by Londyn Skye
After gathering the items, Lily dug deep for the strength to turn around. When she finally did, she approached J.R. cautiously and handed him his glass of lemonade. Instead of drinking it, though, he held it as he continued to stare at Lily with his mouth partially open, gazing at her like she was the only thing that would quench his thirst. Lily then tried to step past him to head out the door, but J.R. stepped in her way before she could exit. “What’s y’ur hurry? They ain’t nearly as thirsty as I am,” he said in a tone that was clearly dripping with lust.
Before drinking his lemonade, J.R. licked his chapped lips in a way that made his desires even more evident. He finally put the cup to his mouth and guzzled it all without ever taking his eyes off Lily. He swiped his hand across his mouth and exhaled hard when he was finished. He then held the glass out in front of himself, implying that he wanted a refill. Lily swallowed hard and tried not to let her hand shake as she poured him some more. Although she watched the cup closely as she poured, she knew J.R.’s eyes were on her; she could feel them, along with the heat of his staunch breath flowing offensively past her face. He had moved his eyes slowly down the entire length of Lily’s body and back up again in perfect time to meet her eyes when she lifted her head after filling his glass. J.R. then grabbed a tiny tendril of her hair and wrapped it around his finger. “Ain’t neva’ seen y’ur hair down before,” he said, gazing at her without blinking. “Sho’ is purty this way.”
Lily continued to look at J.R. and did not say a word at first. Hearing the lust in his voice made her desperation to get away build even more, but she tried not to show fear in his presence. “I-I need to get this lemonade out to yo’ daddy. He’ll be callin’ afta’ me soon.” She tried to step around J.R. once more, but, again, he blocked her path.
“You s’pposed to thank a man when he compliments you,” J.R. scoffed. “I know good ‘n well my daddy done taught you betta’ manners than that,” he berated, wrapping even more of Lily’s hair in his hand.
“Th-thank you,” she stuttered, her voice now beginning to quiver.
“You know what my daddy taught me?” J.R. asked, taking the tray Lily held and setting it aside.
Lily was silent as she watched him lower it slowly onto the counter.
“Do ya’?!” J.R. barked, gripping her hair tighter.
“N-no sa’.” Lily felt tears beginning to pool in the bottom of her eyes but fought to hold them back.
“He taught me that it’s a sin for a white man to impregnate a nigga’. He don’t believe in dilutin’ our blood with the blood of inferior nigga’s like you. And I agree with ’em,” J.R. confessed while lifting Lily’s hair to his nose and inhaling the scent. “But it seems my fatha’ don’t give a shit about whetha’ or not James lives by those rules,” he said, suddenly looking down at Lily’s stomach. When he looked up again, he pierced her with unblinking evil eyes, his face just mere inches from hers. “That’s James’s fuckin’ baby, ain’t it?” he sneered.
Lily’s mouth fell open, and she could feel her heart beating in her throat as she began to tremble.
“AIN’T IT?!” J.R. snarled, yanking her hair again.
Lily winced when the heat of his staunch breath barreled offensively past her nose. She blinked hard and the tears that had waited in pools beneath her eyes finally made their escape, sliding in even streaks down her freshly cleaned cheeks. “N-no sa’,” she managed to reply.
“Don’t lie to me!” J.R. leaned down toward Lily’s face. “My brotha’s fuckin’ you good, ain’t he?”
“N-no sa’,” Lily tried to deny again, quickly looking away when her tears began to flow non-stop.
J.R. snickered. “Those purty little green eyes a y’urs just answa’d my damn question.” He gently wiped her tears away. “Aww, now that ain’t fair, sweetheart. You been lettin’ James get a taste ‘a y’ur pussy all these years,” he said, as he continued caressing her face. “Good thing ’bout brotha’s, though…” He reached his hand around and groped Lily’s buttocks. “We share.”
Lily began trembling even harder as tears raced down her cheeks and onto her dress. “I-I really need to get yo’ d-daddy his drink, before h-he comes lookin’ for m-me.” She then tried to step past J.R. again.
J.R. quickly snatched her hard by the arm and held her steady. “Not ’til I find out if y’ur pussy tastes like chocolate or caramel.” He leaned down toward her ear. “If I fuck you good, will you play a song in my honor too?” he whispered, gliding his tongue along her earlobe. In one swift motion, he pulled her hair hard and grabbed her by her buttocks again, pressing her body firmly against his, and grinding himself against her. “I been wantin’ to taste you for years now,” he said seductively. Without a second in-between, he planted his filthy lips on hers and forced his tongue inside of her, transferring the residue of his tobacco-filled saliva into her mouth. His scruffy beard felt like tiny razors tearing into Lily’s face as he chewed incessantly on her lips. His tongue was so deep, it nearly deprived her of air. She pushed at his face with both of her hands, but he had her rear in a death grip and her hair still tightly wound around his hand. She tried to scream but her cries for help were muffled by his tongue as he continued to snake it wildly throughout her mouth.
J.R. bit Lily’s lip hard as he tore his mouth away from hers. He then spun her around and ripped away her dress. It pooled around her feet now as a useless rag. He tore her undergarments away as well, held her by the back of the neck, and forced her to lean over the counter. He quickly dropped his pants, spit on his hand, wet Lily’s opening with it, and slammed himself inside of her. The searing pain of his unwanted invasion sent a high-pitched shrill ripping through Lily’s vocal cords.
“Shut up bitch!” J.R. yelled, panting hard. He cupped Lily’s mouth with his free hand while continuing to pump violently inside of her, smashing her between his body and the countertop. He was so absorbed in his own selfish, sickening pleasures that he was totally oblivious to Lily’s tears as they drenched the hand that he held firmly over her mouth.
Lily was pinned against the kitchen counter with nowhere to run and unable to scream. Her stomach was being slammed with force against the counter with every brutal thrust to her insides. The damage she thought J.R. could be doing to her baby suddenly caused Lily’s motherly instincts to overtake her. She was no longer concerned for herself but was desperate to protect her unborn child. She tried to escape, but her hands only knocked wildly at the plates and cups on the counter, sending them crashing to the floor. Even the sound of the shattering glass was not enough to make J.R. stop, but the knife suddenly lodged in his bone was another matter altogether.
“YOU FUCKING BITCH!” J.R. shrieked, searing pain suddenly shooting through his whole body.
In her rampant struggle to get away, Lily’s hand had grazed the handle of a utensil that she had once contemplated taking her own life with. In her altered state of mind, the consequences of her actions became irrelevant as she gripped the handle with a far different motive this time. In a hysterical motherly rage, she had rotated her body around blindly and buried it deep into the bone of J.R.’s upper left arm, instantly ceasing his vile assault.
With his uninjured hand coming at Lily full force, J.R. backhanded her to the floor. She landed in the shards of glass, but still scooted as quickly as she could to get away while J.R. was preoccupied with trying to pull the knife out of his bone. As soon as she was far enough away from him, she stood up to run for the front door.
After yanking the knife from his bone, J.R. turned his attention back to Lily, pulled his pants up, and began pursuing her like an angry animal after prey that had managed to escape. He caught her in the living room and grabbed her by the hair. “You gonna pay for this, you fuckin’ nigga’!”
“Leave me alooone!” Lily screamed, struggling to break free. She turned around and clawed at J.R., burying her fingernails deep into his skin, leaving four bloody marks down the front of his face. Again, the pain she inflicted was enough for he
r to escape, after he reflexively grabbed his new wounds.
Lily opened the front door, darted out, and was near the porch steps when J.R.’s foot caught her in the middle of her back. The force of his kick was so great, Lily was airborn before landing hard on the ground. Despite the painful impact, Lily quickly scrambled to get away, but J.R. was on top of her within seconds. Her screams got the attention of Jacob and Jesse out by the barn. They both looked up and went running toward the cloud of dirt that J.R. and Lily were engulfed in. As Lily lay on the ground, wrestling to get away, J.R. began ferociously beating her about the face with a closed fist. Just as his brother and father arrived, he was pulling his hunting knife off his hip with murderous intent.
“J.R.! What the hell’s goin’ on?!” Jacob yelled, grabbing hold of his brother before he was able to flip the blade open on his knife.
J.R. was wrestling to get away from Jacob so he could continue his brutal onslaught. “Look what she did to my arm! I’ll kill you, you fuckin’ bitch!” he yelled repeatedly, particles of spit flying from his mouth with every word.
“What in holy hell?!” Jesse yelled after looking at his son’s bleeding arm and the claw marks on his face. He then looked down at Lily who was still on the ground, coughing, and spitting up blood. “The fuck is goin’ on here?!”
“This bitch just stabbed me!” J.R. erupted. “I just come to ask ’er for some lemonade, and she attacked me for no fuckin’ reason! I’ll kill that little nigga’!” he kept screaming, still trying to wrestle himself away from Jacob’s death grip.
“Simmer down, J.R.!” Jacob screamed, still trying to get him under control. “Let pa handle ’er!”
“Ain’t nobody gonna stab you for no fuckin’ reason, ya’ little shit!” Jesse spat, convinced that Lily’s nude body and J.R.’s disheveled clothing told a different tale.
“I’s confrontin’ ’er and she pounced on me!” J.R lied, still trying to free himself from his brother’s grip to lunge at Lily again.
“Confrontin’ ’er about what?!” Jesse asked.
“I run into MJ in town just a while ago when I’s leavin’ the store. She was standin’ out front cryin’. When I asked ’er what was wrong, she told me that she’d just come from talkin’ to James at Gideon’s office,” J.R., explained, finally snatching his arms away from his brother. “She said she’s havin’ second thoughts about marryin’ ’em now,” he said, desperately trying to catch his breath.
“What the hell for?!” Jesse questioned.
Still panting hard, J.R. looked at Lily’s stomach, wiped his mouth, and pointed. “’Cause that’s James’s fuckin’ baby she’s carryin’,” he answered, happy to finally point out his brother’s disgraceful actions.
Jesse’s face instantly transitioned into a tight-lipped grimace. “The fuck’re you talkin’ about?” he replied, rage beginning to seep into his tone.
“MJ said she found some letta’s this nigga’ wrote to James, praisin’ ’em about the way he was fuckin’ ’er!”
Jesse quickly swiveled his head to look down at Lily. “That she wrote?!” he asked, finally snatching Lily up off the ground by the arm and forcing her to turn toward him.
“Apparently, not only was James fuckin’ her, but he was even dumb enough to teach this nigga’ to read and write,” J.R. continued. “MJ said James even wrote back talkin’ about the fact that he was in love with this filthy whore! Said she’s still got the letta’s to prove it. Said James confessed to ’er that the baby was his afta’ she confronted ’em about all the shit she read.”
Jesse continued glaring at Lily as he listened to his son rattle on about his run-in with Mary Jo. His lips grew tighter and his face flushed redder with every word. Lily just stood there quietly quivering under the heat of his glare, shaking her head, trying to deny everything, but the guilt-ridden tears flowing through the dirt on her face easily gave away the truth.
“Mary Jo said that James told ’er we all already knew it was his baby and that we’s all s’pposed to keep tight-lipped about it since he was gonna sell it when it was born. But now, she said he refuses to get rid ‘a the little shit. She said if he keeps it, she don’t wanna marry ’em and bring shame to ’er family by havin’ that little bastard baby runnin’ around ’er plantation, remindin’ her that ’er husband’s a goddamn nigga’ lova’! She told me she’s been humiliated enough by him and his whore, and she ain’t gonna take any more ‘a James’s shit!” J.R. turned to look at Lily. “And nietha’ am I,” he growled.
Despite being a psychotic deviant, Mary Jo Parker was a very intelligent woman, but she much preferred to use her intelligence to be deceitful. Normally, she preferred to pull off despicable acts on her own. This time, though, she manipulated J.R. into being the disposable minion she needed to punish the one and only man she had ever met who refused to play her devious game by her twisted rules. Because of the depths of her feelings for James, Mary Jo had allowed him to break her rules far more than she would have allowed any other. But with his rejection of her in Gideon’s office, James had finally shattered the threshold of her limits. After the words of his rejection sunk in, Mary Jo had calmly slipped out of Gideon’s office, so as not to raise suspicion about the vindictive thoughts racing through her sick mind. The moment she saw J.R. enter Albert’s General Store, she knew immediately that she had the easy opportunity to exact her revenge on James and his whore, all while keeping her hands completely clean.
While J.R. was shopping, Mary Jo traipsed across the road, positioned herself between the exit and J.R.’s wagon and waited while sobbing into a handkerchief. After enticing J.R. to ask why she was upset, she coughed and cried while pitifully spewing one embellished tale after another about her two enemies. Mary Jo had overheard plenty of arguments between J.R. and Jesse over the years to know that J.R. detested James. She, therefore, felt that divulging James’s dark secrets to his oldest brother was just as good, if not better, then telling Jesse. Either way, Mary Jo was convinced that it would be a death sentence for “Leela” or, at the very least, for her baby.
After her tearful confession to J.R., Mary Jo climbed into her carriage with nary a tear on her face and her driver proceeded home with her. When she passed the glass window of Gideon’s medical practice and saw James sitting there, she stretched her tomato-red lips in a devilish smile as she envisioned the carnage that would soon await him at home. With those gruesome thoughts floating through her mind, she exhaled, crossed her legs, and leaned back in her seat. Much like after murdering her cousin, Mary Jo was suddenly overcome with a euphoric rush, no different than if she had just ended Lily’s life with her very own hands.
Mary Jo Parker would be so proud to know that her manipulation was working even better than she had predicted. She would have considered J.R.’s vile intrusion into Lily’s body as a welcomed bonus to the torture she had originally envisioned. The only part of her diabolical plan that disappointed her was the fact that she was not there to witness every second of Lily’s torture with her own eyes. She would have gotten such joy out of watching bruises and welts begin to form on Lily’s face. She would have gotten near orgasmic pleasure while watching J.R. forcefully satisfying his carnal needs inside of Lily, especially knowing she was suffering dearly through every minute of it. She would have then loved nothing more than to have followed the unfolding events outside and stand high up on the porch to watch the beginning of the showdown with Jesse, who had glared at Lily with squinted red eyes the entire time that J.R. was revealing the secret about the child that lay within her womb. Mary Jo would have continued to stand there proudly, like a queen on the royal precipice of her castle, glaring down at J.R. as he now walked over and stared at the profile of his father. “You claim I’m the one who ain’t worth a shit, huh?” J.R. snarled at his father as his eyelids lowered into angry slits. “Y’ur golden boy done impregnated a nigga’!” he emphasized. He pointed at Lily. “This goddamn nigga’s carryin’ y’ur fuckin’ grandchild.”
Nigger. Gr
andchild. Those two words instantly caused Jesse’s anger to erupt. The explosive reaction was a heavy blow to Lily’s chin that nearly incapacitated her. She blacked out for a moment and lost control of her legs. She crumpled to the ground, regained clarity of her surroundings, and scrambled backward to get away when she saw Jesse stomping toward her, looking even more eager to dish out a hearty dose of brutality. Lily did not crawl far before Jesse made his way over to her and began kicking her repeatedly in the abdomen. Lily did all she could to roll and block him from striking her baby but without much success. Time and time again, her midsection was pelted with vicious blows from Jesse’s heavy boots. With her abrupt unpredictable movements, Jesse finally missed his intended target and fractured one of Lily’s ribs. When she cried out in agony, Jesse straddled her and began pounding away at her face with powerful closed fist blows. When he exhausted himself, he grabbed her by the hair, and dragged her kicking and screaming to a tree that had been synonymous with only one thing in all the years Lily had lived there. “The whipping tree,” J.R. and Jacob had named it after witnessing their father tie slaves to it and brutally whip them while dangling bareback.
James had long since locked the doors to Gideon’s medical practice and was nearly home when his father landed the first blow to Lily’s face. Eager to see his wife, he had hopped on his horse in a single leap and kicked the heels of his boots into his sides to prompt him into a steady gallop. The entire way home, he rode with thoughts of how different Lily’s life was about to be in just a matter of weeks. Different, it would certainly be. But as Corrina approached the plantation entrance in a full-on sprint, flailing her arms and yelling, James was about to learn that the reality of the ways in which Lily’s life was about to change was a stark contrast to the way he was currently envisioning it. Corrina’s frantic screaming quickly tore James from his internal world of wondrous visions. He yanked the reins on his horse and brought him to a halt as he tried to make out Corrina’s panic-stricken words. “MASA’ PLEASE! YOU GOTTA HELP ’ER!” she was yelling repeatedly at the top of her lungs.