Jake's Wake

One minute before the knife went in, Jacob Connaway was up to his nuts in glory.

It was Saturday night—nearly one A.M.
(Amen!)
—and as usual, he had scored a sinner to save. A saucy little number named Sugar—hot, tight, and hammered in every sense, already drinking off a lifetime of abuse at the ripe old age of twenty-three.

He could smell her damage from the moment he opened the pool hall door, then zeroed right in. And sure enough, she was ripe for the plucking. She wore fuck-me clothes on a fuck-me body, with a fuck-you attitude that was purely for show.

When he got up close, she had fuck-me eyes.

A total paint-by-the-numbers seduction.

It had taken an hour of drinks, sweet-talking, and Jesus to get her out to the parking lot. Another fifteen minutes of lewd jokes and groping to get her into the car. At that point, with less than an hour until showtime, his crib in Joshua Tree was out of the question.

So it was either her place in San Bernardino, or a cheap hotel with cable. But even cheap hotels cost money.

One fifteen-minute multiorgasmic finger-bang later, they were on their way to her place.

So there was no way anyone could call it rape, when they got there just in the nick of time, and he hustled her down to the basement rec room, turned the TV on. Tuned in Cable Access Channnel 23, serving the whole Inland Empire.

Skootched up the nearest chair.

Ripped her panties off from underneath her skirt, despite her sudden protestations.

And took off the belt, just to let her know he meant business.

There was panic in her eyes. And self-loathing. And hunger. All of them as naked as her ass had just become. They masochistically commingled as he whipped her around. Bent her over the chair. Dropped his trousers. Spat in his hand. Juiced her up, just in case (though she was wet as could be).

And slid himself up to the hilt.

When his theme song kicked in, Jake was slamming away, with that godly feeling already comin’ on strong.

Closer to Jesus than even he knew.

But the demons were closer still…

“Oh, god,” Sugar moaned, and then again, harder, transfixed by the helplessness, pleasure, and shame. He had her ass in the air, and was banging it hard, with her face so close to the TV screen that she could feel the static electricity off the glass. Feel it tug at her hair, and tickle her skin, sparkle off of the tears streaming down her face.

For Sugar, the situation was as typical as it was retarded: so hot, so destructive, so completely insane.

She wanted to ask her herself
how did this happen
, but the answer was
same as it always does, stupid. Get drunk. Get in a fight with Frankie. Go do something to make him crazy…

Only this time, it struck her, she might have finally gone too far.

The preacher on the screen looked the way she’d always seen him on late-night cable, at the end of the drinking day: rugged, handsome, persuasive, and powerful. Like a barbarian turned Old Testament prophet turned rock star at a fashion shoot, with his wild dark Jimmy Page locks sweeping over the broad shoulders of his impeccably tailored suit.

She’d always figured he’d be very large in person, just from the way he filled the screen, with the billowing digitally enhanced blue sky behind him. A giant among tiny believers, standing on a freshly conquered mountaintop, delivering his sermon to all who had ears.

She stared into the eyes of the man on the screen. They were beautiful, deep, dark, scary eyes, in riveting counterpoint to his wide, boyish smile.

“Oh my god,” she whimpered again, drawing the notes out, almost ululating at the pounding from behind.

The man on the screen nodded and grinned at the raucous applause that greeted him now, as it always did. These people clearly loved him. How could they not? The sound of it flooded her ears as she grunted and moaned.

“Shhhhh!” hissed the harsh voice behind her. The music trailed off.

And the sermon began.

“Let me tell you something, people,”
said the man on the screen. His voice was sonorous, sexy as hell.
“I’m a sinner. Lord KNOWS I’m a sinner! I have broken the laws of God and man so many times that it’s a wonder I’m still standin’ here today!”

Televised applause and hoots of audience approval filled the room, nearly drowning out her own mounting groans.

“I have stared death straight in the eye. Felt its gaze down to my soul.”

“OHHH…! Oh god, oh god…”

“SHUT UP!” roared the voice from behind her, slamming into her so hard that her forehead smacked the screen.

“Felt the full force and fury of Judgment Day howlin’ like a hurricane inside me, rattlin’ around in my bones, as if to say, ‘Jake? This time, there is gonna be hell to pay!’”

And then, God damn it, she began to cum hard, as if
she
were the one with the hurricane inside her, obliterating thought in a shattering crescendo, ripping her apart with jagged, painful spikes of bliss. It blinded her, deafened her, wiped the universe clean. She couldn’t see the TV right in front of her eyes, and felt more than heard herself screaming.

Next thing she knew, there was a hand over her mouth, and the world came back in violent focus. She bit down hard, pure animal now, heard him yelp as the hand yanked away. But the fucking barely broke its rhythm, and the hurricane was far from done with her.

She didn’t hear the door at the top of the stairs open, any more than the man on the screen: the man who was about to make her go off again, whether she liked it or not.

So far as they knew, they were alone in the world.

She had totally forgotten that Frankie might come home.

Frankie Tatum had a lot of faults. He talked over people. He got angry quick. He was diabetic, so he shouldn’t drink or do speed, but he drank and did speed anyway. Those things all sort of ran together, and, with rare exceptions, made Frankie all that he was.

He also had a tendency to act first, and think about it later, if ever. Which accounted for his list of regrets.

But if there was one good thing about Frankie Tatum, it was probably this: he really loved his Sugarplum.

So it was one thing to know that she would run off and
grudge-fuck her way into his deepest, darkest place. It had happened before, and would happen again. After today, maybe even to night.

But to hear her doing it right here, in their home, right in front of him…

From Frankie’s drugged-out point of view—quivering with rage, at the top of the stairs—there was nowhere to go but down.

And so he went, hunting knife already in hand, one thunderous step at a time, the world a rush and a blur that converged on two shapes before a TV set where that preacher Sugar thought was so hot bellowed out his bullshit about a so-called loving God.