“Damn it, Lillian,” I say, “They think I killed Eddie.”
“And anyone with any sense about them knows that is not true. They don’t have any real evidence. This shit is going to get thrown out quick, trust me.” She chuckles, “Honestly; I think it’s kind of funny.”
“Fuck you, bitch,” I say.
“Hey, easy. Thanks to me, you’re not going to be staying the night in jail.” She says, “And like I said, this is going to wash over quick. You won’t be able to go see Eddie for a few days while I get this straighten out, though.”
I sit upright, “What do you mean?”
“Just a few days.” She says.
“Hell no!” I shout, “You got to fix this now!”
“James, you need to calm down.” She says, “Eddie will be fine. They’re not going to take him off life support without you there. I’m going to get this straightened out quick, I promise. I just need you to trust me. It’s obvious you had nothing to do with this and this is just a couple of homicide cops who aren’t real detectives trying to make a big arrest. This will be over soon.”
“Why do they think it’s me?” I ask.
“There is this ridiculous theory circulating that maybe Eddie had been the one poisoning the supplements and that you caught him. It makes sense in theory, but there’s no evidence to support it.” Lillian says and then awkwardly yet reassuringly pats my hand.
The door opens and a cop comes in and unlocks my cuffs. Lilian looks back at me, “Just pay your bail, and you can go home. I’ll do my best to make sure this goes away quick. I’ll call you first thing in the morning after I have a word with my connections.”
“All right, all right.” I say and follow the cop out to the main entrance of the station to pay my bail. Lillian leaves, promising me an early phone call.
As I am filling out paperwork, the officer behind the desk suddenly lets out a soft snort laughter. “Looks like you’re going to be staying here tonight.” He says.
“Excuse me?” I hiss.
The cop looks at me, “Your assets have been frozen while your company is being investigated for negligence, Mr. Mont. You have no way to pay for bail.”
“You must be joking!” I snap. I had no idea my account had been frozen, and I’m guessing my lawyer didn’t know that either. “Just put it on my credit card then.”
“Yeah, you can’t do that, pretty boy.” He says.
The next thing I know I’m in cuffs again demanding I get my one phone call. I call Sylvia, and that turns out to be a mistake. She had gotten called into work, and she’s in fucking Utah. I try my best to remain calm while I talk to her on the phone. “What do you mean you’re in Utah?” I question.
“My company has me testing out some snow gear!” she sounds horrified, “James, I am so sorry! I don’t know what to do!”
“When are you coming back?” I ask.
“Two days!” she cries into the phone,” Don’t tell me you’re going to be stuck in jail for two days!”
I don’t want her to worry, but unless I can convince these cops to let me have a second phone call, it sure looks that way. After cussing all of them out, I’m pretty sure they’re not going to let me bend the rules. “No, no, don’t you worry,” I lie to Sylvia, “I’m sure I can figure something out.”
This shit escalated quickly.
36
I have been sitting in this stupid jail cell for a total of nine hours when one of the officers suddenly taps on the cell door. “Mont, you made bail,” he says, and I sit up and rub my eyes slightly. I had started to doze off, finally accepting the fact that I would be spending a few nights in jail until I could get a hold of my lawyer to get her to help me unlock my funds.
“I made bail?” I stand, confused, “Who paid my bail?”
Suddenly Éclair is rounding the corner, and I feel a tremendous amount of relief to see a familiar face. She smiles at me, “Well, look at you,” she teases, “A regular old jailbird.”
“Shut the hell up,” I say as the door to my cell is opened.
As it turns out, Éclair had heard about me being arrested. Of course, it had made the news, and I was being branded as a vengeful prick by the media. Éclair, thankfully, had tried calling me. She had contacted Lillian and the two of them had figured out that I was still in the jail. Éclair had set Lillian off to try to get my money, and she had come to my rescue –paying for my bail.
We wind up standing out in front of the police station, and I don’t really know what to say to her exactly. I manage to say thank you, but now I don’t know what to do. “Lillian says they won’t let me in ta the hospital to see Eddie.” I can hear the sadness in my own voice, so I know that Éclair is picking up on it. Little things like that do not go unnoticed by her. “She says she’s working on it, but right now I can’t go see him. What if something happens to him while all this is going on?”
“Lillian will get this worked out quick,” Éclair says reassuringly, “you’ll see. In the meantime, why don’t you come back to my place? I’ll make you some of my special tea, and we can rent a movie or something.”
Rent a movie? I’m not really sure how to respond to that. Éclair is not a rent a movie type. She’s a come over and fuck me type. I go for it anyways, and she has her personal driver take us out to her home in the suburbs. As always, I’m a bit taken back by the pink and silver décor that makes up her home.
We wind up seated on her couch watching a movie while her tea is brewing. I have to admit; she makes some really good tea. We’re about halfway through the movie, and I’m about halfway through with my second cup of tea, when Éclair puts her hand on my knee. She leans closer to me, and I flinch. There is something bothering me, and I can’t help but to put it out there. “Did you have anything to do with what happened to Eddie?”
She looks really pissed off. She removes her hand and crosses her arms. “You don’t seriously think I would hurt your brother, do you?”
“Come on, Éclair, you can’t blame me for being suspicious.” I say, “You have been trying to get me to sell my company for years. You and Eddie have never gotten along. How do I know you didn’t poison my supplements and then Eddie found out about it and you hired some muscle to-”
She slaps the shit out of me. I probably deserved that. She stands, “You and I have been friends for years. I just paid your fucking bail! Eddie and I may have had our differences, but I would never hurt him! Fuck you, James!”
I remain seated. I just look down at my lap. “I’m sorry.” I say. “I just don’t know what to think right now.”
“You need to relax,” she says, and I can sense the slight erotic tone in her voice. I’ve always been powerless when it comes to Éclair. She leans forward and puts her hands around my neck. Her lips crash into mine, and she pulls me forward slightly so that I am sitting on the edge of the couch. “Come with me,” she says, and I don’t resist. We wind up in her bedroom, and she slams the door behind me. Éclair, always the little power house, pushed be back into the door and pins me there. She leans into me, and I can feel her warm breath on my ear. “How do you want it?” she asks, and I shudder slightly. Éclair is not the asking type; she’s the do-what-I-want-when-I-want type. It catches me off guard so much to the point that I don’t even have a response. “Fine,” she says when I don’t respond fast enough, “I know what you like.” She drops down to her knees and pulls my cock out of my pants, not wasting any time to get her mouth wrapped around it.
I feel myself sinking back into the door, and I grip the doorframe to keep myself upright. She’s right; she knows exactly the sort of things I like. That’s the thing about Éclair –she and I have been at this sort of thing for a while now, so we know what to do to turn each other on. She pulls away from me and stand up suddenly. She releases me and steps toward the bed, dropping every bit of clothing to the floor and suddenly leaning over on the bed, her feet on the floor.
I follow her and pull my band and drawers down around my knees. I co
me up behind her and press myself into her, and I make her groan loudly. She really does know what I like. “James, you really turn me on,” she mumbles, her voice slightly muffles as her face gets somewhat shoved down into the mattress. I reach out and grab her by her hair, pulling her head back slightly. She turns her head to the side so that she can look back at me slightly.
I’m not stupid. I know what she is doing. She’s never so talkative or so willing to please me. This is just some damn pity sex to try to make me feel better about how my entire life is going to shit. “Just shut up,” I tell her, “and let me just fuck you.” I cum inside her, and then I just pull away and don’t take any time distancing myself. I did it again. Éclair has always been a weakness of mine. What about Sylvia? “I got to go,” I snap and clean myself up on her nice, satin sheets.
“James,” she starts to argue with me, but I’m done. I leave her standing there in her bedroom, probably confused as hell, and I hurry out the door.
37
This is just a small victory. A sour victory. I am finally able to see Eddie again. Lillian got the station to drop the charges. Thankfully, I’m no longer a suspect in Eddie’s assault case, but that just means there is someone else out there who hurt him. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that someone is out there walking around free.
Now that my name has been cleared in the assault case, I still have the business negligence and accidental homicide by poison to worry about. The lawyer working the lawsuit has been working overnight, and more and more people are signing up to sue me. Just my luck. My business is going down the drain, Éclair is pissed at me for running out on her, and I am just barely keeping my head on straight.
Thankfully for me, Sylvia is back in town after her brief skiing and snowboarding trip in Utah, so she is with me on my first day back to see Eddie. Luckily, he is physically looking better. He is still on life support, but the doctor seemed a bit more confident that he is not going to stay that way. The doctor says he might actually make a recovery. I find myself slightly more relaxed in that thought –the thought that I actually might get to talk to Eddie again.
I sit next to his bed reading a book out loud. One of the nurses told me that coma patients can sometimes hear you, so I figured I would give him something to listen to just in case he could hear me. I feel kind of like a dumbass sitting here reading The Outsiders, but it’s the only book I had lying around my apartment. Eddie had actually been the one who had lent it to me, so I assume he liked it.
As I am finishing another chapter, I notice in the corner of my eye Sylvia starting to nod off. I feel kind of bad. She’s been sitting there being all sweet and supportive for hours. I realize I can’t keep her locked up in a hospital room all day. I close the book, slamming it and making her jump just to kind of be a jackass and tease her a bit. She laughs. “Sorry,” she says.
“Listen,” I say, “My money is still frozen… I’d love to take you out on a fancy date, but until Lillian gets that worked out for me-”
“How about I treat you to lunch?” she suggests with a smile.
I smile back, “You’re too sweet. I was going to say I have ten bucks in cash so we could get a dollar menu lunch, but that works too.”
She laughs again. “Okay, well, I’d rather have some real food. Are you in?” I nod. She can tell I’m reluctant to leave. She nods towards Eddie, “I can give you two a minute.” She says and steps out into the hall.
I’m glad she did that. She’s really thoughtful. It makes me feel like a real asshole for sleeping with Éclair again. She told me she knows I’m sleeping around and that she’s okay with it, but it still makes me feel guilty when she acts so sweet and perfect and understanding. By comparison, I know I’m coming off as a complete pig.
I sit by Eddie for a while longer. I talk to him –tell him about all the shit going on. I talk about Éclair and about Sylvia. I tell him about my awkward first meeting with Lillian Lioness and her lesbianism and me coming off as a dumbass not knowing –he probably would have found that funny. I tell him how confused I am about Sylvia. How I can’t figure out what I want. I tell him about how worried I am about the lawsuit and how I wish he was awake so that he could tell me what to do. He would know what to do. He is smarter than me.
After talking to him for several minutes, never getting so much as a flinch from him, and I head out into the hallway to go have lunch with my fantasy girl. Hopefully lunch with Sylvia will allow me to forget my troubles if only for a little while.
38
After yet another long day of talking to lawyers and attempting to avoid the press, I head to the hospital for another visit with Eddie. This time I am alone. Sylvia is on another two-day business trip, so she can’t attend. I would ask Éclair to go with me, but after I had run out of her home like a little bitch I doubt she would have agreed. I don’t know –maybe I am being too critical of her character. I’m sure Éclair would have come if I had asked her to, but truthfully I am glad that I will be getting some alone time with Eddie.
Instead of reading through the same old book again, I had gone to the library and checked out a copy of Moby Dick. I’m not sure if it’s something Eddie would like or not, but it’s something for him to listen to –if he can actually hear me, that is. I’m just glad that Lillian got this shit straightened out quick. The few days of not being able to visit with Eddie had driven me absolutely insane. I stroll up to the hospital, thinking about the book I have in my hands and worried whether or not Eddie would even like hearing me read.
I check in with a nurse who is monitoring the hallway that is full of comatose and life support patients. You have to go through a sort of security check in this wing of the hospital. It is one of the most depressing areas in a hospital I have ever been in –especially the waiting room. Everyone is either dying or almost dying or just barely hanging on out this way, so there is always someone out in the nearby lobby or waiting room balling their eyes out after getting some bad news that their brother or daughter or whoever has been put on life support or that they are not going to make it. I am just hoping that any news I get won’t make me into one of those ghostly looking faces I see every time I come here.
When I enter into Eddie’s room after speaking to a nurse, I immediately start talking to him without looking around the room. “Hey, Eddie, I brought a new book today,” I say, not realizing that Eddie has another guest.
The guy sitting in the chair next to Eddie’s bed jumps slightly and wipes his face dry, clearly he had not expected someone to just come walking in all of a sudden. If it wasn’t for his tear soaked face, I probably would have shouted for a nurse to call security. I don’t recognize the guy at all, but there is something somewhat familiar about his face. He looks to be about Eddie’s age, maybe a little younger. He’s wearing a simple button up shirt and stained tie, blue jeans, and tennis-shoes. He kind of looks like an underdressed Geek Squad rep from Best Buy.
Slowly, he stands, probably sensing my surprise and slight discomfort at seeing someone else in the room. Eddie does not exactly have a lot of guy friends, and those that he did have had all waited around for when they had known I would be here for a visit –no one close enough to just pop in all of a sudden at the hospital unannounced. Plus, who gave this guy permission to come back here? I’m the only one on any sort of emergency contact. The guy forces himself to smile, “Y-you m-mu-must b-b-be J-James,” he says with the worst stutter I have ever heard in my life.
“Uh… yeah…” I say as I come somewhat closer. He sticks out a hand to shake, and I shake despite my discomfort with this stranger’s presence.
“Ed-die’s t-told m-me so m-much about y-y-you,” he says as he releases my hand.
“I’m sorry, but who the hell are you and what are you doing here?” I say in the nicest tone I can manage.
He frowns and then half-heartedly smiles at me, “I’m-m s-sorry. I’m M-Max. I’m-m Ed-die’s little br-brother.”
I feel my throat tighten, but I’m not sure w
hy. I have never met one of Eddie’s other half-siblings before. “Oh.” I say, and that is literally all I can come up with.
He looks embarrassed now. He straightens his tie and steps away from the hospital bed. Max puts his hands in his pockets and looks down at his feet. “I sh-should go.”
“No,” I say quickly, not wanting to chase the poor guy out of here. He had actually bothered to come visit, so I wasn’t going to punish him for it by making him uncomfortable. There was nothing for him to gain by coming here, so I guess I may have made a few harsh judgements about Eddie’s siblings. I can admit that, but I am not entirely convinced of it yet. “Stay,” I say and steal the guy’s seat right next to where he had been sitting next to Eddie’s head.
Max nods and pulls up another chair. We are both uncomfortably silent for a while. Max breaks it after a short period of time. “Ed-die d-do-doesn’t de-deserve this s…sort of sh-shit,” he says.
“No, he doesn’t.” I say, trying not to make it obvious that I am having to focus really hard to understand whatever he is saying.
A part of me is curious about the stutter, but I would never in a million years ask about flat out about it –but I suppose he can sense my curiosity. He just points to the side of his head and says, “B-brain inj-jury. It u-used t-to be worse, b-but Ed-die g-got m…me in sp-peach th-therapy n-now.”
“Brain injury?” I question.
“One of m-my,” he pauses and I watch him shake his head embarrassingly for a moment before deciding that he needed to take his time, “One of my m-mom’s old boy…boyfriends kn-knocked me out of a m-moving car when I w-was a k-kid.”
“Shit man,” I say, “That’s fucked up.”
“N-no,” he says and waves a hand towards Eddie, “this is f-fucked up.”
Filthy Desires: A Romantic Suspense Collection Page 63