Big Bad Sinner: A Forbidden Romance

by Annette Fields

  "We won't be intruding on you?" she asked cautiously.

  "Absolutely not," I said. "Well, I only have one bedroom in my apartment but my couch is comfortable. And anyway, I want Maggie to flip her shit when she sees you guys with a roof over your head."

  "A couch would be amazing," she breathed. "Only if you're two-hundred percent positive about this."

  "Definitely," I said. "And we'll have more space soon. Once everything is settled and we can move."

  Marie gave me a curious look.

  "I wasn't sure about you at first but you really are serious about my sister."

  "More than anything else," I said. "I was married for ten years before and that didn't even hold a candle to what I feel for Maggie."

  She beamed at me with the same light and spirit as her twin sister as she bounced Jeremy on her hip.

  "Hey buddy, you ready to go live inside a house?"

  "House??" he shrieked.

  I helped them gather their meager belongings and we piled into my car. When I led them inside my place, Marie stared agape as if she just entered the Sistine Chapel.

  "It's perfect," she breathed. "So comfortable and cozy." She turned to me, eyes glittering with tears again. "Thank you so much. I'll keep the place spotless, I promise."

  "Don't worry about a thing," I said, giving her a brotherly hug. "I just want everyone that Maggie loves to be safe."

  Marie's eyes flashed with determination.

  "Let's find out where she is and get her back."

  We hovered over my laptop for the next hour, bouncing ideas back and forth as we Google searched, and finally deduced that Maggie must have been sent to Westminster Boarding School for Young Adults.

  "This place looks like a fucking fortress," I muttered, scrolling through photos on the website. "For the best chances of rehabilitation, students are not permitted to leave grounds unless approved by someone on their contact list," I read off the page.

  "Mom would make herself the only person on that list of course," Marie muttered.

  My heart leaped with an idea and I cocked an eyebrow at her.

  "Do you think you could pretend to be your mom on the phone?"

  A hesitant smile grew on her face.

  "Maybe. They'll ask a ton of security questions though. I don't know if I'll be able to answer everything correctly."

  "Do you know social security numbers? Addresses? Her maiden name?"

  She nodded slowly.

  "Then you've got this in the bag!" I told her. My heart pounded with excitement. We would have Maggie back before evening fell.

  I dialed the number and handed Marie my phone.

  "Yes hello. This is Lila Mays calling for my daughter Magdalene Mays. I would like to pick up my daughter to take her to dinner after her lessons this afternoon."

  I bit my knuckles to keep from laughing. With her voice slightly lowered and an air of snobbery, she sounded exactly like Lila.

  Marie's nostrils suddenly flared and her eyes widened at me.

  "Are you serious?" she demanded over the phone. "I'm paying you all this money for what? I should be able to take my child when I please!"

  Fuck.

  I held my breath through a long pause as she listened.

  "I don't care if it was in the contract I signed, your school is in business because of me! You better believe I'll go to your governing board about this!"

  She hung up.

  "What?" I demanded, exhaling my breath.

  "No students are allowed off-campus during their first week. No exceptions," she said in her normal voice.

  "Shit," I muttered, dropping my forehead into my hands. A whole fucking week seemed like an eternity.

  "But the good news is," Marie said. "We know for sure she's there. They looked her up in the system to check her enrollment date when I said her name."

  I nodded, trying to be grateful for that small victory.

  "And now we have a week to figure out what to do next," I sighed.

  I turned back to the computer and studied the web page, clicking around and looking for some chink in their armor. Absentmindedly, I clicked on the 'Careers' section.

  When the page loaded with the list of job opportunities, the realization struck me like a sledgehammer to the head.

  It was so obvious. I should have looked here first.

  "Marie, I think we have our way in," I said, trying to contain my excitement.

  "What?" She peered over my shoulder. "Job listings?"

  I nodded, scanning over each job title. With my minister's license and years of experience in religious teaching, I qualified for each position they had open.

  Silently, I prayed a thanks to Deacon Parish for not blacklisting me when he let me go.

  "My old church fired me," I said to Marie with a grin. "Time for me to find another job."

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  MAGGIE

  How long have I been here?

  A few days? Weeks?

  Every day seemed to blur into the next.

  All we did was go to class, eat and sleep. Rinse, repeat.

  We all dressed in the same uniform-- an ugly gray dress with long sleeves and skirts that covered our knees.

  Every minute of every day was accounted for. We all woke up and went to bed at the same time. We had to eat, pray, and make it to our next class within a certain amount of time. There was no free time to even think. I already felt like I was becoming a robot.

  The only time I could think of Kaine, my sister, and Jeremy was the moment between climbing into bed and falling into a deep, exhausted sleep. I barely had enough time to miss them.

  On top of keeping us walled in like prisoners, I began to feel like a prisoner in my own mind.

  Every Bible class condemned and shamed us for having sinful actions and thoughts. After hearing it repeated several thousand times, I almost started to believe it.

  As I talked to my classmates, I tried telling myself these were normal girls to combat the harsh lessons from the classroom.

  Everyone here was between eighteen and twenty-five years old. The most extreme cases were a small handful of girls who starred in porn films, which were discovered either by family or someone in their church community.

  Of course, those who discovered the videos never got sent to a place like this.

  But the majority of my classmates were normal, competent girls who just happened to have overzealous parents. They'd been caught making love with their boyfriends, watching porn, or going to a nightclub.

  The small comfort I found in knowing I wasn't alone was overshadowed by constantly being watched. Nothing was private, not even our thoughts.

  Guards and teachers watched us and I saw the lust in their own eyes, their sick satisfaction at caging our free spirits and breaking us down into obedient little pets.

  My only solace was in my sewing class.

  We had the most boring, repetitive assignments like baby blankets, quilts, and mending our uniforms, but I loved working thread and fabric between my fingers again. Occasionally I would look up at the sewing teacher and fantasize about stabbing my needle right through her eye. It gave me the strength to hope that tomorrow would be a better day. A day closer to freedom and seeing my Kaine and my family again.

  One day was nice enough that we were allowed to have classes outside. Even our teachers relented that we needed fresh air and sunshine sometimes.

  I sat with a few classmates on the front lawn under a tree. My sewing project was set aside and I pretended to read my Bible. After only a few days here, I must have read the damn thing from cover to cover already. While pretending to read, I chose to daydream instead.

  The words on the pages blurred as I recalled Kaine's mouth on my skin, igniting my whole body with heat. The pressure of his fingertips on my nipples as his cock filled me, his heavy balls slapping my clit as he fucked orgasm after orgasm out of me.

  My whole body flushed with a familiar heat at the memory and my nipples hardened into tight
little buds. Good thing my dress was made of thick cotton and no one could see the stiff peaks on my chest.

  I rubbed my thighs together to ease the pressure building in my pussy. The urge to touch my clit while thinking of him was overpowering. This was the first time since coming here that I felt like a living, breathing human.

  Voices floating up from the walkway brought my awareness back to my bible pages. If I even looked slightly aroused, I would be assigned extra bible study.

  I glanced up just as security escorted someone through the front entrance of the building and my heart nearly stopped.

  Someone tall, broad and with the same shade of blond hair as Kaine walked with them. I didn't see enough to be sure, but that familiar pang pulled at me.

  It couldn't be him though. I just thought it was because I was fantasizing about him.

  My eyes returned to my Bible, feeling like I wanted to cry out of despair and frustration. I felt so lost and hopeless without him that my mind began playing tricks on me to think he was really there.

  TWENTY-NINE

  KAINE

  "Very impressive resume, Mr. Cross."

  Peter Hermes--that's a creepy pervert name if I ever heard one--Headmaster of Westminster Boarding School for Young Adults, scanned the paper in front of him over his glasses.

  He was an older British gentleman in his seventies, most likely. Not a speck of lint was on his crisp, dark suit and not a single gray hair on his head was out of place.

  His office, lined with books and accented with dark, polished wood, reflected his dress and demeanor perfectly.

  I had already interviewed with a panel of teachers and the Assistant Headmaster. He was the last person I needed to charm to get my foot in the door here.

  "Thank you, Headmaster," I said in my most gracious interviewee voice.

  "Tell me Mr. Cross," he said through a mouth full of saliva as he set my paperwork down on his desk. "What makes you interested in working at Westminster?"

  "Well Headmaster, it's our duty as Christians to lead those who have gone astray back into God’s loving embrace," I said. "While I've enjoyed my work as a pastor immensely and love surrounding myself by His devoted followers every Sunday, I feel compelled by Him to return as many lost lambs back into the fold as possible. It's more challenging for sure to instill faith into the faithless, but I feel as though that is my earthly purpose as His servant."

  I paused and bowed my head slightly to get the full effect of my spiel across.

  "Not to mention," I continued. "It would be an honor to work at such an esteemed school. Selfishly, I would like my name to be added to those who've been such a positive, guiding light on these students."

  The headmaster puffed up like a peacock and I knew I had him. These despicable, so-called Christians would sell their own mother to the devil with enough flattery.

  "Well, I'll have to discuss this with the board of course," he said, writing a few things down on a pad of thick paper with a fucking feather quill pen. I swear the only reason these people weren't Amish was out of pure laziness.

  "But I have positive feelings about you, Mr. Cross. When would you be able to start?"

  "Right away, sir," I said, hoping I didn't sound too eager. "And as I told Assistant Headmaster McConnell, I'm more than willing to start out as muscle if you need it. You can never have tight enough security with some of these unpredictable students."

  "That may be an excellent idea, Mr. Cross," the Headmaster said thoughtfully as he stood from his desk. "To be frank, it may be best to ease you into the teaching staff slowly. We don't usually hire male teachers, especially young and dashing ones like yourself."

  I chuckled. "You flatter me, sir."

  The blush that crept up from his neck to his jowls wasn't lost on me. Briefly, I wondered how far back in the closet he was and for how long.

  "You understand, I'm sure. Many of the students are here due to passionate, lustful crimes. We have to make absolutely sure our faculty would not encourage sinful thoughts or actions in any capacity."

  I'll bet my left nut it still happens anyway. But I'm sure you're very good at sweeping these things under the rug.

  "You're absolutely right, Headmaster," I said with a smile. "I'm happy to prove myself for as long as needed before stepping into a classroom."

  "Very good," he said cheerfully. "Shall we give you the grand tour?"

  "Yes, please," I replied, rising from my seat. "I'd be honored."

  The Headmaster grabbed his cane, a long, heavy piece of dark wood polished to a high shine, and together we left his office.

  "This school used to be my family's estate," he said proudly as we began strolling leisurely through an open corridor. "It was left to me by my grandparents but I wanted nothing to do with it. My only desire was to live simply and please God. However, I was the last of my line and it fell to me regardless."

  "Clearly God meant for you to have it," I said absently, swiveling my head around at the students milling about between classes. Among all those ugly gray dresses and downcast stares, I was looking for a familiar mane of raven black hair. I wondered if she would dare to look me in the eye, my rebellious Maggie, or if this place had already broken her down.

  "Yes, indeed!" Headmaster Hermes prattled on. "The need for this place to become a school of worship came to me in the seventies. That was when the world started going downhill. All that so-called free love, drug use, homosexuality, ugh! What blatant hedonism and self-indulgence! Young people were turning away from God and He gave me this place to bring them back."

  "If I may ask, Headmaster, why girls specifically?" I said, continuing to scan as many faces as I could. "Is there a sister campus for young men as well?"

  "The boys' school is currently in planning," he said, puffing up again proudly. "The school was co-ed at first, but there were too many cases of rebelliousness. Girls sneaking into boys rooms and such. We simply found that a higher proportion of women committed crimes against God than men. So we catered to those who needed our guidance the most."

  You mean more women broke the rules simply because historically there are more rules against them.

  "I see," was all I could say as I tried to swallow my disgust.

  The Headmaster continued rattling on about the sins of the young people and the history of the school while I pretended to listen.

  We passed by several lush, manicured lawns and courtyards decorated with shady willow trees and freshly cut topiaries.

  On the surface, it was a beautiful campus. Students looked happy enough. They sat in shade under the trees and on benches-- some reading their bibles, others knitting, sewing, or snacking on pieces of fruit. They talked to each other in soft voices and I even heard a giggle or two.

  But when we walked past, their smiles dropped and they cast their eyes to the ground. That was how I knew this place had a cold, intolerant agenda underneath the warm, sunny exterior.

  To sick fucks like Hermes, that was the obedience and meekness they were striving for. But all I saw were women afraid to be themselves in the presence of men. It was saddening.

  A girl sitting on a bench caught my eye. The first thing I noticed was she sat cross-legged Indian style, with her knees splayed out and her feet on the bench. It looked like a deliberate act of rebellion compared to every student who sat with her feet flat on the ground and legs closed.

  She concentrated intently on sewing a piece of clothing in her lap, her fingers moving deftly and swiftly as if on a musical instrument. Her long, raven black hair was woven into a single braid thrown over the front of her shoulder. If she had two braids, she would have resembled a grown-up and more attractive Wednesday Addams.

  Her fingers paused. She looked up and directly at me.

  My eyes met those that matched mine and fell upon the small, rosy mouth that I'd been dying to kiss like I needed air to breathe.

  It was my Magdalene.

  THIRTY

  KAINE

  I stopped dead in
my tracks and felt struck by lightning.

  Headmaster Hermes didn't notice. He was too busy rambling on and pointing out the architecture of the buildings.

  Just as quickly as Maggie's eyes locked onto mine, they dropped back down to her sewing. It occurred to me she could get in trouble by making eye contact with a man.

  Fuck, I had to talk to her. I had to make sure she was okay. I had to taste that mouth even for a split second and let her know that I'd get her out of this hellhole.

  "Excuse me, Headmaster," I said as loudly as I could without being obvious. "Would you mind pointing me to the restroom?"

  He seemed peeved that I interrupted his long lecture about the origin of the roof structure on the faculty building but put on a tight smile.

  "Just down the walkway to the left," he said.

  "Perfect. I'll be back shortly," I replied and contained myself from running in that direction.

  I already knew where the fucking restroom was. I could see the damn sign but I had to somehow let Maggie know where I was going.

  The moment I stepped inside, I turned on the sink to splash cool water on my face. My blood was running so hot. I couldn't believe I'd seen her my first day here.

  Letting the icy water drip off my nose and eyelashes, I turned off the faucet and waited.

  Would she even come? Did she still have that rebel's spirit in her, not afraid to sneak around and skirt the rules? Or had they beaten that out of her?

  It felt like an eternity passed but couldn't have been more than two minutes before I heard soft footsteps outside the men's room.

  "Kaine?" came the soft whisper.

  She poked her beautiful, raven-haired head in and I lost all semblance of control.

  I wrapped one hand around the back of her head and pulled her hard into my chest. I'm sure I smashed her face against my sternum but her arms flew around my back and pulled herself into me even tighter.

  A muffled sob escaped from her mouth as I poured kisses over the top of her head. Over and over I brought my lips to her hair and clutched at her body through the ugly gray dress. I had to make sure this was real. That she wouldn’t disappear from my arms like a dreamy mist.