Red Hot Blues (21 page)

Aaron carried a switchblade strapped to his
wrist for easy access, and a revolver at his ankle.

Always. Every day. Not a single day lost.

Betty.

He cut his bindings. And then, when those
goons were taking the unfair fight to Ace, Aaron pulled out his
gun. And he fired. And he fired again.

And again.

He killed them all.

And those that didn’t die immediately, were
consumed by the flames that had been intended for Ace and
Aaron.

The farm is still intact, not too many plants
were destroyed.

I think they will rebuild the houses. The
insurance will pay enough for Ace to settle bills with the IRS and
cover at least some of the outstanding debt, and keep things going
at the farm.

It’ll be tough going, but if anyone can do
it, it’s Aaron.

I’m so glad he’s alive.

Ace is moving out. He doesn’t want to be in
the tobacco business. And now that there’s money to ease the
pressure, he’s deeding the entire thing to Aaron Johnson, to keep
the ship sailing.

Aaron’s two daughters are at the funeral as
well. Janice, too. She’s a beautiful girl of blonde hair and
striking green eyes. Eyes like her mother’s.

The funeral is for three workers who got
burned in trying to put out the fire. One of them, Violet—the woman
who taught me how to make a Brunswick Stew.

My heart is completely shattered.

It’s a sad day. A very sad day.

Ace is on my side. His burns were minor, no
major scarring, and just on his ankle. Thanks to Aaron.

The weather is cool. Tears are pouring, but
the two-hundred-plus people here are a family—the staff, the
Travers family, Aaron’s family. Many of their friends.

There’s a bite of possible rain in the air,
that scent of electric ozone before it falls. Black clouds move up
ahead, and the coolness is refreshing, like a new beginning.

Layna’s here. But she’s heading back tomorrow
because she’s got Kenny Ray for the day. Alone.

I won’t be heading back. Not for a while.

I’m gonna hit the road with Ace, maybe we’ll
perform, maybe we’ll wash dishes or make food. Him, with his
cooking skills learned over several years in New York. And me, with
the little cooking skills I learned in the galley of his massive
house, taught to me by one of the women being interred right
now.

A tear breaks loose from my eye. And so does
a drop of rain from above.

“...a new beginning...,” says Aaron,
delivering the eulogy. “...A dark past, forgotten. We made errors,
we turned our eyes. But them days is over. This here is a new
beginning. We ain’t goan turn our eyes again. This is a family.
All
of us! We done been on this farm tagether through
rough
times,
good
times,
sad
times—and don’t
fuhget the happy times. Those times goan be better now. We’s all
goan be better now. We goan build this thing up again, keep our
jobs, live our lives and ejjucate our children! Justice is a funny
thing. There ain’t no justice in the world except for that justice
you exercise yo’self. So, Violet, Jeffrey, little Martin, go in
peace to the Lord. Know that we will keep justice alive here for
what you did. By yo actions, much of this farm is still here. By yo
actions, these hunnert or more people here, can still work, can
still feed their children. By yo actions, some of the very people
standin and sittin here, wouldn’t even be here if it hadn’t been
for yo bravery. And you lost yo lives in the process of savin
others. You have proven these words to be true: ‘In fear or shadow,
I will be your Justice, when no one else can.’”

The caskets go into the ground, in the family
cemetery.

I lean my head on Ace’s shoulder. He
grimaces, holds his ribs. Then hugs me.

I’m thinking of death. I’m thinking of life.
Ends, beginnings.

I hold my stomach, rub it, wishing,
hoping...

One day.

The reception afterwards is held in a large
weatherproof tent. I finally meet Janice and talk to her. She’s a
buoyant and spirited girl of nineteen, almost twenty. She tells me
Ace stopped something from happening to her when she was younger
and, if “it” had happened, she wouldn’t be who she is today.

She’s majoring in Law over at Columbia.

I can only imagine what “it” was.

I don’t want to imagine it.

Fiona, his other sister, isn’t here. I can’t
say I’m upset about that.

I meet “Aunt Nola,” Christa’s half-sister.
Whereas Christa is all Southern, Aunt Nola is all Northern. She
apparently moved to New York when she was quite young. She’s a wild
one. Not the kind of person you’d want to mess with.

Ace and I take a walk afterwards, through
some of the forest around the house. We look out at the tobacco
field. That the fire department was already here means they caught
much of the fire there before it got too out of control.

Randolf’s plan backfired. It actually ended
up
helping
the Travers family and all the workers of this
farm, rather than destroying it. They’ll build a small home for the
family, and use the saved-up costs to cover much of their
debts.

Justice
. A poetic one.

I don’t know how many people attended Randolf
Berkeley’s memorial service. I don’t want to know.

Ace and I sit at a tree. It’s late twilight
now. Ace leans back, still tender from his beating.

Leaning on the tree with our backs, feet
ahead of us, I say, “That thing Aaron said, about Justice. Is that
his or yours?”

He looks left of us at the reception tent,
way in the distance, maybe a mile out from where we are. “He used
to say something similar to me when I was a kid. But he knows the
tattoo I got on my arm, so maybe he liked it and uses that exact
wording now.”

I put my hand on his jeans. The temperature
drops suddenly, and a quick wind gusts across us. My hair, getting
longer now, tickles my ears. “Looks like a storm’s coming,” I
say.

“Nah, storm’s over, babe. Storm’s over.”

I rest my head on his shoulder. He turns,
kisses my forehead.

Oh, my, when was the last time we kissed? I
mean,
really
kissed.

It feels like several months, even though I
kissed him when he left the hospital.

He pecks me some more, and warmth covers me,
even though the temperature is definitely much cooler now.

His fingers press up against my chin. He
pushes my head up. My eyes close before our lips meet. Soft and
bruising. His tongue glides out, and I feel his excitement like the
electricity of the storm. He trembles, and he pushes me back
against the tree and kneels in front of my legs, lifts up my dress
so I can widen them, and he kisses me.

A cool wind gusts against us and stray leaves
and debris get into my hair. I press my knees on either side of him
and say, “Take me here.”

He stands, puts his hand out to me. “Not
under a tree, babe.”

I grab his hand, and he lifts me.

We walk over into a small clearing, wind
howling now. A small rumble of thunder overhead. A brief flash of
sheet-lightning. “It’s gonna rain,” I say.

“I know.”

In the clearing, his hands go over my waist.
I don’t know how he does it, but every muscle in my body collapses.
I fall onto him, snuggle my head into his chest. He kisses my head,
the top of my ear. Moves his hands up my dress, bringing it up over
my thighs.

Sexy thighs, I believe. I do believe this
now. Are they sexy to others? I don’t care. Because they’re sexy to
him. To my Ace of Spades. And that’s all that matters.

He gets down on his knees. Darkness engulfs
us. There isn’t a soul to be seen for miles around us, the tent now
hidden by a small hill since we made it into the clearing. Dark
clouds surround us.

He eases my underwear right, exposing me.

And then his warm tongue finds me, and my
whimper seems to echo beyond the trees, followed by a rumble of
sexy thunder.

He licks me slowly, passionately, weakening
me, making my legs shudder and shake.

I’m in heaven.

Eventually I can’t stop the build-up. I start
grinding into him instinctively, pushing down, feeling the sting of
his lips on me, in me, around me.

I start to shake. I can’t stand. Can’t
stand.

I move back, stumbling. He keeps hunting me,
moving his tongue and lips forward, his eyes lidded, as if my scent
is his drug.

Almost in one motion, I’m falling back onto
the ground, spreading my legs, and his mouth is there again, inside
me, pushing me. It’s frantic, needful, desperate.

It’s been too long.

The cool air scrapes my arms, and hot fire
shoots up through the middle of me, from below, up, up, up,
and—“Oh, god!”

The sound echoes back, reverberating with the
wind and bursting with the roaring thunder.

It starts to rain.

And I go into an orgasmic explosion.

It begins at my hips, shuddering, trembling,
detonating, chemicals firing—
Oh, hell, this is so
amazing!

Every raindrop is a sting of screaming
pleasure. My body burns, and the rain cools it down. I burst
several times, the shock galvanizing every muscle of mine.

And then, eventually, it’s just the slightest
shiver of relaxation.

And a stupefied smile.

I climb on top of her, her knees around my
waist, rain starting to pour.

She’s laughing, smiling. I’m beginning to
tremble.

She tries to get my shirt off, but it’s
sticking to my skin. Wet. I get on my knees, pull it off myself.
She licks her lips, grins.

She sits up, legs still on either side of me,
starts lifting off her dress.

“You’ll get cold,” I say.

“I’m cold already.”

She takes her dress off, then unclips her bra
in one smooth movement. Her breasts drop out, making my mouth
water. White and pink fleshy deliciousness. Nipples erect and hard
from the cold.

I cup the left one, devour it, but she
doesn’t let me do it for long. “You can do that later,” she says.
“But I want you inside me now. I’ve missed you too much, Ace.”

I kiss her lips, slide my hand down to take
her underwear off.

The wind picks up and rain pours harder.

She lifts her butt, laughs. The raindrops on
her face sparkle in the moonlight. “This is crazy,” I say.

She nods enthusiastically.

I get up on my feet to remove my jeans.

Her naked figure on the floor is not helping
my resolve to stay calm. There’s a burning itch inside me, to have
her, to fill her, to take her forever and to never let her go.

I get my buckle off, struggle with the wet
jeans. They get stuck at my ankles.

Her makeup drips in black lines from her
eyes. It’s erotic. Sexy. Oh-so-bad.

I take my boxers off and she gets on her
knees, clasps me with her fist, and pulls, fast, up and down.
Oh, god, Gin. You gotta stop that...

She has me, completely.

I’m hers now. Totally hers.

She tastes me once, just teasing me, then
licks me bottom to top; holds me tight.
Tight
! Tight enough
to know who’s boss.

She pushes down the length of me, opens her
mouth again...

I can’t look, because looking gets me too
horny. And if I get too horny, I’ll burst.

I pull away. What she’s doing is amazing, but
it’s not what I want now. I want to be inside her, below.

I push her back by the shoulders, gently, her
eyes looking up at me seductively.

She lies back on the ground, spreads her legs
for me. Ready. Open. Welcoming.

I get on my knees, start bending down above
her. Rain tickles my back and falls in rivulets down my temples.
She’s laughing, enjoying every minute of this.

“Wait,” she says. She pushes me off her.
Grabs her dress, puts it under her on the grass. “The grass
tickles!”

It’s a simple statement, but my heart dances
madly because of it. I lean back to grab my wallet, open it up and
search for a rubber.

“No!” she screams. The roar of rain is too
loud to talk quietly anymore. “No rubber, Ace. No rubber.”

“What if you get pregnant?”

“I’m on the pill. I started taking it
after...well...you and I...”

“Started dating?”

She smiles ear to ear. “Dating. Yeah. Nice to
officialize it.”

Electric charge embraces the air, and thunder
and lightning crackle above us.

“We’d better do this quick, Ace. It might be
too dangerous to stay out here much longer!”

I can hardly hear her.

“I don’t want it to be quick!”

She sits up, clasps her hands around my neck.
Yanks
me down! And I’m on top of her.

Desperately, as if it’s the last thing she’s
about to do before she dies, she whispers in my ear: “Fuck me,
goddamnit. Don’t make me wait for you anymore. I love you. Now fuck
me. Fuck me like you love me.”

I melt. Grab my shaft. Maneuver it to within
her folds.

I stop there just a moment, an intensity of
human warmth surrounding me; a different moisture to the one on the
rest of our skins. A slick moisture. A welcoming, inviting
moisture.

And then, I thrust in for dear goddamn
life.

Maybe lightning struck at the same time as he
pushed himself into me. Maybe. It felt like it. But it probably
didn’t.

As of that moment, I was elsewhere, floating,
dreaming.

I guess that’s what love is, giving yourself
completely to someone. Trusting him, relaxing. Letting go.

I know I was tight, because he felt huge
inside me. Huge. Stretching me, sizzling my nerves.

I remember orgasming twice. The first one was
immediate, at the moment he thrust up inside me. A tingle formed,
and then an all-engulfing shatter.