by Pratt, Lulu
I whistled. “So you were eighteen?”
“Yup. Looking back, it was insane, but that wasn’t so unusual for my neck of the woods. You got married young, you left school and worked at the local plant, you popped out babies, you bought houses. Life happened at an earlier age.”
I listened, nodding every few words or so, understanding why Carter had been so quiet.
“We were about a week into our marriage when I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. We’d never lived together before — we’d been in high school — but our parents had pooled some money, helped us get a little house. A starter place, you know. Living with Meghan changed things. Or rather, it changed me. I was finally able to see that she wasn’t a balanced young woman. But by then, it was too late. She was angry. She was controlling. She was manipulative.”
Carter was looking straight ahead, focused on the road.
“Again, where I come from, things are different. You don’t get a divorce unless… well, unless nothing. You don’t get ‘em. We were stuck together, just two people who hated one another, doomed to this loveless marriage for the rest of eternity.”
My mouth pulled back into a grimace. “That’s horrible.”
“Yeah.” His gaze was a mile long and a lifetime wide.
“So…” I chose my next words carefully, hoping I wouldn’t live to regret the question. “So you’re… you’re still married?”
He choked out a strangled laugh.
“I don’t understand, Carter.”
“Well, Meghan wasn’t just dissatisfied with our marriage. She was dissatisfied with life. She was often at the lowest of lows, but within the flick of a switch, could get to the highest of highs. She wasn’t evil because she was mentally ill. She was a cruel, bitter woman who also happened to have a messed-up brain. It was a perfect storm.”
He smiled weakly, cleared his throat and continued.
“Meghan made me wash all the dishes. It was just easier to do as she said than to spend all night fighting over the hows and whys, then I watched her smash them on the floor one by one. She would lock me out of the house because she needed ‘alone time,’ and that alone time would stretch on for weeks. Once, she accused me of sleeping with another girl, then tried to take a hot poker to my — um, my unmentionable areas, and, y’know, brand them.”
“Carter… Jesus.” I shook my head, restraining tears. It was all coming together. “I’m so sorry.”
“She believed both that she deserved to die, and that she was a god, absolutely invincible. And then along came Henry.”
I sucked in a breath. Somehow, in this whole story, I’d forgotten that a woman like this was giving birth to a child, especially one as sweet as Henry.
“But Henry’s so…”
“Yeah, he takes after me in personality.” This thought made Carter smile, though that evaporated as he moved on in the story.
“Henry was about one month old, and let me tell you, when he came into my life, he brought more sunshine than I could’ve ever imagined. It was like my world lit up. He even blotted out Meghan’s shadows. Henry was so small, so precious, so joyful. The moment he was born, I knew I’d devote the rest of my life to keeping him safe and happy. It’s that fast, becoming a parent. Even when you’re tired and cranky and stressed, you look at your kid and you just know that they are, without question, the most important thing ever to walk the planet.”
“That’s beautiful,” I whispered.
“It’s just true. Anyhow, when Henry came, I knew that if I couldn’t leave the marriage for myself, I’d leave it for him. He deserved better. My son deserved better.”
Emotion pinched Carter’s words tight, locking his jaw. I’d dropped my hand from his shoulder as he’d begun the story, but now, I gave his arm another squeeze.
“I’m okay. Feels good to say something,” he murmured in a low voice, before continuing. “In retrospect, I should’ve thought it through a little more, figured out a better game plan. But I just wanted to leave, and leave immediately. So I told Meghan one night — not even a special night, just one I picked at random — that I was leaving and taking Henry. I told her that she could have the house, which I’d saved for my whole life, if she would just let us go in peace.”
He blew his breath out and went on.
“She laughed, and spat out that I was incapable of taking care of my son, that I’d ruin him, that Henry would become a blue collar nobody. Just like me. She always knew how to punch me right in the gut, both metaphorically and literally. I, however, was determined to take it all standing, to be the strong parent my son needed. So I told her that she could sleep on it, decide if she wanted to leave or keep the house. Either way, we were broken up, and I wanted her out of my life.”
“And?” I asked, hanging on his every word, so anxious to finally unfold Carter, to read all his parts.
“I put Henry in his crib. I slept in his room that night. Don’t know why, just had a funny feeling that I ought to. Turns out, that was the finest decision I ever made. Because when I woke up at three, I smelled smoke.”
Despite myself, I let out a gasp. “What?”
“Yup. I grabbed Henry — none of our stuff, not even a change of diapers — smashed a window and jumped out the side. I got all cut up and a little scorched, but Henry was safe and sound, which is what mattered. After running about a hundred feet away, I stopped to look back, and saw that our house, the one we’d built a life in, was burning to the ground.”
“As I walked to the fire station to alert the firefighters, only one thought ran through my head — Meghan did this. I knew it sure as you know the sky is blue. She was vindictive, unhinged, violent. She’d do anything to prove her point, even if it meant burning her baby alive. Suppose it made sense, really — she’d never really bonded with Henry, anyways.”
Carter shook his head, as though that were the most baffling part of the story. I sat in the seat, grasping my hands and holding them to my mouth, trying to make sense of everything I’d just learned. So that was why he was so closed off, so frightened. He had been burned before, in every sense of the word. A woman he trusted more than anything, who he’d built a life with, had tried to kill him and his baby son. God, of course he was reticent.
How had I been such an idiot? Guilt sank in my throat like a giant rock. Here I was, pushing him constantly, insisting that he open up. Imagining that it was some kind of infidelity, that maybe I was to be the Other Woman. Instead, I found laid bare a tale of absolute horror. People’s lives are not a psych class. The thought stung, but was no less true for the stinging.
“What happened next?” I asked quietly, not entirely certain I wanted to know more.
Carter’s foot had eased up on the gas pedal, as if he were finally feeling some relief, the truth no longer weighing him down.
“She got brought to court. Didn’t take a rookie firefighter more than oh, two seconds, to figure out that the fire was man-made. Or, in this case, woman-made. At first, they suspected me, thinking that maybe I’d done it for the insurance money or something, but after the judge looked at Meghan’s rap sheet, it became pretty obvious who was the criminal in the family.”
“We got eventually divorced. It took me a long time — too long — to come around to it, but I finally realized that the town’s good opinion of me didn’t mean shit if I wasn’t alive to care. Meghan didn’t want to sign the papers, but I was granted a divorce because of the circumstances. Anyways, not long after that, we went to court.”
“What for?” I asked.
“She was on trial for knowingly setting fire to a structure, with the intent to harm or kill two people. I testified against her, my then ex-wife. She looked truly murderous in that courtroom, baring her fangs at me. As if my little boy had been the cause of all this.”
Carter’s face clouded over. Again, the only way he could find the ability and energy for anger was when he thought of Henry. Despite my intent not to psychoanalyze, I worried that he wasn’t letting himself fe
el wronged in all this.
“So she’s sentenced for life?”
He laughed. “Yeah, not quite. See, the judge decided that, though Meghan set the fire, there was, and I quote, ‘no way’ she did it intentionally. In his old-fashioned eyes, a woman would never harm her baby and husband. He was naïve. He didn’t know Meghan. I tried to tell him, tried to explain that she hated us. She would freely and gladly burn down our house.”
“Go on,” I said quietly.
“He wouldn’t listen. Instead, he charged her with accidentally endangering our lives. She got off the arson charges on a plea of insanity, though I knew it wasn’t mental illness that had driven her to start the fire. It was pure, unstrained spite. So, no, she wasn’t sentenced for life — Meghan was sentenced for just ten years.”
“No.” I refused to believe this could be true, not after everything she’d done. “You can’t be serious.”
“Yup. I was… I felt things I never wish to feel again for a little while after that. But I didn’t have long to sit and stew. There was a limited window in which we could act. I figured ten years was enough time to put myself well out of Meghan’s path and never look back. Besides, we couldn’t stay in town anymore, not really. The whole place knew every last one of our family’s secrets. If I stayed, Henry would grow up like Boo Radley — infamous and feared.”
“So we hit the road, looking for a fresh start and a fair shake. That’s how we ended up here, in Rough and Ready.”
He swept his hands across the desert plains that were whipping past our window, then corrected, “Though I suppose we’re far past town limits now.”
“Carter…”
He heard the sympathy in my voice, and ignored me, choosing to recount the events with methodical precision instead of being confronted by my pity.
“Rough and Ready is small, pretty much disconnected from the world. I mean, you know that. Ain’t nobody comin’ looking for us out here. When Meghan gets out, if she wants to find us… well, it’ll be pretty damn hard for her. But that’s in five years, anyhow. Maybe by then we’ll have moved out of the country. I’m thinking Canada. Because that woman’s never getting a passport.”
“So you’ll spend your life on the run?” I asked, despairing. “That’s no way to live.”
He shrugged, already resigned to his reality. “Maybe not for me, but it’s what’s best for Henry. If she comes back, there’s no telling what she’ll do to him. And it doesn’t matter. After all, there’s always work for a mechanic. It’s a simple life, and maybe not an easy one, but it’s the only thing I’ve got.”
“Oh Carter,” I murmured, my voice thick. “You’re not the man I thought you were.”
“Well, then, Dr. Psych, what am I?”
“You’re something much, much better.”
CHAPTER 16
Carter
JUST AS I was taking in Phoebe’s words, I noticed that we were finally coming up on the destination I’d had in mind.
“Perfect timing,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
As I pulled around a corner and to the canyon, I attempted to tamp down the sirens that were going off in my head. I’d done it, I’d actually told another human being — a stranger, no less — about my life, my experience with Meghan. It had been fucking painful, humiliating, all the above, but it’d also been… cathartic, I guess? Shit, was this why rich people went to therapy?
I was also relieved that she didn’t think any less of me, because I certainly thought less of myself. And, as I was coming to realize, Phoebe’s good opinion was extremely important to my self-worth.
“Where are we?” she asked, her voice still soft.
“It’s a place I like to go when I need a little alone time.”
She snorted. “Then should I be here?”
I pulled the truck to a stop overlooking the canyon, sun on the horizon. “Of course you should.”
“Carter?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
At last, I took my hands off the wheel. The joints were sore from clenching. “What on earth have you got to be sorry for?”
She bit her lip and cast her eyes downward. “I shouldn’t have pried. You were right. It wasn’t my story to know. And I’m so grateful you told me, but — but I behaved badly. I was intrusive, and…”
“Don’t apologize,” I said fiercely. “You forced me to confront something I thought I’d never recover from. And I’m not healed, sure, but I gotta say, this feels like a start. That’s because of you, Phoebe.”
Her gaze wouldn’t meet mine, so I pushed further. “And I know I haven’t been altogether kind to you. That I’ve been a li’l abrupt.”
“Yeah,” she murmured, “but only because I was being invasive.”
“No, it’s because… well, can I tell you the truth?”
At that, she looked up. “There’s something you haven’t told me?” she said with a laugh.
“Yeah. I haven’t, and I should have, should’ve said it the first time I saw you, that very damn moment.”
A smile curled at her lips. “And what’s that?”
“I should’ve told you,” I said in a low voice, “that you were the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And I should tell you now that I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the moment you walked into town. You are beautiful, Phoebe, but you’re also smart, caring, inquisitive. I know I’ve been pulling away, but it’s only because I was afraid of someone knowing the real me. Shit, that sounds like a line, it’s not supposed to be a line, I’m just trying to—”
“Shh.” She cut me off, laying a finger on my lips. “I know what you’re trying to say, because I’ve been trying to say it, too. How about we finally stop talking and thinking and debating, and just… give in?”
The words from my lips were a whisper and a prayer. “Amen.”
Just like that, I was leaning across the seat of the truck and kissing Phoebe.
She exhaled onto my lips, releasing all the tension that had been building between us. At long last, we’d stop resisting. The relaxation alone could have given me an orgasm.
But besides finally breaking down the wall, there was nothing ‘relaxed’ about this kiss. No, on the contrary, we were devouring each other as though we were one another’s final meal. I slipped my tongue into her mouth and she responded in kind, and suddenly, we were locked in a battle for oral supremacy. I bit her bottom lip. She moaned. I had won the battle.
We were stretched awkwardly across the bench, trying to find some common ground. Annoyed with this mild barrier, I scooted into the middle, and then in one swift tug, pulled her onto my lap.
“You’re so hard,” she giggled before planting some kisses on my neck.
“In fairness, that’s your fault.”
I tilted my pelvis up and Phoebe ground against it. My cock — though still in my jeans — was pressed up against her underwear. The dress had floated up and away, to somewhere around Phoebe’s hips. Even through the denim, I could feel how wet she was.
My hand wrapped in her hair, pulling at the brown strands before moving down to her upper back, a relatively slim expanse. Her shoulder blades were moving as she wrapped and rewrapped her arms around me, trying to pull herself ever closer.
Our kiss deepened, grew more complex, as if there were new notes of love and arousal brimming between us. We had waited less than twenty-four hours to touch one another, and yet, that felt like a day too long. I had been languishing in a desert for Phoebe’s affection.
And then her hands were ripping off my T-shirt and I could think of nothing — not the past, not the future. Just the here and now.
“God, you’re ripped,” she murmured, her fingers greedily exploring my chest, testing the divots of my abs and pecs.
“It’s so I can do this.”
In one instant, I’d flipped her over onto the seat and slid down until I was kneeling on the floor mat. She grinned with excitement as I spread her legs apart, slowly trailin
g my hands up her thighs.
“Take off your dress,” I ordered, gazing up at her from the floor of the cab, my face between her creamy knees.
She obliged, tearing the fabric off in one fell swoop.
Much to my delight, Phoebe wasn’t wearing a bra. Her nipples were a deep pink that stood in stark contrast to the extreme paleness of her breast. It was as though they were the remainder of a lipsticked-kiss from an angel. They were hard as rocks and she was fingering them needily, as though grasping for as much pleasure as possible. How had I been granted this privilege of getting to look upon such a beautiful woman?
She licked her lips. “Do you like what you see?”
In response, I merely growled and tugged her panties down, slipping them past her knees until they pooled in front of me, ringing her ankles.
“I love it so much,” I replied, “that I absolutely must taste it.”
Phoebe exhaled and slid further and further down the seat so that her ass was hanging off, presenting her pussy like a meal before me. It was a slightly deeper pink than her nipples, and absolutely dripping. I had, I knew, been picturing this pleasure palace since I saw first her.
I lazily ran a hand up her thigh to her breast, where I pinched that rosy nipple which had been tantalizing me. Phoebe clutched the leather of the seat, her fingernails clawing for support.
“Oh my God,” she moaned. “Please, Carter, don’t tease me.”
I dove my head to that sweet treasure trove, then pulled back, making her wait.
“Carter!”
Phoebe was writhing in the seat now, taking fingers to her own pussy, beginning to touch herself. Lord, I could’ve sat there ‘til the end of time, just watching that woman give herself pleasure. There was an equal mix of yearning and mastery, a familiarity with her own body that I could only hope to achieve through years of study.
“Carter,” she gasped, “if you won’t do it, I’ll make myself come.”
I saw the muscles in her thighs and arm tensing, and knew that she was telling me the truth. My willpower to tantalize her through withholding finally dropped. I moved my head forward the last few inches, and my tongue found her clit.
