The BOOK of RENEE Ch. 02

"Oh Jaquan, Daisy be having a ton of guys trying to put a ring on it down here; even the sheriff at one time, huh?"

"Nah, but I used to have a thing with Sheriff Mooney over there across the county line in Maplewood. He loved getting it in back there, kind of a nature boy, but he went back to his wife and kids."

"You scandalous!"

"And you ain't?!" Daisy Mae shot back making Renee visibly uncomfortable for a few moments, before she decided to explain things to Jaqaun.

"She knows Aurthur Van Allen." Renee tucked her chin knowing how he'd react.

"What?" Jaquan did a doubletake, as Daisy Mae walked between them rubbing his forearm.

"Hey now, that old fella needed my help to spring Renee out of grandma's house. They were gonna kill each other because she had herself some outdated standards from the fucking fifties, and don't you go giving my girl some stress with that baby in her belly or we're gonna chunk it out on the road outside. Hey mamma's boy, you ever spent time in foster care?"

"That happened to you, bae?" Jaquan was taken aback at some abrupt details of Renee's life he hadn't known beforehand.

"Stop." She whimpered, but Daisy Mae bodied Jaquan back a few steps.

"It was my duty as her last living relative of guardian age; to get her set up right with them rich white folks! I didn't want her growing up here on the backroads with nothing to do but get knocked up by Tyrone or redneck Chad! Granny croaked real fucking good. So, it was left up to me! I wanted her to have everything I couldn't have growing up, you understand?! I mean, look at Honey and how she's ...!!"

"SHUT UP!!!" Renee screamed at the top of her lungs halting the conversation, nearly swooning on the love seat.

"BAE!" Jaquan ran to her side shoving Daisy Mae out of the way, taking a knee as he took her hand.

"Just stop; I don't wanna talk about shit, okay? We're having a baby and it's gonna be better for her, alright? She's gonna have parents who truly love her. I don't want to talk about my past, not now Jaquan. Can't we just live our lives without a bunch of drama, for once?"

"We can do anything you want; I love you." The sight of Renee distressed felt like a dagger in his heart as Daisy Mae chortled. Jaquan looked over his shoulder at her, but Renee directed his attention back to her pale symmetrical beauty.

"You are one silver tongued devil, like I said before; Renee, you hungry girl?" The sarcastic look on her face was not lost on the young couple as Daisy Mae walked to the kitchenette counter making a plate.

"Yeah, thanks for cooking."

Jaquan sensed some movement at the corner of his eye glancing up, finding Carlie in the doorway of their bedroom peering out into the room. A towel was draped in front of her wet, nude body. She slowly withdrew, disappearing again as Daisy Mae walked over offering the plate.

"Hey pretty boy I need you to do me a favor real quick." Jaquan's brow furrowed unable to take his eyes off his gold chain about her neck as Renee covertly gave his hand a light squeeze.

"What?" He replied tersely, as Daisy Mae reacted facially looking incensed for a moment.

"Run up the road a bit, uhm hit a right out the front door and walk over to the store and pick me up a gallon of orange juice."

"Huh?"

"Jaquan, it's okay." Renee encouraged as he gathered the women wanted to talk alone. He planted a kiss on her cheek as she sat picking at her plate, noticing Daisy Mae's eyes narrowing as if in indignation. He slowly got up walking to the screen door which had been reattached at some point while he was sleeping like a rock. His anxiety returned that Daisy Mae would out him after he cleared the doorway.

"My you sure do have him trained well, girl." The elder Kelly's words stuck, carrying as he stepped out onto the porch finding his rental car missing.

"HEY, MY CAR'S GONE!" He shouted.

"NO IT AIN'T, IT'S OVER TO MY PLACE!! I'LL BRING IT BACK LATER THIS MORNING!!" Daisy Mae shouted back making his blood boil. He wanted to go back in and assert himself but didn't want to change anything with the elder Kelly reasoning that Renee was already agitated. He walked down the porch across the lawn to the blacktop looking to his immediate right as instructed. It looked like a good walk.

"Aw shit." Jaquan leaned against the fence taking it all in, trying to figure out what was going on when he heard the porch door open and close some feet behind him.

"Uhm, good morning!" Carlie appeared beside him dressed in a flannel short sleeved shirt, cuffed skinny jeans and canvas sneakers. Humorously, there was a thick natty wool sweater tied around her narrow hips. Her headwrap was tight to her head, higher than before as she jogged up next to him.

"Good morning."

"You're coming with me to the store; I'm surprised?"

"Uh, nah I'm running an errand, but I'll walk you half of the way." The slender ingenue looked uncomfortable after walking in on Jaquan being intimate with her cousin. He took it into account keeping a foot or two between them to alleviate matters. Carlie kept her eyes low, looking at her feet with her arms wrapped about her torso.

"How far is it?"

"End of the road; uh, there's a little path off to the side where you can see the store, but don't take that. Just go the long way, alright."

"Why?"

"Just trust me, okay?"

"What, you're afraid I'm gonna see a doe?" Carlie perked up giving Jaquan a side eye.

"Who told you about that?"

"A little bird." He was trying to be funny, but Carlie looked irritated out of the blue. The road on both sides of them was framed by thick foliage and overgrowth with some tree branches dipping far across the open sewage ditches like long gnarled fingers. The humidty even early morning didn't help coupled with the stringent smell of waste. Jaquan wondered how people lived like this all the time.

"Well, they say if you see one..."

"...it'll follow me around until I please it, right?" Jaquan finished the sentence with a half smirk having answered without conscious thought.

"Daisy Mae, huh?"

"Bingo." They continued a few steps before she spoke again.

"Hey, a lot of people disappeared from around here; they always say that shit about deer ladies kidnapping people, but people really know what goes on down here."

"I don't follow."

"Hey man, take a look around; did you see anything when we you were driving in here?" Carlie gestured with her hands towards a lighter spot in the dense woods directing his attention to a shack that looked like it had barely survived a fire. He looked between it and Carlie with a shrug.

"What?"

"This is what's left of a uhm, sundown town."

"Bullshit."

"No, really; well supposedly the Klan came through here and set it on fire after some boy went missing. There was uh, some civil unrest and a lot of people got hurt. Afterwards, it was never the same again."

"Still calling bullshit Carlie; you do know a sundown town is where the people who do things like that live, right?"

"Yeah, this is what's left of that sundown town."

"Huh?"

"Oh, you know about the doe, but you don't know about the other shit."

"Spill."

"The men of this bombed out town went over and burnt down the black town that was too close for comfort, and they said it was because some boy went missing. Local legends say most of those men never returned, but some of their horses did with black riders. Total karma got everything burnt to a crisp and what was left is where we're standing right now. Those black people needed a place to stay."

"Damn."

"Some of the people in town, I guess not racists or something, supposedly went looking and found some of those Klan guys and found them around out there in their birthday suits, eyes all rolled up into their heads, jerking it to this uhm... deer lady. Bought them back, but they wouldn't stop going out there."

"Shut up."

"No seriously." Carlie replied pushing her glasses up on her nose as they walked.

"Stop."

"They were jerking their gherkins, all those guys; and they kept going back." She was grinning at the absurdity of the yarn she was spinning as both chuckled. Jaquan walked a bit ahead waving her off.

"Well then I should be worried too, because I saw that doe last night at the creek!" Jaquan laughed.

"..."

He kept laughing, walking further ahead before realizing she hadn't said anything before looking back.

The blacktop road was empty.

"Carlie?"

Jaquan was puzzled and more than a little creeped out but steeled himself walking back those few feet finding an overgrown gravel path almost completely obscured the brush and intrusive tree branches. He didn't know what to make of Carlie's sudden disappearance, staring down the path glancing intermittently up and down the road, and back to the heavy wooded area at his back. He knew that if something happened to Renee's little cousin, she'd never forgive him for not trying.

"Fuck." Jaquan hesitantly walked the path going almost ten feet inside the grown over wooded path. He instantly regretted it, feeling a pervasive sense of cold cut off from the oppressive humidity outside.

"Where are you going?" Jaquan flinched at the sound of her voice, turning back facing the far end of the path.

Honey walked out at the far end of the trail slowly approaching him.

"Is Carlie back there; we were just walking down the street and she uhm, came back here, I guess."

"Yeah, so."

"I'm just asking if she's back here because..."

"... and I'm saying, yeah so what." Honey stopped short standing in the middle of the path defiantly with her hands on her cinched waist right above her ridiculously wide arching hips. She was still wearing the same clothing as the day before, but he got a better look at her than before which made it awkward, internally.

"That's not an answer." This woman while pear shaped and thick like Daisy Mae and not as curvy with that perfect hourglass esthetic as Renee, was a visual approximation of the two fitting dead in the middle between.

Above the waist she was solid, well defined slightly muscular with thin neck and narrow shoulders, what seemed like a prominent bust that fit her torso vertically over a bikini quality abdomen. Below the waist sat a monstrosity of wide dense looking hips not exactly forming a semi-circle on each side like Renee and Daisy. Just below her tiny waist, Honey was packed enough that her denim jeans were beyond skintight giving him a clearly defined outline of her kitty, or what could be better described as the fattest camel toe he'd ever seen in his life.

"SO-WHAT?!" The sundried and honey-soaked peppered redbone folded her arms, cocking her head to the side.

"Damn." Jaquan was taken aback at her abrasive attitude which had none of the down-home glibness of the day earlier.

"Come on."

"Where?" Honey turned around slowly walking back the ways she'd come probably intentionally giving him a back view. Much like Daisy Mae, this woman was built for power below the waist with strong shapely legs that remined him of Renee's bestie, one Rashida Sikes who possessed what were called stallion legs over a ridiculously huge ass. But Honey had her beat hands down in that department with what approximated two fleshy boulders stuffed into those denim jeans like sausage casings.

"To find out."

"Find out what?" Jaquan timidly took a few steps forgetting his trip to the store.

"Find out if you're really looking for Carlie." Honey replied casually walking further letting a hand trail the overgrown brush at her right side.

Jaquan stopped a few steps ahead looking over his shoulder for a moment, then back in time to see the backwoods beauty make a lazy right through some brush. To his great shame, his eyes settled on her the semi-rounded swell of Honey's derriere noticing the healthy, watery jiggle and the rear cleavage informed by a single deep line. She didn't seem to care that simply walking caused her jeans to ride down exposing more than a good half of her huge butt. Jaquan felt a queasiness at the sight, following.

He took the right using his hands to timidly part the bushes, which was a veritable wall, parting it to find a brief muted clearing dotted with thin birch trees and the regular kind springing up out of the ground at odd angles Jaquan pushed through into the clearing finding Honey at a wild raspberry bush, eating voraciously. Jaquan didn't know what to make of it, just watching for a few moments. She didn't regard him plucking and eating, licking her stained fingertips. It looked as if she were starving. It was pitiful.

"Hey, there's plenty of food back over at the cabin."

"I don't eat nothing I don't cook around here." Honey replied plucking some of the red and purplish berries from a bush cupping them in both hands. She regarded his expression with a knowing smile walking over offering the natural treats, arms outstretched palms upward.

"Uhm, no thanks; I gotta go to the store for some juice." He didn't trust it, barely hiding his revulsion which made her smile warmly.

"Oh, I thought you was looking for Carlie's skinny tail?" Honey buried her face in her palms, munching the berries.

"Well yeah, we were walking and..."

"... I don't care." She cut him off licking the tips of her fingers before offering a hand.

"What is this?"

"Come on here." She made a play for his hand, but Jaquan raised it defensively making her brow furrow.

"Fine, look man there ain't nobody out here but us and you still want to play the role when we all know you're a fuck boy. We KNOW Jaquan, and really don't give a damn about that because you're sitting at the kindergarten table compared to us...all of us, man. Hey, I'm gonna keep it pushing and you can stay here and say that shit about how you're with Renee to the only person it matters, yourself baby."

Honey backed off hands raised as if someone had pointed a gun at her, then turned walking away.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ALL OF US?!!"

"I said what I said, nigga; now come on here." Honey was walking along the thick bushes at her right side eventually spreading them apart revealing a rickety two wire fence with rotted looking vertical planks. Jaquan was befuddled, watching as she grabbed the rusty looking top wire throwing her leg over the fence like she was mounting a horse. Honey carefully climbed over to the other side minding the rusty metal barbs. Her own slanted lime green eyes remained on him until she cleared to the opposite side.

"Hey!" Jaquan went after her, clearing the fence easily because of his height.

The loose bouncy sway of her humongous cheeks was calling out to him in the worst way, but Jaquan hurried behind the wild sunbaked, beauty sauntering into a clearing just beyond a huge tree. Across this opening was this huge black tire, probably from some sort of military vehicle, half embedded into the ground. There were rusty and decayed remnants of a swing and merry-go-round nearby as Honey ran her fingers through her bushy shock of thick brownish looking curls fluffing it out into a bushy mess. She crooked a finger faced away, then glanced back with a shit eating grin that somehow felt threatening.

"What were you talking about back there?"

Honey chortled walking to the giant embedded tire, looking at it admiringly pressing her palms flat against it assuming a position as if she were being arrested, then relented looking at her dirty hands wiping them on her butt making it jiggle involuntarily. That thing had a life all its own and Jaquan hated it knowing what he would do under normal circumstances. But this woman was Renee's family. A question was burning in his head, but he went for the safe option instead, still keeping his distance.

"Stop being skittish and come over here so that I can answer your shitty little question; unless you're scared." Honey turned profile looking pointedly at his face suddenly licking her bottom lip before walking around to the other side of the tire shoving her upper half through it smiling like a jack-o-lantern. Jaquan walked over peering around the edge of the giant tire finding Honey's monster derriere protruding from the hole in its middle. It looked bigger bent over in profile, suddenly flopping and twerking making more of it bulge out of the back of those skintight jeans accompanied by her laughter.

"Shit." Jaquan facepalmed.

"Hey man, can you help a sister, out?" Honey was bent at a ninety-degree angle, arms locked, chortling even more.

"WHAT?!" She burst into laughter pulling her upper half out of the tire standing there with a hand flattened against its tough black surface. Honey raised her foot wanting help mounting the tire.

Jaquan interlocked his fingers giving her a boost atop the tire watching as she straddled it like a horse jockey looking pleased with herself. He let her have a moment to enjoy a small sense of achievement.

"When I was real little, I would climb up here and feel like I was on top of the world. If any other kid followed me up here, I'd shove them off. Renee was the first kid to knock me off this fucking tire."

"You two grew up together?"

"You hella nosey; anybody ever tell you that?"

"Look I just wanna..."

"...I know what you want nigga; don't get up in your feelings acting like a female, especially when you look like a prince, fuck boy. Hey man, what'd you think back there in the rest stop gas station? You know, Renee texted me that she was there in your car. Said you were burning a hole in my ass something fierce getting me all excited for some action, and then you had to go and ruin it by talking."

"Sorry to disappoint you; is Carlie around here?" Honey leaned forward lazing on top of the tire like some lioness sunning itself looking over him like prey.

"Oh, that again, huh? Hey man, did you say all that shit to Daisy Mae before she took a bite out of you, last night?"

"Uh, I don't know what you're talking about." His voice faltered, goosebumps prickling up on his arms in realization that someone else knew about his tryst with the elder Kelly.

"You know what the fuck I'm talking about; come on, I wanna know how she got inside and all you wanna do is look at my ass and huff your own farts. Hey, I'm all about it and I can't stand skittish niggas that don't how to be a man and get what they want. Listen to me Jaquan, if you don't get it together, you're gonna be watching Renee fuck another guy right in front of your fucking face crying like a bitch."

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT GAWDDAMMIT!!" Honey was laughing in time with his outburst pushing upright on her palms assuming a posture like she was mounting a motorcycle. His body tensed up going rigid in places fueled with anger for a woman who talked like she wanted to go a few rounds. Honey kept chuckling, finding his threatening posture amusing.

"Oh, that's how she did it, huh baby? Well, let's get this over with because this shit is getting boring." Honey gestured towards Jaquan offering her upturned palm in a gesture he recognized, immediately scoffing.

"What the fuck? So, you girls all read from the same play book with that shit."

"If that's the case, then you have nothing to be afraid of, do you?" She swung both legs around sitting elevated above him. This gave him a view of her prominent camel toe. Her pants looked on the verge of bursting at the seams.

"You gonna read my palm, right?"

"Do I need to when you're already crashing and burning with your baby mama, my contemporary, Renee. You're so busy putting her on a pedestal that you haven't realized you're standing in Daisy Mae's frying pan. So, you want me to tell you the name of the next man that's gonna fuck your woman or do you want me to tell you the name of the man you're sharing a bed with in a polyamorous shit show?"

"Bitch."

"Coward." Holly countered, still offering her hand.