by Stacy Gail
Her vision of the photo she held grew blurry. In silence, she shrugged a shoulder, something she knew he would feel.
His mouth pressed against the side of her neck, and for a long while he did nothing more than hold her in the peaceful silence of his room. Then, very gently, he nudged his head against hers. “You can tell me anything, you know. Even about when you were made to feel utterly alone.”
“Oh, that.” Again the photo blurred under a wave of warm wetness, and the muscles in her throat clenched so hard it nearly squeezed off the air flow. “It…it was no big deal.”
“You know what I’ve learned about you?” Again he nudged her head with his, a nice, comfortable nuzzle. “I’ve learned that when you decide you’re going to shut down, you say the opposite of what you mean so you can hide behind that camouflage. And your favorite thing to say when you’re in opposite-speech mode is, it’s no big deal.” His arms tightened, so that the wealth of his strength cocooned her, promising without words a world of protection, if she’d only just accept it. “When you say it’s no big deal, my damn heart almost stops because I know it’s the biggest fucking deal of all. I’m right on this, don’t deny it.”
She shrugged again, not surprised he’d spotted her odd bouts of saying the opposite of what she meant. The funny things was, she there was something in her that wanted to tell him what awful things were inside of her. For the first time ever, she wanted to talk about it.
No. That wasn’t quite right.
She wanted to tell Rude.
Maybe.
“Back then…”
No.
Her vocal chords froze. The air dried up in her lungs. She couldn’t do it. She was going to throw up if she tried. She absolutely couldn’t do it.
Not that it mattered, she tried to tell herself to calm the wild thud of her pulse. It was in the past, where it belonged. It really was no big deal.
No big deal.
Never before had she realized what a terrible lie that was. It wasn’t just a lie she told to others.
It was a lie she told to herself.
“Tell me, Sassy. Try to find the words. Even if you feel those words won’t ever describe it well enough. Even if you feel they won’t ever dig deep enough to get all the poison out. Just start with something, and let it flow from there.”
“Back then… they called it child molestation.” It came out softly, because she had the instinct to cushion the ugliness. Those words hurt the ears of anyone who had a soul, including her, and she didn’t want to hurt over this anymore. “I’ve thought a lot about that word usage over the years. I’ve come to the conclusion that that term molestation came about because good people couldn’t stand to call it what it is—child rape. So they gave it another name.”
The already-tight hold he had on her tightened further, but only for a moment before they relaxed, as if he’d had to remind himself not to crush her.
“I was thirteen when I was placed in what would be the second-to-last private foster home I would ever have, since your parents’ place was my last. It was the home of Ron and Deenie Dietrich, along with their son, Ron Junior. In a way, he was kind of like you when I walked through the door—he just looked at me like he didn’t want me there. I found out later that he didn’t, but not for the reasons that you didn’t want a new foster sister.”
His lips had again found the side of her neck just below her ear. “Why didn’t he want you there?”
“I think Ron Junior had all the potential for being a genuinely good person, and I have the hope that he became one, despite what his parents were,” she said, trying to keep her emotional level on an even keel. “That first night at the Dietrich house, Ron Junior and I met in the hallway—I was going into the bathroom to brush my teeth and he was coming out—and he said very quietly that if I knew what was good for me, I’d run as far away from that house as I could that night, before anything bad could happen to me. Then he heard his father behind him, and he vanished into his room. The dad, Ron, had come up to make sure I brushed my teeth. He then stood in the bathroom doorway and watched me do it—creeped me the hell out. I didn’t sleep that night. And it was the last night I had before…” She stopped, because she couldn’t find the words that could adequately describe the nightmare of being held down, of being violated. Of not even knowing what was being done to her. Of being dragged to what had felt like her doom and being helpless to stop it. Of having the innocence of childhood amputated away from her with a rusty blade.
How could she express any of that?
“I want this man dead,” came the soft, almost inaudible whisper against the side of her neck, the ultra-violent words at complete odds with the encompassing hold he had on her. “I want this motherfucker dead so fucking bad I can’t even breathe.”
“He is, but it took a while for karma to catch up with him,” she said without emotion, and felt his jolt of surprise. “That first night, after he’d raped me, Ron Senior told me that I needed to get used to him doing that, since there was nothing I could do to stop him. No one would believe me. He knew this, because he’d done this same thing to his other fosters over the years and no one believed them when a few of them had dared to tell their social workers about it. His wife Deenie, who didn’t like sex but loved a nice roof over her head and not working for it, always backed him up.”
“Backed him up how?”
“If any of their former fosters found the courage to speak up, Deenie made sure that they wound up looking like so-called ‘lying whores’. She slut-shamed them to their social workers by accusing them of promiscuous behavior outside the house, just in case those girls got medically examined. She was his constant alibi, swearing she was always present whenever Ron Senior was in the same room with their fosters. She even kept social workers from seeing the children if an unexpected drop-in visit occurred and a rape had recently happened and physical marks were still present. That bitch fucking helped Ron Dietrich rape babies. That was when I knew I had to get out of there. But first I had to make sure these two evil beings never savaged another little girl.”
He went still. “Did you kill him?”
She smiled, weirdly amused that he thought she had that in her. “No. What I did was plan.”
“Plan?”
“After I’d healed enough to return to school—with dire threats of what would happen to me if I reported them—I managed to introduce myself to the next door neighbor while she was out in her garden and I was walking home from the bus stop. I wanted her to know who I was just in case I needed to go to her for help. I then snuck a couple of sandwich bags into my room and hid them under the mattress. Then I sharpened my nails so I had some kind of weapon at my disposal if he ever came at me again. I also begged Ron Junior to let me escape out his window if I ever needed to do it. All the windows in the bedroom I’d been put in had been nailed shut, something child welfare services obviously never noticed when they did their routine home inspections. But I noticed. There were a lot of scratches around those nails holding the window closed, and I’ll never forget the despair I felt as I realized where those scratches had come from. Then I got pissed. I wasn’t going to be another one of their victims clawing in futility at a nailed-shut window. I’d get out through Ron Junior’s window, even if I had to break his damn door down to do it.”
The breath he took was ragged. “So you were able to escape?”
“After the second time Ron Senior raped me, yes.” She waited until Rude was done whispering a long string of profanity under his breath. “I scratched him, Rude. I scratched that bastard on his cock and ass with all my might, making sure I marked him enough to bleed. I knew my fighting back would make him furious, but I had to do it. Even if it meant he’d kill me, I wasn’t going to let him hurt me or anyone else like that again. I’d rather be dead.”
“Jesus.” It sounded shaken, when she’d never heard him sound anything but straight-up confident.
“He beat me to within an inch of my life, but his mis
take was leaving me alive. Ron Junior pretended to be asleep while I dropped a pillow outside his window around three in the morning and then fell onto it. I had put those sandwich bags over my hands before I crawled to the neighbor’s house. Once I managed to wake her up, I begged her to not just call the police, but also the local news outlets to let them know about the rapist with the nailed-shut windows who lived next door. I’d seen the sandwich-bag thing on TV,” she added with a shrug, hoping he didn’t think she was weird. “I wanted to make sure that when they tested the blood and skin under my nails, no one could say it was contaminated.”
“Smart girl.” His arms tightened to the point of squeezing the air out of her lungs. “Smart, brave girl.”
“When I told the cops exactly where I’d marked Ron Dietrich on his privates—a place no foster child should ever be near, much less know how scratches came to be there—I figured they would have to believe me, especially with the media watching. They did.”
“My brave Sassy.” He gave her another squeeze. “So if you didn’t kill him—and make no mistake, I would have been totally okay with that, baby—how’d he die?”
“In prison.”
He waited a beat. “That’s it?”
“It’s… kind of grisly.” Then she sighed and turned her head to reluctantly meet his stormy gaze. “It took a while to put the case against the Dietrichs together. They lived free and happy, while I spent the next year in this horrible house where battered women and kids got locked up. Apparently becoming a voluntary prisoner is one way to live ‘free’ of abuse.”
“Why the fuck did they put a traumatized little girl in a scary hellhole like that?”
“I’ve always thought it was because I was an embarrassment to the city of Chicago. The case had gone public in a huge way, and I suspect the higher-ups in Social Services didn’t want me to be seen or talked to. Whatever the reason was, I was kept under legal house arrest while the trial against Ron Dietrich went on. A month after he was convicted, my social worker broke her promise of never putting me in another private foster home, but I’m so glad she did. She delivered me to the Panuzzi home, where I met you.”
His arms loosened only to turn her around and crush her to him, one hand coming to cradle the back of her head. “I wish to Christ I could go back in time and treat you with all the care you deserved. Instead all I can remember is pitching a petty little bitch-fit over stupid, motherfucking bathroom privileges. Jesus, how you must’ve hated me.”
“Actually, I needed that normal kind of snarky reaction to reassure me that the Panuzzi house was a good one.” She twined her arms around his waist and gave him a squeeze, sensing that he needed the comfort just as much as she did. “At least you didn’t warn me to run for my life, like Ron Junior did.”
“Little cocksucker should have helped you more than he did.”
“No, that poor whipped-dog of a boy was as trapped as I was, I’m sure of it. A few years later, when I was told the Dietrich house had burned down with his mother Deenie inside, I was worried Ron Junior had died as well. But since I never heard of anyone else except Deenie dying in that fire, I’d like to think that Ron Junior had gotten away from that hellhole by then. Wherever he is now, I hope he’s found a way to be happy.”
“God, you’re a good woman.” He lowered his head so that his mouth rested against her brow, while a hand moved soothingly over her back. “Okay, so that’s Deenie, the bitch who helped an animal rape babies under their roof. What about her piece of shit husband? You said he died in prison.”
“Deenie and Ron Dietrich actually died within forty-eight hours of each other.” And that thought still gave her chills, so she powered through it as fast as she could without letting herself think about it. “Deenie and that house of horrors went up first. It burned down to the foundation and to this day, it’s still nothing but an empty lot. I do know that she’d been awaiting trial, but her lawyer was a master at the delaying game, and he’d kept her out of the courtroom for years. In fact, on the day that the fire occurred, they’d won yet another continuance due to some health issue she supposedly had.”
“Sounds like she would have been better off going to trial.”
She nodded. “A couple days after Deenie’s death, her husband missed the nightly bed-check. At first the people at the prison thought Ron Dietrich had escaped, somehow inspired by the loss of his partner in crime. But then they found him in the kitchens. They also found quite a bit of him in the walk-in freezer. And on the stove in a frying pan, and in a stockpot that was going full boil. And lastly, they found him sprinkled around like mulch in the prison’s garden, but that was just the skin that had been grated off of him. Among other things, Ron Dietrich had been flayed alive.”
“Fuck,” he muttered faintly.
“I always thought prisons were super-regimented, with no privacy to be had and cameras everywhere. But apparently I’m wrong. No one saw a thing. Though on second thought, maybe that’s not surprising,” she said as an afterthought. “I’ve heard that pedophiles don’t do well behind bars. And it has to be said, in the end Ron Dietrich definitely didn’t do well.”
“True.” But his tone was absent as he looked into the middle distance, and it was a look she wasn’t sure she liked. It made her wonder if he thought she might be too screwed up to mess with. She knew she had issues, but then so did he, and she’d overcome hers just as much as he had.
“When my social worker came to the Panuzzi house to tell me the Dietrichs were dead and I no longer had to worry about testifying against Deenie, I was so relieved that I forgot to ask if Ron Junior was okay. I started back downstairs to ask, and that’s when I overheard her talking with Mama Coco about what a good job she and Papa Bolo had done with me. I remember she’d said so many ‘broken’ kids like me were never normal when it came to having a social life, or that they were often destined for a future devoid of normal human contact. It pissed me off so much,” she gritted out, the old anger rippling out from that long-ago wound. “That woman… she was good at her job and she did look out for me as best she could. But she sounded so pitying, like Ron Dietrich had killed me when I was thirteen. That’s bullshit. My life didn’t fucking end, and that asshole never came close to breaking my spirit. That very next day I asked a classmate out on a date and I’ve been pushing forward ever since. I may have scars, but I’m tougher than they are. Don’t you ever doubt that. I am not broken.”
“Sassy, I know that. I’ve always known that. After you refused to dance with me at Scout’s wedding, I got pissy and blew off some steam to my folks—told them I was just going to grab you and make you dance with me whether you liked it or not. That’s when my mom dragged me out to the parking lot and proceeded to read me the riot act like I was some four year old throwing a tantrum.”
Her eyes widened. “She did? Did she tell you…?”
He shrugged. “Not any details, just enough for me to fill in the blanks. And she was fucking ferocious when it came to protecting you from me. She straight-up told me that I had no right to set my sights on a prize like you unless I truly believed I was man enough to accept both you and your baggage, and even help you unpack that shit whenever you were ready to do it. So I know you’re not broken, Sass. The question is, do you know that? Are you ready to finally unpack your baggage and make yourself at home?”
She doubted Mama Coco put it like that, but it didn’t stop her from giving him a wobbly smile. “You sure you want that?”
“I can’t believe you have to ask.” He touched his mouth to hers, then deepened the kiss until her skin tingled with heat. “You have to realize by now that I know what it is to have scars that no one can see. To have them, and to conquer them. That’s why I’m proud of my scars. But baby, I’m even prouder of yours.”
Chapter Eighteen
Sass had never felt so free. It was as though a boulder had been crushing her into the ground, but she’d been so used to the weight she hadn’t even known it was there. Now that it was gone
, it was like seeing the sun for the first time. It was glorious, a miracle, and the most amazing part of it was that it had come from sharing the darkest part of herself with Rude.
Sharing it, and having it accepted.
She smiled through his kiss, smiled as its intensity went from soothing to hungry to feverish. She smiled as he walked her backward toward his rumpled, unmade bed, and smiled when she undid the buttons of his dark gray long-sleeved, slim-fit cargo shirt. When she uncovered that tattooed, muscular chest and saw his hard-earned scars—marks that showed he was stronger than whatever it was that tried to kill him—she laughed under her breath.
“What?” He worked the fastening of her skirt and pushed both it and her underclothes down. “What’s so funny?”
“I’m happy.” As if to prove it, her smile refused to fade as she worked him out of his clothes until he was as naked as she was. “I didn’t know this level of happy existed.”
“This is how it should be.” He bent to help her out of her shoes, then pressed his mouth to her belly. She shivered, then shivered again when his tongue glided down to the juncture of her thighs. But as much as she wanted the madness she knew he could give her, she wanted him to be right there with her.
“You too, sweetheart.” Sweetheart. She’d never called anyone sweetheart in her life. But with that free, melted-honey feeling rippling through her, the endearment came easily. “I want to taste you, too.”
“I can make that happen.” The sensual excitement thrumming through his voice was contagious, and she laughed when he suddenly lifted her, princess-style, and placed her in the middle of the bed. He pressed a kiss to her mouth, a promise of good things to come, before he sat at her side and turned in the direction of her legs. With his hands bracing his weight on either side of her hips, he moved his body over hers, trailing his mouth down her stomach, to linger over a subtle peak of a hipbone, down to an inner thigh.