Sweet as Sin

by J. T. Geissinger

  Past the guest rooms, past the library, past the game room I hurried. When finally I stood outside Nico’s closed bedroom door, I was trembling, freaked out, and not at all sure of what I’d find on the other side. A sliver of light spilled from beneath the door, beckoning me.

  I turned the knob. The door swung open on silent hinges. There he was, seated on the edge of his bed, staring at the carpet, his hands clenched in his hair, elbows propped on his knees.

  “Nico,” I whispered.

  Slowly, as if it pained him to move, he lifted his head and looked at me. His eyes were red. His cheeks were wet. If I’d thought I’d gone through hell on the way over, Nico’s face proved he was still there.

  “You’re here.” His voice was a lifeless, terrible thing. He sounded as if he were speaking from beyond the grave.

  I went to him. He watched me, making no move to stand. When I was a foot away, he reached for me. His face crumpled. He slid from the bed to his knees, holding me around the waist, and buried his face between my thighs like a hiding child. He made a sound like he was choking. Feeling helpless, not knowing what else to do, I stroked his hair.

  “I’m here. Nico, I’m here.”

  His shoulders shook. His fingers clenched into the fabric of my shirt. I heard him gasping. It seemed like he was trying desperately to hold himself together and failing in every possible way.

  I knew this kind of grief. I recognized it like you recognize the face of an old friend you haven’t seen in many years, but could never forget. I’d suffered through it before, and now Nico was suffering it over the death of Avery.

  My God, how he must have loved her. I was ashamed at myself for wishing, however briefly, he might have loved me the same way.

  I said his name again. Still kneeling, he looked up at me. In one long, shuddering breath, he said, “She was raped by her father almost every day from the time she was eight years old until she left home at fourteen. Eight years old, Kat. Can you blame her for gettin’ into drugs? Can you blame her for bein’ so fucked up?”

  Goose bumps raised all the hairs on my arms. I stared down at the beautiful ruin at my feet, shocked into silence.

  “She tried her whole life to get it behind her. But how can you escape somethin’ like that? A betrayal like that? You can’t.” His voice broke. “Even when she was little I knew this day would come. Even after what I did to make it right.” He swayed, clinging to me.

  Beyond my confusion, I felt the first, cold pangs of fear arrow through my chest. “You knew her when she was little? What do you mean—make it right?”

  Nico’s eyes were glazed with fatigue, red with tears, filled with unbearable anguish. But oh, so blue. So sweetly, beautifully blue I almost didn’t believe what next came out of his mouth.

  “I killed him. I killed that son of a bitch and then we ran away and I never looked back, not once in all these years.”

  Frozen, I stared at Nico, my mouth open, my heart a stone inside my chest. A stone that shattered with his next whispered words:

  “She was my sister.”

  Only in a storybook does a tale like Nico and Avery’s have a happy ending. He was right: some betrayals you can never escape. Some wounds are far too deep, and far too painful, to heal.

  Avery’s real name was Amy. She was beautiful from birth, one of those babies people are always saying should be in commercials, gurgling happy and picture perfect, a gem. By the time she was a toddler, men would stop their mother on the street to tell her how gorgeous her daughter was, and why didn’t she move the family to Hollywood and put her in the movies?

  Their father noticed little Amy’s beauty, too. He noticed it all too well. When it finally came to light that he was molesting his own child, their mother—a former stripper, with no education beyond the ninth grade—blamed Amy. She walked out the door, never to be seen again.

  Leaving her three children in the hands of a monster.

  In comparison to what Amy suffered, the two boys fared fairly well. There were regular beatings, long, drunken rants where dishes would be thrown and broken, whole days when their father would be blacked out on the kitchen floor and they’d try to pretend everything was normal by going to school and pasting smiles on their frightened faces. That, at least, was bearable. Sometimes they’d get lucky. If you’re quick enough, you can dodge a flying fist. You can learn to leap out of the way of that plate or vase or picture sailing toward your head.

  But a little girl is helpless when she wakes in bed with a grown man on top of her. There’s no dodging his groping hands, his brute strength, the horror of his body invading hers.

  And if she loves her father, if, underneath all the terror and shame, she still loves him, she learns to deal with the reality of her life, and the unthinkable betrayal of the one man who’s supposed to protect her, by learning to hate herself.

  Amy’s rage turned inward.

  At eleven, she began cutting herself with a razor blade. At twelve, she began taking drugs. By thirteen she was sleeping around, the most promiscuous girl in school. When she had an abortion just shy of her fourteenth birthday—her father’s baby? Some other, uncaring boy’s?—Nico knew he had to get her out of that house and that destitute, godforsaken Tennessee town, or doom her to a life of misery, followed by an early death.

  His father didn’t think that such a good idea.

  They tried to sneak out. Their father caught them. There was an ugly scene, a scuffle that turned into a brawl. A scared, seventeen-year-old Nico pushed his father down a flight of stairs in a fit of anger, and watched crying as the tyrant that had terrorized them for so many years lay broken at the bottom and didn’t get up.

  His brother and sister, holding hands behind him, were crying, too. They were still crying when the police came, still crying when their father’s cooling body was taken away. There was an inquiry. Their father’s death was ruled accidental; toxicology reports showed he’d been drunk at the time, of course.

  They were scheduled to be put into foster homes, but when the social workers showed up, the kids were gone, riding a Greyhound out of town.

  Their father only gave them a single thing of value in his life: the contents of his wallet. He’d had just enough to cover three student tickets to LA.

  “We lived on the streets for a while, stealin’ food, sleepin’ in doorways, until Amy got caught tryin’ to walk out a store with a loaf of bread. The owner woulda sent her ass to jail, but there was this woman in line who turned out to be some rinky-dink modeling agency owner. She paid for the bread and smoothed it out with the store owner, then bought Amy a meal. Told her she could be a star. Told her she’d give her a place to stay if she signed a contract with the agency. So she did. Amy started modelin’ under some fake name, tellin’ people she was eighteen. She could pass for it, too. All the shit she went through, she coulda passed for thirty.”

  We were lying together on the carpet at the foot of the bed. His head rested on my crossed legs. I stroked his hair and kissed him repeatedly as he talked, his voice hollow, his eyes closed, my heart breaking over and over and over.

  “I lied about my age, too, got a job at the Pig ‘N Whistle, bussin’ tables, washin’ dishes. My brother, Michael—he was the middle one, fifteen at the time—started runnin’ drugs for some local dealer, sellin’ to elementary school kids. I shoulda known, he was bringin’ in so much cash, it shoulda been obvious what he was doin’, but I was so fuckin’ scared, always thinkin’ the police would figure out what really happened and knock on the door and arrest me. I just shut my eyes to it.

  “He used to bring this skinny Portuguese kid around the place we were stayin’, the shitty apartment the modelin’ agency rented for Amy. Name was Juan Carlos. Barely spoke English. Always gettin’ the shit beat outta him ’cause he had a big mouth, but he had mad swagger, was a little fuckin’ Napolean, and Amy fell for him hard. Wasn’t long before he convinced her to go back to Brazil with him. He had family there. Said they’d get married, and she’d
never have to worry about anything again.”

  For a long while, Nico was silent. His throat worked soundlessly, as if he was swallowing sobs. “So she went. Left me and Michael a note, took all our savings. Three years went by and not another word. Then one day I get a phone call, outta the blue. ‘I’m coming back,’ she said in this weird voice, all foreign soundin’, no trace of Tennessee left. ‘Just like that?’ I said. ‘What, your husband leave you?’

  “There was this long pause, like she was thinkin’ how to tell me somethin’, lookin’ up at the ceilin’ like she used to do when she was gatherin’ her thoughts. ‘In a manner of speaking,’ she answered, and the way she said it, all weird and quiet, I swear I got chills. I knew just by the tone of her voice that Juan Carlos was dead. And I knew she had somethin’ to do with it.”

  Nico opened his eyes and stared up at me. “So she came back. I barely recognized her. Grew half a foot, bleached her hair, lost so much weight she looked anorexic. Had this crazy smile all the time, tryin’ so hard to pretend she was someone else. This girl she made up named Avery Kane, an orphan from the slums of Sao Paolo who came to the US to make it big. She was such a good actress, spoke such perfect fuckin’ Portuguese, had all the details down about her fake past, even I started to believe it. She was always smart, Amy. In another life, she coulda been a lawyer. A teacher.”

  He made an ugly sound, halfway between a choke and a laugh. “Instead she was Daddy’s fuck toy, then Juan Carlos’s. He had family all right. And the family business was brothels. He was a recruiter, came to the US a few times a year to find new talent. You can guess what happened once Amy got to Brazil.”

  I was horrified. “Oh, God.”

  “When she came back here, she had enough money to rent an apartment. Probably stole it, I didn’t ask. So she starts modelin’ again. Sellin’ herself, one way or another, ’cause no one ever taught her she was worth anything except for the way she looked and what was between her legs. I tried to get her to stop, go back to school, find somethin’ she really loved doin’, but she was stubborn as fuck.” He paused for a moment, breathing raggedly. “You remind me of her that way.”

  I thought I might remind him of her in other ways, too. Secrets. Lies. A dark, painful past. I wondered if that’s what attracted him to me. I wondered if, deep down, he knew he couldn’t save his sister and hoped to save me instead.

  “She picked up the heroin habit in Brazil. The brothel boss made sure all the girls were high; made ’em easier to handle. Even when she came back to the States, Amy could never shake the habit. I put her in a dozen different rehabs over the years. She’d do fine for a while, then somethin’ would set her off and she’d slide right back into it.”

  I smoothed my hand over his skin, down the muscles of his back. My fingers trailed over the shadowy figure of Nyx. She stared up at me, mysterious as the sphinx. Nico saw where I was looking and sighed.

  “Amy always used to say she had nothin’ but death and darkness at her back, so much sin it would devour her if she ever turned around. One day we were watchin’ this show about Greek mythology—this was right after she got out of another rehab—and they showed this painting of Nyx. When they said she was born from Chaos, and was the mother of death, darkness, pain, and deceit, we just looked at each other. Guess we kinda felt like, she’s our people, you know? She’s us. Went right out and got inked. Michael, too. Made us all tighter, in a way. Had another little secret between us, but this one felt almost like . . . I don’t know. Protection, maybe. Like a talisman that could keep us safe.” Nico’s voice broke. “So fuckin’ stupid.”

  Gently, I smoothed the hair off his damp forehead. “It’s not stupid, Nico,” I whispered, desperate to offer him anything that would help soothe his pain. But he only shook his head, disagreeing.

  “Changed my last name then, too. Real one’s Jameson, by the way. So one lie became two, and two became ten, and suddenly the press thinks Amy is my girlfriend ’cause we’re gettin’ photographed together so much, even though we tried not to. And it was fuckin’ weird at first but then I figured, why not? It made it safer for us, in a way. One more layer of make-believe to take us further and further from anyone who might suspect the truth. So we went with it. It got to be this big game to her, pretendin’ to be jealous over some random chick, bein’ all coy when some interviewer asked her if we were gonna get married.”

  The stories I’d heard, the photos I’d seen of them together . . . none of it was real.

  What a terrible way to live.

  “Who else knows?”

  “Kenji knows a little. I doubt Avery told him anything, but he’s sharp as a tack. I think he figured out a few things on his own. But only Barney knows the whole story. I know him from way back, when we all first came to LA. He was a bouncer then, workin’ the door at the Pig ‘N Whistle. Got jumped by three big guys one night. I saw it, stepped in to help, took a knife in the ribs before the fight was over. Spent almost a week in the hospital. When I got back to work, Barney said he owed me his life. I thought he was just bein’ dramatic, but years later when he started workin’ for the LAPD after he got out of the military, he called me up, said if I ever needed anything to let him know.

  “Turns out I did need somethin’. ’Round that time, Amy landed a contract with Victoria’s Secret to be one of them ‘angels.’ Some old, dirtbag photographer thought she looked a lot like this teenage model he’d worked with years before. That first modelin’ agency Amy signed with closed its doors way back, but this asshole was still around. Knew there were probably pictures of her from that time still around, too. So I told Barney. He took care of it. Made everything disappear, every trace of evidence that Amy ever existed before she became Avery.”

  “And the photographer?”

  Nico’s hesitation was loaded. “Never heard from him again.”

  It hung there between us. Nico watched me with those beautiful eyes, waiting. Waiting for me to react, to decide if what he’d just told me about him getting Barney to make the photographer “disappear” would be the thing that would finally send me running.

  That he was telling me all this, trusting me with such a huge thing, not only his fate, but Barney’s as well, made my heart swell until it felt close to bursting. I loved him so much in that moment it physically hurt.

  I took his face in my hands. He stared up at me, tense, his eyes still red and wet. In a trembling whisper, I said, “You know what I think?”

  His jaw tightened. He shook his head.

  “I think you did what you had to do to protect her. You protected Barney, too, when you didn’t have to, and I’ve already seen how protective you are of me. And now you’re laying it all out for me, telling me the truth, even though it’s ugly and would get you in all kinds of trouble and fuck up your career if I told anyone else . . . and all that makes me think I can trust you with anything. Even my life.”

  His relief was enormous. I saw it in his eyes, felt it in his body. He sat up, pulled me into his arms and lifted me from the carpet. He carried me to the bed and lowered me to the mattress, then undressed me with quiet intensity as if I were a gift he was unwrapping. I knew from the desperate look in his eyes that he needed me, he needed to lose himself in me, and I was happy to let him get lost.

  I needed to get lost in him, too. We needed to lose ourselves in each other.

  This time it wasn’t fucking. Nico made love to me with an almost desperate tenderness, his kisses gentle, his hands gentle, his eyes so soft and unguarded my heart felt squeezed by an invisible fist when I looked into them. And when it was over and we lay quietly panting in each other’s arms, Nico hid his face in my neck, wrapped his arms around me, and cried.

  Love washed over me, fierce and burning. Love and a feeling of protectiveness so strong I knew that I’d do anything in my power to keep him from feeling this kind of pain ever again. With every shake of his shoulders and softly choked sob, I vowed he’d never again have to suffer like he was now, not if there was an
ything I could do to prevent it.

  After a while, he quieted. His body relaxed. Quickly afterward, he fell asleep, as if he’d been released.

  I held him until the sun came up. Through the tall windows, I watched the sun rise over LA. I felt my center of gravity shifting to him, felt a clear and quiet recognition that the love between us was the only thing of true beauty I’d ever known in my life.

  Nico and I had each other. We were safe now.

  We were both finally home.

  When I awoke sometime later, Nico was still wrapped around me, snug as a python. Though his weight was substantial, and his body heat was making me sweat, I loved waking up entangled with him.

  Unfortunately, I really had to pee.

  “Sweetie,” I whispered, trying to remove myself as gently as possible from his arms. His response was to drag my naked body closer to his and silently bury his face between my breasts.

  I laughed softly. “No fair hiding in my cleavage.”

  His voice was muffled against my breasts and scratchy with sleep. “This is my favorite place in the world. Nothin’ bad ever happens here.”

  Hearing that, my heart got squishy soft. Even the biggest, baddest alpha male is still a little boy inside. I stroked his silky dark hair, my smile growing larger as he made a sound like a purr.

  “Something bad might happen if you don’t let me up to go to the bathroom, superstar.”

  He lifted his head and blinked sleepily at me. “First I have to tell you something.”

  I cocked a brow.

  Nico said, “I want kids.”

  Slam! went my heart against my breastbone. My mouth opened. Nothing came out.

  “More than just a couple. Four, maybe.”

  My voice was a whisper. “You want four kids?”