember that.” He closed his eyes again, this time, as if he were falling asleep. “All over, just sweet. She smelled like…she smelled like…” He drifted further away.

  “What did she smell like?” Xenia asked softly as she approached him, dropping to her knees and taking the wash cloth and slowly going over his body, cleansing him inch by soiled and sweaty inch.

  “She smelled like lilies.”

  “Did she? That’s nice.” Xenia moved the cloth real slow, leaving sudsy pathways all over his chest.

  “She didn’t see me.” He smirked, eyes still shut. “But after I made her cum, I put my hand up to my nose real fast on the sly, gave her the sniff test to see if her pussy was fresh.”