Initiation the wild whit.., p.1
Initiation (The Wild White Orchid Trilogy Book 1), page 1
Initiation
R. Collins
Copyright © 2024 by R. Collins
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The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
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First edition 2024
To my husband, for supporting me through everything.
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Chapter one
James
My thirty-second birthday is in thirty days, and it’s the day I’m scheduled to die. Actually, it’s the day I’m scheduled to be brutally murdered. Burned at the stake to be specific.
I should be upset by it. I should be terrified. I should be incandescent. But surprisingly, I’ve come to terms with it as there is nothing I can do at this point.
The funny thing is, this entire situation was preventable. But like everything else in my life, I procrastinated, and the moment to save myself has passed me by.
If I had one final request, it would be to see Genevieve Anderson walk away from me one more time. God, it drives me crazy when she wears pencil skirts to work. I’ll miss that.
I would chop off my own leg to have the chance to take her thick hair out of that bun and sink my fingers into those curls.
In another life, maybe she could have saved me. She’s cute enough to be stuck with, and we’ve gotten to know each other quite well over the past three years working across the hall from each other.
It wouldn’t matter anyways because she only sees me as a nerdy fuckboy who plays board games at the library on the weekends. That perception is something I could probably fix, but it hasn’t been our only barrier. The unfortunate truth is that she’s been head over heels in love with her boyfriend of ten years. Ten years and the only security she has in that goddamn relationship is a place to lay her head.
But me? I could’ve given her a real home outside of that shitty New York shoe box she lives in. A mansion in fact. Hell, I would’ve given her some kids if she wanted. My feelings for her might’ve never grown beyond lust, but I could have been a good and faithful husband.
But she’s off limits, and there’s no way I’ll be able to find a woman to marry me in thirty days, and that’s why I must die.
My life is very simple. I have two friends—the sixty-year-old janitor, Samuel, and the Spanish, French, and Italian teacher across the hall from me—Genevieve. She is not Spanish, Italian, or French, but she is an absolute genius who helps me keep my class in check as well as her own.
Hell, my class will probably be relieved to have a new teacher once I’m gone. Just last week, I sat in ink that branded my khaki pants with the sentence, “Mr. Barlow is Bogus.” Honestly, these kids are smarter than me since it took Genevieve chasing me out to my car at the end of the day to tell me about my new stamp for me to even know it happened.
Samuel and Genevieve know a lot about me. They know I love music, movies, and comic books. They know that I hate being a history teacher. They know that every Saturday or Sunday, I meet with a group of thirty men around my age, some younger and some older, and we enter a small library a few minutes from my home in Newburgh to spend the afternoon together.
What they don’t know is that we don’t spend the afternoon holed away playing games for hours like I’ve led them to believe. What we actually do is congregate for our weekly meetings mandated by our medieval, backward, misogynistic, patriarchal, secret society.
I am embarrassed that this is how I spend my weekends. Ashamed even. But I don’t have a fucking choice. I was born into this.
My great-grandfather was Jude Jackson James Barlow. One of the founding members of The Wild White Orchids. A brotherhood founded by ten naive and knuckle-headed men all struggling with a power complex.
These ten men grew up together on a farm somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. There were two sets of families—the Barlows and the Burkes. Five brothers in each.
My great-great-grandfather Mr. Barlow and his friend Mr. Burke had something in common—they both killed their wives.
Mrs. Barlow and Mrs. Burke seemed like the perfect wives. They were charming, beautiful, and kindhearted. They bore their husbands five sons each and managed their broods quite well.
Regardless, something dissatisfied Mr. Barlow and Mr. Burke about their wives. What that thing was? I don’t know. I’m not sure that I ever will. But it resulted in their unfortunate demises.
The ten boys were devastated by the loss of their mothers. Growing up together, they were all practically brothers. They knew what their fathers did, and it scared the living shit out of them. At the time, the boys were between the ages of five to ten, so they were helpless at the hands of their abusive fathers.
When the oldest boys were of age fifteen, they took the younger ones and ran. They lived off the land and learned to protect themselves. They raised themselves. And with the money they made from selling produce and butchering livestock from their own farm, they started a business. A perfumery.
It’s one of the many businesses the boys created. Many of the products they concocted are sold in stores all around today. From soaps to cleaning products to food products, they got their hands in everything. But perfume is where it all began.
The boys grew up to be men. And their passion for perfumes led them to women. Women who became wives. And mothers.
The men were so happy with their wives. They made them meals, bore them children, and genuinely improved their lives. The men were convinced that women were the key to happiness and believed that the absence of their mothers destroyed their fathers.
Ironically, the wives of all ten men only bore sons. One day, when the wives were busy tending to their homes and children, the men gathered together at the farm where they grew up. Their fathers were long gone, and the land was dead.
They formed a circle and drew blood. They let it drip onto the land. They made a promise to each other that their sons would never suffer the same fate as them. That they would teach them the importance of a woman. That they would force them to wed and live a happy life.
And that if their sons and their son’s sons did not comply, they would suffer a painful death.
That’s how our first and most important tenet was formed:
A man must marry by age thirty-two as he is nothing without a wife. If he does not wed, then he must be turned into ash and return from whence he came.
Wives practically run our little society, but they belong to their husbands. Everything a man has belongs to the society except his wife. She remains his and is his key to life. Despite her importance, he must make her submit and keep her in line.
When my father taught me the tenets at age ten, I threw up. It made me sick to my stomach, and I could not believe I had been subjected to this fate. I swore to myself I could never do it. Get married. Remain in this institution. There had to be another option.
I feared women just as much as I respected them, viewing them as the key to joy and destruction. I’ve never had a problem getting a woman to follow me around and hang on my every word, but I’ve always kept them at arm’s length and have never let them get too close. I never wanted anyone to have me as their fate.
I knew if I wed a woman, I would destroy her. I’d ruin her life. So instead, I traveled. I met as many women as I could. We got to know each other in whatever ways we wanted, and then I abandoned them. It’s something I still do now.
But I don’t get to travel much now that I’m a teacher. And I’ve decreased the number of women I see in my free time since meeting Genevieve. I know I can’t have her. But I’m disgusted with myself at the way she views me. Like I’m some renaissance rake ravishing women and casting them aside after getting their goods.
What she’ll never know is that if there was anyone I’d want by my side, to honor, protect, and share a life with, it would be her.
I’m addicted to her white orchid-infused perfume, but I hate it too. I hate it because every whiff of it reminds me of where I come from. It’s made by my family.
But she doesn’t know that, and she’ll never have to. I’ll only be assaulted by the smell a little longer.
It always envelops me most in the afternoon when she brings me lunch from the cafeteria. And I spend the rest of the day afterward trying to push the thought of h
I fail every time.
Chapter two
James
Genevieve walks into my classroom at noon holding a tray of my favorite lunch special: chicken strips and pasta salad. She wears a white button-down blouse that I wish was a little thinner and her favorite gray, knee-length pencil skirt that has a chokehold on me.
I pull out my desk chair for her to sit (hoping she doesn’t feel my eyes linger on her ass) and pull one up to the other side for me. As I sit down, I am slapped by that familiar scent that makes me want to live and die.
I love it when she wears white. It looks so beautiful against her dark brown skin. She has her hair in a new style today. She told me this morning that her hairstyle is called box braids, and I am obsessed. She always has so many different hairstyles, and I’m always excited to see what she does next. I’ll miss that too.
She looks up at me with her icy blue-gray eyes. They look like a winter storm I want to disappear into. I am captivated by them. They compel me to hang onto her every word.
I get lost in her gaze when she starts to speak. “Is it Friday yet?”
I pick up a chicken strip off my plate, fighting the urge to grab her hand. “I wish. But unfortunately, the week just started, so we’re screwed.”
She giggles at me like I tickled her. “Well, there’s no need to get too upset about it. Hopefully, it won’t be that bad.”
I groan at the thought of Friday as it brings me closer to my birthday. “Do you have your weekend planned out already?”
“Tyler and I had a dinner date planned, but he canceled the reservation this morning and has been acting really strange since.” She scrunches her nose. “So at the moment, I don’t have anything planned.”
“Tyler? Acting strange? Well, that’s new. Genevieve, everything you tell me about this guy is strange. From the fact that he said you should dress more like his mother to him packing your lunch to make sure you don’t bring too many snacks. Honestly, I don’t know what you see in the guy. You could do significantly better.”
I’m always blunt with Genevieve, but she allows me to be, and I respect her for it. I honestly cannot handle walking on eggshells around someone, and with her, I don’t have to.
“Tyler is a good guy, James. You haven’t even met him, so how would you know?”
I roll my eyes as I shove another tender down my gullet. “Go ahead and keep telling yourself that, sweetheart. I know what I know, and this guy is bad news. I only hope it doesn’t bite you in the ass because I care about you and don’t want you to get hurt.”
She picks up her string cheese and flings it at my forehead. “Thank you for your concern, Cupid. If I need help, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
I wink and she crosses her legs. It’s what she does whenever I do something flirtatious.
Every lunch, all I hear is “Tyler this, Tyler that”, but I know he does not treat her like I could. And whenever I remind her that Tyler is a loser, she gets nervous. I can feel it.
We lock eyes, and I am entranced once again.
She puts down her fork and puts her elbows on the table, exposing her slender wrists. “Don’t forget that next month you have to help me plan for the spring fling.”
My stomach churns. For the past two years, Genevieve and I have planned the spring fling together, but this year, I won’t be able to. It’s something I forgot about until just now.
“I don’t know if I’m up for it this year.”
She picks up her fork and stabs her chicken breast. “What the hell do you mean? We always do it, and you can’t say no.”
I groan and rub my forehead. Genevieve always gets the upper hand over me, but this time, I’m not sure I’ll be able to give her what she wants.
“I’ll think about it.”
“No thinking, just doing.”
I look up at the clock and see lunch is almost over. “We can discuss it more later.”
“Sure! I’ll see you after school.”
Before I can answer, she is already headed out the door, her hypnotizing hips swaying from side to side as she does so.
Kill me now.
When I head out of my classroom at four-thirty p.m., Genevieve has her door closed. This is completely unlike her as we usually head out to the parking lot together, or if not, she is usually not too far behind me with her classroom door open as she scrambles to pack up her things.
I walk up to her door and look through her window. She has her face in her hands, and she’s shaking.
Is she crying?
I shove the door open and storm inside. “Genevieve.”
She keeps shaking. She’s definitely crying.
“Genevieve, what is going on?”
I have no idea what I will do when she answers me. If she answers me. I’m not used to seeing people cry. In fact, I don’t do it myself.
It’s the second Wild White Orchid Tenet:
Men don’t cry.
She looks up at me with bloodshot eyes and I feel a chill down my spine. I have never seen her like this in the three years I’ve known her, and it makes my chest feel tight. Seeing her upset angers me, and I have to know the source.
I pull up a chair beside her, and she wipes her nose with a tissue. “Tyler is leaving me.”
I feel my soul leave my body. I knew Tyler was nothing but trash. “I told you he was garbage, Genevieve. You’re better off for it.”
She looks at me like I stabbed her as her voice shakes. “How could you say that to me right now?”
I place my hand on her back as her tears fall faster. She feels so fragile and delicate under my touch.
“I don’t mean to be rude. All I meant was that you’re better than him. You deserve better and will find better. It will be alright.” I hope.
Her body shakes. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“You move on.”
She turns to face me with rage in her eyes. “No, James. You don’t understand. I don’t know where I’m going to go.”
I place my hands on her desk. “What do you mean?”
She chuckles low. “He is kicking me out. He said I need to have my stuff out of his place by this weekend.”
My heart begins to race. That bastard. “Then you’ll stay with a friend.”
She covers her face and cries harder. “I don’t have anyone, James. No friends, no family. All I have is me. Just me.”
My palms sweat at her confession. I had no idea she was all alone. Genevieve means a lot to me, and I hate to see her upset. I should hug her or something. I should do anything. Anything else other than what I really feel like doing which is taking advantage of the situation. Just ask her.
“Move in with me, Genevieve.” The words come out faster than I can think.
She sucks in a breath. “Haha. Very funny, James.”
I grab her wrist. “I’m serious.”
She yanks her hand away and stands up. “No way. Our school has a no-fraternization policy. We’ll put our jobs at risk. That will not work.”
I stand up to face her, feeling bold as ever. “I’m not asking you to marry me, Genevieve. I’m telling you to move in. I am a friend helping a friend in need. There is a very distinct difference. I have plenty of space, and you won’t even know I’m there. No one will care.”
She glares at me. “Don’t tell me to do anything, James.”
I chuckle. “I’m asking you. I’m asking you to move in.”
She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “This is crazy. This is absolutely ridiculous, and I’m sure I’ll regret it. I’m sure of it. But okay.”
I clutch the desk, trying to remain stable.
This may work out after all. “You’ll move in.”
She nods her head and wipes away a tear. “I’ll move in.”
Chapter three
Genevieve
No way. The house that James lives in is like one out of a movie. It’s not even a house. It is a castle. One perfect for a damsel in distress but highly unusual for a schoolteacher making less than $45,000 a year.
