MAXWELL

That pretty little nurse was a regular little spitfire, especially when she’d thought I couldn’t remember her fucking name. She tossed her little attitude around like a Frisbee at the beach; made me hard just thinking about it. She reminded me of this little snapping turtle Range and I’d found at the junkyard one day when we were hanging out. The little bastard nipped my finger so hard I flung it into the woods behind one of the car heaps. Heaven didn’t need to be flung; she needed to be fucked, and by someone who knew how. She wouldn’t be so high and mighty balancing on her knees, struggling to take my cock down her throat. I could only imagine the fun I would have forcing her to take more than she was capable of just to trigger her gag reflex over and over again. I’d punish her sassy mouth till she begged me to stop, then I’d watch her take me slow and easy until I shot my hot seed down her throat.

Another time, another place, and that fantasy would be a reality, one I’d greatly look forward to. I’d ask her out on a date, serve her champagne and caviar, the best money could buy. I’d act like a complete gentleman, open all her doors and hold out her chair, just so I could impress her enough to ask for a good night kiss. After our date, I’d hold her hand and walk her safely to her front door and wait until the time was right. Just when she was about to go inside, I would frame her beautiful face in my hands and kiss her softly on her pouty lips. “Until next time,” I’d say, then casually walk back to my car and drive away without looking back. Our relationship would blossom over time into a romance that rivaled the greatest of fairytales, and she would love me, but more importantly, I would love her.

Buck had wanted that dream for all his boys, to fall in love with their soul mates and live happily ever after. Odd, considering his own personal circumstances with the so-called love of his life. One would have thought him opposed to such an undertaking, since his wife up and left his ass high and dry, but Buck had thought just the opposite. “Nothin’ better in this world than the love of a good woman,” he often told me during our talks about the future. We constantly argued over the possibility that a man like me, a sexual deviant, could ever find someone willing to love me. He hated when I reminded him that my “tastes” were frowned upon in mainstream society. “Ain’t nobody’s business how you like to fuck, long as you ain’t forcing the bitch; it’s fucking private.” Buck had been wrong then, and I knew that now. A woman like Heaven could never be mine, and I was glad for that. Love was more than I could ever hope for from someone like her.

My time alone with the senator was just what I’d needed to ease some of the pressure I’d felt since I fainted outside this morning. I’d kept those feelings of hatred bottled up inside me for so long, it had felt like I carried an extra person inside my chest. The fucked-up part about it was that he couldn’t even respond, or at the very least, offer an apology for his neglect. That small victory was hollow, yet I believed wholeheartedly that he still held enough awareness in that dying body of his to have heard my decree. Loosing Buck had left me shattered into a million pieces; his loss was more than I could bear. There would be no great hardship when the senator died, no tears shed or promises made to meet again in the afterlife. He was a stranger to me, and strangers died every day.

“Oh, Maxwell, there you are. Antonia sent me to find you. She’d like to see you in her office and wasn’t sure if you knew the way.” Jeremy the asshole stopped me just as I reached the bottom of the staircase. It was a bitch thing to do, but I actually rolled my eyes at him.

“Afraid I got other plans, shit stain. Now, run along and tell my mother I’ll speak with her later.” He had the balls to step in front of me and block my path.

“I’m afraid I must insist. She is the boss. Please follow me to the study, Maxell.”

He took one step to the side and waived his hand in the direction I assumed where my mother waited. The way I figured it, I had two options: beat this asshole within an inch of his life, leave, and hope I could get out of town before the cops showed up, or entertain his request and see what my mother had up her sleeve and possibly get the answers I’d come here for. My fear of tight spaces forced me to choose the latter. Jail was one hell of a deterrent to murdering this fool.

“Since you…insist. Lead the way.” Two steps into the journey, and he stopped short.

“Before we go, I just wanted to clear up any misunderstandings regarding what you heard this morning in the senator’s room. Haven takes her job as caretaker very seriously. I merely wanted to…lighten her mood and ease some of the stress.”

“I see, so you weren’t sexually harassing her, it was just a joke, like Comedy Central?” I played along, fuck it. This guy was as slick as a can of oil and evidently thought I was a new kind of fool he could talk into falling for his bullshit. Not fucking likely.

“Yes, exactly! I just wanted to make her smile considering her position and its impending outcome. She’s always so kind whenever I visit with the senator, and laughter is the best medicine in my book.”

Fake sympathy, a fake-ass smile, and a fake fucking excuse for getting his hand caught in the cookie jar. I decided at that moment that I should have chosen option one and beat the breaks out of his motherfucking ass. Pity he wasn’t worth the time or the effort.

“Next time, try flashing her your dick if you really want her to laugh.” I leaned into him. “Guaranteed show stopper, you pathetic piece of shit. Now, take me to my mother and save the bullshit for someone who gives a fuck.” The sneer on my face said it all. Wrong man, motherfucker, wrong man.

We stopped in front of a closed door that I immediately recognized it as my father’s office, where he’d spent most of his time hiding when I was a child. Jeremy knocked lightly and waited for an invitation before entering. Just like the rest of the mansion, this room had also been remodeled. Gone was the oversized mahogany desk that previously sat on the opposite side of the wall, replaced with a smaller, daintier model; a woman’s choice. Light shades of pink adorned the walls, complete with matching drapes and fresh-cut flowers. This place was more like a sitting parlor than a functioning politician’s office. The woman in charge sat formally behind the desk, engrossed in the stack of documents piled high in front of her. She didn’t bother looking up when we entered.

“Leave us, Jeremy, close the door behind you.” Jeremy balked at the order but left without saying a word. She scribbled something on the last document, laid the pen beside it, and then sat back in the chair with her arms crossed.

“Where were you, Maxie? I instructed you to meet me for lunch in the solarium, and you never showed up. That’s not the way mature adults are supposed to behave. I expected more from you, son.” Was she fucking serious right now, scolding me like a child who forgot to clean his room? Fuck that, I didn’t need her mothering bullshit. That ship had sailed long ago.

“So, is this where you honed your forgery skills, Mother? Be sure to send me a postcard from jail when you get locked the fuck up.” She smiled at my wise crack but didn’t take the bait.

“We have things to discuss, Maxie. I want to know how you plan on helping me with maintaining the senator’s seat in office. I planned to hire your firm due to its stellar reputation and discretion. I assume you are well versed in working with someone of our obvious status.”

I’d met some real bottom feeders in my life, sociopaths with more money than they knew what to do with, but this woman was the cream of the crop. I’d come here hoping for some clarity, direction on how to finally put the past behind me and live again. As naïve as it might have been, I thought my visit would spark some sort of maternal instincts, a sixth sense that women felt when their kids were in trouble and they jump in to help. I dreamt that my mother would take one look at me standing in her doorway, drop to her knees, and beg my forgiveness for all the shit that happened to me. Instead, I found the very thing that made me run away from here in the first place: a selfish bitch who only cared about what she could take from people, including her only son. I owed it to myself to give her one last piece of me, a piece of my own choosing, my last-ditch effort for family loyalty. I might not have been raised with a mother, but I did have a father, and Buck had taught us to always look out for your family; they were most important. It had to be on my terms with my rules.

“I’ll give you one week, Mother. Forget about me helping you deceive the public. I’ll leave that up to you and the bitch boy. I’ll draft some press releases for when the senator dies that you can use to preserve his good name and legacy within the senate. Outside of that, you are on your own. I won’t risk my freedom, nor my company’s reputation by getting involved with this ridiculous plan of yours. Once that’s all finished…I’m finished.”

She stood from her seat behind the desk and approached me cautiously. I was standing near the window of the office, as far away from her as physically possible. The closer she came, the broader she smiled, until she stood right in front of me.

“Do you have any idea how much I missed you when you were gone, Maxie?” She reached up and began to lightly stoke my hair. I recoiled, but not enough to escape her grasp.

“I told you not to call me that.” My jaw clenched as I sneered at her in warning.

“You’re right, son. Maxie is a boy’s name, and you are all man.”

Leaning in, she kissed me softly on the edge of my mouth and cheek, and God forgive me, but I leaned into it before I knew what I was doing. It felt so comforting, natural even. I accepted my mother’s languid movements as she stroked my hair, like we’d done that a million times before. I remembered everything about this sensation, the calming effect it had had on me just before it was time to face the shadow again. She’d conditioned me like one of Pavlov’s dogs to accept and yield without struggle. All these years later, and it still worked so easily. I felt sick with disgust, but I was powerless to stop her.

“There you are… my beautiful, beautiful boy. Oh, how I’ve missed you in my arms.”

The hand that was stroking my hair slid downward, first to my neck, then my shoulder, and finally across my chest. All at once, she stepped away and returned to her seat behind the office desk and resumed her perusal of the documents as if nothing had happened.

“There’s a party tomorrow night to welcome you home from boarding school. I expect you to be here promptly at eight o’clock, shaved and dressed appropriately.”

I was being dismissed from her presence, and I was grateful for it. I felt the darkness invading my senses, and I had to find what I needed to keep it at bay. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. I needed the song. I summoned all the strength I had left in me just to make it to the door before the pressure bought me to my knees. Buck would know what to do, how to stop it and make it go away. I needed him to tell me what to do. Unexpected tears welled in my eyes and blurred my vision as I made my way to the door. I fought to keep them from falling. I heard Buck’s voice beckon me, “Beat it back, boy, fight it.” But it was too late for that. It had won.