by Julia Kent
“Yes, Ian. Yes.”
Turning to the bedside table, he finds a condom and does the necessary with it, moving back for a kiss, my legs falling open with eager anticipation. I want him in me, my legs around him, our bodies joined so I can know him better.
And be known.
Me. The real me. Not the me I had to construct for reasons I still don't understand.
Oh, no.
This me.
The me who meets him in the middle and who gives as much as she gets.
As he enters me, a wholly new sensation, emotional and physical all at once, grips my heart, my breasts, my mouth–every piece of me that tingles and every part of me that feels. He moves inside me, thrusting slowly, our mouths joined as he goes deeper, then impossibly further, my body opening for him, heart along for the ride.
As his strokes quicken, I feel the long muscles of his shoulders, his biceps tight as he braces himself on his arms. We're swimming in each other's embrace, then moving like athletes, choreographers, in graceful synchronicity as we crest.
His climax comes first, mine finding a wave to ride on, brought forth by the power of his reaction, Ian's groan in my ear turning me on with white hot heat. Our bodies move together in a first for me, the simultaneous orgasm no longer the myth I derided, my words dissolving as sensation takes over and this is all I am.
Naked with Ian, coming and coming, being well sated.
And deeply wanted.
I have no idea how much time passes before I open my eyes and find him stroking my hair, one of my knees up over his thigh, the evening light turning to a sliver through a slit in the curtains.
“Hastings?”
“Mmmm?”
“You were worth flying half a world to see.”
“I know.”
The rumble of laughter from his chest makes me grin.
“Ian?”
“Yeah?”
“I didn't know two people could be like this.”
“Neither did I.”
“You feel it, too?”
“Yes.”
“What do we do now?”
“More of it.”
“Oh. Okay.”
And so we do.
19
I need you, Hastings.
The words make me smile, Ian's text a lovely mid-day break from–
Hold on.
This text isn't from Ian.
It's from Burke.
“What the hell?” I squeal, dropping the old wooden paddle I'm using to stir the boiling milk, the big drum steaming as the glowing embers from the carefully built wood fire burn like witnesses. I'm in Mom and Dad's backyard, making a small, experimental batch of feta, four gallons of milk ready for rennet.
My phone is a snake, ready to strike, the bite venomous.
Burke is finally talking to me.
And these are his first words?
New phone who dis, I type back, hitting send before I can change my mind.
I'm sure it's being tapped, but I don't care. Plus, no one can trace me. I need help, Hastings. Please, he replies, leaving me speechless, the glass screen reflecting my dropped jaw.
What could I possibly do to help you, Burke? I write back, the high-pitched ringing in my head getting louder. You stole every resource from me.
“Including my pride, you asshole,” I say aloud, needing the solidity of words not double-thumbed on a screen.
I can explain everything, are the next words he types out, like he's following a worksheet from The Narcissistic Sociopath's Guide to Gaslighting Your Wife and Other Ways to Kill Time.
Except I'm not his wife.
Never was.
You could have explained. Had plenty of time. Why didn't you?
I would have, but you told the Feds everything and I had to scramble. You slowed me down.
GFY, I reply, using an acronym he knows all too well.
Because he taught it to me.
Ring!
I look down. Unknown Caller.
My heart is beating like all four of Burke's wives are living in my chest, working on a jailbreak.
I kill the call.
Within seconds, the house phone rings. Of course, he's calling my parents' phone.
Of course.
“Don't answer that!” I scream, racing through the slider, thumping across the carpeted floor like I'm fifteen again and waiting for a guy I like to call me. Mom looks at me like I'm crazy as I whiz past her, desperate to get to the phone before she does.
“Hastings, what is going on?”
In my hurry, I grab the phone and press End.
Hah.
“Um, nothing,” I say. “Aggressive telemarketer.”
“That makes no sense.”
My phone is in my hand. It rings again.
She looks at the screen.
“Unknown Caller. These telemarketers have all kinds of ways to mask–”
“It's Burke,” I blurt out.
“What?”
“Burke. He's texting and calling.”
“After all this time?”
I nod.
The house phone rings again.
She reddens. Guess I know where I got my blushing. “That slimy little douchebag.”
“Mom!”
“Answer it! Let's call the police.”
“No. The police aren't the right people. We need–”
The ringing is driving me crazy. It alternates between the two phones, my cell buzzing, too, with a barrage of texts.
Why now?
“Honey, answer the phone. Consider this an information gathering session,” she says calmly, over the cacophony. “I'm texting Perky right now. We'll get Parker on this.”
“What does a congressman from Texas have to do with Burke?”
“He's all we've got. It's not like Karen Minsky can help with international financial crime,” Mom says, poking her phone screen like she's killing ants. “There. Now answer the damned phone, Hastings!”
I do. And not just because Mom's cursing makes the urgency feel even greater.
And then I just... breathe.
“Hastings?” Burke snaps, his voice triggering eight months' worth of resentment in me.
Who am I kidding?
Eight years' worth.
“Who else would this be?” I reply, matching his tone.
“What's wrong with you? Why didn't you say something when you answered?”
Silence.
I give him more of what bothered him. The worst thing you can do to a sociopathic narcissist is to ignore them, right?
“I don't–I don't have time for this,” he says, exhaling a puff of irritated breath. My mind's eye takes what he's saying over the phone, the sounds he makes, the tone he uses, and creates a FaceTime of him in my imagination. I know him so well, I can track his facial expressions. Imagine what he'll do next. My shoulders hunch in anticipation of how he'll–
Wait.
No.
NO!
I don't have to hold my breath and be worried about pleasing him. Calming him. Helping him.
He subtracted himself from my emotional equation a long time ago.
He should be begging me.
“If you don't have time for this, then goodbye.”
I hang up on him.
Heart racing, I stare at the phone as Mom walks back in.
“Parker's texting with me. Says you should keep Burke on the line for as long as possible.”
My phone buzzes three times in a row, three texts.
WTF? says Burke's.
Agents will be over shortly, says Parker's.
On my way, Ian's says.
“Ian? How would Ian know about Burke's call?” I mutter. “Why is he texting me?”
“Parker must have told him,” Mom suggests.
“Right. Makes sense.”
Ring!
“Keep him on the line this time. Draw it out!” Mom says, miming taffy with her fingers.
I accept the call.
> “Ha ha, very funny, Hastings,” Burke says with a carefully calibrated self-deprecating chuckle. “I deserved that. Bad boy. Whap me on the nose with a newspaper. And I'm sorry. I really am.”
His attempt to imitate a jocular person with an actual conscience is suddenly clinical. I can view him as a specimen, noting behaviors, putting them in context, rather than reacting to them.
“You lied to me, Burke.” Guys like him love to get away with something.
“It was a lie of omission.”
“Thank you for apologizing. Now what do you want?”
“Want? Can't I just call to reconnect?”
No.
I want so badly to say no.
But I can't.
“Of course. I've been really worried about you,” I lie, knowing the longer I draw this out, the more info the Feds can get, and if they can track his location, they can catch the son of a bitch. Nothing about my life would materially change if Burke were caught, tried, convicted, and imprisoned. The damage to me has been done.
But revenge is the flip side of justice.
And I can fake it with the best of them if it means Burke gets what he deserves.
As long as I use a steel wool pad and exfoliant cream by the bucket to take a shower after this call.
“Thank you. I heard you turned on me, though.”
“Have they caught you yet?” I ask with a laugh. “I convinced them they got the real info. Just enough to send them on a few wild goose chases.”
“That's my girl,” he says, buttering me up. “You always were smarter than you looked.”
Mom is at the front door, quietly letting someone in. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ian, followed by a woman in a dark pantsuit, blonde hair in a bun, and a guy in a similar dark suit, a little shorter than she is, tight curls of salt and pepper against his scalp.
Feds.
Ian's hand goes to my shoulder in a gesture of comfort, while the two agents flash badges, the guy frowning as he spins his wrist in a gesture of “keep him going.”
“I try. Never as smart as you, Burke. You know there's a term for being attracted to guys like you?” I croon into the phone. Ian's entire body tenses.
“Yeah? What's that?”
Sucker, I want to say.
“Sapiosexual,” I drawl instead. “It means when someone is sexually aroused by intelligence.”
He laughs. “Then you must have been horny alllllll the time around me, Hastings.”
A tinny laugh comes out of me, suddenly full and as fakely real as can be.
Everyone seems to disappear for me, Ian, Mom, and the agents, too. I turn away, Ian's hand falling off my shoulder.
“Two more minutes,” the female agent whispers, pulling out a laptop, the keys quiet on a silicone board.
“Of course,” I lie to Burke. “I always knew you had some higher plan. You didn't just disappear on me and leave me holding the bag like the Feds said. I knew you would come back to me when the time was right.” My mouth fills with a bitter, sick taste. I hold down my gag reflex, but the words come out like caramel. “And now here you are.”
“Here I am. And I forgive you.”
“You–you do?”
Real emotion doesn't matter. I have to suppress my actual reaction and override it with the obsequious response that makes Burke happiest.
“I do. You really fucked up talking to the Feds, though. Should have kept your mouth shut. You were never good about that, though. Always a talker. Sure, it helped grease the wheels. We're a good team, Hastings. You schmooze the crowd and I close the deals.”
“Right. We're a good team. So why don't you come home? Or I could come to you.”
“How? Didn't they seize your passport?”
Ian takes a piece of paper and scribbles, Be careful. He must have someone on the inside feeding him info.
“They did. But you know there are ways around that,” I say, playing along, nodding at Ian. “Maybe I could use one of those services where you get one from another country.”
“Those are for people who don't know what they're doing.” A bird call in the background, loud and sharp, interrupts the call, the sound fading but still audible. The second it happens, the male agent perks up, typing furiously on his laptop.
“Oh. Okay,” I say in a breathy, stupid voice.
“Listen–I need you to make up for what you did to me.”
“How?”
“I'll work on getting you here, Hastings. I will. But it'll take time and money.”
Here we go. The real reason he called.
One of the agents shoves a note at me:
He routed the call through the darknet. We can't trace it. Get as much info as you can.
I nod.
“Money? I–I have a little, but–”
“I know you're dating Ian McCrory. He's your new sugar daddy. Smart cover.”
“Dating?” Ian's eyes catch mine. “No, I just work for him,” I lie.
“The guy's a snake. Don't trust him. But you can use him.”
“Use him? How?”
“Get some money from him. Give him a sob story. Create some fake company and get him to invest.”
Ian's eyes go dark. If he could murder my phone, he would.
“How can I do that? I just work for him. I needed money after you left.”
“You wouldn't have needed money if you'd handled the Feds right. And your mistakes led me to this point. You owe me, Hastings. I need you to wire me $700,000.”
I choke, the cough coming on involuntarily. “How much?”
“Just seven hundred. It's a start.”
“I don't have that kind of money, Burke! I don't even have seven thousand.”
“McCrory does. It's easy to get it if he won't offer it. You work for him, right? Just move some money around in his business accounts.”
“That's–that's not what I do for him.”
“Then get down on your knees and do something else for him.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sex, Hastings. Give him sex to get money out of him. That's how this works. You always were a prude.”
Disgust and rage combine in Ian's dark eyes.
Shame fills the air around me, making it hard to breathe.
Because for years, Burke told me I was wasting my looks by being too “prudish” to sleep my way to better and better deals. I thought he was joking.
“Ha ha, yeah,” I say, going along, the weird bird call in the background followed by a ship's horn, then another. “I just don't have it in me. You always said that opening my legs would get investors to open their checkbooks.”
Ian's eyeballs are about to pop out of his head, get on a plane, fly to Burke's location, and pummel him to death.
“Look,” Burke says, suddenly flattering again. “You are gorgeous. Beautiful. Mesmerizing and, man, you can network like no one's business. You're the perfect assistant.”
“Right,” I say weakly. “Thank you.”
“And now I need you to assist me. You're going to wire the money to these three accounts. Got a pen?”
“Mmm hmm.” I don’t need to write the numbers, knowing the agents are recording everything.
Burke recites a series of numbers.
“Don't get cute and tell the Feds. Those accounts can't be traced to me. But you have to get the money, Hastings. Start with the seven grand you already have, if it takes longer than it should to pry money out of McCrory. What about your parents?”
“My parents?”
“Roy and Sharon have a 401k, right? Or they could take out a loan on their house.”
“Why would they do that?”
“BECAUSE I TOLD YOU TO!” Burke screams into the phone, temper triggered.
And away we go.
“You are INSANE,” I scream back, “if you think I'm gutting my parents' assets for YOU, you festering bag of bunghole juice!”
So much for keeping my cool.
I see an entire stadium crowd applauding in Ian
's eyes.
“They are going to BREAK MY LEGS, you BITCH!” he screams back, suddenly speaking to someone else in rapid Spanish. Then: “GET ME THE MONEY!”
Mom comes running into the kitchen, skittering on her heels as Ian stops her, everyone as quiet as possible.
“GET YOUR OWN FUCKING MONEY, BURKE!” I scream. “Your other WIVES can HELP YOU!”
“THEY DON'T HAVE THE CONNECTIONS YOU HAVE!” he screams, the sound of that strange bird in the background. “DO IT OR YOU'RE DEAD!”
A calm, cold feeling envelops me. “If you were going to have me killed, you'd have done it by now. No one is going to hurt me, but it sounds like you need to beg me for help.”
“Jesus, Hastings, I mean it! They're, I–I borrowed some money from some guys down here. These drug lords don't fuck around.”
“You borrowed money from narco-traffickers?”
The female agent mouths, Keep him talking.
“It's the only option around here. And I had a solid lead on a deal, but it fell through because some guy screwed up. It was a sure thing.”
“Where are you, Burke?”
Dead silence.
Call ended.
“Great work, Hastings,” the male agent says, extending a hand. “I'm Carlos Medina and this is Felicia Morrison. You kept him talking long enough to get significant identifiers.”
I can't speak. Can't shake his hand, can't think, can't feel, can’t anything.
“Hastings, sit,” Ian orders. Mom bustles behind me, the distinct sound of coffee being brewed floating into my awareness.
“That bastard. That manipulative, slimy, self-righteous, egotistical bastard! How dare he call me up and make demands? And threaten me! You caught that, right?”
“Sure did,” Agent Morrison says. “Ups the ante.” She holds out her hand. “I have to ask for your phone.”
I hand it to Ian, who transfers it to her.
“Those account numbers are probably the first in a line of shell accounts. And he knows chances are slim you'll actually send money, but he's going to try,” she adds.
“I don't think he 'knows' chances are slim. In his mind, I should do what he says. Period. He was like this in the marriage, over time.” Mom catches my eye. “Not in the beginning.”
Ian makes a low sound, primal and protective.
“Toward the end. The last year or so it got really bad,” I admit. “He alternated between ignoring me and pushing me to do increasingly edgy deals for him.”
