Timeo Danaos et Dona Ferentes

"Oh my God, Ronnie..." Jack said, hoarsely as he felt the desire he'd left pent up within him, during the sensual way she'd shaved his face.

Once she had him in her mouth, she let go of his shaft and used only her lips and tongue to hold him, moving both of her hands to take hold of his scrotum and roll and massage his balls, gently cupping them and stroking them with the tips of her nails while she sucked and swirled her tongue around the head of his cock. Veronica was incredibly turned on by the contrast of his dominant and her submissive roles as she sucked his dick, and the complimentary sartorial dichotomy of she remaining barefoot and clad in a soft bathrobe while he wore his business suit, tie and shiny black wingtip shoes; it made her very wet and was not the reaction she'd expected. She meant this to be a treat for him, but she was enjoying it quite a bit, too. She wished terribly they had time for sex...

When Jack felt his ejaculation building, he knew it was going to be explosive, and when he bent forward and put his hands on the closet door to brace himself, he felt his cock bulge and heard Veronica choke with the amount of sperm he shot into her mouth; she'd not been prepared for that much nor that fast. She felt his left testicle swell as he ejaculated, and this sensation had distracted her from his impending eruption, but Veronica quickly recovered and proceeded to swallow all of Jack's semen. She was careful, as she finished, to use her lips and tongue to clean his cock fully, as she didn't want to leave any trace of sperm on his pants. When she'd put his dick back into his boxers and zipped up his trousers, she stood, wiped her mouth and kissed him gently.

"Have a nice day, honey!" She said in an overly cute voice, and felt happy when he smiled and they both laughed. Jack pulled Veronica close to him and kissed her again.

"There's a surprise for you too, in the kitchen." He said through his sexy smile. "But there's no hurry. Sleep. Rest, and when you feel like getting up, see what I left for you."

"Jack?" She asked coyly, turning her head slightly to right and look at him askance, her left eyebrow raised, but the smile on her lips signaled her enthusiasm for his surprise.

XXVII

Tuesday, 0748

Jack walked out of the elevator and into the parsimoniously built and now sparsely occupied, below ground parking garage of his condo tower. He had a spring in his step and a smile on his face as he enjoyed the always incredible high with which Veronica's skill in fellatio left him. Perhaps due to this brighter mood, Jack almost failed to notice the faded gray smear in his peripheral vision of Ed-the-fat-as-shit, building superintendent's car, parked very illegally in a parking space designated for handicapped drivers, next to the concrete ramp that (retroactively installed) led to the elevator.

Jack paused, smiled mischievously, and approached the janky, dirty-snow gray, 2000 Cadillac "El Dorado," and looked cautiously around him. Confirming that no one would see (and that Ed had foolishly parked outside the coverage fan of the garage's two security cameras), Jack took out his 'Leatherman'-style, pliers-based multi-tool, and used the robust pliers to brutally rip the intake valves out of each of the car's tires. As the El Dorado sank unevenly onto it's rims like a lopsided old pimp, Jack took out his iPhone and snapped a picture of the vehicle, from the rear, clearly showing the license plate (bereft of the required handicapped symbol), and the large, blue and yellow handicapped designation painted on the garage floor, below the car's trunk. Jack ensured the lighting of the photo was sufficient to clearly demonstrate Ed's hubris in violating a municipal parking ordinance that rated a gross misdemeanor, and feeling satisfied it was the case, texted the picture with the building's address and a message noting the location of the car within the garage, to the municipal police department's traffic tip text number, and proceeded to his car, smiling wider than before.

"What a great way to start the day." He said, finding revenge and a blowjob to go well together.

XXVIII

Tuesday, 0802

Jack pulled into the rear parking lot of the non-descript, run down, single story office building more worthy of official civil condemnation than anything Jack had seen since coming home from his last stint in Afghanistan. He saw Gill's rusty, originally off-white or perhaps "ecru," 1989 Ford Bronco, parked in the same space as usual, outside the building's rear entrance. Unlike Ed, Gill actually had handicapped plates, and so he wasn't breaking any laws in parking in the rear handicapped space. But that was no longer the case after Jack slipped on a pair of his Mechanix gloves, and used a simple door jam and bent hanger to open the Bronco's 1980's-era (stock-option) door locks, opened the driver's side door and put a small plastic ziplock bag holding four ounces of loose meth crystals, with three vials of heroin, under the Bronco's front passenger seat. Jack had bought the drugs from LaChyna before he left Baby Doll's, Sunday night. Now, Jack mused, Gill was breaking the law. He relocked the door and moved to the rear, passenger side of the Bronco, verifying once again, just to be sure, there were no surveillance cameras visible that would catch him framing Gill.

"Tsk-tsk, Gill. It'd be a shame if a cop pulled you over for a broken tail light," he said, and slammed his left elbow backwards, into and shattering the right brake light. "and found that shit under your passenger seat."

Finishing the first half of his sabotage of Gill's career, Jack took off his Mechanix gloves and stuffed them into another sealable plastic bag he'd brought, then walked into work, deliberately seven minutes late. "Time to pick a fight." He thought.

"Well, well, well; look who decided to join us at... seven minutes past eight am!" Chortled the short, morbidly obese, fifty-something white man with pasty complected skin, several concerning black and hairy moles on his neck, a thick handle bar mustache above his repaired harelip, and a mop of 'bowl cut' brown hair on his head (Jack knew that Gill dyed both his hair and his mustache).

"Nice sandals, faggot." Jack said deliberately provocative, as he walked by Gill, moving toward his desk and glancing disdainfully at Gill's small, fat, hairy feet with repulsively brown, yellow and gray, ragged toe nails poking out from the simple, $1 rubber sandals/shower shoes he wore on his feet. Above his cheap sandals, Gill wore a moth-eaten pair of gray flannel pants held tightly around his prominent belly by a black web belt that looked as if it were stretched to the limit of its tensile strength. His pant legs' cuffs ended an inch above each of his fat, almost translucently-white cankles. Above his tatty pants, Gill wore a light blue oxford shirt with a bright yellow stain of perhaps mustard or hollandaise sauce below the left side of his collar, and over his shirt he wore a gray and white, herringbone pattern Harris Tweed jacket that had seen so many better days it was practically undead. Gill wore no tie, leaving anyone brave enough to look upon him free to see the ragged mass of gray fur that sprouted from his chest, and under his jiggling, goiter-like roll of neck fat. His pubic-like chest hair poked out through the gap between his collarbone and the v-neck white shirt he wore under his blue oxford dress shirt.

"Hey, fuck you! I have an ingrown toenail, so I get to wear sandals in the office."

"Whatever, Gill."

"That's Mr. Leatherwood, to you, Jack." Gill said, trying to regain whatever supervisory authority he thought he had. "You know what?! If you talk to me like that again, you're fired!" Gill threatened, and then flinched when Jack looked up from his desk and glared at Gill; they both knew Gill had nowhere near the authority to actually terminate Jack.

"Whatever. Asshole." Jack said, looking directly into Gill's eyes. "C'mon, you assclown," Jack thought. "fire me! I have shit to do."

Gill sputtered and pointed his finger at Jack, looked up at the ceiling and shook his head, then down at the floor as though the authority to fire Jack was growing from his seedy toenails like some abominable mushroom. Then he snapped his stubby fingers as he remembered something. "You have an appointment today," Gill said, smiling with the invidious smarminess of an obese, child-molesting clown. "The shrink is here to see what "progress" you've made." Gill said, using his fat sausage-like fingers to emphasize 'progress' with the always douchey air quotes of the overly pedantic.

Jack sat back in his chair, behind his desk, and put his hands behind his head. Jack's desk was, in fact, the only desk in the main room of the shabby, two room office suite. Jack slowly looked left and right, surveying the room, then returned his gaze, contemptuously, to Gill. "Are you fucking blind, Gill? Or did you eat her? I don't see anyone else here except you and your friend there." Jack said, indicating Gill's prominent gut.

"Hey!" Gill said, his face becoming red. "I told you not to talk to me like that! Don't fucking talk to me like that! If she doesn't clear you for further work, you're fucking fired, hot-shot!!" The fat fool snarled, his face turning so red from his anger that even his eyes became bloodshot and his fat toes began to visibly swell.


Jack smiled at him wide and contemptuously, ignoring the correct observation about the penalty he'd face if the company's psychologist did not find that Jack had made any progress in managing his anger. "Or what?" Jack asked, responding to Gill's repeated demands that Jack not talk to him disrespectfully. "The next time we're deployed in the same theater you'll get revenge on me for talking to you like the ate-up, ass-hat you are? Oh, wait, that's right, you're non-deployable for incompetence and for being fat as all fuck."

Gill's neck and face turned a shade of crimson Jack thought impossible in someone not a victim of a thermobaric explosion. "Or else, this! I'll kick your ass, you fucking Army hack! Don't talk to me like that, I was a Navy S.E.A.L.!" Gill stammered, spluttering and spitting in his rage to get his words out.

"A 'seal'?" Jack asked. "I think you mean 'walrus,' right? Or maybe an elephant seal; Are you really saying you were a Navy S.E.A.L.?" Jack asked, baiting Gill into one of the lies that had seen the fat man banished from contract field work.

"Damn right!" Gill insisted, shrilly.

"Okay, Mr. Stolen Valor, which BUD/S class did you graduate from?"

"What? Why?" Gill asked, though he knew what Jack would say; it was the same answer that forced him to admit his lies about being a S.E.A.L. two years ago.

"I'm going to contact Senior Chief Shipley and let him know you're lying about being a S.E.A.L.; Again. And then we'll see how you Navy-boys want to handle it, in house."

"Fuck you, Jack! When you're done with those reports, get out and don't come back; You're fired!!" Gill screamed, his eyes twitching spastically as he stormed back into his smaller, private office and slammed his door. It was just what Jack was waiting for.

Like virtually every member of Gill's generation, that hell-spawned whiny group of bastards born after the Baby Boomers and before Gen-X, Gill spent most of his life affecting images and donning behavior(s) he thought heroic and which he knew other people looked up to. Aside from misrepresenting his actual service as a Yeoman to instead claim the achievement of a Navy S.E.A.L., it also meant that he drank coffee, constantly, as much to cultivate the image of a hard-boiled ex-Navy Chief Petty Officer as anything else. But as was the case with Gill's other weak sister efforts at cultivation, it meant that the turbid dishwater he believed to be coffee, was always hot and ready to pour from the Brunn VPR-12 coffee maker on the table, outside his office.

Jack quietly rose and put on a pair of latex gloves he'd slipped into one of his trouser pockets, then took out the small packet of meth, the only one he'd taken from the baggy LaChyna sold him after he paid for it at Baby Doll's, tore off the top and poured it into Gill's three quarters full, cheap ceramic mug of brown, steaming coffee-flavored water. The coffee was piping hot, and Jack was confident that the meth crystals, likely already somewhat watered down in strength, would quickly absorb into the hot water, and hopefully provide enough of a taint to Gill's system so that if the cops stopped him for the taillight, found the bag of meth and arrested him and then tested his blood, they'd make the connection that Gill was a meth addict.

"He who dares, wins." Jack told himself, walking out of the office and heading down the hall to the bathroom and tossing his latex gloves in the trash before washing his hands thoroughly for several minutes and with copious soap before returning to his desk.

He was just finishing up his reports that Gill had asked for early when Gill came out of his office smiling, and pointed to the door as Leah Mikulski, Ph.D., the lead psychologist for Horizon Solutions, the US subsidiary of the British private security company for whom Jack and Gill worked, arrived.

"Hi, Jack." Leah said smiling wide at him, shaking his hand as he stood up. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine." Jack said, smiling politely but offering nothing more than that.

Gill smirked with the schadenfreude he felt as he poured coffee into his mug, topping it off and reheating it to near boiling temperature. "Ya know, doc," Gill began, smiling as he inhaled the steam from his coffee. "Jack's been having a bit of a bad day today. He came in late and was very argumentative with me. I'm glad you were able to come by earlier than you'd planned, I think he really needs to talk with you." Gill took his first sip of the meth tainted-coffee and his porcine eyes squinted with his smarmy smile as he glared at the younger man. Jack called upon every ounce of control he had to not smile or react as Gill so poorly misjudged his guile.

"You have no idea who you're dealing with, you fat fuck." Jack thought.

"Oh? I see." Dr. Mikulski said to Gill before turning her attention back to Jack. "Can we talk for a bit, Jack?" Leah asked, keeping her smile friendly. She was an attractive woman, in a mousy-kind of way. She was five feet, four inches tall, in good shape for a forty two year old woman, had long brown hair, black framed, angular glasses and wore a long, femininely cut, camel colored overcoat. She began to unbutton her coat, revealing the green, silk scarf tied gently around the neck of her white business shirt, below which she wore a well made, over-the-knee, black wool skirt, tan stalkings, and plain, matte black colored pumps.

"Sure you can!" Gill said, smiling and taking another hit of his coffee. "In fact, why don't you use my office, so you can speak privately."

"That's very nice of you, Gill. Jack, is that okay with you?"

"Sure." Jack said amiably, locking his computer screen and taking his iPhone with him.


Gill chuckled as he continued to drink his coffee, finding that he was beginning to feel very hot and restless. Leah followed Jack into Gill's office and shut the door behind her. Jack sat down in the one chair in front of Gill's messy desk and Leah walked toward Gill's chair and sat down, causing a cloud of dust, redolent with historic flatulence to well up from the worn cushion.

"Oh my God!" She said tightly, covering her mouth and nose with her left hand as she futilely waived the air with her right hand, in front of her face. Jack could see that behind her glasses, her eyes were squinted and watering from the stench that lingered uncomfortably long in the air around her.

Jack resisted the urge to laugh or comment and kept his expression neutral as Leah regained her composure and fanned the air around her to the point at which the smell seemed to either dissipate or she just became used to it.

"Okay, so, Jack, how are you doing since we last spoke?"

"Fine." He said simply. Though he volunteered nothing, she noticed that he did seem more relaxed and composed. He wasn't faking his composure, she'd seen quite a few of his compatriots (most of whom had, to varying degrees, PTSD and/or anger problems), and felt confident that Jack wouldn't be able to sand bag her if he'd attempted to do so.

"Okay, well, good, I'm glad to hear that." She said as she opened a portfolio and began to write on a yellow legal pad. "So, what's changed in the last few months?"

This time she did see him stifle his expression, but it was not a troubling reaction; he'd stifled a smile, a genuine, happy looking smile. She recognized it for what it signaled.

"I see. So, what's her name?" She asked, smiling herself, glad that Jack had found someone for whom to be inspired to less anger. "'Her' name, or 'his' name?" Leah asked him. Jack knew she meant no offense by the question, and that in their more understanding era, she meant it to be a clarifying question. Jack came from a very working class (if not working poor) background, and had struggled for the last several years to consciously break away the casual homophobia with which he'd grown up. His ability to take no offense at Leah's question was, to Jack, an example of how he was making progress in not thinking of (male) homosexuality as purely a sign of weakness and moral turpitude, but rather as simply an orientation that he did not have, and nothing more.

"Her name is Veronica." Jack said, and he couldn't help himself from smiling as he did so. He felt his cheeks become warm and hated the reaction.

"Good for you, Jack!" Leah said. "How did you meet?"

"Well, she moved into my building about a week ago, and we kind of ran into each other one day, and we just clicked."

Leah smiled and watched him for some time. "Are you in love, Jack?"

"Yes, I am." He said without hesitation, which surprised her.

Leah raised her eyebrows and smiled and began to review her notes from their past talks, reading and then scribbling for several minutes as she made a few more.

"So, tell me about her. Is she also a veteran? Did you guys meet at a veterans' session? By the way, did you decide to try going to any meetings for combat veterans?"


"No, she's not a veteran, and no, I haven't gone to any of the meetings. Her name is Veronica, but I call her 'Ronnie.' Veronica's a refugee from Nigeria. At least, she was when she was a child. Her family came here when she was seven, after two years in a refugee camp. In Cameroon." Jack said, surprised at how much he'd blurted to Leah. Leah took note of this, too, as it was more than Jack had said to her at any one time since she'd spoken with him, at first as part of the normal pre and post deployment screening processes, but then as a matter of appraisal for corrective action after he'd gotten into trouble because of his anger.

"So she was a refugee? Hmm. It strikes me as interesting that you both come from very troubled childhood environments; That you both have that in common. That's something that a lot of people can't relate to, and I suspect it's played a big role in how quickly you seem to have bonded with and fallen in love with her. Did her family leave Nigeria to escape from ethnic or tribal violence?"

"I think so; Ronnie's dad, I mean, Veronica's dad, had been in the Army, but something happened politically and they had to flee."

Leah made more notes, nodded her head and scribbled furiously. "Have you shared with her what your family environment was like?"


"Yes."

"And how did she react when you told her about the kinds of violence and abuse you and your mother suffered at your father's hands?"

"She was shocked, and she felt sorry for me."

"How did she express her shock; did she speak out angrily? Did she try to comfort you?"