Mister Moneybags

by Vi Keeland

  I took a deep breath. “Okay.” There was a park bench to the left of the walkway we were on. I motioned to it. “Would you like to sit?”

  “I’m fine. We can keep walking if you’d like.”

  Not knowing any other way to break the news, I blurted out, “You know my father. My name is Dexter Truitt.”

  Bianca’s father, Taso, stopped short in place. He looked me in the eyes. Finding I was dead serious, he said, “Maybe we should have a seat after all.”

  “She was going to live with her mother. I might be old school, but a girl belongs with her mother if it’s at all possible. There was never any fight for custody. I didn’t want her to hold a grudge against the woman she needed to look up to.” Taso shook his head and sighed. “Eleni didn’t want to lie to her. It was all my idea. I didn’t fight her for custody of the girls, agreed to the support she wanted, and promised I’d never miss a visit with my daughters. In exchange, I asked her for two things in return. One of them was to say it was me who had had the affair. Eleni wouldn’t come right out and say it, wouldn’t lie to the girls, if asked. But she promised to never tell them outright. The night I left for good, I apologized to the girls for what I’d done to break up our marriage. All the years that followed, they never asked anything else about my supposed affair, and Eleni never told them anything different.”

  “Bianca harbors a pretty heavy grudge against you still.”

  Taso’s shoulder’s slumped. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I know. When I came up with the plan so many years ago, I figured they were kids and would get over it. Bianca, though, she could never really forgive me.”

  I realized in that moment how much trust Bianca was placing in me by giving me a second chance. She’d never even afforded her father that same opportunity. I turned to Taso and looked him straight in the eyes. “I have to tell her.”

  He stared at me for a long moment. “I understand. She’s not a little girl who needs protecting anymore. She’s a grown woman who deserves the truth from a man she clearly cares about. The lies were what ended things between Eleni and me. I loved her. Part of me still does, if I’m being honest. But when I figured out what was going on, I gave her a second chance. Thought maybe we could move past it, if we worked hard enough. A few months after, things had just started to settle down again, when I caught her in another lie. Went to her office and found…well…I’m sorry…you don’t really need to know the details.”

  After that, we sat and talked for a while longer. When my phone buzzed in my pocket, I realized I’d been gone for more than an hour. Taso saw me check my phone.

  “My daughter?”

  I nodded.

  “You should go. Get this off your chest. She’s a big girl, loves her mother. She’ll eventually understand that sometimes when one person makes a mistake, it’s not always only that person’s fault. She’ll get over it. Just make sure you’re there for her when she needs to work through it.”

  We both stood. I extended my hand to Taso. “Thank you for understanding.”

  “Take care of my little girl.”

  Knowing it was the right thing, didn’t make it any easier. I stood outside of Bianca’s door for a few minutes before finally growing a pair and knocking. She answered almost immediately and stepped aside for me to enter. Bandit charged ahead and disappeared inside.

  “I was starting to think you weren’t coming back.”

  “Sorry about that. I was talking to your dad, and we must have lost track of time.”

  “You two seem to have hit it off. I hadn’t really thought of it until I watched you together, but you sort of remind me of my dad.” She scrunched up her nose. “Is that weird?”

  “Only if that makes it weird for you.”

  She smiled. “Would you like a glass of wine?”

  “I’ll take something stronger, if you have it.”

  Bianca went into the kitchen and brought us each back a glass. Mine was filled with an amber liquid. When she sat down and looked at me expectantly, I gulped back half of it without even a sniff test.

  She got right to the point. “Something has been troubling you since you knocked on my door earlier. What’s going on?”

  I took a deep breath. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  “Okay…”

  “It’s something you’re not going to be happy about.”

  It was her turn to drink some liquid courage. She tossed back half her wine glass and then looked me straight in the eyes. “I prefer the truth, even when it’s something I might not want to hear, Dex.”

  “Alright.” There was no easy way to say it, so I just let it rip. “My father had an affair with your mother.”

  The floor was going to be worn from her pacing. Bianca had her silver stress balls singing a mile a minute in her hand as she walked back and forth. I’d explained what I knew from my talk with my father, and now she was trying to make sense of the lies. She’d passed through the disbelief stage and moved on to angry in the last fifteen minutes.

  “Why would he lie and make me hold it against him for the better part of twenty years?”

  “He was trying to protect you.”

  She froze. “By lying to me? Lying doesn’t protect anyone but the liar.”

  “I think there are two kinds of lies. A lie to protect something and a lie to escape something. He wasn’t trying to escape anything.”

  “So you think it’s okay that he let me spend all this time thinking he was a cheater?”

  I rubbed the back of my neck. I needed to be careful here. Bianca was only beginning to trust me again, and it probably wasn’t a good idea to have her suspect I was okay with any lying at all. So instead of giving her an opinion on whether her dad did the right thing by lying, I decided to refrain from having that conversation. I’d been giving her distance, but I felt like she needed physical comforting almost as much as I needed to give it to her.

  Stepping into her pacing trail, I covered her hands with mine. The low hum of her stress balls quieted. “Come here.” She hesitated at first, but then let me wrap her tight in my arms.

  “God, Dex. I feel like my entire life was a lie. I thought my dad was the bad guy, and my mother was the good guy, but in truth it was the opposite.”

  “I don’t think there was a good guy or a bad guy. I think one person just made a mistake and the other tried to make it so that mistake wouldn’t keep you from seeing all the goodness in that person.”

  She was quiet for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was shaky. “My mom’s a cheater.”

  “Don’t let it define her. People make mistakes, Bianca.”

  She pulled her head back. “Do you see your father as a cheater?”

  “Yes, but that’s different. My father didn’t make one mistake. His entire life was a series of affairs, lies, and cheating. It wasn’t one mistake, it was a thousand lies.”

  “How do I know my mother isn’t the same way? For all I know, she had a thousand affairs, too.”

  “You’ll talk to her. You’re not a kid anymore. She’ll tell you the truth.”

  Bianca had another glass of wine, and we talked for a while longer. Then she asked me to stay the night. She wanted me to hold her, and I wanted nothing more than to give her whatever comfort she needed. I’d stripped out of my clothes but left my boxer briefs on before slipping into bed. Tonight wasn’t about sex, even though I’d be lying if I said her ass didn’t feel spectacular as I molded my body around hers from behind. I kissed her shoulder once as we spooned in the darkness. “Get some sleep. We can talk more in the morning, if you want. Okay?”

  She sighed. “Okay.”

  After a few minutes, her breathing had slowed and I thought she had fallen asleep. Her voice was a whisper when she spoke. “Dex?”

  “What do you need?”

  “Thank you for telling me the truth tonight. I know it couldn’t have been easy to do.”

  “It wasn’t. I hate the thought of c
ausing you any pain, and I knew this would be very difficult for you to hear.”

  “It was. But having you here really helped me get through it.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “I mean it. That was a horrible truth to face, and you made it bearable.”

  I kissed her shoulder again. “I get it now. We can get through anything together as long as we’re honest with each other.”

  I had no idea at the time, but getting through anything wasn’t always possible.

  When the flame from the single flickering candle fell into my line of sight, I turned to him. “Again? Are you serious?”

  Dex snorted then offered a deep, mischievous laugh that I felt through my core. This was becoming a thing. Every day this week was an apparent celebration.

  About ten restaurant employees converged upon our table and began to sing the happy birthday song to me. This might have seemed normal except for two things. Number one, it wasn’t my birthday. Number two, it was the third time this week that Dex had told the staff at different restaurants to bring out a piece of cake in celebration of my turning another year older.

  Dex Truitt had quite the odd sense of humor, which I already knew. But I really appreciated his attempts to try to take my mind off of the situation with my mother. He knew I was putting off confronting her about the affair and the lying.

  Dex and I decided to just enjoy the week without worrying about anything other than just being with each other. After all, what was done in the past was done. Even though I had to address it with my mother, there was no rush because the damage had already been inflicted.

  I nodded toward the staff after they finished singing. “Thank you.” I turned to Dex. “Why do you do keep doing this again?”

  “The birthday cake?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I get to hear that same beautiful, embarrassed laugh over and over again. That alone makes it all worth it.” Dex would always say the same thing once we were fully left alone: “Make a wish and blow.” The way he said blow always sounded suggestive.

  Despite his dirty mind, he continued to hold back on pressuring me to have sex. He was being ultra careful, almost too careful to not make any mistakes with me. We hadn’t slept in the same bed since the night Dex told me about our parents. Even then, he’d been cautious, intentionally holding back. Most evenings, he’d insist on sleeping at his own place after dropping me off.

  Dex’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. “You know this isn’t just your problem, Bianca. It’s our problem. It involves my father just as much as it involves your mother. The blame doesn’t lie with any one person. Take some of the weight off of your shoulders and give it to me. I would take all of the burden, if I could.”

  It was the first moment in my life that I felt like I had a partner in crime. I was starting to realize that, perhaps, Dex might have been here to stay.

  “You’re not going anywhere, are you?”

  “I couldn’t go if I tried, Bianca. Why did you even ask that? Have you been waiting for me go somewhere?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe on some level I have. I think it just hit me that I have you, that you’re not going to leave me.”

  “You’re finally realizing this?”

  “I think I am.” I smiled.

  Dex reached across the table and took my hands in his. “I’ve never felt connected to anyone like I do to you. It feels almost chemical. We haven’t known each other for that long, but in some ways, it seems like a hundred years, doesn’t it?”

  I fully agreed.

  “It does.”

  “And I know this is going to sound strange, but I feel like this was all meant to happen, even the stuff with our parents. As sordid as it all may have been at the time, they had a connection, just like we do. And maybe there’s something to that. Maybe the predisposition toward each other is genetic or something. I don’t know. All I know is that…” He took a deep breath in and seemed to stop himself.

  “What?”

  Dex shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “You were about to say something then stopped.”

  “I was. I was about to say something…but it’s so important that I don’t feel like now is the right time. I don’t want it to be tainted by your anxious state.”

  Hmm.

  “Well, my anxiety isn’t going to pass until I decide to confront my mother.”

  “I think I should be there when you do.”

  “My mother’s birthday is this Sunday. Alexandra wants to have us over to celebrate. My sister really wants to meet you.”

  I’d told Alexandra all about Dex’s identity but hadn’t had a chance to break the news about our mother’s affair yet.

  “Well, then I’ll go with you to the party,” he said.

  “The problem is, I don’t want to make a scene on my mother’s birthday, but I’m not sure I can hold it in, since it will be the first time I will have seen her since finding out.”

  “Why don’t we just take it one moment at a time and see how things go?”

  “Alright.”

  Making a wish, I finally blew out my candle.

  “I just can’t believe this,” Alexandra said. I could hear that she was crying.

  “I know. I’m really sorry to have sprung this on you tonight, but I didn’t want you to be caught off guard on Sunday in case I lose it with Mom.”

  I’d decided to call my sister and tell her the full story about our mother and Dexter Sr. She was just as shocked as I’d been to learn the truth about how the demise of our parents’ marriage really went down.

  “Honestly, it just makes so much sense,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “Why Dad always seemed so sad when he was supposedly the one who’d had the affair.”

  “You know, you’re right. That never did make much sense.”

  Alex sniffled. “I hope it was worth it.”

  “The affair?”

  “Yes. It cost her marriage, cost us everything.”

  “In a weird way, though, it brought me Dex. If it weren’t for my thinking that his father wronged Mom, I might not have ever volunteered so hard for that assignment. It’s like the universe gave me something in return.”

  “You really care about him, don’t you?”

  “We’ve been through a lot, but yes, I’m pretty sure I’m falling in love with him.” It was the first time I’d admitted it aloud, but there was no doubt in my mind how I felt about the man. “In fact, I’m certain of it.”

  “Wow. I guess it’s definitely time for me to meet him, then.”

  “Yes…long overdue. You’ll love him. He’s extremely charismatic and down-to-earth. Mom took to him right away. Of course, she had no clue who his father is.”

  “Well, that’s about to change. The sooner you tell her, the better.”

  “Okay, Sunday it is, then.”

  Dex stood just outside of my bedroom with his arms crossed. With a seductive gaze, he watched me intently as I tied my hair up.

  Wearing a black, button-down dress, you would have thought I was going to a wake instead of my mother’s birthday party. I was definitely not in the mood to celebrate anything, and my nerves were acting up because I knew that once the celebration wound down, I would be talking to her about the affair.

  “You’re extremely tense,” he said, slowly approaching my spot at the mirror.

  “I am.”

  Dex came up behind me and placed his hand on my ass. “Don’t be. I’ve got your back.”

  I pushed my tush into his hand. “That’s not my back.”

  He squeezed. “You have the most amazing ass, but I was being serious.”

  I turned to him and wrapped my arms around his neck before giving him a peck on the lips. “I know.”

  Dex looked into my eyes for a while before he said, “I want to help you relax before we leave.”

  “How are you going to manage that?”

  “It’s time your pussy became acquainted with my mo
uth.”

  I’d started out just teasing her. As she lay back on the bed with her black dress hiked up to her waist, I kissed up and down her thighs and over her stomach. Her breathing was heavy, and it was hard to tell if that was from anticipation or nerves.

  There was only one way to find out and that was to press my tongue against her clit. The moan that escaped her was all the confirmation I needed that she was more than okay with this.

  With each movement of my tongue, I wanted her to know how badly I’d wanted this, how good it felt to finally taste her. My cock was beyond ready to explode as I dove my mouth into her while she moved her hips beneath me. I pulled her thighs toward me to bring her body up closer against my face, and inhaled her.

  It felt so good to give her pleasure that I’d almost forgotten it wasn’t supposed to be about me. This was about getting her to come so hard against my face that she had no choice but to be relaxed tonight. Yet, I was the one with the rock-hard erection and an insatiable need to keep devouring her, to prolong this.

  I’d always loved going down on women, but I could honestly say that never before had I felt like I could come from the act alone. With Bianca, it was different. Giving her intense pleasure, watching her bodily sensations override the thoughts in her mind was truly as arousing as it was fascinating.

  Aside from a thin landing strip, she was mostly shaved. I knew she’d feel the effects of my stubble rubbing against her tomorrow.

  I came up for air long enough only to lick my fingers before sliding them inside her while I continued to eat her out. I loved the feel of her hands gripping my hair for dear life. If that didn’t mean she was enjoying it, I didn’t know what did. When I sensed she was close, I slowed down my pace, only to have her push my head deeper into her. Apparently, I was a fool for thinking I was the one in control. Applying more pressure, I felt her beautiful pulsating pussy climax against my tongue. I kept at it unwaveringly until her hips stopped moving.

  Bianca’s body was limp as she lay back on the bed.