by Sable Drake
"That's a damn lie," he said, and now he started coming toward me in a menacing way. "What do you know?"
"I know all about you and your whores, your mistress," I said as I searched for something with which to defend myself. "And I know about the beatings. You aren't much of a man if you have to beat up a woman to prove yourself."
That did it. He came at me, and the only thing that stopped him was the large axe I happened to stumble over as I scrambled away from him. I held it in front of me, and now the fire was in my eyes.
"Unless you want me to chop you into little pieces, you'd better back off and get out of my house," I said loudly.
"If you know what's good for you, you'd better tell me where she is," Gordon yelled.
"Over my dead body," I yelled back.
"That can be arranged," he shot back.
"Are you threatening me?" I said.
"Take it however you choose," he said, realizing, I guess, that he'd gone too far. "Just know this. If my wife and kids aren't back home by noon tomorrow, I'm having you charged with kidnapping."
"Then you'd better be prepared to answer a charge of domestic abuse," I said, still holding the axe at ready. "I saw what you did to her last night, and you've got a lot to answer for. I'm sure the media will love it. Family-values conservative representative charged with beating his wife. Great photo op, don't you think? Leave her alone, Gordon, or the media gets the photos. And that's not a threat; that's a promise."
Actually, I had no intention of not letting the police and everyone have the photos. I was going to ruin my brother, ruin him good. In fact, I ruined him too good, because it left him mentally unhinged, in my opinion.
As soon as Gordon left, I called Gloria and told her about Gordon's visit. I could honestly say that I didn't know precisely where they were, and I appreciated the wisdom in that. Still, I thought it prudent to call the number I was given and let them know about what had transpired.
As a legislator, I was sure Gordon knew about the place, or knew how to find out its whereabouts. I hoped the shelter was prepared for such an occurrence. He did, in fact, come around looking for them, but by then, they'd fled to safety.
As I sat in my shop that afternoon replaying the events that had just unfolded, I made a critical decision. I realized that the isolation in the country that I had so prized was now a threat. I needed a way to defend myself in the likely event that Gordon came calling again.
The prosecution in my murder trial would make a lot out of what I did next, but I did what I felt I had to do. As I said, I'm a pacifist by nature, and I'm slow to anger. But I'm also a realist, and I wasn't going to sit by and let Gordon attack both Cindy and me with impunity.
So I drove across town to a gun shop and bought myself a pistol. I looked at a lot of types and settled for a 9mm Glock. I wanted something that could bring a man down with one shot, if necessary, and I realized that a .22 or a .38 really didn't do what I needed.
I had to wait forty-eight hours before the purchase was final, during which time the police visited my house seeking information about Gordon. Cindy had pressed charges and had filed for divorce, and I had thoughtfully provided the extra evidence they needed.
Of course, as expected, it was front-page news when Gordon was arrested. He proclaimed his innocence and suggested that it was an illicit lover who had beaten her up. With the evidence the police had collected, it was a defense that most practical observers didn't buy.
It was hard, but I knew I had to stay away from Cindy, because I knew Gordon had the resources to have me watched. Over the next few months, while their divorce was being contested, he peppered me with harassing phone calls.
It wasn't just him, either. I got dozens of calls and emails from his infuriated constituents, calling me a liberal pinko fag who was out to destroy a strong voice for family values because of jealousy. I actually had to laugh at the notion. Gordon had nothing for me to be jealous of, but his campaign of harassment started to cost me work.
For Cindy, fighting Gordon in the divorce was equally distressing. She rented a small house in a quiet neighborhood under an assumed name and got a job, then sent the girls to live with one of her two sisters, who lived in another state, for the summer.
I guess Gordon's legal team, including our sister Karen, advised him that it wouldn't look good if it was revealed that he was stalking Cindy and threatening me, so he backed off somewhat. He still did his best to stall both the criminal proceedings and the divorce.
Cindy, however, prudently stayed away from him, kept him in the dark as to where she lived, and made sure that any contact she had with him was through the lawyers.
In the end, when push came to shove, Gordon was forced to plead no contest to the domestic abuse charge, and he finally relented on the divorce settlement. All Cindy really wanted was her freedom, plus custody of the girls, and that's about all she got beyond the mandatory child support.
Gordon didn't bother to show up when the final divorce decree was signed, which I thought was odd. After it was over, I took Cindy and the girls out to lunch, then we went for ice cream. The next Saturday, two days after the divorce was final, Cindy got a babysitter, and I called on her for our first formal date.
God, she looked good when I went to pick her up that night. It was a beautiful autumn evening in mid-October, and she looked like a million dollars. We went to dinner then we drove out to a hilltop near my cabin, sat under the stars and looked down on the lights of the city.
"When you wish upon a star..." I heard Cindy softly sing, then she pulled me to her and we kissed, slowly at first, but with mounting passion. Our time had finally come, and I couldn't wait. I drove my tongue into her mouth, and I could feel the trembling of her body.
I pulled her body to mine and let my hands roam. This time, I didn't stop. I filled my hands with her breasts, and I felt her hand drop into my lap. I was bursting hard, but I was willing to wait a little longer to treat this goddess like she deserved to be treated.
"Let's go back to my place," I whispered, and she just nodded.
We were like two newlyweds as we crossed the threshhold. I did lock the door behind me, for all the good that did.
When we got in my bedroom, I turned on the bedside lamp and looked into Cindy's brilliant green eyes. I saw reflected in them all the hopes she had for a new life with a man who truly loved her, which I did. Do.
Gone was the vacant look of depression that had clouded her eyes in the months before she left Gordon. It was replaced by an excitement I hadn't seen in a long time.
I reached behind her, unzipped her dress, and let it fall to the floor. Her breasts were covered by a thin black bra that did little to hide her charms. Matching bikini panties that I quickly discovered were damp with the dew of her arousal soon joined the dress and bra on the floor.
She took off my shirt then my pants. We were panting by this time, ready to finally consummate the passion we'd held back for so many years. We didn't bother with trying to be seductive about finishing the job of undressing, simply got naked and climbed in—or, rather, on—the bed.
We were kissing frantically as I rolled Cindy onto her back and got on top of her. She grasped my cock, and I eased myself into her hot pussy. She was wet and tight as I slid in all the way, and she immediately wrapped her arms and legs around me.
"Oh God! Oh God!" she cried. "I've wanted this for so damned long! God, please fuck me Scott! Fuck me and make me come!"
I wrapped my arms around Cindy and gave her what she wanted, what she'd needed for so long. I drove my cock relentlessly into her pussy, and it only took a few minutes before she was coming hard. Her body twitched and jerked as she let out the feelings she'd kept buried for so long.
I would love to say I fucked Cindy for hours on end, but the truth is I'd been so long without myself that my control didn't last. Once Cindy had separated from Gordon and I started to see a real future together for us, I put my other physical relationships aside and focused on her.
I could feel the rusty tingle of incipient orgasm, and I drove back and forth in Cindy's delicious cunt with added intensity. She was working her hips hard, meeting my incoming thrusts with equal power and passion.
"Oh, yeah!" I groaned, and she urged me on, urged me to fill her up with my hot cream. And I did just that.
With a groan, I plunged extra deep then let it all out. I jerked and I released a torrent as we clutched at each other with everything we had. We kissed wildly as we gave ourselves over to one another's pleasure.
For long, precious moments, I kept driving my cock into her pussy, shooting little mini-bursts into her, and she kept humping back at me, trying to milk me of everything I had to give.
Finally, I was drained, and I felt my sated cock slide from her, followed by a flow of our mingled juices. Then, I rolled over, gathered Cindy in my arms and felt total contentment wash over me.
In the classic Western Little Big Man, there is that moment on a snowy dawn when Jack Crabb has just met his new son after spending the night with his wife's three sisters, in the finest Cheyenne custom. It was the moment when everything in his life was perfect, when he had the beautiful wife, a new baby, a contented relationship with the Indians–minutes before Custer and the Seventh Cavalry descended upon the camp and massacred everything in sight, including his wife and newborn child.
That's about how the next few moments unfolded for me.
I was lying in bed after finally banging the woman I'd been in love with for years, after she was finally free–legally and morally free–of her abusive husband. I had her and the two adorable daughters I'd always loved as if they were my own, the way I'd always dreamed.
Life was perfect.
Then Custer arrived, in the form of my brother.
I was lying in the sweaty afterglow of sex when I heard a noise from the front room. Taking no chances, I got up and retrieved my pistol from the nightstand.
I had just crossed the threshold of my bedroom when I felt something hard hit me across my stomach. I doubled over in pain and barely managed to roll back into the bedroom. Fortunately, I kept hold of the gun and avoided the next swing that Gordon took with an aluminum baseball bat.
Cindy screamed as she saw Gordon looming in the doorway.
"You lying sack of shit!" he yelled. "You two couldn't even wait until the ink was dry before you started shacking up. You little shit! You thought you could defeat me, but I always win."
"Gordon, please get out!" Cindy yelled. "I'm not your wife any more, and I can do as I please."
"You think I care what some lezzie judge says?" Gordon raged. "You think you can just walk out on me, take my children, and not face the consequences? You're my wife until I say so, and now I'm going to take what a husband takes from his wife."
He strode toward the bed, but stopped short when I stood up, holding the pistol in front of me.
"Gordon, get out of my house before I shoot you," I said softly.
"Scotty boy, you won't shoot me," Gordon said. "You haven't got the balls to pull that trigger. You're just a pussy, a liberal tree-hugger who can't stand violence. Isn't that what you've always said? See? I'm going to beat you senseless, like I did when we were kids. I'm going to fuck my wife–MY WIFE!–then I'm taking her back home, where she belongs. I don't give a rat's ass what you two think, what some liberal dyke judge thinks. Cindy belongs to me, and I'm sure as hell not going to share her with you."
He moved toward me, bat cocked to strike
"Bad move, Gordon," I said, and I pulled the trigger.
The first shot hit him in the shoulder. He stumbled back with a shocked look on his face. Like he couldn't believe I'd really shot him. Then his face darkened and he charged at me.
He only managed a couple of steps before I calmly pulled the trigger again. This time, I dropped him with a shot to the heart. He was dead before he hit the floor.
I hadn't just bought a pistol and kept it tucked away. I'd practiced with it, a lot. One of the benefits of living in the country was that I could walk out my back door and take target practice any time I wanted. Plus, I'd had plenty of time to practice.
Still, shooting at a tree and shooting at a live target are two entirely different things, especially when the live target is your own brother. Nevertheless, I'd done what I had to do, and I'd do it again if necessary.
Time seemed to stand still as Cindy and I stared at each other, then at the body lying dead on the floor. I realized that somehow Gordon had burned a copy of the key to my cabin, and he'd let himself in. I firmly believe he was prepared to kill me, and Cindy too, once he'd raped her.
"Oh, my God," she whispered. "Scott, what are we going to do?"
"Back off the bed carefully, throw on some clothes, then let me call 911," I said. "Don't touch anything."
The sheriff came out, along with the crime-scene techs and the investigators, and the detectives interrogated us quite intensely and with considerable hostility.
I knew the moment I saw the sheriff arrive that this was going to be trouble, because he was a crony of Gordon's, a Republican like him, and I had to figure he was going to put the worst possible spin on what had happened.
They didn't arrest me right away, but it didn't take them long to decide that I had committed a crime, regardless of what I'd told them, what Cindy had told them. About a week after the shooting, they came to the house, arrested me, and I was charged with first-degree murder.
Turns out, Gordon still had powerful allies in the Republican Party, which controlled the Legislature, the governor's office, and the district attorney's office. They wanted to see Representative Luke's killer charged with murder, especially since the killer was the representative's liberal hippie brother.
Politically, I'm not necessarily a liberal on all issues, but I had long been an advocate for causes I felt strongly about, and some of those causes were quite liberal. It seemed pretty obvious to me that my crime wasn't so much killing my brother as opposing the things for which he purportedly stood.
Although the state wanted me remanded without bail, the judge at arraignment relented and set my bond at a cool half million dollars. It took three months for Cindy to raise the ten percent of that necessary to get me out of jail, but it was money well spent.
To this day, I have trouble seeing how experienced investigators could have looked at the scene in my bedroom and come to any conclusion other than self-defense. I wasn't dealing with city detectives, however. The county dicks bought whatever Gordon's buddies told them.
Apparently, Gordon had told several of his friends that I had asked him to come out that night, and he had told them that we were going to settle our differences.
All of that was patently false and was proven so in court. But, it was enough to convince the sheriff and the district attorney, who was up for reelection in just a few weeks, that I was this rebellious black sheep brother who had set Gordon up for a fatal fall.
The prosecutors also made much of the fact that Cindy and I had hooked up two days after the divorce was final, insinuating that we'd been having an affair all along. No one, however, could produce any evidence proving we'd had sex prior to the night of the shooting.
Of course, my purchase of the pistol and my subsequent target practice was a big element in their case. I never wavered from my contention that I was in fear for my life and that living in the country like I did, it was a good idea to be proficient with a firearm.
At first, the state offered me a deal: five to ten years for pleading to first-degree manslaughter. I laughed at them and told them I wasn't guilty of anything. There was more bravado than confidence there. I knew what the powers in this state were capable of, and I knew they could marshal a lot of resources against me. Once I rejected their plea offer, they were adamant about trying me for first-degree murder.
But, fortunately, I have a lot of friends, and they pitched in to help pay for Suzanne Jaworski, the best criminal defense attorney in the state. Gloria Miller, my
old friend who had helped Cindy in her divorce, also joined my defense team pro bono.
I also got plenty of grass-roots support from across the country, friends I'd made in the music business, friends I'd made in the course of making instruments, and others who were just outraged at what they saw as an unjust prosecution. From the beginning, I had support from the media, especially the city's daily newspaper, which called my prosecution, "a politically-motivated vendetta."
I was indeed fortunate in having good lawyers, because the state had somehow put together a lot of supposition, innuendo, and wisps of facts to make a fairly convincing circumstantial case, if you were already inclined to think poorly of me.
However, Suzanne and Gloria took each piece of evidence, each little issue the state brought forward against me, and picked their case apart, piece by piece. They brought in their own crime-scene experts who testified that everything was laid out just like I had told the investigators that night.
Especially damning were the photos I'd taken of Cindy the night she fled Gordon and the evidence I'd amassed of his extracurricular activities. They painted the picture of Gordon we wanted the jury to see: that of an unstable hypocrite who was fully capable of breaking into my home and attacking me.
We gambled big when I took the stand in my own defense. Suzanne said it was a risk because it opened me up to an aggressive cross-examination, but I argued that if I didn't believe in myself, how could I expect twelve strangers to believe in me? There were a few times when the prosecution's grilling got me a little agitated, but for the most part I kept my cool, told my story, and never deviated from it. They never caught me in a lie, because I never told one. I knew I had the truth on my side.
When it came time for closing statements, Suzanne spoke matter-of-factly. She took each issue the state presented in support of first-degree murder and reduced each one to ashes, at least in my opinion. The assistant DA who had prosecuted the case, on the other hand, went through all sorts of histrionics. He railed at the jury that I was insanely jealous of Gordon's success, that I had coveted his wife and had staged her injuries, and that I had lured my brother to my home on the pretext of reconciling, then shot him dead.