by K T Grant
Chapter Two
As the water in the shower ran cold, I sat on the wet linoleum, a shivering mess. My hair and makeup that had taken hours to get right was ruined. But I hadn’t shelled out a penny for it. Bianca had footed the entire bill for it, as well as the dress, which she’d picked out for the occasion. A hoarse giggle, and then a sob erupted from my throat. I was her paid whore. Or was I her mistress?
That must have been why she seemed so anxious and needy at the ball. Having time together in some janitor’s closet, which smelled of disinfectant and bleach, was so out of the ordinary. I closed my eyes, unable to stop the tears falling down my cheeks as I remembered what we did and how wonderful it felt. Was that a good-bye? If she thought I would stand by and—
“Stop it!” I slammed my palm on the tile wall. A sharp pain ran up my arm.
The water pressure lessened. A sign for me to leave the waterlogged box I had been in for a good hour. I would climb into bed, and try to find comfort in sleep.
I dried off, only looking at my reflection in the mirror above the sink when I finished taking off the rest of my makeup. My eyes were bloodshot and my face pale, almost sickly, as if I had some sort of flu. I fisted my hand, wanting to punch the mirror. Instead, I flattened my palms on the sink and hung my head to my chest, taking deep breaths as a tear dripped off the edge of my nose.
Finally, when I had better control of my emotions, I entered my bedroom and kicked at the gown lying in a wrinkled heap at the foot of the bed. My necklace lay next to it, taunting me to set it back on my neck. Ignoring the urge to scratch away the prickling sensation creeping around my throat, I combed through my hair with my fingers and tucked it behind my ears. The bottoms of my feet, still damp from the shower, left marks on the hardwood floor as I walked down the short hall to the kitchen. The wind rattled the windows. I hugged my chest watching the tree outside my building as its branches shook from the powerful force. I spotted the bottle of pink champagne Bianca and I had shared before we went to the ball. Before the night ended, I would finish off the bottle. I hoped I would get drunk enough to sleep.
I didn’t want to cry myself to sleep.
Tears welled in my eyes again, and I cursed. I opened the bottle and took a huge gulp, not caring that some missed my mouth and dribbled down my chin. I swiped at it with the back of my hand and took another swig.
My doorbell rang and a loud knock vibrated the door.
I shuffled over to glance out the peephole. Bianca stood there, bundled in her coat, blowing into her hands.
Hell would freeze over before I let her enter my apartment.
She rang the bell again and then said my name. I didn’t answer. I raised the bottle to my mouth and waited for her to leave.
The lock turned and the door opened. Silly me. She had a key to my place and visited whenever she wanted. After tonight, that would stop.
“Get out, Bianca,” I said around the bottle as I took another good chug.
She slid the key into her coat pocket and then had the gall to take off her coat and hang it on the rack she’d given me for Christmas one year. I’d never wanted a coatrack, especially one that cost over five hundred dollars. But I felt guilty refusing her gifts. I would no longer feel any guilt over hurting her feelings. Tit for tat.
“We need to talk. Put down the bottle.” She reached for the champagne.
I stepped back, clutching the bottle to my chest. “What do we need to talk about? How you lied to me and used me?” I sniffed and wiped my nose, staring anywhere but at her.
“I never lied to you. I was honest from the start of our—”
“Honest? How?” I jabbed my finger at her face. “You told me nothing was going on between you and Dale!” You told me once or twice you loved me, too.
“He understands my situation and what you and I have together. He’s fine with it.” She took a step toward me.
I lowered the bottle and stared at her, stupefied. “What does he know about us exactly?”
She tilted her head slightly to the right, gazing at me with her beautiful eyes. “He knows you’re very special to me and that you give me what he can’t.”
“You’ve been fucking us at the same time,” I whispered, covering my mouth. My stomach twisted and acid burned my chest and throat.
Her eyes slitted, and her lips fell into a frown. She hated when I cursed, claimed it showed my Pennsylvania blue collar roots. “He and I have only been…together since last year. Most of my free time is with you, and only you can give me—”
“Give you what? Good old Dale can’t give you a good tongue fucking like I can?” My voice came out as a shrill whistle, and I clutched my throbbing head. I wanted to forget the last few hours had ever happened.
Bianca didn’t come to me. She lifted a shaky hand to her forehead and then sat on the loveseat next to the couch. She stared at the floor and crossed her ankles. “You have every right to be angry with me, but I’ve been backed into a corner. My parents, more specifically my mother, has been after me to get married since I’m the last of her children to do so and I’m going to be thirty soon. I adore Dale, but only as a friend. What I have with you doesn’t even come close to what I have with him. He’s the only one who knows about us and hasn’t judged.” She stared up at me, eyes glossy with tears. “I can’t come out to my family. If I do, they’ll disown me, and I may ruin Daddy’s chances at the White House. Dale has big political aspirations also, and marrying me can help him achieve them.”
“What do I get out of your partnership with him?” I slammed the bottle on the counter, enjoying her flinch. “A raise from your brother, my boss? Or maybe I won’t have to work and can be your toy on the side like I’ve been for the last decade?”
She shot up and stomped toward me. I backed up, bumping my hip against the edge of the kitchen counter. She reached me before I could tell her to stay away, taking me by my arms. Fat tears now fell down her cheeks. I had never seen her cry so much. I started crying again.
She whispered my name and wrapped her arms around me. I hid my face in the middle of her chest and cried harder. Her head dropped on mine and she rocked me back and forth, saying how sorry she was and how much she loved me.
“If you loved me, you wouldn’t hurt me like this. I feel like I’m dying inside.” I dug my fingers in the sides of her waist, gripping her tight.
“Remember the first time we were together and I told you we had to keep us a secret, and you said you were fine with it?”
I remembered that day like it was yesterday. After months of tiptoeing around our feelings, we were finally honest with one another after we came back from the Thanksgiving holiday, freshman year. That weekend, we stayed in our dorm room, not even leaving for meals as we shared our bodies and what I thought were our hearts. She made me promise not to tell anyone. Because I wanted her so badly, I made that promise. Years later, it still haunted me.
“But things have changed. The world we live in now is different. People are more accepting. Your father is even an advocate for gay rights.” I hoped reason would work. Her parents may be traditional Republicans, but in all the years I’d known them, as well as her older brothers, they had been supportive of equal rights for most groups. I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t accept Bianca if she told them she was gay.
“No parent wants their children to be gay.” She lifted my face and held my cheeks. “Mother has said that to me many times.”
“What? When?” I asked, my head spinning.
“I don’t want to talk about my parents and their beliefs. They don’t belong here with us now.” She ran her fingers across my face. “How can I make things right between us, so we can go back to what we once had?”
“There’s nothing you can do, unless you break off your engagement and tell your family about us. I’m sick of hiding. It’s gone on for too long.” I thrust her back. “Maybe it’s for the best if we end—”
“No!” She fell to her knees, clutching my waist.
I moved back, but her grip was too strong. I end up stumbling and falling to the floor. She wrapped herself around me and laid her head in my lap. She sobbed and hiccupped, her breathing stilted, which worried me because she had asthma that flared if she became too upset or emotional.
“Calm down. You’ll make yourself sick.” I rubbed her head. If she didn’t calm down, she would have an attack and then I might have to call 911. I’d called before, and it scared me to death, knowing she couldn’t breathe and had almost died.
“Don’t leave me.” She lifted her head, her eyelashes wet with tears, but her face was only slightly red and not splotchy or wan as mine probably was. She shuddered and clutched my knees, staring at me for confirmation that I wouldn’t reject her.
Sighing, I dropped my head toward her. What else could I do? She wouldn’t leave otherwise. She definitely wouldn’t let me call anyone to help her home, not even Dale.
“Thank you.” She rested her forehead on mine and played with my hair. I shut my eyes and let her touch relax me into a state of compliance.
“I don’t say I love you enough but I do.” She rubbed her mouth over mine, her tongue flicking lightly.
I inhaled, knowing what would come next. If I refused, would she break down in tears again?
“I know.” I set my palm over her heart. It drummed a rapid beat under my hand.
“Let me make it up to you.” She pulled me up under my elbows until we both stood.
She led me to my bedroom where she laid me on the bed. She undressed until she was naked in the moonlight and asked for my forgiveness with each kiss and caress. I didn’t speak the entire time, going so far as to bite my bottom lip to stop screaming her name as she kissed and licked between my thighs. I drifted off to sleep with her words of selfish love in my ears.
A buzzing drew me out of my dreamless slumber. I opened one eye, spotting my cell vibrating. Blinking, I brought the room into better focus. The body spooning me shifted.
I peered over my shoulder at Bianca who rolled to her back. She dropped an arm over her face and kicked her leg out, hitting my thigh. She was naked, uncovered by the sheet and blanket that had been knocked to the floor during the night. I couldn’t remember when I fell asleep, but it must have been pretty late. I still felt tired and more than ready to fall back into dreamland.
But my full bladder and the cramp lodged in my lower back wouldn’t let me catch some extra zzz’s. I didn’t want to wake Bianca. I wasn’t ready to face her or consider the way she had loved me last night, which she thought was a good enough apology for her betrayal.
My rage grew, and I slowly sat up, wincing. My back was big ball of tightness and tension. That happened when I arched my back, usually when Bianca and I made love—scratch that—had sex. I was usually under her while she made me climax. If only she was as generous with her truthfulness and sincerity as she was in making me orgasm, then my life would be much better than it currently was.
I grabbed my phone and shuffled to the bathroom to relieve my bladder and take some pain reliever. I stopped and grimaced at my reflection in the mirror. My hair was a tangled, knotted mess, and my throat covered in hives, mixed with black and blues. I checked my inner thighs that had also been worked over by Bianca’s fingers and mouth then hobbled to the toilet and sat down. Aunt Lorraine had called just now. We usually talked on Saturdays, and Grandma would join the phone call if she wasn’t napping.
Aunt Lorraine had left a quick message, telling me to call her as soon as possible. She sounded terse and stressed, very unlike her. I finished in the bathroom and grabbed my robe off the door. Pulling it on, I went to the living room to call my aunt back on her house line.
She picked up after the second ring. “Cassie?”
“Hi, Aunt Lorraine. You’re calling a day early. What’s up?” I asked, keeping my voice light.
“I hoped to catch you before you left for work. Are you on your way out?”
I sat down on the couch and noticed the time was almost ten. “I took off from work today, remember? Last night was Governor Durand’s ball.”
“I bet it was a nice affair,” she said, with some longing in her voice.
I’d wanted to invite Aunt Lorraine and Grandma, but with Grandma on oxygen from her emphysema after five decades of smoking, she couldn’t get around that much. The trip from Delpoint to Boston would have been too much for her, and Aunt Lorraine wouldn’t leave Grandma to fend for herself.
“It was. I’ll email you a picture of me in my dress. I wore a ball gown.”
Aunt Lorraine’s laugh sounded empty and dry. “It must have cost a pretty penny.”
Something wasn’t right, based on her tone of voice, even though she usually teased me when I named dropped expensive brands she would never wear. “Why do I have a feeling this isn’t your typical weekly social call?”
“It isn’t.” She exhaled a long breath. “Your grandmother has been in the hospital since Monday.”
“What happened? Why are you telling me this just now?” I asked, growing angry and upset she’d waited five days to tell me.
“Mom and I didn’t want to make a big deal. She was in the hospital a few times last year because of breathing trouble. I thought this was just another precaution, but I was wrong. It’s serious this time.”
“Serious?” A wave of despair hit me low in my gut. I bit my thumb nail to stop whimpering.
“The doctors think she won’t last the year. She probably has until the summer.”
Things had been bad with Grandma’s health, but I didn’t think it was this dire. I’d dealt with death before. First, when my parents died in a car accident when I was twelve and then when I lost my grandpa two years later. My father’s parents had died a few years after I was born.
“Oh Lord.” I dropped my head into my palm. “What can I do?”
“Come home to see your grandma before she—” Aunt Lorraine released another shaky breath.
Home. I had been back to Delpoint a handful of times over the last decade, mainly for Christmas, and only for a few days. The last time I was there for the long term was the summer going into my sophomore year of college when I cut ties with everyone in the town, with the exception of Grandma and Aunt Lorraine. Purely a selfish move on my part because of spending all my time with Bianca.
Speaking of Bianca, she said my name over my shoulder. She wore my sleep shirt, looking bedraggled for once. She rarely let me see her free of makeup or with messy hair. I could tell by the healthy glow on her cheeks she’d washed her face.
Perhaps a stay at Delpoint was exactly what I needed. It would give me time away to think about Bianca without her close enough to influence me.
She sat down next to me, and I mouthed my aunt’s name. She nodded and shifted into the corner of the couch, pulling her legs under her as she twined her hair around her finger, pouting. If she thought I would kiss her good morning, she was in for an unpleasant surprise. We always kissed each other first thing when we saw one another.
“I’ll come and stay until Grandma is comfortable. I have a lot of vacation time, at least a month’s worth. After I get off the phone with you, I’ll call my boss. He’ll understand.”
“I was afraid you would say no.” Aunt Lorraine sniffed. “Thank you.”
Bianca tapped the side of my leg with her toes and shot me a questioning look.
“Let me call him now. I’ll call you back to tell you when I’m coming.”
“Sounds good. Your grandma will be so happy to see you. We missed you this Christmas.”
Guilt ate away at me. I hadn’t visited for the holidays this year because of Bianca’s father’s gubernatorial race. She had wanted me to stay close by. I gave in, especially after she promised to be with me on New Year’s Eve, just the two of us at some fancy hotel in the city. That day, leading into the night, had been a dream. I never thought everything would come crashing down into a nightmare less than a month later.
“I can’t wait to see you both.
I’ll call you later.” I ended the call and dropped the phone on my lap.
“Something happened with your grandmother?” Bianca stroked the side of my face.
“She’s not doing well. I need to go home and see her,” I said, jerking my head away from Bianca’s roaming hand.
She tucked my hair behind my ear. “How much time does she have?”
“Less than a year, maybe six months if we’re lucky.” I cleared my scratchy throat and rose. “I need to call your brother and request time off—”
She seized my wrist to halt my movements. “Why don’t you wait to hear back from your aunt about your grandmother’s prognosis? There have been false alarms before. This may be one of them.”
“Are you serious? My grandma is dying. I have to see her before it’s too late.” I pulled back my arm and glared at her. “It’s bad enough I didn’t see her at Christmas. I can’t believe you talked me out of it.”
She drew me toward her and lifted my hand to her face, kissing the back of it. “You said you were too tired to drive there for only a few days after the extra hours you put in at work and volunteering for Daddy’s campaign.” She lowered my hand to her chest. “You didn’t complain when you spent Christmas and New Year’s Eve together.”
She was right. I could have said no and gone home, but it would have led to a nasty argument between us. Last night had been a perfect example of how bad it could get when Bianca didn’t get her way. I constantly went along with whatever she wanted without complained. That was how she wrangled me to help her father with his campaign and vote Republican even though I was a Democrat.
I wouldn’t cave in to her cajoling or demands. I needed time away from her and to see the two people who meant the world to me.
I cupped her breast with my palm. She moaned softly, and I claimed her mouth in a moist kiss. When she curled her arms around me, I slid my hands under her shirt and stroked her inner thighs. I would be the one to cajole this time, not her.
“I’ll be gone for a week or two at the most,” I told my lie against the lips that had always tempted me. They were just as sweet as I remembered, but my taste for them had soured because of her deceit. I would make her believe I forgave her and that we would go on as we had.
