Yazmin
I dream that I’m sitting with my ear pressed against the wall, listening to my mother on the telephone. I remember the feeling of the wall against my skin, cool in winter, getting colder the more I stayed that way. I remember thinking I should just go to bed, or read a book, or something, and I remember remaining where I was just in case . . . just in case it wasn’t one of her nurse colleagues she was talking with, or one of her boyfriends, just in case it was my father and they were talking about me.
In the dream she says, “We’ll surprise her. I’ll pretend I’m taking her to get new shoes—hers have holes in them, so it’s a believable lie—and then you’ll show up pretending to be the man who’s measuring her foot, and then, wham, we drop it on her right there. Then we’ll go to the fair and have the best time ever. It’ll be amazing.”
I wake up with a pit in my stomach, furious with Dad. Pacing around the room, I mutter, “You stole that from me, you deranged piece of shit. You stole that from me, you psychopathic murdering asshole!” I almost punch the wall, but something stops me. After a moment, I identify it as fear of hurting the baby. I used to dream of having a family and now, perhaps, I have a shot at one, but that doesn’t mean I can forgive Dad for what he did.
Dad isn’t just guilty of robbing me of my mother, I reflect as I pour myself a glass of water. He’s guilty of robbing me of my father, too. Before I met Snake, I could pretend my dad was some great man, a hero I just hadn’t met yet. Now, I can’t pretend. Now I have to face the truth. Mom’s dead, and Dad’s the devil.
I can’t bear the thought of bringing a child into a world which still has Dad in it. Dad, who killed Mom, who would kill my baby if he got the chance. I need him gone. I think of the naïve girl who thought he was going to be a father to her, and I hate her, I wish she was dead, I wish she had never been born. That woman can’t be a mother. A mother has to be fierce. A mother has to be a tigress. A mother has to have some fight in her. I grit my teeth, head aching, thinking of the bed of blood, thinking of Spike’s family, thinking how life isn’t fair.
“He has to die,” I whisper, hate filling my chest. “There’s no other option.”
I’m about to return to bed when the door busts open, Spike stumbling in with blood dripping down his face. His shirt is torn and flecked with red.
He stumbles to the table and drops into the seat, spitting blood onto the floor. “Fucking bastards,” he hisses. “Fucking Scorpion bastards.”
“What happened?” I go to the sink, opening the cupboard beneath it and looking for a first aid kit. I find one at the back behind some old cleaning supplies. Dusting it off, I join Spike at the table.
“They hit one of our clubs,” Spike says. “Hit it hard, with everything they had. They took down three of ours and gave me this.” He has a thin cut under his right eye. “You should see the other fella, though.”
“I can imagine,” I murmur. Growing up with a nurse as a mother, I learned a fair amount about patching up superficial cuts. Spike’s cut isn’t deep, just nasty-looking. I open the first aid kit and start cleaning it, dabbing it with rubbing alcohol. He winces. “Don’t be a baby,” I tell him.
“Snake,” Spike growls as I wipe away the blood. “Goddamn Snake. If ever there was a name suited to a man, there it is. Snake, that’s what he is. A slithering snake with slithering snake tactics. A coward.”
“He needs to be killed,” I say, voice ice-cold. I see surprise on Spike’s face, surprise that sweet little Yazmin could speak with this kind of fire, perhaps. But maybe I’m done being sweet little Yazmin. Sweet stupid little Yazmin who skips to her mother’s killer hoping for a daddy. “He needs to die, Spike. It’s that simple.”
I bandage the cut. Spike tears off his ragged shirt and sits there shirtless, watching me. “You seem different,” he says. “Angrier.”
“I woke up wanting to kill the man who’s half of me,” I say. “So maybe I’m a little angry, yeah. I keep thinking about the life inside of me, Spike, wondering what it’d be like to bring him or her into a world where Dad’s still at large. At any moment he could snatch our baby away. So I think it’s time I went back to him.”
“Wait, what?” Spike’s on his feet, backing me up against the sink. “The fuck are you talking about now?”
“You heard me,” I say, staring up at me defiantly. “I’m sick and tired of letting other people decide my fate for me. I’ve been coasting for way too long. You wanted to use me as a bargaining chip but that was stupid. It’d never work. But if I go back voluntarily, pretend that I’ll marry some old creep, he’ll let his guard down and I’ll be able to gather some intel. I’ll wait for something big and then sneak out again, come to you. We can take him down together. And then . . .” I pause, wondering if I should go on. But I’m in too deep now. “And then it’ll be time for me and the baby to go out into the world, alone, to go and find our own path. I need to figure out her future. I’ve never been on my own. I’ve never had to stand on my own two feet. I’ve—”
“No,” he says. “Absolutely not.”
“You wanted to use me earlier!” I blurt, dancing away from him.
“That was different,” Spike says. He’s not moving his lips as much when he speaks, on account of the bandage under his eye. “That was before I knew you were pregnant, one, and two, that didn’t involve giving you to the man. That was about using you as bargaining power. What you’re suggesting . . . too many things could go wrong. The answer is no.”
“I don’t recall asking for your permission!” I snap. “Stop telling me what to do! Oh, I forgot, I’m the big bad Spike’s prisoner, aren’t I? I’m just here to smile and look pretty and bounce up and down on your cock. Is that it? I bet you wish I would just shut up, don’t you? I bet you have that exact thought ten times a day. ‘I wish she would just shut up.’ I’m tired of just shutting up. I’m tired of having no say in how my life goes. I want Dad dead, do you understand me? Dead. And going back to him to get some intel is the best way to do that. Think about it. He has no idea where I’ve been. I’ll tell him I was in LA or something. I’ll tell him I’m back because it didn’t work out down there. I’ll be the daughter returning for her father’s help. He’ll love that. I’ll agree to whatever bullshit he says. And then, when I get something we can use to end him, I’ll pass it onto you.”
“No,” Spike says, voice firm. He approaches me slowly. “That’s not happening.”
“You can’t keep telling me what to do!” I snap, throwing my hands up. I move to the other side of the room but he follows. Soon he has me boxed in the corner, looking wild and sexy without a shirt on, blood flecking his skin here and there. The blood shouldn’t turn me on, but it does. This is the father of my child, this is a man who can protect us, this is a dangerous man—my mind fills with sentences like these until I’m almost deafened by them. I try to ignore them. “You don’t own me, Spike. I think you’ve forgotten that.”
Spike’s lower lip trembles. I can tell he’s getting angry. I can tell he’s trying to hold it back.
“What’s wrong?” I stare up at him, unable to restrain my own anger. “You don’t like hearing the truth. Fine, I’ll tell you again. You. Don’t. Own. Me.”
“You expect me to let the mother of my child go to someone like Snake. You really expect me to do that.” His voice is full of disbelief. “What kind of idiot do you think I am? Do you really dream I’d let that happen, Yazmin? I lost a family once. I’m not losing one again.”
“Neither am I!” I shout, trying to push past him. He blocks me with one arm easily. “If we let Dad live, he’ll find our baby and hurt it. He took my family once. He’ll do it again. Your plan was stupid. It never would’ve worked. My plan will work.”
“After my family died, the president before me, a man called Sonny, took me in and trained me for the life. He taught me how to fight and shoot, but he also taught me how to think and lead. He taught me what it means for a man to have an objective and see it through to the end. He taught me what it means for a man to get shit done. And now you’re gonna stand there and pretend that you can take out the Scorpions but I’m a helpless child.”
I back away, going toward the bed. The room seems too small now, boxing me in. I look around it with fresh eyes, at the pile of paperbacks on the bedside table and the meager kitchen utensils arranged on a shelf above the small oven, the under-counter fridge and the small circular table. It looks like a prison. I find it difficult to believe I’ve been here for two months without once kicking up a fuss. Maybe it’s because before I was here willingly. I was here because I wanted to be. Now I want to leave and get my revenge.
“I’ve given you every chance to take my revenge for me,” I say. “Every time I’ve given you a piece of intel, I’ve given you a chance. I’ve sat in this room waiting for news of my father’s death, and when it didn’t come I thought, ‘Okay, maybe next time.’ But now, Spike, I have a baby to think about. It may be a tiny one-month-old little thing inside of me, but I still have to think about what’s best for it. Dad needs to die.”
“I just said I’ll handle it, didn’t it?” Spike approaches me. He’s so big, so intimidating. I remember how he looked that day in the forest, scary and handsome at the same time. “Didn’t I just fucking say that?” There’s some bite in his voice. I’m guessing he’s ashamed, as any man in his position would be. “We’re sorting out a plan.”
“I have a plan.”
He groans, shaking his head. “Goddamn, Yazmin. Why are you so eager to get yourself killed?”
“Why are you so eager to let my dad live?” I snap, stepping right up to him and staring into his eyes. “After everything he has done, you want to keep him alive. Why? What the hell’s the matter with you? What sort of President are you? What sort of man are you?” I stand on my tiptoes, my face right next to his, shouting at him. “Are you going to protect your girl and your kid, or not?”
“Step back, Yazmin,” Spike says quietly.
“No!” I fall forward, pushing up against him with my body. “You’re angry? Good. Get angry! I’m sick and tired of the Scorpions walking all over us! I’m sick and tired of my dad walking all over us, and all I can do is wait in here like some damsel in a fairytale, wondering when the big strong warrior men will return with news of a win. But it’s never news of a win, is it? You’ve failed, Spike. Every time, you’ve failed.”
“I said step back.”
“Or what?”
His hands dart up to my armpits. He lifts me up as easy as he’d lift up a bag of sugar and carries me to the bed. I kick out with my legs, hitting him in the shin, and smack his chest with his fists. He takes the blows as though they don’t exist, letting them bounce off him, and then drops me onto the bed. I land on the mattress and try to bounce back up, but he sits on my legs, pinning me, being careful not to cause me any pain. I try and pull my legs out, but he’s heavier than me, stronger.
“Get off of me!” I hiss. “This is ridiculous.”
“It is ridiculous,” he says. “I agree. But so is getting in my face and hitting me. So we’re gonna sit here until you calm down.”
I lash out with my hand. He catches it at the wrist, grabs my other hand, and pins them both above my head. I wriggle from side to side, struggling to get free, He holds me firmly in place, smiling down at me. “Don’t smile at me!” I’m trying to keep a hold on my anger, trying to fuel it, but dammit, it’s been too long since we’ve had sex, and sometimes anger can be turned into passion all too easily.
As I writhe beneath him, I can’t help but be aware of the muscular bulk of his body, of how utterly under his control I am. I don’t know what it says about me that the thing which frustrates me most can also make me horny. I try and lean up to headbutt him, but the angle of my arms stops me. In the end I just have to lie there, staring up at him, getting angrier and hornier by the second.
“You’re impossible,” I say. “You’re an impossible, ugly, evil, mean, disgusting, brutish, pathetic man.”
“Wow.” His smile grows wider. I feel my lips twitch in response. I try and stop them, but the smile keeps coming. “You really are a master of words, Yazmin.”
“Get off!”
He’s smiling from ear to ear now and so am I. I don’t mean to, but looking into his smiling face is just too much. I try to kill the smile, try to make it so I’m glaring at him instead, but our bodies are taking over.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he says, his green eyes playful, his hair falling across his forehead in a way that makes him look unspeakably sexy.
“I’m not looking at you like anything.”
“You’re looking at me like you looked at me the first time we met.” He moves so that he’s lying atop me, propping himself up with his arms. I could knee him in the balls now and jump to my feet, but that’s not what I do. Instead, I split my legs so that his crotch is pressed against mine.
“Oh yeah? And how’s that?” I slide down the bed, pushing my pussy into his cock. He’s hard. I can feel it through his pants. I can feel my pussy getting wet, too. A week is a long time to go if you’ve been doing it every day before then.
“You know how.” He brings his face close to mine, his beard tickling my cheek. “Don’t play games with me, Yazmin.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it—”
When our lips touch, I find it difficult to remember why we were angry in the first place. It’s there, far back in my mind, but it’s so far back that it no longer seems worth thinking about, not now anyway. Our mouths open and our tongues meet, lashing together passionately. The feeling of his beard tickling me drives me crazy, makes me think about how manly he is, about how wild. The feeling of his lips against mine makes me feel close to him, much closer because we’ve spent a week largely apart. My body is hungry for him, starving, my nipples hard for wanting him to touch them, my clit tingling, my pussy soaked begging for his cock. As we kiss, I grind up and down against his jeans.
Then he breaks it off and jumps to his feet, staring down at me as he strips his clothes. “Get naked,” he says gruffly.
I love when he talks to me like that, as if the only thing in the world he desires is me, and he isn’t cautious or nervous about expressing it, not like other men. He knows what he wants and he takes it. I climb onto my knees and take off my shirt, and then sit back and take off my pants. This isn’t a sexy, slow stripping like I’ve seen in movies, where the stripping is being performed as part of the titillation. This is the stripping of two people who can’t wait another second to be naked together.
I break one of the clasps on my bra as I yank it free, but then we’re naked and none of that matters. Spike’s cock is a sight I’ll never get fully used to. It’s the hugest cock I’ve ever seen, ten inches or more, a vein running up one side, the end bulging. It’s scary and exciting at the same time.
“Bend over,” he says, his voice the low, dark tones of a man captivated by lust.
It’s so dirty, the idea of bending over and having him ram inside of me, especially after a week of abstinence. Part of me remembers the argument, but a larger part of me urges my body into a bent-over position, my shoulders laid flat against the bed as I stick my ass up in the air, exposing my pussy.
“Goddamn, Yazmin.”
He brings his hands to my ass cheeks. Usually he’d slide a finger inside of me, play with me until I come, but I can hear by his breathing that he’s lost himself to me. I can tell by the way his hand trembles as he slides it over my ass cheek that he’s completely absorbed by me. I sense his lust, replicating it within myself.
“Fuck me,” I whisper.
A moment later, his cock is splitting me apart. That’s what it always feels like, in the first few seconds—that his cock is tearing me in half. My pussy aches and throbs in pain, and then a rush of wetness and an opening for him brings a torrent of pleasure rushing around my body. I bite down on the sheets and push back so that he’s all the way inside of me, pushed right up to his balls, his hard length pressed against my sweet spot. We hold it like that for a while, and then we fuck like animals, his cock pounding over and over into that perfect spot, his balls swinging back and forth against my clit. I bounce up and down, working his cock, taking every piece of pleasure from it that I can.
Orgasms are never sudden, in my experience. There’s always at least a hint of one approaching. But the one that hits me less than a minute after Spike and I start fucking comes completely unexpectedly. One second I’m riding the pleasure, the heat warm and tingling inside of me. The next an explosion has sent shards of euphoria slicing all across my body, to my nipples and my clit and my toes, right into my head where the pleasure obliterates thinking. I turn into a creature of pleasure, nothing more. I hear myself screaming but that seems distant. I tilt my hips, positioning his cock for the best angle, my ass cheeks crushing into his abs.
“Yes, yes, yes!”
Twenty seconds, thirty—fifty, one-hundred—a year, a century—the pleasure lengthens and consumes me. I close my eyes and see red. I listen to the sounds of Spike’s moaning. His cock brings more pleasure even when I think I’m spent. I twist and writhe and moan, my pussy fire-hot, my brain aching with the ecstasy. My hole goes tight at the end, so tight that Spike has to grunt and push harder to get back inside of me. He holds it then, deep within me, holding it so that fireworks of pleasure explode around the tip of him, their heat and light tingling my sweet spot, a thousand thousand nerves of pleasure sending a thousand thousand sensations of timelessness surging around me.
When it passes, I collapse onto the bed, able to bounce up and down for a couple of minutes before Spike is leaning over, hands in my hair, face pressed against my cheek, spending his own pleasure inside of me.
We roll aside as we have dozens of times before. After lying there for a minute or so, both of us panting heavily as his come pools between my thighs, I climb into his arms and we lie there, limbs entwined, listening to each other breathe.
He’s tired from the violence, so he falls asleep quickly, snoring lightly, wheezing through his nose. But I don’t fall asleep. Even if the pleasure was immense—and it always is immense—it doesn’t change my mind about what I need to do. Dad needs to be ended, and I need to decide who and what I want to be. I’m not going to be the passenger anymore. I’m going to be the driver.
I creep out of bed quietly, wincing at every creak, and then get dressed quickly in sweatpants and a sweater. When I pull on my sneakers, I watch Spike for any sign of waking up. I think he’d wake up if he was upstairs, sleeping in the clubhouse, but down here, with me, maybe he feels comfortable. Maybe he feels safe. That makes me feel rotten for leaving him like this. But if the alternative is to sit idly by while everybody else does the work for me, leaving is my only option.
And yet as I creep out of the bedroom door up the stairs—the door is unlocked and Spike has stopped placing guards, perhaps because he sees it as a waste of manpower—a familiar feeling of indecision hits me. Is this really the right thing, or am I making a terrible mistake?