Banjo Strings
By Larry Winfield
Published by 12.23 Press at Smashwords
Copyright 2010, 2012 Larry Winfield
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Part I – Old Maison Road (November 2005)
Chapter 1
Augustus Wainwright was enjoying one of his favorite sex dreams - it was a sweltering late-August day, he was thirteen, still bone skinny and not allowed to over-exert himself in the heat, and he caught the dark chocolate upstairs maid smoking in his mother's bathroom, her private sanctuary. He'd fancied that gal all summer, and now he had her, close enough to touch. His mouth stretched into a toothy, goofy grin, he ordered the maid to his room near the back of the mansion. He bent her over his desk, slid down her panties, undid his pants and just watched, breathing in the faint new aroma, entranced by his first real look at a woman's vagina. The best part came when the maid, realizing her position and resigning herself to it, reached back and took matters in hand. He shuddered in anticipation, and then an irritating noise, an itch he couldn't scratch, ice-picked its way from...where?
The skinny Augustus blinked, and the maid disappeared. He looked up, the window to the backyard opened on its own where he expected to see Mother bent over the azaleas in the garden. Instead, she was standing, wearing an old-fashioned plantation ball gown, passionately kissing a shirtless, barefoot black man. The noise scratched itself into a banjo being tuned, then strum. The sound vibrated through the teen and ended at his crotch. He looked down, realized he was fully erect, watching his mom and some black bastard making out. It jarred him awake.
He heard a murmur behind him on the bed, looked over to see Rebecca Sandiford, the girl from last night's party, curled up beside him fully dressed. Damn, he groaned. She didn't leave when the cops ran everybody off. Downstairs, he heard a banjo being played. He blinked his eyes, looking over at the clock on the nightstand. 3:02 AM. "He'll come at three in the morning, the day after your birthday." Auntie Aggie's words spilled from his lips, underscored by the sound...
He slowly got out of bed, his heart beating faster as he watched the girl sleeping. He heard the first verse of "Dixie" softly playing and then repeating, at once coming from the parlor downstairs, and as if from miles away, bringing a heaviness that settled around him and squeezed. He fought to calm himself, force his breathing a little closer to normal. He went to the window, looking up and down the street in front for the county sheriff's car. It was parked outside when he told Rebecca to leave with the rest of his friends, half an hour later he'd passed out after finishing off another bottle of Jack Daniels alone. She must've hid, and no deputy either, he worried as the song began again, a dreamy echo outside the room.
That goddamn cable show he'd been watching immediately sprang to mind. "The File Room." He hated the show, though he'd watched every week for the past year, growing more and more alarmed as they proved this supernatural crap was real. Each episode that had a ghost in it filled him with sick dread. This will make one hell of an episode, though, he thought.
Two months ago he was dragged from a beach bar in Rio and deposited in the family "East House" on the west side of Liberty Plaines in the kingdom of Wainwright County. They said it was his turn as the latest first-born son to go through this ordeal or be disowned. He was brought before his Auntie Aggie, Agnes Wainwright, the matriarch of the family. She spoke the names Jacob and Polly, told him about the curse that afflicted the Wainwrights and the LeChettes, another old prominent plantation family in the county.
Deeply embarrassed, she explained that Jacob was a runaway field buck who was caught by Justin Wainwright and Lucien LeChette in 1832. As they were bringing him back he put a curse on them and they killed him. Polly was a crazy old kitchen slave who died when Justin was a boy, and she mainly haunts Wainwright Park as a little girl when she ain't with Jacob. Augustus could tell there was a lot more to it than that, but Auntie wouldn't say, though her face tightened with the knowing of it.
Aggie showed him manila folders containing the original sheriff's reports for his late uncle Jeffrey Wainwright in '67 and Oscar LeChette in '83. The obituary pages folded inside listed their deaths as 'heart attack' and 'stroke' the morning after their twentyth birthdays.
Augustus never heard of Uncle Jeffrey. The family members never mentioned him, far as he could remember. He supposed the LeChettes never mentioned their first-born sons either, as if they didn't matter and would be forgotten soon enough. He realized he was never challenged or encouraged in school like his siblings; he was indulged and entertained, treated more like a child with a terminal illness, soon to be covered over and forgotten, like something shameful, like he was a part of the curse, just accept it and die and let them all move on.
He quietly contacted an attorney from the Biloxi phone directory and sent him a letter with instructions.
Augustus glanced over at Rebecca and grimaced as the music downstairs paused. In '83, Oscar LeChette had a young woman with him when the ghost twins visited. She didn't survive. The girl being here was bad...
He took a deep breath as "Dixie" started again, the sound crawling up and down his spine. He slipped on a night robe over his t-shirt and jeans and walked slowly to the door. He opened it as quietly as he could, watching for any movement from Rebecca, eased himself out and closed it with a muffled click. He crept down the hall and paused at the stairs, the music drifting up from the parlor below. He started down, close to the wall but staying clear of the paintings and portraits of the proud lineage of Wainwright men through the past two hundred years. On her last visit, Aggie pointed out a few of the Wainwright notables, along with the row of small portraits of the firstborn sons at age ten. Eight of them since the Northern Aggression and only two ever lived past the age of twenty. His picture wasn't there yet, but there was already a space for it. The grim chain was begun by Beau II, the unfortunate first son of Beauregard T Wainwright. Augustus passed his portrait as he reached the bottom of the stairs, facing the entrance to the parlor.
The banjo playing stopped abruptly. Upstairs, the sudden absence of sound stirred Rebecca awake. She reached out lazily for him, opened her eyes, finding the bed empty. She looked around the dark room, shadows draped over the Victorian and Colonial furniture. "Gus?" She felt a sudden chill, reached for the second night robe then slowly opened the door and ventured out.
Earlier, she'd hid in the upstairs closet as the deputy was breaking up the party, then went downstairs to the kitchen until Gus fell asleep. She had decided at the party that the ghost story was romantic, it made her like him even more, even though she'd never met him before tonight, but they both felt an immediate attraction when they met in the kitchen. On impulse she decided to stay and give him a wake up present, then go with him wherever he would jet off to, whether it was Rio or Prague or Timbuktu. Rebecca was taking a year off from college and exploring all of her wild impulses. And she discovered Augustus liked to travel and party. But, where was he?
In the middle of the parlor Augustus saw a young, powerfully built black man, the same one who invaded his dream, barefoot, shirtless, face sweltering from the sun. There was no sunlight in the room, but he could see it glinting off his back and arms as he swung a hoe in short, sure, downstrokes, with a phantom blade that chopped into the fine oak floor, but made no damage. Old Jacob...
Augustus winced as he felt his heart squeeze again. It passed after a few seconds. He grunted, then straightened up, breathing hard as Jacob stood upright, letting the hoe slip from his hands and fade away as it fell.
Augustus shivered as Jacob calmly studied him. The ghost looked no more than nineteen or twenty, his face calm and serene, though the eyes reflected all the ugliness and inhumanity captured those few years.
"You know who I am?" the ghost said.
Augustus tried not to show his fear. "Yes," he said just as calmly.
Jacob smiled. "Yo Uncle Jeffrey pissed hisself 'fore he could even speak." In a split second Jacob was standing a foot in front of him. Before he could react, Jacob placed his broad dark hand squarely on his chest.
"Time to see, Wainwright. See if you get a taste, or take a ride."
Rebecca walked slowly from the bedroom to the top of the stairs, wondering if she really heard a banjo playing. She finished tying up her robe and, as silently as she could, made her way downstairs, stopping at the landing. She saw Gus standing in the doorway of the parlor, shaking. There's somebody else in there, but she couldn't see. She inched around Gus, craning her neck to see into the dark room. Rebecca and Jacob saw each other in the same instant.
Jacob froze her in place with a forceful wave of his hand. He clawed the air in front of him the way you'd catch a fly, and she was instantly standing before him, immobile and trembling. Jacob turned to Augustus, his face registering disappointment. They know better than to have anybody else there, but they still do it. He looked around at the remains of the party decorating the parlor. Wainwright first born don't deserve birthday parties either, even one so sickly.
He continued reading the two, saw that they weren't nowhere near as bad as some Wainwrights, so they would get off easy. He only had mild charms on him this time, as concession to the tearful pleas of Agnes Wainwright. Jacob pulled Gus closer till they were nose to nose. "You takin' a ride alright, but you might just make it, but only on account of your weak heart and her."
His body glistened as he built himself up, his hands clutching the front lapels of the helpless pair's robes. Two specks of sunlight appeared before them, bright glowing embers. They began to shine and Augustus stared into its bottomless light, his eyes beginning to shine. A flash as his speck exploded and he suddenly gasped and began struggling against unseen bonds. Jacob released his grip on Augustus, watched him slowly fall backward, land gently on the floor.
Jacob watched Rebecca's eyes as they glowed in reflection of her speck of light. After the flash he was completely caught off guard when he saw which ride she began. Not Emma Jane, an older woman caught alone working in a slave patch at dusk, forced to service two local town boys taking a shortcut to Maison Road. This was Annie's ride, one of the worst ones he had, but he wasn't carrying... He felt his pants pocket for the pouch, and the two bones within, and he felt it resting on top of the pouch. Annie's bone.
He groaned. "Dammit, Polly..."
Jacob pulled the girl close, shaking with anger and regret. This girl didn't deserve Annie's ride. Holding her head still, he whispered in her ear "I'm sorry. I hope..." He released her, watched her settle gently to the floor beside Augustus Wainwright, who twitched like a fish on a hook.
Jacob closed his eyes, began to search the surrounding countryside for his companion, sweeping his gaze through the small town, past the square, and out beyond the town to the farms and the old Maison Road that once connected three great plantation houses, to the park where the third and most beautiful mansion used to stand. There, on the swings beside a gazebo, a young teenage girl wearing just a tuxedo shirt was in the middle swing, long dark legs kicking out as she swung forward. "What are you up to now?"
Just then a car sped past, skidded to a stop on the road past the gazebo then roared away. Polly smiled, jumped off the swing and started walking toward the road. When the car appeared back on the road approaching the park, Jacob waited, wondering who Polly was playing with.
****
Augustus spun, lost his balance, but didn't fall. He looked up, dazed, and saw his hands, feeling funny, smaller than before, bound to ropes. His arms were spread apart and tied to the large overhead branch of an old tree. The high sun dappled through the leaves. His eyes finally focused. His name was Samuel. And his skin was black as shit.
"...Tole you what I'd do if I caught you scratching on the ground again, Samuel. Young miss ain't here now, nigger!"
Augustus felt the spittle of tobacco juice splatter against Samuel's bare back. The heaviness in his chest returning, he tried desperately to yell out, beg, scream, but the mouth had a mind of its own, refusing to open. He felt Samuel straining against his bonds until an ear-splitting crack exploded just behind his head.
"Hold still, nigger..."
Samuel froze. Augustus was reduced to shallow gulps. The frayed end of the whip exploded between his shoulder blades, two, three times. He writhed between the ropes as the overseer put just the tip of the whip next to the skin...
"...Now you see why I run the yard for Master Beauregard, boy! He say 'don't make no long ugly scars, make little pretty scars, like spring blossoms...'" Crack! Four and five split the air at Augustus' right ear. His head snapped away. Six snapped just above the base of his spine and his legs went numb. Augustus was in agony, struggling as a wave of pins and needles cascaded down his legs, then the maddening mix of intense pain and complete numbness swept in fading waves over his body. His mouth finally opened, and Augustus screamed out, but it didn't sound like him, but like a young boy. It was getting harder to breathe the dry, hot air. He slumped to one side, looking like a marionette dangling from its strings, the heavy weight on his chest allowing him small, gulping breaths.
Seven. Eight.
The overseer enjoyed this part of the job; it was why he was hired. Master Beauregard detested the long, ugly scars many slaves carried on their backs. He considered it a failure in livestock management. Still, slaves had to be corrected and trained. "Make the scars smaller," he insisted, firing three overseers until he found one with a deft touch and deadly accuracy.
Nine.
Ten snapped sharply at the base of the boy's skull. Augustus gasped in shock, inhaled too quickly and swallowed his tongue. He flailed, desperately, his blocked throat silent. He passed out at lash number thirteen. He was dead by the time the overseer untied Samuel from the tree...
****
Rebecca came to running, stumbling to a noisy stop inside a line of trees, from the glow of the full moon into pitch darkness. She leaned unsteadily against a tree, her head spinning from being at Gus' mansion, then flashing eyes and sudden terror, and the sudden knowledge slammed into her head that she was also a Wainwright house girl named Annie, with a white man's blood on her hands, with her own blood staining her thighs. She looked back through the trees to LeChette House, grand in its own way, but not as majestic as her Massa's House. Screams inside and four men tearing out the back door almost made her scream as she froze behind a tree. When they went back inside she turned and ran quickly and silently through the woods.
South. Wainwright house is two miles south at the other end of Maison Road, Annie whispered inside her head. The three remaining cousins of Lucien LeChette, the Stonehill brothers, would be on her soon enough if she didn't keep moving. And they knew where she'd be running to.
Rebecca had no control of the body as Annie worked her way well off the roads south to Wainwright House, but she saw, and felt the young house girl's terror of being caught again by those boys. She'd already been violated by Master Franklin Stonehill, him still roughly pounding into her on the floor of the upstairs bedroom by the time she got one of Mistress LeChettes' knitting needles into his neck. She pulled herself off of his rigid, trembling penis as she stabbed him a second time in the neck, shoving him onto his back on the floor, pushing down her dress and watched him, wiping the blood from her hand on his undone pants. He shuddered and came, arms flailing, grasping at the large needle, sputtering loudly as death throes increased the intensity of his last orgasm. The boys downstairs in the billiard room laughed at Franklin's garbled outcry. He stopped gurgling and struggling finally, and bending over him, she took out the knitting needle. Blood sprayed from his neck, splashing across the front of her dress, sprinkling her face and neck.
She sprang off him in a panic, scrambling to her feet. Heart pounding, she took the dress off, wiped the blood from her face, then tossed it on Franklin's exposed crotch. She found a plain yellow dress in mistress' wardrobe and put it on, panic clawing at her fingers as she struggled with the buttons. The other Stonehill brothers could come up any moment to join Franklin in "gittin' some high yella nigger juice...."
Annie spent a long minute biting down on her terror, remembering the advice of Old Ruth: "If you ever wind up havin' to kill some damn white boy cause he won't leave you alone, only two things you can do. Run, and don't stop. If you can't run, child, use this..." And Old Ruth reached into her bosom and took out a small leather pouch, inside was a single-shot pistol and five bullets. "If it comes down to it, save the last one for yourself, child..." The pistol, hers now that Old Ruth passed over last year, was back at the cabin, hidden underneath.
She moved steadily, walking fast through the woods, running full out across the moonlit open fields at crossroads, till finally she reached the cabins back of the Wainwright smokehouse. No time for goodbyes or nothing, she thought, as she crept to the rear of Old Ruth's cabin and felt around for the hidey hole. Make my way to New Orleans and disappear. In the city she could pass...Rebecca felt the anger that flared up in the girl at the thought of "being able to pass," the monumental insult that being 'high yellow' was what drew the attention of the damned cousins in the first place. Two days before, they were visiting young master Julius at LeChette House, stopping their game of billiards when she walked pass the doorway carrying a parcel for Mistress upstairs. They marveled at how similar she was to Alexander Wainwright's dear sister Athena, who was a lovely girl, but spent far too much time with her mother and her bible to be available, but this young lass was very available and couldn't say no...
Annie found the pouch in a hole covered by a rock. Clutching it in her shaking hands, she crept around the cabins, scanning the yard between the cabins, the smokehouse and the main house. Her satchel, with all her worldly possessions, was in the upstairs sewing room. She dashed for the back door, praying the Stonehill boys weren't already at the front door...
Chapter 2
A brown sedan drove through broad Mississippi fields and scattered farmhouses barely visible in the dark, the horizon of faint lights sliding past. The car pulled over, inside light flicked on. The woman at the wheel - mid-to-late twenties, almost six feet tall with a toned athletic body and loose strawberry blonde curls down to her shoulders - checked out a printed Google map of the area. The marked trail showed a left turn at the next intersection, Old Maison Road.
Now heading north, the car's headlights flashed across a sign that read "Wainwright Park, two miles." She sped down the deserted road, letting her high-beams play across the trees and manicured lawns of a small public park. A small building that looked like a one-room schoolhouse on the left. On the right, a gazebo set off from the road, and beside it a child's swing set partly illuminated by a solitary streetlight at the corner. And a little black girl in the swing...
It took her a second after blowing through the intersection to realize...there was a child in the swing in the middle of the night. Wearing just a shirt...
She drove on, rolling through flatlands and more wide fields, coming upon the trees and manicured lawns of a small park, with the same little schoolhouse on the left, and a gazebo and swings on the right. And a little black girl in just a shirt, now waving at the approaching car, jumping off the swing and running toward the road. The woman felt everything slow down as the girl was caught in the wide beam of the headlights. The girl looked older, maybe fifteen, standing over five feet tall, most of it legs as she ran toward the car. Then she was past.
The sedan screeched to a halt at the intersection. Part of her balked at stopping, but she slowly backed up until she was between the schoolhouse and the swings. She looked around for the girl, seeing no one. The woman suddenly felt alone and small, the night pressing in on her. She jammed on the gas pedal and loudly skittered away from the park.
She replayed the image of the girl's young, forbidden fruit caught in the headlights, not noticing that up ahead she was approaching the schoolhouse, the gazebo, and the girl, now standing beside the road near the gazebo.
The woman slowed the car to a dead stop, ten feet away from the teen. She walked toward the car, waving, with an angelic smile. The woman was entranced by her honey-brown legs, the deep chocolate-colored areola topping her blossoming breasts, clearly visible through the shirt in the car's headlights. The beautiful smile, the virginal eyes.
She no longer thought of running, only of the girl's open and available body. Her hands were sweating on the steering wheel as she breathed uneasily, slowly, unsure what would happen next, fear and desire coursing through her as the girl walked across to the car's driver side, stopping at the window, her belly and breasts pressing against the glass. The woman caught her breath, gaze locked onto the hard thumb-sized nipples inches away. She heard a gentle giggle behind her, turned to see the girl sitting in the passenger seat. The shirt, an old fashioned faded white tuxedo shirt, was now unbuttoned all the way down to her lap. The woman could see the swell of the girl's breasts under the shirt, the nipples hard. Her eyes trailed back up to her full lips and innocent eyes.
"Hi. I'm Polly. You're pretty." She slid across the seat, the shirt sliding away from her glowing skin, crumpling the paper under her. The woman glanced down, heart racing as she watched the dark thighs, intoxicated by the scent of an aroused female, head spinning from the aroma, her own nipples, painfully stiff, sending delicious shocks through her body. Polly finished taking off her shirt and climbed onto the woman's lap, bringing her handful-sized breasts up to her lips as her eyes pleaded with the woman to take her. Trembling with desire and trepidation, the woman brushed her lips against the girl's nipple, lost as Polly sighed.
The woman's hands roamed over Polly's breasts, her back, lightly squeezing her ass, reaching around to the front, brushing her fingers against the girl's soft, kinky mons. She lightly sucked and nibbled on the turgid nipples as Polly unbuttoned the woman's blouse and pushed up her bra. As Polly touched and caressed the smaller breasts, she read the shadows on the woman's heart; the lust, the fear, the hate, and Marcus Hudson...
The woman suddenly felt her arms become heavy, then she couldn't move, and her arousal only increased. Polly leaned back, plucking her nipple from the woman's mouth, The woman began to tremble, on the edge of a small orgasm, eyes wide in terror as the girl's face grew hard and cold.
"You really did Marcus wrong, Miss Amanda. I've known white woman like you before, like Mistress Olivia. She liked hurting people too."
The girl vanished from her perch on Amanda's lap, appeared in front of the car, dressed again in the fully buttoned shirt. She looked up, as if scanning the black sky.
"Jacob?" she shouted, in a voice that cut through Amanda and triggered the orgasm, mixing the brief waves of pleasure with a piercing dread.
****
A few hours earlier, Amanda Harris was supremely pleased with herself, twirling a finger in a strawberry curl as she took the hotel shuttle to Bush Intercontinental Houston Airport, fifteen minutes away, on her way to a live meeting in Mobile, instead of the teleconference her "associate" Marcus Hudson had planned. She chuckled, thinking of her "executive-level solution" put into action that very night, that put a collar on "Sir Marcus," the "Affirmative Action" MBA junior executive bucking for her spot on the board after only a year with the firm. Before him, she was the rising star at the regional headquarters; that board position was hers.
They didn't get along at all at first, but it only took a few months to get past his natural distrust and suspicion, to change his view of her from hostile competitor to friend. She started with weekly "peace lunches" to share harmless office gossip. He soon relaxed around her, demonstrating his profound weakness by becoming far too trusting. Amanda took that time and used it well. She had enough time to sneak a keylogger onto his unguarded laptop to learn his passwords. She had enough time to gather together the different drugs she'd need to mix up a batch of her "Zeta House party potion," which made innocent freshmen and coeds very horny, very high, and very cooperative. She laughed out loud driving through the early morning countryside, remembering the bible study group Zeta House turned into their personal harem. The two couples went from nervous and shy to welcoming nymphos, taking on all comers. She remembered the strapon she shoved so far up that one boy's ass he shoulda screamed, but he just wiggled and grunted as he fucked back onto the hard rubber phallus. It sounded so much like a big dog barking, she thought. A barely contained smirk stole across her face, reflected in the window of the shuttle.
When she got herself invited to one of his "presentation tours" of teleconferences and personal meetings with current and potential clients, she was ready. A week before the tour, from El Paso to Atlanta, Amanda invited him to a bar near her apartment, where she got "tipsy," requiring him to take her home. Once inside, she turned on him, pushing him back against the door and kissing him as she fumbled with his belt buckle. That's right nigger, you know you want it, she thought. His pants dropped, as did she, to her knees, fishing his impressive erection from his boxers. She stroked him and waited, looking up with the babydoll face she used so well at frat parties in college. He had to make the next move. When his hands guided her lips to the bulbous, shiny head, she knew, she had him. She almost felt remorse for Hudson the first time she rode with abandon on his thick non frat-party sized dick, but she shoved that weakness aside; feeling sorry for his black ass would put his black ass in that board seat instead of hers.
On day three of the tour, Amanda and Marcus arrived at their hotel near the airport around 6 P.M. He had a round of one-on-one teleconferences planned, starting with the client in Mobile tomorrow afternoon, and he wanted to go over it again.
Amanda just smiled and patted his arm. "Relax, everything's ready."
She lagged behind at the front desk after Marcus took his keycard and walked to the elevator. She asked the concierge for any messages for "Annie." He checked the cork board behind the desk, out of Amanda's view, seeing, yes, a post-it with "For Annie" written on it. He checked out her athletic body with pert handful-sized breasts and a shapely ass. He handed her the note with a knowing smile she didn't notice as she snatched it, hurrying to catch up with Marcus. She shoved it into her skirt pocket as she turned the corner into the elevator banks and almost collided into him as he stood waiting. Riding up to the fourth floor, she agreed to come by his room in a few minutes, noticing the familiar hungry look in his eyes. Once in her room, down the hall from his, Amanda pulled out the paper - "Betsy, Rm. 732" was written in the center.
"Betsy" was the woman she'd found, and auditioned, after a month of searching in LA. Smiling, Amanda called her, gave her Marcus' room number and told her to be ready in an hour. She called room service, then went to his room and said she'd ordered burgers, fries, and milkshakes, was that ok?
A few minutes into the meal she told him she had a surprise - "some really excellent pot from a friend of mine. I thought we could eat first and then get high. But, I left it on the dresser in my room,' she said, giving him a wicked grin as she took off her blouse and slipped out of her shoes. He grinned, took her key card and hurried out. He was back in a minute, but she only needed thirty seconds to get out the little bottle from her skirt pocket, pop the lid and pour the red, sweet potion into his chocolate shake, stirring the straw to mix it. He returned just as she dropped her skirt, revealing a lacy black thong as she sat back in the chair beside her tray. He brought her a small zippered pouch as he admired her perky breasts in the French-cut bra.
Half an hour later, after finishing off a couple bowls of her potent weed, he started getting a slightly goofy look on his face from the potion as his penis began to stir on its own. He didn't notice.
"Isn't it hot in here, Marcus?" She remarked, and smiled as he slowly attacked the buttons on his shirt. She moved the serving trays to the cart and pushed him back onto the bed, removing the rest of his clothes and stroking his erection. Five minutes later, Marcus had a tremendous orgasm, lost to the wonderful sensations he felt, his nerve endings all screaming pleasure as he spurted in a lazy arc that pooled on his chest. His dick was still erect and would be for another hour or so, Amanda thought as she lightly bit the drooling head and intently watched his quivering response. It's time.
She rolled off the bed and dialed Betsy. "It's me. Come down now," she hissed into the hotel phone. She grabbed a towel from the bathroom and gently wiped him off, savoring the moment. Enjoy your balls tonight, she thought, I'll have them tomorrow, along with control of your precious seat on the board.
She turned to his laptop on the dresser, powered it up, then opened a browser and went to her travel site. A soft knock at the door and she grinned at Marcus, rolling around on the bed in slow motion. Showtime, big boy... At the door she took the "Do Not Disturb" sign off the inside handle, quickly opened up and ushered in Betsy, tall, gorgeous, with flowing shoulder-length red hair to match her full red lips, wearing a slinky dark red evening dress, elegant sandals and pearls. She took in Amanda's pert breasts and smiled as the lingerie-clad woman hooked the sign on the outside and closed the door. They just stood there and drank each other in, then embraced and kissed, long and slow.
"Hi. Annie," she said in a sweet lilt.
"Hello yourself," said Amanda. "We don't have much time. Your host is this way, and he can't wait to meet you." Amanda led the way as Betsy admired her cute ass in the thong.
They entered the dark bedroom to find Marcus propped up on his elbows, eyes closed, his erection still strong. Amanda walked over to him and kissed him. His eyes slowly opened and he tried to reach for her, but she backed away. He noticed another woman standing beside Amanda, a tall redhead with big lips peeling down a red dress to her slender waist. She had beautiful grapefruit-sized breasts with little pink nipples sticking through the open slits of a see-through bra. Betsy kneeled beside him on the bed and guided a nipple between his lips as Marcus' hands slowly, clumsily caressed Betsy.
Amanda returned to the computer and confirmed her red-eye flight to Mobile on a small airline using her own money. Nobody in the LA office needs to know about this trip yet, and Marcus will say what I damn well tell him to after tonight, Amanda snorted. She watched him, still sitting up, following Betsy's whispered instructions as she held him close. Marcus, in a daze, squeezed her breasts together until the nipples were inches apart, alternating from one stiff nipple to the other.
"That's right, like that," Betsy purred, sliding a hand down to his erection and lightly stroking him.
Amanda left the computer and crawled onto the bed at his legs, kissed up his thighs, brushed her lips against Betsy's caressing fingers, then captured his cock with her mouth. Marcus had barely come down from the melting waves of bliss he was riding. He was one big pleasure center, and he loved it. Nipples in his mouth and fingers stroking his dick was the center of his world. He'd come already and was still hard as a rock, and now sudden wet warmth enveloped him...
Amanda kissed and swallowed the shiny head, rotating around it lovingly, then went down further, meeting Betsy's fingers coming up, admiring his cock the way she admired all her new toys. She glanced over at Betsy's dress as she relinquished his dick, eyes lingering over the barely noticeable bulge at the junction of her thighs. "Ok, ready?" she asked.
Betsy nodded and they stretched him out on the bed. The redhead quickly finished undressing and got on the bed, straddling his face. Amanda smiled, admiring Betsy's neat arrangement of a slightly smaller-sized furry vagina tucked behind a small scrotum and a rigid four-inch dick.
Amanda returned to the stiff black cock, licking the head as she watched Betsy. The redhead brought her pussy close to his face; he started licking as soon as he felt her intoxicating wet folds brush his lips. He couldn't see a thing, but he didn't care. About anything. This was the best night of his life!
Amanda left the bed and went to her skirt in the chair, took the digital camera out of the other pocket. She turned on the lamp in the furthest corner of the room, giving just enough light to avoid using the flash. She checked the camera and went to the foot of the bed and took in the view.
Betsy was guiding Marcus, slowly sliding his tongue further and further out of the wet furrow and onto her meat, getting it wet. Amanda climbed aboard and resumed humming on his dick. As soon as he moaned loudly and started shaking, Betsy slid her pelvis back and with her hand, stuck just the tip of her penis into his mouth. His lips clamped on the small head as Amanda rapidly bobbed her head on his stiff pole to keep his senses reeling. She backed off as he started trembling. Not yet, big boy.
Betsy alternated Marcus from her dick to her pussy, sliding her cunt lips, then her cock, over his busy tongue. Amanda got up and steadied the camera as Betsy moved down and straddled Marcus, facing him. She eased herself down on his rigid cock, stroking her own erection and moaning in time with him. Amanda had a dozen shots by the time Betsy climbed off his pulsing dick and slid down until her tongue found his puckered anus and painted his balls and asshole. She straightened up, reached for the pillows on the bed and shoved them under him.
Betsy wet two fingers and began slowly easing them into him as Amanda leaned down and licked his dickhead to distract him. It took a few minutes, but when he started fucking back onto Betsy's fingers, she smoothly slid them out and positioned her stiff cock at his asshole. Betsy slowly inched into him, rocked back and forth, gasping as Marcus' clenching ass gripped her throbbing dick. When she bottomed out, Amanda moved back off the bed to get shots as Betsy stroked her full length into Marcus, grasping his wet pole of flesh and stroking it in time to her thrusts.
After five minutes of Betsy, Marcus cried out as he came again, three spurts that puddled on his belly. Betsy kept stroking him as she pounded his ass with her rigid cock. He remained hard.
Betsy felt herself about to come, so she pulled out of Marcus's ass and plunged her steaming pussy back down on his cock, grinding on his meat until she stiffened and squealed, gushed around his pole, spurted twice on Hudson's chest. And Amanda had it all on film.
She cleaned Marcus off with the towel then climbed back on the bed, lowering her humid pussy down to his waiting mouth. The two of them rode Marcus for another lazy half hour, Betsy slowly grinding his penis in her tight snatch as Amanda trailed kisses from Betsy's lips to both hard, plump little nipples, down her quivering belly to her short, throbbing dick. They got dressed while Amanda downloaded the photos into Marcus' laptop (my laptop now, she thought). Marcus lay in the bed, sighing, eyes barely open as his dick slowly began to deflate. Amanda flipped through the shots, marking the best ten, showing Marcus' face, but not Betsy's. Perfect.
At the door, they embraced and kissed, tenderly. Amanda promised Betsy that "Annie" would see her in LA in a week. Amanda watched Betsy gracefully stroll down the hall to the elevator, a smile of accomplishment on her face.
Back in the room, Amanda giggled as she went to the computer to finish her work. She printed out the ten pictures, retrieved a memory stick from her skirt pocket. From it she printed the letter she'd already written to Marcus - telling him in specific terms what she thought of him, why teleconferencing Mobile instead of making a personal visit was a stupid decision, not one a board member would ever make, what would happen with the pictures if he didn't do exactly as ordered (stay in the room for the next three days and hold your dick, cancel your meetings, no phone calls other than room service, and no contact with LA, or else), and what she expected of him when she got back. She took an empty manila envelope from his bags and put the papers inside, wrote "Open Immediately" on the front and left it on his chest.
He was asleep, and would be for another twelve hours, too late to interfere in her plans, but let's make sure. She went into his pants and took out his wallet. He had four credit cards and $2500 in cash. She took out $2000 and the cards, and returned the wallet to his pants. That'll hold him for a couple days, she thought. She turned off the laptop and took it, the sleek portable printer and his cell phone back to her room. She left the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the outside.
Amanda changed back into her traveling clothes and finished packing her flight bag. It was a little after 9 P.M., plenty of time to catch the red-eye to Mobile for the afternoon meeting. With everything on Marcus' computer, she could hold her own teleconference with the other clients from any place with a connection. She stood at the door with her flight bag and the laptop cases, feeling the rush of adrenalin wash over. We're crossing the Rubicon, she thought. No turning back. She took a deep breath and steeled herself, focusing on the image burned into her skull last year during a morning board meeting. All the members were assembled and waiting to introduce Marcus. She'd been in the ladies' room and got back too late. The board president had already begun talking and Marcus Hudson was already positioned, standing a few feet back from the slightly ajar double doors. The boardroom erupted in applause as the doors parted to admit him like a conquering hero.
At the front desk, Amanda explained that she had to leave unexpectedly and would be gone for a few days, but that her associate would be staying. She strolled out to the group of waiting airport shuttles, triumphant.
After her flight left for Mobile things started to go bad for Amanda. Her plane developed engine trouble and had to land in Baton Rogue. There were no other flights out to Mobile till morning. In a foul mood, she trudged to the car rental area, but only found one agency still open, a light-skinned girl was sipping coffee at the counter. She was such a bitch to the girl she got an older model car without the plug-in GPS alert system.
"That's the only car we have available at this hour with our garage closed, ma'am,' she smirked politely. The girl handed Amanda a road map of the southern states from a rack on the counter. "Just stay east on Highway 12 till it turns back into the Ten and you'll be in Mobile by morning," she said, but Amanda barely listened as she took the map and lugged her things out to pick up her rental. It was a brown four-door with a nasty trunk, so the flight bag went into the back seat. Amanda put the laptops in the front.
She drove out of the rental lot and made her way to Highway 110, driving south to 10 East, making sure she was on the right onramp to Highway 12, avoiding the depressing spectacle on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain. The radio was tuned to a news station so she turned it up as she hit the gas, speeding up on the deserted stretch of highway. "Its one forty-eight and time for weather and traffic..." Hmm, it's a little over 200 miles to Mobile...I'll be there before sunrise, she thought, easing back on the gas to the speed limit. Amanda began to feel her control returning, once again driving instead of flying to meet clients like a board member.
Her mind drifted as she fell into automatic driving mode, no longer hearing the radio. She loved to fly. She loved taking red-eye flights on one of the company's fleet of Lear jets, greeting the dawn in a new city, a new day to conquer. And Marcus fucking Hudson wasn't even a board member and he's already been on more flights than any of the other junior associates. She remembered thinking he must be blowing one of the senior members to get so many free trips. But what if he does for real? What if he is "on the downlow" and she could get proof? Amanda smiled. "Now I do!" she shouted, bursting out in a fit of giggles, supremely pleased with herself and her "executive level solution."
"...Toxic-chemical spill on Highway 10, near the Pearl River Bridge on the Louisiana state line. It's already causing backups on both sides, and they don't expect this to be cleared up in time for the morning rush..." Damn!
She pulled over to the emergency lane and checked the map again. Highway 59 was a few miles ahead. It went up sharply northeast, deep into Mississippi. The map didn't show any of the state roads, so she pulled out her laptop, praying that a working cell phone tower was nearby. She was able to get online and pull up Google Earth, and zoomed in on the web of local state and county roads. She found an east-bound county road turn-off from 59 near Picayune. She saved the map, bookmarked her place and turned off the laptop. She drove off with new determination; the executive solution is flexible, I'll make it work!
Once she reached the county road turn-off, Amanda stopped and opened the laptop back up to the Google map, listening to the news for any more on the accident to the south, trying not to listen to the sudden small voice of worry as she looked around at her surroundings. Highway 59 shot straight ahead, NNE, the highway lights suddenly smaller cutting through the dark countryside. Up ahead, she saw the shallow off ramp that curved to the right and ended at an L-shaped intersection. The branch she had to take shot east, away from the ribbon of lights and safety, into the backwoods gloom. She thought back to the girl at the rental counter, sticking her with this brown heap with no emergency call unit in the car. "Little piss-colored bitch," she muttered. "I'll show her and Marcus!" She snapped off any further nagging fears and got back to her task, saving a picture of the area and pulling the small travel printer out of Marcus' laptop case. Ten minutes later, she was rolling east with the high-beams on, the computer gear stowed and three printed pages showing a marked path all the way to Mobile lying beside her on the seat.
Leaving the cab light on, she checked the top page. The next twenty miles of the road's route crossed sparse intersections and stretches of farmland with scattered towns along the route. She drove on, making excellent time on this also deserted road. Why didn't anyone else do what I'm doing, she wondered. She'd only lost half an hour, she sighed, relaxing as she drove on through the enveloping darkness.
The news update at 3 A.M. didn't improve for the highway jam. Traffic was still backed up, but the worst of it was miles behind her. There was still no one else on this county road - all mine, she thought, turning off the radio and the cab light, getting into the drive now, nothing between her and Mobile...
The county road intersected State Highway Forty-Nine up ahead. Amanda saw a truck stop to the left and a motel on her right as she drove through. Once she crossed the highway, it was like the air had a different feel and scent. Heady, familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. Then she turned left, through Wainwright Park.
Chapter 3
In the Wainwright "East House" on the western edge of Liberty Plaines, Jacob stood before the contorted body of Augustus Wainwright, disgusted with the young master's failure to endure even the suffering of a young boy. Pitiful. That was the easiest ride I could give you, he thought, glancing over to the girl Rebecca, who was still in the early part of Annie's memory.
He closed his eyes and returned to the park. He closed in on the brown sedan, saw the out of state plates and a young woman behind the wheel, staring hard at Polly. Despite himself, he grinned at the teenaged ghost, pressing against the car window as she slipped inside. It won't take long now to get a read, he thought.
His gaze approached the car and slid into the back as Polly was shrugging out of her shirt and climbing into the woman's lap. The woman's lust was coming off her in waves, a familiar tang both he and Polly recognized. As she caressed the girl's body and feasted on her breasts, the woman...Amanda, was being read by Polly. The darkness in her heart, right on top, hot and thick, what she did with great pride and anger a few years ago, and again to an innocent young black man just a few hours ago. The tang of Mistress Olivia LeChette, who liked girls and boys, liked them young, and often loved them to death. The young ghost shivered at the memory; Amanda mistook the movement and clutched her tighter, moaning around the girl's hard nipple between her lips. Jacob saw Polly's face grow hard, knew that particular look would bear down on the woman, make her arms and legs heavy and clamp her mouth shut. Wrapping her up for me, he thought. She should, the way she messed up my judging...
His gaze left the car, hovered above as Polly appeared back outside, standing in front of the car, dressed again in the shirt. Polly called his name as he returned to the parlor where the girl twitched on the floor beside the latest weak-assed prospect from the Wainwright clan. Young miss, you just got lucky, he thought.
Jacob left the parlor, stepping through a dark corner in the hallway and emerging from the shadow of an old, gnarled tree. It was one of three ancient red maple trees in a small stand of river birch next to a creek that meandered through an unkempt field. He walked around to the opposite side of the tree, stopping at a large knothole on the trunk above his head, visible in the moonlight. He reached up and inside it, removed a large leather bag and from it took out a piece of wood with blood stains on it. He put the bag back inside the tree trunk and removed the smaller pouch and Annie's bone from his pants pocket. Jacob added the wood to the other charms inside, a folded scrap of paper covered in random numbers and letters, for Samuel, and Emma Jane's little bone with a piece of faded blue cloth tied to it. Annie's bone, with its faded scrap of stained yellow cloth tied around it, Polly snuck into his pocket. All the charms in the pouch and back in his pocket, the ghost went back around to the night shadows cast by the old Red Maples, entered them and appeared on the road beside Polly.
Amanda, paralyzed, breathing rapid and shallow, began a muffled wailing at seeing the young, powerfully built black man appear, looking no different than the average shirtless young ghetto thug as he walked to the car, except his eyes were sad, not hard or feral. That frightened her even more as he appeared next to her in the passenger seat, the sense of sadness and regret plainly spoken in his eyes.
"It's ok," Jacob said as he stroked her hair, attempting to calm her as he straightened up her clothes, feeling her finally relax. "I know you don't understan', you ain't from round here, but that's ok. You gon' help a young miss who's carrying a burden not meant for her."
Jacob took the pouch from his pocket and removed the piece of wood. The hard glare of the streetlight revealed a rough heart scratched onto one side. He placed it next to her cheek; she was powerless to resist him turning her face toward his. Between them a speck of sunlight sparked into being, glowed as she surrendered to it, then it flashed and she screamed. He reappeared in front of the car beside Polly, watched Amanda slump over in the seat in a twitching dance.
Jacob turned to Polly, removing the pouch from his pocket, taking out Annie's bone before putting away the little piece of wood. Her face screwed up; she was about to start making excuses, but his eyes stopped her.
"Polly, you playing around messed up my judging. That girl and this woman is on you."
He put the little pouch away, held her by the shoulders and waited until she looked him in the eyes. "It ain't over yet," he said, pointing at the car. She looked away, anywhere but at Amanda's twitching form in the car. It wasn't just the woman. It was the out of state license plates...
"We ain't never took this outside befo'." He looked beyond her to the hard night horizon, to the world beyond the park, the town, his eyes growing hard.
Polly, genuinely regretful now, murmured a low "I'm sorry."
Jacob saw her close to tears, embraced her gently, comforting the child she was. "I know, I know... "
****
Rebecca was losing herself within Annie's high-pitched terror of the Stonehill brothers. She felt her own legs pumping, urging the slave girl on as she sprinted from the slave cabins toward Wainwright House; get in, get your things, get away.
Annie's eyes focused on the rear parlor window all the way to the back door. The curtains were wide open, but the room was dark. She skidded to a stop beside the low steps up to the door, right under the window. She fought to control her breathing, listening for the sounds of men or horses as she crouched exposed in the broad back yard of the mansion. She swallowed and rushed up the steps, slowly opened the door and peeked through the crack. All clear. She took another deep breath then slipped inside soundlessly.
She steered carefully around the elegant furniture as she moved to the parlor's front entrance. Just beyond, the hallway of the great house extended straight through it, taking a short left detour at the second of the three landings before opening under the gracefully curving arch of the front stairway, facing the broad double doors at the grand entrance. It was dark, only a few lanterns left glowing along the wall. She couldn't see the front door from here without going down the hall, but that risked waking up the nightboy, who normally dozed in a chair by the entrance. She didn't like him anyway; he preferred being a house nigger. He'd enjoy turning her over to the Stonehills. He'd wake up the house soon enough when they got here. She turned and crept up the rear staircase.
The sewing room was on the left, a few feet away from the back stairs. She peeked just above floor level, thankful it was quiet. She slipped into the room, went to the closet that held old bolts of material from previous balls and dances and retrieved her satchel from behind the pile.
She put the pistol inside and was about to close it up when Rebecca felt herself being...pushed. She got a flash of another woman, around her age, screaming as she and Rebecca tumbled past each other, through whirling darkness, into...the room.
Rebecca found herself in the sewing room, a few feet away from Annie, floating a foot or so off the floor. She couldn't hear Annie's voice any longer, but she still felt the girl's fear, the other woman's panic and confusion as well. She saw Annie's reflection in a mirror, but also the woman who took her place. She was dressed in a modern skirt and blouse and appeared to float within Annie's outline. And her name was...Amanda. Rebecca heard a little girl's voice in her head now, whispering about Amanda and what she did to someone named Marcus Hudson just a few hours ago.
Rebecca was still trying to make sense of it when she lurched forward just as Annie moved to the window. Rebecca careened past Annie, passed through the window, drifted to a stop a dozen feet above the ground. Disoriented, she fought back a wave of nausea and tried to focus on Annie standing at the window. The slave's frightened start, disappearing from view and the sound of horses below told her the Stonehill boys were just arriving. Rebecca spun around, saw young master Julius LeChette was with them, trailing from behind, staying on his horse as the boys dismounted and ran toward the entrance of the mansion.