Whatever It Takes

by Ben Boswell

  I wondered how she thought Damon fit into that, but I didn't raise it.

  "So what do we do?"

  "I guess we have to go see DeMarcus when he gets out."

  "We?" I asked.

  "We can't just let her go off on her own."

  "She's not going to like that idea."

  "Too bad," replied Kris coldly.

  I changed topics. "What did you think about what she said in the car?"

  Kris sighed. "Oh Daniel. You know how many times I've thought of that? Thought that maybe I could have kept her on the straight and narrow? Thought that I let her down."

  "It's not your fault."

  "No, I know. She's a manipulative little bitch, and part of that was just to get under my skin. But she's right in a way. I was so happy to get out, to be on my own. And she started getting into trouble so young. Even the idea of doing anything for her seemed overwhelming."

  "She made a lot of bad choices."

  Kris shook her head. "See, that's the thing. I'm not sure that is quite true. They look like choices to us, but to her, I think she's always felt like she was just doing what she had to do. The problem is, once you get on the path of bad decisions, all that is left is choosing the least worst option."

  _____

  "No way," Jessi snapped. "He'll totally freak."

  We had just informed her of our determination to accompany her to see her boyfriend.

  Kris crossed her arms. "It wasn't a suggestion."

  "You'll ruin everything."

  Kris softened. "Look, Jessi, you're in over your head."

  "I know what I'm doing."

  "No you don't. You think you do, but you don't. It didn't occur to you that Sal would come after us. You tried to hide, but we managed to track you down, not once but twice. And it's not like we're seasoned investigators. It's just dumb luck that Sal didn't find you first."

  "You need to let me talk to DeMac, square things up."

  Kris shook her head. "No, Jess. You accused me of abandoning you. Okay. I get it. But now I want to help. But to do that, you have to let me, us, in."

  "You don't understand," Jessi whined.

  It was my turn to jump in. "Look, Jess, the past week has been a real learning experience for us. We're not as street smart as you. But three heads are better than one. We need you and you need us."

  "This is a bad idea," she sighed.

  Kris laughed. "Well, considering your track record, if you think it is a bad idea, then it must be pure genius."

  Jessi flipped her sister the bird, but she had a small grin on her face as she did it.

  _____

  I went out to buy some food and toiletries while the girls stayed at the motel.

  Jessi was glued to her phone, tracking the progress of DeMarcus' bail process. It took most of the day, and finally we got word that he'd be released the following morning.

  Even though we'd had a minor breakthrough with Jessi, we didn't trust her to not run away if given a chance. So that night, I moved the sofa in front of the door and slept there, while the sisters crashed on the mattress. It was a testament to Jessi's screwed up expectations that the shattered bed and mattress on the floor didn't even warrant a question.

  I checked my email. Another message from Sal, its terseness speaking to his level of frustration.

  "You can't hide forever."

  Attached was another video file. I should have deleted it, but I just couldn't. I opened it and watched.

  This one was a POV shot. Sal was laying on his back, and my wife was riding him, reverse cowgirl, facing away from him.

  She rose and fell on his huge tool, moving slowly, mechanically. She was very wet. His shaft glistened with her excitement... or maybe he was just enjoying sloppy seconds, thirds, fourths after the rest of his crew had fucked her.

  He zoomed in close, giving me a gynecological view of her pussy stretching around his cock, of her pretty little rosebud puckering as she impaled herself on him. He lay perfectly still. She might as well have been riding a dildo.

  Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, her rhythm shifted. At first it was just a little twist of the hips at the top of each stroke. Then a minute grind of her ass against his pelvis at the bottom. The length of her stroke began to vary. Instead of fully impaling herself each time, she rose and fell several times quickly, taking just the top half of his cock a couple times before driving all the way back down.

  Her movements became less fluid, more forceful, ragged. She rose up again, allowed him to slip almost completely out, his cockhead alone now between her labia. She rocked back and forth, and I realized she was using his cock to stimulate her clit. Then suddenly, she shivered slightly and plunged back down on his cock, grinding roughly against him.

  I didn't need to hear his chuckle to know he'd felt her climax. He thrust upward, once, twice, three times, almost seeming like he wanted to buck her off. But she rode him expertly, reciprocating his hard thrusts. He shivered, the camera shaking violently as his body clenched up.

  When he was done, she lifted herself off him. He zoomed in the camera on her pussy, gaping momentarily as she disengaged from his fat tool. Her labia were puffy, red, and after a moment smeared with his come leaking out of her. The video ended on that image, a perfectly framed close-up of my wife's freshly fucked cunt.

  _____

  Jessi made plans to see DeMarcus in the afternoon, so we had a quiet morning at the motel. I'd gotten us our now-standard breakfast of coffee and doughnuts.

  Jessi and Kris spent a lot of time talking. There were no distractions. No kids, no house to clean, no parents to entertain. For perhaps the first time in years, the two sisters were really communicating.

  I didn't imagine that somehow a few hours conversation would rebuild their relationship. Especially after the past week, the wounds, the recriminations, the anger would seem to create a gulf too great to bridge.

  I knew that I was having trouble with my own emotions. I hated Jessi. Hated her for her selfishness, her irresponsibility. And yet, I felt so sorry for her as well. I had only scratched the surface of her life, and yet even those small glimpses beneath the surface were tragic almost beyond imagining. She was reckless and callous. But it was a miracle she was human at all.

  She claimed she'd only been doing what she thought she had to. Maybe. The past week taught me the danger of casting judgments. How many of my own choices would stand up to hard-eyed scrutiny in the cold light of hindsight?

  Should I have stood up to Sal when he first came into our house? Should I have immediately called the cops? Did I really need to buy those lap dances? Have sex with Amber? How could I have let myself get surprised and incapacitated? Should I have intervened to protect Jessi, at the Four Seasons, in Ramirez's office? At each step, I felt like I was just doing what I had to... and yet, how many of those decision would I be willing to defend in public to a disinterested observer.

  And when I thought about Kris, my feelings became even more conflicted. Feeling empathy for Jessi and letting myself off the hook implied giving her the same pass. And yet... with every new revelation, I found it harder and harder to shake my doubts. I understood, intellectually, that she felt she had no choice but to submit to Sal and his men... and yet, her submission had been so abject, so complete that it almost went beyond submission to complicity. And then Damon. Yes, she'd be trying to soften him up to get information. She'd done the same thing I'd done with Amber. And it had worked. But did she need to be so fucking enthusiastic about it?

  I shook my head. Surely my feelings of betrayal were selfish. Or were they? Was there some part of Kris that actually enjoyed it? That longed to be a bad girl? Fuck, she'd admitted as much, hadn't she, when she said she'd been envious of her sister's experience.

  The toothpaste was out of the tube. The genie out of the bottle. Choose your cliché. At some point, we'd have to confront all it, decide whether we still had a future. But that was a luxury we'd only have if we managed to recover some semblance of o
ur past lives.

  _____

  DeMarcus was staying with his brother, Tyrell, in a worn out clapboard house in the same neighborhood as Jessi's old garden apartment. Had they met then? It didn't really matter, although it hinted at the length of their relationship.

  We drove past the house, checking it out. There didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary, but even still we parked a couple of blocks away and cautiously walked back. I had my gun in my backpack even though Jessi assured me I wouldn't need it.

  We knocked on the door. No one answered. That didn't deter Jessi. She turned the knob and walked right in. There was a TV blaring in the back. I looked over at Kris and saw a look of concern on her face. I held the backpack at my side, the easier to get a hold of my weapon if I needed it.

  We emerged from a dingy hallway into a small living room, furnished with mismatching couches and an impressive 60 inch TV. DeMarcus was alone, sprawled out on one of the sofas in grey sweats and a white wife-beater t-shirt.

  He smiled when he saw Jessi. "Hey, baby doll."

  But his smile faded as Kris and I followed into the room.

  "Who the fuck are you?" he asked. He sat up, his feet on the ground, his body leaning forward, ready to strike.

  Jessi sat next to him, placed a hand on his thigh. "It's okay. It's just my sister and her husband. They've been putting me up since... you know."

  He relaxed a little. But kept his eyes on us, me in particular, and my backpack specifically. He was obviously used to navigating dangerous situations, and he'd instinctively honed in on the one part of the situation he couldn't control.

  I dropped the backpack, and put my hands out in front of me.

  "We're just here to help out Jess," I said.

  He regarded each of us slowly. I could see him working out the angles.

  He smiled suddenly, brightly, though his eyes remains cold. "Well, any friend of my baby girl is a friend of mine."

  Jessi beamed. She pressed herself up against him. He draped his arm over her shoulder.

  DeMarcus caressed her thigh. His gaze landed on me. "Thanks for taking care of Jess. But listen, you know, I've been in stir for two month. Would like a little private time with my lady, ya know?"

  Kris jumped in. "We need to take care of business first."

  DeMarcus eyed my wife. With her blond hair and yoga pants, he'd just dismissed her as eye candy.

  He paused. "Business? I thought this was just a happy reunion."

  Kris' eyes narrowed. "Let's cut the shit, okay, DeMac?"

  He stiffened. "What you talking about?"

  "You owe Jessi."

  "Kris... don't," Jessi whined.

  Kris ignored her sister. "Look, DeMac, I don't know how much of this you know, but we're all in the shit thanks to you, and we need you to pull us out."

  "Whatchu want from me? I'm just an innocent businessman, wrongly accused. Cops took all my worldly possessions. I'm crashing on this fucking sofa."

  Kris started to answer, but Jessi held up her hand to cut her off.

  "Baby," Jessi cooed seductively, "don't worry about my sis. She's always been a drama queen."

  Kris bristled. I put my hand on her forearm to restrain her. This was Jessi's game to play.

  Jessi continued. "Thing is, lover, I sorta had to push the envelope to raise your bail."

  He shrugged. "Yeah?"

  "Yeah. Look, I gave 10 keys to Tyrell, and I just need a quarter to repay Sal."

  DeMarcus looked at Jessi, then Kris, then me. "I don't know what you're talking about. Ten keys of what? I was set up."

  I sighed. "Come on man, we're in this together."

  "In what, porkchop?" he snarled. "Who you working for?"

  I laughed. "Jesus, we're not cops."

  I stood. Held my arms out at my side. "Search me for a wire if you want."

  He snorted. "What is this, 1975, Serpico? You can hide a mic in a fucking clit piercing nowadays. I been entrapped once already."

  Jessi shot me an annoyed look. See, I told you, she seemed to say.

  "You can trust us," Kris said.

  He looked her over. "I can't trust no one."

  "Come on," she replied. "Don't do this."

  He laughed. "You think I'm gonna sign my own conviction just because you flash me a smile?"

  "No handsome, you're too smart for that," Kris replied flirtatiously. "But we need to talk. And you know we're not cops."

  "Don't matter what I know. Only matters what I can prove. That's what my lawyer says."

  "Okay, so how can we prove we're not law enforcement?"

  I turned to Kris. "Don't fucking humor him."

  She gave me a quick headshake.

  He ignored me, beckoned her over. "Come here doll."

  Kris approached him. She stopped a yard from him, hand on her hip. He looked her up and down, taking in all her curves, so prominently on display in her workout clothes. I wondered how much of that was planned. Had she chosen the yoga pants rather than the mom jeans for more than just comfort?

  "You really baby doll's sister?" he asked, his hand sliding between Jessi' legs even as he ogled my wife.

  "I changed her diapers." She paused. "She had fewer tats then."

  He laughed. "But the same amount of hair on her twat."

  "Not our fault that men are closet pedos."

  "So, you shaved like little sis?"

  Kris grinned. "What do you care? I'm a cop, remember?"

  "You could convince me otherwise," he gurgled, patting his crotch.

  I grunted. "Really dude, we talking business or what?"

  He smirked at me. "I always like mixing business and pleasure. What's the matter 5-0, this violate procedure?"

  "I'm not a cop," I said with a sigh.

  "Then you won't mind if I check for a family resemblance."

  "Seeing my cooch will convince you?" Kris asked.

  "It'd be a good start."

  "A start to what?" I asked.

  He smirked at me. "Who knows?"

  He returned his gaze to my wife. "Come on, baby, peel off those leggings and give DeMac a show."

  Kris hesitated for a moment. I could see her considering options. I was doing the same. Truth was, we needed him at this point, and while he owed Jessi, we had no leverage over him. By signing that affidavit alleging police misconduct, Jessi had impeached herself as a reliable witness, so we couldn't even threaten to have her testify against him, even if she would consider it. Our only hope was to keep him on our side and hope that Jessi had judged his integrity accurately. That seemed a thin reed, but better than nothing.

  Kris' calculus seemed to run the same course as mine. She gave him a smile.

  "Sure thing, DeMac, I have nothing to hide."

  She took a hold of her waistband and slowly rolled down the clingy fabric. I gasped when I realized she hadn't worn panties, though given how tight the leggings were, I shouldn't have been surprised.

  Kris peeled the yoga pants down over her hips. I was behind her, so I was treated to the sight of her sexy ass slowly coming into her view, her tight little crack, those luscious, hard cheeks. She stopped halfway down her thigh, which somehow made it seem even more lewd than had she been completely nude. DeMarcus grinned even more broadly at his view.

  "Damn, that's a pretty little twat," he said appreciatively.

  He reached out and ran his fingers over her mound.

  "Hmmm, nice and smooth," he continued.

  Kris gasped softly, and I realized his fingers had slipped between her lips.

  "That's enough," I choked out.

  "Chill out jack. We're just having a little fun. Getting to be friends. We do want to be friends, right?"

  "Yeah, we're all friends here," Kris replied.

  I noticed that Jessi was massaging DeMarcus' crotch through his sweat pants. Even as his hand was exploring my wife's snatch, Jessi's hand was running up and down what seemed to be an impressively large package.

  "Is your sister a player?
" he asked.

  Jessi grinned. "Only one way to find out."

  She untied DeMarcus' sweatpants and yanked them down. His cock sprung up and Jessi pumped her fist up and down his long shaft. Not as thick as either Sal or Damon, he was nonetheless lengthier than average.

  Kris' eyes were drawn to his lap. She couldn't seem to tear her gaze away from the sight of her sister stroking that big, black cock. I couldn't really blame her. I was equally entranced by the sight of Jessi's dainty little hand fisting that long shaft.

  "Come on, doll," DeMarcus said in a low rumble, "get a taste of licorice."

  Kris swayed in place for a few moments. His hand continued to work her slit. She took a half step forward. She looked up and locked eyes with Jessi, who gave her a quick nod. Then Kris looked back at me. I wanted to shout out, but instead, my gaze flitted between her, Jessi, and DeMarcus. There was something about the scene that paralyzed me. I don't know what Kris read in my ambivalence; I'm not even sure she cared.

  Kris took another half step and dropped to her knees. DeMarcus placed his huge hand on the back of her head. Jessi angled his prick toward her sister's mouth.

  "Oh fuck," he growled as my wife swallowed him deep.

  Kris bobbed up and down on his long shaft. Jesus, it seemed like a million years ago that Sal had forced her to blow him in our home. Since then I'd been treated to various close-up videos of my wife gratifying men orally, taking their cocks inside her. In a way, I should have been used to it by now. And yet, the sight of Kris slurping on DeMarcus' big cock, while Jessi massaged his balls, was still like a kick in the chest. I could barely breath.

  He looked over at me, his hand gesturing toward my wife. He smiled, then bit his lip and closed his eyes.

  Kris blew him wetly. His long cock glistening with her spit. She took him deep into her mouth, moaning around his shaft, and as she rose up, she twisted her fist around his cock.

  He looked down at Jessi. "Go on, baby doll, you know what I want."

  Jessi nodded and slid off the sofa. She wedged her head under his legs and sucked his balls into her mouth.

  He grinned more broadly still. He slid further off the couch, until his ass hung in midair. Kris sucked his cock vigorously, sloppily. Her sister slobbered all over his balls, and then let her tongue trail down further between his legs. As Jessi licked his ass, Kris swallowed him deep.