by Katy Regnery
I gasp softly at the beauty of this room, just as I did when I first saw my own, and think, It’s like standing in the middle of spring.
In front of me is a bed, from which I avert my eyes quickly, finding a chair, a side table, and a lamp. On the table is a tablet plugged into an outlet. For reading or watching TV, I think, adding, in French.
Stepping over to the bureau, I find two framed pictures on the chest: one of a much younger Julian standing beside a young girl, who I assume is his sister, and another of a bearded man, with the same young versions of Julian and his sister. His father, perhaps. The man’s eyes remind me of Father Joseph’s, warm and wise, and I smile at the picture before setting it back down.
When I open the top drawer of the dresser, I find underwear and socks carefully folded. My cheeks flush, and I’m about to close the drawer when I see something in the back corner. I reach inside and pull out a black leather wallet. Only, when I open it, I discover it’s not a wallet. It’s a badge case. On the left side it reads Department of Homeland Security in gold embossed letters. On the right side is a place where a badge is supposed to go. But it’s empty.
I run my finger over the letters before putting the leather case back where I found it and closing the drawer.
Turning around, I lean against the bureau, finally allowing myself to stare at his bed, which is huge and inviting. Covered with a soft, dark green velvet duvet—surely something that Gus chose—the bed is so tempting, I consider lying down for a moment to stare up at the painted sky through painted branches and inhale the scent of Julian Ducharmes all around me. I reach out, running my hand over the supple fabric, sighing softly with longing.
Since the moment I entered Julian’s room, my stomach’s been vacillating between tight and fluttery, but as I stare at the bed, my fingers rubbing the soft fabric, there is a delicious humming, almost a buzzing, between my legs that’s making me vibrate with every shallow and increasingly choppy breath. In the recesses of my mind, I remember the sounds of Tig’s moans and whimpers coming from under the door of her bedroom. I can’t remember the faces of my many “uncles,” but I remember them walking past me on their way to the front door, the musky smell of their skin lingering behind, familiar to me only because it matched that of my mother’s sheets.
Lust will separate you from the love of God.
“I’m not her!” I yell, yanking my hand from Julian’s bed and backing out of the room.
In my haste, I trip over the doorstep and into the hallway. Reaching out to break my fall, I knock a framed photo from the wall. It crashes to the floor and breaks, splinters of glass scattering everywhere.
“Oh, no!”
At the same time, I hear the high-pitched sound of Julian whistling for Bruno, and I freeze. It hasn’t been an hour. It’s barely been twenty minutes.
Here is your punishment, Ashley Ellis, says a voice in my head, for your impure thoughts.
Leaping over the worst of the glass, I step gingerly into the dining room, looking out of the window to see Julian and Bruno enter my line of sight, headed for the barn door. For just a moment, Julian looks at the house. His gaze lingers on the window in my room. He reaches for his jaw, rubbing it with his thumb and forefinger, then runs his hand through his golden hair.
I stare at his face, at the troubled expression in his evergreen eyes, and realize I’m looking at regret. It placates my hurt feelings to know that he’s sorry for yelling at me.
You’re bothering the fuck out of me.
I place my hand over my heart, wondering, for the first time since he said them, if he meant those words in a way that hadn’t occurred to me earlier. Could it be that I’m bothering him in the same way I felt bothered standing in his room? Does he feel that same humming, that same buzzing, when he looks at me? Is that how I’m bothering him?
Lust.
As though answering my question, he shakes his head with a deeply irritated look, then disappears into the barn after one last, longing glance at my window.
When I remember how to breathe, I run to the kitchen to find a dustpan and broom.
Day #15 of THE NEW YOU!
Dear Diary,
I’ve been staring at this page for half an hour and I still don’t know how to start or what to say. All I can think is this:
I am fucked.
Fucked.
Frontways. Sideways. Backwards. Forwards. From every fucking side and every fucking angle.
I fucked up.
So bad.
SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO BAD.
But this time I can’t get away. I can’t run away. I can’t leave. I can’t escape.
I am fucking trapped.
If I left, he’d find me, and I don’t know if I’d survive it.
And then there’s the kid. The goddamn fucking kid.
I can’t even kill myself because of her. He’d eat her up and belch out her guts before I was cold.
I have always been a stupid bitch. A beautiful, stupid bitch. Mam and Tad knew it. Always knew it. Dw i’n pert, ond dw i’n twp. And now I know it too. Pretty but stupid. Pretty stupid.
What did I do?
Oh, my God, what did I fucking do to my life?
My husband.
My husband?
Jesus, Joseph, and Mother Mary, he is the villain cast in every gritty, under-the-table, porn-style piece of masochistic indie-shit movie I ever saw—the sort of sick stuff that makes normal people watch in morbid fascination for a split second before turning the fucking channel because they’re about to throw up.
And who am I? What’s my role in this piece of cinematic garbage?
Starring Tígin as . . .
The junkie who’ll take it up the ass with a splintered broom handle for a fix!
The moronic fucking prostitute who’s offered the kind of gig that’ll get her killed!
The stupid, beautiful bitch who thinks she’s got every man wrapped around her finger until she meets a monster!
That’s me.
That’s me on the fucking screen doing things normal people wouldn’t make their fucking dogs do.
And I’m not even getting a fix when the horror is over. There are no drugs. There is no wine. I’m doing the show sober. I’m standing in the fucking shower until the water runs from red to pink, aching in places I didn’t know existed while I pray I’m dead before tomorrow.
Except I can’t make that prayer.
I can’t fucking die.
If I die, what’ll happen to the kid?
The fucking kid.
The fucking stone around my neck.
The fucking bane of my fucking existence.
I fucking hate her. I hate her.
I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER.
I FUCKING HATE HER.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Julian
Noelle texts me at five o’clock on Friday evening to say she’s on her way down, and I tell her to drive safe. It’s only a forty-five-minute drive at most, so she’ll be here soon.
I’ve finished the vase I was working on this week, plus a set of four stemmed glasses and a matching pitcher. I’m wrapping up these items in tissue paper, and when I’m done, I’ll place them carefully into a wooden crate for transport. Tomorrow Noelle and I can take a ride into town and drop them off at Jock and Gus’s gallery. I promised these pieces by Monday, and besides, I want to ask Gus a couple of questions about Ashley. Not that it’s any of my business, but I think I have a right to know if there’s trouble following her or looking for her. If there is, it might be grounds for me asking her to leave.
And I need her to leave, I think, putting plastic wrap around each tissue-covered glass.
I haven’t seen her since Wednesday afternoon when I yelled at her and told her that she was bugging the shit out of me, but I can’t stop thinking about her and it’s drivin
g me nuts. I hear her moving around upstairs. I smell her shampoo after she takes a shower. I see her dishes in the drying rack. I think of her big blue eyes and pillowed lips, and I get hard as a rock. I’ve jacked off to the thought of her a dozen times since she arrived, and it’s getting out of hand. Literally.
It doesn’t help that I haven’t had sex in weeks.
I miss it like crazy. I want it so fucking much, I can’t stand it sometimes.
But aside from a drunken encounter with a couple of tourists over in Sugarbush, where I occasionally go for a night of beer and live music, it’s been a quiet spring. The fact is, there aren’t many opportunities for female companionship out in the sticks, which is exactly why I chose to live here.
My self-imposed punishment is that I can’t have sex—and certainly not in any meaningful way—until I figure some things out for myself. I need to get my head on straight. I need to figure out a plan for the rest of my long fucking life. And I can’t think straight or make plans for myself if I’m distracted by a woman.
And again I think: Ashley needs to leave.
She’s not doing anything overtly provocative, per se, but she’s messing with my head just by being here. I’m thinking about her all the time. I’m dreaming about her at night. I’m living in a state of constant fucking arousal, and it sucks.
I place the glasses and pitcher in the crate beside the vase and cover it all with packing shreds, then set the crate in the passenger seat of my truck. I look at my phone. I should have just enough time to take a shower before Noelle gets here.
I whistle for Bruno and head into the house. Bruno pads across the living room to the stairs without my permission, and I listen to his feet click-clack up to her space. Traitor. Though I can’t make out her words, there’s the soft hum of her voice as she greets him, and although it’s pure fantasy, I imagine her lying naked on her bed, smiling at him as he walks into her room. Her skin will be light and flawless, her nipples pert and pink. She has a flat stomach and slim waist, but a rounded ass teases me as she crooks a finger and invites me into her bedroom. I gulp, imagining myself stepping forward, my cock thickening and hardening until it’s jutting out at her, and she grins at it, then at me.
“Fuck, Julian!” I mutter, stalking through the dining room and back to the hallway that leads to my bathroom. “Knock it off.”
I throw my shirt on the floor. My chest muscles are bunched and firm. I slide my jeans over my hips, and they pool on the floor. I yank on my boxer briefs, but they snag on my erection, which points straight up at my chin. Lifting the cotton over the taut skin, I let the underwear skim down my legs. I stare down at my cock, half hating the way it has decided that it wants this foundling girl, no matter how strong the objections of my mind.
Opening the glass door to the shower, I turn on the water, waiting a moment for it to warm up before stepping inside. I stand in the hot spray, leaning my forehead against the tile wall, feeling the water pound on my back as I soap up my hands. I reach for my cock, stroking it while I think about Ashley, who is directly upstairs.
I imagine grasping her hips as I push into her from behind.
I think about how tight she’ll be, how hot, how wet, how welcome.
I imagine the soft voice that she uses with Bruno as she gasps and moans and tells me how huge I am and that she’s never had it as good as she has it with me.
I fist her beautiful blonde hair in my hand, pulling back, watching the gorgeous lines of her neck as she extends it.
I watch the pulse in her throat as I feel the building of my own release, the tightening of my balls, the racing of my heart, the swirling inside that grows to a fevered pitch.
“Ah! Fuck! Ahhhh!” I groan, coming in hot spurts against the white tile walls. I pant through the waves of my orgasm, grateful for the relief, hating the inspiration.
When my knees no longer threaten to buckle, I lean my head back into the hot water and shampoo my hair, wondering what it is about this girl that has me so captivated. Is it as simple as her looks? Her beautiful face and gorgeous body? Or is it something more?
Let’s face it: a man could get used to home-cooked meals and the sight of her wide blue eyes as she listens attentively to the details of his day. Not to mention, I’m pretty sure she’s in trouble, and if—a big, unrealistic if, I know—but if she’s a good person and not a user, if she’s a victim and not a culprit, if she’s someone worthy of protection instead of someone who would play on a man’s protectiveness, then there is something in me that would answer her need. I would keep her safe. I would hurt anyone who’d try to hurt her. I would kill anyone who’d try to take her away from me.
My heart thunders as I rinse the soapy water from my hair, my hardwired instincts to protect and serve now as aroused as my cock was five minutes ago.
Ayúdame, Julian. Por favor, mi amor!
I bite my lip when I hear Magdalena’s voice in my head, followed by a different voice from my past that makes me release my almost-bloody lip and clench my jaw instead.
Agent Ducharmes, at what point did you ascertain the true nature of Ms. Rojas’s objectives?
I flinch at the memory, picking up a bar of soap and running it over my body as shame washes over me.
Agent Ducharmes, I repeat: at what point did you ascertain the true nature of Ms. Rojas’s objectives? At what point did you understand what she intended?
I close my eyes, take a deep breath of steamy, scented air, and hold it in my lungs.
Never, I think, recalling my answer under direct testimony. I never ascertained the true nature of Ms. Rojas’s objectives. I didn’t understand her intentions until it was way too late to stop them.
The gavel bangs. A price must be paid.
Agent Ducharmes, you are hereby dismissed from the United States Secret Service. Your position with the Department of Homeland Security is terminated, effective immediately.
I turn off the water and grab a towel from the rack over the toilet.
Yes in-fucking-deed.
Ashley needs to go.
***
Ashley
Julian hates me, but he still allows Bruno to visit, which I regard as a kindness, even though I’m positive he doesn’t intend for it to be.
I’m lying on my bed, my eyes burning with tears after reading Tig’s diary, when my sweet friend walks into my room, his warm brown eyes meeting mine. He approaches the bed with soft, sure-footed steps, stopping directly in front of my face and sniffing tentatively. When he starts licking my tears, I’m so surprised that I hear myself giggling, despite the sharp pain in my heart.
“Aw, baby,” I croon, “thank you for the kisses.”
I scratch behind his ears as his soft pink tongue bathes my cheeks.
A noise outside the window distracts him, and he freezes before crossing my room and standing up with his front paws on the windowsill, his hound nose pressed against the screen. With a deep bark, he runs from my room, and I listen to his footfalls on the stairs.
I turn back to the diary, staring at Marilyn’s smiling face on the cover. My mother’s words are so terrified, so hopeless, so full of regret, so full of hate.
I remember her screams the night after Mosier found me in the pool with his sons, but when my mind shifts, trying to imagine what exactly was happening to her in his study, what degradations her body endured in my place, I can’t bear it. I can’t process this right now. I shut down my thoughts, push hard against the bed, and stand up, placing distance between her scrawled fury and my trembling heart, but it’s not enough. I need to get out of this room.
Water rushing through old pipes tells me that Julian is in the shower and probably can’t hear Bruno’s baying and whining at the kitchen door. As long as my nemesis is showering, it won’t “bother the fuck” out of him if I slip downstairs, let Bruno out, and make myself a cup of tea.
Bruno wags his tail gratefully as I open the back door, and he bounds down the porch steps in search of whatever he smelled from upstairs.
I lift the kettle from the stove and fill it with water. I take a cup from the cabinet and plop in a tea bag, leaning against the marble counter as I think about Anders’ words in the limo when he drove me back to school.
She loved you.
Did she?
Did she love me?
She writes over and over again that she hated me, and yet she could have run away, but she didn’t. She could have killed herself, but she didn’t. In fact, it appears that I might have been the reason she stayed with Mosier. Why? Because she knew what he intended? Did she know when she married him? Or only after? I have so many questions, and while I know that reading her diary might give me the answers I crave, every entry throws me into a chaotic emotional spiral that makes it hard to breathe. I have to pace my reading, or I feel like my head will explode.
There’s a soft knock at the screen door.
“Um . . . hi?”
I start at the unexpected sound of a woman’s voice, jerking my neck up to see a woman, more or less my age, standing on the porch.
“Hi,” I say automatically.
She has light brown hair and a duffel bag hanging from her shoulder. “I’m Noelle.”
Okay. I stare at her as the kettle starts to whistle.
She grins. “Noelle. Julian’s sister? Noelle?”
“Oh!” I exclaim, crossing to the back door to open it. “Yes, of course. Sorry. I was—”
“I think your water’s ready,” she says, looking over my shoulder at the stove.
“Right. Yes,” I say, stepping over to the stove and lifting the kettle. I turn to her. “Can I make you a cup of tea?”
Her face blooms into a smile, and I can see so much of her brother in her pretty features, it makes my heart catch. I’ve seen Julian smile only once, but now I know what it would look like if he’d do it more freely.