“Did you?” Lon props himself up only inches above, his hopeful eyes now devoid of a glow, dance back and forth between hers—a simple emerald green reflected there also vacant of a once extraordinary glimmer.
“I think so,” she reckons, her hands stroking the sides of his sweetly concerned face. “I mean, I’ve never felt like that before. It was like my mind went somewhere. To another plane, maybe.” She smiles at him sheepishly, assured her explanation sounds a bit out there. “And my body took over. It just reacted. To you.” Her lips meet him tenderly, indebted. “It’s always been you.”
Their labored breathing slows, chests still colliding simply at a more soothing measure as the cadence of their hearts grow unified—a steady
lub dub.
The silver crucifix hanging from Lon’s neck casts a twinkle as the bedside lamp burns dimly. The sparkle catches Brianna’s eye. She sighs contentedly, recalling how Winona proclaimed that the crucifix provides her son with protection. Having to agree in this moment, she considers how safe and sound she feels in Lon’s arms, the crucifix dangling between their hearts.
“I could watch you like that forever,” his tone full of infatuation. “The way you move, the part of your lips, the look in your eyes, the sounds that come out of your sweet, seductive little mouth.” He places a well-timed kiss there. “It’s incredible. Beautiful.
You’re
beautiful.”
Their stripped forms embody a slick sheen intertwined in the lukewarm Louisiana night—Lon’s bronzed, a combination of long days in the summer sun and his rich Cherokee lineage, while Brianna’s meticulous sunscreen application and light hair provides a most contrasting alabaster complexion. He shifts his weight to release himself from between her thighs.
“No,” she opposes, her hands gripping about his powerful backside maintaining the most intimate connection. “Don’t take it away. Thought you said you could watch me like this forever.”
“I could,” he affirms. “I just thought since we have to be back at school in the morning, you might want to rest.”
She shrugs with a come-hither smile. “Sleep’s overrated.” Her hips work slow, sleepy circles beneath him, a blatant invitation.
“Guess I was right about the
tomcat
part.” Lon chuckles at her ambition. Bowing his head to hers, his lips find her mouth giving them the same devoted attention he services her with below, his sizable member tucked and arising once again to the occasion.
“My
tomcat,” he continues, a reminder to himself, her kiss with Johnny Vito still weighing on the recesses of his mind.
The early morning sun peeks through the blinds of Lon’s modest bedroom in his parents’ home. He squints his eyes coming to, feeling as though he just got to sleep. Glancing at the alarm clock on his bedside table to confirm the time, he gently shakes Brianna, her warm body comfortably cocooned in his.
“Brie. Baby. Get up. We’re gonna be late getting back to school.” He yawns, wiping his eyes as he pushes up off the mattress
“Already?” she groans sleepily.
“Making love all night long doesn’t sound like such a great idea now, does it.” He chuckles.
“I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” she professes, kissing him before crawling out of bed.
“What the hell?” Lon’s voice falls off, inspecting her flesh as she stands, her arms stretched over her head, an attempt to limber her frame.
Her body is nicked with scratches and bruises—a few hickeys lining her neck and chest, and the imprint of his hands in a purple hue, one on each side of her bottom. He jumps off the bed gently inspecting her skin, his hands soft and apologetic.
“I did this to you?” He looks up at her, his eyes shameful and gathering moisture.
Her attention now brought to the scathed areas. “Hmm,” she says, “guess I hadn’t noticed. I am a little sore though. Down here.” She smiles bashfully pressing her knees together, her hands covering her most feminine nook as if the light of day makes it inappropriate to bare. “And you’re all bruised up, too.” Quickly neglecting her modesty, her hands pilfer about his body pointing out scrapes and blemishes comparable to hers.
“Must be that damn blood stuff.” Lon recalls their
blood brothers
experiment. “We’re never doing that again.” Frustrated, he manhandles his clothing as he pulls it onto his body.
“You have to admit, it was pretty cool. I never felt so powerful before.” Her voice trails as she makes her way to the bathroom.
“Yeah,” he half agrees, inspecting his neck and chest in the mirror. He gives in to a slight grin, the hickeys and scratch marks covering his frame remind him of the hyper-sexed, most satisfying episode. “Well, still, we’re never doing that again,” he calls after her, prying his eyes from the mirror. “That skull is gone. Buried. And so is this blood stuff.”
“I know. I know.” Brianna closes the door once inside the bathroom. Washing her face over the sink, she dabs it dry with a hand towel looking back at herself in the mirror. “No. Don’t,” she coaches, to no avail.
Giving in, she bites down on her bottom lip, a quiet whimper escaping as she reopens the lesion from last night. She stands there expectantly for a few minutes staring into the mirror waiting for her eyes to glow the way Lon’s did, the way he said hers did. Nothing. No glow. No increased heart rate. No enhanced respirations. Nothing.
Accepting defeat, she sits down on the toilet, the action causing a twinge in her lower abdomen as her hand immediately comes to rest there. Surely nothing she can see or witness, a fluorescent emerald green glow flickers deep inside her womb.
Five months later…
Mid-January has rolled around. It’s a refreshingly cool Friday. Early evening, the sun is just beginning to make its descent. Lon parks his Scout in front of an opulent house in a suburb of Monroe, nearly a four hour drive from his LSU campus in Baton Rouge.
Approaching the residence, he fumbles nervously with his out of character clothing—dress pants and a sweater. Although he looks rather dapper, the newly purchased and expensive getup makes him quite uncomfortable. He tugs at the button-up collar of the dress shirt he sports beneath his sweater, the girth of his thickset neck and what he is about to do causing him a bit of claustrophobia.
His finger prepped, his contact with the doorbell is intercepted as the front door swings open. “What do you want?” the elder woman, with ash blonde hair scowling back him, asks before crossing her arms over her ribcage.
Lon thinks momentarily how she may otherwise be attractive—having aged well—if it wasn’t for her unbecoming scowl. He clears his throat, beginning, “Yes, ma’am. I’m Lon…Alonzo Castille.” He opts for a more polished handle. “I’m friends with…”
“I know who you are,” Blythe Bentley, Brianna’s grandmother interrupts. “And I know why you’re here. And the answer is ‘No.’”
“I just want to talk to her. Please. Ma’am.” Lon’s eyes as respectful as his manners, he attempts to appeal to her humanity.
“Blythe,” a gruff male voice sounds, approaching, “is that
bayou trash
at the door?” Her husband, Alfred Bentley, comes to her side, his scowl even more pronounced than hers. “You’re not welcome here, young man.”
“Sir, if you’ll just let me explain…” Lon begins, only to be cut short.
“What’s to explain?” Alfred’s voice grows loud. “You get my granddaughter in such a bad way. And you send her home to us. In my day, we had ways of taking care of your kind.” Alfred shimmies to the coat closet in the hallway grabbing up a twelve-gauge shotgun stored there for home invasion protection.
“Now, Alfred, you put that thing down,” Blythe scolds her otherwise pleasant and docile husband. “They’ll haul you off to jail. Even if the boy deserves it.”
“Leaving your granddaughter like what?” Lon questions. “What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about!” Alfred pushes into Lon’s chest with the barrel end of the shotgun, moving him backwards off the front porch.
“Alfred!” Blythe calls after him with trepidation.
“Oh, simmer down, darlin’.” Even in his rage, he addresses his wife of fifty years with the familiar pet name. “I haven’t even put one in the chamber yet,” he informs her of the gun’s unloaded status. “So long as this boy gets off my property, I won’t have to.”
“I love your granddaughter, sir. I would never do anything to hurt her,” Lon petitions, his heart nearly beating out of his chest with the presence of the gun aimed so close to it. “What way? What way did I leave Brianna, sir?” his unsteady voice discerns. “I don’t understand.”
“Grandpa, no!” Brianna appears in the doorway, fighting her way past her grandmother and in position between Alfred and Lon. Facing her grandfather, he immediately retracts the shotgun, letting it hang to his side.
“Go back inside now, sweetheart,” Alfred talks gently to her. “I won’t hurt the boy. I just want to put the fear of God in him, that’s all.”
“I don’t think God means much to him,” Blythe chirps from the doorway, “or else he would have done things the proper way. The Christian way.” She continues scowling at Lon, her church-going brow deeply flexed.
“Brie, please tell me what they’re talking about? Where have you been? What about your classes?” Lon questions, his hands held in the air at shoulder level, the threat of the shotgun still looming. Her back is to him and he wants nothing more than to turn her around, to touch her, to hug her, to talk to her. “It’s the second week of the semester and you’re nowhere to be found. You won’t return my phone calls. Everything was great before we left for Christmas vacation.”
“Lon, please. Just go.” She keeps her back to him, knowing that if she turns around and looks into his eyes her resolve will melt away.
“You heard her. Go!” Alfred backs his granddaughter.
Lon shakes his head, his hands extending from his shoulders and stretching out wide, an easy target. “Take your best shot, then. I’m not leaving.” His focus shifts from Alfred to Brianna. “Those words should sound familiar. Isn’t that what you said when you came to LSU and found me there? You said you’d never leave me again.”
“Don’t go trying to make her feel bad about what you did. Our granddaughter has been through enough. Now, I’m telling you for the last time, leave her the hell alone,” Alfred warns, his arm encircling Brianna’s shoulders, he aims to guide her back into the house.
“Fine. I’ll leave,” Lon’s jaw clenches painfully, completely let down and mad at himself for believing her empty promises. “But you’re going to have to turn around and look me in the eye, Brie, while you’re telling me to go. What the hell was last semester about?” He ad-libs, confused as to what their time spent together meant, if it ever meant anything.
“You watch your mouth, young man,” Blythe advises from the front door.
“Grandpa, please take Grandma inside. I’m going to handle this, the way I should have to begin with,” Brianna talks softly.
“Hasn’t the boy hurt you enough, sweetheart?” Alfred’s hotheadedness comes to a halt in conversing with her.
“He never did anything to me that I didn’t want him to do,” she reiterates for the hundredth time, “you just want to believe he’s the bad guy in all of this. I did this, Grandpa.” She taps her hand lightly over her stomach. “Now, please, let me take care of it.”
“Fine, fine, fine,” Alfred chants while shaking his head disagreeably. He leaves her in the front yard with Lon as he escorts Blythe out of the doorway. “And don’t get any ideas, young man. I’ll be right inside cleaning Ol’ Bessie here.” He can’t help himself from brandishing the shotgun once more before closing the door, honoring his granddaughter’s wishes.
“‘I’m not going anywhere, Lon. I’m never going to leave you again, regardless of what my grandparents say.’” Brianna hears her sentiments roll off Lon’s rueful tongue.
Turning around to face him, her eyes are tired and bloodshot—another sleepless night of crying. “I meant that, when I said it. I really did.” Her face contorts as if she may cry once more. “I never meant for any of this to happen.” Her hand autonomically goes to her stomach, the baggy fabric of her oversized shirt camouflaging her blossoming form.
“What happened?” Lon questions again. “What did I do? Or didn’t do?” He paces in the yard in front of her, unable to look at her directly, the helpless expression on her face enough to make him want to go to her and wrap her protectively in his arms.
She shakes her head, defeated, coming to the conclusion that she is going to have to tell him the truth. Maybe the truth will be enough to scare him away. “I’m pregnant, Lon. Pregnant.” She exaggerates the word one more time hoping to drive it home, in her mind as well. No matter how many times she says it aloud, it still seems as though it’s not real.
“What? You’re what?” He stops pacing, his head whipping in her direction as if he misheard her.
“Pregnant, Lon. I’m pregnant,” her voice rises, processing the anger over her carelessness in having unprotected sex with him, over and over again. “For being such a ‘smart girl,’” she quotes what she has been told the majority of her life, “I’m pretty dumb.”
“Wait a minute. If you…if you were pregnant…wouldn’t I know? Shouldn’t I know? You don’t look pregnant.” He talks through the rattling information.
Knowing exactly where he’s coming from, a place of confusion, maybe denial, mostly shock, Brianna walks to him. Taking his hand, she places it on her abdomen, rubbing it gently around the modest but pronounced bump. “I’m just not showing very much. Yet.” She lets his hand fall, covering her belly with the roomy shirt. “I gained a little weight last semester. Didn’t you notice?”
“Well. Uh. No. Not really. I mean, maybe,” he fumbles over his words. “I just figured you were filling out, going through a stage, happy, something.” He shrugs his shoulders. “But it didn’t matter. Not to me. You’re still beautiful. I don’t care if you weigh a hundred or two hundred pounds, I’m still going to love you the same. Don’t you get that?”
“It’s not about my weight,” she says irreverently.