The Violin Pt. 10

Keith couldn't sleep. For once, not even Kendra's sexy body could distract him. She'd tried, giddy with the victory over her dad. She had boldly led the way to the guest bedroom, Keith following behind with the box of letters. He winced at her whoop as he closed the door.

"Did you see me, baby? I beat him. Him and Niall. It was like, everything I've been bottling up all these years came rushing out! And Mom, she was so bad-ass, standing up for us the way she did! I'm so proud of her!" Kendra yanked her dress over her head and stood there in her underwear and shoes.

"I want you to make love to me like you said. Every freaky thing you promised. Make me call you Daddy, make me scream." She wrapped her arms around his neck and gently pulled him down. Keith kissed her, but his heart wasn't in it. After a few minutes she couldn't ignore his muted passion.

"What's wrong, baby?"

He sighed. "It's just been a long day. Let's go to bed."

Under the light cotton sheet, they spooned. Still hopeful, she wiggled against him. The flesh was willing, but his spirit was weak. Even as his cock thickened against her softly muscled behind, his stomach dropped. He didn't deserve her sweet sweat, that soft snarl of her upper lip as she slid over the edge. He pulled her tight, nosing the coarse curls at the nape of her neck.

"I've got a lot to sort out, K, but I'll get it together. I promise."

He must really be tired, she mused. "Okay. Raincheck, though."

Keith held one long arm akimbo over his head and stared at the pale peach ceiling, Mr. Evans' words running through his mind like a broken loop. No matter how he tried to spin it, Robert was right. If he continued to be the man he was, he would destroy Kendra's future. Yet he wasn't sure how to change. If Kendra had wanted a suit and tie, she could've had her pick of Niall and guys like him. Still, she chose him. Why?

The moon grew full and fat while he tossed. Eventually, he conceded the battle and carefully folded the sheet back. Kendra's light snores didn't hitch as he rose. The keys to the Mrs. Evans's Benz were on the hook by the door. Keith slipped into the night.

He just drove aimlessly at first, following the moonlight past dark houses and down empty roads. Slowly the path became familiar, until he pulled into the dirt driveway of a small, falling down house with a sagging shed attached. He almost didn't recognize the place. He hadn't been back since the night it all went wrong.

The deck was no longer peeling. In the seven years he'd been gone the porch's flaking green paint had given up the ghost, until now it was just weather-beaten gray wood. The key, though, was still shockingly brassy, hidden between the loose front bricks. Keith used the flashlight he'd found in the Benz glovebox to clear away the cobwebs and stepped through the door.

He may as well have stepped back in time. Nothing had changed. Even the empties his dad drained and tossed were still scattered around the old arm chair, like abandoned pets waiting on their master's return. His father's effects were scant and mean: an Aaron's cap with the plastic tab, almost black with grease; a 20-pound ring of keys, their locks and cars long gone.

Hot as it was outside, the air in the house was unnaturally cold. Goosebumps raised on his arms, but Keith tried to shake it off. He stepped gingerly through the house, reliving childhood moments. The hole in the kitchen wall, a relic from the time he'd dodged a blow and his father broke his hand. The pencil marks on the doorframe his mom used to measure his growth; those stopped at his waist. His father never looked at him the same after she left. It was like the wound of her leaving festered inside their house until it infected everything.

Keith paused, thumbing over memories of his mother, nettled by his inability to recall her face. The image was like a faded Polaroid: a wisp of fair hair, the way the left corner of her lips quirked up when she smiled. It all wouldn't come together into a cohesive picture, and he knew that if he passed her now, they probably wouldn't even recognize each other. He touched the faded marks, that knowledge like a stone inside, cold and final. The short and faded graphite marks, five of them, climbed up the door frame. They were decisive and sure, like her, the next-to-last peaked like a small mountain. And he remembered.

It was the morning of his sixth birthday, and she called him over for their familiar ritual.

"You're getting so big, Old Man," she said. "One day I'mma look up and you'll be an old man for real."

"I'mma be older than you, Mama?"

"Not yet. You stay my sweet boy just a little while longer." When she went to mark his height, he bumped up on his tiptoes, making the mark go crooked but his mother was so tickled she let it stand. Keith didn't remember what he got that year, but he remembered her nickname for him, Old Man, on account of the eyes she said belonged to an old soul, and the way she laughed and laughed.

Keith tested the door to his old bedroom, and it creaked open unsteadily. Though everything was exactly as he remembered, it all felt strangely alien, like someone else's past. He forgot about the sharp angle of the corrugated roof, ducking his head just in time to avoid banging it on the ceiling, and tripped over the pallet of dry-rotted cushions on the floor. The crate of blue jeans still sat on the broken folding chair, one pair slung over the back. Keith picked them up and inhaled and could almost smell Kendra's scent on them still.

Under the chair, another crate was filled with CDs, books and personal keepsakes. He sat on the old cushions crosslegged, surprised at the feeling that welled up inside: nostalgia. He would never choose to go back to the bad old days, but those bad old days were his bad old days. Where the Red Fern Grows, his favorite childhood book, had made him long for a secret dog that would be his best friend. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. For a brief while, he had thought that he could be a transformative figure too, to kids like himself who grew up getting drilled down, beaten flat and filled with hate. They were America's trash, only useful when Big Brother needed cannon fodder for battles they had no stake in. They could be more than that. He could be more than that. So he'd thought. He swiped hard at his burning eyes and got up off the floor.

"What the fuck, man?" he scolded himself gruffly. "You fall in love and next thing you know, you're a weeping fucking willow."

He had one more room to visit in the house.

He touched the doorknob to his father's bedroom and a strong breeze swept through the house, violently ruffling the yellowed papers tacked to the wall.

"You old bastard, I did nothin' you didn't deserve!" Keith surprised himself by shouting.

He kicked the door open and reeled. He felt the weight of the aluminum bat in his hands, the blinding despair that nothing good would ever last, the rage that the sleeping man had taken everything, everything from him. He saw himself approach the bed. This time, he stopped short. It had been stripped, the sheet and pillows taken as evidence. But he could still feel his father's grip as the reclining man had tried to stay the blows and the ring of the bat when they told.

"I'm sorry, Pa. I'm so sorry," Keith sobbed. Hearing the words aloud made him realize he'd never said them.

He stayed past sunrise talking to a man he no longer hated, the whispered conversation dangerously close to a prayer. Finally he pushed himself up. He felt ... clear, and clean in a way he hadn't felt in years. A knock sounded on the door. He opened it and was swept up in a pair of loving arms.

"Oh my God, I thought it might be you over here!" Lacey's drawl was the exact same, even if her face showed the wear of time. She'd put on a few pounds and dark circles under her eyes, but otherwise she was the same. "Where'd you get these fancy wheels from?"

"My girl. Remember Kendra?"

"That black girl from your high school? Well damn, she works quick." Lacey squeezed his biceps admiringly, then looked up at him with a familiar glint in her eyes. "You should've come by to see me first."

"Oh yeah? Why's that?" he challenged her with a grin, falling comfortably into their old pattern of flirting. Despite their sexual history, Keith had genuine platonic feelings for Lacey, something like an aunt who gave blowjobs. She'd even written him a few times a year when he was imprisoned, and he sent her monthly payments out of thanks for her loyalty.

"So I coulda set you straight. Hell, I'd give you a tune-up for old time's sake right now, if I wasn't running late for work."

"Work? Don't I take good enough care of you?"

Lacey rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. The checks still come in handy and I appreciate it. Mind you, I been paying your property taxes and house repairs out of 'em. But I need the health insurance for me and my kid. Wanna meet her?"

Keith walked her to the red Nissan parked in his driveway and leaned down to see a curly haired imp of a girl with astonishing blue eyes. His breath caught in his chest.

"How old is she?"

Lacey's laugh reached the treetops. "No worries, she's only five. Hey Jordan, meet your Uncle Keith."

They caught up for a few more minutes before Lacey had to go. But she had one more thing to say.

"Look hon, I'll never question how you make your money, because you've been good to me. But the next couple years are gonna be hard and you've got to keep your hands clean. You can do it. You've already made it through the worst, right?" Her smile was a bit sad. She tapped his cheek tenderly; she'd sat in the driveway for a minute before knocking on the door. "I'm here for you, whatever you need. And I mean whatever."

Lacey grabbed Keith into a long, hard hug, turning her head to hide a sudden case of sniffles, and pulled out, Keith following behind to get the Evanses their car back.

+++

"The package is at 37654 White Pine Road," a disembodied voice said on the other line.

Cody hung up the phone, slicking his hair back with one hand.

"Who was that?" Bam asked, flexing his stiff knee from the couch.

"That spade lawyer who's been busting my nuts with that criminal suit the past two months. All of a sudden, he wants to play nice and come off some information."

"Jeez, wonder what changed his mind?"

"Who knows? Those people got no integrity, man." Cody poured himself a tumbler of scotch.

Bam eyed his partner, a little nervous. "What about the money? Kaine paid forty large to let the bitch alone and we took it."

"Fuck the money, man!" Cody crashed his glass to the floor. "My rep is garbage in the streets. This motherfucker has got to pay. Forty grand—my dick is worth more than forty grand!"

"Small as it is," Bam chuckled.

"What did you say, asshole?"

Bam looked up to see the barrel of Cody's gun and threw his hands in the air.

"I was just joking, you dick! When're we going?"

+++++++

Kendra awoke to a cool bed. Keith must've gotten up hours before. She wasn't concerned. He'd been so moody last night, maybe he needed some time alone. Actually, she did. Kendra kicked off the duvet and padded to the guest bathroom, unbothered by the sliding glass doors that would reveal her full glory to any passerby outside. There were never any passersby; the window framed the first dozen rows of her family's acreage. She stretched, giving her invisible audience an enviable view, then tucked her tresses under an oversized shower cap and turned the stall shower on full blast.

As important as the last few days had turned out to be, she needed to get back to her life, her work, her apartment. She couldn't take another day wandering around Millville, aimlessly tracing streets that didn't hold that many happy memories to begin with. And she wanted to talk to the witnesses in her case. Niall was a solid lawyer, but now that she'd rejected him she was sure his fervor about her case would cool. She needed to see them face to face, find out if they'd been threatened or bribed into recanting. The thought awakened her slumbering ambition. Kendra really loved her job, and she was good at it. Now that she thought about it, she couldn't wait to get back to Boston.

Her ambition wasn't all that stirred within her. She felt unfulfilled after last night. Keith was acting strange, she mused, soaping up her supple breasts. Obviously he wanted her—if her violin couldn't lie, his instrument was even easier to read. Her nipples came alive under her hands, itching slightly until she tugged on them. How she'd longed to feel Keith's rough fingertips twisting them with just the right pressure. A low rumble of pleasure tickled her throat and without being fully conscious of it, she bounced her titties up and down like she was teasing his cock between them. The round globes smacked together obscenely, sending droplets of water flying in all directions. It gave her a naughty idea. Kendra squeezed a thick, creamy line of body wash across the tops of her breasts and arched her back, aiming her proud mammaries at the spray and letting the water pressure beat it into bubbles. Effectively lubed, she hoisted each tit apart like a trophy, letting them slip through her clutches over and over again, creating a delicious frisson. She worked them vigorously, slapping them together and stretching them wide. The playful massage was getting to her; she didn't have to touch herself to know she was wet. She flexed her inner thighs rhythmically, holding off the first slick touch of her hand as long as she could. She leaned her torso against the glass of the stall, flattening her globes against it, and enjoyed the tiny shiver that rippled through her. Her asscheeks trembled a bit, thrust out behind her, and she wished Keith was there to stretch her walls the way only he could.

Eyes squeezed shut, she imagined it was his finger teasing her hot aperture, just breaking the seal enough that she leaked. Kendra tested her firm nubbin, just a grazing at first and then concentrating with firmer pokes, before returning to her wanting hole. Two fingers, then, spread and rubbing against each other and the tight walls clenching them. Her other hand alternated between breasts, plucking and tweaking each chocolate tip. She needed more than she could give herself, but the usual accoutrements she'd turn to in this situation were at her apartment in the city, not here at her parents' house. She settled, then, for the detachable shower head, leaning back on the tile and cocking up her leg, to aim it just right. She was so engrossed in her ministrations, she didn't notice that she had company.

Keith leaned against the doorframe, taking in her private moment. She threw her head back and he watched a line of light cascade from her chin, down the column of her neck, over her impudent nipples and down her belly. His balls ached to join her, but he had vowed not to touch her until he'd at least gotten on the path to a better destiny. With a grunt he slung himself back around the corner and to the downstairs office. The sooner he got started, the better.

Keith was decent as muscle, but where he really excelled was in planning the movements, timing and locations of the drops. Under him, the organization had seen less busts and less attention, a fact some of the players who were in it for the fame didn't care for. But he had won the respect of a lot of middle men, guys who worked the docks, borders, intake and exporters. Keith didn't see why he couldn't leverage those same skills for a legitimate career in logistics; product was product, after all. He began researching the most respected programs, with the goal to enroll ASAP.

Kendra jumped when she heard the door close and hurriedly finished up in the shower.

"Babe, are you okay? I woke up and you were gone." Kendra came to join him behind the sizeable oak desk, wearing his oversized button up shirt and not much else. She kissed his forehead and Keith returned to the monitor before she drew him into a deeper exchange. He'd only just put the sight of her in the shower out of his mind. She was making his vow mighty hard.

"I couldn't sleep so I went out for a drive. I want to discuss a few things with you."

"That's great, because I need to talk to you too."

Five minutes later...

"Hell no, Kendra! It's not safe for you to go back to Boston yet."

"I've made up my mind, Keith. Besides, you said you'd taken care of those guys." Her eyes narrowed. "You did, didn't you?"

"Of course—"

"Then it's settled. We're going home tonight."

"No, babe. Give me a few more days to make sure it's all clear first."

"But I thought you said—"

"I know what I said. But I need to make sure you're safe. I'll just check around."

Kendra shook her head. "I don't like the sound of that, Keith. What if you need me and I'm all the way up here?"

She really meant, what if I need you. The past week without him had been hell. She'd spun in circles, wondering if it had all been her imagination, if he had exaggerated what he felt for her. If he'd just used her for a revenge fuck after all. She berated herself as an idiot to think that, after close to a decade in prison, she even remotely knew this man, let alone enough to open herself to him so completely. On every level. Now that she had him again, she was loathe to let him go. Keith leaned his forehead against hers and kissed her round nose.

"What happened to you was my fault, because I was sloppy. I'd lose it if anything else went down. I have to protect you. Please. I promise I'll be back in a few days to take you home."

Kendra acquiesced, using his proximity to snatch a few moist pecks of the lip. She was still revved up, he could see it in her eyes. She shouldn't have to suffer, he rationalized to himself.

"I'm curious, counsel," he said, smoothly pushing the monitor and books out of the way on the desk. "Are you wearing panties?"

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not."

He hoisted her up on the cleared space in front of him and sat back on the banker's chair, sliding his fingertips along the silky-smooth skin of her inner thigh. "I'll have to investigate for myself."

Kendra scooched to the edge and opened her legs in response and breathed a sigh of thanks, glad she'd closed the door behind her. Keith's nibbles along her sensitive thighs had her hot and wet again in no time. Kaleidoscope colors swirled behind her closed eyes as he sucked and prodded, laving her tender bud like a precious morsel. This was different from their times before; he was worshiping her sex, purely for her pleasure. She ached in sweet agony, begging incoherently for him to fuck her, and he curled two long, thick fingers against her g-spot until she arched off the table and squirted in his mouth. His balls weighed ten pounds each, watching her quiver and purr. Piercing her now would be like sinking into heaven. Instead, he bent his head again and began to softly clean her with his tongue.

+++++++

An unfamiliar feeling wracked Niall's gut. He'd been holding the same highball glass so long the ice cubes were melting, but the thirty-year-old scotch was more security blanket than beverage at this point.

"Just an occupational hazard," he muttered to himself. But he couldn't concentrate and he couldn't unwind. As pissed off as Kendra made him, he couldn't deny the guilt eating at him for delivering her and the Evanses into the hands of those psychopaths. He'd rationalized it at the time: better he give up the information and collect the bounty than some dirty cop. Truth was, she'd made him feel insignificant and inadequate. She'd taken his help because she needed it, but she'd never looked at him the way she had that convict, that thug. She'd never let him cum inside her or hit it raw. He'd never even thought to ask, out of respect or her. He'd thought she wasn't that type of girl; turns out, she just wasn't that type for him.