About

Stories

Misc.

Credits

Ads

GAMBLE WITH FATE.COM

Territorial Bonds

Chapter three

“Ding dong! Wake up, Jazzy!”

Jazz groaned at the knocking on his front door, reluctant to get out of the cocoon of warmth that his duvet provided. It was the day after Sam Taylor had paid a visit to the restaurant and Jazz found himself still in a bad mood. What annoyed him the most was the liberties the man took, the way that he thought Jazz was an object he could use for his own pleasure. People like him were what was wrong with the country.

After the man had gone, Jazz had been called back up to see the boss, to recount what had happened, but he chose not to mention the molestation. It was too embarrassing.

A glance over at the clock told him that it was already midday. After he’d got home from work, he’d collapsed on the bed and slept right through. Fortunately, it was his day off and he was free to laze around all day to his heart’s content.

“Jazzy!”

The knocking came again and it was then that the young man chose to reluctantly drag himself out of bed, pulling up the waist of his pyjama pants as he shuffled towards the door. When he opened it he found his close friend Cleo standing outside, shivering in the cold, even with her thick coat and scarf on.

“Jesus, I thought you were never going to get up.” she scolded, sliding past him into the apartment, leaving him to close the door. She made her way over to the thermostat, turning it up a notch or two without even asking.

“It’s a bitch of a day.” she told him as he stripped off her coat, sitting down on the couch. “Don’t blame you for staying in bed,”

Jazz sighed.

“Didn’t even realize it was so late.” he mumbled, yawning widely.

He and Cleo went way back. They’d been friends since they were small children and had remained so throughout school. She’d been there for him throughout his depression, working her hardest to be a good friend and make sure he didn’t hurt himself more than he had done.

She was a beautiful young woman, with rich, ebony skin and long hair that she dyed blonde. She was a little overweight, but Jazz always thought it gave her a nice, curvy figure. Throughout school, there had always been rumours that the two of them were dating and then later on, sleeping together, but he had never really been interested in her that way. Jazz wasn’t sure if he was completely gay, but he was close.

“I’m gunna go have a shower, Cleo.” Jazz yawned, throwing her the TV remote before heading to the bathroom.

As he stood under the spray of the shower, Jazz couldn’t help but think more about the previous night. A frown passed his face when he remembered Sam grabbing his hand, placing it over his crotch and then the words that had followed. But in honesty, what he had felt had seemed large and slightly hard. That thought only sought to annoy him even more.

When Jazz made his way back out into the main room, now dressed in jeans and a pink t shirt, he found Cleo standing in the kitchen area, fussing with a vase and a large bunch of beautiful, expensive looking, ruby red roses.

“Where did those come from?” he asked, moving closer to touch one of the petals.

“They were just delivered for you.” She handed him the card as he leaned down to inhale the rich scent of the flowers and he opened it quickly, unsure who would have sent them to him.

To the beautiful Jazz. The card read. The taste of your lips haunts me. I look forward to seeing you again.

The card was signed simply with the letter S, but Jazz knew who it was from and that fact made him frown, screwing up the card and throwing it towards the bin. He picked up the flowers irritably and stalked towards the front door, leaving it open as he made his way down the corridor to the large bins for use by all tenants. Jazz simply threw the flowers on top of the other trash and went back to his apartment, where he found Cleo watching him with a raised eyebrow.

“Care to explain?” she asked. “Those were beautiful roses, why did you throw them away?”

Jazz scowled.

“Because that bastard thinks I’m just some toy to be played with.”

“Whoa.” Cleo held up her hands. “Sit down, Jazzy, tell me all about it.”

He was reluctant to follow her to the couch, not sure if he wanted her to know the story about what had happened to him the night before. Still, she was his best friend.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as he sat down with a grumpy look on his face, his arms crossed. He looked at her for a while, before sighing, relenting to tell her the story. She would have gotten it out of him sooner or later anyway.

“I suppose you saw that Sam Taylor has taken the murderer’s case?” he asked, waiting for her to nod before continuing. “Well he came to the restaurant last night…boss ordered me to look after him all night.”

“Was he an asshole?” Cleo cut in, sort of already guessing from Jazz’s face what was wrong.

“And then some.” he replied. “He and his snooty friends ordered me around, thinking they were so much better than me because I’m a waiter. And when they were about to leave…” Jazz cut off, biting his lip. The incident had been embarrassing. He was glad no one had been there at the time to see it, or he would have died from shame. But not only that, it made him angrier than he could stand.

“What happened, Jazzy?” Cleo pressed, her dark eyes watching him closely.

Jazz took a deep breath before replying. “He…pushed me against the wall and kissed me…took my hand and made me touch his groin…made out that he figured I was going to go home with him and let him fuck me, all because I’d been told to look after him.”

When Cleo didn’t reply for a long time, Jazz turned his head to look at her, finding her sitting with her hand over her mouth, trying her best not to laugh. It made him frown and get up angrily.

“It’s not funny.” he growled. “That man…he’s protecting the person who killed my family.”

Eventually, her laughter subsided and she pulled Jazz back to sit beside her.

“Don’t be silly, Jazz, I know that’s serious.” she told him, shifting a little closer. “It was just your reaction, honey. You haven’t had any in what…three years? Remember what you were like before?”

Before the incident, Jazz had been…loose, to put it kindly. Almost every night, even on schools nights, he had been sneaking out to visit one of the local clubs, going home with anyone who wanted him. He had had so many partners, he vaguely recalled some of them and would invariably end up sleeping with them again by accident. It was a miracle that he’d never caught anything from any of them.

But after the incident, he had changed. He hadn’t wanted to be with anyone and the idea of sex made him feel strange…dirty. As if he couldn’t enjoy himself ever again after what had happened.

“Maybe it would do you good to have a bit of sex.” Cleo spoke up, tugging gently on a lock of his hair. “You need to unwind a bit, enjoy yourself.”

“He’s going to let that man get away with killing my family.” Jazz replied in a voice barely more than a whisper before getting to his feet, crossing to the kitchen. He needed coffee, it would calm his shattered nerves.

A moment later, he heard footsteps behind him and Cleo slipped her arms around him from behind, pulling him into a quick embrace.

“I’m sorry, Jazzy.” she said softly. “That was insensitive of me.”

After she had gone home, Jazz pulled his duvet from his bed and curled up on the couch, putting in a DVD of Some Like it Hot. He liked Marilyn Monroe, she had been an icon to so many women without being a size 0, as was the norm nowadays. She also had a good last name, even if it wasn’t her real one.

About halfway through the movie, when it was beginning to get dark outside and he knew he should get up and pull the curtains, but felt too lazy to do so, the phone rang. Reluctantly, he paused the movie and got up, moving to pull the curtains closed before he picked up the phone.

“Hello?” he said, settling himself back down on the couch.

“Did you get my flowers?” a voice asked.

“Who is this?”

Jazz felt instantly stupid. Of course he knew who it was, it was the one man he had been thinking, angsting about all day.

“Forgotten me already?” came the smooth reply, and Jazz frowned, hanging up and lying down on the couch, pulling his duvet around him. He was about to flick the DVD back on to Play when the phone rang again and he picked it up rather irritably.

“What do you want?” he asked in an annoyed tone.

“I just wanted to see if you’d gotten my flowers yet.”

Jazz considered hanging up again, but he stopped himself. “Yes I did,” He replied, “And I threw them straight in the trash.”

If he had expected to at least annoy the man slightly, he failed, hearing soft laughter on the other end of the line.

“Such a hot headed little thing aren’t we?” Sam mocked and Jazz growled.

“Just leave me alone.” he stated, planning to hang up, but Sam stopped him.

“Just so you know,” he said, “I plan to get you, little Monroe. If I have to send you gifts and flowers every day for a year, I’ll do it.”

Jazz didn’t understand his words. What was so important about him that a rich and powerful lawyer needed to have? Why was he acting as if Jazz was an object he could own?

“I made it a personal rule,” Jazz began, so angry his hands were shaking, “Never to sleep with bastards. Now leave me alone!”

This time, when he hung up, he unplugged the phone from the wall, unwilling to talk to the man again. He was so…infuriating. Still, whatever doubt he had had that the man didn’t know who he was had fled, since Sam had used his last name. It meant that the lawyer knew what had happened, what Grady had done and still insisted on bothering Jazz with his delusions. He wasn’t sure if he could put up with the man bothering him every day for a whole year. And it wouldn’t just be gifts. Sam had ways of getting to him, even managing to obtain his number so easily when it was ex-directory. He just knew that he wouldn’t give in, not to anyone, until his family’s killer was behind bars.

A short way across town, Sam Taylor set down his phone and relaxed back into his chair with a slight frown on his face. Jazz was turning out to be quite perplexing, not falling for his money, his power, his charm, even the beautiful and expensive roses he had sent to him. He had been sure that that would cinch it for him, but as it seemed, Jazz was different than he had expected, one not so easily swayed by a little charm and expensive presents.

Sam found himself wondering if it was him Jazz disliked so intensely, or the fact that he was representing the man that had murdered his family. Sam knew Grady was guilty, they all did, but he was exceptionally good in court. He could get even the most guilty party off scot-free and he intended to do the same for Deacon Grady.

He had been to see the man in prison earlier, preparing things for the trial and had casually mentioned Jazz in conversation.

“I met the older one last night.” he had said to Grady through the partition, knowing that the man was only half listening.

“The older what?”

“The child. The older one left from the Monroe family.”

Grady had given him a crooked grin. “He smelled nice, that one. Caught a whiff of him as he came home. His fear smelled good.”

“Why didn’t you kill him too, then?” Sam had asked and Grady had raked a hand through his hair before answering.

“Gotta leave something for later, hm? Little humans like that…easy to find. And once I get out of here…”

Sam had frowned darkly. “You know the rules, Deacon. You already broke them once.”

After the conversation, Sam had gone home, thinking. He didn’t know what it was about Jazz that had him so interested- perhaps the fact that no one ever refused him, yet the young man blatantly made his hate evident. Perhaps it was the fact that Jazz had smelled right to him, especially when he had him pinned against the wall.

Either way, he was going to succeed. After his initial interest, it had become more like a challenge, and a challenge was something his species took up with vigour. He was going to have Jazz, whether it took him a few weeks, a few months, or a few years, eventually the young man would crack. And then it would simply be a matter of taking what he wanted, before somebody else did.

Next Chapter

Back

Home

Copyrights & Credits

GambleWithFate © Lacey Grey and Coco Reed (2006)
Designed by Aethereality.net
Images © Index Stock
Textures © The Blooming Effect and Hybrid Genesis
Brushes © Relished.net and Cirratus.org and Roshiweb.com