Don't Ask, Don't Tell

by M. T. Pope

  It’s sacred. It belongs to me, he thought as the video played. I could never share this with the world. Darius succumbed in that instant to the fact that he couldn’t live without the man he now knew as Orpheus. Regardless of his name he could never hurt him. He felt embarrassed and ashamed that he had even considered destroying someone who had so freely and lovingly helped him find his place in the world. A man who had made him feel safe for the first time in his life.

  It was eleven o’clock at night. Darius frantically dialed Orpheus’s number. He would ask for an apology and then offer one in exchange. He would tell him to not bring the money, but bring his love instead and all would be right in the world again.

  After four rings he was greeted with, “You have reached General Roulette. Please leave a message at the tone and I will return your call as soon as possible. Thank you.”

  “I am so sorry, Orpheus,” Darius said after the tone. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Please forgive me. I love you and never want to hurt you. When you come tonight don’t bring the money. I don’t want it. I only want you. I love you.”

  Darius logged into the chat room that had served as the virtual incubator for their growing love. He scanned the list of people in the room for Generalone, but he was not there. All the familiar messages rolled across the screen. He ached remembering the many nights he had spent sending similar desperate messages into the wireless void before he met Orpheus.

  The messages were moving so quickly they soon became an indecipherable blur. Minutes ticked by and midnight drew near. When it became apparent that it was too late for Orpheus to log on Darius decided he would meet him at the door and beg his forgiveness when he arrived with the money. They would cry in each other’s arms and make love without the cameras rolling.

  Darius waited anxiously for the sound of Orpheus’s footsteps on the porch. He had instructed him to not knock so he planned to greet him as he deposited the money on his porch. At exactly midnight Darius heard a gentle tap at the front door. He sprang from the computer chair, ran to the entry hall, and swung open the front door.

  The man appeared in the threshold. He wore the dark sunglasses and his hands were behind his back.

  “Are you Darius?” he asked with the thick French accent.

  Darius looked at the man curiously and replied, “Yes, I am. Who are you?”

  The man swiftly removed his right hand from behind his back and produced a matt black Beretta with a silencer attached to the nozzle. Darius tried to slam the door shut when he saw the gun but it was too late. The man fired two bullets, in rapid succession, that released piercing whispers as they escape the barrel and entered Darius’s forehead.

  When Darius fell to the floor, the man closed the door, walked calmly away from the apartment and disappeared into the fog as quietly as he had come. One hour later Alice’s Learjet was flying silently over the North Pole to destinations unknown.

  Chapter 9

  Orpheus was jolted awake by the sound of a car revving outside his study window. As he shook the sleep from his head and his eyes slowly focused, he realized that he had fallen asleep on the sofa.

  When Raven had returned home the night before she had refused to speak to him.

  “Did you give him the money?” he asked as she walked past the study door.

  “I don’t want to discuss it,” she said coldly. “I’m going to bed. Please sleep on the sofa tonight. I don’t want to be near you right now.” She walked upstairs and locked the bedroom door behind her.

  The first thing he did when he was fully awake was check his phone for messages. His heart pounded double-time when he saw that Darius had called. He quickly entered his code and heard, “I am so sorry, Orpheus,” the message said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Please forgive me. I love you and never want to hurt you. When you come tonight don’t bring the money. I don’t want it. I only want you. I love you.”

  Time stopped as he listened to the beautiful words. He was embarrassed that Darius felt the need to apologize when in fact it was he who had hurt the sweet young man so deeply. It made him love Darius even more.

  Orpheus left the house without saying good morning to the children or speaking to Raven. He didn’t care that it was Sunday morning or that they were to leave for church at ten o’clock. The only thing that mattered was that Darius loved him and had forgiven him. He needed to see him and hold him in his arms again.

  The streets flew by in a blur as he raced to the Haight. The city was still asleep except for a few hardcore joggers and compact cars depositing the Sunday morning Chronicle in corner news racks and on front porches. The red light at Van Ness and Turk seemed to hold Orpheus for an eternity. He looked in both directions and sped through the intersection. When he turned onto Oak Street he immediately saw flashing red lights in the distance. As he drove closer he could see an ambulance and six police cars parked in front of Darius’s apartment.

  Orpheus slowed the car to crawl as he approached. A police officer standing in the street waved his hand as Orpheus neared and sternly directed him to move his car quickly past the scene. Orpheus avoided eye contact with the officer but still looked to the house and saw that the door to Darius’s apartment was open. Yellow tape surrounded the property. Officers wearing blue police jackets with SFPD emblazoned in bright yellow letters on the back walked deliberately around the yard.

  He could feel his heart pounding in his ear as he reached the end of the block. Orpheus drove to the opposite side of the Pan Handle onto Fell Street and parked at an angle that gave him a clear view of the house. Once again, time stood still for Orpheus as the scene played in front of him in slow motion.

  The officers combed the entire yard, occasionally picking up items and placing them into clear plastic bags. EMTs stood in clusters talking calmly and in no particular rush. Orpheus knew the worst had happened when saw the slow pace at which everyone worked. He had seen death his entire life but this one felt like his own. His body wilted in the car seat as he watched from the distance. Tears fell from his eyes but he was too weak to lift his hand and wipe them from his cheeks.

  And then, without warning, Orpheus saw the gurney appear in the doorway with an EMT at each end. The body was covered from head to toe with a white sheet and strapped at the chest and knees. The men rolled Darius down the path to the waiting ambulance at the curb. He could hear the metal legs of the gurney clank as the men lifted his body into the rear and slammed the doors closed.

  “No, God,” Orpheus said through his tears. “This can’t be happening. Raven, what have you done?”

  Neighbors stood on their porches and in their yards in pajamas and housecoats. Women with curlers in their hair clung to their husbands and men huddled, speculating on what had happened to the quiet neighbor whose name they did not know. Flashing red lights reflected off parked cars and the faces of people standing in their windows the entire length of the block.

  Orpheus watched as the ambulance rolled slowly away from the house and vanished in the distance. He rested his head on the steering wheel and wept so hard that his temples throbbed and his jaw ached. By the time he looked up again there was only one police car remaining at the property. The streets were beginning to fill with cars and bikes rolled past him toward Golden Gate Park.

  When Orpheus arrived at his home, he couldn’t remember how he got there. As he sat in the driveway anger began to overtake his grief.

  I’ll kill her, he thought. I’ll fucking kill her.

  Orpheus entered the house like a hurricane.

  “Raven, where are you?” he shouted from the entry hall.

  Little’O came from the kitchen. “Father, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, Little’O,” he said, barely containing his rage. “Everything is fine. Where is your mother?”

  Little’O pointed up the stairwell. “She’s in the bedroom, getting ready for church.”

  Orpheus ran past his son up the stairs. When he reached the bedroom the door was locked. />
  “Open the door, Raven!” he shouted while pounding on the door. “Open this door right now.”

  When he heard the lock unlatch, he pushed hard, causing Raven to stumble backward.

  Orpheus stormed into the room and slammed the door shut.

  “You bitch,” he shouted. “What the fuck have you done?”

  Raven stood firm in front of him wearing only a silk robe. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Orpheus. Where have you been?” she replied sternly.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about. You killed him.”

  “Killed who?”

  Orpheus charged toward her and slapped her squarely on the cheek.

  “Why did you do it?” he asked as she tumbled on to the bed. “He never hurt you. How could you do this?”

  Orpheus stood over her, panting with anger. Raven looked up at him, seemingly unfazed by the assault. She stood up, looked him directly in the eye, and said calmly, “If you ever lay a hand on me again the same thing that happened to him is going to happen to you.”

  Orpheus stood frozen when he heard the words. He didn’t know the woman in front of him. “How could you do this?” he pleaded. “How could you kill him?”

  “I didn’t kill him, Orpheus. You did.”

  “I didn’t kill him. I loved him.”

  “You brought him into our world. He didn’t belong here and now he’s dead because of you. The only thing I did was clean up the mess that you made.”

  Orpheus dropped the full weight of his body onto the bed. He held his head in his hands and wept out loud.

  “It’s over now, Orpheus,” Raven said, looking down on the broken man. “He was going to destroy everything we’ve worked for and I couldn’t allow that to happen. Now everything is back to the way it was. You are going to campaign with Milo Fredericks. You are going to raise your children to love God and their country, and you are going to be the vice president of the United States of America. Is that clear, General Orpheus Beauregard Roulette III?”

  Chapter 10

  One Year Later

  Red, white, and blue balloons filled the air like bubbles in a champagne glass at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. Confetti poured from the ceiling, covering thousands of cheering, clapping, and whistling Republicans with a blanket of shredded symbols of patriotism. Blue-eyed toddlers, gray-haired seniors, and every conservative demographic in between waved blue and red placards that read FREDERICKS*ROULETTE to the hundreds of television cameras capturing the euphoria for CNN, FOX, C-SPAN, and every other network in the country. A fifty-foot electronic image of the American flag billowed on the JumboTron screen on the stage.

  A woman’s disembodied voice cut through the excitement of the crowd and proudly announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, the next vice president of the United States, General Orpheus Beauregard Roulette III.” The names “FREDERICKS and ROULETTE” immediately flashed on the massive screen on the stage.

  The words were met with thunderous applause that rocked the walls of the arena. No one remained in their seats as Orpheus appeared from behind the JumboTron screen and walked to the center of the stage. With each step he took the applause and cheers grew louder. He waved to the crowed and the glow of his smile seemed to fill the room with light.

  “Thank you, thank you,” he said over and over in an attempt to calm to room, but to no avail. The crowd would not be robbed of their chance to acknowledge the elegant general who represented all that was good and wholesome in the country. The man who embodied family, faith, freedom, and country. The applause continued for a full two minutes and forty-seven seconds before Orpheus could finally speak.

  After crossing the platform several times and waving with each step, Orpheus finally made his way to the podium at the center of the stage and said, “Mr. Chairman, delegates, and fellow citizens, the people of the Republican Party have spoken. I would be honored to accept your nomination for the vice president of the United States. I accept the call to help our nominee for president to serve and defend America, and I accept the challenge of a tough fight in this election against competent opponents at a crucial hour for our country, and I accept the privilege of serving with a man who has proven he knows what’s right for our country and that he knows how tough fights are won. That man is the next president of the United States, Milo Fredericks.”

  The prophetic words from such a great man caused the crowd to burst into thunderous applause. For the next thirty-five minutes every patriotic proverb that tumbled from Orpheus’s lips was met with rapturous delight.

  “As I stand before you tonight I can’t help but think of all the brave men and women who have lost their lives in the name of freedom.” Orpheus paused and appeared to choke up.

  There was a hush in the crowd as he spoke passionately of courage, love, and honor. But the tears he fought to contain on the stage were not for his county.

  They were not for the land of the free or the home of the brave. The tears were for the love he had lost and the price that was paid for him to stand before the adoring crowd. The tears were for the body on the gurney covered by a sheet that rolled past him on that cold Sunday morning on the streets of San Francisco. The tears were for the gentle young man he once held in is arms and for memory of the sweet taste of his lips.

  He could smell the sandalwood soap on Darius’s freshly washed skin as he spoke. “Some have given their lives so that I could stand before you tonight and accept this nomination. And to them I say thank you and I love you.”

  The cameras loved Raven and turned to her often. Her beautiful face and radiant smile served as the backdrop on the JumboTron screen through much of Orpheus’s acceptance speech. Trugonoff was right. She was too beautiful to be the wife of a vice president. The perfectly sculpted blood-red dress she wore caused her to strike the perfect balance of adoring wife, loving mother of the two perfect children who stood at her side, and a powerful woman who must be reckoned with. She smiled down lovingly on to her husband and the cameras and audience smiled up at her. Raven Roulette was perfect from every angle.

  The End

  About the Author

  Terry E. Hill has worked in the social services industry for over 20 years. A native of Southern California, he attended Cal State Los Angeles where he majored in Sociology, and B.I.O.L.A University where he trained to missionary. After completing college, Hill was employed as Associate Executive Director for a non-profit agency in Santa Monica, California serving the homeless and battered women with children.

  In 1995, Terry relocated to the Bay Area to serve as the Executive Director of a well respected and cherished social services agency in San Francisco. Terry later worked as Director of the Mayor’s Office on Homelessness for the City of San Francisco.

  When Sunday Comes Again is the second novel in the Sunday Morning Trilogy. The first was Come Sunday Morning. Hill is currently working on the third novel.

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  A Dishonorable Discharge © Copyright 2012 M.T. Pope Better Not Tell @ Copyright 2012 Tina Brooks McKinney Hush @ Copyright 2012 Brenda Hampton When Duty Calls @ Copyright 2012 Terry E. Hill

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  ISBN: 978-1-5998-3280-7

  This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living, or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.

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