This is based on Twyla Turner's original story, The Naked Chef that I have reconfigured as a Samcedes romance that briefly borrows from a little steamy roleplay from Tumblr that I once read many years ago in which Sam was the son of a Porn King. I have left out a lot of stuff and changed things and kept some things the same. I am posting this story because it mentions human trafficking…If you know of my past stories that is something that I am really passionate about. It is the reason that I am not a social worker…because if anyone violates, sells, uses, and abuses children around me, I am likely to lose my mind and end up murdering or severely maiming them. If you see something, report it. I am a mandated reporter, and I have to, but just be aware of your surroundings at all times…and take self defense classes and if you have daughters or nieces or sons, too, make sure they know how to defend themselves as well.

Trigger Warnings:. Sexual assault and the trafficking of minors. Neither are described in great detail, made light of, nor glorified. They are just part of the plot to understand certain characters' motivations. If either are triggers for you, I advise to proceed with caution.

Prologue

March 5, 2018

Mercedes was lying in her pillow top mattress bed with a smirk on her face. It had been almost a year since her husband, Shane had touched her. He'd been so busy at their church that when he finally got home, all he wanted to do was eat and sleep. But now, Mercedes was tired of waiting and wanted… No! Needed satisfaction. It was unfortunate that these days her sexual appetite was ten times that of her husband's.

Her ears perked up when she heard the water shut off in the bathroom, and she slipped her hand down her tummy and into the thatch of hair covering her mound. She preferred to have a landing strip only, but Shane said he didn't like it. He said she looked like a little girl down there without hair. The bathroom door finally opened and her high school sweetheart stepped through in just his boxers.

His body was big and still muscular from when he played college football. All the extra weight he had in high school disappeared and was replaced with muscles when he got serious about turning pro. Even after an injury ended his pro career his first year playing for the Browns, he still worked out for his health, not wanting to be as heavy as he once was. She started looking at him from his chest admiring his beautiful chocolate skin which made her hungry to lick him and taste him, and she rushed to look at his face longing to see him looking at her like she was all he ever wanted that he had begun doing when he met her in high school and made her fall in love with him. Except for tonight and every night this year. That look was missing. Instead his dark eyes landed on her and she saw a look of irritation cross his face.

"Come on, Mercedes. Not tonight. I'm too tired," Shane grumbled when he saw her dressed in his favorite teddy that she wore with the crotchless panty.

"If not tonight then when?" Mercedes asked feelings of sexual frustration overtaking her yet again.

"I don't know. When I'm not so tired." He shrugged his shoulders.

"You've been saying that for nine months. I need sexing so hard that I can barely walk the next day Shane!"

"Don't be crass, Mercedes."

"Stop being such a prude," she said before asking him. "What happened to you? You were never like this when we got engaged and only had outercourse or when we got married.. You couldn't keep your hands off of me then."

"I finally started serving God for real as a minister. In the NFL, being a sex machine was something that all the guys bragged about and as soon as I put that ring on you, I wanted to be a part of the locker room talk. But after my injury, and I found out I wasn't returning to league, you know I got depressed and even suicidal even though we had the signing bonus and invested my first year salary living off the interest, I was lost until I found my calling as an assistant pastor. God saved me, and I was able to turn my life around, and I finally have more responsibilities in the ministry. Our pastor is trusting me with heading up the outreach ministry due to my celebrity from playing ball. He thinks that I am what will be bring more men to our church.

"You know how busy I am, and the bottom line is that I'd rather wear myself out day after day serving the church than coming home and sinning with you." He ended, looking at her with disgust, not love and what some of her friends, Kurt and Santana in particular, thought was obsession that she tried to convince them was just a typical alpha male possessiveness that she found hot and thrilling.

"Are you serious?" She asked incredulously. "Sinning? With your wife?! Since when is screwing your wife a sin?"

"When a wife refuses to get off of birth control. Sex is only supposed to be for procreation, not pleasure. And your sexual appetite has gotten out of hand. You want to role play. You want to be tied up and spanked. You try to touch me inappropriately in public. Your behavior has become pretty slutty and quite frankly, troubling. This is not the behavior of the girl I married, who saved herself for marriage. Next thing I know you will be asking for me to choke you during sex."

"And I bet I can guess where all this kinky stuff is coming from. You hanging out with all your homosexual friends and working with one in his interior design firm. You spend all day designing sex rooms and dungeons with him for his depraved customers. It's no wonder you've become so slutty. I wouldn't doubt if you've participated in orgies with your bestie. His husband loves to look at your behind too much to be gay if you asked me. I am sure Blaine is bisexual."

"Are you kidding me?!" Mercedes said, shaking her head. "You've lost your ever loving mind! You're the only man I've ever been with and you damn well know that. And so, what if I want to explore and do more than the missionary sex we have been having since you became a minister? I can't help that I'm a sexual person. My sexual appetites have been this way as long as you've known me and we watched porn together because we were virgins and didn't know how to do it. You loved everything I did and how I was always willing to suck you off and ride you to you could barely speak as we experienced every fantasy we each had with no condemnation, and now all of a sudden, I'm acting like a slut. And this holier-than-thou act is so not you. You're not a priest or Catholic. We've been best friends and lovers for years. There's nothing more natural than for a husband and wife to play and experiment. We're married for God's sake!"

"Don't take the Lord's name in vain," he scolded before continuing. "People can change. And I've changed for the better. So, maybe if you were willing to change and wanted to give me children, then I'd be more willing to sleep with you. Until then, I'm sleeping on the couch." Shane stated before going into the closet to grab a spare blanket and pillow.

"You know I'm not sure I want to be a mom. We discussed this before we even married. You were fine with it before. In fact, you've been salty ever since I started making more money than you. I wouldn't put it past you to push having kids because you want me barefoot and pregnant at home."

"We were young when we married Mercedes." He shot back. "Of course, I wasn't thinking about having kids. But we're twenty-seven now. It's time to start a family. And hell yeah, I'd prefer you barefoot and pregnant. That's how it's supposed to be. Instead, my family makes fun of me for not being the breadwinner, and they're always asking me when we're going to start a family. It's embarrassing. So, let me know when you're ready."

With that, he strode from the room, leaving Mercedes furious and unsatisfied.

"Oh hell to the no. You've got to be kidding me?!" She threw a pillow across the room and it unsatisfyingly fell to the floor without a sound. "'How it's supposed to be,' my big fat black ass. Who the hell cares what anyone has to say about our life."

She had never felt angrier in her entire life. The heat of it came off of her in waves. She loved Shane. Always had since they first laid eyes on each other their junior year of high school. And those feelings grew stronger when they finally started dating the next year.

It didn't hurt that he was the one boy in their majority white school who was willing to date the thick black girl who was a little too brown with hair just a little too curly and coarse. They'd become good friends, and then dated, and her stern father even approved. Everything was perfect…until it wasn't.

Mercedes knew something was up. There's no way in hell that this has to do with the church or his religious beliefs. She thought to herself. She knew that if something smells like excrement, it probably is excrement. Her husband was either cheating on her, stealing from the church, or secretly in the was it. He was jealous of Kurt and probably wanted Blaine lusting after him. It was always what you were guilty of that you accused others of, and she had every intention of finding out what.

No matter how painful.

A few months had past and Mercedes had yet to find anything on Shane. She'd browsed his internet history, checked his cell in the middle of the night, and even followed him several different times, and found nothing problematic.

Mercedes was in the kitchen fixing a reconciliatory breakfast, Saturday morning, while Shane took a shower before heading to their church. This was her way of apologizing for believing he could be doing something underhanded. Even if he didn't know she was thinking that, she still felt guilty about it.

A buzzing sound reached her ears. She turned her head and stopped working on the eggs to listen better. The buzzing went off again and she curiously followed the sound, gripping the spatula as if it were a weapon, ready to smack a rat. The buzzing sound was coming from Shane's jacket hanging on the hook next to the door. Mercedes put the spatula in her mouth as she dug around for the source of the sound. In an inside pocket, her fingers wrapped around the smooth rectangle and she pulled out a cellphone. More specifically, a phone she didn't recognize.

Mercedes tapped the power button and the screen lit up. There was a text message from Pastor Will. She would've ignored it, but the fact that Shane had a private cellphone that she didn't know about, raised her suspicions enough for her to swipe her finger across the screen, opening the phone. She tapped the message and read the text from their pastor:

Check your email. We got in a new batch. I sent you some pics because I know there's one you'd like to test run before we send them out.

Mercedes heard the shower shut off upstairs. She quickly closed the text and found the email app. It was under an email address she didn't recognize or knew he had. She tapped it, found the new message, and opened it. She scrolled down to find the attached pictures. The images that stared back at her, made her hands shake uncontrollably and she almost dropped the phone. A gasp nearly choked her and the spatula fell from her mouth to clatter to the floor.

The pictures were a series of children in different stages of undress. Mostly girls, but a couple of boys too. They ranged in age, from what looked like twelve to eighteen. But the most frequent photos were of a girl about sixteen years old, who looked strikingly similar to Mercedes at that age. She had a white gag in her mouth to keep her from crying out for help. Her clothes were ripped and tears stained her cheeks as the sick bastard who was taking the photos forced her to look into the camera.

The sound of heavy footsteps walking from the bathroom to the bedroom alerted Mercedes to Shane finishing up his shower. Before she closed out of Shane's phone, she noticed that in the background of the disturbing photos were familiar wood paneled walls. She almost put his phone back into his jacket pocket, but thought better of it. She was going to need proof if she was going to save those children's lives.

She grabbed her purse off the hook next to his jacket and ran from the house. The smell of burning eggs followed her out the door. She didn't care. She stumbled down the stairs and jumped into her older Lexus RX350 F Sport. Mercedes pulled out her phone and called one of her three best friends, Santana, as she pulled out of the driveway.

"Hola, chica!" Santana answered brightly.

"San.." Mercedes's voice trembled with barely restrained emotion.

"What's wrong?" Being one of her best friends, Santana could immediately tell something was wrong with her just by the sound of her voice.

"I-I think I just caught Shane involved in a human trafficking ring. They're taking children, San..." Mercedes's voice broke.

"Oh my God! Where are you?"

"On my way to the police station. I found his secret burner phone. I knew something was wrong!" Mercedes slammed her hand against her steering wheel.

"Mercedes, sweetie." Santana soothed. "Just try not to think about it until you get to the station. I don't want you getting in a car accident because you're upset. I'll call everyone else."

Mercedes swallowed hard. "I will…thanks San."

She ended the call and drove on autopilot the rest of the way. If someone had asked how she got to the station, she wouldn't even be able to tell them. Muscle memory drove the car there, since her brain was busy going over every detail of their lives, ever since Shane started working for the church a few years ago. How he became cold and distant. How he used "church activities" to stay out all day and practically all night. How he didn't want her to wax anymore, probably because he preferred the bare skin of a prepubescent girl over that of his wife. Or a reminder of his shame. The thought almost made her vomit all over herself. Instead she swallowed down the bitter vile that come up her throat causing her to grimace in distaste.

Her body moved, still on autopilot as she got out of the car and ran into the station. She didn't even realize that she was still dressed in a slinky silk nightie with a matching silk robe and fuzzy slippers. She honestly didn't care as she got curious and lustful looks from cuffed criminals, officers, and others milling about. She quickly walked up to the main desk. The woman manning the desk looked her up and down slowly, ready to judge her by her skimpy attire before she even knew why she was there. But once her eyes reached Mercedes's face, her expression changed as she took in Mercedes's devastated and tear-streaked face.

"How can I help you?"

"I-I'd like to report a crime." Mercedes took a deep breath and blew it out harshly. "I have reason to believe that my husband is trafficking children. And he and the pastor of New Directions Ministry are using the church as a front. I believe, if you send out someone to look, you'll find a group of children being held in the basement of the church." The familiar wood paneled wall in the photo was burned into her mind.

That was all it took. The words 'trafficking' plus 'children' were the magic combination to send nearly the entire building into a frenzy of activity. Well, that, and Mercedes showing them the text and email with attached photos.

The moment they realized that the crazy lady in her sexy bedroom attire wasn't a complete lunatic, everything became a blur. Squad cars out on patrol were radioed, more men and women in navy blue ran out to their awaiting squad cars, one set of detectives left with the uniformed cops, and another set pulled Mercedes into an interview room.

They directed her to sit on a hard metal chair, behind a metal table. The ice-cold seat easily penetrated the thin material of her nightie. Mercedes shivered, but didn't pay it much attention. She nervously watched as the detectives closed the door and then turned to her with grim expressions.

A couple hours later, after being interrogated within an inch of her life about her husband and her life with him, after they opened his phone and searched through it and grilled her some more, and after being left alone in the dark room with that single light shining harshly down in her eyes, Mercedes was finally free to go.

"We'll be in contact." Detective Sue Sylvester informed her kindly, now that it appeared she had nothing to do with her husband's criminal activities.

Mercedes walked to the front of the building and sitting on one of the hard waiting room couches were her three best friends. Santana, Tina, and Kurt. At the sight of their worried faces, she was no longer able to hold it together. She broke. Her heart, her mind, her life, felt like they shattered into a million pieces.

Her friends caught her before she crumpled to the floor. They held onto her tightly as she sobbed in their arms. The glue that would keep her together, when she wanted nothing more than to fall apart.

A commotion at the entrance to the station pulled their attention. Mercedes looked up and her eyes collided with her husband's gaze as he and the senior pastor were led into the building in handcuffs. Hatred burned in his eyes as he took her in, knowing with certainty that she was the one who'd turned him in. And for the first time, she saw pure evil in his eyes. Something that he must have hidden from her for years. She didn't know this man.

He was a complete stranger.

Her hurt and rage boiled to the surface. All she saw was red. One minute she was standing there next to her friends, and the next her fists, nails, and feet connected with his face, neck, and groin. Detectives Sue Sylvester who was nearest to her let her get in several blows before pulling her away from him. She was positive that the detective and the other officers let her attack him because of the heinous crime he had committed. He broke the worst of Cardinal Rules… Children are untouchable.

"You are an evil and sick asshole!" She screamed and strained against the hands holding her back, feeling the pressure in her face until it felt like her head would pop. "You call me a slut and you're raping and selling children?! Is that why you wanted kids so bad? To molest them, you sick bastard?! Or did you just want to sell them off to the highest bidder? I hate you! I ABSOLUTELY HATE YOU!"

They shoved his bloody, bruised, and scratched body away from her. Her friends pulled her back into the circle of their arms to calm her.

"Breathe, Mercedes. Breathe." Tina soothed as she wiped the tears from her face. "Look at me. Just calm down. We're here. We've got you."

"What am I supposed to do now?" Mercedes brushed at her wet cheeks. "I'm devastated and completely humiliated."

"Survive. That's all you can do." Santana clutched her hand and squeezed tightly.

"And we're here for you anytime you need us. You know that." Kurt added.

"But you all are moving to California. Remember Blaine is opening up a gym, and Santana is already in LA living with Dani."

"Yeah, you can come with us. You've got us. Come stay with me until you can get back on your feet. We can be starving artists together. You can work on building your clientele as an interior designer and I can work on my writing." Tina suggested.

Mercedes nodded her head solemnly. No matter what happened, she'd get through it. Mainly because of the help and support of her friends. Eventually everything would be okay…..