by W E DeVore
“It’s a good line.” Ben grinned sheepishly and read the text on the screen out loud to the two of them. “‘Tonight was fun. Didn’t quite end like I planned. Did I mention I’m a sucker for a beautiful woman who tells me to go to hell? I’ll call you tomorrow for date two.’”
He winked at Q mischievously and began typing.
“What did you write?” Yvie asked, reaching for the phone.
“‘How about I come over right now and we finish this date at your place?’” he replied. “I told you to never tell Q. You told her. You’re in for it.”
The phone dinged again and Yvie shook her head. “I can’t read it.”
Q stood up. “Holy high school, Batman.”
She took the phone and read silently, blushing all the way to her ears as she read the most sexually assertive thing she’d ever seen from Aaron Sanger.
“Yvie, get the fuck out of my house,” she said, handing the phone back her sister-in-law. “You’re on your own from here. Don’t fuck it up.”
“What does it say?”
Q pulled Ben to standing. When Yvie still refused to read Sanger's text, he took the phone from her hand and read, “‘If you come over, I’ll want to taste your sweet mouth until the sun comes up. Better just let me call you tomorrow. I’m not sure I could behave myself if you showed up on my doorstep right now. Sweet dreams, I know mine will be. Little heart. A.’”
“What do I say?”
“I do not care,” Ben replied. “If you can’t take it from here, you’re hopeless. Get off my porch and go home or go over to Aaron’s, just go.”
After Yvie left, Q and Ben retreated into the house. As they lay in bed, holding each other, Q asked, “So, what other lines of yours were fed to you by your sisters?”
He smiled and caressed her face. “Pretty much that whole speech at Mike’s party… except for the last line. That was mine.”
“Well, that was the best one. Totally closed the deal. You know what I’m thinking now?” she asked.
“How good it feels when we make each other come at the same time?” he whispered in the same tone he’d said those same words into her ear at that Mardi gras party three years earlier.
“Who says you’re just a pretty face?”
Chapter 6
You Can Run But You Can’t Hide
Ben reached for Q while she slept, and she moved to him, her eyes still closed, only half awake. She sighed as his hand slid between her legs, rolling on top of him to bring him inside her, languidly pushing against his body, her eyes still closed.
“That’s it, my angel. That’s it. Ride my cock. Fuck me. I want to tear that pussy up.”
Q opened her eyes in horror and saw Ethan beneath her. His hands held onto her thighs forcing her hips to move more aggressively as he leered up at her. She started to cry and tried to move away, but she was paralyzed.
It’s not real. It’s not real.
“You’re mine, and you don’t even know it, yet,” Ethan said, clutching her to him, his fingers digging into her flesh.
She willed her mind to wake up. She closed her eyes and pushed away from Ethan and the nightmare, struggling to rise back up to consciousness.
Her eyes snapped open and she was back inside her own reality. Moonlight shone in through the sheer curtains. Ben stirred beside her and kissed her shoulder before falling back asleep. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears and refused to settle down to a normal pace. She got out of bed and went to the bathroom, stepping into the shower to clear her head, not wanting to go back to sleep. As hot steam filled the room, the door opened and Ben joined her. Grateful for his embrace, she moved to him for some comfort. Without warning, his hands flew up to her throat, lifting her off the ground. She grasped at them, pleading for him to stop.
“Please, I’m on fire, please,” she whispered. “I’m on fire, Ben, please.”
Ben’s face twisted and slowly warped until Ethan’s replaced it.
“I’m on fire. I’m on fire. I’m on fire,” he mocked. “You stupid cunt. I told you. You’re mine.”
Q jolted awake, gasping for air as she sat up in bed. The bright morning sun streamed in through the window. Her heart thundered in her ears and she struggled to calm her breath. Still panting, she shivered from the cold sweat covering her body.
“You ok, darlin’?” Ben asked from behind her, his voice drowsy.
As she tried to force the memory of her nightmare away, he pulled her down to him, lazily sliding his hand up her thigh. A wave of panic crashed down on her and she pushed him away with enough force to wake him up. Staggering out of bed, she blindly ran to the bathroom as her stomach turned itself inside out. She wretched in the toilet for several minutes, choking on her body’s own violent heaving, before collapsing onto the floor, struggling to stop her panic attack from convincing her to stop breathing.
Water ran in the sink and a cool washcloth materialized on her neck. Ben wiped off the sweat covering her back and face before wrapping her in a towel. He picked her up and pulled her onto his lap until she stopped trembling.
“You ok?” he finally asked.
“Yeah, must have been something I ate or a stomach bug or something,” she lied.
“Maybe it’s something else,” he said, with a little too much joy in his voice.
“Wishing for birth control to fail, doesn’t make it happen, Ben.”
“But you are late,” he said.
“Not that late.” She rested her head against him. “I’m ok, really. I had a bad dream. Derek Sharp and his stupid concept record strike again.”
“Maybe you should take a day off. You’ve been in the studio or playing a gig every day. Sometimes both,” he said. “Stay here with me. Let me take care of you. I can’t remember the last time we had a quiet day at home, just us.”
Q tried to force away the memory of her nightmare and let her husband comfort her, but she couldn’t escape it. She had to get moving and away from any chance of intimate contact with Ben as quickly as she could, unsure of what would happen if he touched her like that again. She stood up and walked to the sink to brush her teeth.
“I’m fine, really,” she said with a little more conviction. “And I’m not pregnant. If Stanley can work with Stage 4 cancer and his son in a coma, I can work around a little tummy bug.”
He stood up and leaned against the doorway, watching her with a worried expression on his face.
“If you don’t get your period by Friday, you’re taking a test. You’re almost two weeks late,” he said.
“Whatever.” She rinsed out her mouth and moved to the shower. “You’re just setting yourself up for disappointment. Will you make some coffee? I need to get going.”
He kissed her temple and moved his hand to her hips. “How about some company?”
She flinched and shoved him away. “Don’t touch me. Goddamnit, I just threw up, for fuck’s sake. Leave me alone.”
Ben stood back, his expression instantly changing to one of concern. “Darlin’, are you alright? What happened? What was your nightmare about?”
She took a deep breath and said in a more measured tone, “Please, Ben, just give me a minute. I’m still not a hundred percent. I just need a shower by myself and some coffee. Just let me be.”
He stared at her hard. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
She silently shook her head.
“Fine.” He turned and left the room.
Q looked at herself in the mirror, telling herself over and over, It was just a nightmare. It’s not real. You’re safe. He can’t hurt you.
After a long shower alone, most of the fear and panic had been washed away and she felt markedly better. She quickly dressed and went downstairs to find Ben. He was sitting shirtless at the kitchen table, sipping his coffee. She kissed the top of his head before pouring her own cup and sitting across from him.
“Sorry, for being a grouch upstairs,” she said after several uncomfortable minutes of silence. “Throwing up is no
t my favorite way to start the day. I’m feeling better now.”
He took her hand. “You don’t want to have a baby, do you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re almost two weeks late. You’re throwing up in the morning. But you won’t even entertain taking a pregnancy test. What do you think? You can just ignore it and it will go away?” He looked at her, waiting for her to respond. When she didn’t, he continued, “I want us to have a child, Q. I want us to have a family. Do you want that, too?”
“Ben, I know we talked about it a lot when we first got married, but that was before this Dark Harm record and now this stuff with Stanley… I just don’t see how it’s possible right now. I know it’s what you want, but I thought we agreed we’d table it for at least a year? What’s the rush?”
He glanced down at her stomach. “What if it can’t be tabled?”
Her phone dinged from the charging station on the counter and she stood up to retrieve it. “I told you. I’m not pregnant. Just get that out your head.”
She sat back down and looked at the Twitter alert on her phone. When she opened it, Q was greeted by a beautiful black and white still image of her hand resting on Derek’s shoulder, his fingers entwined with hers. The silver skull-and-bones ring on his middle finger stood in dim contrast against the diamond on her engagement band. Her lips were barely touching his ear in the upper left corner of the image.
Drake had posted from his account:
This is what harmony looks like @qt_beasts @realdarkharm @archangel_nola. Can’t wait to mix today. #Scarification #magic
She smiled broadly and handed it to Ben for him to see. “Look at this. Isn’t that sweet?”
He smiled at first, but as he scanned the comments, Ben began to scowl. “It would be. Except now there’s a bunch of Derek’s little groupies who think you’re engaged to him. And some of them aren’t too pleased about it. This one is calling you a whore and says you’re, and I quote, ‘going to burn in the fires of hell.’” He held up the phone. “Clementine, this is getting out of control.”
She took back her phone and read through the comments for herself. “Don’t be silly. It’s just one crazy Sharpie troll. Jesse will take care of it. It’s her job. Besides, Derek’s already posted something about it.” She read out loud, “‘@archangel_nola is not engaged, she’s already married.’ See? No big deal.”
Ben took the phone from her to read the comment. “No big deal? They’re going to think he’s the one you’re married to. He did that on purpose.”
“He did not. He’s probably half asleep. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week last night. I’m surprised he commented at all. Calm down, will you? He just was trying to help.”
She yawned and brought her knee to her chest, resting her foot on the seat of the chair to lean against the window and look at the sunny morning outside. As she sipped her coffee, she felt the nightmare finally slip from her and she relaxed fully. She turned back to Ben, finding him still scrolling through her Twitter feed.
“Let it go, sweet husband,” she said. “It comes with the territory. Besides, it’ll be great for the Burlesque. I think I might ask Derek if I could take over the Archangel accounts after the tour and everything is over, to use for our promotion.”
“So, you are enjoying all this attention. I thought you didn’t want to be a rock star.” He finally set her phone down on the table.
“I don’t. It’s just, New Orleans already has a burgeoning vampire tourist industry and a lot of those folks enjoy the musical stylings of Dark Harm, so why shouldn’t the Beasts and I make a buck off them, too?” She glided her hand through the air, tracking an invisible comet. “The Bourdello Burlesque, featuring The Archangel, The Son of Perdition’s Raven-Haired Muse.” She stuck her tongue out at him and raised her eyebrows, grinning. “Eh? What do you think?”
From the expression on his face, Ben did not think much of her new marque. “Since when do you want to be associated with Derek Sharp?”
“Since when do you start acting like a crazy person over our morning coffee?” She widened her eyes emphatically in a futile attempt to diffuse her husband’s aggravation.
“Why was he holding your hand in the first damn place?” he snapped at her.
Oh, boy, here we go, again.
“Probably because he needed to hold someone’s hand. He was in really bad shape. You didn’t see him. I wanted to thank him for including me and I was trying to help him. For fuck’s sake, he looked like he was about to have a nervous breakdown.”
“What were you telling him that you had to whisper it in his ear?” Ben asked, folding his arms and setting his jaw.
“Ben, that’s between him and me,” she said, not wanting to divulge the fact that she was fairly confident Derek Sharp had experienced a level of terror at some point in his life that no one should suffer.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Having already endured one jealous outburst from her husband the night prior, she wasn’t about to tolerate a rematch, especially before she’d finished her first cup of coffee. She leaned her elbows on the table and folded her hands together before sighing dramatically.
“You may as well know, I was begging him to bend me over and fuck me right there in the live room, Ben. I’m not proud, but there, now you know. I’m desperate to get gonorrhea from a middle-aged rock star. It’s on my bucket list. I hope you don’t mind.”
He glared at her. “You didn’t answer my question.”
She reclined back in her chair. “I told him he should be proud of his record and that I was grateful to be a part of it. Also, to go home and get some sleep and to let go of whatever was making him freak out like that.”
“Freak out like what?” he asked.
“Freak out like I used to. Jesus… I know a fucking PTSD episode when I see one. He was fucking coming apart at the seams when we started, and he was barely holding it together when we were done.” She yawned and drank her coffee. “Something happened to him, Ben, and I don’t know what, but us crazy folk have to help each other out, it’s in the bylaws.”
“Well, nice job, Clementine. Now his fans think y’all are married. Congratulations. I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.” Ben leaned back in his chair and looked out the window, clearly annoyed with the situation.
“Oh, settle down. I’m married to you, not him. What is wrong with you? I know he’s Derek Sharp, but he is a human being, supposedly, and one who was in a lot of pain last night. He needed somebody to help him and I was the only one there. So, forgive me, but I don’t really care what the Sharpies think this morning.”
“Well, your husband fucking cares, Clementine,” Ben growled.
“Fine.” She picked up her phone and started typing, reading out loud as she did. “@archangel_nola is married to the asshole who owns @lafittescove. Everyone calm the fuck down. #shitstorm #jealousmuchcrazyperson.” She held up her phone to Ben’s face. “I’ve got 11 characters left. Anything you’d like me to add, dear?”
He scowled at her and she posted the Tweet. She set down her phone and walked to the refrigerator to get a cup of yogurt.
When Ben still hadn’t said anything after three bites, she finally said, “What is with you? I thought we got past this last night. For fuck’s sake, you said you wanted me to go on tour with him, now you’re all upset about a stupid Twitterstorm? You’re suddenly obsessing about a baby, when we’ve already agreed we’d wait at least a year before we started talking seriously about it…”
“I’m not obsessed,” he interrupted. “You’re two weeks late and you just threw up for no apparent reason. I’m trying to have an adult conversation about this and you’re acting like it’s no big deal.”
“That’s because it isn’t a big deal,” she said around her bite. “I just finished recording an album with Dark Harm. I’m in the middle of recording a record for Stanley Gerard. Why would you even think I’d let myself get pregnant right now?”
“Why did you throw up?”
“How the fuck should I know?” she lied. Ben stared hard at her, making it obvious that he didn’t believe her. Q quickly changed the subject. “I’m done with this, Ben. Tell me what’s wrong.”
When he didn’t reply, she stood up and walked around the table to sit on his lap. She enfolded him in her arms.
“Tell me what’s making you so upset, because I really don’t think it’s Derek Sharp or my irregular menstrual cycle, is it?”
He shook his head and looked out the window.
“Well, that’s very unhelpful, love. You gonna make me guess?” She paused, waiting for him to speak, when he didn’t, she said, “Let’s see, an alien took over your body and your sudden insane jealousy is how I’m supposed to find the real you trapped in a pod in our attic. Yes?”
“No,” he said, his expression softening.
“You secretly worship at an altar to Dark Harm while wearing a scarlet corset, and are worried that I’m gonna make your night god unclean with my jazzy woman ways?”
He started to chuckle and held her to him.
“I can do this all day, Bordelon. Well, until Tommy gets here, then I gots to go, so you better tell me,” she said gently.
“I’m going to have to shut down the Cove at the end of the month, darlin’. We’ve been in the red since January. I had a six-month cushion. That’s all gone now. After this month, we won’t be able to pay the bills. Terrence Hill canceling was the end of the line. I have just enough left to cover the mortgage for the summer, then we’re out,” he said against her shoulder.
She pulled back. “What about our savings. I made all that money for the Nine Circles ball, plus the stipend for the studio sessions with Derek. Just take it from there. We’ll get it back by the end of wedding season. That should get you through a couple months or so.”
“What do you think we’ve been living on?” he admitted. “I had to pay my staff, Q. We needed a new PA. I stopped drawing a salary in February, so I wouldn’t have to lay anybody off. And you didn’t gig hardly at all in the first part of the year because of all those hours in the studio with Derek. I should have told you, but I thought it would get better once Terrence played.”