She fills a mug with draft beer and smiles as she pushes it in front of me. “This one is on the house, partner.”
I nod and smile. I’m going to leave her one hell of a tip before this night is over. I take a long drink and feel the cold as it flows down my throat and into my stomach. “How long do you think it’ll take before it takes the pain away?”
“Depends. How deep is the pain?” She winks at me as she runs a white cloth over a shot glass.
“Very,” I answer. “Tell me, do you know a lot about abandonment issues? I’m sorry, how rude of me. My name is Blake, and yours is?”
“Tanya. Nice to meet you Blake. Abandonment issues huh? Well, most people have them, at least to a certain extent anyway. You see even great parents can’t always be with their kids entirely as they get through those young years.”
“My girlfriend was given up when she was three. Her parents are both crazy as shit, her father lives under a bridge, so I do mean legitimately crazy, okay?” I pause to take another drink.
“Under a bridge, huh? Keep going,” she says as she takes the peanuts that are on the bar in front of me and throws them away, replacing them with some fresh out of the glass jar. “I’m putting out the fresh peanuts for you, Blake.”
I take one and pop it in my mouth. “Thanks, Tanya. So like I was sayin’ she comes from nutty stock and has some deep issues. I guess I’m an idiot because I thought I could love her so much she’d stop being a crazy person with a load of insecurities.”
“How long have you known this person, Blake?”
“A while. We’ve had bouts where we weren’t together, but we always came back to what we have. It’s special, different. When I first laid eyes on her I just knew she was the one. And I know she loves me, but she’s the type who leaves when she feels pretty much anything at all. I have this feeling she doesn’t like to feel anything too deeply.”
Tanya stops wiping the bar down and looks at me as I suck down the rest of the beer. “So what do you want with her then?”
Her question has me struck dumb. I think about it as she pours me another one and places it in front of me. “I love her. That’s all I have.” I shrug my shoulders. “Does that make sense?”
“I hear it all the time, Blake. All the time. People can make each other crazy as hell, but it’s that love thing that keeps them giving it another shot. So where is this crazy chic now?”
“Los Angeles, and I’m not going back there no matter what. So if you hear me talking about going back to make her see the light about us and what we have, just tie me up somewhere until I sober up and get back into my right mind.” I take a drink and shake my head. “My heart can sometimes overrule my brain. I need to use my brain a lot more though. The old ticker has taken a beating and isn’t up to making any decisions.”
“Will do,” she says as the door opens up and I go temporarily blind.
“Hi, Mom. Need any help?” I hear a girls’ voice ask.
“You could sweep and mop for me, Tilly.” Tanya says.
The door closes and a tall, willowy blonde walks past me. Her arm brushes against my back and I lean forward to get away from her. My body tenses as she turns back and smiles at me.
“Sorry.” She goes behind the bar and kisses her mother’s cheek. “I just got back from Dallas. The shoot took forever. Did you miss me?”
“You bet,” Tanya says with a smile. “I missed not having to pick up things you left lying around. I missed going to bed at a reasonable hour without your music keeping me awake. Yeah, I’d say I missed you. When do you think this modeling thing will start making you enough money to get your own place, Tilly?”
The girl, who must be in her early twenties, looks at me and grins. “I think my mother is ready for me to leave the nest.”
I raise my eyebrows at her and take a drink. “My parents never wanted me to leave so I have no idea.”
Tanya laughed. “I don’t really want you to leave, Tilly. Just clean up after yourself now and then.”
Tilly walked back around the bar and sat next to me. “So, what’s up with you, why you here drinking so early in the day?”
“He’s in love with a cuckoo bird with abandonment issues. Leave the man alone, Tilly. The broom and mop are in the back in the closet.”
Tilly rolls her light blue eyes at me and gets up. “I’ll do the chores, Mom. But then you owe me a couple of drinks.”
I look back at Tanya behind the bar and think to myself that the fruit fell pretty far from that tree. Her daughter is gorgeous and Tanya doesn’t look a thing like her. “She must look like her father,” I say without realizing it’s come out of my mouth.
“I don’t know. I never met her father.”
I choke on my beer and look up at her. “How in the hell is that?”
She laughs. “She’s adopted, Blake. I got her when she was seven. She had some problems. Maybe talking to her can help you understand your girl a little better.”
Maybe it could, but do I even want to understand? Maybe it’s better just to try my best to forget about Rachelle.
Rachelle
I called and texted Blake again, hoping the light of day had him not quite so mad at me that he’d ignore me all together. No such luck though as the call went straight to voicemail.
My brain is struggling with what I should do. I’m pretty sure he’s back home in Lubbock, but not one hundred percent as Max won’t help me find that out. One little phone call to his brother-in-law who lives next door to Blake and is now the guy Blake calls his right-hand man, whatever that means, could let me know for sure if he’s home.
It’s getting to be nearly noon, and I’d like to be on my way to wherever he is by now, but with no real clue I’m stuck here waiting and wondering and worrying about him.
Now that I know how he felt all those times I left without telling him a thing. I will never do that to another person as long as I live.
It’s excruciating!
My phone rings and I jump and grab it up off the table. It’s Lexi and I hurry to answer. “Hey, Lex.”
“I can’t talk long and I’m hiding that I’m calling you from Max, but I wanted you to know that I called my brother, and he said Blake made it home last night. So he’s alive. Max did try to call him this morning to be sure he was alright, but Blake didn’t accept his call either.”
“I wonder why he’s cutting everyone out,” I say as I step into my shoes. “It’s not like him.”
“Max thinks it’s because he’s really going to try to get over you. Are you going to just sit back and let that happen, Shelly?”
“What would you do?” I ask her, knowing full well that even though Max tore me a new one last night that Lexi, and he went through some bad shit before they finally got it all straight.
“You don’t want to repeat any of my mistakes. Make your own, or better yet, don’t. Just find the guy and tell him you love him and marry his ass.”
“Find him, huh? Thanks for the advice, Lexi. And thanks for letting me know he’s okay, I really appreciate it.”
“Max is coming, bye and remember this is our little secret, Shell.”
The call ended, and I envisioned Max catching her in the act and her coming up with some crazy story that gave too many details, letting him know she was hiding something from him.
Okay, so now I know he’s in Lubbock, but how do I get to him in less than the two days it will take me to drive there? And I need to make a stop at my grandparent’s house too before I get to him.
Time to get a plan together and get moving on it!
“So, let me get this right,” I say as I pass the ketchup over to Tilly. I got hungry and ordered Tilly, Tanya, and me some food from the little café next door. “You’re only twenty-five and have been married twice and are about to get engaged you think to another guy.”
Tilly takes a giant bite of her cheeseburger and nods. A little mustard got left on her cheek and I take a napkin and wipe it away. Her tongue darts out to lick i
t off, and she smiles. “Thanks, and yes. It’s all about the first part of love that I crave. When it gets all settled in and the men start acting like themselves, you know farting in front of me and scratching their private parts, that’s when I have to end it.”
“Really? So, if I do get back together with Rachelle, I should never do those things in front of her? That’s got to be a little hard to keep up forever. Don’t you look back and miss either of your husbands?” I ask her as she takes a drink of her beer.
Tanya laughs and dips a fry in ketchup. “They were bastards, both of them. Tilly here likes the bad boys and when I say bad, I mean the kind that don’t mind tossing a woman around a bit and trying to keep them beat down.”
I look Tilly over and have a hard time believing someone as pretty as she is would allow a man to treat her that way. “Come on, not you, Tilly. Say it ain’t so. I can’t imagine a girl like you putting up with that crap. And in the end you left them over a gas issue instead of the fact they hit you.” I shake my head and take another bite of my burger.
Maybe my girl isn’t the craziest chic on the planet after all.
I shake my head to rid it of the words, my girl. I’m trying to move on after all.
Tilly doesn’t even look embarrassed as she says, “I had it coming. Mom doesn’t understand.”
“You what? No you did not just say that! Tell me what you did to make those ass holes hit you.” I pick up my beer and down it to get my blood to stop boiling.
Tilly looks at me and says, “Okay, the first husband I married after knowing him two weeks. I was eighteen and thought I needed to get married and start a family. I know I was stupid so stop looking at me like that, Dad!”
“Okay, as long as you realize that, young lady,” I say and gesture for her to continue.
“Well, after a few months together, I got this notion that I might have rushed into the marriage thing and I took a pregnancy test and made sure I wasn’t pregnant then went to the free clinic and got my ass on birth control.”
“All without telling me a thing,” Tanya interjects.
I shake my head and frown at Tilly. “Go on.”
“Well, I couldn’t let Bob know I was taking the pills, ‘cause he wanted to knock me up real bad. He was at me all the time and confused that I was still not pregnant. One day he got the idea I was taking the pills and ransacked the house until he found them. He knocked me around pretty good, but do you see how I brought that on myself?”
Shock runs through me as I can’t believe this woman actually believes she deserved that. “Tilly, no I can’t see how you brought that on yourself.”
Tanya puts another beer in front of us and says, “See, the issues can be really different. She thinks it’s okay for men to physically punish her. I never laid a hand on her, but she feels like a man can. I don’t know what to do with her.”
“Well, I should’ve talked to him, not went on and done that without his consent.” Tilly takes a drink of the fresh beer. “But this new guy, he’s a lot better. He’s going to be in here later on and you’ll see, he’s a keeper.”
“So, what about the adoption thing?” I ask Tanya and look back at Tilly too. “How did that work out and was there a father at any time, Tanya?”
“When I first got her I was married, but that ended a few years into it. He took off, and we never heard from him again. I raised her by myself. Maybe that’s a part of the reason she makes poor choices in men.” Tanya moves to the other end of the bar to take someone else’s order.
“And how did you like being adopted?” I ask her.
“It was great to get out of foster care. My mother is a saint. I had nightmares for years and when I hit puberty I was a nightmare. But she kept me. No matter how bad I was, she kept me.” She takes the last bite of her burger and I can see a little bit of what Rachelle has deep in her eyes.
The look that says she’s not worthy of love. It hits my heart hard and I think I might have made a mistake in leaving. So I ask Tilly, “Did you ever really love any of them?”
After dabbing at her mouth with a napkin she answers, “Blake, let me let you in on a little secret that might save you a lot of heartache over this girl. She can’t love you. You see, no matter how much I try, I can’t really accept myself. I often feel like a stranger in this body, detached from it at times.”
“You think she’s like that?” I ask.
“The things you’ve told us says she is. So, if you want to try to build a life with this girl you have to understand you’ll be building on a pile of sand that can blow away at any moment.” She pats my back and looks at me. “It’s not her fault, it’s just the way it is.”
“Does it have to be that way?” I ask and hope there’s some positive response.
She nods. “Do yourself a favor and stop the cycle now. It’ll take a little time, but she’s damaged, too damaged for a guy as great as you are. I mean, you’re a real sweetheart and a girl like her or me would break you in no time.”
“I’m not weak,” I argue. “I can take a lot.”
“She will make you weak. You can stand up to it for a while longer if you want, but in the end she will leave you a shell of your former self. I think that would be a crime.”
“Yeah,” I say then take a gulp of beer. “You’re probably right. Best to forget about her. I think I need something a little bit stronger than this to erase her memory though.”
Tilly smiles. “Good. You should just get drunk tonight and take a cab home and in the morning you’ll feel like shit and never want to feel that way again. It’s cauterizing the wound. It burns at first, but then it heals, leaving a scar, but it’s over and done with.”
I’m not positive that any of this is healthy, but I’m going to try it anyway.
Four shots of whiskey later and getting into the prime of the night time crowd, I’m dancing with all the pretty ladies in here and buying rounds for the whole bar. I’m living it up tonight. Tomorrow I’ll pay for it, but tonight I’m living like I don’t have a care in the world.
My body is pretty numb as I hold a tall, slightly heavy woman in my arms and slow dance with her. I hiccup and she giggles. It makes her body jiggle and I kind of want to puke.
“So what is it you do for a living, honey?” she whispers in my ear.
“Not a damn thing. I’m filthy, stinkin’ rich. I’m about to start wasting away my money on booze and broads though.” I laugh and hiccup again.
She pulls her head off my shoulder and looks at me. “Rich? Really?”
“That caught your attention, I see,” I slur and smile.
“So how rich?” Her green eyes go all sparkly as the song ends.
“Thanks for the dance,” I slur and let her out of my sloppy embrace.
I turn to walk away and her hand slips into mine. She comes along with me to the little table I got to myself and after I sit down I find her plump ass on my lap.
She licks her thick lips that are too red and says, “We should take this party to your place, handsome.”
“No can do, lady. I’m just sowing some wild oats tonight. No hanky panky for me. No sir, none for me.” I reach out to find my glass empty and wonder who drank my shot.
I can barely see the bar from my seat way in the back and push at the lady’s shoulders. She gets up and frowns. “You sure? I can be a lot of fun.”
“I’m sure.” I stumble my way to the bar and find Tanya frowning at me.
“Why the long face?” I ask.
“I think you’ve had enough, Blake. I’m going to get Tilly to drive you home. She quit drinking a few hours ago,” Tanya tells me.
I sit on the bar stool. “Fine. But just so you know I am nowhere near drunk.”
“Oh, you past drunk two shots ago,” Tanya says as she laughs.
The door opens, and a monster sized man walks in. He looks at Tanya and says, “Where’s your daughter?”
“Washing some glasses for me in the back. You can go on back there if you want,” she
tells the guy who looks like a real jack ass.
“You her boyfriend?” I ask him.
He looks at me and frowns. “Who wants to know?”
“Me, dumb ass,” I say and stand up. “Duh, who the fuck asked ya?” I look at Tanya. “Another real winner we got here.”
She’s shaking her head and looking really concerned for some odd reason. Then I feel my feet leave the floor and my shirt is in the monster guy’s hands. “Who the fuck are you?” he asks me.
“A concerned citizen. You can put me down now,” I slur and notice that I can’t really feel my body.
“Put him down, Spike,” Tanya tells him.
I find my feet back on the ground, though if the truth be told, I still feel a little floaty. “Spike!” I laugh. “That would be your name.”
“Okay, that’s enough. I’m taking this idiot outside and teaching him a lesson,” Spike says.
“No you’re not,” Tanya tells him.
“I don’t mind. I can take care of myself.” I roll up one sleeve and make a muscle. “See, I work out a lot and I can take this pussy on.”
“What did you call me?” the monster man asks me.
“I called you a pussy,” I mumble and take a step towards him.
A female voice shrieks my name and I turn to find Tilly running out to me. “Blake, what are you doing? He’ll kill you!”
“Stay out of this, Tilly,” Spike tells her and the next thing I know she’s stopped running towards us and looks kind of pale.
“Don’t!” she screams.
Her eyes are so wide and she looks afraid. I turn back to look at what she’s looking at and find the monster man holding quite a large knife and his eyes are dark. Then he opens his mouth and says, “You’re fucking dead, jack ass.”
Part 10 Happy Go Lucky
Rachelle
After stopping by my grandparents to pick up the set of wedding rings my grandmother’s parents left her, I’m on Kip’s jet, landing in Lubbock at ten o’clock at night. I’m hoping to find Blake at home and make everything right with us.
Doctor's Demands: A Submissives’ Secrets Novel Page 99