by Lucy Kevin
We stared at each other like that for a long moment before he said, “You have a boyfriend.”
At the same time I said, “You’re going to have a wife—and a mistress.”
We pulled apart and I said, “I don’t think I’m up to Dixieland tonight.”
“We’ll do it another time,” he agreed. “Can I walk you home?”
I shook my head. I needed some time to process things on my own.
“No. I’ll be all right.”
And hopefully one day soon it would actually be true.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I was shocked to find Dylan waiting for me on my front step when I got home. Of course I was beyond glad to see him, but at the same time I couldn’t help but think, what if Bradley had still been with me? What would happen if the two of them came face to face? If I had to explain to Dylan about Bradley—about why I was spending part of a Saturday night with him?
He was smiling and it was so good to see him, to feel his arms around me, to breathe in his scent, to feel his pulse against my lips where I pressed them against his neck.
For a second, when I was with Dylan, I could actually forget about where I’d come from for a few minutes. I’d never been happier that Dylan had no part of that world.
“This is such a great surprise,” I told him. “I looked for you all day at school yesterday, but you weren’t—”
He kissed me before I could finish my sentence. “I have something to show you.”
Working to shake myself out of my own thoughts, to push aside what I’d learned at my father’s wife’s house for a few minutes, I finally saw how excited he looked.
“A surprise? For me?”
He pulled two tickets out of his pocket. “You and me. Metallica. Front row.”
“Wow.” I looked at the tickets to a show I never would have had the nerve to attend without him by my side. How had I never realized before now—before Dylan—just how badly I wanted to let this loud, wild side of me loose?
His arms came around me and I wanted to lose myself in him, and his mouth on mine, and his strength, his heat. I wanted so badly to believe that he was the only real thing. Because with Dylan I was a normal teenager about to blow her ears out at a heavy metal concert that my grandmother would never approve of. With Dylan, I was just another good girl gone bad with the help of a sexy bad boy.
With him, I could pretend that there were no big decisions to be made.
“You’re so great, Gabi,” he said against my forehead. “So perfect.”
Oh God, if he only knew just how imperfect my life really was.
And that was when it hit me—hadn’t I just decided I wanted total honesty from now on?
Which meant I also needed to be honest with Dylan, no matter how difficult it was.
Or how much I stood to lose.
“There’s something I’ve got to tell you.”
I would have liked to drop my bomb on him from within the protective circle of his arms.
But that wasn’t fair to him. I needed to make it easy for him to walk away if he wanted to.
Stepping back, I took his hand and led him across the street to the small park where there was a playground full of parents and kids. I was struck by the innocent picture in front of us at this juncture, when I was about to destroy any visions Dylan had of my own innocence.
“It’s about my mother and father.” I wished I could leave it at that. But I couldn’t. “And me, too.”
Maybe another guy would have started freaking out at my weird behavior. But not Dylan.
“After what I told you about my father, about what I had to do, you know you can tell me anything.”
He was being so great. It was a huge relief that Bradley wasn’t the only one who could be supportive.
Of course, that didn’t make what I was about to say any easier.
“So, you know how my grandmother was a courtesan back in France? And my great-grandmother before her?”
“I’m cool with that. It was a long time ago in France. Things were different back then.”
I took a shaky breath. “Not that different, as it turns out.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you asked me if my mother had been one, I honestly thought she hadn’t. But then my grandmother told me that she had.”
“So your mom was a—”
I didn’t blame him for not wanting to say the word. I simply scrunched my eyes closed and nodded.
“Yes, she was. Which made my father her protector.” I hastily corrected myself. “I mean, her companion.”
He was sitting there shaking his head, a stubborn look on his face. “None of this is your fault. You were just their kid. Whatever they were, whatever they did, it isn’t your fault. It’s just like the therapists are always saying to me about my situation. That I didn’t choose to get born to those people, and that it was just doing what I had to do to survive.”
If anything, his understanding and concern, how hard he was trying to make me feel better, almost made everything worse.
“But there’s more. It’s not over, Dylan. It didn’t end with my mother.”
Nausea roiled in my belly as he shifted on the park bench, moving almost imperceptibly away from me.
But I noticed.
“It’s over,” he said in a hard voice. “There aren’t courtesans anymore. That’s ancient history.”
He was supposed to be the bad boy. I was supposed to be the good girl he corrupted. Not the other way around.
“They still exist, Dylan. There’s a whole society here in New York City.”
“That’s disgusting.”
What, I found myself wondering, did it say about me that I wanted to leap to that society’s defense? Especially when I’d spent the past few weeks being just as disgusted by it all as he was right now?
Clearly, it was easier to be disgusted with other people. It was a whole lot less fun when that disgust was coming straight toward you. My mother and father had been a part of this world.
No matter the rules of society, I couldn’t let myself think that they’d been bad people, that they’d been lacking in morals.
Trying not to show him how much his reaction was hurting me, I said, “I’m supposed to make a decision. When I’m eighteen.”
He was angry now, I could see it in his eyes, in the way he was clenching his hands into fists. “A decision. What kind of decision?” His words were even harder now.
I took a breath, and then another when the first one didn’t make it all the way into my lungs. “About whether to join them. About whether to become a courtesan, too.”
“There’s no decision. You can’t become a prostitute.”
“That’s not what it would be like, and I wouldn’t anyway, but—”
“Jesus, Gabi, you’re not actually thinking about this, are you?”
“No, but—”
“Stop saying but! It ended with your mother. It’s done.”
His reaction shouldn’t have hurt my feelings. He was just saying what any normal person would have said. But I was powerfully struck by the contrast between him and Bradley.
And the fact that Bradley had never judged me for this choice I had to make. Instead, he’d supported me, helped me do something incredibly difficult and painful by going and confronting my father’s wife.
So maybe that was why I said, “My grandmother doesn’t believe it’s done. She says there’s a curse. And that I’ll never find true love any other way.”
He was off the bench now, his hands jammed into the pockets of his black jeans. “This is crazy, Gabi. You don’t really believe in some stupid curse, do you?”
I wanted to say no, but the full truth was that I didn’t know what to believe anymore. “I don’t know what to think. I don’t want to believe in a curse. I never thought I would, but you should see my grandmother when she talks about it. She thinks that’s why my mother and father died—because they were breaking the code and were going to get married.
”
“I’ve never heard anything so stupid.”
Was this how I’d been when my grandmother had told me? Totally belligerent? Not at all receptive to even listening to what she had to say?
“I thought something seemed weird about you recently.” His eyes narrowed. “Especially this past week.”
What was the point in holding anything back now?
“There was a party,” I admitted. “Last weekend. That day I couldn’t go out with you, that’s where I was.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment, just stared at me in disbelief. “This wasn’t a normal party, was it?”
“No.” I wanted to curl up into a ball and roll away. “Kind of like a debutante ball for future courtesans.”
“What the hell! Why did you go to that, Gabi? How could you have let yourself be dragged into that kind of crap?”
My shoulders went back, my chin lifted. “All the women in my family were part of that world. I had to see it with my own eyes.”
“No. You didn’t.”
“Yes,” I countered. “I did.” Despite his clear fury, I continued, saying, “And it wasn’t anything like I expected. Some of the people were nice. And it turned out that they had their reasons why they had to be there, too.”
“You’ve got to stop this. Just end it, Gabi.”
I heard what he was saying. And I didn’t disagree with him, not really.
But what about the curse?
“I couldn’t keep it from you anymore. Now you know.” My voice sounded strange.
Strangled. Tight.
Scared.
Finally, he moved back onto the bench and sat beside me. He picked up my hands, and I realized they were ice cold in his warmth.
“What did you think I was going to do?” he said softly, “Did you think I wouldn’t want to see you anymore?”
I shrugged, knowing this was his way of apologizing to me without actually saying the words. It shouldn’t have been enough. But I felt so twisted up inside about everything – so confused, without any sense at all anymore of which end was up and which was down – that I pushed the thought away.
“I don’t know what I thought,” I said in an equally soft voice. “But I know how crazy it all sounds.”
“You and me,” he said as he threaded his fingers through mine. “We’re perfect together.
Two big messes.”
How could a mess, let alone two, be perfect? And yet, despite the conversation we’d just had, his arms were so comfortable. So warm.
Settling my weight back into his, I forced myself to push it all away, and just focus on that feeling of safety for as long as it lasted.
Because I knew, without a doubt, that it would flit away again soon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A week went by, and then two. I tried not to think about what I’d learned about my mother. I continued to push away the horrible conversation Dylan and I had in the park about things. I worked on my songs in the practice rooms, and although Dylan and I hung out a lot, I never played them for him. I couldn’t. Not when I was still trying to figure out what they meant.
Not when I was still trying to figure out what I felt.
He and I kissed. A lot.
We hadn’t had sex yet; he’d really meant it when he said he didn’t want me to be like all the other girls who had passed in and out of his bed. Still, we didn’t have to actually do the deed for me to learn something about myself that I hadn’t really known before.
Beneath my sweet seventeen-year-old exterior was a woman who liked being stroked, caressed, kissed.
Of course my grandmother and I had talked about sex. I hadn’t been sheltered from the facts of life by any means. But we hadn’t talked about it since I’d learned about my mother, about the fact that she’d been a courtesan, too.
Somehow, even though I knew my grandmother had been one, I’d never really thought of her in a sexual way. How could I? She was my grandmother. And how could I look at anyone else in a sexual way when I’d never looked at myself that way before, either?
But now, for the first time in seventeen years, I was starting to.
“Are you sure it will be okay with your grandmother for me to be here?”
I gave Dylan a confident smile. “Of course it’s okay. You’re my boyfriend. She trusts me.”
He didn’t say anything to that, but he let me take him in through the kitchen and up the stairs to my bedroom.
I closed the door behind us.
“So,” he said with a slow grin, “this is where you sleep.”
I felt hot all over, suddenly, and threw my jacket down on my piano bench. I hadn’t thought about what my bedroom would look like through his eyes, but now that he was in here, I wished I had pulled some of my pictures off the walls, ones from when I was a little girl with the
—
“Nice pigtails.”
Yup, that was the one, where I had pigtails.
I stuck my tongue out at him.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he warned me, his voice slightly dark and teasing all at the same time.
My skin prickled as I said, “Oh really? What are you going to do about it?”
A split second later my back was flat on the bed and he was over me.
“This.”
His mouth was sweet and so delicious I forgot all about the fact that I’d been starving when we first got to my house. Now I was starving for something else entirely.
“Dylan,” I said a little while later, when he unbuttoned the top buttons of my shirt and started kissing his way down my neck and across my collar bones, but stopped himself before he went any lower, “don’t stop this time.”
He lifted his head to look at me, his dark eyes even darker now. “Gabi.”
My name was more a groan than anything else.
I pulled his face back to mine and kissed him. “I want more. I’m ready for more.”
This time, he actually groaned into my mouth. “You shouldn’t say those things to me.”
Every time we’d started to have this conversation, he’d shut it down. This time, I wasn’t going to let words stop me.
I was going to take action, instead.
Still kissing him, I picked up one of his hands in mine and slid it beneath the hem of my shirt. My stomach muscles quivered as his fingertips made contact with my skin.
He was so warm.
And clearly tentative, if the way he was holding himself perfectly still was any indication.
But I knew he knew what he was doing, that if I’d been any other girl he would have gone straight for what he wanted.
So I moved his hand higher, then higher still. My breath was coming faster now and I was a heartbeat away from placing his palm over my bra, when he yanked back on me.
“Gabi. No.”
“Yes. It’s okay.”
But we were back to words now. And I could tell from looking at his face that he wasn’t going to budge.
Beyond frustrated—and more than a little hurt—I blurted, “Why don’t you want me?”
“Jesus, Gabi, you know I want you.” He pressed himself against me, just in case I’d missed the proof. “You know that’s not it.”
“I’m not like those girls you slept with before. You know it. I know it.”
I hated this, hated feeling like I was pleading with him to touch me. It felt like something a desperate girl did.
Still half-lying on me, he ran his hand through his hair. How was it that whenever I did that, I looked like a crazy lady, but when a guy did it, he looked hotter than ever, and like he’d just been styled for a magazine shoot?
“I know you’re not,” he finally said.
“Then why won’t you—”
I couldn’t say the rest of it. It was too pathetic. Way too pathetic to actually verbalize a question about why the guy I liked was deathly afraid of touching my boobs.
“You don’t have to do what your mom and grandma did, Gabi.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know. Sleep with me. Do stuff you’re not comfortable with.”
Oh. My. God.
Did he actually think I was acting like a courtesan?
So much for trying to forget about our conversation in the park. My whole courtesan legacy – slash – curse thing was obviously hanging around my neck like a neon sign.
Trying to stay calm when I felt anything but, I said, “The way I feel about you has nothing to do with my mother or grandmother.”
“You told me they were both courtesans, Gabi. You don’t have to do this…this stuff with me to keep me, or whatever.”
I couldn’t believe what he was saying.
“That’s not why I’m doing this stuff.” I put the same emphasis on the words that he had.
“You’re acting like the only reason I want to go further with you is because it’s my family legacy to act like that. Because of some inner courtesan inside of me dying to get out. They weren’t whores, Dylan! I told you that already.”
I was up and off the bed now, my shirt pulled back down. Way down. Heck, at this point, I was tempted to put my robe on so that no skin showed at all.
“They slept with guys they weren’t married to.”
“Everybody does that!”
“Everybody doesn’t do it for money. Everybody doesn’t do it for nice places to live and fancy clothes.”
I picked up one of Missy’s history books about courtesans that I’d been ignoring for weeks and threw it at him.
“Courtesans weren’t hookers!”
I picked up another book, a heavier, bigger one, and threw that at him, too.
“They were educated women who were doing the best they could when society was intent on keeping women in their place!”
Was that really what I thought? Or was I just pissed at him for saying the very things I had been thinking all along?
“Gabi, I didn’t mean anything by what I—”
The genuine remorse in his voice, along with the thick confusion, had me dropping the third book I’d been about to chuck at him.
I sat down hard on my bed. “I know you didn’t.”
He carefully set the books down on my desk and came over to me, sitting beside me.