by S Doyle
“You know that kills me, Ash. You know it kills me you’re left on your own to fight this battle.”
“I know. But you need to trust me. I can do this. I can do this for both of us. I just need time.”
It was what I’d told George, too. But that was always a question in my mind. How much time did I need? How much time did I have?
A week after my visit with Marc, I learned I didn’t have that much time at all.
2
Harborview
Five weeks after the wedding
Ashleigh
“Are you sure?” I asked the doctor.
The woman, maybe only ten years older than I was, nodded and put her hand on my shoulder.
“Sure as can be. Blood tests don’t lie. Based on what you told me, it looks like you’re eleven weeks along.”
I knew exactly how far along I was, because I knew down to the minute when I’d gotten pregnant. In Vegas.
“But it doesn’t make any sense. I’m on the pill.” As if, somehow, that made the reality moot.
“Yes, but you said you’d only just started. You were told, or you should have been told, it takes a full cycle for the pill to be effective.”
Immediately, my hands went to my stomach where I thought I’d been feeling a little fuller. “Is it going to hurt the baby? That I was still taking it even after I was pregnant?”
“There’s no evidence the hormones in the birth control pill will have an impact on the fetus, but you should stop taking it as a precaution. After all, there is no need.”
Because I was pregnant. Pregnant with Marc’s baby. The fact still hadn’t registered.
“Ashleigh, I know this must be a surprise because it obviously wasn’t planned. Do we need to talk about options for ending—”
“No!” I cut her off. “No. I’m not ending anything. I’m just in shock.”
The woman nodded. “Do you think your husband is going to be happy about this? I know you’ve only recently married, but surely this will be a good thing for both of you.”
No. My husband was most assuredly not going to be happy. I bowed my head and tried to wrap my head around the limited time I had left. How many more weeks before the pregnancy became evident?
I faked a smile for the doctor, who was still waiting for a response. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled. Just some bad timing. That’s all.”
“I’ve only been doing this for five years, but one of the things I’ve learned is that babies seem to come on their time, not on ours.”
I forced another smile. Finished with my visit, I scheduled my next appointment, then left the office to wander the streets of downtown Harborview without seeing or hearing anyone around me.
There was a buzz in my head, which made me think driving wasn’t smart. Beyond that, I had this sense I needed to keep moving. If I stopped, I would have to think of too many things.
Like how I would tell Marc. What he would say or think.
He wouldn’t be happy. He was trapped in prison. He had no sense of the future after he got out. The burden of a child on top of all that. It was unthinkable. Once again, I’d derailed his life by doing something as stupid as telling him he didn’t need the condom. Because I hadn’t wanted anything to come between us. Ever.
How many more times was he going to accept that I taken all of his choices away from him?
How long until he started to truly resent what I’d done to his life?
Then there was Evan. I couldn’t hide something like this much longer. Maybe three weeks? A month. I was rail thin after being sick this past month, not to mention the stress of those weeks leading up to the wedding. The bump in my stomach would be noticeable soon. Especially, given his tastes when he picked out my dresses. He liked things simple, elegant and form fitting.
Could I start eating enough to put on weight everywhere, that might hide the pregnancy?
Of course, eating was hard to do when I was still constantly battling nausea. That had been what had finally sent me to the doctor. I thought maybe something was off with the pill, or maybe it was related to stress.
I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Where before I felt the need to keep moving, now I was frozen.
A baby. An impossible baby now, when everything was at stake.
Could I terminate it? Could I go through with making something that was a part of me and a part of Marc go away?
My hands dropped to my belly. Was there a slight bump already? I didn’t think it was my imagination. How soon before I would feel it move?
At least that answered my question. No, I couldn’t end this pregnancy. I didn’t have family. Just George and Marc. But this baby, this child, would be my future family. And I would love it so hard and so well, it would have to be enough.
For all of us.
Six weeks after the wedding
Manhattan
Ashleigh
This was a stupid idea. I knew it the minute I hit the button for the penthouse. Even as I’d convinced myself there could be alternatives, I already knew there weren’t. Marc was expecting my visit tomorrow. I had to know what I was going to say, to do by then. However, I couldn’t decide until I knew how Evan would react to the news.
There was this crazy thought, hope, I would tell Evan I was pregnant, and he would let me go. He wouldn’t want to raise another man’s child. The Sandersons were too proud of their familial lineage to consider the very idea.
So what if this was my out?
Evan knew Marc and I were married in Vegas. He had to assume my virginity was a thing of the past. If I told him I was pregnant, the only way out for him, really, was to let me go. As the cuckolded husband, wounded and disillusioned by his cheating heiress wife, there would be no societal or political pressure for him to marry for some time.
So if he wanted to run for office, voters wouldn’t wonder why he wasn’t married. In fact, his heartbreak could endear him to them.
That was my plan anyway. Appeal to reason. Appeal to his political aspirations. Appeal to his sense of rationalization.
I had no illusions he would let me go out of goodness, or fairness. This was simply a solution that could work for both of us. Any refusal from him would mean he expected me to abort.
I would agree and leave the penthouse. There would be no fighting or tears. He would know, with certainty, that I planned to fully obey him.
Then there would be another plan.
So lost in my pitch, in the planned words running through my head over and over, I hadn’t realized I’d already reached the floor and the elevator doors were open. I stepped into the hallway to the sound of giggling.
“Can you believe how much money this is?” I heard, before looking up and seeing the two teenage girls headed in my direction.
Both wore short, tight dresses. Both had long hair that seemed to be everywhere, and any lipstick they’d been wearing had been smudged off their lips.
“I know, just for that,” the one girl said, bouncing into her friend as if she was drunk. Or, perhaps she was having a hard time walking on the platform shoes. “Like, who pays that much for a blow job? I give it to guys in my class for free.”
The other girl, who was also swaying slightly, tipped her head back. “I’m so high right now. That was good shit.”
Clearly, they were, as they still hadn’t noticed me standing there. Watching their progress.
“Girls,” I said sharply. In a way that made me sound like a scolding librarian. When the reality was, I was only a couple of years older than they were. Then why did I feel decades older? “Tell me what apartment you came from.”
The one brushed her hair out of her face and gave me a sour look.
“Fuck you,” she said with pouty lips.
“How old are you?” I asked, feeling the ire in my body rise to out of control levels. I stepped closer to them, and the one girl had the sense to back off, but the other one, who had cursed me, stood her ground.
“Fuck. You.”
&nbs
p; They couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. They couldn’t have been. Even with the dresses and the shoes and the makeup.
“You don’t have to do this. You shouldn’t do this,” I whispered, not knowing what else to say.
“OMG, it’s his wife. I saw her picture in Vanity Fair.” This from the girl who was so high.
This, I thought. This is what he’d been hiding. From me, the world. A sexual fetish for underage girls.
“Leave,” I said, my voice trembling with anger. Not at them. They were victims, even if they didn’t realize it. Give a blow job. Get some drugs and cash. The slashes those actions would leave on their souls might not be felt for years, but eventually, they would see they had been used and manipulated by someone old enough to know what he was doing was wrong.
Walking around them, I stepped up to the door and knocked.
Evan answered, his voice annoyed. “What did you forget?”
He was shirtless, in jeans that were hiked up on his hips but not fastened. It was strange, I thought. He was my husband, and this was the first time I’d seen him in any state of undress.
His chest was flat and undefined. Not like Marc at all. But then, Marc had been an athlete growing up. Evan didn’t strike me as someone who wanted to work hard at anything.
Which was maybe why he preferred sex with young girls instead of women.
“What are you doing here?” There was an ominous threat to his tone. He had to know I would have seen them leaving. Much harder to explain away the presence of two overtly sexy teenage girls, than it was the daughter of his housekeeper.
He paid them by check. How foolish. It meant there would be a record. Even if he made the checks out to cash, there would be evidence of money leaving his accounts, and money hitting theirs.
Pulling me inside, he closed the door behind me.
“I’ll ask again. What are you doing here?”
“I had a problem and came to you to help find a solution. Now, I see that was a fool’s errand. Someone as sick as you could never possibly offer any rational solution.”
He laughed. The sound was as perverted as he was.
“Can we be blunt?” he asked, parroting the words I’d asked him the day he proposed.
“You’re a pedophile. How’s that for blunt?”
Like the first time he hit me, I didn’t anticipate it quickly enough to attempt to avoid it. A backhand hard enough to send me down to one knee, but I was quickly up again. Moving out of his strike’s range. I felt a trickle of blood on my cheek, and watched as he twisted his wedding ring around his finger. As if he’d hurt the appendage by hitting me as hard as he had.
“My sexual proclivities are none of your concern. The girls and I have a mutually beneficial arrangement.” His head tipped back like he was frustrated with me. “The point of having a virgin wife was so she wouldn’t suspect such things. The point of buying you in particular, was so I would have control over this marriage.”
“You do,” I quickly told him. “You have all the control. Do you think I care what you do?”
That took him by surprise. “You don’t?”
I shook my head. “As long as you’re discreet and you maintain our bargain, why should I? Those girls didn’t look as if you’d assaulted them.”
I had to swallow down, hard, the bile in my throat, but I knew this performance was my only way out of the apartment alive. He had to believe me. For my sake. For the baby’s sake.
“How very practical of you.” He smiled. “You know, there was a time, when you were younger of course, I thought of making your father give you to me. But that would have been temporary, for a short period, then done, while this arrangement suited my long-term goals far more effectively.”
“Lucky me,” I said between clenched teeth. “I’ll see myself out and I promise to call ahead next time if I need to see you.”
I started to move past him, but he grabbed my arm before I could make it to the door. His fingers squeezed around my bicep with the intent to hurt. I winced, but then schooled my features.
“There isn’t going to be a next time. You do understand I own you?”
I nodded.
“I can beat you, fuck you, break parts of you if I want to. You are my property, thanks to your father’s very poor financial decisions. Your role is to stay where I put you, until I need to take you out and use you. You do not come to me for help. You do not need me. Do you understand?”
I nodded again.
“Tell me why you came here.”
I swallowed. “It’s spring. I was hoping to spend time in your house in the Hamptons. I love the beach at this time of year. But, as you’ve just articulated, asking you for anything doesn’t happen. A fool’s errand.”
He released his hand. Slowly, cautiously, assessing my statement.
“See, now, darling. I can be reasonable. Of course you should spend time in the Hamptons. It is lovely this time of year. I’ll make sure you have keys and a security code to get in the house. I’m heading to California in a few weeks to meet with some wealthy donors interested in supporting my political future, so I won’t be needing you for at least the next few months. Come next winter, however, I’ll be announcing my candidacy for senator. This will require all your time. Do you understand that?”
I nodded. Waited to see if he had anything else to say, then I slowly walked out of the apartment, careful to shut the door quietly behind me. Careful not to appear as if I was running to the elevator, and only once I was inside, did I fall to my knees and vomit.
Six weeks and five days after the wedding
A dark road in South Hampton, Long Island
Ashleigh
I looked at the gas gauge. Empty. Suddenly, my mouth was dry, and my heart was beating out of my chest.
A beam of light from behind got my attention. I looked into the rearview mirror and could see headlights approaching me.
“Shit,” I muttered.
The car slowed and stopped behind me.
Someone wanted to help me.
Or, at least, I thought he might.
I got out of the car and turned to face the car behind me. The headlights were still on and I couldn’t see the person who approached. I lifted my hand to block the glare of the lights.
No, I thought. This wasn’t part of the plan.
3
Eleven weeks after the wedding
Marc
“Marc? Can you hear me?” I heard someone ask. “Are you nauseous? Do you need me to get a tray?”
Too many questions. I couldn’t get my brain to think. It was the smell that hit me first. The pungent smell of disinfectants on stainless steel. I tried to move, but someone above me pushed on my shoulder, keeping me pinned to the gurney.
Gurney. Disinfectants. I blinked and the man above me came into focus. He was wearing a blue surgical mask. It was starting to come back to me. I was in the hospital. Surgery on my hands because they hadn’t healed correctly after being left in the SHU for too long. At my request.
I was coming out of anesthesia and it was making me groggy, and there was something there, just out of reach, I didn’t want to acknowledge. A truth I didn’t want to know.
So I let my eyes close again and fell back into the dream I’d been in. Only it wasn’t a dream. It was a memory. I’d been fifteen and Ash had been thirteen.
“Seriously? You mean it, mean it?” she asked.
I shrugged casually. “You’re the one who is always bugging me to hang out. All I asked was if you wanted to watch a movie with me. That’s what hanging out it is.”
“I do,” she squeaked. “I so want to hang out and watch a movie.”
“Okay, but I get to pick the movie.” That was the trap, I thought gleefully.
“Whatever you want to watch. I’ll watch anything!”
“Anything?”
She nodded. She scrambled onto my bed and I sat beside her, my legs stretched out. If her father knew this was happening, he would probably fr
eak out. But I didn’t care. The whole point of this exercise was to teach her a lesson.
I opened the laptop I used for school, and fired up the movie I’d already downloaded. I’d seen it before, plenty of times, but I knew she hadn’t.
It wouldn’t even occur to her to watch something like this.
Then the opening credits of Saw started to roll, and I waited for her to figure out what we were watching.
I watched her body get tense next to mine. At one point, she stuffed her fist in her mouth and closed her eyes as tight as she could. I waited for her to get up and bolt. Only she never did. Finally, when it got to a really bad part in the movie, I shut the laptop for a second.
“You know you don’t have to watch this if you don’t like it.”
“I’m okay,” she said, but she was lying. She was scared shitless.
“Do you get it, Ash? These are the movies I watch. This is what I want to do when I hang out. You’re too young for this.”
It occurred to me what I’d done. That I’d purposefully scared the crap out of her just to teach her a lesson. I thought I’d been so smart, but the reality was, she was probably freaking traumatized.
I’d only wanted to send a message.
Don’t get too close. Don’t force me to push you away. Because you’ll get hurt when I do it.
“I want to see how it ends,” she told me, her chin stubborn.
So I opened the laptop again, and we finished watching the movie. As soon as it was done, she hopped off the bed and practically sprinted out of my room.
Shit, I thought. It was dark out. She was going to be so scared making her way to the main house.
Grumbling to myself that I’d been trying to make a point, I pulled on sneakers and followed her.
“What the hell was that?” George asked, as I got to the living room. He was scowling at me. “She ran out of here like the place was on fire.”