Chapter 8

Damien had resumed his editing work and he didn’t really think much else about the whole Lauren Harris business, but he had forgotten to make sure that she had actually left the Volunteer’s offices. It should not have been too shocking, then, when Amos Clark knocked on his door and Damien opened it to find Lauren with him. It was fascinating, in a way, that Amos was such a handsome guy and yet Lauren didn’t show more than a cursory appreciation of his appearance. She kept her eyes on Damien, even as Amos spoke to him.

“So, Lauren here has decided to turn into a source, it seems. She has provided us with invaluable information about her estranged husband, Lewis Harris. She was, in fact, waiting for me outside my office when I arrived, delayed because of a traffic accident, incidentally. Some moron clipped me, but I got his insurance information. He was a Baptist minister, no less! Anyway, Lauren here has been very generous with the names of key associates, that was most of it.

“Here it is. I’m preparing one of my first articles about this, and I think that Mr. Stanley Forrester and Mr. Lewis Harris are probably going to receive visits from the authorities very soon indeed. Not to mention that Mr. Harris will have to explain things to the State Bar, no doubt regarding the ethics of a lawyer directly participating in a crime with his client,” Amos smiled with a strong hint of Schadenfreude at the idea of Lewis Harris getting disbarred and prosecuted for his involvement in Stanley Forrester’s crystal meth racket.

“So, this could well be the scoop of the year for you, so far. If we can nail the son of a bitch, so much the better. I don’t like drug kingpins to start with, but when they’re arrogant, country club, upper crust pricks who think that their money and status can protect them while they break the law, and then they get their lawyers to try to bully our reporters into leaving them alone, it becomes much worse in my view. Of course, it’s up to the prosecutors whom they prosecute and up to state and local law enforcement whom they wish to arrest, but we can report the facts as we know them. If they’re innocent, let them sue, but I doubt that we have to worry about that. They’re as guilty as sin and this list ... wow!” Damien reacted.

“Indeed. A member of the Hamilton County executive. Two senior deputies, both directly involved in the narc squad activities or in some way supervising them. Six more junior deputies. A pastor at a local Church of Christ. Two deacons at the same church. I suspect that some business meetings there are about to get very interesting! A local city councilman! The head of the sanitation department for Hamilton County. The head of the health department for Hamilton County. Two members of the zoning commission. The owner of Norton Estates Country Club. The deputy chairwoman of the local Republican Party! The public defender! And no fewer than eight well-known members of the Ku Klux Klan, including the local Grand Dragon himself! Even if no criminal prosecutions follow, association with the Klan is sure to be rough for the political careers of some of these public figures,” Amos exclaimed, eager to expose this local crime syndicate.

“A redneck Mafia is how I would describe it, except that several members are pretty high on the social scale. Then again, they’re just crooks with manners and country club memberships, rednecks with money and a veneer of class,” Lauren spoke up at last, “No wonder Mom never much liked Lewis.”

“Well, it’s one thing to be working-class. You and I both came from that, as did Amos, I believe, right? It’s quite another to be vulgar, greedy, and conceited in the extreme. Evidently, they thought that they were classy, but they were just trash. White or black, trash is trash. People who push crystal meth are trash, period. The reality is not a cancer-suffering chemistry teacher in New Mexico. The reality is not Walter White from Breaking Bad.

“The reality is idiots like Stanley Forrester, who have more money than God, yet they want to have some that’s under the table, hence why he did that. I wonder what Nicole Ashton-Forrester thinks of all that, given that she won’t see a red cent of anything seized by the county? Even if she divorces him now, she won’t get a dime. She’ll still lose out. She’s probably still a racist, though, just not as obvious about it. I don’t see her actually lifting a finger to make money, so ironically her laziness makes her likely innocent here,” Damien smirked as he gave his support to the planned scoop at least.

“You’re thinking that Stanley Forrester was out to cheat both the taxman and his golddigger, bimbo trophy wife, the same one that thinks that Ivanka Trump is a feminist role model? Yeah, I have overheard how Stan and Lewis talk about Nicki, and it’s seldom flattering. Mostly about things like how much Stan had to buy her in presents just to get her to take both of their dicks up her fancy ass! You and I both know that she didn’t like it, either. She’d prefer to fuck her chauffeur, of course. Now, me, I wouldn’t have given up my ass to the likes of Stanley A. Forrester VI if they paid me in gold! If it’s a man that I want, however ... well, Damien knows better than most. I am his ex-girlfriend, after all,” Lauren winked at Damien in front of Amos.

“I already knew that, Lauren. Good thinking, too. Nicki Forrester probably still has anal tears from those two. They don’t strike me as the sort to think of lube other than spit. Trust me. I’m gay. I know a thing or two about anal sex,” Amos chuckled at that.

“You’re gay? I never knew. Top or bottom?” Damien grinned, “And talk about having to deal with real pricks. Being black in Tennessee is hard enough, no doubt. Being gay is hard, too. Being black AND gay ... damn!”

“Top, mostly. I’ve bottomed a time or two, just from curiosity. It was okay except for the one guy who turned out to be a racist douchebag who treated me as a fetish, a chance to sodomize a black guy. I was glad that I insisted on a condom with him, because that at least had some lube on it and if he had any STDs, I never caught them. I definitely never let him near me again. Mostly, the gay dating scene for me is twice as tough because I’m looking for Mr. Right and the dating apps are full of guys who only want one-night stands. I’ll do hookups, but I hope to eventually find the right man for me,” Amos admitted with a shrug.

“Sorry to get up close and personal. Like I told Tara, we’re only supposed to be doing shop talk, at least in theory, but I get the feeling that you and I could be really good friends. We seem to think alike in many ways,” Damien explained to Amos.

“Oh, no harm. I’m really tired of being ambiguous and vague about my sexuality. I’m tired of well-meaning bosses trying to set me up with ladies. You never did that, but some of the other editors have. I’m tired of avoiding the topic of my love life, speaking only generally of ‘my ex, ‘ and things like that. I’m especially tired of the neighbor trying to set me up only with black women. No joke about that! She’s a nice, well-meaning lady, but somehow, she’s still convinced that black men only date black women or something. I date men of any and all colors, black, white, brown, etc., and if I were straight, it would be the same way with women.

“I’m also tired of hot wives and size queens hitting me up to fuck them, assuming that I’m straight and large down there. I won’t say if I am big or not, but that’s none of their business. I told the last one who approached me, and I quote verbatim, ‘No, I don’t want you, but if your hubby wants some action, I might show him more pleasure than you have given him in years.’ She got very offended and asked me directly, ‘What, are you gay or something?’ I told her simply, ‘Yes, I am gay. Deal with it. I have a nice, big, black cock, and neither you nor any other cunt is ever going to get to enjoy it!’ That shut her up in a hurry!” Amos recalled, “But enough of that. It’s a fun topic, but I need to get back to work.”

“He’s a cool guy. I kinda picked up on him being gay early on, though. Something about how he looked at me, as if my body never had any interest for him at all. Anyway, I want you to know that I am helping bring Lewis down for more than just a chance to be around you. Lewis needs to be fucking brought to his knees. I’m going to ruin his life, just as he ruined mine! A couple of years from now, if possible, I want to visit him in prison and gloat over how I helped put him there. And I seriously hope that he gets all of the anal that he wants ... from his cellmate’s monster dick.

“That’s not a nice thing to say and I don’t condone rape, but I have a very real and savage desire to see his life destroyed completely, to see him miserable and unhappy for the rest of his long-ass life! I want him to live a very long time and suffer! I have to confess something else, though. I’m pregnant. I don’t know if Lewis is the father or not. He ... pimped out to a few of his friends a couple of times. Including Stanley, by the way.

“I hated every minute of it! They were horrible lays and I felt ... so disgusted the whole fucking time! I don’t mind sex, you know that. I’m not a prude. But ... the whole experience was God awful, and I was trying to get pregnant with Lewis’s child, and here he passed me off to other men when we had already discussed plans to start a family.

“No consideration, no thoughts of perhaps this was a bad idea, no even asking me if I wanted to fuck his buddies. No, he just told me, ‘Lauren, I need you to do this. So don’t be a diva. Fucking sleep with my friends already!’ He didn’t say it, but I think that it was so that he could get into Nicki Forrester’s panties, at least in Stanley’s case. He knew that if he let Stanley screw me, Stanley would let him use Nicki. Wife-swapping, but without the neat element of consent and all.

“I understand if this makes you more hesitant to take me back, but if you decide that you don’t mind fatherhood, you’ll have your first child sooner than you think, and I would love to see you adopt the baby, if possible. If you wanted to, that is,” Lauren told Damien, putting her arms around his waist and pressing her lips to his yet again, with more than a bit of tongue.

“Damn it, Lauren! You really know how to tug at my heartstrings, even now! However, to put everything on the table, I think that you should know that I have a fiancee, that she, and her sister and mother plan to live with me ... and I’m sleeping with all three of them, with everyone’s knowledge and blessing, I might add. They want me to impregnate all three of them, and that’s not the end, either. I’m also involved with Tara, one of the reporters on the staff, who’s leaving her husband and moving in with me eventually, too. Yes, my ladies know about her as well. And ... there’s more, but I can explain it better if you meet Tara and me for lunch.

“Suffice it to say that mine isn’t a normal situation. Still want to be with me? Or are you having second thoughts?” Damien asked Lauren bluntly, feeling nervous about revealing this much information already, but also being confident that he could deny the affair with Tara at this point, as it was just her word against his.

“Honey, your secrets are safe with me. Yes, I still want you, and, in fact, I think that it’s kinda hot, plus it gives me reason to hope that you’ll take me back. If you’ve got a harem already, what’s one more member, right? I’ll even hunt down Marina, if you decide that you want her again, too. Look, I was Miss Goody Two-Shoes at times in the past and I know it, but I’ve already been shared, pimped out, cheated on Lewis more than once, held my tongue when I learned that he was cheating on me, since I was as guilty as he and I didn’t care anymore, anyway.

“I’ve taken it up the ass a time or two since we broke up, and I know that you used to want that ... you can have it, too. Please just be sure to use lube, especially since I’m pregnant. I’ve changed and even the bad experiences have made me a better woman, I think. A better companion for a man like you. I haven’t worked since I got with Lewis, since he was rich and wanted me to be his private whore and all.

“I think that I’m blacklisted in my old field, anyway. So, really, I’d love to just be a mother and stay home with the babies. I think that I would really enjoy it, especially if I wasn’t alone, and I get the impression that I won’t be, that there will be other homemakers, too. I would love that. Please ... I just want to be yours, honey. Whatever the price. I did things for Lewis that I didn’t want to do, because I was afraid of him, but I would do the same things for you with pleasure, not even slightly resenting them, out of love, not fear. I’ll leave you to your work for now, not wishing to get you into trouble, but just know that I’m yours and I’m not going anywhere.

“Lunch with Tara, right? Sounds nice. I hope to convince her, too,” Lauren told Damien as she sucked face with him yet again.

Damien did his best to work and he soon got absorbed into his editing again, trying to put thoughts of Lauren Harris and where she might be waiting for him out of his mind. He focused as much as he could, knowing that he wanted to catch up on his editing, anyway, and that work was good to clear other things from his mind. He wasn’t a multi-tasker. He viewed that as a double-edged sword, since multi-taskers often got cocky and spread themselves too thin. To Damien, it was far better to keep to task, concentrate one’s mind on one thing and that alone ... except in bed, of course, he smiled as he thought about that. There he didn’t mind multitasking at all.

A few hours passed, and while Damien worked, as did Tara, Amos, and the others, Lauren ran a few errands, keeping her eye on the time, so that she could return in time to meet up with her ex-boyfriend. She wasn’t going to waste time, of course, that having been a lesson that she learned early on in life, but she was bound and determined to win back Damien’s love. Given that he never rebuffed her advances, certainly didn’t act repulsed, even explained his living situation and his new lifestyle to her, almost as a challenge to her, Lauren realized that he really did want her back, too. It just had to be on his terms. So be it, she had decided. She would take him back on his terms and never even try to renegotiate them. She didn’t mind sharing the right kind of man. She just didn’t want to be with the wrong sort of man at all.