by Ora Wilde
But is his love truly unrequited?
A shot of Conner leaving the training area. Then it segued to me giving chase to him, totally erasing the gap in between when Chantelle talked me into following him.
“Sorry... I can’t take this crap anymore,” Lucas angrily said as he stood up and carelessly walked towards the aisle, stepping on some feet in the process.
I tried to stop him.
I was about to get up and follow him, but something grabbed my attention... as well as the attention of everyone else in the room...
As Conner was arguing with Danny Might on stage, a group of around ten people entered the platform. One of them, a black guy who was visibly the tallest and flashed the widest grin, raised something in the air and the crowd roared.
“The champ is finally here!” he screamed which elicited a louder reaction from the audience.
He held up a large belt which was seemingly made of gold and steel, shimmering under the bright lights of the stage, displaying the logo of the promotion that Conner and, presumably he, were under contract to.
Conner and Danny stopped their discussion and looked at the man and his entourage. A furious scowl formed on Conner’s face as a bright smile took over the Danny’s face.
The man, who by all indications seemed to be the champion who Conner was supposed to fight, looked at the giant screen behind him. It was showing a split shot: a montage of Conner’s activities on the left and a sequence of mine on the right. A couple of seconds later and he started to smile mischievously.
“What in James Brown’s shiny ass is that?!” he asked loudly, mockingly. “I’ve heard about Mama Jammas and Oedipooh... Oedipal... Oedipox... Oedi-whatever complex... but I have never heard nor seen a Sistah Plumma! For fuck’s sake, Danny! You gonna make me fight a sistah plumma?”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Danny immediately interjected, “your middleweight champion of the world... Johnny ‘Jackhammer’ Jones!”
And the crowd screamed in approval yet again, drowning the humiliation and despair I felt at that moment.
My gaze scrambled towards Conner. He was livid. He was being pacified by his team who hastily stood up to prevent him from doing something he’d only regret later on. He was screaming - invectives most probably - though I couldn’t hear his words as the crowd was so loud with cheers and jeers and laughter worst of all.
Then he looked at me.
And his eyes suddenly drooped with resignation and shame. He bowed his head, the fight abandoning his body, and slowly walked back to his seat.
His spirit was broken.
And I felt that my heart crumbled with it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
CONNER
“Well, anyone care for some pie?” my stepmother asked, breaking almost twenty minutes of silence that enveloped the dining area since we started eating.
Why I accepted her invitation to eat dinner with them, I wouldn’t know. Maybe I was too weary because of the gamut of emotions I had to endure the entire day. Maybe because my mind was just too heavy with a lot of thoughts that I didn’t have the strength to come up with an excuse not to go.
Maybe I just felt so miserable that I needed the company.
That’s bullshit! I didn’t need anyone to make me feel better about things. Never fucking did. Never fucking will.
I nodded and she smiled. She stood up and proceeded to the kitchen counter to grab whatever pie she must’ve baked earlier.
Instinctively, my eyes secretly rolled towards Margaret who was sitting next to me. She was staring at her food, trying to cut the meat of the baby back ribs with her knife, into pieces so small that they could’ve easily fit inside an ant’s mouth.
She was just as affected as I was, that much I could tell.
More so, perhaps, as she was the one who had a relationship at stake.
“It isn’t true,” my father suddenly mumbled as he was chewing on his food.
“Yes, it isn’t,” Margaret confirmed. Her eyes didn’t even leave her plate.
“Those damn TV people,” he continued. “They think they could invent things... play with people’s lives... for the sake of ratings?”
“Oh hush now Benny,” my stepmother said from behind him, her tone was brimming with inappropriate glee. She had two plates of homemade pie, on on each hand. “It’s entertainment. En... ter... tain... ment. It’s not any different from Days of our Lives or General Hospital. They have scriptwriters for that kind of stuff. It’s purely fictional.”
“I know that!” he answered in a loud voice. “You know that. Everyone of this damn table knows that. But does the rest of the world know that? They’re marketing it as a documentary... a show based on reality. That’s how other people would see it. Reality. Real. We know it’s false, but they - the rest of the world - will forever condemn us for being... for being... for being... disreputable.”
I don’t know what the fuck got into me right then - the pent up hatred for my father that finally found a chance to explode, or a belief that was so deeply rooted that I didn’t even know it existed - but my mouth opened up and delivered a retort.
“Disreputable?” I questioned his statement. “What’s so disreputable about that?”
Everyone’s eyes turned to me... including Margaret’s.
“They’re painting you as someone who’s coveting his sister,” he said huskily.
“She’s not even my sister!” I corrected him as I threw my hands up in the air.
“What?!” he replied in disbelief. “She’s your... wait a minute... are you telling me that it’s true... that what they showed on that preview thing is all true?”
“No, no... that’s not what I’m saying,” I told him. “But assuming - and this is very big assumption - that it’s true... I don’t think it’s as big as a fucking deal as what they’re trying to portray.”
“Language, Conner,” my stepmother intervened.
“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” I repeated. “Margaret here... she’s just my stepsister. Stepsister. We’re not even related by blood. So what’s wrong if I fall in love with her?”
Silence followed.
The eerie kind of silence.
“Uhm... better eat your pie before it gets cold,” my father’s wife finally uttered after what seemed like an eternity of awkward quietness.
Margaret immediately left after finishing her dinner. She went upstairs without saying a single word... not even a polite goodbye.
My stepmother left the table as well, proceeding to the kitchen to wash the dishes and leaving me, alone, with my father.
A wall of uncomfortable silence rose up between us yet again. I whistled the first tune that came to my head, U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday... an instinctive response to the suffocating quietude. He probably found that disrespectful as he shot me a dagger look. I paused for a fraction of a second before flashing a smirk and continuing with my humming.
“Johnny ‘Jackhammer’ Jones...” he spoke, almost slurring.
That made me stop.
“What about him?” I asked, a semblance of rage started to boil in my being.
“He’s a formidable foe,” he replied as he grabbed the newspaper on the table and started to read it. Ha! Why would he read yesterday’s news so late in the evening? He just wanted an excuse not to look at me straight in the eyes.
“He’s a bum and I’m gonna beat him,” I responded with firmness and candor.
“Jones got a good ground game, you don’t,” he said, his face hidden behind the dailies.
“Jones won’t be able to take me down to the mat. I’m gonna bust his face wide open before he could even grab me.”
“Don’t be so sure of yourself. Your striking isn’t as flawless as you think it is.”
What the fuck was he talking about?
“My striking is the best in the game,” I corrected him.
“No it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Not, it’s not.”
“You’re seventeen and one.”
I was about to correct him again, but then I remembered that I was, belatedly, disqualified in my last fight.
“The recent bout doesn’t count,” I told him instead.
“Yes it does. That last bout may very well define your career.”
“Bull fucking shit! My match with Jones will define my career. History will label me as the best middleweight champion in history.”
“Heh! Talking about crossing the bridge too early. You won’t beat Jones.”
“Says who? You? A boxer who quickly became irrelevant. Oh... wait, wait, wait... you didn’t become irrelevant. You never were relevant to begin with. Isn’t that right? When people talk about Bouncin’ Benjamin McXavier, they will always discuss the potentials he had... and how he never reached them.”
At that point I was fuming mad and I didn’t give a fuck about the words that flowed from my mouth.
He was visibly affected. Though I couldn’t see his face, I still saw his hands trembling as they were holding the newspaper.
“You... You won’t beat Jones,” he struggled to repeat. “He’s too fast. His footwork’s perfect. His defense his impeccable. And his long arms... his reach... they’re too much for you.”
“I could duck his punches,” I reasoned out. “I’d go inside and deliver some strong blows to his body. That’ll weaken him. A cross here, and uppercut there... and he’s done.”
“He’ll keep you at bay with his jabs.”
“Sidestepping would do the trick.”
“He’s quick on his feet.”
“I’ll be quicker.”
“He’s longer. He’ll cover more distance.”
“I’ll hop and jump if I have to.”
“He’ll catch you in the air.”
“Feint skip, then roundhouse.”
“Which is exactly what he’ll be expecting.”
“Really now?”
“You’ve done that at least twice in your last three fights.”
Wow! He was keeping score. He actually watched my bouts.
“Then you know how devastating that maneuver is,” I reminded him.
“Because you faced inferior foes.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Conner....” he began to say, his voice suddenly turning serene and sincere. “The XFC... they’ve been feeding you pansies.”
“Pansies? No... they’re legitimate contenders and I’ve beaten them all.”
“No. They’re pansies. They’re either untested, overhyped, or over-the-hill.”
That infuriated me once again.
“That’s so fucking easy for you to say!” I screamed at him. “But I’m so fucking stupid! I’m so fucking stupid! I should’ve expected you to say something like that! To belittle what I have accomplished, the same way you have belittled me all my life... or at least the few years you actually spent with me!”
“No, Conner, listen to me. Your entire career... you’ve been fed with pansies, people you can easily beat, people who are a good match to your style. They have been grooming you so that they can feed you to a more marketable champion.”
“You’re fucking crazy!”
“They’ve been building you up to look like a legitimate threat... but you’re not. Why do you think they gave you that monicker?”
“What fucking monicker?”
“The Savior.”
“Because it fucking rhymes with my name!”
“No. Because they wanted people to believe that you’re the new guy who will revolutionize the game. You are, and you have always been, an exciting fighter. But excitement doesn’t mean excellence. You are, by no means, an excellent fighter.”
After all these years, my father has never lost his touch. He still managed to denigrate me in a way that only he can.
“And what do you know?” I asked him angrily. “All you did your entire career - if you can even call it a career - was to lie down with your back against the mat like a fucking whore waiting for her cunt to be pounded!”
“You don’t get it, do you boy?” he answered. His voice was as emotionless as iron. He put down the newspaper and met my gaze. “You’re all hype. You’re the product of that company’s marketing division. You didn’t build yourself. They built you. They built you to look like a star... so that their real star would look even stronger when they decide to feed you to him.”
That was when I lost it.
I grabbed my plate - porcelain as far as I could tell - and threw it against the wall as if it was a fucking frisbee.
He didn’t budge. The crashing sound of shattering ceramic didn’t even elicit the simplest flinch.
I got up and left him there, still looking at me, expecting an affirmative reply that would validate his arrogant opinions. I didn’t give him that pleasure.
I went to the porch. The air was cold, something that was quite unexpected considering the damn town’s proximity to the desert. It didn’t matter. Even the chilliest air wouldn’t have pacified my rage that evening.
I hated him.
I hated him that night for everything that he said and for everything that he believed was true.
I hated him my entire life for the way he treated me when he was there and the way he made me feel when he wasn’t.
But despite the overflowing fury in my heart, something made me even angrier.
It was because I hated myself more than I hated him.
I hated myself for allowing him to make me feel that way.
I hated myself for my inability to cast him out of my life completely.
And I hated myself for failing to accept the truth.
Chapter Twenty-Four
MEG
I must’ve fallen into deep sleep as I woke up to see that my bedroom door was slightly open. Was I too tired and emotionally drained that night that I failed to lock it as I normally would’ve? Or did I fail to close it tight and it merely slid open?
It didn’t matter. I was home. I was safe. I didn’t have to get up and clo....
My eyes widened as a sudden surge of cringe-inducing sensation coursed throughout my body. It wasn’t the undesirable kind of quiver. Rather, it was something that was brought about by an intense feeling of ecstatic shock... a feeling that was so pleasurable that it woke up every fiber of my being.
But what was causing it?
As I twisted and turned in bed, trying to contain the rapturous delight that was quickly overwhelming my senses, my thighs squeezed on something... something that shouldn’t have been there.
There, under my sheets and between my legs rested something hard... and stubbly, bobbling up and down with a rhythm that indicated both mastery and enjoyment.
It was a head. A human head. And it was bent on giving me pleasure.
I wanted to peek inside my blanket to see who it was. But I knew I didn’t have to. Only one man could give me that kind of joy. Only one man would dare enter my room in the middle of the night and surprise me in that kind of manner. So I just rested my head on my pillow, smiled at the ceiling, and readied myself to just enjoy the moment.
Lucas...
He has always been full of surprises.
As his tongue traversed the slit of my womanhood, I let out a soft moan. I was still smiling, but my eyes closed because of the sheer delight his action has given me. I wanted him to know how good I felt. I wanted him to continue.
And he did.
His left hand hitched up my nightgown, exposing more of my lower body for his devouring. His other hand held the bottom of my spine and pulled my midsection closer to his mouth.
And he proceeded to lick.
Harder.
Sloppier.
Faster with every lap.
My thighs stiffened, inadvertently squashing his beautiful head. But that didn’t bother him. He didn�
��t stop. His motions became more intense. His tongue became more forceful, as if it wanted to feel more of me... all of me... deeper into me... into my soul... into the innermost sanctums of my body...