Old School Ch. 03: Naked Justice

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance by any character or situation to any actual person or event is purely coincidental. All characters presented in this narrative are over the age of 18.

OLD SCHOOL

CHAPTER THREE

NAKED JUSTICE

Saturday morning broke gray and chilly. I woke, naked, and inches to my left lay Kass, also naked, warm beneath my sheets and duvet, still sleeping soundly. The sight of her filled me with joy even as I wondered to myself why this had just happened. The feeling that I had missed something important over the past two decades saddened me. It was as if this should have long since been our life. It certainly felt as though it should be life moving forward.

So I lay there, for perhaps half an hour, gazing in wonderment at the auburn-haired angel who had just filled the void in my life that I hadn't been aware of. At least not consciously.

Eventually, however, life intrudes. Bladders, both mine and Ry's, can hold only so much, and Ryder was outside my closed bedroom door, scratching at the hardwood floor, to let me know what time it was. Since it was already well beyond 7:30, my rise-and-shine hour and time for Ry's first piss of the morning, I threw on my bathrobe, walked downstairs, loaded up the coffee maker with enough Gevalia dark roast grounds for two and then turned it on. I opened the back door and Ryder trotted off the deck, onto the lawn and made a bee line over to the boxwood hedge along the privacy fence that rings my modest rear lawn.

On the granite countertop in the kitchen next to the coffeemaker, my iPhone -- still set to silent mode so as not to wake Kass -- was vibrating and making a clatter. The two sustained buzz patterns indicated it was a text message.

What now? I thought to myself as I tapped in my six-digit pass code to see what awaited me.

The text was from Gene Fassbinder. Big night, Chief. Call when u can.

I waited for the coffee to finish brewing, filled a mug, walked into the downstairs laundry and hit my speed dial number for Gene, 007. The name "Gumshoe" appeared on my screen as the call connected.

"Fassbinder," came the gruff voice on the other end.

"Morning, Gene. Got your text. Tell me about this big night."

He cleared his throat. His voice sounded tired and I soon learned why. He had been up all night, monitoring a succession of phone calls, emails and texts from operatives in Miami, in Quantico, Virginia, and in Frankfort, Kentucky, he informed me.

"Shyster, we got Burnley red handed. He hit on a Miami-Dade County undercover SVU officer posing as a 16-year-old boy and took him into a cabana in South Beach that he rented and was wired for the occasion. They hauled his ass out wearing nothing but his skivvies and tossed him in a cruiser. He's in the Miami-Dade jail waiting for a bond hearing Monday afternoon," Gene said.

Kentucky's public safety commissioner was promptly notified and suspended Burnley pending a conference in Frankfort on Tuesday, likely to finalize his firing, Gumshoe said.

Simultaneously, FBI and IRS agents executed search warrants in raids on the Ebenezer's Eyes church, on the home of Brother Elmer Brewer and on the homes of several deacons in his church and Burnley's home in Florence. Agents filled vans with boxes of documents and dozens of desktop and laptop computers.

"They're pretty sure Burnley kept his two lives so separate that he even used different computers and mobile phones -- one for the homophobe cop and the other for the closeted guy with a thing for boys," Gene said. "Pretty disciplined about not letting the two sides of his life intersect."

"The FBI is pretty sure, from previous months of online surveillance, that both Burnley and Brother Brewer raked in hundreds of thousands of bucks from across the country that never got reported to Uncle Sam. The IRS got involved after donors, looking to do their taxes, started complaining that they couldn't get receipts for what they were told were tax-exempt donations to the church or from the GoFundMe thing."

"Holy shit, Gene," I said, dumbfounded. This was far more damning than I had imagined. Tax fraud and evasion are pretty much black-and-white, a paper trail of documents leading clearly to a conviction and years in prison.

He grunted.

"Chief, I'm looking at all this data coming in from sources at the federal and state level and from Dade County, and... I've never seen anything like it. I've received nearly 150 pages of stuff so far and it's still coming in -- PDFs, spreadsheets, photos, MP3 files. I'll summarize it in a report that I'll have for you early next week, but as the pieces fit together, I wouldn't be surprised if the feds take over this whole mess and charge them as an organized crime ring under RICO," Gene said.

RICO is the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act. It was a sweeping anticrime law Congress passed in 1970 to give the government the power to shut down the mafia by seizing any and all assets and property that they could prove was connected in the operation of a criminal conspiracy. It's what brought mobsters like John Gotti to justice. Gene as a detective and I as a lawyer both knew that this would raise the stakes of this prosecution enormously. Any time a federal prosecutor gets his hands on a RICO case, it can go almost anywhere, and sometimes into places it shouldn't.

"That's great work, Gene," I said after a pause. "Things could get pretty interesting if the U.S. attorneys' offices go with RICO. Know what I mean?"

"Yeah. 'Fraid I know exactly what you mean," he said. "They're going to want to see everything we've got on what Burnley and Brewer were up to regarding your friend and why we were looking into them in the first place. Of course, they'll treat us as friendlies, but being friends with these guys is almost as bad as being their enemy."

I exhaled and took a sip of my coffee. Ryder was at the back door whimpering to get back in and have his breakfast. And I thought I heard water running in the upstairs bathroom, meaning Kass may be stirring.

"Well, let's cross that bridge when and if we get to it, Gumshoe. Lots of shit is going to hit the wall, probably before the day's over, once the press gets hold of this. I have to keep myself and Kass out of it, Gene. If the FBI starts sniffing around, you're covered by attorney-client privilege so you can use that to hold them off for a while. But call me immediately if that happens, OK?"

"Ten-four, chief," he said. "Let me make sense of what I'm seeing and I'll send you a full report soon as I can."

"You more than earned your fee, Gumshoe. Thanks."

He grunted his acknowledgement and hung up.

▼ ▼ ▼

Ryder lunged through the back door as soon as I opened it, sprinted for the stairs and thundered up them to the second floor, hoping he could intercept my overnight guest (and his new BFF) before I could stop him. He was pissed at me for refusing him access to my bedroom with Kass and me the night before, and he'd be damned if I was going to deny him this morning.

"Good morning, Ryder boy!" I heard Kass cooing at him. I could tell from the sound of his claws on the hardwood floor that he was prancing around and jumping up on Kass, and she was doing nothing to discourage it. "You're a sweet, sweet fella. Yes you are. Yes you are."

By the time I made it upstairs, Kass was wrapped in the terrycloth robe I had left hanging on a peg on the back of the door to the owner's suite bathroom that I had left for her. She was on her knees hugging my big, happy galoot of a dog and scratching him behind his soft, droopy ears. And both of them were loving every second of it.

Kass's clothing was either strewn on the floor in my den and bedroom, or in her still-unpacked luggage left overnight at the foot of the stairway.

"He's mad at me because I locked him out of our room last night, but I think you've made him forget about that," I said. Kass beamed back at me with an unreserved smile that seemed to illuminate the whole house. "Good morning, beautiful girl."

"Morning to you, handsome," she said, still caressing a very contented Ry. "I love dogs. Always have. Had to have Bagpipes, my Scotty, put down this past spring. He was 15. It's almost like losing a family member."

"Well, clearly there are two guys here who love you, Miss Felson. May I bring you a cup of joe when I fetch the bags we neglected last evening?"

She blushed a bit and sheepishly put her hand to her mouth in mock shame. "I guess so...," she said. "But I love this robe and I was already on my way down anyway."

"Right this way, then," I said. I held and kissed her, then she laced her fingers into mine.

"I love you, Les," she said, her eyes locked onto mine and sparkling. "Just in case I haven't said that yet this morning."

I kissed her again, with even more intensity than before.

"And I love you, Kass," I said.

She cinched her arms around my waist and I draped my arms around her. She took a deep, cleansing breath. And there we stood, at the top of the stairs, Ry sitting patiently on the foyer floor looking up at us unable to comprehend why we hadn't alighted the 22 steps that would lead to the kitchen... to breakfast.

Downstairs, I emptied a can of wet dog food into Ry's bowl, tossed in a cup of dry food and mixed them together. He sat patiently, staring at the bowl as I finished and waiting, as he had been trained, for me to tell him it's ready. I did and he went hungrily after it.

Kass, sitting on the cushioned, semicircular booth seating of my breakfast nook that evoked a corner table at a diner, watched it with a big smile.

"And what for you, my lady? Pancakes, bacon and eggs sound good? Got turkey and regular bacon if you don't do pork."

"Sounds great. I can do it if you want," she said.

"My most special guest having to cook? Nope," I said, handing her an empty mug. "But for now, may I offer you coffee?"

"Mmm hmm," she purred. "And pork bacon is good."

I opened the fridge and took half a dozen eggs, the bacon, some milk and crushed pecans for the pancake batter, got the frying pan and griddle ready on the stovetop. Kass sipped her coffee, fighting the urge to pitch in.

"Not used to this, seeing somebody cook for me. Nobody's made me breakfast outside a restaurant since mama did in high school. I could get used to this, Les Walker," Kass said.

I winked at her. "Good. Get used to it. I do it every Saturday."

"Before you spend the day watching college football," she said with a smirk.

"Well, college football only lasts from September through November not counting the bowls. Shortest season of any sport, so those football Saturdays are fleeting, my dear," I said, shifting between cracking eggs, mixing batter and putting a skillet laden with bacon strips on the burner.

"But today, if it's OK with you, we got better things to do today, so... I won't be watching a lot of ball."

"What kind of 'better things,'" she asked.

"Well, anything with you is a better thing."

"Awww," she said, pressing her hand to her heart.

"But I thought if the clouds break -- and they're supposed to -- this would be a good afternoon to take the paddlewheeler cruise up the Ohio and back along the riverfront for an afternoon dinner cruise," I said. It was the perfect time for the cruises with the trees just past their peak color season on the Ohio and Kentucky shorelines.

"We'd get back around 5 and that gives us just enough time to get in our Halloween costumes and hand out candy for the kids and then head down to the Queen City Bar for the Best and Worst Costume contest around 7:30 or 8, after the kids are done trick-or-treating," I said.

"Sounds perfect," she said. "What time do we catch the boat?"

"Departs the dock downtown at 1:30. Only about a 10-minute drive away. So we've got time to relax, have breakfast and just chill before we have to get dressed," I said.

The sound of approval she made was something between a growl and a purr as a leering grin spread across her face. "Yesss."

▼ ▼ ▼

It was all we could do to finish breakfast. We sat side-by-side on the U-shaped booth around half of the circular table in my breakfast nook and kissed more than we ate. And before long, the kisses strayed... from lips... to necks... to shoulders... to chests and... to points south.

The uneaten eggs and pancakes on the dirty breakfast dishes would have to wait.

Any hope of an orderly segue to a bed or even a sofa vanished then the loosely tied sash to Kass's robe came loose and the front of her robe opened. She made and quickly abandoned a weak effort to retie it, but I precluded that option by kissing her breasts and tormenting their nipples with my tongue. Everything came off the rails when Kass spotted the conspicuous tent the terrycloth material of my bathrobe formed over my erection.

The look on Kass's face was one of unbridled lust. She parted the lapels of my robe to find my cock standing at full attention. She just stared at it for a moment, and as she did, my hand found its way into her robe and between her legs where she was already wet, allowing my fingers to glide smoothly among her naked slit.

She shuddered and whimpered as my middle finger pressed into her tight opening and then retraced its way to her clitoral hood where I slowly teased it.

"Les. I want you. Now," she groaned, her voice husky with longing.

She turned and straddled my lap, her knees on either side of my hips, and parted her robe fully, offering her needy nipples to me anew as she grasped my hardness and aligned it with her entrance. She sank down onto it in slow increments, her hips rocking her mound toward me as she as she went.

"Oh, baby, you are so... hot," I groaned when I was fully inside her.

"Shhhh," she said, her eyes glazed and heavy-lidded. "Just let me... let me do this," she whispered. "Hold me, that's all."

And so I did, wherever I could. My hands held her waist, her firm breasts and their impudent nipples, even stroking her mound and her clit as she rose and fell on my rigid cock, at first slowly as if savoring each inch and then gaining speed.

Her eyes seemed focused on something a galaxy away as our bodies spoke in the language and the act of love. Her breaths came more heavily, quickening steadily. She alternated between rising and falling on my dick and then impaling herself fully upon me and grinding her pussy relentlessly into me, her hips rolling powerfully as she rode down her climax.

"Oh Les... I love you... sooo much," she said, pressing her chest into mine and locking her arms around my neck and kissing me with raw animal passion as control slipped away and her orgasm approached. Finally, she broke our kiss and cried out loudly as the first spasm hit her and she held her breath until the next wave of ecstasy convulsed her again.

Through it all, I just held her, as she had asked. Held her and kissed her wherever I could: her straining neck, her shoulder, her collarbone, her throat and jiggling tits flushed and mottled from passionate exertion. It took a good while before her last tremor subsided and she gave up and leaned forward into me, drained and breathing as though she'd just run a 100-meter dash.

I held her as she recovered.

"That was the most amazing and arousing thing ever, baby," I whispered. She was nodding her concurrence.

"Yes it was. It was my most intense... ever. Maybe because it just... happened. I never dreamed it could be this good," she said, leaning backward and smiling lazily at me affording me an alluring view of her breasts, her perspiring torso and her neat muff beneath which my manhood remained buried within her, stiff as firewood.

"You worn out, gorgeous?" I asked her. "That was a workout for you."

"Not worn out. Just happy," she said. "And you're just as hard as you were. You didn't... do it?"

I shook my head. "But that's OK. It won't go bad. It'll come back any time we need it to."

"Really? I thought guys always... you know... popped... pretty quick. Just couldn't help it."

"I guess some guys do. Wouldn't know," I mused. "I popped last night in a huge way so maybe I have a little more staying power today. And the longer I can hold out, the better it is for you and that's what makes me happy."

She leaned back onto me and kissed my neck.

"Bound for me to have another first with you... last night," she said.

"Our first time to make love. Most special moment ever. I will treasure that til the day I die."

"That," she said. "Also my first time with anybody."

"Oh my God," I said. "You were a virgin?"

"Medically no. I mean a girl's got needs and I've used things. My fingers when I was a kid. Adult toys. A carrot once... in high school," she said, blushing slightly.

"But technically, yes. I've never had a penis inside me until... yours, Les. So... you're first... again."

I threaded my fingers gently through her curls.

"Kass, angel, I'm glad it was me," I whispered.

She leaned into me and our open mouths met. And as we kissed, Kass began rocking her loins anew on my still straining erection, still sheathed fully within her. I responded by doing what I could to push myself deeper.

She stopped for a moment, annoyed that her robe seemed to interfere somehow down there. She pulled her arms free of it, pulled it from around and beneath her and dropped it onto the floor beside us, then resumed, widening her legs to allow her clit more room to push into the firm base of my dick.

Now I could feel the tingling in my loins that signaled the start of what, shortly, would end with my second load of sperm for Kass in a dozen hours. Kass, too, appeared to be back on a track that would have her cumming for a second time this morning -- the distant, driven, lustful look back on her face, the speed and power with which her hips again thrust into me, her increasingly ragged respiration.

And suddenly, with little warning, it hit us both.

"Kass, I'm going to cum," I growled. This time, there was no withdrawal. The weight of her and the force of her thrusts trapped my spurting penis deep inside her and she made no effort to stop or extract it.

To the contrary, as the head of my cock swelled and flared against the walls of her pussy and ropes of hot jism leapt into Kass, she tightened and wailed, jamming her twat powerfully onto me. In the exhausted, contented aftermath, we drifted into a gentle repose -- utterly, lewdly indecent in the privacy of my kitchen breakfast nook and so in love neither of us gave a damn.

For the longest time, neither of us spoke. After a blissful interval, she broke the silence.

"Is this when we take showers?" she said demurely.

"I think that's a splendid idea," I said.

"You want to go first or shall I?"

"It's a big shower. Let's shower together," I said, kissing the tip of her nose and then her lips. "I can wash parts of you that you can't reach and vice versa."

"Deal."

▼ ▼ ▼

The forecasts were right. The clouds dissipated, but the chill breeze blowing off the Ohio River and into the face of the Belle of Cincinnati made Kass wish she had brought her sweater. For a while, she resisted my entreaty to don the Kentucky Wildcats sweatshirt I was wearing, but it became clear from the goosebumps on her bare arms that she needed, and eventually she relented.

"But you're going to freeze, Les," she said.

"Not if I do this," I said, guiding her into my lap on one of the sturdy, forward-facing chairs at the bow of the authentic steamboat, then wrapping my arms around her and pressing her close into me. The wind tousled her curls as some of them gently lashed my freshly shaved cheek. "There. Just right."