by Scott, Eliot
“Haven’t been feeling myself, actually,” she whispers.
“Is Grady trying to tell you what to do? Is he bossing you around? Because if he’s doing that, it’s not okay, and I hope you’ll tell me,” I probe, assuming that Grady’s taken over the roll my Father left behind.
I soften my voice, feeling bad that I’ve been having this honeymoon-island-type experience with Jojo, and I haven’t even reached out to my mom since the funeral. Despite how twisted our family is, I should have.
“Mother. Please let me know if there’s something I can do for you.”
“There isn’t. Unless…the topic of Jojo—”
“I know. I know. That’s why I’ve been practically MIA,” I explain. “I suppose you can tell that we’ve reconnected. We’re still in love, Mother. I’m going to marry her. I’d like your blessing on that if it’s at all possible.”
I hear her pull in a sharp breath.
“Can’t you please come up and we’ll talk about it? This is so important to me, Mom. And I want you here for it.”
“No! Oh, God…no! Do not marry her!” she shrieks, sounding near insane and sort of like how Father used to shriek at us. “You cannot marry that girl. You can’t do that! I will not give my blessing for such a…disaster! Don’t you see, Alex? If you do that, you will risk everything. It’s too dangerous, Alex. No.”
“It’s happening.” I’m matter-of-fact. My disappointment in her reaction has swallowed up my previous expectations. I didn’t truly think this conversation would go well when I had it. “It’s happening tomorrow, Mother. Maybe tonight, and I thought about inviting you, but considering your reaction, I suppose you can just send me a card.”
“No!” She shrieks again. “You don’t understand.”
I run a hand through my hair and press my forehead against the cool glass wishing I had the inner strength to hang up on her right now. I stare at the top of her unmoving car. Her voice cracks then breaks and, shit—I think the woman is crying.
“Alex…I came here, hoping that you’d see me. I’m not supposed to tell you, but you probably know. You need to get that Wallace girl—get everyone—out of here. It’s not safe, and if you marry her here, I’m afraid, Alex. For me, for her—for anyone that Jojo loves. Get. Them. Out! Go now. Forget about this silly wedding business. Please. There is too much at stake, Alex. You know what I’m talking about…too much at stake.”
My thoughts spin wildly with paranoia. Does my mother know about Emily? Is that what she’s talking about? Has someone seen the little girl running around the lake house? Are they fucking spying on us, or is Mother simply talking about the ‘family business’ being at stake? Fuck!
My voice grows shaky even though I don’t want it to, but I strive hard to keep it calm, to remember the joy and the love waiting for me, and I work to keep my past and my personal paranoias shut down. Just in case, I ask, “Are you personally threatening Jojo, Mother? Are you the one putting her at risk? Is that what you mean, because I don’t think you mean it. Answer me if that’s the case.”
I probe her hard, trying to get her to bring up a sighting of a little girl or child. I need to see if she will slip up and say too much. “I know you’ve been stalking them both. Following them. Me. Tell me why? Why would you want to hurt Jojo now, Mother. There’s no point in it. The feud was Father’s not yours. Please tell me you’re not carrying it on for him. Please.”
“No. Not me. I’ve haven’t been trying to hurt Jojo—I’ve been watching and trying to get her to go, and waiting. This is all too much for me, though. I’m afraid. It’s just not safe. Never been safe.” She trails off, her voice starting to shake as much as mine, and then something I’ve never heard before happens.
My mother isn’t just crying. She’s sobbing. “Not safe.”
“She will be safe with me, Mother. Safe as my wife.”
“No.” Mother cries more.
The pity I’ve hidden from her surges forward. My mother married a monster. She had two children with this monster, and my father broke her. Probably by hurting Grady and I when we were babies, a tactic I’m certain he used to keep her in line. I can imagine Father setting my Mother up just how he set me up—year after year pretending one thing and then bam…pulling the rug out from under her. He must have let my mother watch Grady and I crash and burn the same way I was forced to let Jojo rise and fall. Maybe she was told to zoom in and scoop up the pieces. Or worse, maybe she wasn’t even allowed that luxury.
From the way she’s acting, maybe she’s finally shedding some of what she went through. I know she must have lived what we lived—how we lived—always in fear, always in a state of torture, but she needs to be able to talk about it on her own time.
“Mother,” I call out to her, trying again just in case she needs to finally vent. “Come up. I’ve got tea…I can make you some…soup?”
“I can’t do it anymore, Alex. I can’t,” She sobs harder.
“Please…Mother. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, not anymore. Father’s gone and he can’t hurt you or me or Grady anymore,” I say gently.
For some reason her grief is finding all of these holes in my heart that I’d punched out every time she didn’t show up to defend me, and her tears are filling the holes back up with things I swore I didn’t have for her. Concern. Worry. Empathy. Maybe more. Maybe…love?
“Just listen to me, please. You don’t have to answer, but try to listen.” Over her wracking sobs, I pull in a huge breath and boldly go on. “I—hell, Mother. We’ve been through so much. And no one who knew Father will ever blame you if you were the one who pulled the trigger on him, especially not me. If that’s what you’re worried about, I want you to know I’ll never judge you. If you killed him, the world would consider you in the right…maybe you were right to do it.”
She gasps loudly as if my words shock her, but her crying lessens like she’s trying to hear me better. My heart sinks at the idea that I’m correct in my assumptions, then it slightly soars to think that my suspicions must be true. Her complete lack of denial here makes me almost certain my mother did kill my father. And she’d done it as some sort of rebellion, finally.
“And if it was you,” I forge on, “I suppose I can only thank you for it, because you’ve had the courage none of us could find. You’ve also given me a chance at a future I never even hoped to imagine. In a few short days, because Jojo came back, I’ve found my life again. I’ve recovered my happiness, and I just got my whole entire soul back after Father stole it away and sold it underground. I thought I didn’t have a chance at any of those things, and maybe, if you can get Grady to call me, I can give him some sort of happiness back, too. I know Grady and I are different, but maybe if I can give him what he thinks he deserves, all of the money and power of our name, maybe all of us can be a little happy now. We deserve it, Mother. We all do.”
“Ever the optimistic one,” she whispers. “You’ve suffered for that, because you’re like me, my poor, dreamy young son.”
“It’s not a dream anymore. Don’t you see? Anything’s possible.”
Her breathing grows more ragged, and I hear a fresh round of sniffles and movement. She’s probably rustling for one of her linen handkerchiefs.
I want to tell her about Emily, tell her that she’s got a granddaughter and confirm what I suspect she maybe knows—that Jojo had her own secrets—but I hold that part back, just in case.
It’s too new, not safe, and my mother’s obviously unstable right now. Hell, she may even be a murderer. I want her to know that in my eyes I see her as savior also. She was so psychologically abused. We all were. No court of law would ever find her guilty, but I can tell by the sound of her broken voice that she feels it as deeply as I do. Maybe she’s felt it all along.
Whatever happens, and even if I never see her again, which is likely once we leave this place, I want her to remember this conversation. She deserves to know that my heart is with hers, that I’m still like her, where
ver she and I end up on this earth.
“Your tears break my heart, Mother. I know Father wouldn’t let you ever comfort us because it kept us ‘soft.’” I say that last word using Father’s scornful tone. “But I want you to know that I understand how much and how deeply you’ve been hurt, too. And I…thank you for…”
“Please don’t thank me for anything, son. It is completely undeserved.”
“You’re wrong. Let me finish.” I swallow down the stones blocking my throat, and push back my own tears at her words, because the part of me that has always blamed her suddenly understands all too well how she got trapped. Now that I have a child of my own, I suddenly understand it’s possible my mother had been Father’s most extreme victim.
“I thank you for my very life. And know that I know that I’m going to be okay. I will live the rest of my life, the one you gave me, very well. I’m going to take Jojo—and Aunt Shelly and Walt and.” I pause as I almost say Emily’s name. “And I’ll go away with them. I will go with everyone that Jojo loves and get them away from here. I won’t come back, but one day, Mother, I hope you will be able to come visit me.”
I pull in a shaking breath.
“I also really want you to believe that we’re going to be happy. Very happy, and God, Mother…I pray, and I wish, for you to be happy now too. You can, you know? You can.”
She laughs out. This small self-deprecating laugh as though she thinks I’m a fool, but in case I can break through to her, I press on. “We still have whole lives we can live. Even you. What’s left of us can be good. I want that for the three of us—you, me and Grady. We can be like…” I search my mind for the right words, for something that will resonate with her. “Like…those big Aspen trees that have bends at their bases because of the giant blizzards they survived in the past. Trees that, up top, do eventually grow thick, and strong, and straight because their branches have always reached for the sun. It’s the tops and it’s the reaching for light that matters. Those trees, they create bright green leaves every summer. They make a jaw-dropping color show every fall, and they never look down to their bases. Only up to the sky. Do you understand me, Mother? Do you think you can just look up to the sky from now on?”
“Yes, Alex. But I’m so afraid,” she whispers softly. The crying seems to have stopped, and she’s composed herself. After a long pause, and three deep breaths, she says so quietly I can hardly hear. “I’ll tell Grady to stop pouting. He’ll call you soon. I’ll make sure it happens as long as you promise me you will take Jojo away.”
“I promise, Mother,” I say, pulling air back into my lungs. “Thank you,” I say once more before she ends our call.
It’s not what I wished deep in my heart to say to her, and of course it’s not what I wished to hear back, either. I wish, like I’ve always wished with my family for my entire life, that I could just be a normal son with normal parents. I want to be a man who can tell his mother that he loves her the day before he gets married. One who could hear it back—and believe it. My heart is at least satisfied she listened to my whole speech about being happy without hanging up.
I think maybe she understands. Maybe she will go toward the light. If she can only see that she didn’t murder our father—her husband.
She saved her two sons.
I think of Emily’s smile. Jojo’s sparkling eyes. My future with them.
My mother…she saved everything.
12.
Jojo, Present Day.
Seeing the bride before the ceremony is welcoming bad luck Alex and I can’t afford. I believe in us, and I know he feels the same. It’s those damn outside forces, though, that make superstitions hold their weight.
I swore I would be good and stay here, on the other side of the house, away from Alex until Shelly led me to the ceremony—until she and Emily appear to tell me it’s time…tomorrow. I made no guarantees about what I would do the night before the wedding, though.
Lingerie has always been a fantasy for me. I’ve never had a reason to wear it, and when Alex and I were young, I didn’t have the means to buy it, nor did I know where to go shopping for it.
While Alex was off getting his tux and trying to reconcile with Grady, I made a special, sneaky, and very careful trip to town where, with sunglasses on and only twenty minutes to shop, I couldn’t decide between two things. One was a very sexy, white lace bra and panty set—reserved for the wedding tomorrow—and the other was this amazing, slightly wild corset thing that has a panty with…well…access.
I was so amped up to wear it for Alex, but he was holed up in his office drawing up papers with his attorneys over the phone. Apparently, handing over an entire business to one’s brother takes a whole bunch of time, number crunching and typing.
I made it through the dinner without Alex, and then made it through Emily and Shelly’s pre bedtime chatter. I had to gush once more over the gorgeous tulle and flower-embroidered dresses Alex had brought back with him for Emily for the wedding tomorrow.
In Shelly’s room, she and I whispered and giggled over how my aunt managed to find a website where she’s now legal to officiate the wedding tomorrow. When I left, I told her to listen for any sounds of Emily trying to wake up and to please intercept her so Alex and I could be alone—very alone—which is when I blushed bright red and told her about the corset I’d bought. She laughed so hard she cried when I told her about the lessons the store manager had to give me in order to get both in and out of the thing. She assured me that in the end, it wouldn’t matter.
I gave Emily final kisses and have waited a good forty minutes on the other side of the house just to be sure Emily was asleep. And then I waited at least twenty more before texting Alex.
You coming out of there? I miss you.
Miss you a lot.
I started to amp it up when more time passed.
Want to go to bed? With…me?
Last night as a ‘bachelor!’
I eventually put the corset on and took a picture of the cherry-red lace stretched taut across my breasts, making sure the small slits in the center where the peaks of my breasts pushed through was very clear in the photograph.
I sent it along without any words at all. I resulted to porn, basically.
It wasn’t long before the knocking started.
I barely got the door open before Alex’s mouth covered mine and his hands cupped the sides of my face. He walked me backward and closed the door behind him, pausing our steps to lock it with the flick of his hand.
I backed my way up to the giant king-sized bed and stood still, chewing my lip nervously so he could take in all of me—corset and matching panties.
This thing pushed my breasts up extra high, and I saw his eyes flick to the part where the corset met the panties. His gaze trailed to where the lace was thin, and wide open in the bottom. I spread my legs just enough and he audibly growled.
With deliberate steps, he caught up to me and lifted me under my arms, setting me on the bed and spreading my knees forcefully as he slid his palms down my front, feeling the skin of my breasts pushing through the corset, then tugging hard on my nipples that had hardened into tight nubs through the slits.
“Goddamn, you’re beautiful,” he said, looking down at me with searing eyes and gritted teeth.
For once, more than beautiful…I felt sexy.
He caged me in his arms, lowered his head and bit my nipple hard as I arched up into him, wanting him to taste more of me. His hands slid under my back and he pushed me into his mouth as he sucked until my tips were raw and I was moaning and melting.
His scratchy stubbled chin drew down the center of the lace along my chest until he reached the bow at my belly button where he tugged at it with his teeth to untie it as well as pepper my belly with soft kisses.
His gentle touch gave way to his rougher side quickly, though, his hands rushing up the center of my thighs until they found the place where the fabric split. Alex’s thumbs pulled the seams apart as his tongue took long, tortur
ous sweeps over my clit. I came quickly, and so hard that my legs wrapped around his neck in an attempt to keep his mouth right where it was.
That was only the beginning, though, and Alex stood quickly, tugging his pants and his boxers, getting them down just enough to pull his cock out and into his hand. In a swift movement, he shoved through the slit fabric to push himself inside me, thrusting so hard that I eventually was moved all the way to the top of the bed frame. Alex ground into me, his breath heavy and his eyes colored by lust, until the fabric of my panties finally tore and exposed all of me just in time for him to come hard.
He pulled out, his fingers still prowling over my body, taking bites, licks and tastes while stealing more touches from every bit of my heated, sweat-shimmering body for minutes until he made me come a second time. Finally, he tore himself away and slipped back into his office leaving me to sleep.
Lying there, I read his texts while my hand glided over the raw spots on my breasts he’d made, relishing in the pain mixed with pleasure that lingers.
You will stay in that room for the rest of the night and not come out until Shelly gets you. I’ll send in Emily tomorrow, and I’ll send in food and Shelly says she’s got a dress for you. Just in case that doesn’t work, I’ve also got some back-ups so you’ll have no excuses not to marry me. All I want to do is come back in there and make love to you all night long, which is why I’ll be hiding and taking cold showers in the guest room.
I bite at my lip and laugh as my body rushes with the memories of his touch. I can’t wait to show him what I bought for our wedding night. He’s going to go insane.
I’m startled into laughing more when his next message comes in.
And you will buy a new pair of panties just like those I ruined so we can do that again.
And then…
In fact, buy two.
* * *
Now that it’s morning, I slip into the white bridal set, pushing my breasts up high in the crystal-studded bra cups. The wispy, lace panties hang on my hips, and I sit on the edge of the bed to slide the silk stalkings up my legs and hook the tops to the garter belt.