Fiona – There aren’t enough meds in this asylum.
It isn’t often that Vicky is rendered speechless but her shock was very real. I quickly wondered if I was going to have to throw a glass of water in her face to shake her out of her stupor.
“Sweet Baby Jesus, Fee. Are you for real?”
I signaled the bartender for another round. “Yep. I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried, Vee. I don’t have that good an imagination.”
“Okay, first I call bullshit on the imagination. I’ve seen your drawings and paintings. You have a wonderful and beautiful imagination.”
I snorted. “Maybe when it comes to landscapes and portraits, but not when it comes to a childhood tormentor moving away to become a multi-millionaire, only to come back for the sole purpose of extortion and blackmail over the fat girl’s body in order to keep her parents out of prison.” I took a good, long gulp out of my fresh beer before continuing. “Do you think my mind’s creative enough to come up with that Twilight Zone shit? Because it’s not, Vee. It’s not.”
She grimaced. “For the millionth time, you are not fat, Fee. You’re voluptuous and hot as hell. If I swung that way, I’d totally be wining and dining you to get into your panties.” The weirdo winked at me.
“Thanks, Vee. That means a lot to me.” I leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“So you really called Jason and told him you couldn’t see him anymore?”
“Yes and the phone call had been horribly uncomfortable.”
“I bet. Talk about where are the psych meds when you need them.”
After Damien and I had gotten out of the tub, he carried me and sat me on the bed. He then walked over to my purse and pulled out my phone. I still remember very vividly the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when he handed me the phone.
Damien had stood over me in all his naked glory as I explained to Jason how I thought it was best that we stopped seeing each other. Naturally he had asked for a reason since we had been getting along so well with our casual relationship, but I didn’t have an answer except for the truth and I sure in the hell wasn’t going to tell him that. In the end Damien had saved…or damned me, when he plucked the phone out of my hands and told Jason I couldn’t see him anymore because I was now fucking him. If Jason had anything to say about it, I wouldn’t know because Damien instantly hung up on him after that.
Then turned off my phone.
I waved after the bartender again. “Hector, can we get a couple of shots, please? Our usual.” He nodded his acknowledgment and went to pouring.
Vicky was still trying to get a handle on the cluster fuck I just dumped in her lap. “So then all you have to do is sleep with him for the next six months and your parents are off the hook and he goes back to San Francisco and you go on living your life like before? Without Jason, of course.”
“Yep.”
“Here you go ladies.” Hector placed the shots in front of us along with a bucket of beer. Hector was a great bartender. As soon as I ordered the shots, the man knew Vee and I were making a night of it.
“Have you heard from him since he drove back to San Fran?”
“Nope.” I hadn’t heard from him since he drove back Sunday night and here it is, already Wednesday. “I think it’s all part of his twisted game. He always did enjoy making me a nervous wreck.”
“So the plan is to get shitfaced and then…?”
Luckily for me Vicky had chosen a career in creative web design. She worked for a company based out of San Francisco, but she worked mostly from home, thus making her the perfect friend to have in a crisis. She could get drunk with me on demand.
“I don’t know yet. I offered Debbie a thousand dollars to cover for me tomorrow and being the sweet girl that she is, she agreed to do it for her regular overtime rate. However, if I need to get drunk again tomorrow night, she’s taking the thousand dollars.”
Vicky held up her shot glass to me. “To fucking hot multi-millionaires.”
“Seriously, Vee? I was thinking more of along the lines of to buying new identities and moving to Istanbul.”
“Okay, this first shot will be to Istanbul, but the next one is definitely going to be to fucking hot multi-millionaires.”
I was too caught up in my pity party to argue and so we both threw back the shots of tequila. God, the burn felt stupendously like the beginning of a night of bad choices.
We set our empty shot glasses down on the bar and went back to our beers. “Promise you won’t hate me if I ask you something?”
I side eyed her. “If I was ever going to hate you, it would have been when you set me up with on that blind date with Todd Morgan.”
“Good point.” Vicky mashed her lips together clearly remembering the disaster of a date that she set me on. “Okay, so you’ve told me everything about this wrist slitting play except for one thing. You haven’t mentioned if Damien’s good in bed or not, Fee.”
I could feel the heat creep up my neck. Some people might think her question was invasive, but to me it wasn’t. Vicky has been with me since we were five and has stood by me through every humiliation I have ever endured at the hands of Damien or whoever else chose to be cruel to me during my years of living. I never felt shame or embarrassment with her.
“As long as you don’t hate me for answering honestly,” I countered.
Her eyes rounded and her brows arched high. “Like I could ever…”
I closed my eyes and confessed my greatest sin. “God, Vee! There are no words. None!”
She squealed and her smile took over her entire face. “Oh my God, oh my God! I knew it.”
Now that she had gotten it out of me, I couldn’t stop sharing. “He’s built like a goddamn Greek god and he has this tattoo that’s…well, I don’t know what it is because he didn’t let up on me long enough to study it, but it covers his right shoulder and fades down his bicep and right pec. It’s soooo sexy. He’s strong and fit all over. He’s fucking stunning, Vee.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah…his package, Fee. What’s the size of his man package?”
I started laughing. “His man package? Really, Vee?”
“Fine, what’s the size of his dick then?”
I instantly scanned the bar and area around us. “Will you keep it down?!”
“I bet that’s not the first time since Damien’s been back that you’ve uttered those words,” she smirked.
“I hate you. I mean, this time I mean it. Not like all those other times.” I deadpanned.
“Answer the question, Fee, before I really make you hate me.”
And of course I answered because Vicky wasn’t one to make empty promises. “As wide as my wrist and as long as a cucumber,” I divulged.
“Like a full grown cucumber or one of those ridiculous baby cucumbers?”
“Full grown. Like collecting social security grown.”
We sat silently drinking our beers as Vee digested that tidbit. The only reason I wasn’t walking around with a limp today was because I had taken a hot, hot bath every night since Sunday. The ache was barely beginning to fade.
Women who claim they want a man who can fuck them all night long have clearly never had a man who has fucked them all night long. It’s not a matter of desire so much as a matter of biology. Unless you’re a porn star and have conditioned your body to have sex for hours on end, your body will shut down from exhaustion and overuse.
The final round before he left Sunday night had been more pain than pleasure. I was so swollen he had to force himself inside me and I’m not talking about alpha male aggression force, I’m talking about my body closing off to his invasion. Damien had to finally go down on me and make me cum twice before he could slide inside; which reminds me, I should probably buy some lube.
“It’s so unfair,” Vee finally spoke. “Why do all the assholes get to have big dicks and fuck like gods? I mean, it’s just not fair.”
I could only nod in agreement, because it really wasn’t fair. “I’m in so much
trouble, Vee. Everything that jerk did to me felt like I’d let him touch me forever.” I dropped my head on the bar. “What is wrong with me, Vee? How can I enjoy his touch after everything he’s done to me? Hell, after everything he’s doing to me? I’m fucking him to keep my parents out of prison and all I can think about is how he makes my body feel. I must be sick in the head.”
Vicky’s face softened. “Awe, Fee, I wish I had a genuine helpful answer for you, but I don’t. There’s a reason the phrase ‘I’m going to fuck you like I hate you’ exists. Sex isn’t always tied to love. Hell, it’s not even tied to hate sometimes. People have sex for all kinds of reasons, most of which don’t include a loving relationship. You think that because your body craves his touch that you’re betraying your parents or maybe even betraying yourself. He doesn’t deserve your pleasure or your forgiveness, but…”
She trailed off and I knew it was because I wasn’t going to like where she’s going with this. “But what, Vee?”
“I love you, Fee, so what I’m about to say next is not a dig at you in anyway, okay?” I nodded for her to continue. “I know Damien made your life hell growing up. I know it better than anyone as your best friend all these years with court side seats to the shit he did to you, but you never told on him. You never asked your parents to switch schools or go on independent study. You never made one effort to put a stop to it. Have you ever asked yourself why?”
“Because I was a pussy?”
“But you weren’t. It was only Damien you never stood up to and I think it’s because deep down you were afraid that your parents or our teachers would make him actually leave you alone and you secretly didn’t want that.” She lifted a shoulder and drank from her beer. “I think that as twisted as your relationship with Damien was, it was still a relationship to you. I mean, why else would you give up your virginity to him so easily? I think it’s because in your mind you guys had been dating since you were five years old, that’s why. Why do you think you gave in so easily even now?”
I brought my head back up off the bar at that question. “What do you mean? He threatened to send my parents to prison, Vee!”
“Yeah, and instead of responding like the grown, mature business owner that you are, you gave into him without a fight just like on graduation night. Fee, you could have threatened to call the cops and charge him with extortion, but you didn’t. I think you need to really evaluate how you feel about Damien. Forget that you’re supposed to hate him and then tell me what you feel when you’re with him.”
“Oh and how exactly do I do that, Vee, when he makes me feel everything?” I turned to Hector. “Hey Hector, can we please get another round of shots?” If I thought I needed tequila before, this conversation was definitely making me need it now.
“My honest opinion…”
I snorted. “Does anyone get any other kind of opinion from you? Ever?”
Vee side-eyed me. “Shut it, woman. My honest opinion is I think you should use this…thing, this arrangement to exorcise your Damien demons. Let yourself feel whatever it is you feel around him and maybe when the six months are up, you’ll finally be able to really move on. You’ll finally be open to a real relationship with a guy because you’ll no longer have residual feelings over a boy from your childhood.”
“So, Ann Landers, what happens if I end up falling in love with him and he walks away at the end of six months anyways?” Hector placed our shots in front of us and I wasted no time downing mine.
“Then you will have loved him and he will have broken your heart, but you get to move on, Fee. You nurse your heartache like all the millions before you who have had their hearts broken Fee, you have six months to find out why he treated you the way he did. You can finally get some real answers. You need this, Fee.” She polished off her shot following her advice.
I’m so goddamned confused. “You think, Vee?”
“I think, Fee. And if nothing else, you walk away from this having the best sex of your life. I say you use his cucumber until it rots.”
I wrinkled my nose. “That’s not a very flattering image, Vee.”
“What do you want from me? I’m not the one with a creative mind, you are.”
I could only stare at her. ‘Vee, you work as a creative web designer, hence the word ‘creative’.”
She waved away my logic. “Potato, Pahtato.”
“That makes no sense. You make no sense.” I opened another beer fully prepared to take responsibility for the hangover that was going to kick my ass tomorrow.
“Look, I can’t remember the last time I got laid, so if you have to spread your legs for the both of us, then that’s what you’re going to do.” She yelled for Hector. “Hector! We need shots, please.”
“Are we getting you laid then? Is that what this shot is heading towards?” I needed to know the game plan. I’m a great wing-woman like that.
We gave Hector our undivided attention when he delivered our shots. “Are you ladies going to be okay? It’s not even eight…” He raised his brows in silent reprimand.
Vicky pointed at him. “You’re a bartender, Hector. You’re not supposed to judge, but because you are, I’ll have you know I haven’t gotten laid in over three months. Count them, Hector…three! So if we want to get drunk and pick up random dick, you should be supporting us in this, not being all judgey.”
Before Hector could respond, a voice came from behind us that almost instantly killed the buzz I had worked so hard for. “As long as you’re the only one picking up random dick, Vicky, then you have my full support. But Fiona’s in possession of all the dick she’s going to be getting for the next six months.”
Just my luck.
Damien Fucking Greystone.
Chapter 12
Damien – If she could only see inside my mind…or maybe not.
The drive back to Fiona’s was tense.
Probably because I was pissed as fuck. When Andrews texted me and told me Fiona and Vicky were at Mercury’s getting drunk, I saw red. I cancelled the rest of my afternoon meetings and drove the hour drive in forty minutes.
Even though I had commented to Vicky that I was in support of her treasure hunt for random dick, I wasn’t. After lecturing her on the idiocy of her night’s plans, I went on to inform her that she must have been extremely stupefied by drink if she thought for one second I was going to leave her drunk in a bar to be picked up by any random guy. I gave her two choices, either get into my car quietly and allow me to drop her off at home, or I could carry her out of the bar and child lock her in my car.
She knew better than most that I didn’t make idle threats and so she chose the former option.
Fiona didn’t say anything as we got out of my Mercedes. She didn’t say anything as I stood behind her while she unlocked her front door. She didn’t say anything as I walked into her kitchen and poured her a glass of water.
Her house was a small cottage style home. It boasted of a living room that blended into the kitchen. It had two bedrooms that were separated by a single bathroom. It was modest, but it was cozy and roomy. I actually liked that none of the furniture matched. Fiona had a home, not a house.
She hadn’t moved from the living room and just eyed me as I handed her the water. “Here, drink.”
She took the glass, drank the water and finally spoke. “How did you know I was at Mercury’s?”
I decided to tell her the truth. “I’ve had a private investigator reporting to me on everything you do since the night I crawled out of your bedroom window.”
If my phone was out, I’d take a picture of her face. “Wh…what? You’re lying! What? Why?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “When I got home that night and had to wash your blood off me, I realized we hadn’t used a condom. I needed to know if you had become pregnant or not.”
“You’re lying,” she accused, again. “Even if that is true, why would he still be following me ten years later? And don’t for one second think that I believe that you gave a shit if I be
came pregnant or not!”
Her words had me seething. I realize I was a giant prick to her for all those years, but to accuse me of being so low that her getting pregnant wouldn’t have fazed me…that’s bullshit. I stepped closer to her. “You really believe that I wouldn’t have cared if you had gotten pregnant with my child?”
She put her hands on those fuckable hips of her. “Oh, I’m sure you would have cared. It probably would have upset you having to take money out of your clothing allowance for the abortion, no doubt.”
I grabbed her by her arm none too gently because I just couldn’t help it and shook her to make my point understood. “Make no mistake, Fiona, had you ended up pregnant as a result of that night, you’d still be married to me now with at least three additional Greystones following in the wake of the first.”
She never struck me as the violent type, but here she was pummeling my chest with her all mighty fists. “Don’t lie to me! Quit lying to me, Damien! You’re such a fucking asshole!”
Even though she wasn’t doing any damage, I grabbed her wrists and held her still. “Stop it! I realize you’re drunk and probably feeling braver than you normally would, but I’m telling you now, I won’t tolerate your nonsense for much longer!”
She yanked herself out of my hold so hard I was surprised she didn’t fall back onto the floor. I stood there as she righted herself up. The look she shot me was lethal. “Why?”
I stuck my hands in my pockets to keep myself from reaching for her. “Why, what?”
With her anger spent, there was only one other emotion left in her drunken stupor and it almost brought me to my knees. She wasn’t sobbing hysterically, and honestly, I wish she had been. Hysterical crying, I could chalk up to drunk girl emotions. But this calmness as tear after tear just poured from her eyes had me wanting to slit my own throat.
Fiona looked like her heart was actively breaking every second she stood there. “Why do you hate me so much, Damien? What could I have possibly done to you at five years old to make you hate me so much? Just...ple…please, help me understand why…wh…what I did?”
In Enemy Territory Page 8
