Whore

by Elise Faber

  Was it?

  I glanced in the mirror, nodded once more, though more firmly this time.

  Everything was going to be just fine.

  I strode out of the bathroom, pushed through the open doorway, and spotted Damon at the end of the hall.

  Not thinking. Not this time.

  Not stopping. Not this time.

  I ran toward him and launched myself into his arms. The containers in his hands hit the floor, food exploding everywhere, but I didn’t pay any more attention to that than I would have a gentle breeze. It was Damon I was focused on, Damon I needed more than anything, Damon—

  Whose lips were soft, whose body was hard, who . . . kissed me like I was the most precious object in the universe before gently separating his mouth from mine.

  “Eden, baby,” he said softly, his lips curved, chocolate eyes warm. “You’ve made a mess of breakfast again.”

  Clink. A big piece of the armor I wore fell to the floor.

  I was surprised the sound didn’t reverberate through the house, it felt so monumental inside my soul, but . . . Damon didn’t appear to notice. He just hefted me into his arms, stepped carefully over the mess I’d made by knocking the food from his hands, and carried me into the kitchen.

  “What do you have against breakfast, baby?”

  I laughed, nuzzled closer into his arms. “Apparently a lot.” I giggled. “And here I always thought I loved French toast.” He started to carry me to the table. “Hey, wait. Put me down. I should go clean up the mess and then cook you something.”

  He kept walking. “I’ve got it.”

  “Dam—”

  “I’ve got it.” He set me down.

  I started to stand, but he crouched down in front of me and rested his hands on my knees. “I’ve got it.”

  My heart swelled. “Okay,” I whispered.

  He nodded, stood, and crossed to the little closet where I kept my cleaning supplies. I waited as he gathered paper towels, a bottle of cleaner, and the trash can, but the moment he’d disappeared back into the hall, I pushed to my feet and began raiding the fridge. I might be tired and have just decided to take a terrifying step forward, but I could still make a mean batch of blueberry pancakes.

  And bacon.

  Mmm.

  I reached for the package in the meat drawer. Yes, we definitely also needed bacon.

  I brought it out, set it on the counter, and began measuring ingredients. Flour and baking soda, a dash of salt, milk, oil, eggs. I’d perfected this recipe over the years and so in just a matter of minutes, I had a bowl filled with batter and was setting a pan on the burner to preheat.

  “Stubborn.”

  Damon was behind me, leaning against the counter, cleaning supplies at his side, trash can by his crossed ankles.

  I turned back to the stove. “I ruined breakfast, so the least of what I can do is make you some of my famous pancakes.”

  “Famous how?”

  I flashed him a grin over my shoulder. “Famous because they’re the one thing that I can cook.”

  “What about your guacamole?” he said. “I can speak from experience that it’s delicious.”

  “First, guacamole isn’t an acceptable breakfast food—”

  “Says who?”

  I snorted. “Second, chopping things up and throwing them into a bowl isn’t cooking.”

  A beat then the packet of bacon was snatched from my hands.

  “Hey!”

  “If you can’t cook, then I’d better save this bacon from your hands.” He smirked. “Also, I think chopping things up and throwing them into a bowl is the definition of cooking.”

  “I—” My words faltered when he came very close. “Okay, fine. That’s reasonable.”

  He nodded.

  Then we worked side-by-side in silence for a few minutes, him putting the slices of bacon onto the pan, me giving one more mix to the batter before ladling it onto the griddle.

  “We going to talk about that kiss?” he murmured.

  I bit my lip, sucked in a breath, then just let it rip.

  “That kiss was hopefully the start of more—” He sucked in a breath, but I put my hand onto his arm. I glanced up, saw his face had gone hopeful, and I felt a blip of panic. Then I thought about that black and white picture, the sonogram of the baby I’d lost, and I knew that I had to keep moving forward. “But no, I don’t want to talk about it.” His expression sobered.

  “Instead, I’m going to tell you about my ex-husband.”

  Eleven

  Damon

  I nearly dropped the pack of bacon.

  But I did manage to recover enough to set it on the counter, to turn off both burners, take Eden’s hand, and tug her away from the hot stove.

  She appeared to be warring with herself, one minute her face was open, the next it was filled with worry.

  “It’s okay,” I assured. “You don’t have to tell me—”

  Green eyes glanced up to mine. “I realized something this morning . . .” A sigh, words trailing off.

  I waited, giving her time to find her words, not wanting to rush her, even though she’d just dropped a pretty big bomb. Ex-husband? Eden had just turned twenty-eight, and I’d known her for six years now. She’d begun modeling a few years before I’d photographed her, so—

  “I see you’re doing mental math.”

  “I’m—”

  A warm palm on my cheek. “It’s okay.” She smiled, but it didn’t hide the pain in her eyes. “I—” A shake of her head. “When I was a little girl, I dreamed about New York, about bright lights and being onstage. I dreamed about high heels clacking on sidewalks bustling with people. I dreamed that because it was as far away from my childhood as I could imagine.” Her voice dropped. “And I dreamed it because I’d seen the show Sex and the City once at a friend’s house who had cable. Because it seemed so bright and colorful and different from reality.”

  I carefully peeled her hand from my face then linked our fingers together. “What was reality?”

  Eyes to her lap, shoulders lifting and falling on a breath.

  Then she spoke, and it broke my heart.

  “My parents were very religious,” she said. “Which was fine. Growing up, I loved going to church, loved we could be social, that I could see my friends. When someone grows up in a rural community, any bit of social outing is exciting.” Her lips curved up, but it wasn’t a true smile. “I grew up in a small farming community in Kentucky, had to catch the bus at six just to get to school on time because all of the pickups were so far apart. It was the sticks. Some of my neighbors didn’t have electricity or running water, though my house did. No TV though.” Here her eyes warmed. “Hence, Sex and the City being so exciting.”

  I squeezed her hand lightly. “My sisters tell me it’s important to any woman’s education.”

  Eden laughed. “Yes, it was that.”

  Silence descended and I murmured, “You know you don’t have to tell me anything, right?”

  “But I do.” She blinked rapidly. “I do because you need to understand why I feel the urge to retreat, why I’ve stopped any chance of some sort of deeper connection with a man before it ever had a chance to take root.” A beat. “Except it didn’t work with you. You wormed your way in, dug underneath my armor, and”—her lips tipped up—“generally made a nuisance of yourself.”

  “Ah,” I teased lightly. “My mom’s favorite joke.”

  She chuckled. “Have you always been a nuisance then?”

  “Yup.”

  “Trouble.” A squeeze of my fingers, her face growing serious once more. “I’m just going to blurt it out once and for all and be done with it.”

  I nodded.

  She sucked in a breath and then she went for it.

  “So, church was the thing to do. Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday night services, youth ministry on Saturdays, Bible study group on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I spent almost more time there than my own home. I definitely spent more time with Tim than m
y parents.”

  Tim.

  Just hearing the way she said the name made my insides boil.

  “Tim was a youth minister.” She swallowed. “He had all of us girls coming to the church as much as possible, was grooming us, from what I understand now. But I didn’t get it then. I just loved the attention, loved it when he focused it on me.” A quick breath. “But he was also twenty-seven years older than my twelve when he first touched me sexually.”

  My jaw clenched convulsively.

  Eden saw and lifted her palm, resting it there again. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m okay now.”

  I bit back the urge to say that she abso-fucking-lutely was not okay based on what I’d seen just weeks before, but I didn’t. This was her story, her time, her—

  She noticed my inner war—of course she did—and her face softened.

  “Oh, Damon.” Her fingers flexed. “This is why.”

  “What is why?” I asked hoarsely, covered her hand.

  “Because you care,” she said. “Even though it happened years ago, you care.”

  “Of course, I care, baby,” I told her. “The idea of you being hurt, being touched by anyone, but most especially by someone who was so much older, had so much power over you . . . God. I wish he was alive so I could kill him.”

  “Is it uncharitable for me to say I agree?”

  “Fuck no, baby.”

  She smiled. “This is also why.”

  My heart skipped a beat, my stomach filled with butterflies. God, I loved this woman. I probably had for years, if I were being honest. Six years of staying in touch, six years of coaxing her to this moment.

  Six long years that were worth it.

  “I’m here,” I said.

  “I know.” Another sigh. “So the last of it then, yeah?”

  “If you want to share.”

  A nod. “The last of it. As you might have guessed, things progressed. Pretty soon I was sleeping with him and not surprisingly, since he didn’t use protection, I got pregnant. I was thirteen. My parents freaked. The church freaked. I was freaked. But I loved Tim, or thought I did, anyway,” she said. “So when they asked if I wanted to marry him, I agreed. I didn’t want him to go to jail, like they said he would if I didn’t. I didn’t want to lose him.”

  My jaw was so tight that it actually throbbed, but I didn’t interrupt.

  “My parents consented, a local judge was paid off, and at thirteen . . . I was married.” She shook her head. “We moved, obviously. The congregation was horrified and . . . Tim wanted to get me away from my family and friends. He wanted to isolate me, to control me.” Her eyes closed. “And then he began hitting me. Often. For little things like not making his dinner taste good—no matter that I was thirteen and the most I’d ever cooked was pasta with butter or stovetop mac and cheese—or not folding his clothes correctly—I’d never even so much as turned on a washing machine. And for big things—like money being hard to come by and doctor’s appointments being expensive. It started with smacks, then got harder, until he was breaking bones instead of just bruising skin. And eventually . . . he hit me hard enough to make me lose my baby.”

  “Oh, Eden.” I tugged her into my arms.

  “It was for the best,” she said. “And I know that sounds callous, but if I’d brought up a child in that environment, if I’d exposed him or her to Tim, I-I don’t know what would have happened. If he’d hurt my baby—” She rested her forehead on my shoulder. “I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself.”

  I held her tighter. “None of this was your fault.”

  “I know,” she said. “Logically, I do. But . . . sometimes, I don’t know how to move forward. I lost so much in so many ways, but worst was the feeling that the people who were supposed to love me hurt and abandoned me. Not just Tim, but my parents marrying me off to a pedophile and then never checking in on me.” Her head came up. “They were ashamed of me, disappointed I’d been impure, and they turned away from me the moment the ink on the marriage license was dry. I heard nothing from them until I’d gotten my first big spread. And then they managed to find a way to be in touch.”

  Rage burned a fiery trail down my spine. “They wanted money?”

  She nodded. “Apparently the tractor had broken down and the barn roof was leaking.”

  “You told them to fuck off, I hope.”

  “I gave them the money,” she murmured. “And then made them promise to never contact me again. I was in New York. I was working. I was moving forward. I . . . didn’t want to remember my past ever again.”

  “Oh, baby.”

  Her face was lined with exhaustion. “I know.”

  “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

  “Me, too,” she murmured. “But Tim managed to kill himself by driving his drunk ass into a tree, so there is some small amount of karma in this world.”

  “Well, couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” I muttered.

  She froze and then she began shaking in my arms. For a second, I thought I’d made her cry, but then I heard the chuckles break free, the laughter escape. She leaned back, her green eyes glistening with tears, from the past or from the laughing, I didn’t know.

  “Thank you,” she said, after taking a few deep breaths. “For listening, for understanding.”

  “Always,” I murmured and then tugged her close again. “And I’m so sorry.”

  She hugged me tight. “I know. Because you’re a good man.”

  We stayed like that, her pulled halfway out of her chair and into mine, our arms wrapped around one another, for long moments, but eventually she shifted, sitting back into her own chair. “Regardless, of everything, I’m glad I found my way to New York, even if it was from one very unrealistic TV episode.”

  I chuckled. “I’m glad, too.”

  “And for a long time, I thought pushing through my past meant not telling anyone, meant locking it up deep inside. Because of you, I know that I don’t have to do that.”

  I shook my head. “No, baby. That’s all you.”

  “I think I need to get on the actor bandwagon and see a therapist.”

  He brushed his lips to my temple. “I think you have the resources and so if you want to talk to someone, you should.”

  “Yeah.” A sigh as she pressed her lips together, wiped a finger under each eye. “Okay. Enough sad. Let’s eat pancakes and do nothing for the rest of the day.” She stood then stopped, her face aghast. “Oh, no! What about your shoot? You said you had—”

  “Done.” I smiled. “It was with the sunrise. Just a few friends who wanted some maternity pics.”

  “You’re getting to be quite the preggo photographer.”

  Speaking of . . . but shit, did I really want to bring up my suspicions after all she’d told me?

  Fuck, no I didn’t, but I should tell her as soon as possible.

  Except . . . wouldn’t she know? If she’d been pregnant before? Her boobs looked normal-sized this morning. I was probably worrying for nothing. It had been that incredible dress, lifting and emphasizing her assets. She didn’t seem nauseated now, and that usually happen in the morning, right?

  “Damon?”

  I blinked.

  Suspicions or not, I’d need to broach the topic.

  Just not right now, not after the emotions of the morning.

  Which was why I stood and slanted my mouth across hers, only pulling back when my lungs were screaming for oxygen, and cupped her cheek. “I think you promised me world-famous pancakes.”

  She grinned. “You’d better reciprocate with perfectly crispy bacon.”

  “I can do that.”

  Eden trailed me to the stove, scraping the ruined pancakes off the griddle and then turning it back on to reheat. “Damon?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You make me think that I can do a lot of things I never imagined possible.”

  Those words, more than anything Eden had said thus far that morning, wove their way into my heart. I’d need the
m there because neither of us could have predicted the storm that was going to tear through the peaceful world we’d just begun to create for ourselves.

  And I didn’t mean the baby I suspected was growing in Eden’s womb.

  I meant something much darker, much more sinister.

  And much more devastating.

  Twelve

  Eden

  “And after that, we’ve got some early PR stuff for the superhero flick—they want to get some promotional shots of you in your costumes, do an ensemble photo with the whole cast in theirs, and then want to film you doing some of those YouTube only features,” Maggie said.

  I lay back onto my couch, cell to my ear. “One of those Internet searches or quiz thingies?”

  “Thingie is the technical term?” Maggie teased.

  “Absolutely,” I agreed.

  “What’s the matter?” Maggie asked. “What’s that in your tone?”

  “Nothing.”

  Well, nothing so much as the fact that Damon had filled my life with upheaval . . . or maybe not so much upheaval as feelings.

  Yes, I was happy and hopeful.

  Yes, I was also saying that as if it were a dirty four-letter word.

  “Come on now,” Maggie said. “You’re my easiest client.”

  I grunted. “You always say that.”

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “You know what.”

  “So, don’t stop being it now?” I asked, lips quirking despite myself.

  “Yes,” Maggie said with a laugh. “Exactly that.”

  “I’m fine, Maggie,” I said and sighed heavily. “I’m . . . um. I just— I guess—”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “It’s not bad,” I reassured. “It’s just that you might have to deal with some of those Is Eden Pregnant? stories.”

  “What?”

  “I’m seeing someone new, like actually dating someone, and it’s got me a little unsettled.” I bit my lip. “Well, not unsettled, exactly. More excited, but also nervous.” So much talk about pushing through the past and moving forward, but I couldn’t even put what Damon and I were doing into proper sentences—