Side Swiped

Chapter 30: Stripes of Manhood

I laughed unenthusiastically as I walked closer to where he was standing. I was willing him with all my might to take this and run for the hills.

"Is that what they tell you? That you're their friend? Their partner?" I asked. "Xavier, you've been working for them for, what? Forty years now? You were working for them when my mother was young." His face distorted slightly at the mention of my mother. "You really think you're their friend?

"They're not your friend Xavier, but you pretend like you're on their level when they'll never see you that way. Face it, you're just a lap dog to them, a dispensable asset pretending to be a major component." I tilted my head to the side like Jayden Smith in Karate Kid as he controlled the snake or whatever. If I could manipulate him, or just plant a seed of doubt in his mind that would be completing half the battle.

Unfortunately, he didn't falter. Shit! That worked so well in Karate Kid. You failed me Jackie Chan. Instead of Xavier breaking down, that same sinister smile that seemed to be his default facial expression appeared on his face along with a chuckle as he sat on the corner of Mackenzie's bed.

"O, we're partners Jason. I've been with them for a very long time. Seen and done some things for them that they wouldn't want anyone else to find out. So I'm not as dispensable as you think. The one pretending here is you Jason. You pretend like you're in the big leagues playing this game when you have no idea the game's already over and we've already won.

"You like to pretend that you don't have a..." he wags his eyebrows at me. "Past," he says putting air quotes around the word. "Like it never happened, but it did happen Jason. You think these people are helping you move on, that they're healing you, but the Golds are just your crutches. And look what helping you has done to them. You bring destruction everywhere you go Jason. A lot of people don't know about how you abandoned your sister and what that did to her. It's in your nature, you're just like your father. Destroying beautiful things in your wake," as the reality of what he was saying hit home, he stood up and started approaching me.

I was the foreshadowing of disaster. I had, on more than one occasion, ruined lives. I ruined my mother's life when I left Ariana, but I had no idea what would happen when I ran away. That sick bastard...

"You don't know what you're talking about," I growled. "It wasn't my fault."

"You're just as damaged as your sperm donor, so maybe you should stop blaming everyone else for your life falling apart and start taking some responsibility for your actions, eh home wrecker?" He smiled at me with so much self-satisfaction that I thought he'd burst. “I’ll be in the kitchen taking care of something while you think about that.”

I was in no mood to deal with him and only two seconds away from rearranging his face. My blood was boiling with the frustration of being helpless. Instead of attacking him, I stood there stunned unable to speak words.

He was right. Everything that he said was painfully true. My name should've been impending doom.

I was fighting hard to not think about why he was right. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. I know that not thinking about it isn't going to solve my problems, but right now I didn't need this kind of chaos to erupt inside of me, but as he brushed past me all the memories I kept so carefully locked away in a box that I refused to open suddenly came flooding back to me.

--

"I love you Nikki," I confessed.

"Shut the hell up Jason," she punched me roughly. "You love my p*ssy, don't get it mistaken."

That was true, but she was sadly the most important person in my life except for Ariana.

Nikki was a savage and now that I had been doing this sex slave thing for a while I'd learned what I liked and started making the best of my situation. Most men, however emasculating it may be, would love to be the concubine to multiple women. Yes, legally I was only a child, but I'd been through so much that I think I deserved my stripes of manhood.