Always

by Jezebel Jorge

  Odessa’s

  Always

  As told to Jezebel Jorge

  This story was channeled to Jezebel from her spirit guide Odessa, with a little help from her Beloved.

  Copyright 2014 by Jezebel Jorge

  Cover art by Jezebel Jorge

  Published by Jezebel Jorge at Smashwords

  Discover other titles by Jezebel Jorge at:

  http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jezebeljorge

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Blurb

  Pro wrestler, Graham Edwards, takes his mom out for a belated Mother’s Day lunch to introduce her to his red haired witchy mistress, Odessa. As if that is not shocking enough, the recently widowed Mrs. Edwards also learns her favorite son’s tumultuous affair with an empathic medium has resulted in something she never saw coming… a seven-month-old granddaughter.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Message from Odessa

  Always

  Message from Jezebel

  Preview Fly Away

  About the Author

  A Message from Odessa

  Dear Readers,

  If you've read Jezebel Jorge's Ring Dreams series, you might perhaps remember a character named Odessa. Those stories were conceived and written before I introduced myself to Jezebel and informed her that I am her spirit guide.

  That's right, I was once a real person who walked among the living. I was born on a full moon Samhain in 1944 and succumbed to a horrible death in August of 1985. When Jezebel was writing her first story she happened to stumble across my tombstone in a cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina. She saw my name and instantly knew that Odessa was the perfect name for the ghost in her Ring Dreams series.

  The whole Ring Dreams series is fiction. I fed Jezebel little tidbits of my previous life which did work their way into these hot witchy tales. An example of this would be William Fletcher. William is the embodiment of the two men I loved most. You're going to be introduced to both these men as my real story unfolds.

  Amalie really was my daughter. As in Shattered, she was raped and impregnated, possibly due to my irresponsible parenting. I suffered a mental breakdown over the loss of my Beloved that horrid January. The rest of the story – Rowan's birth, the Daltons, the Fletchers, Paul Bryson. That's all total and complete fiction.

  Little did Jezebel know that I would appear to her in March of 2011 and slowly begin to tell her my real story. Names have been changed to protect those I loved along with the not so innocent. You know, that whole liability thing. Some of you may not believe in ghosts. That is your choice. But, I am determined to have my true story told.

  I'm going to regale you with what will most likely be a three part full length trilogy. Along the way we're going to drop in some juicy little tidbits as these short stories. These stories won't be told in chronological order. Channeling a spirit doesn't work that way. Just consider it random little doses of naughty fun.

  So, sit back, get comfortable, and pour a glass of your favorite adult libation. Believe as thy will...

  Odessa

  PS… This one is set on the day after my first Mother’s Day in May of 1970. In this story I am allowing my Beloved to come through and speak. I thought y’all might enjoy hearing from him.

  Always

  Graham

  “Eyes off the boobs and back on the road,” Dess snipped, and grabbed at the front of her dress, all of a sudden trying to be modest.

  “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t put the top down.” Graham tightened his grip on the steering wheel and pretended to focus on the highway.

  “It is a bit chilly today, she said, all modesty forgotten while switching the baby to her other breast.”

  “Want me to turn up the heat?” he asked.

  “Not if you’re going to keep driving this fast.”

  Graham glanced at speedometer, surprised that he had the car pushing eighty. He’d forgotten how easily the Mercedes convertible flew over the road. For a moment he regretted giving the car to Odessa. He’d love this car like no other he’d ever had, even splurging on the custom gold paint job.

  The gold sure did suit Odessa though. It really brought out the fire in her red hair. She’d worn it up today, knotted behind her head in an elaborate maze of braids that some how looked elegant with a navy blue polka dot dress that played up her new motherly curves.

  “Have I told you how gorgeous you look today?” he said, reaching a hand over to squeeze her knee.

  “I’m a mess,” she said, not looking up from the baby suckling at her breast. “And I’m getting fat as a pig.”

  “Nonsense.” He snuck another peek at the fullness of her breasts. She’d quickly dropped most of the extra weight she’d put on through the pregnancy, but now that she was eating better, what with nursing the baby, her titties were spectacularly lush. “You’re just as beautiful as the day I pulled up behind the arena in Lauderdale and saw you there waiting for me all those years ago.”

  Dess pulled down her oversized sunglasses and gave him a wry smile. “That seems like a lifetime ago.”

  He moved his hand a little further up her thigh. “How about we get a babysitter and you make Lauderdale with me Friday night?”

  “I could use a date night.” She put the sun glasses back in place to where he couldn’t see her eyes, just her jutting lip below the dark shades. “But this little monster has to eat.”

  “She’s the one getting fat as a little piggy.” He tweaked the baby’s toe and Amalie stopped feeding, moving her head to look at him.

  Baby Amalie giggled and babbled, “Da da da da.”

  “She said daddy.” Graham’s heart about melted. “She knows who I am.”

  “Da da da da,” Amalie repeated.

  “She’s been babbling like that for days. You’d know this if you spent a little more time with us.”

  “I’m sorry I had to work this weekend.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “You know, to put a roof over your head and take care you and our child.”

  “My house is paid for.” Odessa snorted. “If you left your wife that would be one less family you’d have to support.”

  “Don’t you think she’d sue me for alimony?” Not to mention that a divorce will kill his carefully built reputation with the people who mattered in their community. “That would cost me an arm and a leg.”

  Just as if she’d read his mind, she said, “And having a bastard baby is so good for your clean cut good guy image? Please.” She yelped as Amalie latched back on to her breast. “I don’t know why you insisted on me having this child.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little too late to go worrying about that now?” He countered.

  “I can’t do this all by myself.” Odessa yanked Amalie away from her breast and the child started screaming. Odessa screamed louder, “Why is this kid so damn needy?”

  “She’s just hungry, that’s all.”

  “Then how about you fucking feed her.” Odessa shoved Amalie into his lap. “My nipples are sore and she’s getting too big for this breast feeding nonsense.”

  Graham grabbed hold of Amalie just as she teetered toward hitting the floorboard. Steering with his free hand, he bounced her around attempting to shush her without pulling over the car. Trying not to sh
out in his daughter’s ear, he asked, “Did you pack a bottle or maybe a pacifier?”

  Odessa reached into the diaper bag and pulled out a bottle of gin. She took a shot straight from the bottle before offering it to him.

  “Not that kind of bottle,” he said.

  She took another drink and licked her lips. “Now that’s better.”

  “You’re not supposed to be drinking. Carmella says the alcohol contaminates your breast milk and,” he bounced Amalie against his knee, “makes her fitful.”

  “Well, it makes me feel a lot better.” Odessa took another drink before reaching back into the diaper bag and pulling out a pacifier. She took a cup from the holder and drizzled the gin over the pink nub before offering it to Amalie and then downing what leaked through into the cup. Amazingly enough the kid instantly stopped her crying. “From the way she’s been gnawing on my tit she’s got to be teething.” Odessa took another more ladylike sip of gin. “The sooner she gets her teeth, the sooner she starts eating on her own.”

  She tucked the liquor bottle back in the bag and acting as if she had all the time in the world went about zipping up her dress. She applied a fresh coat of lipstick and smiled at her reflection in the mirror before reaching to reclaim her daughter.

  “See, I’m much more motherly with a bit of gin in me.” Odessa smiled at him, her dark mood seemingly passing.

  The sunlight from the passenger window made her hair light up as if it were on fire and Graham couldn’t help but think about how damn gorgeous she was all dressed up like that with his daughter in arms in their matching polka dot dresses. Odessa was quite the seamstress, having whipped up both the dresses herself, probably sometime over the weekend while he’d been on the road.

  “That dress really suits you,” he said. “My girls look cute as can be all matched up.”

  “Your girls?” Odessa’s lips curled into a snarl. “Such a shame you didn’t get your girl anything for her first Mother’s Day after giving birth to your child.”

  “Maybe I was waiting to give you your present after dinner.”

  “What did you get your wife?” Odessa sniped.

  So much for her change of mood. “Flowers,” he mumbled.

  “I’m so glad you didn’t kill any flowers on my behalf.”

  “I know better.”

  “I wonder what Roger got his wife de jour?” She pursed her lips as if disgusted by just saying his name.

  That name on her lips always felt that way to him. “As far as I know he’s still happily married to Debbie, but then again you always seem to keep yourself up to date on all things Roger Rohde.”

  “Roger always did have exquisite tastes in jewelry,” she said twisting her pearl necklace around her finger.

  Were those the pearls he’d gotten her for Christmas or was that an earlier gift from Rohde? Graham wasn’t sure. He hadn’t exactly been sober when he’d bought two pearl necklaces at the last minute on Christmas Eve. If Dess had known that she and his wife had gotten identical gifts he never would have heard the end of it. All of a sudden that gin in the diaper bag started to sound mighty appealing. He ran a hand through his hair, fighting the urge to reach for that liquor bottle.

  “No,” she said, at first making him think she’d read his mind. “No, no,” she said, prying baby Amalie’s fingers away from her necklace.

  Taking a chance, he asked, “Are those the pearls I got you for Christmas?”

  “Of course,” she said, glaring at him with one of those ball-shriveling looks of hers. “Roger never gave me pearls. They’re a little too matronly for his liking.”

  “I think they suit you.”

  “You would.” She unclasped the pearls and dropped them in her purse before pulling out her pentacle pendant and slipping the thin silver chain around her neck. “I’m a witch. It’s who I am. If your mother can’t accept me the way I am, then so be it.”

  “Now, Dess.”

  Before he could say anything else she reached and turned on the radio, flipping through the stations until she came to Patsy Cline singing Always. She turned up the volume and proceeded to butcher the song as only Dess could. For a girl as pretty as she was, Dess had a horrible singing voice under the best of circumstances. Mocking the sentiment of the song, made her screeching just about unbearable.

  Amalie must have been just as annoyed since she started squalling right along with her mama. Graham looked over and saw that her face little face was beet red and twisted up in a determined frown. He smelled the shit right before Odessa belted out her last always.

  “What a crock of shit,” Odessa said, fanning herself with her free hand.

  “I believe that’s baby shit,” Graham said, smiling despite the stench.

  Odessa dangled the child over her lap, shrieking as if she’d never encountered a dirty diaper. “You better pull this car over and fix this.”

  “Da da da da,” Amalie cooed and reached her arms for him.

  “Told ya, she knows who I am.” Graham made a sharp left and turned into the parking lot of the first gas station they passed.

  “Okay, Da Da, change her.” Odessa thrust Amalie at him before he could cut the engine.

  “Go ask for the key to the ladies room,” he said.

  “I’m not changing her.”

  “If I’m going to do this,” Graham held Amalie at a safe distance, “the least you can do is go wet me a wash cloth to wipe her with.”

  “Fine,” she said, getting out of the car and slamming the door behind her.

  “You could have waited to fill your britches after meeting your grandma,” he said.

  Amalie grinned and tilted her head like a curious puppy. “Da da da da.”

  Deciding it was best for the car’s leather seats, not to mention the smell, Graham grabbed the diaper bag and got out of the car. He spread a blanket over the trunk of the 280SL and plopped Amalie down to wrestle her out of her ruffled panties.

  “It’s a good thing you’re not wearing one of those cloth diapers from that fancy delivery service your mama has me paying for.”

  “Da da da da,” Amalie cooed in agreement.

  “They do make good wipes though,” he said, before holding his breath to use one of the expensive cloth diapers to wipe the worse of the shit off her bottom. “That wasn’t too bad of a mess.”

  “Da da da da.”

  Graham wadded up the disposable diaper and slid a clean one under her bottom before looking around to see what was keeping Dess. He blinked from the glare of another car pulling up beside them, an all too familiar blue Cutlass, his mother behind the wheel.

  “What are you doing with that baby?” his mom said, all too quickly right by his side. She looked at Amalie and she looked and him and then her eyes darted back to Amalie. “That’s your kid.”

  There was no questioning in her voice.

  “Da da da da,” Amalie confirmed.

  “I thought you sold this car,” his mom said, surprisingly him by how quickly she changed the subject.

  “I–”

  “Here you go,” Dess said, presenting him with a wet towel.

  His mom gave him a questioning look, obviously expecting this strange red haired woman to take over with the diaper changing. Graham took the towel and wiped Amalie’s bottom, not rushing to secure the diaper in place before attempting to make any introductions.

  “Darling, wherever are your manners?” Dess reached for Amalie, acting all maternal now that the dirty work was competed. “Aren’t you going to make the introductions?”

  “Mom, this is Dess.”

  “Odessa,” she said, quickly correcting him.

  “This is Odessa.” Graham wiped his hands on a clean diaper before gesturing toward his mom. “This is my mom, Thelma.”

  “Enchanté, Mrs. Edwards,” Odessa said in that bad Audrey Hepburn impersonation Graham noticed she always used when something made her nervous. She extended her free hand to shake hands with his mother. “So very nice to finally meet you.”
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  “I assume you’re the mother of this child.” His mother firmly gripped her hand, not giving away any emotions from her tone or blank expression. “My granddaughter.”

  “Yes.” Odessa smiled smugly. “This is your granddaughter, Amalie.”

  His mom peered at Amalie carefully studying the little girl’s face. “Interesting name. I take it you ain’t from around here.”

  “Amalie is French.”

  “Knock it off, Dess,” Graham said. “You’ve never even been to France.”

  “It’s Odessa.” She jutted her lip defiantly. “How do you know that I never went to Paris with–”

  “How about we go get something to eat?” Graham swiped a bead of sweat trickling from his brow. “It’s getting hot out here.”

  “Good idea,” his mom agreed, already starting back to her car. “I’ll meet y’all at the Barnard’s Steakhouse just like we originally planned.”

  “Steakhouse?” Odessa’s expression got even more sour.

  “They have salads and vegetables too,” he said. “And it’s Mom’s favorite restaurant.”

  “It’s my first Mother’s Day, too, you know?”

  That, he was all too aware of.

  Odessa

  I went for that bottle of gin as soon as I got back into the car.

  “Don’t,” Graham said, forcefully taking the bottle out of my hand. “I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t drink in front of my mother.”

  “Come on, I’ll share.” I pouted.

  He ignored me and started up the car.

  “I don’t know why you’re so uptight.” I adjusted Amalie on my lap as he pulled out of the parking lot behind his mom’s big boat of an Oldsmobile. “I thought the introductions went rather well.”