Jasmine Page 4

  Pulling my hand away, her body relaxes, and I know she wants it too. She needs my direction, my leadership, my strength — and I will always give her what she needs.

  Whether it is the gift of intercourse, or the punishment she needs to stay on the true path, I will always provide.

  Because good husbands provide.

  Four

  Her

  I don’t fight when he dries me off with the coarse towel. I don’t fight when he puts me back on the counter to wrap my feet in gauze, nor when he takes me to his bedroom and tells me to get into bed… because I’m so tired. The kind of bone-deep tired that means I’ll be asleep fast.

  But then he slides into the bed beside me, beneath the covers, and his large hand moves across my stomach. The second I feel it moving south, I grab onto his wrist, clenching my eyes tight because I can’t handle more of this. Not tonight, today, whatever time it is.

  “Jasmine.” He says that name like a warning, a patient one, with no anger in it but a threat all the same. He’ll make me if I try to fight… and so I let go. I let his hand slide between my thighs without so much as a ‘no.’ His leg moves over mine to pull it wider, and then he pushes two of his big fingers in and my body locks up. Tense, a whine escaping through clenched teeth as I try to take the pain, but I can’t.

  “I need to heal,” I whisper. “Please.”

  “This will help,” he replies, like he knows anything at all about what it feels like to be violated. To have a wooden shaft forced inside you until you can feel your bones straining to hold their position. I’ve never felt this bruised, never felt this kind of sharp ache as he thrusts his fingers slowly, just like he did in the shower. His cock is hard against my hip, and my body knows what’s coming, knows what to do — I don’t even hate myself anymore for getting wet. It’s self-defense, my body trying to protect me, because there’s nothing else I can do. Even if I had the energy to fight him, it wouldn’t work. It never works.

  “Please,” I whine as he pushes his fingers all the way in, stretching torn and tender skin until I have to clench the sheet in my fist to stop myself from shoving him away. “Please don’t? It hurts.”

  I’m begging, but it doesn’t matter. He draws himself to my side, his cock rubbing against me as he presses a kiss to my shoulder.

  “It’s just the reminder of your punishment, but that’s over now,” he says softly, like it should be comforting.

  It’s not.

  I gasp when he pulls his fingers out, a grating kind of pain from the sudden removal, and I wait for him to roll me to my stomach — but instead he moves over me. Knees between mine as he spreads me, and the urge to cry moves like a ball up my throat. My fingers are clenched in the sheet on either side of me, trying so hard not to shove him, go for his eyes, any of the myriad thoughts flickering through my head. I can’t take another punishment right now, and it won’t stop him anyway.

  It won’t stop him.

  I try to disappear behind my eyes, to leave my body and let him have it again but, as he settles between my hips, he kisses across my breast. Sucks my nipple into his mouth until those unavoidable tingles race through my nerves like little traitors. I make some kind of noise, weak and desperate, and a quiet groan leaves him. His hips move, rubbing his hard shaft against me, and I can’t do a thing about it because he’s too big. My legs are spread obscenely wide just for him to lie between them. He’s overly tall, overly broad, heavy with dense muscle, and as he leans over me, I know what he’s going to do before he does it. I press my lips together as he tries to kiss me, and he sighs.

  “You don’t need to cry, Jasmine. I forgive you.” He gently brushes my cheek, thumb passing over my lips, and I open my eyes because I can’t believe that he believes what he’s saying.

  Forgive me? Is he insane? Yes, he is, and I knew that already, but I still can’t believe it sometimes when he says this shit. Another tear rolls out, and I’m barely even aware that I’m crying, but he sees it. Brushes it away. Brows pulled together like he’s concerned for me — but it’s a lie. This is just more of his insanity at work.

  “God forgives you, Jasmine. He sees your contrition, and so do I.” Just as he finishes speaking he kisses me, and I don’t bite his lip. I don’t do anything but hold onto the sheet until my fingers ache as his tongue teases at the seam of my lips, parts them just enough to kiss me in the mechanical way he always does. Half-exploring, half-tentative. Like he hasn’t ever been kissed by someone who wanted him… which isn’t hard to believe. He’s psychotic, and I’m just his latest victim.

  * * *

  Him

  I feel such joy as Jasmine submits under me. She lets me kiss her lips, her neck, her breasts, and I know it is because I have been a good husband. She is finally understanding, and I want to make her feel better. I want her to see that I still love her, that God still loves her through me. She doesn’t need to cry anymore; she doesn’t need to feel her guilt for running away. Her punishment has absolved her of it. In God’s eyes, it’s like it never happened now.

  The throbbing at my hips is growing urgent, and I release her nipple from my lips so that I can position myself above her. She is so much smaller than I am, so delicate, and I take care as I gently bend her knee up so that I can be close to her. Like man and wife, like it should always be, and I am glad she has finally accepted that so I can be with her like this, able to see her beautiful face as I enter her.

  Her folds are slick and soft as I seek her entrance, pushing gently until I feel her body give way to mine. Letting me in, even as she gasps and arches. I know there is still pain from her punishment, but God will take it away as we come back together. The right way.

  The first inch of my body enters hers, and she tenses, whines, and I shush her softly. “It’s okay, Jasmine, it’s okay.”

  I try to be patient with her body, to let her accept me slowly, but the warmth of her wraps around my shaft, and I cannot help the twitch of my hips. She cries out, more tears on her cheeks as her small hands grab onto my biceps, seeking my strength, and it makes me feel strong. Strong enough to ease inside her as I bend my head and kiss her. Jasmine is perfect. Her body stretches to accept mine, made by God just for me, and I know she can feel it too as I push one last time and our skin meets.

  Surrounded by her heat, the gentle squeezes of her tightness around my shaft, I thank God for bringing her to me. I promise that I will always care for her, show her the right path, be strong for her so that she may serve Him properly.

  “I love you, Jasmine.” Just as I say the words I pull back and thrust forward, and she yelps, her fingers tight on my arms, her breathing already faster than mine.

  “Please, don’t,” she whispers, and I kiss her to give her strength as I start to move. That holy feeling of her body makes it hard to be gentle the way I know she needs, but I do my best as I bring our bodies together again and again. She makes soft, high sounds as I make love to her, and I try to hold back my completion, so that I can appreciate everything she gives me.

  This is so much better than having her on her stomach, or her hands and knees, but those times it was necessary. Jasmine tries so hard to be chaste, but I think that now she’s finally understanding that our unions can never be tainted by sin. God has blessed us, together, to be fruitful and multiply. It is the image of her swollen with child, my child, that takes control of my body. I surge inside her, hearing her cries against my ear as I lean over her. It is always harder for the woman, but I know she is slick between her thighs because she wants to accept me, my seed. Our skin meets again and again, and I feel as she tenses around me, pushing me to fill her, and I give in to my needs.

  Pleasure, a gift of God, ignites like a fire inside me. I bring our bodies together hard, burying myself in her slick heat as fire jolts down my spine, through my shaft and into her. I shout in bliss, feeling her soft body mold against mine as I press her into the bed and spill my seed inside her in rapid pulses that erase everything in the world except for her
for one glorious moment.

  “Jasmine,” I say, breathing hard, so grateful for her that I feel filled with light as I keep us together. Her nails are pressed to the backs of my arms, holding me to her, and I cannot deny her need to be close to me. I pepper her skin with kisses, seeking her mouth, and she lets me in. Lets my tongue taste her lips, her mouth, as she breathes quickly. Little whimpers buzz against my lips as she shifts her hips against mine, and I push myself deep again as I feel my flesh growing softer. “I love you.”

  I am sad to leave her, to leave this moment when she finally understands the way a man and wife should be together, but I can feel my seed inside her. The slickness of it around my shaft, and I know that even as my body leaves hers, I am still with her. Still inside this sacred space where she may create a child.

  Reluctantly, I push myself up, listening to her gasp as I slide from her, and as I sit back, I simply look at her. There is no shame in it, she is mine and I am hers in the eyes of God. I can look at her body, at the swell of her breasts, and the place between her thighs where I can see my seed shining. She does not look at me, her eyes are on the ceiling, and I know that is because she is still coming to terms with this act.

  Exhaustion suddenly hits me, a yawn taking me as I shift and lie beside her. Immediately, I tug the covers up and pull her against me, wrap my arm around her waist so that she knows I am with her. But, just before sleep, I move my hand down the softness of her stomach, resting it above her womb as I pray for a child. A child to give her joy, to give us a family.

  Jasmine whimpers, sniffles, and I know she is still thinking of her guilt, so I hug her against me again. Comforting her, giving her my strength so that we can sleep.

  Together.

  Five

  Mason

  I really hate this job some days.

  Today is one of them.

  LAPD Central is a shithole. I think this every time I come here, and today is no different. Over the years they’ve tried to make this place… bearable? Livable? A decent ‘working environment’, or whatever ergonomic, collaborative workspace, feng shui bullshit is being spewed at any given moment in time. It’s all failure, and only ends up making the place look like a cross between the set of Sanford and Son and a Herman-Miller warehouse hit by a bomb. The FBI building is better; not by a huge stretch, but better, and one of the reasons I hate coming here is because it makes me feel bad for the people who have to work in this place. But I know the drill; when a missing person case goes beyond the jurisdiction of the LAPD, it gets handed over to the FBI. To a guy like me. Hopefully to someone other than me, but that isn’t the case today, and so now I’m in this armpit when all I want to be is gone.

  “Where can I find Detective Ressner?” I ask the first person to make eye contact with me.

  “Should be in that office over there.”

  Office over there. Huh. That means he’s a senior detective and not some grunt, which could either bode well for me or not so much. I knock on the office door and a painfully slim-looking man gets up and comes over, pulling it open.

  “Oh, you must be Agent Jones.”

  I stick out my hand. “And you’re Detective Ressner.”

  He grips my hand, and despite his Lurch-like skeletal demeanor, the shake is surprisingly firm. “Come on in.”

  His office is one of the ones they tried to upgrade at some point. I feel sympathy for him, because at least the older offices have some degree of character. This one is so devoid of anything that would make it personable that it is almost painful to be in—an office decorated by committee, and gutted of humanity by all. I sit in a chair that is mismatched to everything else in the room, and also three inches too short for the height of his desk. I reach underneath, pull the lever up to let the piston rise—

  “Umm… it doesn’t…”

  The chair immediately sinks back down.

  “...work.”

  I smile at him with faux sincerity. “No problem.”

  “Sorry ’bout that.”

  “It’s fine,” I lie, attempting to get comfortable in the miserable seat.

  He looks apologetically about the office. “Umm, can I get you anything to drink? Coffee? Bottled water?”

  “Really, I’m fine, Detective.” I just want to leave.

  “Okay. All right.” He sits at his desk and looks down at me. “So. Did you have a chance to look at the files we sent over?”

  “I did.”

  “Good. Is there anything you want to ask me?”

  “Yes.” I pause for a moment, staring at him. “Why are we pursuing this?”

  His brow beetles in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”

  I reach down, open my briefcase, and pull out the file folder. For a case — any case — it’s surprisingly thin.

  “Sloane Finley. Age twenty-three.” I withdraw the most recent picture of her, the Headshots LA one she had taken four months ago. I look at it, look at him. “Pretty girl.” I set the picture down on the edge of his desk. “Dead girl.”

  He looks back at me, his face going stony. “You don’t know that.”

  “Detective Ressner”—I tap the picture with my finger—“you and I both know this girl is dead. Let me paint you the picture we both know is true. Sloane Finley comes to LA from Shitstick, Indiana...”

  “Indianapolis.”

  I smile indulgently at the interruption. “...to become a movie star. She fails. Waitress…”

  “She worked at Barnes and Noble.”

  Again I ignore him. “...shitty apartment, few friends, not one single role, even as an extra. No SAG card, no fucking anything card. Hell, she didn’t even try to go flat on her back in the Valley to break into the business.”

  Lurch gives me a long sigh, rolling his eyes.

  “So, she leaves town to head back home and a week later disappears off the map.”

  “What’s your fucking point here, Agent?” His voice has lost the apologetic tone from earlier and I know I’ve hit close to the bone of his own thoughts.

  “My point is this. This girl is dead. You know it, and I know it. Now, not to put too fine a point on it, but this shit happens all of the time, Detective. In, oh, let’s give it ten years max, some hunter or rancher out there in Texas is gonna stumble across a pile of bones that got washed out of a gully during the last storm, and that’ll be our girl. But I’ll be long since retired, and so will you, and we’ll both just read about it in section C, fourth column, five lines total.”

  He just stares at me.

  “So, I ask again; why are you guys asking the Agency to take on this case?”

  “She’s a missing person.”

  “So’s Amelia Earhart.”

  “You know what, my day is super fucking busy. So, if you have any questions that you want to ask me, Agent Jones, then please ask them. Otherwise, kindly get your ass out of my office.”

  “You know I’m right.”

  “I don’t give a shit if you’re right or wrong. This is your problem now, not mine.”

  I sigh. “I just want to know why?”

  Lurch leans across his desk. “You want to play tough-as-nails-I-seen-it-all? Fine, I can play that role too. So, here’s the deal; Miss Finley’s daddy works for a big military facility out there in Indiana that handles chemical weapons. Now, as you might imagine, with everything going on overseas at the moment that makes him a pretty big fucking deal. Well, I guess when daddy is worrying about his little girl who hasn’t called home in four weeks, he might be having a hard time concentrating on WMDs or whatever the fuck it is he concentrates on. But the thing is daddy has some connections with a senator or two, and those senators are giving hand jobs to other senators including — wouldn’t you know it! — Senator Harris from the great state of California. Who then asks some people to ask us to take a look into this. Which we do, until it turns out that the trip little Miss Finley there”—he stabs his finger at the photo—“decided to take comes to an abrupt end somewhere out in Texas. Now, since she
is no longer in California, that puts her outside of our jurisdiction. Enter our good friends at the F, B, fucking I.”

  He flicks the photo with his finger, and it teeters at the edge of the desk.

  “You don’t want to take this case, I don’t fucking care. You take it up with your boss or Senator Harris’s office, not me. We did what we have to do in cases like this. Contacted you.” He leans back in his chair, looking supremely smug. “There. How’d I do? Do I get the role?”

  I laugh. What else am I going to do? “Okay. Now I understand.”

  “I’m sure you do.” He blows out a gust of air, hitching his shoulders to release the tension that has built up between us. “Listen, Agent, I feel for you. Really, I do. But these are the cards that have been dealt, and you’re just going to have to roll with it.”

  “Yep. I can see that now. Pretty much out of my hands, isn’t it?”

  “Pretty much.” He swivels his chair a bit, studying me. “So… what are you going to do?”

  He seems genuinely interested, which makes one of us. “Only thing I can do. Waste time, pretend I’m ‘looking into it,’ wait for it to fade, or until they assign me to something actually worth working on.”

  “How long you think they’ll keep you on this?”

  “I dunno.” I shrug. “A month? Maybe two?”

  He looks down at the hovering picture. “You really think she’s dead?”

  “I know she’s dead. They always are.” I glance at the picture of the smiling, brown-haired young woman staring back at me. All American girl next door, everybody’s sweetheart.