‘Ed, what are you doing?’
‘You need to see this.’ He opens his shirt to reveal words. So many, many words. The same word. His abdomen and chest are covered with the words.
MINE.
MINE.
MINE.
MINE.
‘It seems your ex-wife wants to remind us that we took from her,’ Ed says. ‘I’m sorry you’ll have to look at these, but at least they’ll cover with a shirt. I was scared the stupid bitch might tattoo my head.’
‘She’s not a stupid bitch,’ I tell him.
‘Oh, my God, you’re seriously not sticking up for her?’
‘No. But she’s far from stupid. She’s smarter than I gave her credit for and now we have to pay.’
‘I’ll find out the cost of laser removal and see if they can be removed or faded. I might be able to cover them with something else.’
‘She told me.' I study his body. ‘She said that every time we made love, she’d always be there.’
‘What? Because she wrote MINE on my body? Do you know what? We can make this about us. I’m yours. You’re mine. We’ll work through it.’
I shake my head. ‘No. You don’t get it. It’s part of her word games.’
He sighs. ‘You’re reading too much into this, Inez.’
‘Mine.’ I touch the M on his chest.
He clasps my finger. ‘Yours,’ he says.
‘No’ I snatch my hand back. ‘Watch.’
I touch the M. ‘M is for Melissa.’
I trail my finger across the I and the N. ‘IN for Inez.’
I point to the E. ‘E for Edward.’
‘All three of us.’ I trail my hand across the letters and back away from Ed. ‘Always there with us.’
‘Inez. Don’t be stupid. You’re letting her get into your head. That’s what she wants. Now, what do we need to do to get you discharged?’
‘Don’t call me that.’ Mel was right. I’m not being myself. I’m being who Ed wants. Right now, he wants little Inez to behave and come home like a good girl.
‘Look. I’ve just got away from one nutcase, and I’d really like to go home. Although I note half the furniture has been changed, so it doesn’t really feel like my home.’
I flinch at his words. ‘Then go. Get away from this nutcase.’
‘Inez.’
‘I’m not Inez anymore. I always wanted to be called Lynne. That’s my name from now on, get used to it.’
He sighs out loud. ‘I’m starting to think you really do have psychiatric problems.’
‘You’re right. I have a lot of problems.’ I shake my head in agreement. ‘So I’m staying here to work through some of them. They have specialists here. They can help me come to terms with everything that happened and help me to become who I want to be.’
‘And what about us?’
‘When I finally get discharged, we’ll see if you want to be with Lynne, and if I want to be with Edward, won’t we?’
‘She’ll pay for this.’ He spits out angrily as he makes his way towards the door.
‘Leave her alone. We’ve caused her enough problems.’
‘I’m afraid it’s not that simple,’ he yells as he storms from the room.
I should feel sadness that he’s left after I’ve only just got him back but I don’t. I feel relief. I feel a weight lifted. I smell a fresh start where I can try and make amends for everything that’s happened, and I can focus on the rest of my life like Mel is doing.
If Ed will let her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Melissa
It was all set to happen the minute Ed left the house. Bobby had parked up nearby and returned as soon as he saw Ed leave the street in the taxi he’d ordered. Bobby has my key and the alarm code and leaves no sign of forced entry. He’s dressed in builder’s garb, and so raises no suspicion on our quiet little estate. Anyway, after the scandal that tore us apart, I know everyone would keep their mouths shut if they did see something. They live private lives now. So, Bobby leaves a pan on. It’s his last job for me, and after this, he leaves to return to Suffolk. Stupid, stupid Ed. Despite his denial, it will appear he left the pan on and burned down his house. They’ll determine due to the stress of a wife in hospital he got distracted and careless.
Dave watches and lets the house become overwhelmed with flames before he phones the fire brigade.
‘Thanks, darling. That should do nicely,’ I tell him. I walk over to him and place my arms around his neck.
My eyes stare into my husband’s, and I try and show him how much I love him with that one look. ‘I’m done. They lost what I lost. Now it’s time to live my life, our life. Take me to bed, Dave. I need you.’
So while the house down the street is cooled down by the fire brigade, our house heats up.
Dave walks up the stairs, and I follow behind. We enter our bedroom, and I gasp. It’s the same as when I left all those years ago, bedding and all.
‘I hope you’ve washed this since I left.’ I laugh.
‘Yes. It’s a little threadbare, but it’s you. I wanted to keep everything us.’
I bite my lip. ‘I’m sorry.’ I sweep a hand down my body. ‘I didn’t do the same, did I?’
He takes a step towards me. ‘You’re still you.’
Slowly, he removes my top, pulling it over my arms and head and letting it drop to the floor. He pours over every detail of my body. He drops the straps of my bra off each shoulder and unclasps it at the back, letting it sweep past my breasts on its way to join my top. His hands explore my new breasts with utter devotion. It’s like he’s attempting to commit my new body to memory.
‘I’m not going anywhere again,’ I whisper.
‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ he says. The emotion is too much, and a tear trickles from one eye. ‘Fuck, I missed you so damn much.’
Hunger flashes in his eyes and he undoes my trouser button, yanking down the zip. My pants follow. He sheds his own clothes with haste and backs me onto the bed, our bed, with a frenzy. His lips tease my body, replaced by his tongue. It’s at this moment it becomes clear that no matter how different the outside of my body is, it responds to Dave exactly as it did before. Our bodies move harmoniously together, with the assured moves of lovers who know each other intimately. I moan as I accept his cock within me. I need him with a fervour I can’t put into words. I indicate it with my body instead, raising my hips off the bed towards him.
‘Open your eyes,’ Dave says.
We keep our focus on each other as we build towards our climaxes. Our gaze on each other intensifies. Without restraint we thrash against each other, seeking the point where we reunite in ecstasy.
I feel Dave tighten as I build towards my climax.
I pulse around his cock as he releases his seed inside me.
He lowers his forehead to mine. Beads of sweat cross his brow.
‘I love you. Please don’t leave me again.’
‘I told you, I’m going nowhere.’
He lies back against the pillow. ‘I think we should move,’ my husband says.
I stroke my fingers down his cheek. God, I’ve missed him.
‘A new beginning. What do you think about moving to the States?’
‘I’ll go anywhere you want me to. As long as we’re together, I don’t care.’
I snuggle into his arms and sleep the soundest sleep I’ve had in a long, long time.
The sleep of a deluded person who believed Edward would let it all lie.
PART THREE
EDWARD
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Edward
I thought my parents loved me. Though my father worked long hours and was gone on many an evening, my mother did her best to bring me up, but she struggled. She overdosed on painkillers when I was twelve. By fifteen I had a stepmother. She ignored me completely until I was sixteen. Then, all of a sudden, as I grew, so did her interest.
When my father returned home after one of his trips away he fi
nds me balls deep in his wife. She’d been quite the teacher, and I had an array of skills that would stand me in good stead in the future.
My father grabbed me by the shoulder and threw me into the door. I’d stood up, ready to escape. But I saw fear on my stepmother’s face. Watched as my dad stalked over to her like a cat teasing prey, as he’d taken off his belt and thrashed her until the skin on her back ripped apart, blood trickling down onto the floor. Her screams were beautiful. That’s what I remembered, but they couldn’t replace the satisfaction I’d got from seeing that fear, knowing that my dad was in charge and would mete out punishment as he saw fit. I got harder from that than I did from thinking about fucking her.
From then on, I ignored her, which my stepmother did not take kindly to. Despite her punishment from my father she continued to pursue me. I’d find her half naked in my room. To her annoyance, I’d walk away. Until one day she said the words that changed everything.
‘You’re adopted, you know?’
I called her a lying, scheming cunt. Then I hit her as my father had. I took a belt from my drawer and lashed her with it. She was petrified, but she let me do it. Wanted me to fuck her afterwards. So in order to find out exactly what my background was, I fucked my stepmother while her back bled into the sheets.
My real mother was some young slut who’d fucked another pupil and come unstuck. She didn’t want the child because the father was part African American and part Native American. She’d been intrigued enough to get impregnated by him but not enough to stay with him. Did I find all this out on my eighteenth birthday? Fuck, no. My stepmother was the social worker involved in my adoption. Now thirty-eight, she’d been fucking my ‘father’ since she was twenty-two years old.
So I did what any kid would do. I went to see my real mother. There was no forwarding address for my father. No way of contacting him, but my stepmother, Inez, gave me her address.
Inez.
Are you confused?
Not my wife.
My stepmother. The stepmother I couldn’t control. The only person who ever played me. The person who made me the scapegoat, the victim. The name for my future wife was clear, as was her appearance. She was tall like my stepmother. I made sure her hair was dark like hers, and then I gave Jarrod her name. An Inez I could completely control, even to the point where she got herself a vagina. That had been all me. Encouraging Jarrod to be what I wanted him to be - her.
My stepmother had broken me for all women. None of them ever had that fear. I wasn’t a rapist, and when I brought out restraints, they always seemed to enjoy it. I began to despise them. There may be a spark of worry, but they knew their fuck was coming and went along with the ride. Never any fear. Until Jarrod.
When I walked down my mother’s street and stood at her fence, I found a dark-haired girl and a fair-haired boy chatting away while the girl hosed the garden plants.
‘Hey. Excuse me. Do you know where Hendon Street is?’ I asked.
The girl looked at me coolly, as if annoyed that I’d disturbed them. The boy moved away from her and over to the fence. ‘Sure, it’s down the street, left and then left again.’
‘Thanks.’ I said and wandered away. I’d taken note of the scout group badge on the shirt he was wearing. I wasn’t sure why. I just collected it. Another piece of information. I hung around the house a few times at different hours of the day until one day I got lucky. My real mother was in the house alone; the daughter and her husband, along with the girl’s male friend, had got into a car filled with fishing equipment. They were going to be a while, and I had the opportunity while they were out to net my own catch.
I can remember it so clearly. I rang the doorbell, and it was pulled open quickly.
‘What did you leave this-? Oh. Can I help you?’
Her request was a hope that her eyes were playing tricks on her. For my colouring, the same as my adopted father’s, was also the same as her ex-lover’s. She didn’t want it to be true, but she knew.
‘You have his eyes,’ she said.
She invited me in. I kept myself cool, controlled. I would wait to hear what she said before I made decisions about her future and mine. I found out over a cup of tea and a slice of apple pie that she had wanted to keep me. Had fought to do so, but at fifteen, she had lost the battle against her parents and had given me up. She cried as she explained how she’d tried to get over it by marrying at seventeen and having another baby. But that it hadn’t worked. For as much as she loved my half-sister Melissa, it had never replaced the hole left by the loss of myself.
My mother had wanted me. It was like she gave me approval. She hadn’t abandoned me. She had fought for me. It was my grandparents who were to blame. She was estranged from them, she explained. Would never have anything to do with them again.
So I asked what would happen now we had found each other again. My mother faced me with a look of stoic regret.
‘We go back to how it was, Edward. I have a daughter now and a husband. They don’t know about you. If word got out, I’d be a disgrace. You need to return to your life, and I’ll return to mine. Just remember, I wanted you.’
Wanted. Past tense.
She went into a drawer in the kitchen and extracted an envelope from deep at the back. I saw her scratch the top of her fingers as she pulled it out. She checked the envelope and passed it to me. ‘There are a couple of photographs of me and your father, and there’s some money. I saved it for you, for if you ever came here, though I didn’t expect you for another two years at least.’
‘My stepmother told me.’
‘Oh?’
I didn’t explain further.
‘Could you wait a moment?’ She stood on a kitchen chair and reached to the back of a high up cupboard, bringing down a faded blue elephant. ‘For the short time I held you in the hospital you had this toy.’ I saw her swallow and tears swam at the bottom of her eyelids. ‘Your adoptive parents wouldn’t take it. Said they wanted a totally fresh start.’ She bit her lip. ‘You say you have a stepmother? Your parents split up then?’
‘My adoptive mother killed herself,’ I said bluntly. ‘I don’t seem to have a good track record with mother figures. The first abandoned me when I was born, the second when I was twelve, and my stepmother likes to fuck me for her own amusement.’
My mother stepped back and clutched a hand to her chest. ‘I’m sorry I can’t do more, Edward. I have too much to lose.’
I nodded because I understood. It was a choice she needed to make, and I fully got her position. To keep the life she had intact, she couldn’t open the door to the past. No. I didn’t blame my mother at all.
I blamed Melissa. Because if she hadn’t existed, my mother would have let me in. Instead, I was a dirty little secret. Sent secret parcels at birthdays and Christmas.
I forced myself to date girls from Melissa’s class, without her ever seeing me with them. I found out everything I could about her. She was the perfect student. She was on all the school sports teams. She’d been Head Girl at school. She had the most amazing boyfriend, Jarrod, and they already knew they’d get married and live happily ever after. I’d go home and hit my stepmother, unleashing my anger. Then frustrated with my own weakness, I’d steal from my father’s wallet. He always carried far too much money. He didn’t know what the hell planet he was on half the time he was so busy with work and my stepmum. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was a start. Myself, I was strong in one subject only - mathematics. So I gave it everything I had. Though I spent my seventeenth year calculating a lot more than sums.
I joined a scout group and became an explorer. I genuinely loved it and wished I’d joined when I was younger. The rules appealed. I felt pride every time I earned a badge. They taught skills - camper, chef, leadership. They made me feel like an expert. We had to abide by the Scout Law, agreeing that we could be trusted, loyal, friendly and considerate, that we’d have courage and be respectful.
Within Explorers, I adhered to it all. Outside of it, I
adhered to none. However much I enjoyed the place, I’d joined for one reason only – a reason that came up on our first joint camping trip with other groups in the neighbourhood. To get to Jarrod. My aim had been to befriend him and show him how much more pussy there was out there than boring old Melissa. Not that I expected he’d done much with her at fourteen. The only intimacy I’d ever witnessed was from Melissa - grabbing his hand, jumping up to kiss his cheek, and putting her arms around his neck and making him kiss her. Oh, he tried to get into it, I could tell, but he wasn’t fully committed.
Though at that stage I hadn’t known the why.
The first time I went to camp for the weekend, my scout group was one among a few from the locality, including Jarrod’s group.
A treasure hunt set up for the Saturday daytime proved to be my way to get near to him. I found him sitting on the stump of a tree by himself. He wasn’t distressed. If anything, he looked bored.
‘Hey, do you live near Hendon Street?’
Jarrod looked up. I could see his face registering he knew me and trying to place where from. ‘I don’t. My girlfriend Melissa does.’
I pulled a thinking face. ‘Ah, that’s it,’ I said. ‘I asked for directions once, and you were very helpful. I remember you and your friend.’
‘Thought you looked familiar,’ he said, ‘But I’d never have remembered that. You’ve got a good memory.’
‘I have, and unfortunately, I remember how crap camp is.’
Jarrod tore off a piece of tall grass. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘Are you forced to come here too? My parents thought it would be good for me to meet people. They say I’m too “insular”.’
He nodded. ‘My dad is very religious. He’s a scout leader. Insists I need to uphold his beliefs.’
‘Is he here?’
‘No. He hurt his back, so he stayed home, but I’ve still had to come.’ Jarrod got up and kicked the tree stump. ‘It fucking stinks here. They all bully me because I’d rather hang with the girls and the girls don’t want to know me because of my dad. They say he’s a pervert, you know?’
MInE: A Hate Story Page 12