Feature Writer: Mark Gander /
Feature Title: THE HONEY DEW LIST 4 /
Published: 01.12.2016
Copyright: © 2016 by Mark Gander
Story Codes: MF, FF, MM, Bi, Drug-use, Hypnosis, Paranormal, Incest, BDSM, Anal, Pegging, Pregnancy, Squirting, Voyeurism, WS, Violent /
Synopsis: A little play on words here. Damien Martin is right on the verge of dumping his rather demanding live-in girlfriend Cassidy Lassiter, when she surprises him with a new “honey-do list” that isn’t so bad after all. /
The Honey Dew List
Chapter 4
Damien awoke the next morning, a Monday, surprisingly early all things considered, but he still had but only so much time before he had to get ready for work. He was about to shave before he showered, but right then, a hand … a very feminine hand, intruded. It was Cassidy and she had other ideas.
“Honey, why bother with that? I think that you’re a brand-new man, so maybe a brand new look is better. Besides, if you don’t waste time shaving, you can have more time to shower with me. Oh, and just wait until tonight. You’re in for a treat. We ladies have plans for our man, yes, we do,” his girlfriend told him with a very seductive kiss, while getting ready for her own job.
“That does sound rather nice, thank you very much. I don’t know what exactly you have in mind, but it will definitely be on my mind for much of the day. I hope that I can get a few things done, though, despite that. By the way, how’s the new job? It’s not as exciting as the campaign, I know, but hopefully it’s really up your alley in some ways,” Damien asked her about it, mostly because now that she was sympathetic to his plight, it was easier to be to hers.
“Yeah, I guess that I haven’t exactly listened to you of late, so perhaps it’s been easy to tune me out. I don’t blame you, honestly. Look, I like it. I honestly do. You don’t have any idea what it’s like, though, to have people look at you like you have a second head. I walk to the cafe nearby and everyone else gets a discount for working in the same plaza. Me? Nope, apparently my work doesn’t warrant a discount. Well, excuse me, but I could have sworn that I help people out. That’s a pretty big deal. They should give me a motherfucking discount, but I bet that they don’t like what I do. Well, let their girlfriends need a cheap exam and see how quickly they change their tunes,” Cassidy commented on her new position at the women’s health clinic.
“Ain’t that the truth, huh? It is an irony, though, given your eagerness to breed. It’s not what people associate with your organization,” Damien teased her under the shower jets as he washed her off … and fondled her ass.
“Hey, it’s all about family planning, and we’re planning ours, right? We’re taking responsibility for our parental duties and rights. You’re not just treating me as a brood mare, you know. And you’re just picking on me!” Cassidy realized as she stopped rambling long enough to wash him clean.
“Guilty as charged,” he winked as he finished preparing for work, “Kiss me, dear, and wish me luck. I have a feeling that this is going to be a very busy news cycle these days.”
“Best luck, not just good, babe. You’re the best, so you deserve the best,” Cassidy gave him a very steamy kiss, but the real shock was when Maryam and Tammy did the same.
“Time to get used to it. In time, I hope that you get at least six such kisses at the start of the day, if possible. She’s right. You are the best,” Maryam told her new lover, her daughter’s boyfriend.
“My sentiments exactly, dear,” Tammy said as she planted another kiss on Damien, “We’re all your ladies, so we all deserve to taste your lips and tongue, your loving kiss.”
“Well, on that note, I must go to work, girls. God, I’m really going to love this life!” Damien chuckled as he left, to the sound of laughter from the Lassiters.
Of course, both Cassidy and Maryam had to go work soon afterward, but Tammy was unemployed and hadn’t gone to college yet, so she had plenty of time to stick around, something that would have real effects over the course of the week. For now, though, the rest of them left her to her own devices as they went about their day.
For Damien, he made good time, even after stopping at a Wendy’s to grab some breakfast at the drive-thru. He could have picked any of the fast food places, but he liked the girl at the window, who always got his order right and always smiled at him, though she had a wedding band on and was thus not a likely prospect for more than light and distant flirting. She looked about twenty-two or so, a year younger than Cassidy and four years older than Tammy, but was trapped in a minimum wage job, at least for now, due to circumstances probably mostly out of her control. She was black, like so many workers in fast food (though many were white, too), but she would have blushed if she could whenever he winked at her.
“Thank you, Charlene. You always treat me right,” Damien smiled, getting only a slightly embarrassed smile and laugh from her, as her co-workers teased her for some reason.
“Oh, you are very welcome, sir,” Charlene answered as she handed him a receipt with her phone number on it.
Damien couldn’t help but notice that her marital status didn’t stop Charlene from leaving him rather personal information, but he didn’t do anything yet about it, because he still had work to do. Cruising into work, he finished his breakfast in the parking lot, headed straight to the men’s room to clean up, and went to the time clock to punch in. Luckily, as an editor, albeit more junior, Damien had a bit more leeway than Tara, who came in minutes later, wearing an elf costume, no less. She was always his favorite reporter at the paper, though, so he was quick to call her into his office to avoid their bosses catching on.
“I can add your time in retroactively with accounting later. I just wanted to call you in to cover your ass first. If they saw you just clocking in, the chief might go much harder on you than on me. Besides, they might not discipline you if they think that I already did. What’s with the elf outfit, by the way? Meeting with Santa? Or is this a cosplay thing?” Damien teased her, though his boner under the desk was affected by how sexy and cute she was in that costume.
“Thank you, but we both know why you want to cover my ass. You think it’s a sweet one. You also like my legs, ergo your obvious discomfort, which to me indicates a hard-on. Look, I’m a married woman, but I am rather flattered by the attraction, trust me. I’m never going to cheat on my husband, but if he’s ever dumb enough to cheat on me or leave me, you’re my first draft pick for a revenge fuck, and yes, I would have one so fast his head would spin. That’s not cheating. It’s revenge. I’d probably take him back in a heartbeat, but only after making it clear that I slept with another man and that he would have to accept it as the past. I wouldn’t keep up the affair, though. Just like Santa, I treat people differently if they’re naughty or nice,” Tara confessed, blushing.
“And the fact that I’m your boss wouldn’t be an issue?” Damien noted, chuckling.
“Not really. You’re not the editor-in-chief and I think that I’m a big girl. Certainly a tall one. I can handle myself with you, if you were a prick. You’re not, anyway. You’ve never made any moves on me. You’ve respected my marriage vows, which I appreciate. If you were going to abuse your power, you would have harassed me much sooner than this, even before you became an editor, as a senior reporter. Trust me. If I ever find myself free of my vows for even a short time, you’re getting some action. I would care that you have a girlfriend, except that you don’t seem worried and she treats you like shit. Or did you break up with her?” Tara wondered now.
“No, I’m not worried. No, she doesn’t treat me like shit anymore. And no, I didn’t break up with her, but I nearly did last Saturday. I was seconds away from it, in fact. Cassidy and I … well, we’re redefining our relationship and monogamy doesn’t seem to be in the cards anymore, my dear elf. She’s realized how much she goofed up and we both kind of changed a few of the rules to suit both of us. That’s all I can say for now. Now, seriously, what’s with the elf get-up?” Damien repeated.
“Yeah, that’s for the piece that I did this morning, on the local mall Santa that caused such outrage. Apparently, he’s black. I’m thinking, so the fuck what? But, evidently, it gets worse. He’s also Dominican, so he’s black, Hispanic, AND an immigrant. You can imagine the outrage in certain quarters, especially since he’s a Roman Catholic and plenty of local preachers still think that the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon. So, yes, my piece will defend him, staunchly, and if others don’t like it, they can write letters to the editors. You know, like you,” Tara winked at him now quite saucily.
“Aren’t you Catholic?” Damien commented.
“Honey, I’m a bit of a lukewarm Catholic, but it’s true if I break up with the husband, I probably won’t take the extra step of divorce. Why should I? Best to cover my bets, just in case. It’s adultery whatever I do, so I might as well shack up with the guy, plus I would get legal rights that no girlfriend of his would ever have. Plus, if we both tire of our new partners, we can jump right back in bed with each other and no red tape. It pays off now and then to be part of a repressive religion,” Tara teased a bit more.
“So, if, hypothetically, you slept with me, I’d be an almost perfect choice, already being engaged and everything,” Damien remarked.
“Actually, you would, come to think of it. As long as Cassidy understood. But let’s be blunt here. Even if I broke up with Roger, I’d eventually go back to him. I’d be smelling of your cum, perhaps, but I suspect that he would smell of another woman’s juices, and we’d both have to deal with it. No break-up with Roger’s going to be permanent. I’m just warning you upfront, so, yes, a man with a fiancee would be perfect for a fling or tryst or love affair, whatever you call it.
“I’m madly in love with the guy, no matter how crazy that sounds or how dense he can be at times … I think that he feels the same way, deep down. He’s my soulmate and he would forgive me many things, and, yes, I can be a handful at times,” Tara confessed, being painfully honest right then.
“Ever consider open marriage?” Damien smiled right then.
“If I thought that Roger could handle the jealousy, but I’m not sure that he could. I probably could, just because I know that I could jump your bones whenever I needed it, or am I wrong? Anyway, enough flirting. I have to fight myself not to do things to you … bad things. Things that I just assured you that I’d never do unless the marriage broke down. But every time that I’m alone with you, I want badly to rip your clothes off and have it out with you here in your office, and that’s disturbing, because I usually have no trouble resisting the occasional impulse to fuck another man. With you … it’s more than occasional, that impulse.
“It’s a constant urge that I have to fight off daily. I guess that I’m in denial about the extent of my attraction to you, but you understand that I couldn’t face myself if I cheated on Roger. I would have to atone and that could get rough. You’re the only man other than Roger that I have trouble resisting. Mind you, it’s stronger with him because of my love for him. Still, even now, I feel these intense urges to fuck you. It’s like an itch that I want to scratch, but dare not for fear of what might happen,” Tara admitted to him.
“Then we need to return to shop talk, don’t we? We have a lot of business to do, anyway, but I can see why we have trouble focusing on it around each other. The last thing that I would ever want to do is fuck up your marriage, so just know that as long as your marriage is intact, I’m off-limits and I will always refuse your advances. If that helps, consider it a standing position. However, the moment that you’re released from your obligations, even temporarily, I’m going to rip your clothes off and have my way with you,” Damien smiled.
“Now, about this Santa, back on track here, you’re essentially arguing that Santa is a universal concept that transcends racial and national boundaries, that he belongs to all children, regardless of their origins, ethnicity, etc. Am I close? Well, that is in keeping with the spirit of Christmas as popularly understood. Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men. Yes, I like it. It’s very much a part of the progressive attitude that I want to see more of in the Volunteer, a more brazen kind of liberalism,” Damien grinned as he tried to will his boner down.
“Exactly. You know me well. Oh, and seriously, thanks for saving my bacon. Both professionally and maritally. I’m usually a good girl and don’t normally have to struggle to keep my wedding vows. I would confess this, but then the priest might get excited. Maybe I should, anyway. See if I can make Father Duncan sweat. Be even more fun if it were right before Mass, just to see how he behaved around me.
“Luckily, Roger’s Baptist, so he wouldn’t have a clue. He never goes to Mass with me. He does like that I follow the Church’s teachings on birth control and always go bareback. By the way, if you and I ever got it on, no rubbers, mister. Adultery is bad enough without adding more sins. I’ve only broken that rule once and it just felt wrong. It was with Roger and neither of us liked it, so we stopped.
“Pity I can’t get Santa to spank me for being such a naughty girl. If I picked Roger, he would wonder what I did wrong. If I picked you, I’d be even naughtier. Part of me really wants to sound him out on that open marriage idea of yours, but the other part dreads what he would say and fears that he would think that I have actually cheated on him. I guess that I have but one choice, and that is to grab him when I get home, drag him to bed, and use him as my bitch, like that ginger band geek did in American Pie,” Tara blushed again.
“Um, Tara, shop talk, remember? Shop talk! Back to work,” Damien smiled at her to make it clear that he was only half-serious, but he really did want her to get her mind back on her job, for the sake of both her career and her marriage.
“Yes, sir!” Tara coughed as she left the office and got busy with her article.
Damien did his best to focus on work, too, editing more than bit of the work that came through, especially as it turned out that the Chief (editor-in-chief Ned McDougal) was out on a dental appointment, the other senior editors were holding some kind of event with the Hamilton County commissioners, and the other junior editors had plenty on their plates, too. It was just as well that both Tara and he were busy, because he was troubled by the degree of her lust for him. Damien had not realized how much she reciprocated his attraction to her until that day, but it was enough to make his head spin a little if he thought of it too much.
Of course, Damien also noted how much she really wanted to be a faithful wife, mostly because that would, in her mind, please her husband. It was obvious that her initial statement that she would never cheat on him was generally true … except perhaps where Damien was concerned. It was only with Damien that there was any doubt that Tara could be faithful to Roger. Tara clearly loved her husband very much, whereas what she felt for Damien was more of a potent combination of admiration, gratitude, friendship, compatibility, and lust.
When lunchtime came, Tara joined Damien at the nearby cafe, where he grabbed a Reuben and fries, washed down with iced tea, while she opted for a grilled cheese sandwich, a pickle, and some root beer. The waitress looked at them rather curiously, which they wondered about until she finally spoke up.
“Are you Tara Harmon?” she asked her directly.
“That I am, and this is my boss, Damien Martin. We both work at the Volunteer. I’m a reporter and he’s an editor. How do you know my name?” Tara asked with curiosity, making the waitress squirm.
“Oh, that man over asked if you were her. Sorry, don’t blame me. I’m just the messenger. Please don’t get mad. Trish Maynard, by the way. Please don’t get me in trouble!” she pleaded, feeling very scared.
“Why would I get mad?” Tara asked, very confused.
“Tara Harmon?” a man now approached her, wearing a sports jacket, slacks, and a turtleneck.
“That’s me,” Tara gulped.
“You’ve been served,” the man coughed, “With apologies. I know that the holidays are an awful time to get served.”
Tara looked very faint and Trish rushed to get her some water, especially as her shaky hands now opened the envelope given to her by the process server. It was a subpoena, issued on behalf of a Wanda Harmon, in the matter of her pending divorce from a Roger Harmon … Tara’s own husband. That could not be … unless?
“Well, I can’t believe this … bigamy? Really? I know that Roger is out of town a lot, supposedly on business, but damn! Fuck that motherfucker! That low-life, two-timing, bigamous son of a bitch! How dare he? I can’t believe this! He knew that I wouldn’t marry a divorced man, so he pulled this stunt on me! Fuck, fuck, a fuckity fuck! Jesus fucking Christ! What the hell kind of Christian pulls this shit? I know that I’m bad for thinking some nasty thoughts, but to pull this kind of scam, damn his rotten soul to the fires of Hell!” Tara rushed to the ladies’ room, closed the door behind her, lost her lunch, and wiped her mouth.
“On the other hand, I should just point out that men don’t do this shit for lust. They do it out of a twisted kind of love. Why else break the law, risk prosecution, divorce, annulment, etc.? Why else have to live a double life? It’s not worth it just to get into some girl’s pants, is it? He’s in love with you, not sure about Wanda, though. He might have divorced her if he could have remarried to you. Perhaps we should get to the bottom of this!” Damien suggested, cradling Tara in his arms for a moment.
“Damn you, Damien Martin! You always know how to make me feel better. However, it’s not my marriage that I want to get to the bottom of right now. It’s how I can get enough privacy to jump your bones! That son of a bitch had better believe that I’m getting some fucking payback! God damn it! The sick thing is that I still love the bastard, but now I can’t marry him and I don’t know what to do, long-term.
“Excuse me, Trish, but can you cover for me and him for a second, so I can drain this man’s balls? He’s my boss and such, and this is public, so I’d rather not get in trouble, but I want him to fuck me good, right now!” Tara urged the waitress, who nodded and did her best to work while still diverting people from the men’s room, where Tara and Damien ended up for a quickie.
Not a minute inside the men’s room, Tara Harmon was bent over, her elf outfit skirt hiked up, and her leggings down, as her boss began pounding her pussy good from behind. She still had the hat and elf ears on, too, as she felt the wonderful hip movements from both of them, his cock going in and out at frantic strokes as he fucked her hard and fast. Damien wasn’t about to let up, now that his only true ethical qualms were dashed. If Tara wanted him to ram her cunt good and give her some revenge on Roger, so much the better. He wasn’t sure if the sham marriage could survive this discovery, but right then, neither Tara nor he really gave a damn, anyway. This, he thought, would really make the priest’s ears burn during the confession.
When Tara came, she did as quietly as she could, biting her bottom lip, even as Damien spilled his seed inside her twat. Standing up rather nervously, she began making out with Damien before putting everything back into place, minus her panties which she slipped into his sports jacket. Then she threw open the bathroom door, winking at the manager who had finally caught onto Trish’s little trick. He shrugged, gave Damien a high-five, and chuckled as he got back to work.
“I guess that my job’s still safe, though I think that Howard might want some of the same treatment from me. To be frank, I’m inclined to give it to him. His wife’s a class act, anyway, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. I’m sure that she’s cheating on him, even if I can’t prove it. Time for the Man to get some tail, too,” Trish laughed as she confessed her plan to Damien and Tara, much to their amusement.
“By the way, that’s not a one-off, stud. This is no fling, you and me. I want a lot more. Even if Roger and I do get back together, we’re going to have to sit down and talk over the rules of our relationship, what they will be. That’s a big if, too. No matter what I said, this is a bit more serious than an affair. I’m going to have to really think about if I’m up to marrying a divorced man, even though I married one who was already a husband.
“There will have to be some real conversations and discussions about what we both want from this and I’m sure that all kinds of ideas will be bruited about between us. Again, that’s a big if. For now, I’m single and ready to continue this little love affair of ours until further notice, honey,” Tara warned Damien, already thinking of the future as they headed back to work.
“I noticed that you haven’t removed your wedding band,” Damien teased her.
“Oh, no, mister. Not yet. I want to at least get the fun for a few sessions of screwing around on Roger while I wear it, to feel like an adulteress, to have that naughty fun for a bit. I think that I’ve earned it. After that, we’ll see. I have to warn you that I refuse to take the Pill or any other protection with you, so prepare for the very real prospect that you might knock me up.
“I think that might be a real test of how badly Roger wants me back, if he’d accept such a consequence of his deceit as another man’s bun in my oven. I would refuse to abort the baby or give it up for adoption. I’m going to raise it, just as I would raise his. It’s your baby, so why wouldn’t I raise it? After all, you look practically nothing like him, with your blonde hair and baby blue eyes. He has sandy hair and brown eyes, just like mine.
“Lovely, soulful brown eyes, and I really haven’t ruled out going back to him. I can’t even be sure that he won’t charm me all over again with those damn poetic eyes of his. I’ll just have to be honest with both of you at each stage of things. Both of you make my knees weak, just for the record, but in slightly different ways. Still, I’m pretty pissed at him right now, because of the scale of this deception on his part,” Tara thought aloud as Damien and she reached the office to clock back in.
Tara had to fight the urge to hold Damien’s hand as they went back inside, even as he caught a quick picture text from Cassidy, which showed her mouth full of cum. He waited until he got to his office itself and closed the door to actually read it.
The message part read, “Sorry, babe, but I had to get my protein. The mailman was nice enough to deliver it,” followed by a heart smiley and then a kiss emoticon.
He texted back, “That’s okay, dear. We’ve sort of chucked the whole monogamy bag out the window, anyway, haven’t we? I had a quickie with Tara at the cafe men’s room, anyway. She wanted revenge on the hubby for his apparent bigamy.”
“Glad to know that we’re on the same page, honey. Mind if I ride his cock next time?” Cassidy replied, guessing the likely response.
“Go for it. If he knocks you up, we’ll deal with it. Unlikely from one encounter, but we can handle it if it happens. I certainly plan to keep screwing Tara. She wants a lot more of me.”
“Glad to hear, though not surprised. When a woman gets a taste of you, I can’t imagine why she would let you go. What were your ex-girlfriends, how many of them did you have, thinking, anyway? How could they have possibly left you? I would have to be physically pried from your body, because I would super glue myself to your skin.”
“They did, though. I must not have been so awesome back then. I’ve only had ten. Long stories there, but I made some mistakes and I’ve never been very faithful. Stubborn, too, though, I was trying to be a nicer to make up for it this time. Too nice perhaps. There’s a happy medium. Well, gotta go for now. I’ll tell you more later. XOXO,” Damien finished texting before resuming his job.
“I call bullshit, because you’re a God! XOXO!” Cassidy replied with several hearts.
Damien did his best to focus on work, but he had to admit that the level of adulation that he was getting from women was a bit shocking these days. Most women loved him at first, but they soon tired of his stubborn ways, his cheating, his “anti-social” personality, etc. They also kept wanting to change him, and Cassidy looked to be casualty number eleven of this stupid practice when she had pulled a fast one and showed that she would rather accept him than lose him.
There had been Shelly, Jessie, and Marianne, all of whom had wanted to date Damien in high school, after a drought that had last every previous year before then. He had never had girlfriends before and he was not very familiar with the realities of it. He knew that society didn’t approve of cheating, but he had been unable to resist dating them, especially since he knew that they had other guys strung along. This had made it easy to justify to himself and he knew objectively that he was right, but it didn’t change their fierce anger when they all discovered at prom time that he had fooled around with each of them and dated them all.
For the rest of the mercifully short period of time between prom and graduation, Damien had been a pariah, but he had taken Stephanie with him to the prom in spite of them, openly defying his social ostracism. This had led to Marianne’s idiot brother Herb and a stupid kid named Willie who had hoped to date her trying to beat Damien up, which had in turn led to Stephanie kicking Herb’s ass while Damien decked Willie. After that, he was hated, but feared, so simply shunned by his peers. None of the dads or brothers ever tried again and before long, he was out of that part of North Carolina for good, only coming back for summers.
Three girls down, seven to go, Damien thought as he recalled his past. Enter college and his orientation classmate Wendy, who had dated him for about two weeks when he learned that she was secretly sleeping with her professor for grades. She had been fun, if a bit pushy for a freshman, and he got the impression that she somehow thought that he was rich or whatever. Damien had gotten his revenge, alright, by sleeping with, and soon dating, her best friend Elaine, who had dropped him like a hot potato when she learned what her friend had done and decided that she wanted a piece of that action.
Even so, once again, his girlfriends overlapped and his reputation for philandering grew, until that was, he reported the girls and their professor to the Dean of Women and he became hated as a snitch instead. For a while, he was very much a pariah once again, for at least the second semester of the year. Sure, he went dateless for a while, but he was able to save his money (mostly), he got the satisfaction of seeing the professor humiliated and disciplined, and he also avoided any of everyone else’s drama for the rest of the year.
Damien kept it pretty casual for a while after returning from his summer break, where he had not dated anyone, either. He didn’t know if he could trust anyone back home, so he kept a low profile, including a stubborn refusal to avoid church and any girls that his parents wanted him to date, all of them from church. He worked a night job as a security guard to further reduce his chances of meeting someone from his past. When he went back to school, he studied, played a little pool, and tutored other students to keep busy and avoid the social scene. He didn’t go to college parties, but he would go to bars and stay out of trouble by not drinking and just playing plenty of pool.
That was how he met Morgan, a cocktail waitress and girlfriend number six. He was too young to drink, even then, but she ignored that and bought him drinks under the table. She played games with him whenever she got a break, encouraged him to dance with her whenever her favorite music acts played, and of course, introduced him to anal sex. His love of that act had never left him. She had encouraged him to fuck some of her colleagues, but he went too far once by screwing her hated rival Jill, which ended their relationship and got him kicked out of the bar. She was still in the same town, but he had never heard from her again.
When Damien had to move to a new bar, he stuck to casual encounters for a good year or longer, when he slept with anyone at all, which again he avoided when at his parents’ house. He became increasingly unhappy there by this point and decided not to go home the following summer.
It was now his junior year and Damien intended to avoid relationships again, but fate stepped on those plans in the form of a foreign exchange student from Israel named Adi Gould, who had just completed her military service in the IDF and simply needed some tutoring in English. She fell absolutely in love with Damien from the first session and quickly became girlfriend number seven.
The couple was seen everywhere together, totally inseparable for months. When not studying or in class, Adi hung out constantly with Damien and hung on his every word. She kissed him openly and gave him her virginity, too. That was a night of true passion which Damien never forgot, of course. Unlike Morgan, who believed in free love and shared him eagerly (until he chose the wrong partner), Adi was jealous as hell, but luckily wasn’t a hypocrite or a prude.
The only problem proved to be that she wanted to marry him and take him back to Israel with her, something that caused him to anguish over possibly never seeing Stephanie again, plus he wasn’t sure that he wanted to leave America for another country. When she started talking about conversion to Judaism, the already skeptical thinker Damien was hesitant and began to rethink their relationship.
The final straw was when Adi convinced Damien to take her home with him for the winter break and from the outset his family treated her like a worm or pest. To make matters worse, she made an enemy of her only ally in the family by accusing Damien of incest with his sister Stephanie, which infuriated her, but was probably the result of insecurity about their relationship by that point.
By the end of the vacation, Damien failed to propose marriage and she returned to Israel, leaving him a “Dear John” letter, in which she repeated her claim that Stephanie and he were intimate. He never replied, blaming both her and his parents for the end of the romance. A year later, she sent another letter, but his mother burned it before his very eyes before he could read it. He left after New Year’s Day for college and avoided contact with his parents until graduation, which was awkward as hell, except with Stephanie, who was there for him as always, despite her differences with Adi.
Damien tried to enlist in the Army, but was rejected for prescription migraine medications. He resolved to stay in Chattanooga and he took a position with the Volunteer, which was the only paper he worked, refusing to go home again. He never returned to his parents’ home again, though he visited Stephanie’s house plenty of times in California after she moved out there.
That was when Damien met girlfriend number eight, Lauren, who was with him for a total of two years, the longest term for him yet. Things went pretty well with her, shockingly, despite her being a “good Southern girl” in many ways, despite being quite sexually active. She wanted to marry him, just as Adi had, but unfortunately for them, she had slipped up and gotten drunk with her ex-boyfriend Lewis. In revenge, he had fucked her best friend Marina, a Russian immigrant who wanted more than just a fling and told her about it later. Despite her feelings of guilt, Lauren broke it off and never explained why.
After more than three years of being single and licking his wounds from Lauren, Damien had met Natasha, a college intern all of twenty years of age to his twenty-seven. She became girlfriend number nine, of course. She was a bit idealistic, certainly a fellow progressive, if more radical, and she was also a full-blooded Seminole, which was a bit of a culture clash at times. They only lasted during the internship before she decided not to stay in town, but theirs was a very brief and intense romance that helped both of them heal from the past.
It was also distinctly kinky, with Natasha being into a number of things, such as swinging, swapping, sex parties, mystical rites, tribal medicine magic, and pot. She didn’t bother to hide her bisexuality from him, either, so in many ways it reminded him of Morgan, except without the unwritten, unmentioned expectations that ruined things there. If anything, Natasha had been the one wanting to avoid things being too uptight or controlled, wanting them open-ended, loose, and unrestricted. She was the free spirit and chose to avoid any rules for herself, let alone trying to push them onto Damien.
It was, of course, another more than two years before meeting Cassidy, Damien’s tenth and current flame, though he should really count Tammy and Maryam as numbers eleven and twelve now. Everything had seemed fine until they moved in together, and she had started some of her more disturbing practices, the ones that she had abruptly stopped when he confronted her about them last Saturday. He had really been ready to drop her, but for that. Now, she was making it abundantly clear that she was going to go out of her way to prove her adoration, lust, and passion for him. It was once more a breath of fresh air for Damien Martin.
Damien now realized that he had been rereading the same pages that he had already edited more than an hour before, so he dropped thoughts of his past and scurried back to work, glad that he had started early enough that he wouldn’t get caught behind. He wondered, though, why Cassidy was suddenly so curious about his exes when she hadn’t been too much in the past. He had been very tight-lipped about it, he mused as he edited several more pages of articles, including a report about a Stanley Forrester that instantly grabbed his attention, as Stanley was Cassidy’s most recent ex.
It seemed that Stanley had been arrested and busted for running a meth lab, not something that would go well for him. He was probably facing twenty years to life in federal prison, a prospect that didn’t exactly displease Damien in his moment of Schadenfreude, given that Stanley had been very cruel to Cassidy and this incident only reinforced her version of events. It was the next detail that really struck home, the name of Stanley’s attorney: Lewis Harris, Lauren’s ex-boyfriend and possibly current one, too, judging by how things had gone.
The reporter, Amos Clark, was one of the Volunteer’s best, so Damien had no trouble approving the article once the editing was finished. He thought nothing further of it, as he gave Amos the green-light for the report, but for one nagging detail. How did Stanley know Lewis and vice versa? How small of a world was Chattanooga, anyway? It shouldn’t have been that easy for them to meet … Then he shook his head and reminded himself that Stanley was a criminal, Lewis was a defense attorney, and of course, there was a smaller world in those circles. It didn’t have to have anything to do with Damien, and yet his gut told him that he was somehow connected to it all.
Damien was about to badge out and meet up with Tara to go home to his ladies when he got an unexpected knock at the door. It was Amos, who seemed more than a little nervous right then, something very odd for the bright, sharp, and tough young newsman. The man went to Howard University and then became the first African-American reporter with the Volunteer to achieve as much as he had in the local current events section. He was not easily rattled.
“Amos, how can I help you? You look a little uneasy. What’s going on? Is it the report?” Damien poured himself and Amos a cup of coffee, offering him cream and sugar, which he accepted.
“Thanks, Damien. Look, I don’t know how to say this. I got a call from a Lewis Harris just a few minutes ago, warning us not to cover this story in a way that puts him, not his client mind you, but himself, in a negative light. He didn’t say what would happen exactly, other than to note that ‘Massa Damien gets it, nigger.’ Yes, he actually used that word. He followed that up with, ‘if he lets any such stories through, I’m blaming both of you, and Lauren won’t be happy.’ I have no idea who Lauren is or why she would care about these things, but I just thought that I would report this threat. Is she someone that you know? I threatened to call the authorities and he told me, ‘that’s a fucking bad idea, nigger. Don’t forget what you are, little cunt.’ This is confusing and terrifying, to put it mildly. What is this guy all involved in, anyway?” Amos related with anger and fear at once.
“Well, as I recall, Stanley Forrester has some connections to skinheads, Klansmen, etc. That ilk. Maybe Lewis is also tied up in neo-Nazi causes and such. Possibly organized crime, too. Stanley was once arrested for vandalizing and robbing a synagogue, no joke, not to mention desecrating a menorah and a few other actions of an anti-Semitic nature. I thought that Lewis was just typical lawyer scum, but maybe he’s more involved in his client’s activities than one would first think.
“The oddest personal aspect of this is that both of them had dated girlfriends of mine. Lauren was my live-in girlfriend for two years, right out of college. I wonder if she married Lewis. I wouldn’t be surprised if she did, but I haven’t kept tabs on them since the breakup. I already knew that Stanley was a first-class prick, but I didn’t realize it about Lewis. There might be a lot more to discover. Lewis just made things worse for himself and his client, I suspect. Go for it, Amos. Print this report, but then dig up whatever you can regarding both of them for some more articles,” Damien encouraged him, in no mood to show mercy to either guy.
“Thanks, Damien. Glad to see that you’re not going to be bullied by him, either. It is bizarre, though, that he thought that he could rattle you by this means. You really think that your ex-girlfriend is telling him stuff about you?” Amos asked as he finished his coffee and started to leave the office.
“Possibly, but I’m not one hundred percent sure. I stopped trying to figure her out about the time that she dumped me for reasons that are still unclear. She’s connected somehow, but I’m not sure just how that is the case. However, let’s keep it professional. This is your scoop, not mine. I’m an editor, and even if I were initially on this brief, I’d pass it to you because you’re one of the best and you aren’t emotionally invested in anyone involved. You can be objective. I can’t,” Damien noted as he downed his cup and headed Tara’s way to pick her up.
By then, Tara was more than ready to meet up with Damien and head to his place, as the spring in her step indicated. On the way there, she made a point of playing with his crotch while he drove, deliberately putting him in an even hornier mood than he was before. One thing was sure, as was demonstrated when the ladies met him at the door with kisses, and even planted them on Tara: his life had changed radically since Saturday, and for the better. He couldn’t wait to see what was next.
THE END OF CHAPTER FOUR