Gregg entered the kitchen. “Elizabeth,” he said.
Elizabeth whirled around, trying to fight back the anger. “Don’t talk to me, okay? If you’re not going to get it, just shut up!”
“I’m just asking you to be reasonable!”
“And what’s reasonable, Gregg? Letting Mary back into that house?”
“Kidnapping her isn’t the answer, either,” Gregg said, standing his ground.
“I suppose if it was Eric you wouldn’t have any trouble kidnapping him, would you?”
Halfway home they’d gotten into an argument about what they were going to do with Mary. Elizabeth was adamant that she wasn’t releasing Mary back into Diana’s custody. Diana had mom wrapped around her finger now, and while normally in a situation like this mom would have gladly taken Mary, now Elizabeth wasn’t so sure and she wasn’t taking any chances. She was going to let the authorities and proper medical personnel handle her 911 call, and she was sure Diana was going to come up with some bullshit story to explain Ronnie’s physical and psychological condition. If things worked the way they should, social services might intervene and take Diana’s children and start an investigation; until that happened and mom came to her senses, she was keeping Mary. She mentioned this to Gregg, who promptly disagreed. He said they should call her folks as soon as they got home. “Whatever happens, your mom should probably take Mary,” he’d said. Elizabeth had countered that Diana would be forceful in trying to claim her and that’s when the argument had started. The kids had listened in the back seat in silence, their faces wide and terror stricken.
“Will you at least call your mother and tell her Mary is safe with us?” Gregg said. His face was open, honest, pleading. He also looked worried. “I’m concerned for her too, Elizabeth. Really, I am. I’m also all for insisting we keep her until things are sorted out. I think once the police see Ronnie’s state, social services will allow Mary to stay with us anyway.”
Elizabeth sighed. For once Gregg was speaking reasonably. “You’re right. I’ll give her a call.”
She picked up the phone and pushed the speed dial button for her mom’s house.
Her father answered the phone.
“Hi dad, is mom there?”
“She and Diana should be back any minute.” Her dad’s voice sounded different. Hollow, false. “I’m sitting here with the kids.”
“Can you tell Mom that Mary is with me?”
“I will, dear. I’m just sitting here with the kids.”
Mary’s voice echoed in her mind. They never leave me alone! Christ, were Lily and Rick sitting in the living room with Dad watching him? Not letting him out of their sight? “Mom told you they were coming home?”
“Yes.”
Elizabeth’s heart pounded. She’d called 911 almost thirty minutes ago. Even though the development was in the sticks, the volunteer fire department—which had a paramedic van—was less than two miles away. The first unit on arrival would have shown up within a few minutes. Even if her mother arrived at Ronnie’s house minutes after that, she’d still be there. So why was she on her way back to the house? “Dad, I called the police.”
“Did you?” Her father asked, and now Elizabeth could tell that something was definitely wrong. It sounded like he was being evasive, as if he didn’t want somebody on his end to hear what they were talking about. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“If mom went to Ronnie’s she would have told you about the police being there,” Elizabeth said, gripping the receiver tightly. “Ronnie isn’t well and I called 911. I saw him, dad. Mom didn’t say anything about the police being there?”
“No she didn’t, honey.”
That decided it for her. “I’ll be right over.” She hung up the phone.
Gregg peppered her with questions. “What’s going on? What happened?”
She told him quickly as she grabbed her purse and headed for the door.
“So why are you going over there?” he asked. Gregg looked scared now.
“Because it’s time to cut through the bullshit and give mom and dad some tough love,” Elizabeth said. They walked to the driveway where her car was parked. With the exception of some longhaired guy pulled over in front of their house looking at a map with the engine of his car running, the neighborhood was deserted. “Take the kids and go to that bed and breakfast we went to last summer near the Pocono's. Park the SUV in front of the room you take and I’ll meet you there later tonight.”
Elizabeth opened the driver’s seat of the car and slid inside. She started the car and rolled down the window as Gregg stood uncertainly outside. “I won’t be gone long,” she said. “I’m going to mom and dad’s and I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
“What about Mary?”
“Take her. If Diana pushes this, I’ll make the police go back to Ronnie’s house and see for themselves what’s going on. They might not have been able to see what was really happening, especially if Diana beat them to the house. She might not have let them inside, and I did make the call anonymously. This time I’ll push the issue.”
For the first time since the incident started Gregg looked genuinely scared. Looking at him, Elizabeth was swept with a sudden feeling of love for him that was overpowering. Gregg looked nervous, uncertain. His voice trembled. “Be careful, honey.”
“I will,” she said. He leaned forward and kissed her quickly, and then she was backing down the driveway and heading out of their development toward her parent’s house.
RONNIE COULDN’T TAKE it anymore.
He’d stroked himself until he was raw and bloody and he couldn’t come. He needed Diana to come.
He’d awoken this morning with a raging hard on and a need to give it to Diana, but she wasn’t there. He had lain in bed listening for any sounds but the house had been silent. He’d called out for her but received no response.
And he’d been too tired to get out of bed and find her.
Through it all, his body and soul screamed to give themselves to her.
To fill her up. To fuck her.
He’d lain in bed, the need strong and pulsing through his veins and he could barely stand it. Then the phone rang.
He’d hoped it was Diana and he picked up the receiver and called her name. He’d started stroking himself immediately; maybe just hearing her voice would satisfy his urges, would feed his addiction of her. All he needed was Diana, all he needed was to fuck her, and if he could just see her or hear her he’d be temporary satiated.
He hadn’t recognized the voice on the other end of the line and he kept asking Diana to come home, to come home and fuck him, and then the line was dead and he continued to lie in bed, crying for her, and then the next thing he was aware of was the doorbell ringing.
What happened next was a blur. He thought his sister came in. He remembered her voice, remembered seeing a fleeting image of her, but he’d been too involved with wanting to fuck Diana. Since yesterday when the need for Diana had been so strong that he’d begged off his meeting with Elizabeth and left abruptly, and this morning he’d been torn between succumbing fully to Diana, letting her feed his addiction of her, and making one last attempt at getting help.
But he couldn’t...Diana’s touch, her caress, her voice, her body...being with her was intoxicating. When he was with her it was the best high he’d ever had. And the more he had her, the better he felt. He had to have her more to maintain that feeling. He recognized this now as part of his problem—he remembered the cycle of addictive behavior from his therapy sessions when he entered rehabilitation for cocaine addiction over a decade ago. He recognized the patterns.
This was worse than any drug, though.
Now he knew how heroin addicts felt.
Ronnie cried, but he wasn’t aware of it. He wished he hadn’t gotten himself into this mess. He wished he hadn’t met Diana but he couldn’t help it. He had been lonely—he’d always had a girlfriend; always. And when he’d broken up with Shannon he had been restless. He’d had his family, he’d ha
d Mary—whom he adored dearly—but he was lonely for that missing piece in his life. He had grown tired of the bar scene, and there was no telling when he would run into Cindy, so he had gone on the Internet, not even thinking he would meet anybody and then Diana came into his life and he thought he had been so lucky to have found her.
Only he wasn’t lucky. Oh, she was charming, all right. She was sexy, she was sweet, she said and did all the right things...she made him feel so good when they were together...
...but the more he had her, the more he had to have her. And the more he had her, the more he abandoned his common sense. He did everything he could to make her happy because he didn’t want her to walk out on him, not now, not after she had given him a taste of her, and he realized he couldn’t bear to live without her.
She’d hooked him.
And he couldn’t tear himself free.
In a brief respite from his obsession with Diana, he’d called Elizabeth yesterday on his way to work. He had been thinking about it for a while, and the only way he would be able to talk to her is if he was away from the house. He could tell Elizabeth knew something was wrong, and he’d tried to formulate the right words to properly convey what was wrong, but then he’d thought about Diana and all bets were off. The urge was just so strong, he couldn’t resist. It had made him physically ill to just be away from her. He had to have some kind of contact with her, even if it was just hearing her voice. He’d told himself he would call her, hear her voice, then he would redeem himself by calling Elizabeth again that evening on the way home from work. He just needed a quick fix—
(a quick fuck)
—and then he would be fine. He would be satisfied and of his right mind, and he could think rationally and tell Elizabeth he needed help.
Instead he had driven straight home after work like a zombie and fucked Diana till he passed out.
That was the last thing he remembered until the doorbell rang.
He remembered suddenly being in the living room, sprawled on the sofa. And he did remember Diana, or at least he thought it had been her. Maybe he’d been dreaming. He could have sworn she’d come in, and his need to fuck her had been so strong he’d ejaculated the moment she’d walked in the door. But then she’d left and he’d screamed for her to come back and he felt himself falling into an endless sea of despair. It felt like coming off of his cocaine addiction twelve years ago, how the constant craving had been so bad, and without having blow around to feed his craving he’d been irritable and sick. This was how he felt now that Diana was being withheld from him, only it was a thousand times worse.
The next thing he remembered was the telephone ringing, and he had sprung at the phone again like a drowning man reaching for a life vest. He’d yelled, “Diana!” into the receiver and began begging her to come home, telling her he needed her. He’d been so wrapped up in his fantasy, was so into it, that it wasn’t until the phone call ended that he realized that the voice on the other end was his mother’s. It hadn’t been Diana at all.
And when he realized it was his mother, he’d become enraged. He was suddenly sober with clarity, the burning need to see Diana not entirely gone—that would never go away—but still pulsing in the back of his mind. All he could think about was the last six months of bitching and carping his mother had leveled at him. Mom never had anything nice to say about Diana or her kids, in fact she’d done everything she could to wreck their relationship. He could tell she didn’t approve of Diana, that she’d talked his father and sister into not liking her. She’d always protested whenever he asked his mom to watch Mary and Lily, and she seemed to resent Diana’s kids. She’d become selfish and never had a good thing to say to him since Diana and her kids moved in with him. She never even invited them to the house for dinner. The bitch.
What was worse was that she knew how much this relationship meant to him. As fucked up as things had become, he still loved Diana and his mother knew this. He just wanted everything to turn out right. She knew how much he loved Diana, and she knew he had to work all those hours in order to pay for the house and the bills. She knew that it was important for him to maintain a solid family life at home; that Diana was to stay home and take care of the kids and the house; that he was to provide the financial means necessary for this. He wanted Mary to grow up with a mother. Cindy hadn’t been much of one lately, and now Mary had not only a mother, but a new brother and sister! She was able have a stable home with a mom who wasn’t fucked up every afternoon, and with a little sister to play with. Rick would be a great older brother for her in time. Sure he was working a lot now, but that wasn’t going to last forever. You had to make sacrifices to get what you wanted. She and dad had always bitched and complained to him about that before. In fact, that was one of the things they used to ride him about all the time, that he never worked hard and wasn’t serious about the future.
Well, now he was. And now he was finally serious about the future, his life, and most importantly his child, they were doing everything they could to derail him.
Goddamn them!
He’d sat on the sofa, nude and sweaty, the rage coursing through him. All he could think of was his mother and how she and his father had always fucked up everything in his life. They’d always told him what to do, what to say, how to act, and how to dress. They’d never understood him, never liked any of his friends, and never encouraged his natural interests or talents. In fact, his father had done everything to discourage him from pursuing a career in music when he’d developed an interest in high school. He’d wanted to go to college and be a sound engineer but his father said, “What the hell are you going to do with a job like that?” Just because his father had the same humdrum boring ass-fucking job for twenty-five years he’d hated with a passion didn’t mean Ronnie had to. His mother had backed dad up on it though, and Ronnie had broken down and entered trade school to be a computer programmer—which he’d flunked out of. No wonder he was a fuck up. Everything he tried to do on his own, his parents had put their grubby paws on it and ruined it for him.
And now they were trying to ruin his life with Diana.
Ronnie rose to his feet, feeling a sudden surge of strength flow through himself. He stomped into his bedroom, slid into sweat pants and a dirty t-shirt and rummaged in the top bureau of his dresser where he kept his Smith & Wesson 9mm. He checked the clip; it was full. He stuck the gun into the waistband of his sweatpants and grabbed the keys from the dresser and headed out the door. The cold concrete against his bare feet didn’t even register as uncomfortable; he was too enraged to pay attention.
He got into his Explorer, started it up, and backed down the driveway.
This was the last time his parents were going to meddle in his life.
He loved Diana.
He needed her.
They were not going to fuck up his life anymore.
WHEN THEY GOT to the house, Diana led the way inside and nodded at Rick and Lily, who were sitting on the sofa in the living room across from Jerry. Laura went into the kitchen, and Diana could sense the woman was confused and growing aware of what was going on. Laura had always been easy to maintain a good solid grip on, but that hold had broken this afternoon thanks to Mary. And Elizabeth. In fact, thanks to Ronnie’s sister things were slipping away fast. Her life here with the new host was spinning rapidly out of control and Diana felt it was time to shift gears quickly and adapt to the situation.
“Are they back yet?” Laura asked Jerry.
“Not yet,” Jerry said. “They’ll be home soon.”
Diana didn’t say anything; she just sat down at the kitchen table, her mind racing. If Elizabeth was coming with Mary, that would solve all her problems. Everything else was already set in motion, and she began to reign in her extensions. Rick and Lily, who had been sitting rigidly on the sofa across from Jerry, now sank down a little farther in their seats. Diana feigned normalcy and said, “Ronnie will be here soon and when he gets here, everything will be okay.”
“I’m
sure it will,” Laura said. Diana could hear her putting plates in the dishwasher. “I’m glad Elizabeth is bringing Mary home. It’s probably time we had a talk.”
“I agree,” Jerry said from his chair. “It’s about time we had a family discussion. Maybe we should call Ronnie.”
Diana didn’t respond to this. There was no need to. It was almost over.
Ronnie was coming home.
She had gotten a nice long run of nourishment from Ronnie and his family, but Mary had proved to be tough, even with Lily around to siphon off her. Ronnie had proved to be essential—he was so eager to give, so satisfying in so many ways, just like the others—but his daughter was even sweeter. She was so sweet, so innocent. It was always nicer when there were two different sources to feed from; the lust of a young man or woman feeding the primal need, and the newborn innocence of the uncorrupted. Mary represented that latter part, and taking the soul and life force from the young represented a source of energy worth five adults.
And draining them slowly made their energy last that much longer.
The groundwork had been laid for Ronnie’s end weeks ago and she tapped into that now, to bring it to pass. She still wanted Mary, though, and she believed she could finish her. Cindy was dead, and her family was scattered across the country; they’d barely known their granddaughter. And after today Mary would have nobody. When it was all over it would be Diana and Mary (and her extensions Lily, Rick, and Himmler; mustn’t forget them). She could apply to the State Social Services Department to be Mary’s foster parent. Surely they would take into consideration the fact that Diana had been mother to the girl for the past five months. She knew she would see Mary before she was taken by the state that was all she would need, just to see her. She’d let her extension, Lily, do the rest, let Lily get her hooks in the little girl, one little hook and that connection would be permanent. Soon Mary would begin to cry for Diana the way Ronnie was yearning for her now.
Now she had to play her role and she smiled, easing into it effortlessly. “I’m sure when Ronnie gets here we’ll all have a nice family talk,” she said.
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