On a Rainy Night in Georgia

by Olivia Gaines

  “Good Lord, Mom is going to be beside herself with her first grandchild,” Gabriel said.

  “At least she will have someone else to fuss over,” Zeke said, ending the call. He turned to look at his wife. She held up her hand, showing off her wedding ring. Zeke did the same.

  Married.

  We are now married.

  What in the hell have I gotten myself into?

  Day Eight – A Steady Drizzle

  I CAN’T SLEEP.

  It is all so surreal.

  Married. Living in a cabin. I’m a mother and wife. A mother to a child I can barely look at. It’s not her fault, he told me. True. It’s my fault.

  “GIRL, YOU ARE GOING to do what?” Cabrina Roberts asked Aisha. Cabrina had been her best friend and ad hoc sister since she was sixteen. They shared everything, including fears about life, dating and shopping tips. However, they didn’t share the same views on marriage.

  Cabrina had no desire to get married nor have children. She wanted to be the successful businesswoman with the large house in the cul-de-sac on some dead-end street in suburbia, and a part time lover. That wasn’t Aisha Miller’s dream. Her dream was to marry some rugged man who lived in the mountains in a small cabin far away from the maddening crowds, nosey neighbors, and monthly PTA meetings. She envisioned herself living in that cabin with him, cooking on a potbellied stove, with fresh vegetables grown and preserved from her home garden, as well as homeschooling their three children.

  “It is a mail-order bride service out of New York. They have been in business since the first wagon trains went west. It is a reputable company,” she told her friend.

  “Reputable, my ass. It is bunch of lonely, ugly women who can’t find a man, signing a contract to milk cows from some meth-dealing farmer with three teeth,” Cabrina told her. “You are going to get yourself into a world of trouble.”

  “No, I’m going to get married, move into my cabin in the North Georgia mountains, paint one wall yellow, and load it with black and white photos in black frames with white mats of me and my family. I’m going to have a golden retriever named Lucky and live happily ever after,” Aisha said with pride.

  “No, you are going to end up chained to a bed while him, his cousin Bubba, Uncle Roscoe, and Jim Bob come in and take turns with your drug-addled body,” Cabrina said, pouring herself another glass of wine.

  “You are too pessimistic. There are good men in this world who live differently than us city dwellers who love life and living off the land. Besides, the company has a great track record. Do you remember that author we loved to read, Montana Hart? She used the service and is living in, ironically, Montana with a nice rancher. Her books have gotten better too,” she exclaimed.

  “Yeah, good for her and her cow milking cowboy,” Cabrina retorted.

  “Also, there was Kalinda Marsh, the internet diva. She married a man in Oregon and they run a very successful hiking outfit with little tiny houses. I went there last year and spoke with her and she loves her life. I also love her cabin,” Aisha told her friend.

  “Aisha, I understand the premise, but it is dangerous. These things can go really bad. I read about a woman in Alaska who went out to marry a man who tried to beat her, and he got eaten by a bear. She ended up snowed in a cabin for nearly six months with the sheriff,” Cabrina said taking a sip of her wine.

  “True, but she married the Sheriff, they have four kids, and she is very happy. I just want you to be happy for me,” she said. “Harley Macklemore runs a laundry business in North Georgia. He has a nice cabin and is ready to settle down. He texts me every day and I send a note back to him from his Cuddlebunny.”

  “Harley, as in the motorcycle? He sounds like a redneck, girl. And Cuddlebunny? STFU. Do the research first before you go traipsing down to Georgia. You know the Devil went down to Georgia and things didn’t turn out so well for him either,” Cabrina said with her lips twisted to the side.

  “That’s a song, not real life.”

  “Whatever. When you go missing, I’m going to be the only one worried enough to come looking for your crazy ass,” Cabrina said. “Enough of this nonsense. Just don’t do it. I have a bad feeling about this, Aisha. I’m begging you to reconsider.”

  She didn’t reconsider. Six months later she was on a plane headed to Georgia, her wedding dress in the suitcase along with her laptop and small items she needed to decorate the cabin. A new sewing machine could be purchased, but she brought along her favorite upholstery gun, basic nails, and a neatly folded bolt of fabric to recover a few chairs. I’m going to make a new life with one man who will love and adore me.

  Instead, she reached the airport to receive a call from Harley.

  “Hey, Cuddlebunny,” he said in the line.

  “Hey back. I’ve landed and am about to pick up my luggage. Will you be out front?” She asked him.

  “No, there was a fire at the laundry, damnedest thing. We are working to put it out, so I am sending my brother Jimmy Don to pick you up,” Harley said. “He will bring you here to the laundry. Hopefully by the time you arrive, the fire will be out, and the police will have done their thing.”

  “Or, I could just take a cab over,” she said, feeling uncomfortable about riding with his brother. She’d done the research on his family and knew that most of the Macklemores were bad hombres.

  “I won’t hear of my fiancé riding in some cab. Jimmy Don will be there in a few. You can’t miss him. He has my rugged good looks and a red baseball cap and drives a black pickup,” Harley said.

  She peered out the large window of the airport and the man Harley described to a tee was sure enough standing on the curb. Collecting her suitcase, she rolled out to the sidewalk to greet her soon to be brother-in-law. “Hi there, Jimmy Don. I am Aisha Miller,” she told him.

  “Whee doggy, you sure are a pretty little thing,” he said, grinning in a lascivious way. The dead eyes gave her a pause as she stepped back, ready to go back inside the airport and wait for Harley. Jimmy Don grabbed her luggage, hefting it into the back of his truck. “Let’s get moving. That fire at the laundry is burning hot and Harley is doing his best with the fire department to get it under control.”

  Hesitantly, she climbed in the truck. It was unseasonably warm, and her mouth felt like she’d been sucking on a bag full of cotton balls. Jimmy Don heard the crackling of her tongue as it hit the roof of her mouth.

  “In the back, I have some bottles of water if you want one,” he told her. “Grab one for me if you don’t mind.”

  Reaching over the seat, she opened the small cooler extracting two bottles of water. She cracked the seal on the first one and handed it to him. He turned it up and sucked down half of the contents. Cracking open the second bottle, she did the same as the green woods of the North Georgia mountains with its ninety-foot pines trees whipped by her. Dizziness hit her first followed by a sudden feeling of nausea overtook her. Seeing the rest stop sign, she asked him to pull over at the next exit.

  “Jimmy Don, I need to get to the ladies’ room, please,” she told him.

  He complied, pulling into the near empty rest stop as she stumbled to the ladies’ room. She spotted the lock on the door, but felt too weak to flip the knob, falling, trying to stand, as she nearly crawled to the last stall. Dizziness overtook her as her vision began to blur. Drugged. He drugged me.

  “Ms. Miller, are you okay in there?” Jimmy Don called out, but receiving no answer, he let himself into the ladies’ room. She was slumped on the floor in the last stall. “Perfect.”

  Lifting her body into his arms, he carried her to the truck, securing her seat belt and driving northwest away from the laundry. His hand rummaged through her purse, pulling out her cell phone, removing the chip, and throwing it out the window. He had plans for the little lady right after he made the call to his brother.

  “Hey Harley, I’m at the airport and I don’t see your little mail-order bride,” Jimmy Don lied. “I’m headed up the mountain to check on John Boy and
Luther and the new batch.”

  “What do you mean she wasn’t there? I just talked to her,” Harley said.

  “Hey, maybe she got cold feet or something. Anyway, I’ll be back in a few hours,” he told Harley and clicked off the line.

  An explosion in the rear of the laundry pulled Harley’s attention away from Aisha Miller, focusing his efforts on helping as much as he could to save his business. He would reach out to her later, but first, the fire. An uneasy feeling settled over him. Jimmy Don was up to no good.

  SHE WOKE UP IN A SMALL shack, with holes in the walls which smelled like death had come for a visit. The floors were stained with what appeared to be old blood, and it was damp. Jimmy Don sat across from her touching himself as he watched her.

  “This is not going to work out like you hoped,” she told him, trying to tamp down the fear of what was about to happen to her.

  “What I am hoping is to get between them lovely thighs of yours and show you how a real man makes a woman feel,” he said.

  It was an intimidation tactic and she knew in her heart that trying to negotiate with him was not going to work. Her best chance at escape was to outsmart him. She knew his type. It was all about control. She’d met many Jimmy Don’s in her life and most of them ended up tasting the tip of her blade she always kept hidden on her body.

  “So, what’s the plan? Rape me, keep me locked up here as your little pet until you tire of me, then sell me off to the highest bidder, or give me to your Uncle Daddy?” she asked.

  His eyebrows shot up in surprise.

  “You are transparent, plus you are stupid,” she said. Her eyes never leaving his face. He looked nothing like her Harley. Close-set eyes, a sharp nose, over a weak chin wouldn’t never place him in the category of ruggedly handsome. He looked more like an inbred idiot.

  He bounded to his feet, coming across the room at her, grabbing for her blouse. The blade came out of nowhere and sliced his wrist then his face. Aisha got to her feet and bolted for the door, but she was unsteady on her legs which felt like cooked spaghetti, stumbling and landing flat on her face. Jimmy Don grabbed her ankles, pulling her back into the shack, ripping down her pants as he fumbled with his own. She could see his small penis poking out, and she found herself laughing.

  Throwing back her head she howled in laughter.

  “Is that it? I see why you mountain folks like to fuck pigs and small children. You can’t pleasure anything with that tiny little pecker,” she said, laughing at him.

  Jimmy Don slapped her hard across the face, but she retaliated by kicking him in the tiny tool, making him whelp in pain. The erection was gone but his anger was not. A sadistic rage took over him as he dragged her back into the cabin, pouring more of the tainted water down her throat. She awoke to find her pants missing, a small fire going in the wood burning stove, and bag of chips next to her.

  He’d violated her while she was unconscious. Trying to sit up, she found herself chained to a metal floor anchor. A bucket sat next to her for the use of bodily waste and outside the window, darkness had set in. A darkness which would become her companion as she counted down the number of days he would keep her in the shack.

  JIMMY DON RETURNED the next day with a look of satisfaction on his face. He brought in a checkerboard, two books, and a box of chicken from some greasy spoon. She was starving but wouldn’t eat.

  “I brought you some food and an ice cold Coca-Cola,” he told her. “It was shame our first time together, you were out cold. I don’t like it like that. I want you awake and enjoying our special times together.”

  She didn’t respond. Lowering her head, she looked at her feet, wishing she’d gotten her toes done before she left. Hiding in her head, she went over all the ways to break down a couch to re-upholster it as the sound of his voice became white noise.

  “Oh, so you aren’t going to talk to me?” he asked her.

  She didn’t look up or acknowledge his presence. It became that way between them for the next 30 days. As punishment, he removed all her clothing, leaving her nude in the cabin. He sprayed her with a mosquito repellant, but she didn’t respond to his touch or to him.

  It drove him crazy.

  “I’m never going to let you go,” he told her, offering her more water which she refused to accept. Jimmy Don slapped her hard, knocking her back onto the cot which she spent her days and nights. When he was not there, she would do push-ups and leg lifts to maintain her muscle tone so when the day came, freedom would be hers. It seemed as if the day would never come.

  Her body was changing as her belly grew. She was carrying the lowlife’s child. It was uncertain when he’d gotten her pregnant, but she took comfort of never being awake when he did whatever to her body. By her accounts of the evidence he left, it may have only been three times.

  “You are going to talk when that baby is born. We will be forever linked by that child. I will starve you and that little bastard if you don’t get your act together and treat me with some fucking respect,” he demanded.

  She hummed to her belly as she rubbed it. The child was her only companion outside of the darkness. In the mornings, she prayed, thanking the Lord for waking her up each day. At night she prayed for Him to send help. When the rain started, she was grateful. The hills were wet as was everything around her and the benefit of no Jimmy Don became a blessing. Then a pain struck her low.

  “No, no, no,” she wailed into the cold damp cabin. The rain had started two days ago and there was no sign of Jimmy Don. She was going into labor and felt a squish between her legs. A yellow glob of mucus seeped from her and she knew it was time to make a break for it or die in the shack. Using the mucus, she rubbed it on her ankle, sliding her thin foot through the opening. Her ankle bled as she wiggled it out, but she was free. Butt naked but free. Looking about the cabin for her shoes, she found nothing to put on her feet, but a holey rain poncho hung on the wall. Shaking it free of bugs, she threw it over her body and headed for the back door.

  They were high in the mountains which meant that the road had to be low. Run for the road. The rain hit her in the face, reminding her of the stupidity of coming here, the man she was supposed to marry she doubted even looked for her, but accepted his brother’s word that she’d gotten back on a plane. It didn’t matter. The Lord was with her as she ran downhill, stumbling, protecting her belly.

  He reached the main road, her feet bleeding, the contractions coming closer together, but the road was gone. Completely washed away. She couldn’t try to clamber over the gaping hole filled with rushing rainwater, and she fell to her knees. The sliver of moonlight shone down on a blue mailbox as she got to her feet, pushing open the gate. She replayed the moment over and over in her mind like an endless loop .gif of her bad decisions.

  “My life is not forfeit,” she repeated aloud.

  “Honey, are you okay?” Zeke asked her. It snapped her back to reality and her present state. My husband is holding my daughter.

  I am a wife.

  I am a mother.

  I am living in a cabin. I am alive.

  “Yes, and no, but I will get there, Husband,” she told him, standing slowly to take the child from his arms. Holding Michelle, she began to hum as she had in the shack to the rounded belly. The baby recognized the sound of her mother’s voice, snuggling close to her bosom while her new father prepared a bath for his tiny angel.

  Zeke watched her finally start to bond with the child. He’d been worried that she would not accept Michelle due to the circumstances of her conception, but he was grateful that she was coming around. The few minutes it took to bathe the baby sped by as he joined his family on the couch. Tameka brought over a warmed bottle, giving him a small thank you, asking if he’d tested it.

  “Of course, I did. I would never allow any harm to come to her or to you,” he said. “I will protect you.”

  Four words which had become the mantra for which he lived his life.

  Day Nine – Her Majesty’s Secret Service


  “YOU CAN’T PROTECT ME,” Tameka Jackson told Zeke. She stood in front of him, her rounded belly swelling each day with the growth of his child. He didn’t know at this point if it was a boy or girl and he didn’t care.

  “I can take care of you both. I will quit school and get a job, and we can move to a small town somewhere and start over, just the three of us,” Zeke said with teary eyes.

  “I think you are sweet, but you are twenty-one years old and a year away from graduation. Finish college and go on about your life. The baby and I will be fine, plus I’m already married,” she told him, touching the side of his face.

  “Jun maybe many things, but he is not an idiot. If he is capable of doing basic math, which I’m sure he is, then he will add up the dates and realize the child was conceived while he was at football camp. Plus, you are going to have a real hard time explaining a high yellow baby when your husband is as dark as the bottom of my shoe,” he told her with emphasis.

  “Get up and get dressed and go back to campus. This conversation is over,” Tameka said to him.

  “It’s not over. I love you and you love me,” he pleaded with her.

  “Love is for fools. I live in the real world and yes, this was fun and a nice distraction, but I am nearly 33 and, again, married. We allowed this to go too far and I’m ending it now,” she told him, turning her back.

  “Tameka, don’t end us like this. That is my child. I’m not okay to allow another man to raise my baby,” Zeke said, standing on the side of the bed, bare, naked down to the bases of emotions.

  “You are a sweet young man. One lucky lady is going to be happy to have you, but I’m not her. Don’t dawdle Zeke. He will be home soon,” she told him, rushing to change the bed sheets.

  “I’m not okay to leave it like this. I will come back for you tomorrow night, so be ready,” he told her, dressing in a hurry to slip out the back door.