by ANDREA SMITH
The fall weather was a blessing in southern Virginia. The nights were cool I took advantage of it. I had removed the window air conditioner from my bedroom and had taken to sleeping with the window open, enjoying the night breezes and fresh air. I was normally in bed by 9 p.m., drained of all energy.
I was determined to stay up later tonight. The season premiere of “Revenge” was on and I was hooked. I made some microwave popcorn and poured a tall glass of iced tea for myself. I relaxed back on the sofa and lasted about 15 minutes before I dozed off. The show was long over by that time. I turned the television off, switched off the lights, and went to bed. The stars were out tonight; I liked being able to see them from my bedroom window. A cool breeze blew through the curtains, parting them so that I could see the beautiful night sky. I was back to sleep within minutes.
I was dreaming. I felt his hands on me...His fingers were caressing my inner thigh, parting my legs. It must be Trey. Trey had come to me in my dreams, finally. His touch seemed foreign to me now. That was no surprise, it had been awhile. Perhaps Charlotte had ruined his magnificent touch. We would get it back; we would once again work our magic with each other’s bodies.
His hand was pulling my silk panties down to my ankles, then removing them and tossing them aside. His lips were on my sex, tongue darting in and out of the folds, fingers roughly pushing inside. Had he forgotten how to find my sweet spot? His hands were roughly exploring every part of me down there. He thrust another finger inside of me, the fingernail scratching my soft flesh. I moaned from the pain, he mistook it for pleasure and continued the rough in and out motions with his fingers.
This is eerily familiar.
Then I heard his voice. It was no longer smooth and silky.
“You like that don’t you, bitch? Moan for me again. Tell me how much you like it, Sissy.”
I realized this wasn't a dream. This was the reality of the moment. I fought to open my eyes, yet I didn’t want to see that awful man. The man from when I was 13. My mind fought to find some logic, some rationale as to why and how he was here now. I thrashed away from him, trying to push him off the bed.
“Sissy likes it rough, huh?” his voice was a hoarse whisper. “Want me to fuck you like the boss man did in the stable that night? You liked it rough then didn’t you Sissy?”
I found my voice and shrieked with rage. A hand clamped down savagely on my mouth to quiet my screams. My survival instincts kicked in. I bit his hand as hard as I could tasting his blood.
“Ow!” he bellowed, “you fucking bitch cunt!” he hollered, pulling his hand back momentarily. A moment was all I needed. I screamed wildly, kicking and flailing at him with legs and arms. My hand came in contact with something on the nightstand. It was the lamp. I grabbed it, swinging it around and smashing it against something. I was hoping I’d hit him.
“Help! Someone please help!” I wailed.
He was on top of me now, livid with rage. The curtains were billowing out from the night breeze, letting the light of the stars and moon inside the darkened room. In the seconds just before his meaty fist found my face, I saw the man from my past once again in the dark. It was Charlie. His fist took the image away. I sank blessedly into black unconsciousness.
I was dreaming again. In my dream, I had a horrendous headache. It throbbed and pounded worse than any hangover. But I hadn’t been drinking. I was confused. I heard voices around me in the dream. They were hushed voices, almost whispering. Were they talking about me? The voice talking now was talking louder. I didn’t recognize the voice.
“Mr. Sinclair,” the unrecognizable voice said firmly, “we've no way of knowing when she will come to. These things are not predictable. Every person is different; healing is dependent upon many factors. I know that you want an answer. I just don’t have one to give you.”
“Fine, doctor,” Trey’s voice said. He was perturbed I could tell. He mumbled to someone else a few moments later, “You’d think that with all the damn tests they’ve ran on her over the past 24 hours, they could tell us a bit more than that.”
“I know it’s frustrating.”
That was Mark’s voice! Mark and Trey were both here in my dream? Why couldn’t I see them? I opened my eyes but there was nothing but darkness. Why was I blindfolded?
My eyes fluttered open to blackness. This wasn’t a dream, I realized. But something was definitely covering my eyes. A bandage, perhaps? I was thirsty, definitely thirsty. I tried to say something, but all that came out was a squeaky groan. Someone came close to me; I could feel someone there.
“Tylar, are you awake?”
It was Denise. Denise was here, thank God!
“Denise…” I groaned; my voice was a hoarse rasp at best.
“It’s me Tylar. I’m here with you. You're in the hospital.”
What? Again?
“I’m going to buzz for your nurse.”
Had I been in an accident? Did I fall from Derringer? I couldn’t recall anything. A few moments later someone else came into the room. It must be the nurse as I felt someone hovering over me, taking my blood pressure then checking something on my arm. Probably one of those IVs.
“Ms. Preston? Can you hear me, Ms. Preston?”
I nodded because it hurt to talk.
“That’s good. You’re doing fine, Ms. Preston. The doctor will be in to talk to you in a few minutes. Just try to relax.”
“Denise,” I croaked.
“Yes, I’m still here, sweetie. I’m not going anywhere.”
I raised my arm to feel what was covering my eyes. I felt gauze wrapped around my head.
“Tylar, you don’t want to mess with that bandage. The doctor will explain everything to you when he comes in, okay?”
I nodded. Several minutes later, someone entered the room. “Hello Tylar, I’m Dr. Greyson, your treating physician. I’m glad to see that you’ve come around. You have been in a slight coma due to the head injury you sustained a couple of days ago. Your memory of that may be fuzzy, but it will come back in time. The fact that you came to indicates that the swelling in your brain has reduced. It’s all part of the healing process.”
I nodded to let him know that I was listening.
“As for the bandage over your eyes, this was done as a result of a blow to your left eye. The injury is called an indirect orbital floor fracture, or ‘blowout fracture.’ What this means, Ms. Preston, is that there is a small hole in the floor of the eye socket. Because you’ve been unconscious, we don’t know if there was any damage done to the surrounding eye muscles, which may affect your vision. I can remove the bandage now, and we can test your vision.”
I felt the bandage being unwrapped from around my head. There were two cotton pads resting against both eye sockets. The doctor removed those. I blinked my eyes several times, adjusting to the light in the hospital room. The doctor leaned over my bed, holding one finger up in the center of his face, in front of his nose.
“How many fingers am I holding up, Ms. Preston?”
“One,” I answered hoarsely.
“Very good.”
He leaned over and took a pen light from his pocket, turning it on and shining it directly into each of my eyes. “Dilation is occurring, that's good.” He held his index finger up again, asking for my eyes to follow its movement without moving my head. He moved it east to west, then north to south.
“Very, very good, Ms. Preston. It appears that you have no damage to the muscles. We’ll do a more thorough eye exam later. You'll be here for a couple of more days. We’ll want to run a few more tests. For now, your immediate instructions are to get rest and regain your strength. Your throat will be sore for a few days more as the bruising heals. I'll check you in the morning.”
With that, he left. I had no opportunity to ask any questions, though it was doubtful that I could have spoken anyway. I looked over at Denise, feeling helpless. She came over and sat in the chair next to my hospital bed. Just like old times, I thought wryly.
“Tylar
,” she asked softly, “do you remember what happened the night…well the night you got injured?”
I shook my head.
“It’s probably just as well, at least for now anyway. Listen, I have to go out for a couple of minutes, but I’ll be back.”
I desperately tried to think of the last thing I could remember. I wasn’t even sure what day it was. I looked around the hospital room. It was just like the last one I was in.
Denise returned. “I had to call Trey to let him know the good news,” she said, smiling as if she knew something that I didn’t. “He will be here shortly,” she winked, “and I'll leave you two alone.”
I had no clue what I looked like. I brushed my hand through my hair. It felt kind of greasy. I looked over at Denise.
“It’s not that bad, honey,” she said.
Yeah, I bet!
Suddenly, Trey walked in. His gorgeous majesty was here. I'd never tire of looking at him. I was hoping that he hadn’t brought Charlotte along to rub it into my face. Denise immediately vacated her chair next to my bed. She leaned over, giving me a kiss.
“I’ll be back to see you tomorrow.”
Trey took a seat in the chair, watching me as if I'd burst into flames at any moment. “I’m glad to see you’re awake, Tylar. You had us pretty worried. Can you talk?”
“A little,” I rasped.
“I’ll try to make this so you don’t have to talk unless absolutely necessary. Denise said that you had no memory of what happened to you. Do you want me to tell you what happened?”
I nodded my head. I needed to know eventually. I’d rather hear it from Trey now than have it return to me in a nightmare later. How bad could it be?
“Okay,” he started, his smooth and silky voice played like music to my ears. “This past Wednesday night, close to midnight, Mark heard you screaming for help from your cottage. Mark apparently was in the stable, checking a wrapping he'd put on one of Derringer’s legs earlier in the day.”
I remembered that Mark was worried about a muscle in Derringer’s hind right leg when we'd worked out earlier. Trey stood up now, starting to pace. “Mark of course ran to your cottage. The front door was locked, but your front window was wide open. Someone had taken the screen out to gain entry. Mark climbed through the window. Luckily he got to your room in time…” Trey’s voice broke off suddenly in anguish. He turned away from me as if he didn’t want me to see the emotion on his face. He put both of his hands behind his head, clasping them behind his neck.
“He saved your life, Tylar. Charlie was on your bed, choking the life out of you. Mark got to him, pulled him off of you, and beat the shit out of the maggot,” he hissed.
“You were naked from the waist down. We didn’t know whether Charlie…”
“No!” I cried. “He didn’t—please say he didn’t!”
It all came flooding back to me in that moment. I felt nauseated. Trey came right to me, sitting down on the bed and taking my hand into his. Oh, it felt so good to be touched by Trey again. My Trey. I had tears in my eyes. I remembered that night all too well now.
“No, he didn’t. We know that now, sweetie,” he said gently. “The hospital did tests and you weren’t sexually assaulted.”
Well, I wouldn’t say that, but I knew what Trey meant. Charlie hadn't raped me with his dick.
“When you got to the hospital, I stayed by your side the whole time. Mark stayed at your cottage until the sheriff’s deputies arrived. Charlie was arrested and he’s in jail now, where he belongs. Mark gave a full report to the sheriff. Obviously it was Charlie who left those things at your cottage. We don’t know why.”
I knew that I could fill in some of those details, although not all of them. Trey still had hold of my hand. His fingers brushed lightly against my thumb. He did not meet my eyes.
“Tylar, the initial tests the hospital ran on you to determine if Charlie had raped you…well…I know your secret now.”
What was he talking about, my secret? My secret what? I looked over at him; he stared at our interlocked hands.
“It appears as if Mark doesn’t know. Do you plan on telling him or have you decided to terminate the pregnancy? I know that it's none of my business, but you're seven weeks along. You need to make a decision one way or another, don’t you think?”
Pregnancy? Oh my God!
I'd suspected something was wrong with me, but I hadn’t figured pregnancy into the equation. My periods were late sometimes; I'd been under tremendous stress recently. There was just the one time that we hadn’t used a condom. It was that night in the stable, that magical night that had suddenly turned ugly and humiliating, at least for me.
Wait a minute…
Trey believed I was pregnant by Mark? How could he possibly think that? Logic would dictate that even if I'd slept with Mark (which of course I hadn’t) the timing would still be suspect as to which of them had fathered the child I was carrying.
Was it possible that Trey had no memory of the night in the stable, the night our baby was conceived? I studied his face; he was clueless. Oh no! It would almost be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. I was insulted to think Trey thought I'd have slept with another man so quickly after waiting 21 years to part with my virginity. He was watching me now, his blue eyes looked pained. What gave him such pain, I wondered? Was it the fact that he thought I was carrying another man’s child? Was it simply the thought that I'd been with someone else? I liked that he felt pain right now. I wanted him to feel it. I'd felt it that night in the stable, that night he’d drunkenly forgot.
I whispered, “Of course I intend to have this baby.”
His face fell. I crushed him with those words, I could tell. I didn’t see Trey as having an opinion one way or the other as to a woman’s choice when it came to the subject of abortion. He'd probably never had reason to be concerned about that volatile topic. But when the issue was about me making that decision for myself, it certainly appeared as though he had an opinion, and he wasn’t happy with the choice that I'd made. He looked defeated. Good, I wanted him to feel that way.
“I take it that you haven’t told Mark yet, otherwise I'd find it difficult to believe he'd allow you to continue riding.”
I didn’t answer him. I really didn’t know what to say.
“Tylar, how you choose to handle this situation with Mark is clearly your business. However, I can't permit you to ride the horses or care for them. There's a liability issue at stake here.”
Of course, Counselor.
Trey stood up to leave. Part of me wanted to blurt the truth out to him, but the other part of me stubbornly remained silent.
“As soon as you’re well enough, some detectives will be here to question you, Tylar. They have also collected evidence at your cottage. Hopefully we can determine Charlie’s motivation in attacking you and if there are others behind it as well.”
I was certain that there was at least one other person behind it. I hoped the detectives were grilling Charlie thoroughly. I needed some answers too.
“Take care, get some rest.” He left the room.
CHAPTER 32
I was released two days later from the hospital with strict orders to remain on complete bed rest for the next several days. My pregnancy wasn't at risk. True to Trey’s word, two detectives had come to the hospital to take my statement. I told them only what had occurred that night. I didn’t tell them that Charlie had attacked me when I was 13; as far as I knew, Trey had not put that together yet either. I didn’t want to delay my departure by having to stick around Bristol. I'd made plans and was eager to leave town.
Denise had picked me up from the hospital. She offered to let me stay with her and Ray, but I really didn’t want to impose. I'd be fine back at my cottage. Denise had cleaned up the aftermath of the assault as well as the investigation where they had dusted for fingerprints all over the cottage. She saw to it that my bed had clean sheets and blankets on it. My front window had been repaired with a new screen. Everything was in ord
er.
“Who’s going to take care of you there?” she asked.
“Denise, I’ll be fine. I'll rest like I’m supposed to.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant, Tylar?”
“Because I didn’t know, Denise, and that's between you and me, okay?”
She nodded; I could see her mind working. “Is Mark the father?”
I wasn't going to confirm or deny anything to Denise. Her allegiance to Ray was much stronger than any allegiance she might have to me. Ray’s allegiance was to Trey, period. I ignored her question altogether. She walked me to my cottage. As soon as I climbed up onto the porch, the front door opened.
“What kind of a mess did you get yourself into this time, girlfriend?”
“Oh my God, Gina!” I exclaimed, giving her a huge hug.
“I’m here for the week,” she announced, “and I'll be staying right here with you to make sure you follow the doctor’s orders, understand?”
“That's fantastic,” I replied.
Gina was showing Denise that she'd stocked my small fridge with healthy fruits, juices, dairy, and veggies and my cupboards were stocked with cereal, granola bars, macaroni and cheese, and assorted soups and crackers. Denise seemed satisfied that Gina would see to my health and recovery. She gave me a quick hug, telling me she would check on me later. I thanked Denise for all that she'd done for me, once again.
After she left, Gina ordered me to lie down on the couch. She got a pillow and blanket for me, and I allowed her to help me get comfortable. She asked if I was hungry or thirsty but I wasn’t. I knew that she wanted to talk, and I was ready now. I filled Gina in on what had happened the night when Charlie assaulted me. I let her know that Charlie was the one who'd left the jewelry, the ripped up silk pajamas, the notes, and he was most likely the one who’d taken the picture of Mark and me kissing and sent it to Trey.
I told Gina everything about what happened when I was 13; that Charlie had been one of my mom’s “boyfriends” and that he’d assaulted me back then. I hadn’t recognized him because it had been dark in my room that night, eight long years ago. Gina asked why I hadn’t told the detectives everything that I was telling her. I really didn’t know why, and I said as much. I said that part of me just wanted it to end with his arrest for assaulting me and be done with it. As long as he was locked up and stayed locked up that was all that I cared about.