Dirty Little Secret

by Amber Rides

  For two years it was smooth sailing.

  I excelled at every task he assigned me, and I applied for early admission to his alma mater, and knew I was going to become a defense lawyer, just like him. I lost my virginity to the temp, I womanized for a while, met Brandy, and we both fell in love (me with the idea of her, and her with the idea of my money) and everything was fan-fucking-tastic.

  Then the shit hit the fan with my sister.

  It started with a call from her school, an all girls’ place just outside of the city. She’d missed several days of classes, and they were worried she was ill. They came to me, of course, because our father had been playing his absentee role so well, and because for the seven years since my mother’s death, I’d been signing permission slips and packing her lunches, and attending the parent-teacher conferences. It was only my newfound bond with our dad that kept me from noticing the changes in Fiona’s behavior in the first place. I was wrapped up in work, just as he was. I didn’t have time for her anymore, just like he didn’t. The intrusion pissed me off, just like it would’ve done to him.

  So I drove out to the school, prepared to give her hell for whatever trouble she’d gotten into.

  I don’t know what I expected to find when I got there, but it sure as shit wasn’t what I saw. A black light in her bedside lamp. Lumpy, unwashed bed sheets. Maggot-filled take out boxes. No sign of Fiona herself.

  As I worked my way through her friends, most of whom confessed they hadn’t really talked to her in months, worry began to replace irritation. I finally tracked down a girl who gave me the name of a seedy motel where she’d heard Fiona had been staying.

  A seedy fucking motel. My little sister.

  I drove there, and didn’t have too much trouble convincing the desk manager to bust down the door. Especially when I explained what I would do to him if he didn’t comply. The room was smoke-filled. It stunk to high heaven. My sister was strung out, and her companion was in his underpants.

  Needless to say, I hauled her ass home.

  Over the next six months, she ran away about ten times. Each time, I went and dragged her home. Finally, I turned to my dad, assuming that our connection somehow elevated his role in her life also. I couldn’t have been more wrong. He threatened to fire me. From my unpaid internship. For asking him to help me get my sister – his daughter – into a detox program.

  The series of events that led up to my first arrest just four months later, not long after I turned eighteen…I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. It seemed like a nightmare. One I didn’t want to own. One that made me hate my dad in a more thorough way than I ever hated anyone.

  And now, years later, I still didn’t want to fucking see him.

  And yet, as I pulled into the parking lot at the hotel where my sister was getting married, I knew I would have to. My whole body was tense with the idea.

  A sharp pain dug into the flesh between my thumb and forefinger, and I looked down in surprise. The wedding invitation was in my hand, crushed beyond recognition. The cardboard edge had cut my skin, and a narrow line of blood marked my hand.

  Maybe I wasn’t so fine after all.

  Why don’t you call Galini? I asked myself sarcastically.

  It was enough to spur me on.

  I followed the signs to the ceremony hall, then paused at the door.

  I spotted the three of them the second I walked in, standing near the front under an archway. My eyes went to Fiona first, maybe because she was the bride, and I was supposed to be looking at her.

  Then again, I admitted reluctantly. It could be that you’re more than a little chicken shit about confronting the other two.

  It startled me, how much she looked like my mom. Even from a distance, the resemblance was remarkable. The same wave of strawberry blonde hair, the same concerned crease in her forehead. She was plump, though, thank fucking God. The last time I saw her, her skin was stretched tightly over her bones, and I really thought she might die.

  I want you out of my life, she’d said.

  I jerked my eyes to her fiancé in an attempt to brush off the bad memory. He was heavy, too, and wore a full beard and a suit. A far cry from the last time I saw him, when he’d still gone by the nickname Juice, and had been a beaten and bloody husk of a man, begging for mercy.

  The way he fucking deserved to be.

  I couldn’t stop the wave of hatred, and I didn’t really try to. In fact, it transitioned nicely onto my dad. My eyes wanted to slide over him, but I made them stay.

  I was surprised to see how small he was. Had he always been such a little man, or had the years just worn him down? If I walked up to him, I’d tower over him. The top of Fiona’s head was level with his eyebrows as she leaned in to adjust his tie. My dad said something, and Juice – no, it was Josh now, I reminded myself – laughed, then clapped him on the shoulder.

  I took half a step toward them, drawn in by their shared happiness. Then stopped. Sure, they looked normal and well adjusted. I knew better.

  That fat fucker who had a possessive hand on my sister’s back had damn near killed her. That man in the expensive tux had let it happen.

  I can’t do this, I realized. My asshole of a probation officer was right after all.

  I couldn’t be the guy who forgave and moved on. I couldn’t do the fake fucking reunion. I just didn’t have it in me. I was too far past whatever it would take to be that man.

  I turned and fled for the hotel bar.

  MELISSA

  After I locked the bathroom door, I stripped down and tossed aside my clothes. I stared at myself in the mirror. Even fully nude, I didn’t feel very sexy. I stretched my arms out above my head, making my breasts rise and fall. Experimentally, hesitantly, I stroked my nipples and waited for a response.

  Nothing.

  I closed my eyes and imagined Danny’s hands on me.

  Worse than nothing; my skin crawled.

  I climbed into the tub. A brief soak wouldn’t hurt, and it would kill time, and hold off Danny and his questions.

  The water was hot and it lapped pleasantly at my skin. I leaned back against the jets. The bubbles shot into my muscles, easing some of the tension. With slow determination, I ran my hands from my knees up my thighs, pausing at my hips. I plunged my hands into the water between my legs, willing myself to be turned on. Again, I pictured Danny. My knees clenched together automatically. I had to stop.

  “I don’t want this,” I whispered.

  Saying it out loud somehow made it seem more real.

  I came to my feet quickly. Before I could change my mind, or talk myself out of it, I hopped from the tub. I slipped into one of the hotel robes and flung open the bathroom door. The room was dark, except for the flickering of a candle.

  “Danny? You were right.” I wished my voice sounded more confident.

  There was no answer, but I only had a second to be puzzled. A thick hand closed around my waist and dragged me toward the bed. Logically I knew it was Danny. I panicked anyway – or maybe even because I knew it, I wasn’t entirely sure – and began kicking frantically. The smell of Southern Comfort on his breath fueled my alarm.

  “Stop!” I pleaded.

  But he flung me to the bed and stood over me. His eyes were completely glassy now, and when I glanced toward the night stand, I saw that half the liquor was gone from the bottle. Danny leaned down and pushed his lips against mine. His tongue, rough and somehow unfamiliar, ground around inside my mouth. When he came up for air, I rolled away. His arms didn’t release me, and we went flying off the bed together. My mouth cracked against a floor lamp, and I felt blood trickle down my chin.

  Danny seemed completely unaware of my injury. He continued his amorous pursuit. One of his hands found my left breast, and he forced his mouth onto mine. Now I tasted both the liquor and my own blood. The combination made me gag. I reacted instinctively, bringing my knee up into his crotch and jamming it in as hard as I could manage from my position on the floor.

>   Danny finally fell back.

  I came to my feet and scrambled over the bed. I wanted a safe distance between us when he recovered enough to talk.

  It took a surprisingly small amount of time.

  “You bitch!” he hollered.

  His violent tone surprised me as much as his words. In all of our three years together, I’d rarely heard him swear, and I’d never seen him lose his temper.

  He grabbed the edge of the bed and pulled himself up, still doubled over in a pain-filled way. He clutched the bedspread and hobbled closer. When he was almost near enough to touch me, I took a step back.

  “Please don’t come any closer,” I whispered.

  “What’re you going to do to me if I do?” Danny replied contemptuously as he straightened up. “I know already you won’t call the police.”

  “I think you’re drunk.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  He took a step in my direction, and too late, I realized I was cornered again. He grabbed a hold of my robe and yanked it open clumsily. Then he leaned in to grab my ass.

  “This is mine,” Danny said angrily. “That ring on your finger says so. All I want to make it official before we get married.”

  “Danny, my face is bleeding,” I pleaded. “I’m hurt. I don’t think this is good timing.”

  “Stop fighting it, Mel.”

  “I’m not fighting anything, Danny.”

  His hands maintained their grip in my backside. “When?”

  “What?”

  “When will the timing be good, Mel? Because I think I’ve been pretty goddamned patient.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “Are you?” he almost-sneered. “I’m reasonably sure you’re happy being the frigid bitch you are.”

  I stared at him, struck by a sudden realization. Danny wasn’t safe. All he’d done was make me complacent. For three years. When I was with him, I did what I was supposed to do, what everyone expected me to be. I wasn’t who I wanted to be.

  I didn’t even like this cardboard cut-out version of myself.

  “I’m not a frigid bitch,” I replied, aware that my voice was ironically cold.

  “No? Is that what the guy who assaulted you said? Because he hasn’t spent three years waiting for you to loosen up. To give some sign that you were ready.”

  Danny grabbed my hands and pinned them down at my sides.

  “Please, Danny. We’ve waited this long. What’s another few months?”

  He ignored my words and shoved me backwards, banging my head on the wall. I cried out, but he ignored that, too, and he brought his lips down on mine one last time. If I’d had been any less dazed, I would’ve fought back. Bit his tongue, kicked him in the balls again, anything. But all I could do was whimper.

  “You wanna know something sick, Mel?” Danny asked against my mouth.

  “No,” I replied.

  “Fine. We’ll just keep doing this, then.”

  Panic set in as his eyes narrowed and he leaned toward me again.

  “Tell me,” I managed to get out.

  “When you said that guy assaulted you in the parking lot, I wasn’t mad. I wasn’t jealous. I was relieved. He touched you where I wouldn’t dare to. Because you’ve always been too pure to be touched. It was like…He opened the door for me.”

  Danny pressed his mouth against mine once more, and I finally reacted properly. I pushed him as hard as I could, and he stumbled away.

  “Get out!” he yelled suddenly, and his voice was as full of hurt as it was of anger.

  I blinked, then ran for the door before he could change his mind. I forced my way into the hall, and collapsed on the floor, where I let myself dissolve into a heap of sobs.

  CUTTER

  When I turned up the hall and pulled out my key card, I was startled to see a white-covered figure huddled on the floor just outside the room beside mine. I got a bit closer, and the figure moved. It wasn’t until I had the card poised to open the door that I recognized that not only was it a woman, it was her.

  For a second, I thought she was a hallucination, brought on by the combination of no food, and two hours’ worth of beers, followed by two hours’ worth of coffee. When I blinked, and she didn’t disappear, I finally admitted she was real.

  Melissa.

  Wearing nothing but a robe. Her hair was damp and tied back in the goddamned ponytail again. Even though she was looking down at her hands, I could see that her pretty blues eyes were dripping with makeup. She looked small, fragile, and somehow still infinitely fuckable.

  What the hell is she doing at this hotel and why is she so insistently fucking sexy?

  Shit. My judgment was obviously clouded. For three long seconds I stared, then snapped my attention back to the key card.

  “You can stop pretending you don’t see me.” Her voice was deeper than usual and a little raw.

  I forced myself to turn back toward her. “You following me, baby-doll?”

  Melissa sat up straighter and pulled her robe a little tighter. It still ballooned at the top, exposing her ample cleavage.

  “Don’t kid yourself,” she said. “I’m here with someone else.”

  Jealousy, fast and hard, shot through me. I pushed it aside forcefully. Why the fuck was I jealous? She stared me down as if she was daring me to call her bluff, to deny his existence as I had the last few times she’d brought up her elusive boyfriend. I refused to take the bait. No way was I playing her fucking game tonight.

  “How’s that working out for you?” I asked scornfully as I looked away.

  “Not so well,” she admitted, and looked back down at her hands. “He’s passed out in our room, and when I came to get some ice, I locked myself out.”

  I laughed. “That’s fucking awesome.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “It’s hilarious.”

  My eyes skimmed her again. There was something in her expression that made me wonder what she was covering up. She wasn’t quite looking at me, not straight-on, anyway. She held her head tipped to one side, and gripped her ponytail tightly. She glanced my way, then into her lap. What was wrong with her?

  Get a fucking grip, Cutter.

  I didn’t need to let myself be taken in by the flash of hurt in her eyes.

  “Goodnight, baby-doll,” I said coolly.

  “Wait,” she called.

  I paused. “What?”

  “Could you just…”

  “Just what, Melissa?”

  “Invite me in to your room?”

  “And why the hell would I do that?” I replied.

  “Because somehow…This is your fault.”

  “What?”

  She nodded. “Ever since you showed up, my life has been a royal fuck up.”

  “Are you serious? I mean, I know I’ve had a few too many tonight, but I can’t possibly have heard you right.”

  “I used to know exactly what I wanted and who I was now and who I was going to be even ten years down the road,” she replied. “But since I met you, all of that is out the window.”

  She was serious. I sighed.

  “Blame the tea,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I spilled it on you. The chai? At the college?”

  Her face was blank.

  “Goddamn it,” I said. “You could at least pretend you knew it was me.”

  She looked puzzled. A cute crease that I really fucking resented formed between her eyes.

  “Is that why you came after me with your truck? Because I didn’t recognize you? If you knew what kind of week I’d had…”

  The last thing I wanted was to get into my own personal psychosis about pretty, rich girls and their supposedly shitty weeks.

  “Forget it,” I muttered.

  She let it go. “Can I come in? Please?”

  “Five fucking minutes,” I told her. “It’s is all I’m willing to give you right now. Come in, call your super hero, and get out.”

  I slipped the key card thr
ough the door and swung it open. She followed me in, startling me speechless when she immediately dove under the covers on one side of my bed. I stood over her, trying not to notice the way her ponytail looked, halfway on what would be my pillow. If we were sharing the bed, that is. My eyes sought her face instead, and it was at that moment that I noticed the thin trail of dried blood. It ran along just under her lips and followed down to her chin.

  Worry and fury pooled in my stomach, travelled up through my chest, and exploded in a heated growl. I fought for control. In an effort to calm myself, I made my way to the bathroom, wet a cloth, squeezed it dry violently, and then brought it back to her.

  “What happened, baby-doll?”

  Melissa’s face crumpled, and tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes, then trailed down her face.

  “I didn’t lock myself out of the hotel room,” she confessed. “Danny kicked me out.”

  “What the fuck for?”

  “Do you really want to know? Or are you just going to use it to screw me over in some way in the very near future?”

  I sat down on the edge of the bed, careful stay on my side.

  “I really want to know,” I said. Mostly so I have a valid reason for kicking his ass.

  I placed a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched away, almost violently. She flashed me a look, somehow wary and apologetic at the same time.

  Jesus. What did the guy do to her?

  A memory of my sister, small and broken and alone, assaulted me. Fiona had a similar expression in her face after the assholes – Juice-now-Josh included – had left her there on the side of the road. No one could touch her without that same flinch.

  Bile rose in my throat.

  “What did that motherfucker do to you, Melissa?”

  “I’m okay.”

  I ran a hand through my hair hard enough to hurt. “I can tell the difference between okay and not-okay, baby-doll. He hurt you.”

  “I should never have come here with him. Then he started drinking and – “ She cut herself off. “Let’s just say I wasn’t in the mood, and he didn’t like it one bit.”

  “Did he…?” I trailed off, afraid to put into words what was going on in my mind.