by Afton Locke
“About the initiation?” he asked.
She nodded, unable to stop herself as she reached for one of the white towels and draped it around his face.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Picturing how it’s going to be,” she said.
He flung the towel across the room. “Damn it, Pearl. I should have told you instead of having you find out from Henry.”
“So you’re going to join?” She could barely talk with the tight bands of pain crisscrossing her chest.
“I don’t know.” He looked down, shaking his head. “I keep trying to figure it out but I’m running out of time. The initiation ceremony is tomorrow night.”
She faced him and put her hands on his knees. “If you don’t join, would you lose your company?”
Caleb nodded. “Probably.”
“And if you do join, our relationship would be over,” she said, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Just the sight of me would make you sick.”
He grabbed both her wrists and encircled them with his fingers. “That will never happen. I will love you until the day I die.”
His pale eyes burned with the conviction of his words, tugging at the tight bands surrounding her heart, but she couldn’t help picturing those eyes looking through the holes of a mask. She tried to pull away but he held her fast.
“You say that now but it would change you,” she exclaimed. “If I saw you in one of those white sheets, I don’t think I could feel the same way about you either. It would destroy us.”
His hands finally went limp, releasing her wrists. “Pearl…”
But she shook her head and headed to the guest room. They might as well start getting used to being alone.
* * * * *
Caleb spent a restless night in his bed. It felt cold and empty without Pearl in it. Driven by his churning thoughts, he hardly noticed the pain from his movements. Despite the beating he’d gotten from Henry, what hurt most of all was when Pearl had put that towel on his head. He couldn’t blame her. The thought of her seeing him as one of those monsters drove a spike into his chest.
How could he go through with the initiation ceremony this coming evening? Maybe he could claim he was sick but that would only delay the inevitable.
The sound of soft footsteps in his bedroom an hour before dawn made him hold his breath. A deep sigh escaped him when Pearl climbed into his bed and put her arms around him. He burrowed his face in her soft hair, inhaling her earthy-sweet scent.
Despite everything that had happened the night before, the sensation of her soft body against his cock made it harden. He needed this. How did she know how much he needed this, especially today?
“Caleb,” she began.
He put a finger over her lips. “Don’t talk, honey. Just fuck me.”
“But you’re injured,” she whispered.
He dragged her hand to his stiff bulge. “Does that feel injured to you?”
“I want to talk about the initiation. I’ve been thinking and…”
This time he put his entire hand across her mouth. “Not now. Take off your nightgown and panties.”
“But—”
“I need to be inside your pussy. Straddle me.”
He tugged his undershorts down, releasing his hardness. After she pulled her nightgown off, he took a moment to admire the dusky patch of hair through the sheer fabric of her panties before she took them off too. Her aroused scent wrapped around him like a ribbon.
He pressed a condom into her hand. “Put it on for me.”
Feeling her soft, deft fingers unrolling the sheath down his length nearly brought him to a climax already. Needing her silky, wet pussy, he grasped her hips and pulled her down on him. Once started, he couldn’t stop.
She moaned in surprise as he lunged deep. He swore he’d never pushed himself so deeply into her body before. As her hands stroked his chest, he watched the pearl on her ring and reached for the heated hollow between her breasts to feel her heartbeat.
His woman, forever. No matter what happened tonight at the initiation, that would never change.
Time shuddered to a standstill as their hips rocked together in lock-step rhythm. For the moment, his world ended outside this room, this bed and the sticky-sweet love they made. He got an even firmer grip on her hips and drove into her, burying all his worries, one by one. All too soon, he shouted with a climax he hadn’t seen coming and spilled every bit of himself inside her tight depths.
Realizing she hadn’t come, he reached for her swollen bud. With his cock still inside her, he rubbed the wet nubbin of flesh until her back arched and she yelled with her release. He shuddered as her tight channel gripped his spent cock with waves of pleasure.
“Thanks for visiting.” He pulled her shoulders down to him so he could kiss her. “You have no idea how much I needed that.”
Using the towels from the nightstand, they cleaned up and then nestled in each other’s arms.
“Can I talk now?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I’ve been thinking you should…join.”
Caleb leaned up on one elbow. “Did I just hear you correctly?”
“If it keeps you from losing your company,” she said, “it might be worth it. But only if you didn’t let it change you.”
“It wouldn’t,” he swore. “It would only be for appearances. I think that’s all the mayor cares about anyway, a big show.”
“Then do it.”
Yet again, this woman had surprised him. Had she really just told him to join the Klan or was he having some sort of strange dream?
“You can’t be serious,” he replied. “You truly want me to join?”
She sighed and stroked the hairs on his chest. “No, but I don’t think we have a choice. If you go along with the mayor in name only, we can still have it all.”
“Are you sure? You were so upset last night.”
“That was my pride.” She pressed a gentle kiss to his mouth, making his wound sting with bittersweetness. “I believe in our love.”
As moisture filled his eyes, Caleb pulled her so close and so hard it made his entire body ache.
“So do I, honey. So do I.”
* * * * *
With his stomach twisted into a knot, Caleb entered the mayor’s hilltop, brick waterfront home that evening.
The initiation ceremony. It was time.
He added his hat to the others on the table in the entrance hall and entered the large living room. Dozens of excited male voices echoed against the hard surfaces and high ceiling. Mr. Lewes, the jeweler and every businessman in town was here.
Seeing Henry’s grim but familiar face gave Caleb comfort. So did the sweet love Pearl had made to him this morning. Her stoic acceptance of their fate made his eyes burn with emotion even now. If he closed them, he could imagine her scent…
Henry shoved a bundle of fabric into his hands. “Time to get dressed.”
Caleb couldn’t breathe as he unfolded the white robe. It had a round emblem across the left breast.
It would only be for appearances, he’d told Pearl, but could he really wear this and be the same man he always was underneath?
“Hurry and put that on,” Henry told him. “The ceremony is about to begin.”
Caleb could barely get his cold muscles to work as he struggled to put the foul garment on over his clothes.
Henry pulled the hood over Caleb’s head. “Don’t forget this.”
What the hell am I doing? Caleb wondered as he stood with the other men, staring out through the two eyeholes. The nausea that had hovered around him all day intensified.
The mayor, dressed in the same ridiculous garb as everyone else, told them to get into a big circle and handed a new, white candle to each. Before the empty hearth, three men sat behind a table. They must be the outsiders but who would know the way everyone was disguised?
Cowards, Caleb wanted to shout. If these people had such strong beliefs about white supremacy, w
hy didn’t they have the guts to show their faces? He was no better, he realized, always keeping up appearances to save his business.
The mayor joined the men at the front and said some nonsense about brotherhood and taking an important step for the future of Oyster Island. When the ceremony began, Caleb’s stomach shimmered with nausea and a cold, sickly sweat coated his forehead, neck and back.
When the men formed a line in front of the big table, Caleb headed to the end of it. Weren’t appearances really lies? he wondered as he watched the first man get down on one knee, bow his head and hold up his virgin candle.
Caleb finally understood why Pearl had insisted on being celibate when she’d first become his housekeeper. She couldn’t live a lie. One of the officials said some words, lit the man’s candle and put his hand on the man’s hooded head.
If he’d never met her, Caleb realized, this initiation would be easier. He wouldn’t think twice about being false to save his business.
Just like that, the first man in line was part of the brotherhood, a full-fledged member of the Ku Klux Klan. He stood up and walked off to the side with his fists clenched and his chin raised with pride. In moments, the man had changed from humble townsman to one of them.
Just as he would.
Pearl had changed him too, Caleb realized as he took a step forward with the rest of the line. Her uprightness went beyond appearances. It went to the core of a person, to one’s values. He was tired of sneaking around jewelry stores and pretending he was the same as the rest of these men. He wasn’t.
His thoughts hounded him as he continued taking one step forward at a time. The closer he got to the front table, the more his blood surged through his body with the intensity of a raging fever. He stroked the virgin wick of the candle in his hand. Once they burned it, it would never be the same again.
Neither, he realized, would he.
When it was Henry’s turn, he had to look away. They had their own brotherhood. Would joining this new one change them? Remembering their fight, Caleb realized it already had.
All too quickly, it was his turn. Now that the rest of the men were initiated and stood to the sides with burning candles in their hands, he wished he hadn’t chosen to be last. He was the only one left with the unlit candle and everyone watched him, especially the mayor. The flames around the room glittered in the man’s expectant eyes through the holes of his hood.
The official standing before Caleb cleared his throat, hinting it was time to kneel. The scent of burning wax in the room fueled Caleb’s nausea, making him pant for breath. With extreme effort, he knelt. The words the man said blurred in his ears but he saw that flame coming at him in the darkness. It represented the same flame that burned houses, churches and…businesses.
He squeezed his candle almost hard enough to snap it in half. It shook as the flame approached. Just before the fire touched the wick, he let the candle fall. The sound it made as it rolled on the wooden floor seemed louder than gunfire.
“I can’t do this,” he announced.
One motion naturally followed the next as Caleb stood up, snatched off the robe and hood, tossed them on the floor and walked out.
When he got outside, the cold air surrounded him like a cleansing mist. All the worry and illness blew free as euphoria danced through his blood. Never again would he be a prisoner of the mayor’s. No more drunken fishing trips and jumping whenever the man told him to.
He was free!
* * * * *
Pearl waited in the parlor for Caleb to come home from his initiation. Worry needled her chest as she wondered if he’d be a different man when he walked through the door. Would he still want her? He’d told her he would love her forever and she had to believe that.
When he breezed through the door with a big grin on his face, she didn’t know what to think. She got out of her chair and approached him slowly.
“What happened?” she asked. “Did they cancel the ceremony?”
“No. I couldn’t go through with it,” he declared.
She hugged him as relief washed over her, followed by an equal dose of worry. “But you could lose your business.”
He gripped her arms and looked into her eyes. “That’s what the mayor wants me to think so he can control me. I’m not giving up Rockfield’s without one hell of a fight.”
Oh, no. What had this wonderful, foolish man done? And all because of her.
“Caleb, if you’d never met me, would you have done the initiation?”
His blue eyes grew serious. “I’m not sure but I probably would have.”
She turned away from him and hugged her arms around herself. “Then whatever happens is my fault.”
He spun her around again. “Stop saying that. Nothing is your fault. You changed me for the better. I’ve been the mayor’s prisoner all this time. Now that I’m free I can really be happy.”
“Even if you lose everything?” she asked.
Caleb sighed and spoke slowly. “Even if I lose everything, I still won’t regret the decision I’ve made.”
Pearl squeezed her hands together, hoping for both their sakes everything would turn out all right.
* * * * *
The next day at work, Caleb arrived early to see his plant before the workers arrived. He ran his hand over the shucking tables and a stack of oyster cans, wondering just how hard he’d have to fight to keep from losing it all.
“Daddy,” he said aloud. “You always taught me to do the right thing and I believe I have.”
He would face rough seas for a while but they would eventually calm again. Then he could enjoy his new freedom from not being under the mayor’s thumb anymore. With Pearl’s love giving him strength, he couldn’t lose.
Someone came in, disturbing the silence. Caleb’s heart sank when he recognized the man as one of the waiters from the Sapphire Crab.
“Mr. Lewes asked me to deliver this letter to you, sir,” the young colored man said. “He says it’s real important.”
“Thank you.”
Caleb opened it after the man left and stopped breathing as he read the message.
“He’s canceling all his orders for my oysters,” he said aloud. “He can’t do this!”
Caleb staggered against a shucking table. The restaurant was his biggest buyer. What if the local seafood markets canceled next? All he’d have left were his shipments to other towns. Or did the mayor control those too?
So the war had begun, he thought as he crumpled the letter in his fist. Well, he wasn’t going down without a fight.
Hours later, the mayor himself entered his office and sat down across from his desk without being invited.
“I was very disappointed by your behavior last night.” Mayor Carter crossed his ankle over his knee. “You insulted the brotherhood.”
“I didn’t mean to insult anyone,” Caleb replied calmly, “but the Klan is just not for me.”
Hatred burned from the mayor’s eyes. “Would this have anything to do with your colored whore?”
Caleb fought the urge to jump across his desk and throttle the man. What did he know about Pearl and how had he found out?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I heard from the jeweler you bought her a big, fancy ring like she’s your wife or something,” Mayor Carter said. “Is that why you turned your back on the rest of us, so you can marry her?”
Caleb blinked in shock as he digested the mayor’s words. He’d always told Pearl he couldn’t marry her because he’d been worried about appearances. Seeing Tom Lewes’ crumpled cancellation letter sitting on his desk told him the time for appearances was long past.
“If I choose to marry her, that’s my concern,” he said. “It should have nothing to do with my company.”
Anger flushed the mayor’s face. “It has everything to do with it. Oyster Island is a clean town with decent values. Your kind isn’t welcome here.”
His kind? Caleb had always known bigotry existed and that it mu
st be difficult to bear. Now he knew firsthand how it felt to be the target of it. This couldn’t be happening.
The mayor stood up to leave, which was fortunate because Caleb was seconds away from throwing him out.
“You won’t win,” Caleb said. “You’ve tried to control me for years but it isn’t going to work anymore.”
Mayor Carter spread his short arms and gave him a mocking smile. “Enjoy your office while you can, Mr. Rockfield. With no buyers or oysters, I don’t think you’ll be very busy for long.”
A long blade of fear stabbed Caleb in the gut. “You cut off my suppliers too?”
“I’m working on that, as well as pulling the leases for your oyster beds, but it isn’t very difficult.” The mayor looked at his watch and smiled. “You see, no one else wants to deal with your kind either.”
After he left, Caleb gripped his desk with both hands as if he were on a sinking boat. Despite the fact everything was crumbling around him, he felt strong on the inside—stronger than he’d ever felt before.
* * * * *
Caleb came home late that evening, looking exhausted and wrecked.
“You look as if someone beat you up again.” Pearl led him to the dining room where a platter of chicken with dumplings and peas waited for him.
“I feel beat up,” he replied, “and I’m not hungry.”
She’d worried so much all day about the consequences of his decision she hadn’t eaten much either.
“These are hard times and you need to keep your strength up,” she told him as she pushed him toward his chair.
While he picked at his food, she drummed her fingers on the tablecloth. “Caleb, if you don’t tell me how your day was I’m going to die of anticipation.”
He looked at her with eyes so haunted and dead they froze her soul. “It didn’t go well. My orders and suppliers are dropping off. It seems no one wants to do business with my kind.”
She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry. How much…how much longer before…?”
Before he lost everything, but she couldn’t say it.
“This isn’t your fault,” Caleb said. “I’m trying to find other options but it’ll take time. I may have to furlough some workers.”