That Was Before

by Dan Lawton

  After a while of nothing, Shay said, “I haven’t seen you at the club before. Up until a few weeks ago.”

  “I’m new to the game.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  Shay leaned forward and smiled. “I know your type.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “It’s all over your face. You have that look about you.”

  “What look might that be?”

  Shay folded her arms and sat back again. “You’re married.”

  Cheyenne felt an initial embarrassment, but that quickly faded. “Why would you say that?”

  “I can just tell. A woman of your age, first time. Looking to spice things up.”

  “Are you calling me old?”

  “Older than me.”

  “What if I was married? Would it bother you?”

  “None of my business.”

  “Yet, you brought it up.”

  Silence.

  Then: “Other people’s marriages are their own problem. It has no bearing on me.”

  Cheyenne scooted toward Shay. “Let me ask you something now.”

  “Okay.”

  “I get the impression you know people.”

  “Is that a question?”

  “True or untrue?”

  “We all know people.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  Shay nodded. “Yes, I know people.”

  “I thought so.”

  “What kind of people?”

  Cheyenne stared into her eyes, looked deep into her soul. What she saw was truth. “You know the kind of people I’m talking about.”

  “I think I do.”

  “Well then?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Can you help me?”

  Shay did not respond right away. Her eyes darted all over—ceiling, bedsheets, back to Cheyenne. Cheyenne did not get the impression much convincing was going to be needed, but she was prepared to do what it took. They were on the same wavelength, however rare and improbable that may have sounded having just met and barely spoken.

  “Okay,” Shay said. “I’ll help you. But first, what’s in it for me?”

  Cheyenne smiled. Cheers to new beginnings.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  “Well?” Randolph said after there was no response from the room. “How do you two know each other?”

  He did know what else to say. Patricia, his wife, was there, and she knew Sheila. But how or why, they would not say. The way they looked at one another, though—the awestruck twinkles in their eyes, the gaped mouths, the way their cheeks blushed—made it clear they knew each other. And it was personal somehow. It may not have been his worst nightmare, but only because he would have not fathomed it possible. If he were to dream up a nightmarish scenario worse than this, he could not imagine it.

  Shay? The strange Benji boy called Sheila Shay—what could that possibly mean? Did they know each other too? Randolph felt like he was in a twilight zone, hovering somewhere above his body and watching the happenings from the beyond. None of this could be real.

  “Who is Shay?” Bruce said for the second time.

  The boy named Benji pointed to Sheila, who stood close to Randolph. He felt her heat on him. “She is.”

  Bruce looked at Randolph and laughed. Randolph wanted to too, but everything was such a cluster he failed to react at all.

  “I’m sorry, who are you again?” Bruce asked.

  “Benji. I’m Benji.”

  “Right. But...who are you?”

  Benji deferred to Patricia, who said, “Don’t worry about him.”

  Like that would work.

  “Mom, what—”

  Something clicked for Randolph. He felt defiant, back within his body and in control of himself once again. “Hold the hell on here. Let me get this straight. You”—he pointed to Benji—”are Benji, but nobody knows who you are or why you’re here. You”—he pointed to Patricia—”are Patricia. I know that for a fact. You—”

  “Who’s Patricia?” Benji said.

  Randolph pointed to his wife. “She’s Patricia!”

  “You mean Cheyenne,” Benji countered.

  “No, I don’t. Who’s Cheyenne?”

  “I’m confused.”

  Randolph wanted to ram his head through the wall and scream. What the hell was going on?

  “How do you two know each other again?” Bruce said. He was asking about Patricia and Sheila.

  Randolph caught Janet sneak behind Bruce and slip out of the room with the baby. She disappeared down the darkened hallway and closed a door—those motherly instincts at work again. He tried to keep it all straight in his head. Benji was Benji—though he still did not know who he was beyond a name or why he was there; Patricia was also Cheyenne, at least to Benji; Sheila was also Shay.

  Well, at least he knew who he was.

  “Why are you here?” Randolph said to Patricia. “How?”

  “Bruce called.”

  He shot his eyes to his son. “What is she talking about?”

  Bruce looked like he wanted to hide under a rock. “Oh, God. I messed up. That was before.”

  “Before what?”

  “I thought you were losing it, Dad. I’m sorry. I was worried. After you told me all that stuff about Mom—”

  “What stuff?” Patricia said. Or was it Cheyenne?

  “About the money you’re taking from me,” Randolph said.

  “We’re still married. It’s our money.”

  “Yeah, well. Not for much longer.”

  The tension was thick, but nobody moved.

  “I need a drink,” Bruce said.

  “You don’t drink,” Randolph said.

  “Well, I’m going to start.”

  Randolph stared at his wife with a disdain he did not know he had inside him. For all they had gone through, this was how it was going to end—with all the bitterness and anger between them. It was unfortunate. More than that, it saddened him.

  Bruce returned with a glass full of clear liquid. He did not offer anyone else one, nor did he share what it was. He stood far enough away from Randolph so he could not smell it, which was probably for the best.

  “This is the last time I’m going to ask,” Bruce said. “I want to know who you are”—he pointed to Benji—”and how you two know each other.”—he pointed between Patricia and Sheila now—”And if I don’t get answers in the next ten seconds, you can all get the hell out of my house and do this shit on your own time.”

  Randolph was thrilled to hear that. Not only the words but also his son’s combative approach; he was the man of the house, and he would protect it. Randolph raised one hell of a man.

  “Fine,” Patricia said. “You want to know what’s going on here? I’ll tell you a little story, and then I’ll deny I ever said a word of it.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Bruce said.

  Randolph folded his arms.

  This ought to be good.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  In the weeks and months following Cheyenne and Shay’s meeting, romancing, and unspoken agreement about the future, they began putting their plan into action. Sort of. A weekly rendezvous turned into more frequent late-night visits, which turned into the occasional overnight which was the driving force behind the unwanted emotional intimacy that formed between them.

  The partnership was intended to be just that—a
business partnership. As they learned, when business and pleasure—intense, passionate, perspective-altering pleasure—mixed, the business became complicated. For Cheyenne especially, it became more about the future and the pursuit of something she did not know she needed or wanted and less about the financial balance they discussed. Shay wanted to keep the relationship strictly business, though not entirely platonic either.

  It was complicated.

  After months of Cheyenne chasing Shay’s emotional affection and Shay thwarting her from doing so, everything changed. It was a Thursday night. Cheyenne slipped on a little black dress and escaped from her prison and showed up at Shay’s place with the usual intentions—lust, extreme satisfaction, a likely failed effort at emotionally detaching. While she could not stop herself from pursuing Shay or cut off the physical connection that made the emotional detachment impossible, she was emotionally exhausted. At the end of her rope, almost completely drained of having anything left to give. She needed clarity about the future she envisioned with Shay, but realistically did not see it coming to fruition.

  When Shay opened the door and smiled at her like she had not before—something beyond physical yearning—her heart fluttered. What it meant, she could not say, and she tried to maintain her composure and keep herself grounded. But then she saw the table. It was dressed with flowers and a scentless candle and two white plates with silverware on top of a napkin beside each.

  “Oh! One minute, I have to get that,” Shay said when a beep rang out from the kitchen.

  Cheyenne felt warm inside, in all the best ways. She folded her arms and smiled and opened her mind to being pampered by the woman she never thought it would come from. Just when it seemed like all hope was lost, life was full of surprises.

  Shay returned with a glass dish pinched between colorful mitts that covered her hands. She set the dish on the cork trivet on the table between the dinner plates and stood back and admired her work in the kitchen.

  “What’s this?” Cheyenne said, still glowing.

  “Dinner,” Shay said in the most beautiful, soothing, lovable voice.

  Cheyenne sat and draped the napkin across her knees and let Shay serve her, which she did with visual satisfaction. A charming vegetable couscous with a leafy garnish wafted into her nose and activated her happiness signals. But she dare not eat with the knot in her stomach, so she folded her hands on her lap and waited anxiously for what came next.

  “What do you think?” Shay said.

  “It smells delightful.”

  Shay smiled. “It’s a new recipe. You’ll be my guinea pig.”

  “I didn’t know you cooked.”

  “I don’t.”

  Cheyenne returned the smile.

  An uneasy moment passed. Shay forked the concoction into her mouth while Cheyenne picked around the edges of her plate, afraid of the consequences for both of them if she were to force herself to take a bite.

  “Why aren’t you eating?” Shay asked.

  Cheyenne put down her fork and straightened and tried to disregard the vase filled with her favorite flowers—the delicate pink wild rose. “What is all this?”

  “Can’t I just make a nice meal for my lady?”

  “My lady? Shay, this is what I’m talking about with you. You say you don’t want to be emotionally involved, yet you do things like this and call me your lady and toy with me.”

  “I’m not toying with you.”

  “What would you call it? I don’t know how much longer I can take these mixed signals. You know I—”

  “I love you.”

  If Cheyenne was not already sitting, she would have fallen, crashed to the earth in disbelief. There was no way she heard that right. “What did you say?”

  Shay smiled. More, she sparkled. “I love you.”

  “But what about—”

  “I’ve been thinking so much. I’ve been trying to tell myself the way I’m feeling isn’t true, that it’s just the newness and excitement of it all. But these feelings I have—how I wake up every day thinking about you, and missing you when I don’t see you for more than a day or two, or how I feel when I’m with you compared to not—they’re undeniable. I fucking love you, Cheyenne. And I’m not ashamed to admit it.”

  Tears sprinted down Cheyenne’s face. No one had spoken words like that to her in what felt like forever. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say you love me too.”

  “You know I do.”

  “Say it.”

  “I love you too, Shay.”

  Shay’s chair slid back and she lurched forward, rushed to the other side of the table. She and Cheyenne intertwined their arms in a tight embrace. Cheyenne squeezed as hard she could, afraid if she did not, Shay may change her mind. Shay’s hair was down and covered Cheyenne’s face, but she did not care; she wanted to prolong the moment for as long as she could. After a minute, they released and Shay pulled back, and their eyes locked.

  “Where do we go from here?” Cheyenne asked.

  “I have a way this can all be taken care of cleanly and without a trace.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Hear me out, okay? It’s kind of complicated.”

  . . . . .

  The plan was in place. Cheyenne listened to Shay’s idea, and while she did not love it—it felt flawed, like if just one thing did not fall into place, everything would blow up in their faces—but it was better than hers. Safer. Could they pull it off? There was only one way to find out. What did they have to lose?

  Well, everything.

  Shay had befriended a man-boy recently, and it sparked the thought. They met by chance in the parking lot of the bank they shared when he distractedly crashed into her on the sidewalk and she dropped her purse. It did not spill, but he acted as if it did because he dropped to his knees and scooped it up and handed it back before she even reacted. He was deeply sorry, he said. She engaged him in banter, which he reciprocated after an initial reluctance. They met for coffee the next day so he could formally apologize, as he framed it. A slick maneuver, she thought, that deserved the hour of her time to hear him out.

  He seemed intelligent but vulnerable, and she thought he could be had. He was nice enough but very inexperienced when it came to love, so he was ripe for being swept off his feet. There was no way around it—the man-boy would get hurt. But collateral damage was part of it sometimes; it was the cost of doing business. It would just take some time to build him up before she could tear him down.

  Shay began to spend a lot of time with this man-boy. Admittedly, and perhaps naturally, Cheyenne grew jealous. It was not an emotion she was accustomed to feeling, and despite constant communication with Shay throughout the process, she missed her. Their time together had to be spent apart if any of this was to work. And as she learned, the adage was shrouded in so much truth: distance made the heart grow fonder.

  Shay began to spend the night with the man-boy at his place, occasionally hers—it was important to build the perception of a genuine relationship for all parties involved. Shay was just playing a part, though she had to admit, she did enjoy his company. If the circumstances were different, she could have envisioned herself having a genuine friendship with him.

  But the circumstances were not different. A friendship was not possible.

  When the time came, Cheyenne was to enter the picture. She dolled herself up—threw on the most scandalous blouse she could find and undid an extra button even beyond her Thursday nights at the underground club; bought the skankiest boots she could realistically walk in; squeezed into jeans she had not worn in ages and was somehow able to button them—and went to where Shay said he would be.
>
  She felt like a monster in some ways as she tormented the man-boy with her playful yet borderline inappropriate flirtation. She caught him looking down her blouse more times than she could count and she noticed the bulge in his pants after only a minute or two, so she knew she had him. Thankfully for her, the man-boy was cute—young, but cute. She did not think it was going to be as difficult as she had psyched herself up about. If she was honest with herself, she was looking forward to being with a man again. While being with Shay was spectacular, a man offered her something a woman did not. And it had been a while.

  She successfully seduced him and teased him and left him coming back for more, week after week, sometimes more often. She initiated more than she cared to admit, but what could she say? She enjoyed it. And it would not last forever, so she took advantage of it while it lasted. A lot. Shay did not seem to be affected by it—she did spend her Thursday’s at the swinger’s club too, so she was accustomed to that lifestyle.

  That was before.

  Now was after.

  Shay no longer wanted that life. She told the man-boy she wanted to wait until it felt right to get physical, which was both true and not. She cared about the man-boy but did not want to complicate matters for him more than they already were. Boundaries had to be set. She sensed his vulnerability could be a handicap, and she did not know him well enough to predict how he might react to rejection. Was he the raged jealous type? She did not think so, but she was not interested in finding out either. It was better this way—perceptively close, but still at an arm’s length away, for protection.

  A month into Cheyenne’s new—what was it between them?—relationship with the man-boy, she bluntly came out with it. The proposition. He laughed at first, but then said he would help. There was money in it for him, after all. Lots of money. Two weeks after that, he built a contraption and it was just a matter of getting it into the right hands at the right time. The rest would go up in smoke—literally.

  Fast forward two more weeks and the opportunity was now. The man-boy had been paid the first installment as a good faith deposit and the second half was due after it was done. To Cheyenne, the money was pennies. But to the man-boy, it was life-changing. It all felt so easy. Too easy.