The BOOK of RENEE Ch. 04

He couldn't stop crying once it started.

There was nothing he could do but let it happen once it started, and Jaquan was grateful for the loud steaming spray. He just broke down unable to stifle himself after finding Renee asleep on the cabin's bed with a hand resting on their baby. He'd been unfaithful throughout this trip with her family members unable to control himself in their presence, or had he? Jaquan experienced several episodes where time seemed to ebb and flow around him as he met and had sex first with Daisy Mae and then with Honey, a veritable wild child wandering behind the brush and tall switch grass bordering the property. He felt depleted and exhausted on a level never felt before; so much, that his legs wobbled under the steaming spray giving way.

But was it real, or not?

There was white snow inside his head juxtaposed with multiple mind movies or perhaps, memories. He could feel everything through these ragged visions spiking and shredding to nothingness in his abused noggin. He sobbed openly keeping his large hands clamped over his face, particularly his mouth. Renee's family had been hostile towards him from the start other than Carlie, who now looked upon him with a disgusted sneer burned into her innocuous, somewhat plain features. She'd born witness to his degradation by the elder Kelly woman who took him sexually in front of the young woman, just to prove a point.

"Jaquan?" Renee called from the other room breaking up his internal anguish.

"YEAH!" He shouted from the tub, shaking uncontrollably at the sound of his woman's voice.

"You gonna rub my feet or not?"

Jaquan broke down again, trying to shove his head between his knees.

"HEY, ARE YOU GONNA DO IT, OR ARE YOU CAMPING OUT IN THERE?!!" Renee shouted again with an air of indignation that made him flinch at the sound of her voice. Jaquan's mind drifted to Daisy Mae powerwalking towards him only to be struck upside the head with nothing held back, only to sit up afterwards chortling. Bits and pieces of their tussle in the field outside followed intercut with his sexual breaking. The zaftig matriarch of the Kelly women was an irresistible force of nature, and he was shook.

"No." He mumbled under his breath.

"JAQUAN?!!" Renee shouted again, making him look up from his hands, finding the bathroom door cracked open.

"I'LL BE OUT IN A MINUTE!!" He shouted back managing some base in his voice. He got up washing and scrubbing his naked body meticulously washing away the grime and dirt, shoving his face directly into the spray mouth open. He could still feel her fists pummeling him, her tightened cunt squeezing and stroking his manhood while they struggled on the grass in front of Carlie.

He popped wood, long and strong to the point of a ghost climax from the images in his head alone.

"JAQUAN!! GET OUT OF THAT FUCKING SHOWER!!" Renee shouted again making him panic due to his obvious guilt and the state of his straining tumescence.

He stepped out of the tub slipping a bit as he snatched a towel from the rack on the paneled walls wrapping it around his waist. His cock stuck out like a flagpole and didn't seem to want to go away necessitating the fleshy spear be pressed against his abdomen as he redoubled the knot in front of it. It was so hard it was pulsing and throbbing as the visions continued intercut with closeups of Daisy's face.

His hand was trembling on the doorknob, while he kept the towel bunched up over his manhood.

"Uh, oh...uhm." His brown eyes were wide as saucers stepping into the room.

Daisy Mae was sitting on Renee's side of the bed with an arm draped over his woman's body

They seemed to be in deep hushed conversation as Jaquan started huffing about to cry out. She'd cleaned up as well. There was a flowery smell about her person. Daisy Mae's body was covered in a cropped white cotton tank leaving her lower half exposed with an ankle length floral print. Her calves and bare feet had a few visible scratches as she peered over her shoulder at Jaquan's face.

"You gonna put your britches on, or is that how you get around with my little cousin, here?"

He didn't say anything but noticed a mason jar on the bedside table with some sort of beige substance inside. Renee's top was up exposing her swollen tummy as Jaquan realized what Daisy Mae was doing.

"JAQUAN!!" Renee shouted raggedly drawing his attention to her face, then down at his partial nudity making the elder Kelly chuckle and lovingly rub her smooth cheek. Daisy Mae shushed her younger cousin.

"Treat him nicely; he's had one hell of a day." The amused sound of her voice made him retch as Renee ignored Daisy Mae with a snarl. He grabbed his unpacked suitcase by the handle yanking it inside the bathroom.

"Sorry about that." He heard Renee apologize as he dressed.

"Cut the shit; how many times have I told you to let a man be a man, little girl?"

"Well, he's..."

"A man, Renee; ain't nothing but a swinging dick and some misplaced attitude. Your job is to speak life into him, or death if he displeases you. Sometimes you just gotta ride it out of him; know what I'm saying, huh?"

"But Jaquan's..."

The room went silent for a moment as he got dressed behind the bathroom door pulling on a long-sleeved white compression gym shirt and some black adidas sweats. He wanted to climb out of the window after looking at his bruised countenance in the bathroom mirror. His eyes were swollen with a fat bottom lip and slight lump on the right side of his temple.

"So, we understand each other, right princess?" The playful yet stern tone of her voice made him feel queasy in hindsight.

"YES!" Renee gasped, alarming Jaquan who rushed into the bedroom to find Daisy Mae still sitting there but facing him with her arm draped over Renee's body. Her left hand was cupping the back of Renee's head and there was a look of muted distress on her symmetrical face.

"And here you are boy; now I want you to love up on Renee here, give her that little foot massage and while you're at it, rub some of this salve on her belly. It's good for her, and the baby."

"Renee, you okay?"

"Did you hear what I said, boy?" Daisy Mae interjected, cutting him off. She shot Renee a look, then stared pointedly looking him in the eyes.

"Yes." Jaquan answered, raised brows watching her hand cupping the back of his woman's head like a baseball.

The bedroom seemed smaller as Daisy Mae's expression softened. He tried not to flinch as she stood rubbing her hands obviously measuring him from head to toe. She nudged him walking to the open bedroom door. Renee lay on her side in a fetal position looking at the wall and window in front of her as Daisy Mae put a hand on her wide hip, the other on the door frame looking at them both.

"I told her everything, Jaquan." She left them alone to hash things out as he felt his face starting to break. He looked down at Renee averting her slanted eyes from his bruised face, starting to flush. Jaquan wanted more than anything for this to be a dream or delusion, but knew it wasn't.

"Bae?"

Her pale beauty was unparalleled, akin to the finest marble which made some people do a doubletake when encountering her exotic countenance. This along with her slanted lime green eyes and natural shoulder length raven colored lock, made her feel like a freak among her peers, mostly other black women. Her ethnicity was always questioned, and people would scoff when she told them she was black, saying she was probably Chinese. A lot of her peers hated her but wanted to be in her circle because of the attention she drew from men, like a circus. She'd become cold as that marble over time.

At first it was a practiced behavior, but soon became a natural part of the face she presented to the world. Her reputation overwent a social overall upgraded from a visual curiosity to a premiere ice queen. A lot of the other girls wanted to bully the ice princess. After she'd ambushed and pummeled a rival, the word was out that she was as dangerous as she was beautiful. That girl ended up becoming her valet for lack of a better term. People just seemed to naturally defer to her based on her looks alone, so it was rare that her stone-faced façade cracked or broke outright.

Now Jaquan watched her face flush crimson, brow furrowing as she started to grimace. This wasn't anger, but something akin to humiliation as streams of tears ran from her eyes. The last time Renee cried resulted in him nearly beating a man to death on the streets. Her discomfort on any level was spiritually taxing to him. Seeing her cry felt unnatural and heart wrenching. People would flock to her.

"Bae I'm sorr..."

"Don't say shit; I don't want to talk about it, man. Damn, she fucked you out there and I didn't even notice it when you popped up. This baby got me so fucking tired; off my game. She beat your ass, didn't she?"

"Yeah." There was nothing else he could say.

"...and what else?"

"Uhm."

"And what else nigga; I know what she likes to do Jaquan. I used to live down here and it was real shitty until I moved in with my granny back in the city. WHAT ELSE DID SHE DO?!!"

He palmed the sides of his head, huffing, not wanting to admit that he'd been taken. Instead, he inched close to the bed offering his upturned palm for Renee to peer into for the answers she sought.

"Oh, so you believe that shit now, huh?"

"Bae, I... uhm." White noise and his infidelities filled his head in jagged torn and shredded images.

"Say it or get the fuck out of my face."

The words wouldn't come out of his mouth, so he took a knee still offering his palm. Renee's face twisted up even worse than before as the tears streamed from her slanted eyes. Jaquan's gaze dipped to the hardwood floor and back again, finding something worse each time he looked up at her reddened visage. Her hand was palming her swollen belly fingers spread apart like claws as she sobbed loudly.

"JUST SAY IT!!" Renee screamed in his face, spittle flying everywhere. He could feel the heat from her mouth on his battered visage, like a furnace. Outside the room, Jaquan heard the screen door slam.

"Alright, time out; Jaquan you're gonna have to get the fuck out of here for a minute!" Carlie rushed into the room shoving the kneeling man out of the way crouching in front of Renee.

"BAE!!" Jaquan shouted.

"SAY IT!!!"

"Get out!" Carlie continued shoving him, making the man agitated enough to stand up towering over her.

"FUCK OUTTA MY WAY!!" Jaquan shouted in her face handling one of her thin arms, as Renee bawled. Everything was going sideways as they jostled over his distraught girlfriend.

"You're hurting the baby; get the fuck out of here!"

This stopped Jaquan dead in his tracks.

"Look, just go somewhere; she needs to calm down right now." Carlie reasoned pushing him out of the bedroom as Renee sobbed and moaned, inconsolable.

The door slammed in his face hard enough that the wood sounded like it splintered.

Jaquan stood there barely realizing his heart was racing listening to muffled conversation on the other side of the door, unable to catch his bearings. Before he knew it, he was power walking to the screen door intent on getting into his rental car and driving off. He knew it was over with Renee and her family would be circling the wagons despite what happened to him. It felt as if he was having a coronary. The screen door slammed a second time as he bounded down the steps to find the rental car locked.

"Running away, huh?" Daisy Mae was sitting on the porch just outside the door in a rocking chair.

"Happy?"

"Yes, I'm happy Jaquan; and you should be too." Daisy Mae held up the keys with a wry smile on her face obviously daring him to react. Her hair was down revealing its bushy nature, amess of raven darkness and brown highlights framing her own intense lightly peppered exotic countenance.

"Well, I'm leaving..."

"Are you? From where I'm sitting it looks like you don't know if you're coming and going, boy."

"Give me those keys and I'll show you where I'm going."

"What about Renee; ain't you having a baby with her, nigga?" Daisy Mae was enjoying the exchange, licking her bottom lip taking stock of him from head to toe.

"She don't want me anymore; ain't that what you wanted?" Jaquan replied watching as she favored his gold chain still around her neck from their initial tryst. Daisy Mae chuckled leaning back in the rocking chair twirling his car keys on a pointer finger.

"Are you helping her with her baby, or not?"

"Don't you mean, our baby?"

"Mamma's baby, daddy... maybe." Daisy Mae laughed still twirling the keys on her pointer finger.

"FUCK YOU!!"

"Wanna go back out there in that field; or maybe we could do it in front of Renee this time, huh?" She challenged balling his car keys up in her fist.

"Look, you want me gone so I'm leaving."

"I-WANT-YOU-GONE?!!" Daisy Mae raised a brow with a knowing smirk.

"Yeah, gimme those keys."

"Come and get them baby." She dangled the keys from her pointer finger again, then balled a fist around them in a tight fist as she leaned back in the rocking chair, holding it in place.

Jaquan stood at the bottom of the abbreviated stoop staring back at her relaxed features, then looked about unable to make a decision in the moment. He felt disoriented and out of himself in a way he'd never had before with the only comparison being the brief time Renee ghosted him at the beginning of what would become their relationship.

"Don't you love her?" Daisy Mae softly challenged.

"Yes."

"Then why would you make it easy for that old white man to whisk her away and the child, too?" Her words hit like the business end of a kitchen knife slicing into his soft underbelly removing his throbbing heart, spiritually. She was talking about his only perceived rival, Aurthur Van Allen a man old enough to be her grandfather associated with the Kelly family since before they'd met. Renee always shied away from the question when posed, sometimes using her exotic allure to smother his anxious curiosity.

"You're saying that's not my fucking baby?"

"You're saying that Jaquan; for the first time I reckon. Sounds like you know the answer to the question before it's asked, huh?"

"You're full of shit."

"You're scared to death, nigga." Daisy Mae's accusation and insinuation hung in the air as he stood there staring at her face, listening to her knowing chortle. Jaquan facepalmed, feeling a stifling intensity in his shoulders.

"Gimme those keys." He planted a foot on the first step.

"Come up here and get them."

Jaquan measured his steps walking onto the porch standing over her. Daisy Mae extended her hand, fist balled up without word, just a smirk on her face. He stared at her big fist recalling the clubbing blows that embarrassingly pummeled him into submission. This woman's strength was shocking with her punches feeling like hits from a cannonball. Daisy Mae's stuffed fist was pointed right at his face.

"Don't you want your keys?" She opened her hand, revealing them in her palm.

Jaquan carefully took the keys keeping an eye on her face. Daisy Mae was looking him directly in the eye with this lively playful expression on her sparsely peppered countenance. Other than Carlie, there was something disconcerting about piercing glare of the three eldest Kelly women. There was something there that made you feel naked in their presence. Renee had given him this look when they first met. He admired her unique hourglass figure, particularly her big butt, when she glanced over her shoulder at him with that knife-like stare. "STOP LOOKING." It was the first thing she ever said before facing him.

He went down the steps and walked around to the driver's side of his rental car. He didn't know what he would do when he got behind the wheel, pausing on the far side of the vehicle looking at Daisy Mae, who leaned forward in her rocking chair studying his face with an evil bemused smirk.

"Hey, what is this? Fuck, what--the-hell?" The keys didn't work as he tried to unlock his door several times. Daisy Mae chortled leaning back in her rocking chair amused with herself.

"I didn't say those were your keys, nigga." She started laughing wholesale as if someone had told her the greatest joke of all time, rocking back and forth a woman possessed.

"Bitch." It just rolled off his lips without thinking resulting in the immediate stoppage of the creak from the rocking chair. Daisy Mae leaned forward with an arch in her back resting her elbows on her knees.

Before he could react, she bolted out of the chair down the steps with a murderous expression on her face. Jaquan almost squawked getting his dukes up for a fistfight as she stopped short, then did this jump landing right in front of him with her arms outstretched. Daisy Mae shrieked, then laughed at the shocked look on his face. He towered over her packed with muscle, but reacted as if he were tiny.

"WHAT?!!" Jaquan gulped embarrassing himself under her gaze, chafing inside at her teasing laughter. He made a move to go around her, but Daisy Mae got in his path arms still outstretched, grinning.

"Ain't you gonna search me?"

"No." Jaquan started to edge by her at an angle, but she captured his wrist with authority. He looked down at her hand tightly around his wrist, then at her intense grinning countenance. Jaquan slowly raised his captured hand between them as Daisy Mae took a step, bodying into him, smiling evilly.

"Hey relax, you know I just like meddling you Jaquan; look boy, I left the keys over at the house somewhere. Why don't you come help me find them?" She offered gesturing towards the end of the driveway and the blacktop road bordered on each side by open sewage ditches.

"Why don't you take Carlie?" He didn't want to go back onto that wooded path that seemed to be the start of all the insanity he was experiencing.

"Because she ain't the one running away with her tail between her legs, nigga." Daisy Mae made a play for his package, but Jaquan twisted away freeing his hand, but getting scratched on the wrist in the process.

"I don't think so." He shot back knowing what she obviously wanted as Daisy Mae licked the fingertips that had scratched him with an edgy smirk full of menace.

"Oh well, I don't think I'd be obliged to look for your fucking keys since you got mannish with me; even punched me in the head. I'm a girl, a delicate flower negro. So, I offered, and you denied; guess you better call up that there Triple A or something, huh? Do you know where your phone at, Jaquan?"

They exchanged glances as Daisy Mae bit her bottom lip, then ran her tongue over it looking at his package with no shame whatsoever. Jaquan fumbled around in his empty pockets, then turned to walk back into the cabin when she called out to him standing at the hood of his rental car.

"Hey, wanna go over there to my place? I'm pretty sure I accidentally took your expensive little phone over there when I left earlier." Daisy Mae offered again purposely teasing him by favoring his gold chain about her neck.

"Shit."

"Aw come on boy; you really want little ole' me to walk off into that wood by myself. What if something happens to me, huh? Like, what if some menfolk snatch me up and have their way with me in the biblical sense; you know, fuck me real hard like rabid dogs and such? You want that on your conscious, Jaquan? What will you tell Renee; will you tell her you let me walk unaccompanied just because you mad that I thumped you? Think about it man; and if that happens, you might NEVER find your PHONE!!"

He was silent looking down at the hand offered while she kept grinning biting her lower lip.

"Fuck."

"No phone, and no motherfucking car keys makes it a long ass walk home, huh?" Daisy Mae teased, narrowing her slanted eyes looking through Jaquan.