by Knox, Abby
Chapter 12
Paul
I fucked up.
The only way out of this mess is to do what my sponsor in prison told me to do, which was work Step 6: Make mends.
It makes the bile rise in my throat to think of opening my mouth and apologizing, but it’s the only way through to get some peace of mind.
Jaw set, teeth grinding, my truck finds its way back to Morning Glory Farms and Whatever-The-Fuck.
The family and their—holy shit!—baseball team of children are seated around a farm-style table in a oh-too-trendy kitchen that looks straight out of Fixer Upper. Yeah, I watched that show in prison. What of it?
One kid’s feeding a baby in a high chair. A couple of toddlers in booster seats are fisting Cheerios into their chubby little faces. Two others who look about four and five are on toaster duty with about five loaves of homemade bread. The aroma makes my stomach growl. And there’s Maggie, nursing a little tiny thing one-handed while scarfing down some avocado toast. Jackson has his back to me, slicing bread for the toaster twins at the counter. Maggie sees me and her hand stops mid-way to her mouth.
It’s clear she doesn’t recognize me at first because she says, “Hi there. Can I help you?”
Jackson spins around, looking surprised but not unhappy to see me. The children simply look curious if not excited about a visitor.
“Uh…”
“If you need a room, the front desk opens at noon and I’ll be there to help you. Check-in is three p.m. If you’re here for art or yoga, there’s a class schedule posted on the Old Stone Barn or on our Facebook page. If you’re here to schedule the mobile petting zoo…”
“No, ma’am, none of that.”
“Babe,” Jackson interjects. “You might not remember…”
Her face blanches in sudden recognition. “Ch…Chet?”
I take my hat off and hold it in front of my chest. “It’s Paul now. Sorry, I should have called.”
Jackson awkwardly clears his throat. “What can I do you for, Paul?”
Apart from Drea, Jackson is the first person in this town to use my given name without sarcasm and without trying not to smirk.
“I’ll get straight to the point. I came here to apologize to Maggie. I am in recovery for drugs and alcohol—as you know—and well, one of the steps involves making amends so that’s why I’m here.”
Maggie cocks her head and smiles a little cynically. “Came to put a check mark next to our names on your list? Great. I accept your apology. You can go.”
“Ma’am, I deserve your coldness, every bit of it.” I look her in the eye and I really do feel it. “I have said and done terrible things to you and to a lot of other people. I wanted you all to be the first and to let you know I take full responsibility.”
Maggie’s face changes, just a little bit. “I believe you,” she says. “And I truly do accept your apology, Chet—I mean, Paul.”
“You fixed for work yet?” Jackson asks.
I hesitate. “Well, things didn’t really work out at the Feed & Seed. I guess I stepped one some toes already. It seems Logan didn’t appreciate me…visiting…with his sister-in-law. She…uh, she wanted to…check in with me when I got out, you know…because she was curious as to how things turned out for me. Anyway I’m going to apologize to Drea—I mean, The Honorable Judge Diamond—and to her family and then I’ll be leaving town. I’ve got my truck, thanks to you, so I’ll head west to Cedar Rapids and see about a job at the meat packers.”
Jackson and Maggie exchange a look.
They can both sense some bullshit in my story, they’re just not sure which part.
“Paul, let’s go for a walk,” Jackson says.
* * *
He walks me out to my truck and pulls out a fat billfold.
I put up my hands. “No. I can’t accept that from you. I’m going to pay my own way.”
“Paul, this is just to help you find a motel room for a few nights until you have a place to stay. Coach Troy says he saw your truck parked at the ballfield late last night and it was still there early this morning when he went to set up for practice. Are you sleeping in your truck?”
Honesty. That’s another thing I’m supposed to be doing now. “Yeah.”
“I can’t let that happen; it’ll be on my conscience.”
“Then I guess we’re at an impasse, old buddy.”
Jackson crosses his arms and eyeballs me, real serious like, for a few seconds.
“You know what. Maggie’s gonna kill me for this but something is telling me it's the right thing to do. Come work for me and you can sleep in the guest house. We’ve got plenty of rooms. And you can pay us back for room and board when you’re able to find a place of your own.”
“That’s kind of you to offer but—”
“But nothing. We can’t have a homeless dude hanging around the kids’ ball field. It’s weird. Ever think of that?”
“True,” I say. Somehow I’m not even feeling insulted by this.
As self-righteous as Jackson has been known to be, he has a way of saying the truth without making you feel humiliated.
“I can’t sleep in your fancy guest rooms…”
“It ain’t fancy. Maggie says it’s farmhouse chic, or some shit,” Jackson says.
“All right, fine,” I say, because I just want this endless conversation to end. “I’ll come work for you if you actually have work to do. But I’ll sleep in the shabby chic barn.”
“No.”
“That or I scoot on out of here.”
He uncrosses his arms and hooks his fingers in the belt loops on his hips and squints off into the distance as if looking for an answer. “All right, fine. Just don’t…tell anyone I’m housing you in the barn. It’s weird.”
“I get it, I get it. Don’t tell people whatever weird shit I’ve got going on. That’s how it goes around here.”
Jackson shows me the baler and shows me where all the equipment is that’s needed for today’s work. There’s a lot full of hay that needs baling before I can sleep upstairs in the loft.
“You sure Maggie is gonna be OK with all this?”
Jackson cackles. “We’ll fight it out tonight and then in nine months we’ll have another make-up-sex baby. Won’t be the first time. Probably won’t be the last for Fertile Myrtle and me.”
Chapter 13
Drea
I should stay away. But I can’t.
It was a big enough of a risk getting messy in his truck right out in the open.
On recess from court, I’m supposed to go grab a bite, but all I can think about is Paul taking a bite out of me. You might think my rational thinking is gone, but you would be wrong. I know exactly what I want, and if Paul makes me happy then it can’t be irrational. It’s simple. I want. I need. I take. We’re not doing anything illegal. We’re not hurting anyone.
Except…perhaps…me. He lifts me up higher than I could have ever imagined, but then he holds me so tight, so earnestly, that it scares me. The still small voice tells me I’m getting too attached. When this affair comes to its natural end, he will move on with someone more his speed, more experienced, and I’ll be left in the dust, hungry.
My car takes me straight to him.
I find Paul at Morning Glory Farms. Word spreads like wildfire in Middleburg. I suspect his parole officer told somebody who told my bailiff who was gossiping about Paul with my paralegal.
Paul is baling hay in the hot sun. I look around and there’s no sign of Jackson or Maggie or any of their six kids. Or is it seven? Who knows at this point.
It’s just Paul and his tanned shoulders, glistening in the field of sweet-smelling alfalfa.
He grunts as I approach. “You can’t be here, D.”
“That’s funny because I am here.”
“Someone will see you. Can’t have people talking.”
I stare at his broad back, his muscles rippling as he works. Stabbing a chunk of hay, swinging it up like some kind of erotic performance ar
t.
I need to touch this…angel? Devil? What does any of that even mean?
I approach slowly.
He hears me taking steps toward him. He shoots me a look over his shoulder. In that brief flash, his angular jaw clenches and his eyes give me a lethal warning.
I’m already beginning to sweat through my skirt suit. My four-inch heels have no business out in the black earth of this wild prairie.
Still, I cannot deny the pull of my wild man. My wild, angry, trapped beast of a man.
Without turning to face me, he grits out, “I break for lunch in five. Meet me in the hay barn. I’ll make it worth replacing those muddy high heels.”
* * *
I can’t believe I’m about to have my victim fantasy fulfilled twice in one week, and this time in a barn.
The aroma of the sweet alfalfa is overpowering. It’s hot in here but not as brutal as it is outside in the field in the middle of summer. Sunlight pierces through the wooden slats of the barn. I think the last time I was in a functioning barn was back when I was a child, before my mom and dad died and the bank took over our farm.
Logan’s dying father bought the property from the bank and returned it to us a few years back, which was unexpected. Logan and Ever prefer to live in a rental in town, so they’re not tied down by homeownership whenever they get the urge to fly to Morocco or wherever they want.
I suspect now that baby No. 2 is on the way, they might want to put down more solid roots. They may have their eye on the farm. They would never directly ask for it, but I wouldn’t deny them that, either. It is only me in a big old farmhouse, rattling around in my pajamas, going over court papers. It would be nice to have another person in there with me. In my kitchen in the morning. In my bed at night. I don’t know whether or not I want kids. I never thought about it. All I ever wanted was to be an attorney and then a judge.
I’ve married half the people in this town, and seen just as many in my courtroom for less celebratory reasons. I know just about everyone and everyone knows me.
I don’t know where I would be without the people of Middleburg who have voted for me and supported me.
If only the cravings of my body and soul didn’t conflict with what people expect of me.
My train of thought is interrupted by footsteps, a slow, creeping sound of boots on the barn floor.
He’s here.
The cautious noise makes me immediately shiver with need. Hardens my nipples. Contracts the walls of my sex involuntarily.
“H…hello?”
The footsteps stop and my breath hitches. “Is anybody there?”
I can barely contain my excitement. I breathe in deeply and slowly so I don’t hyperventilate as I cream all over my undies. Lace ones. Because Paul doesn’t like the cutesy cotton ones.
He’s behind me. I can smell the sweat from his hard work and hear his ragged breathing.
“D…don’t come any closer… I’ll scr—”
The adrenaline rushes through me as I’m grabbed from behind roughly. The buttons of my blouse pop off in rapid succession as one hand tears at my satin shell blouse and his other hand clamps my mouth shut.
“Don’t. Fuckin. Make. A sound.”
I nod helplessly and whimper.
God, he’s good at this.
Suddenly my feet are off the ground. Paul is carrying me to the darkest corner of the barn.
Paul presses me hard against a wall of rough straw. It scratches my cheek and I don’t even care because what’s happening lower down my body. Paul has hitched up my skirt and ripped away the lace panties. I flinch at the sudden sting of the fabric against my tender flesh, but it’s quickly replaced by his warm, massaging hand in my folds.
“The Honorable Judge has been a bad girl. Making booty calls on her lunch break.”
“Recess, Paul. It’s call rec— Oh my god!” I gasp as he plunges two fingers into my soaked pussy. He pulls out again to tear away the lace of my flimsy bra. At times like this, it’s convenient that I’m not one of those women who require an underwire under her work clothes. My breasts are small. But Paul’s hand can’t get enough. It’s like he can’t decide which nipple excites him more as he brushes his palm over one tight bud and then the other.
He breathes into my hair. “I’ve never fucked a woman who liked to be roughed up like you. Feel how damn wet you are?” His fingers go back inside me and curl against my inner walls, stretching me and filling me, nearly making me explode.
My whimpering against his clamped hand grows to a moan. My voice muffled, I beg him to fuck me for real.
He removes his hands from me and emptiness washes over me.
I hear him unwrap a condom and place it on his cock. I want to tell him to leave it off, that I want to feel skin against skin. But I don’t want my self-destructive, in-the-moment streak to send him running for the hills.
“Turn around,” he bites out.
“But…”
“Don’t argue. Turn around, Drea.”
I’m surprised but I obey.
The look on his face when I turn around…it’s different. He has something he wants to say to me.
“Paul, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he rumbles. “I just want to look at you.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what good men do. They make eye contact with the woman they love.”
“…What?”
Chapter 14
Paul
I didn’t mean to say that out loud.
I didn’t even know I feel that way.
Where did that come from?
Love her? I barely know her.
But don’t I? From her letters?
Jesus, my head is spinning.
“Did you just say love?”
“Forget it.”
“You know, it’s fine if you don’t. I know you were just getting carried away in the role playing, right? That’s what this is, right?”
Her words make my heart ache so bad it bleeds.
I do love her.
But it’s clear to me she doesn’t love me back.
And here I am ripping her panties and indulging in her rape fantasies.
That’s all I am to her. An indulgence.
“Yeah, it’s part of the whole story I’ve created in my head.”
“Oh,” she says, biting one plump lip.
And then I kiss her. I pull her to me and bite that lip myself. Taste it and roll it between my teeth. I kiss her with my tongue and she opens to me. I kiss her deeply, sensuously, to make her forget all about what I just said. To convince her that I simply got carried away.
I’m about to hitch her legs up around my waist and take her, penetrate her, feel her ride my cock, when all of a sudden, we’re not alone anymore.
“Oh god!”
It’s another woman’s voice. “Fuck,” I bite out.
Drea slides off of me and turns her back, frantically adjusting her clothes.
I turn away and zip up my jeans.
I look over with dread and see Maggie standing there with her eyes blocked by both hands.
“I…I’m sorry…Paul. I was just looking for you to see if you wanted to come up to the house for lunch. I’ll, uh…I’ll just see myself out.”
Chapter 15
Drea
“Maggie, it’s fine. I just stopped by to check on Paul’s recovery.”
“Looks like you got your answer,” Maggie says.
Her arms are crossed as she stands across from my desk in my chambers. This place is becoming a virtual Union Station full of people who are up in my business.
“Listen, Maggie. Paul and I aren’t doing anything wrong. Yeah, it looks unseemly. But it’s just a fling, nothing more.”
I know that isn’t true. I know when Paul told me he loved me that it was not part of the role play. I know he meant it. And I haven’t sorted out how I feel about him saying it.
A lump forms in my throat and I need Maggie to leave.
And now I get defensive.
“Like me? How would you know what I’m like?”
“Well … you’re everybody’s favorite judge. You married me and Jackson. You’re not just Ever’s big sister, you’re, like, everybody’s big sister. Oh yeah, and you sentenced that guy to prison.”
“And that guy has paid his dues. Maggie, I find it interesting that you’re passing judgment on two consenting adults. Granted we shouldn’t have been doing what we were doing in your barn. I apologize for that. It won’t happen again.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh please. Everyone and their brother has conceived babies in that barn. It’s like magic hay or something.”
“Nevertheless. Neither you nor my own sister has bothered to get to know me. I’ve been so busy taking care of her, taking care of the property, building a career that I never once indulged myself. Maybe before you pass judgment and disguise it as concern, you try to get to know someone.”
Maggie’s eyes well up. “I’m…I’m so sorry. You’re right. I’m the last person who should be passing judgment. I remember how he made me feel…”
“In high school, wasn’t it? Yes, he told me about it in the letters.”
“What letters?”
I bite my tongue. I shouldn’t have said that.
“Bottom line, Maggie, can I count on you to be discreet? I don’t know what this thing is yet with Paul. It was only supposed to be a one-night stand but it might be something else. Under the circumstances, I’m fully prepared that he might just wander off one day and I’ll never see him again. But maybe something more will happen, and if it does, I’d like to keep it under wraps until after the election. Can you keep it to yourself? And I mean, don’t even tell Jackson?”
Maggie blinks back tears and nods her head yes.