Hold Me Close

by Megan Hart

  Her mother gives Effie a steady, solemn and completely venomous look. “You weren’t that first time.”

  Effie knocks the phone from her mother’s hand. It bounces onto the desk. The battery compartment pops open, the battery pack and a small tangle of wires comes out, and the phone itself lets out a loud, somehow startled buzz for a second before going silent.

  “No. You can’t! They’ll arrest him!”

  “He already has a record, Effie. That boy is nothing but trouble and always has been.” Her mother’s nostrils flare. If she knew how horrid she looks, she’d be embarrassed, she would hide her face.

  “Heath...” But here Effie falters.

  Her mother shakes her head. “He’s a sad, sick boy. He will never amount to anything. He uses you. He’s no good for you.”

  He isn’t good for her, though not for the reasons her mother thinks. Heath is not good for Effie because he loves her too hard, wants to give her too much. He reminds her constantly of how empty she is inside.

  “This baby isn’t Heath’s. You can’t get him into trouble, Mom. Not for this.”

  “Then who did it to you?”

  Effie turns. “Nobody did it to me! It happened. I wasn’t careful enough. I thought I was, but I wasn’t.”

  “Who?” her mother repeated.

  Effie knows exactly who the father of this baby is, and she will never tell anyone. Not her mother, who would rage against him even more than she does against Heath, for whom she at least on occasion has felt a twisted, sanctimonious sort of pity. Her mother wouldn’t feel that way about the baby’s father. She would lose her shit completely. He’d lose his job, for sure. There would be a scandal. People would be looking at Effie again.

  Effie won’t tell him, either. He might be the sort of guy to step up to the plate when it comes to things like this. He’s got a hero complex, Effie knows that for sure. He might do the right thing, but he would hate her for it forever. Besides, he lives in a one-bedroom apartment with battered furniture and no matching dishes, and he gets drunk too much and sometimes he asks her to do things to him Effie had never imagined a man liking. Or herself, for that matter.

  He’s not a man she wants to marry, that’s for damn sure, and he’s not one she wants to tie herself to forever, either. Not no way, not no how. Her hands go protectively over her belly. She will never tell him.

  “I don’t know,” Effie says, then adds hastily, “only that it’s not Heath.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? How can you not know? Effie, if someone hurt you...again...”

  That old story. Effie’s chin lifts. Daddy had never “hurt” her in that way, but there was no way for her to say it so that anyone would ever believe it.

  “I mean there’ve been so many boys,” Effie lies flatly. “It could be any of several dozen. It means I don’t know, Mother. It means I don’t even know the names of some of them. Or where they live.”

  Mom takes a step back. She shakes her head. She looks broken, and why? Because her daughter admitted to having sex? To getting knocked up? Effie had spent three years as a captive of a sick man determined to steal someone else’s children when he was denied access to his own, and this was what broke her mother?

  Effie goes to the closet and pulls out a bag. Starts to fill it. She doesn’t pay attention to what she’s tossing in there. Shirts, pants, some underwear, socks, a sweater she hates but throws in anyway.

  “What are you doing?”

  Effie doesn’t look at her mother. “I’m leaving.”

  “Effie. No. Wait. Please...we’ll take care of this. We can have it dealt with. You don’t have to ruin your life!”

  Effie thinks of all the blood, of how it had slipped out of her so easily, before. In silence. All the worst things happen in the silence.

  Effie pauses, again touching her belly. “Was your life ruined when you had me?”

  “I was married and twenty-four years old,” her mother says. “You can hardly compare. I want more for you than this.”

  “Maybe this is the best I can expect to have. I’m leaving. I’ll call and tell you where I am.”

  When Effie shows up at Heath’s door, he lets her in without needing to be asked. When Effie kisses him, he lets her. He takes her in his arms and together they fall down on the mattress with its rumpled sheets.

  His hands roam over her body. Naked, she arches beneath his touch. Her nipples are more sensitive. When he slides one between his lips, she can’t keep quiet. He puts a hand over her mouth to stifle her. They shouldn’t have to be silent, not here in this shitty warehouse loft where the neighbors can’t hear a thing through four-foot-thick brick. It’s an old habit they might grow out of, someday, if they keep doing this. For now, his rough, warm hand tastes of salt, and he covers her mouth while she cries out.

  His fingers move between her legs, finding her slick and secret places. He toys with her, teasing her to the edge without letting her go over. When she tries to fight him, to move so his fingers will press harder on her clit and make her come, Heath grips her wrists in his hand and forces her onto her stomach. For a moment, she fights harder, thinking of the child. Worried of hurting it...though she’s lost a baby before. She knows what to expect. It wouldn’t be the most awful thing in the world if it happened again, would it?

  She fights anyway because it excites him. Because when he grabs the back of her hair to yank her head back and to push her again into the mattress, facedown and ass up, it excites her. He doesn’t spank her. It’s not about making this some kind of late-night Skinemax movie with handcuffs and feather masks.

  Effie isn’t sure what it is about.

  Only that it...is. This. Heath behind her, ramming himself inside her so deep she’s sure he will kill her with his cock. With the grip of his fingers so tight on her skin she will find the marks there for days.

  There were times, long, long ago when she can remember exploring her body in the late-night darkness of her canopy bed. Tiny breasts, the surprising tingle of touching her nipples, the more exciting rush she felt when her hand slipped between her legs. The first few threads of curling hair. How her body opened the longer she touched and stroked. She hadn’t known it was sex, but she had known it felt good.

  Effie can hardly imagine doing that now. Making herself come? She’s not sure she could. The only pleasure she can really find is with him.

  When her body clenches around him, he shudders and pulls out. Scalding lashes of ejaculate hit her back. Her arms. Her ass. She buries her face in the pillow, shaking with her climax. Then with tears.

  Heath doesn’t ask her who the baby belongs to. He simply nods when she tells him. He holds her close, curled in a ball, and he kisses her forehead. When she can’t stand the closeness of the embrace any longer, he lets her go. It’s what he does. Know when to let her go.

  “I’m with Heath,” Effie tells her mother over the phone. “But so help me, Mom, if you call the police or in any way get him into trouble, I will never come home. I will never let you see this baby. I will disappear, and this time, you will never get me back.”

  Effie’s mother sounds as though she’s been chain-smoking and sobbing. She probably has. “Don’t you understand I only want the best for you? Maybe you’ll get it now, when you become a mother. I want what’s best. That’s all. And Heath, Effie...he’s ruined you.”

  “Don’t you get it?” Effie says tiredly, wishing all of this would go away. “I was already ruined.”

  chapter twenty-nine

  Naveen had called Effie early this morning about doing a gallery show, all on her own. Effie listened to the message as she sipped lukewarm coffee in her quiet house and thought about the work she’d have to do to paint enough pieces to have a real show. Her kitschy hidden clock paintings weren’t going to cut it. They paid the bills, though, and she had o
rders to fill. She didn’t have time to wait around for a creative muse to strike her, not to mention what paintings like the one he’d just sold took out of her.

  “I don’t know, Naveen,” she said when she returned his call. “I won’t be ready to do something like that for a while. You’re talking about a lot of work.”

  “Think about it,” he insisted. “Maybe you have some pieces you’ve finished that you haven’t sold?”

  Effie leaned against her kitchen counter and looked over at the empty glass ashtray she’d picked up years ago at a thrift store. Heavy, ornate, clearly made in a time when everyone smoked and drank and the world was lit in Technicolor. Now she kept loose change and buttons and paper clips in it.

  She did have a number of pieces she’d done over the years. Work she’d painted in the dark, ones that left her sweating and sick and sometimes on her hands and knees with her face in her hands. Too big to ship, too dark and violent to appeal, even to the people who collected her other pieces. She painted them and put them away, hoping each time she’d exorcised some new demon. They did make a collection, though not one Effie was sure she’d ever expected or wanted anyone else to see. Those paintings were her lost hours.

  She closed her eyes. “How many pieces would you need?”

  Naveen made a soft, thoughtful sound. “Ten, minimum. I can fill in the rest with your current work, but I’d really like to have at least ten more like what you just gave me.”

  “Greedy.” Effie laughed. She had at least twice that many hidden away under sheets.

  “Hey, a lad’s gotta eat. Don’t tell me you don’t love making money. And I can sell that stuff. You know I can. Your other work, too. But, Effie...”

  “Believe me, I know. The hidden clocks aren’t art.”

  “Not the same kind, anyway,” Naveen said.

  “I have commissions to finish first. Those clocks are my bread and butter. I also have to eat, you know. My kid needs new clothes. I can’t promise you anything.” Effie dumped her coffee in the sink, thinking about making a fresh pot and not sure she felt like bothering. She had to run out on a few errands anyway. She could pick up a cup of some fancy brew from the local coffee shop. Let someone else do the work for her.

  “Think about it,” Naveen repeated. “I can have Elisabeth put you on the books for the spring. That’s five months away. I’m booked that far in advance, so it will be perfect. We can get you in there, have a big to-do, get you hobnobbing with collectors. It’ll be great for your career, Effie. And I don’t need to tell you that stuff like this isn’t easy.”

  “What, making a living as an artist? No, you definitely don’t need to tell me. My mother reminds me of it all the time. She thinks I should go back to school.” Effie laughed, though a trifle bitterly. She had half a degree in business administration. The thought of sitting behind a desk all day made her want to stab something with a pencil, probably her own eyes.

  “Most people can’t, you know.”

  “No kidding. Naveen,” Effie said after a pause. “Did the buyer...know? Who I am?”

  Naveen huffed. “I don’t know.”

  That meant yes. Effie frowned and rubbed the spot between her eyes. “Great.”

  “If it sells the work,” Naveen said, “does it matter?”

  It did to her, but she said, “No. I guess not. Like you said, gotta eat.”

  “I’ll have Elisabeth call you about dates,” Naveen said. “Ciao, bella. I’ll talk to you soon. Send me some of your clocks. I can hang them in the gallery for you.”

  “Sure. I’ll see what I have.”

  Disconnecting, Effie slipped her phone into her pocket and sighed. She was lucky, she knew that. Talent could take you only so far in the creative business. Luck was what pushed you into the right places, made you collectible or popular or whatever. And luck didn’t last forever. She should take advantage of it while she could, or she really would find herself sitting behind a desk filing shit and answering phones.

  When she stood in front of her easel, though, all she could think about was mimicking Thomas Kinkade except with a giant hamster sitting on top of one of his cutesy Christmas cabins. She could do a van Gogh with a Tardis swirling around in the stars—it wasn’t original, though. She’d seen that on the internet, and she’d never watched Doctor Who anyway, so it felt disingenuous to cash in on the show’s popularity. Mona Lisa with a mustache?

  Fuck it all, this was shit. Worse than shit. At least her other stuff, the twisted clocks hidden in the landscapes, had been original. At least she’d felt something when she painted them, even if it was more of a secret, ha-ha, “see how clever I am” sort of feeling and not that all-encompassing frenzy, that draining almost-religious ecstasy that happened when she painted from her dreams of the basement.

  She couldn’t just command it to happen, though. No matter what Naveen wanted or how Effie herself wanted to make something real and meaningful that would also make her money. You can’t command a muse, she thought and dunked her brushes into the vase of cleaning solution. Besides, she still hadn’t had enough coffee.

  “Dee,” she said when the other woman had answered her phone. “Want to grab a coffee with me?”

  “Oh. Hell, yes. I don’t have to be in to work until later. Same place?”

  Agreed on the location, Effie grabbed her coat, purse and keys and headed out. Fresh air, a fancy coffee, maybe even a decadent pastry. She could hang out with Dee for a bit and feel like a normal woman with a friend, then maybe sketch in the coffee shop and think about what might work for a gallery show. She could at least try.

  The girl behind the counter wore a T-shirt sliced into fringes with a familiar design on the front of it. One of Effie’s. As always when confronted with this real-life evidence that there were people out there who actually bought her shit because they wanted it and not because they knew her, she smiled.

  “Nice shirt.”

  “I got it over at the Tin Angel.” The girl grinned. “Johnny Dellasandro’s place, he was having this big display. You been there?”

  Effie shook her head. All of her licensed items were ordered and shipped from the company that made them, the T-shirts and posters and mugs. All she did was look at the royalties when they came in. “I should check it out.”

  “It’s pretty cool, some really great stuff. What can I get you?”

  “Large mocha latte, and a blueberry scone. No. Cinnamon bun.” Effie studied the glass case, aware of someone next to her but not turning until she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned, expecting to see Dee, but smiled in surprise. “Mitchell. Hey.”

  “Hey.” He grinned and pushed his glasses up higher on his nose. “I thought that was you. Do you come in here a lot?”

  “No, not really.” Effie stepped to the side to pay for her order. “I thought you’d be at work.”

  “We have a SCRUM meeting in an hour. Everyone kind of rolls in just before it. I figured I’d grab something on the way.” Mitchell pointed to a chocolate croissant and pulled out his wallet. “Coffee, too, please. Hey, I got this.”

  “No, you don’t have to,” Effie protested but stopped at his look. She laughed, ducking her head. “Okay. Sure. Fine. Thank you.”

  “That’s better.” Mitchell followed Effie to a table near the window and waited until she sat before taking the chair opposite her. “You look pretty today.”

  Effie’s brows rose. She wore jeans, a concert T-shirt hidden beneath her winter coat, a pair of battered black Converse. Had she even put on makeup? She couldn’t remember. “Umm. Thanks?”

  “So, what are you up to today?” Mitchell stirred his coffee and sipped, then looked at her expectantly.

  Effie settled her bag on the back of the chair but didn’t take out her sketch pad. She still hadn’t told Mitchell she was an artist. “Have some errands to run. Boring stuff
.”

  Mitchell broke his chocolate croissant into pieces, setting them neatly on the plate and wiping his fingers carefully on a paper napkin. Effie watched him, amused. Attracted, too. Something in the way he made sure he’d cleaned his fingers of any scrap of chocolate reminded her that he could be very, very attentive to other kinds of details.

  He’d caught her staring at his hands and gave her a bemused look. “I’m glad I ran into you. I was going to call you. Next week is First Friday here. All the stores and galleries on Front and Second are open late. There’s music and food and stuff. Would you like to go with me?”

  “I’ll have to see if I can find someone to stay with my daughter, but yes. That sounds really nice.” Effie smiled, tilting her head to study him. “I’ve never gone to First Friday.”

  “It’s fun,” Mitchell said. “It’ll be more fun with you.”

  The bell over the door jingled, announcing a new arrival, but Effie didn’t turn until a flash of navy blue caught her eye along with a glimpse of pale hair. Shit. She half turned in her chair toward the window, but of course it was useless. Bill’s job was noticing things. She braced herself for him to stop by the table and make things awkward, but he ordered his coffee and bagel to go and headed back out without so much as a hello.

  Mitchell had noticed her concern. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just... It’s nothing.” Effie gave him a bright grin.

  Mitchell leaned to the side to look out the window at Bill walking away, then back at her. “You in trouble with the law?”

  He’d said it like a joke, but Effie didn’t know him well enough to be sure of that. “No. God, no. Not at all. I know that guy, that’s all.”

  “Ex-boyfriend?” Mitchell asked. “Or...current?”

  “Neither,” Effie said firmly. She put her mug on the table and reached to put a hand on Mitchell’s wrist. “Just some guy I’ve known for a while. Sort of a friend. Sort of. But definitely not a boyfriend.”

  Mitchell looked pleased. He pushed his glasses up again, then drummed the table edge in a little riff Effie almost recognized before he quit. “That’s nice to know, I guess. Um, Effie, I have something I’d like to talk about.”