Lil’ Sleazy tossed it into the air making it rain hundred dollar bills. He laughed as Charli hurriedly bent over to pick them up from the floor. She’d never felt as low in her entire life, like a mongrel dog pawing through trash for bits of leftover scrap. After gathering the crumbled bills, she scampered out the door, his derisive laughter following right behind her. He obviously took some kind of sick twisted pleasure in her humiliation. He’d heard from her jealous coworkers that she was too good to do anything but let paying clients look, but he’d always known that for the right amount of money, any woman was nothing but a ho.
Charli raced out of the club after grabbing her bag, barely restraining a stream of tears as the rapper’s rancid smell oozed like lava from her pores. When the door of her Porsche was closed tight and securely locked, the floodgates opened, releasing a torrent of tears. She cried uncontrollably, mourning her life, as it was, as well as the lingering emptiness that had trailed her like a darkened cloud, and for the sense of loss that she’d endured her entire life, even after escaping Miner, Missouri, for the big city.
A car full of rowdy men pulled up to the club already drunk and looking for raunchy adventure. Charli turned on the engine and was ready to gun it out of the driveway before her phone rang. Pulling it from her bag, the LCD told her that the call was from Miner. Not good. As far as she was concerned, no good news ever came from there.
“Hello?’
“Charli?” The voice was a low-frequency beacon reaching out to her from the distant past. “This is your aunt Vioni.”
Charli hadn’t heard from her mother’s sister in over five years, so she was startled by the call. “Hi, Auntie, how are you?” she asked, subconsciously pulling together the slight fabric that clung to her breasts. If Vioni or her mother had any idea what she had just been doing they would both die from toxic shock.
“I’m fine, honey, but your mom is not so good.”
“What’s wrong with mom?”
“She’s had a stroke. You’d better get home quick.”
Charli’s throat was suddenly constricted, causing her to grasp for every breath. The tsunami of tears from earlier had left her emotionally drained, but this newsbreak was taking her to a new low that she never knew existed. The feeling of despair and tenuousness that had reverberated like a soundtrack throughout her life was now amplified tenfold. Though she and her mother had had their differences, she was the only person that Charli had ever felt any connection to; without her there would be nothing.
Four hours later she was on an Air Tran flight from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, headed to St. Louis, stoically ignoring the slouch next to her who seemed determined to engage her in solicitous conversation but couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering south of her face. After landing she took the BART shuttle service another two and a half hours into the heartland of America, riding by fields of corn and soybeans. The two women who shared the large van with her prattled on about the culinary advantages of Velveeta cheese and the new La-Z-Boy recliner one of their husbands had just put on layaway Charli couldn’t wait to get out of the boondocks, even though she hadn’t yet stepped foot on its soil.
She remembered feeling the same way after graduating from high school with the knowledge that if she didn’t escape immediately, in a matter of a few years, she, too, would become a walking, talking zombie with a tiny house full of dull kids and a boring husband who would become fatter and more boring as time went on. She only had to look at her mother for confirmation of these dismal realities.
Teresa was the wife of a small-town preacher, who never had a bad thing to say about anyone, not even her tyrannical, now deceased, husband. It was only when Charli showed relief rather than grief at his funeral that Teresa had any clue that there had been any problem in her predictably Stepford household. When she pressed her daughter for an explanation she heard the sad and pitiful story of a frightened little girl who was too terrified to disappoint or confront the man who had snuck into her room in the middle of the night to play hide-and-seek for years, yet was revered by everyone in the community. The only thing that Teresa said was that they should pray for his soul. Charli would much rather have spit on his grave instead.
“Where is she?” Charli demanded after storming into the hospital where her aunt sat waiting.
“She’s down the hall, but I have to warn you that it doesn’t look good. The doctors don’t expect for her to hang on much longer.”
A nugget-sized knot formed in Charli’s throat. She’d honestly never considered the day when her mother wouldn’t be there, no matter the distance between them. “Is she conscious?”
“She’s in and out. When she is conscious she keeps asking for you, so I’m glad you made it here in time.”
She took Charli’s hand and led her to an intensive care room at the end of the hall. When they walked in Charli’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of her mother. She looked like a demented experiment in a mad scientist’s lab. Her sunken face was twisted and her mouth left partially open. A stream of drool escaped one side and her eyes seemed to be staring at something only she could see.
“Mom? Mom, can you hear me?” Charli pleaded when she finally moved past the shock of seeing this grotesque parody of her mother. For the second time in eight hours tears streamed down her face.
Slowly, Teresa’s glassy eyes struggled to focus on the here and now, rather than that which lay somewhere beyond the physical world.
“Mom, it’s me, Charli,” she pleaded.
Teresa’s eyes flickered in recognition. “A, Aaarrli…” The words barely escaped her twisted mouth, which now refused to form hard consonants.
“I’m here, Mom. Everything’s going to be okay.”
She tried to shake her head from side to side, denying Charli’s words.
“It will,” Charli insisted, more to herself than to her mother. Looking at the remnants of the woman she’d always loved, but not understood, she knew that nothing would ever be okay again.
“Lisssten,” her mother said, then fell quiet, as if gathering her waning strength to continue. Her breath was labored, each one harder than the one that came before it.
“Mom, you need to rest. I’ll be right here.”
Teresa grabbed Charli’s wrist with a surprising amount of her remaining strength. “Aarli… must know…”
“Rest, Mom,” Charli insisted. She was alarmed by the tormented distress that had fallen on her mother’s contorted face.
“Ou ust owe… ur… adopted …”
Charli’s world came to a complete stop, as she struggled to comprehend that last word which was spoken. She was dumbstruck. No words could convey the overwhelming shock she felt, while at the same time there was a teasing sense of relief. An explanation was now provided for the strange feelings of detachment that had always plagued her odd relationship with her mother, and perhaps a feeble explanation for how her father could have done the vile things to her that he had.
She sank into the chair at her mother’s bedside. Thoughts, both old and new, swirled around her. Charli was confused by unhinged reality, and was desperate to reconcile the incomplete puzzle of her life.
Teresa’s admission, the unburdening of a decades-old secret, seemed to suck the remaining air from her deflating soul. “Ore…,” she tried to say. She was now gasping for breath, as her eyes fluttered in their weak and vain attempt to stay open and focused.
“Ore?”
In a valiant effort she said, “More…”
“What is it?” Charli asked, though she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know. What more could there possibly be? Hadn’t she suffered enough?
The last of Teresa’s deathbed confession was but a gasp of breath.
Whatever the last secret was, she took it with her all the way to the grave.
Chapter 12
“If there is anything at all that Brandon and I can do to help, please don’t hesitate to call. You know we’ll be here for you,” Gillian said
.
“I know.” Of that fact, Reese was sure. Following the car accident Gillian took Reese into her home, saw to her every need, hired a private nurse who traveled with them from L.A. to New York, where she was living at the time, and then stayed for a month to make sure that Reese was okay. Even though Reese had always been closer to Paulette, and Gillian to Lauren, there was still a strong bond that made a crisis for one a crisis for all.
Even through the thorniness of their petty jealousies their relationships survived. They were friends and sometimes fauxs but they always came together when it mattered.
“It’s not as if you don’t have your own problems, with this Oscar business and especially with the press introducing the world to your new boyfriend,” Reese noted. Even after spending only two hours at Gillian’s she could feel the tension throughout the house. Who knew that being a famous actress could be stressful?
“New boyfriend? What are you talking about?” Gillian asked.
“You know, the Italian Stallion guy.” Hanging out at the hospital with Rowe gave her plenty of time to catch up on the scandal sheets and entertainment magazines. She’d probably read them all. “Hey, I understand the need to sometimes get a little extra. At least, I used to. Lately, I haven’t had any, so I can’t even imagine extra.”
“Reese, don’t believe everything you read. I don’t know that guy. I had never met him before and haven’t seen him since.”
“You could have gotten his number for me,” Reese teased. It felt good to at least for a few minutes think of something other than her and Rowe’s dire situation.
“Trust me, getting his number was the last thing on my mind.”
“How are things with you and Brandon?” Reese sensed a tension between them that she’d never felt before.
“Okay, I guess. You know this whole Oscar business is taxing, especially with my mom being here, and of course the tabloids aren’t helping very much at all. But, hey, my problems are minuscule compared to what you’re facing.”
“I just had my bone marrow donor testing yesterday. I’m just praying there are enough markers so that I can be Rowe’s donor.”
“If not, you’ve got Chris as a backup.” When Reese didn’t respond, Gillian gave her “the look” and asked, “He has been tested, right?”
“Not yet,” she answered sheepishly.
“What do you mean not yet? He’s Rowe’s father! You have to test him. What could you be thinking?”
“What if he’s not Rowe’s father?” Reese asked quietly, battling back an army of fear and regret. She’d never admitted the possibility that Rowe wasn’t Chris’s son to anyone, not even herself. Instead, she’d lived blissfully in denial; choosing to believe the fairy tale that her husband had indeed fathered her child.
Gillian was shocked. “Are you telling me that Rowe is not Chris’s father?”
“I’m saying there’s a possibility that he isn’t.” She deeply regretted the stupid onetime liaison after a night of too many glasses of Champagne. Even in her inebriated state, she had remembered to demand a condom, but, as luck would have it, the damn thing broke. A month later she learned that she was pregnant and decided not to even entertain the idea that it might not be Chris’s baby.
“Reese, he’s gotta be tested!”
“What if he finds out that Rowe isn’t his son? Those hefty monthly checks would stop quicker than he could speed dial his lawyer.”
“Listen to me, Reese,” Gillian implored, holding Reese by both shoulders, eye to eye. “You have got to put your son’s life ahead of money. It’s that simple.” For someone who grew up with a mother who sometimes didn’t, the choice was crystal clear to Gillian.
Tears burned the inside of Reese’s lids, finally flowing over and down her cheeks. “I know,” she said, quietly. “I know. I’m just praying that I’m a match and that we won’t even have to go down that road.”
“But what if you’re not?”
“I’ll say a prayer and have Chris take the test.”
“What have you told him so far?”
“I gave him the diagnosis but didn’t tell him the complete severity of it. He knows that Rowe is scheduled for a round of chemo tomorrow, but he doesn’t know that a bone marrow transplant is imminent, and hopefully, by the time he finds out, I can also tell him that I’m a match and will be the donor.”
“I pray that you are right,” Gillian said, holding Reese’s hands in hers.
“So do I,” Reese said, “so do I.”
Chapter 13
“I’ll see you later,” Mildred said to her husband, who sat in the wood paneled library beside a roaring fire with his nose buried in the Wall Street Journal. “I’m going shopping.”
He barely acknowledged her presence, simply nodding his head in response.
All the better, she thought, as she made her escape on a pair of snakeskin Jimmy Choos. The house could burn down around them, as long as he had a balloon of cognac, a cigar, and his stockbroker on speed dial, nothing else would matter. Theirs had long been more of a leveraged merger than a loving marriage, but since their Lauren left the country and Paulette died, their distant union was more fragile than ever. Their only son, Gregory, had run out of the closet at age twenty-one, escaping Mildred’s clutches, and never looked back. He hadn’t been home from Europe in over ten years, not even for his grandmother’s or Paulette’s funerals.
Mildred soldiered on, convinced that her wayward children would eventually see the light. As for her husband, their arrangement suited her just fine. She climbed into the lush Mercedes CL600 and tooled down their long, winding, and perfectly manicured driveway, past the staff of gardeners who tended the grounds even in the middle of winter. It would be a shame to have an errant leaf linger too long anywhere on the fifteen acres of prime Westchester real estate that the Baines family called home.
Bach oozed out of the custom speakers as she eased down the Cross Country Parkway. Forty minutes later she was pulling up to the valet at the Hudson on Fifty-eighth Street and Ninth Avenue. She climbed out looking more svelte than sixty years would suggest. Mildred was the ultimate cougar, known to turn the heads of men half her age. A lifetime of private trainers, weekly facials, and an unlimited budget could do that for a woman. Pleased with the appreciative glance from the valet, she smiled, though her large Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses hid the twinkle in her eyes.
Heading up the neon lit escalator and into the dark, cavernous lobby, she turned left and headed straight for the private elevators. Once on the twentieth floor, she took a right toward the end of the hallway, going to the corner suite. She felt a tingling sensation at the mere thought of what lay inside of it.
Three short raps on the door, and it magically opened. Her host remained behind it, careful not to be seen by anyone who might happen to be passing by at the same time as their rendezvous. Mildred strolled into the invitingly appointed suite and could smell the essence of him even before seeing or feeling his presence. Before she removed her glasses or sat her Birkin bag down, he pulled her into a passionately rough embrace.
“I guess that means you’ve missed me?” she said when they finally pulled apart.
“No, this means I’ve missed you,” he answered, taking her hand and placing it over the ten inches of muscle that had been known to bring Mildred to her knees.
“Mmmmmmm,” she moaned in anticipation of what was to come, literally. “I think I need to check on my friend.”
She dropped her cashmere car coat onto the sofa before beginning to slowly unbutton her silk blouse. As she revealed more and more of her cleavage, her thickly lashed eyes never left his. He was still the most deliciously handsome man she’d ever seen.
Mildred was not a serial adulteress; in fact, this was her first and only affair. She’d had many opportunities, but sex had never been very high on her list of needs. Two sluts—Paulette and her mother—in the family were certainly enough. But there was something about this man—no matter how wicked their relationship was
—that reminded her that she was a woman in a way that her husband never had. Having always gotten what she wanted her entire life, she saw no reason to deny herself now.
Mildred let her blouse slide to the floor. After cupping her lace-encased breasts, her hands continued southward, pushing aside her Herve Leger skirt, before shimmying out of it. She stepped toward him wearing only cream-colored French lingerie and sexy black pumps. Unlike the coquettish and immature girls that he probably bedded regularly, she was a woman who was in full command of her powers.
Mildred walked toward him slowly, kissed him deeply, and then slid to the floor, where the real show began. She opened his robe to discover that he was already completely naked beneath it, giving her complete access. She took him in her hands and proceeded to rub his hot flesh all over her face, deeply inhaling his strong masculine scent. Starting underneath, she lovingly bathed his length, and then warmed his balls in her mouth, while her tongue teased and her teeth lightly grazed. Slurping and sucking followed as she consumed him, desperately wanting to swallow every inch. He moaned and grabbed fists full of her hair, desperate to bury himself deep down her throat.
When she felt the throbbing and pulsating she stood up and kissed him deeply, wanting to make sure that he tasted himself, just as she had. He abruptly pushed her away, turned her around, and bent her over the sofa, thrusting himself into her with deep, urgent strokes. There was nothing loving about the way he took her, nor was there anything loving about how she gave it back; for both, it was sheer unadulterated selfish passion that drove them, all the way to orgasm.
Later, after they’d finally made their way into bed, she sighed. “You were absolutely fabulous.”
He smiled to himself remembering what a selfish lover he’d been with most of his other conquests, but only because he didn’t have to do anything to please them, just being there was generally enough. But Mildred was another story all together. She was not the kind of woman who’d settle for anything but the best, and that’s what he gave her.
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