Chapter One

Making Vows > Taking Them

 

Jay

 

Slavery descended so banally, with a walk down a hotel hallway.

The city itself was banality embodied: Dayton, Ohio. It was Midwestern July hot outside, the evening truly smothering at well past eight o'clock. Facing the dread inevitability of his wedding two days hence, Joshua 'Jay' Hawkins Jr. (a.k.a. 'Screamin' Jay' after an old blues singer), nevertheless headed up the corridor with a spring in his step.

This was the Ritz-Carlton. Still all the glamour of Monte Carlo couldn't have more enlivened him. He hadn't seen the friend (and so much more) on the other side of the approaching door in nearly a year. If the ceremony on Sunday impended like an execution, this felt like the condemned man's last repast - or conjugal contact.

If this was indeed the end, at least he'd never yet lacked for action.

At five-eleven and one-ninety, his medium build trim, Jay considered himself about average. His chin wasn't weak, or his cheeks all marred with blemish scars. His brown hair and eyes were entirely ordinary. Fortunately he'd always been wealthy enough for none of that to matter, especially in such a backwater.

Admittedly a bit indiscriminate, rich playboy Jay had bedded dozens of women since the gift-finish of his seventeenth birthday party. Now just a weekend shy of eight years to the day, still only that original initiate persisted in her ability to consistently thrill him. Freshly titivated on the elevator up, the raunchy dog didn't delay for even a sprits of breath spray upon arriving at the indicated doorway. Nor did he bother with the knocker but just hammered the wooden panel. This was wrenched open in seconds. Somebody inside was just as eager as he to renew their lifelong, unfortunately intermittent, maybe-finally-doomed dalliance.

"Jay, baby! My ally from our daycare days! Get in here so I can devour your lovely body alive! I swear, after all these years, I am not leaving a single scrap of you for that insufferable bitch to finally get!"

Jay was grabbed by the tie and literally yanked inside. While he was recovering from stumbling, the door slammed emphatically behind him. When he looked up, banality had been fabulously banished - perhaps permanently.

Sporting a new tattoo, another piercing or two and the fact that she'd changed her hair again, best-friend-forever Jennifer just bristled with exotica atop the familiar. Five-ten, mostly slender and athletic, she exuded an inner vibrancy that was (as always) more daunting than any amount of body art, modification or even the rakish new razor-styling and purple highlighting now adorning what was originally a fabulously healthy wealth of shining jet hair.

Attacking the hospitality supplies, her every lithe bend and flex seemed pent with feral aggression. Then Jen cast him a glance askance. Even obliquely, it was that amazingly piercing gaze that most captivated. Uncomfortably identical to those of her terror of a twin, this younger heir to the Chandler fortune (by only three brief minutes, alas) boasted remarkably large eyes of an extraordinarily expressive hazel.

Brown, green, and even hints of gold tints mingling in their intricately interleaved rings, those beautifully striated irises could be as variable as their owners' moods - and more eloquent than any language. Beyond hip to their code, Jay was well used to seeing them scintillating like ice, cutting like knives or darkening like the sea just before a roaring storm. Now joyfully alight with spite (spiced by rampant lust and a deliciously impish mischief), the gaze that could be so evisceratingly frigid in her sister was instead so hotly electrifying that Jay jumped at Jen's ejaculation as though jolted by live voltage.

"Well?! What you waiting for? Get your ass naked - unless you want to be leaving here in the complementary bathrobe. You've got 'til I finish making these drinks. Then those fancy threads get rent to shreds.

"Jesus, I can't believe the day is really nearly here. I've been railing against this for ten fucking years. And still you're actually planning to marry that harridan!"

Not bothering with futile argument - they both knew he had no choice despite sisterly competition's endless objections - Jay contented himself with silent ogling. It was hard enough trying to swiftly strip without a single trip or ripping off his underwear-entangled, already erecting dick. The sights on offer had been denied for such a torturously long time...

Of course in Jennifer's regular absences there was always his boss Julia, now head of the company, always Queen of the Harpies. But where Jay's designated fiancé wore only horribly staid business suits armoring away any possible eroticism that might be suggested by such impressively heavy and upswept breasts, Jennifer as always gloried in being blatantly contrary. Tonight she wore but a skimpy clingy strapless black mini that left absolutely nothing to the wondering.

No possible bra, no discernible panty lines. Nipples and vulva both exquisitely sculpted in satiny sable relief... Between the scandalously short hem just clutching her bulbous butt and the similarly tight-fitting soft leather boots that reached to just past her kneecaps, black fishnet stockings and garters were fashionably exposed. Framed against the drinks table (a pair of ice buckets held full bottles of Stoli's and Dom Perignon), twenty-six year-old Jennifer looked every bit the quintessential temptress she'd always been - and then some. Turning and smirking at him standing there naked and oh-so rigid already, she handed him a glass and clinked the rim with her own. Those leviathan eyes somehow devilishly gleeful and sorrowfully reproachful both, Jen taunted him with her toast.

"Here's to the death of freedom and manhood. You better pray this ending frenzy makes up for all the hell ahead."

"Knowing you, I'm sure it will. Knowing your sister... Well, I'd better do my own damnedest to make sure we truly make this night one for the ages."

He shouldn't have mentioned Julia. Rather than drink, Jennifer fired right up. She was determined to take every possible opportunity to vent until they all stood at the altar. Then who knew what she might do? Agreeing to forevermore hold her peace seemed far from guaranteed.

"Goddamn it, I can't believe you mean to go through with this shit! You will so regret it!"

Jay gave resigned patience yet another try.

"Girl of my dreams, we've been over this a million times, ever since we were fifteen - or I was fourteen. Unless I want to discover how the other ninety-nine percent lives, I don't have a choice in this. Bitch to our parents about it, while a couple of 'em are still around. I'm not the one who arrived in the delivery room three minutes too late to inherit."

"I couldn't help that! The pushy bully beat me to the escape hatch. If we were eagle chicks, she would have pecked me to death and thrown me out of the goddamn nest."

Changeable as always, Jenny giggled at the image. She tossed back her drink in a gulp.

Jay followed suit.

The premium Russian vodka was so cold it was treacly, so tasty and perfect in effect... Yet watching Jen set down her glass and blot those lusciously plump lips with a napkin, Jay fell prey again to that agonizingly familiar regret. Why did she have to keep reminding him? And financial shenanigans and deathbed promises aside, why oh why the hell couldn't the two identical yet diametrically different twins have been switched for him?

Since it couldn't be helped (short of a convenient lightning strike or even bloody murder) Jay tried not to dwell on the injustice. However it might delight to wish a messy death on hateful Julia, real life wasn't like Shakespeare, or even tabloid TV. Not unless a worse person than Jay chose to make it that way. As for switching their birthing order, if their futures hadn't been so predetermined for them so early, neither would have turned out anything like the way they had.

Loaded with responsibility, brilliant and driven Julia had always faced everything, especially her myriad duties to family and company, way too scrupulously. Spared any such expectations, wild rebel Jen had reveled in being her uptight, upstanding twin's polar (and thermal) opposite. While one sister got top grades all the way through her MBA, the other dropped out of their elite private high school to motorcycle alone around the continent.

Where the elder remained a rigidly-controlled, apparently asexual virgin still at twenty-six, the younger was wallowing on the carnal wild side while still deep in her teens. Now Julia was running the entire company for their increasingly incapacitated remaining parents (and already making subordinate Jay's life a nightmare) while Jen was still just running, period - straight towards the most fun and as far away from any responsibility as she could get. Now the spoiled trust-baby pouted a bout of lip-biting petulance.

"Damn your old man. If he were still around I'd kick his meddling ass."

"Damn your own old man. They set this up together, just like everything else. And we both know who the senior partner was - not to mention the more clever crook."

"Yeah, but you know whose idea this marriage was originally."

"Guilty," sighed Jay. Dismayed that his fierce erection was ebbing away while they debated, he rattled off a quick confession-slash-history lesson he hoped would even the keel.

"My old man, Joshua the first, junior partner in Chandler Software, wanted on his deathbed to ensure his son's fortune and persistent involvement in the firm he helped found - not to mention that of all the requisite future progeny as well. Business and genetic links must persist! All this despite the boy's complete lack of any talent, skills, ambition or proper contribution to the cause.

"Having doubtless committed any number of shared crimes in their rise, both partners were also determined to keep the small but vastly lucrative private enterprise they'd created in the hands of what would inevitably become their combined family.

"So papers were drawn up and signed. Solemn promises were given arranging a marriage between heirs. Enforcement mechanisms were crafted into estate planning. Should I fail to wed your sister by the tender age of twenty-five, I shall be automatically dismissed and disinherited in the bargain. And despite the fact that I've always far preferred the younger and much saner Miss Chandler, Super-bitch too is relentlessly set on this. She considers herself honor-bound by her promises - or is afraid that seeking legal remedies might unearth unfortunate past irregularities.

"So that's that. Despite her bitter, martyred contempt, your sister is insistent. And that means this is happening, no matter where the fault ultimately belongs. Like you said, you were her womb-mate, kid. You know what an unrelenting Godzilla she is."

"Too fucking well, my old playpen friend."

They laughed together at that; their easy communion smoothly resumed.

Setting down his glass too, Jay kissed his soul-mate a deep and belated hello, welcome back at last, I missed you so damn bad! They embraced and swayed. Jay thought they were probably both thinking of those daycare days, when even way back as toddlers they'd had to band together defensively against the wrathful tantrums of belligerent Princess Julia.

Such pooling of protection under sisterly duress only continued over the years, strengthening both those bonds of dependency and each partner in the process. With family and business ever overlapping, they all grew up in close proximity and nature and propinquity took their course. Adventuresome Jennifer had already coaxed Joshua Junior into playing the local kissing games, which quickly progressed to exploratory fondling in darkened closets. The little demon seemed hell-bent on accelerating past pubescence and right on through the most reckless kind of adolescence when Julia and Jay's engagement was arranged.

That was the first time Jenny ran away,

Over the ensuing years this became less of a trend than a lifestyle choice. Yet whenever she cared to return Jen remained the most simpatico of companions - and totally unabashed in her affections. Though no doubt this was meant to spite the future wife, the mutual devotion, adoration and erotic attraction between them couldn't have been more genuine. Inevitably they developed the classic 'friends-with-benefits' relationship.

Whenever the profligate prodigal returned from one of her sojourns, they tore each other's clothes off and went at it like jacked-up rabbits. Whenever pestering parents and Sister Buzz-kill drove Jen away again, Jay reverted to his own incorrigible playboy ways.

Sigh...or least those were the days...

"You spineless bastard, I refuse to lose you like this! I cannot stand to!"

That hissing admission said it all.

"Then do something about it, for both our sakes," Jay caught himself whisper-begging back.

"Whatever it takes - short of seeing me in prison or penury. I'm not exactly delighting in wedding Miss Virtuous Vengeance either you know. I'll probably never get it wet again. You know that icicle-diddling bitch can't wait to lock me up in the house and never let me out."

"Don't you think I'm ever going let you fuck her then!"

This was a barely audible growl, albeit with sniffles now against his neck. "I refuse to even consider it. I forbid, forbid, forbid it! You, on the other hand, probably can't wait to tear off that bland, conservative pants suit. Been jerking off to the thought of fucking my evil doppelganger all these years, haven't you, filthy horn-dog?"

"Bullshit!" No way could Jay let that sass pass.

"You think I'm risking frostbite of the penis here? Anyway, Princess Iceberg would never let any warmth of mine infiltrate her sacred crack. It could freeze in there, expand and shatter her to pieces. And do you think such a confirmed virgin has been saving up her precious cherry on my account? She's openly despised me since the cradle. Either she's a repressed lesbian or the trauma of our engagement may have turned her off sex in general.

"And seriously, after the way I've been living it up all these years right under her bitter, prudish nose, particularly with her hotly resented and hated little sister, I'm sure the bill will be coming devastatingly due. That viciously malicious razor-cooze would love nothing better than to take one amputating bite and devour my monster whole immediately upon insertion, just to see me pining away the rest of my decades in miserably impotent chastity, just like her."

Jen giggled bizarrely at that image. Then she hardened in his arms.

"Don't worry, my weak-kneed darling. Beg and you receive. Your old defender Jennifer will save you. I swear it to you right now: I will not lose my rightful prick to that frigid bitch - not forever at least. Not without a fight. And I fucking fight fucking dirty!" Finishing that menacing snarl she battened onto Jay's throat and began sucking like some immortal leeching creature.

Leaving her trademark love-bites on him two days before a white dress wedding? That was playing pretty damn dirty indeed. Knowing he would pay for it but having prudence overruled by the return of his fiercely hard blue-steeler, Jay let his first and eternally preferred lover go ahead and put her mark upon him. Let her declare him as her very own to one and all. It was nothing but the truth, their asshole families be damned.

Her lips really were so plump and soft and yet powerfully, almost hurtfully strong drawing on him... It was enough to make one psychosomatically lightheaded after a couple of minutes - even weak in the knees indeed. At last flushed and panting Jennifer detached, pulling back and raising her face. She smacked glistening lips as though savoring a succubus' soul-claiming final draining. Giant, greedily green eyes gleamed refreshed mischief into him from inches away.

"There! Let everyone get a gander at that! In fact, I think I'm going to brand you as long as we're at it."

"Wow, how kinky."

"Oh, you have no idea, doomed groom. Kinky is my new thing. It's become my overriding organizing principle, thanks to the lengths you're forcing me take to save our relationship, not to mention your precious prick. In fact kinky now constitutes tonight's entire agenda.

"Face it my sexy but wimpy darling: if you're going to risk marrying my overbearing sister, you're going need me to help you develop an extremely high tolerance for pain and domination. Also, if you're going to even consider breeding with that fiend on me... Well, we jealous, competitive types might make you want to pay for such an egregious betrayal."

"You don't say?"

"I fucking DO say! This cock is my property. Disbelieve me to your detriment, soul-mate."

"Okay. So what exactly did you have in mind for tonight, oh sinister new mistress of mine?"

"For starters, we need to prevent the first and least of so many hideous injustices. I understand that Princess Julia has forbidden you any bachelor party."

"That's my domineering queen-to-be."

"Well, don't you worry about a thing, baby. What one twin denies, the other shall provide - or at least compensate for. One kinky exotic dancer coming up. Get that condemned bachelor's ass over there on the bed!"