When David Died: A True Story

by John Locke

  “David, look at me. It’s not about me needing a break. I’m doing this for you. You’re the one who’s going to want to stop seeing me.”

  “That makes no sense. I’ve never given you any indication I want to end things, and I certainly don’t want to do it now. I’ve lived for these Fridays, Nicki. You’ve changed my whole outlook on life.”

  “It’s been really good for me, too, but—”

  “I’ve done everything you asked. I was patient with you, loving, and kind. I adore you, Nicki. And you keep saying you love me, too.”

  “I do. I’ll always love you.”

  “Then…what gives? Why break us up? I know you keep saying it’s time, but why now? Why not next week or next year?”

  “I finally have everything I need.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Our anal experience was the last piece of the puzzle.”

  “What puzzle?”

  “Maybe this will help me explain.” She picked up her remote control, aimed it at her giant screen TV, pressed a button, and a video started playing.

  It took a brief moment for my brain to fully comprehend what was taking place on the TV screen: Nicki was pegging me in the ass. I watched in stunned silence as the scene played out, and then I watched me doing the same thing to her.

  She turned off the video and said, “I’ve been filming all our sessions with multiple cameras, and they’re all are quite compelling. But this one goes above and beyond, don’t you agree?”

  “Don’t I…what? What’s this all about? I…have no idea what’s going on. You’ve been so careful every step of the way. So protective of me. Why the fuck would you—”

  “There’s a financial component to what we’ve been doing.”

  “You…need money? Jesus, Nicki, all you had to do was ask! Whatever you want or need, just say the word and it’s yours.”

  “Thank you David. That’s very sweet of you. How does two million dollars sound?”

  20.

  “EXCUSE ME?”

  “It’s a small number,” she said.

  “You’re…blackmailing me?”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m simply giving you a chance to do the right thing.”

  “You’ve been leading me on all this time so you could shake me down for two million dollars? What’re you planning to do, show this video to Alison if I don’t pay up?”

  “We said we wouldn’t mention her name again. Or Michael’s.”

  “Fuck your stupid, fucking rules! You’ve been setting me up all this time? Ever since you started dating Michael?”

  “I said you’d be mad, but you said you wouldn’t.”

  “Are you for real? Hell yes I’m fucking mad. Wouldn’t you be?”

  “I don’t know. It hasn’t happened to me yet. If it does, I’ll let you know.”

  “I assume you’re filming all this. Are you purposely trying to piss me off, hoping I’ll hit you or something? Wait: if you are filming this you’re providing video evidence of blackmail.”

  “I’m not filming this part.”

  “So if I decide to beat the shit out of you there’s no way you could prove it.”

  “That’s right. But when I recover the price will double.”

  “What if you never recover? What then?”

  “You’ll go to prison for murder. I’ve had a whole week to make copies and put them in safe places. Not just here, but in my safety deposit box. Plus, I have a friend who’s holding one in case something happens to me. I only showed you a small clip, but the video’s two hours long. Call me pessimistic, but I think it’s gonna make you look bad.”

  “I don’t have two million dollars in liquid assets.”

  “That’s okay. I’m not in a rush. But the sooner you pay me the less it’s gonna hurt.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “If you don’t pay up in seven days I’m going back to Michael. I’ll be part of the family again, and they’re gonna wonder why you’re acting so weird around me.”

  “You’d do that to my son? Use him like that?”

  “Michael loves to be used. As I said before, I only went back to him to get to you.”

  “And this is what you meant?”

  “Partly. But I’ve always loved you, David. That’s not gonna change.”

  “You’re insane!”

  She sighed. “See? This is why I said earlier you’d want to stop seeing me.”

  I gave her a look. “I’m trying to understand. Are you saying you’d continue seeing me if that’s what I want?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I’d have to pay you two million dollars for the privilege.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Would you expect more money down the line?”

  “No. I think two million’s fair.”

  “Oh, you do, do you?”

  “Yes. I’m not greedy.”

  “Would it come with a guarantee?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For two million dollars I’d like a long-term relationship.”

  “I think we’ve gotten off track. What I’m saying is you’re gonna pay me two million dollars whether we see each other or not. But if you still want to see me after that, I’m willing to try, because I love you. But if we’re being practical, it only seems likely you’re gonna come out of this experience with bitter feelings.”

  “Ya think?”

  “Yes. And if you change our relationship or change the way you treat me I’ll probably want to end things.”

  “If I pay you two million in cash, you’re willing to keep fucking me. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No. Because I would never put it that crudely. But I would continue our sessions as if nothing had changed.”

  “Right. And again, just to be clear, if I don’t come up with the money in seven days you’re going back to Michael?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re going to use him.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “You’re not a very nice person.”

  “Don’t be mean.”

  “Really? Don’t be mean? Let me tell you how this is going down, Nicki: I’m not paying you shit. If you show your tapes to my wife, or anyone else, I’ll have you arrested for blackmail.”

  “I’m pretty sure that can’t happen unless you record me threatening you and demanding money. Otherwise it’ll look like we’ve been having an affair all these months and you broke up with me and I was so hurt I decided to punish you by showing Alison what you did.”

  “I’m not going to pay you.”

  “I think you will.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, my marriage isn’t all rose petals. I expect we’ll divorce when Jessie goes to college in two years anyway. But if it means saving two million dollars, I’m willing to break the news to Alison today.”

  “I see.”

  I smiled. “Face it, Nicki: you swung for the fences, but took your eyes off the ball. Extortion’s not for amateurs. You’re in over your head. I should be furious with you, but I’m willing to consider this an aberration in an otherwise excellent partnership. I’m willing to put this behind us and continue seeing you, on two conditions. Want to hear them?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll have to give me all copies of the tapes you made, and you’re going to have to agree to some changes.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like from now on I’ll make the rules.”

  “Such as?”

  “You’re going to see me at least twice a week. You’re also going to take my calls whenever I choose to make them, and you’re going to keep me informed as to where you are and what you’re doing every day. You’ll not be allowed to see other people, and you’ll tell me your plans for us in advance, and I’ll tell you if those plans are acceptable.”

  “And in return?” she said.

  “In return I’ll pay you…twenty-five hundred dollars a month. How does that sound?”

 
“Light.”

  I laughed. “I’m willing to entertain a counter offer.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Very well, Nicki. What do you think is fair?”

  “Two million dollars. And if you want to keep seeing me it will have to be on the same terms as the day we began the affair.”

  I shook my head. “Have you been listening to me at all?”

  “Yes. And I don’t appreciate the tone, or the content.”

  “I’ve made you a fair offer. And I agreed to increase it. Within reason, of course.”

  “You made me a whore’s offer, and a cheap one at that. You’re willing to throw away everything we built because of a measly two million dollars?”

  “Are you listening to yourself?”

  “You’re trying to turn our relationship into something you could get from a hooker!”

  “Not true: a hooker wouldn’t try to blackmail me.”

  She said, “Until now our relationship has been based on love and respect. You said I taught you a valuable lesson about love.”

  “Yes, and now you’ve taught me a valuable lesson about blackmail.”

  “The lesson’s not over, David.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t want to get into this if I didn’t have to, but…there’s more to this than you think.”

  “Like what?”

  “I have a backup plan.”

  She stood, walked to the bathroom, came back holding some cotton swabs and three plastic zip lock bags. Then she took one of the cotton swabs and rubbed it against the inside of her cheek, and placed it carefully in the zip lock bag and handed it to me. The label on the bag said Nicki.

  “What’s that for?”

  She handed me a couple of swabs and the other plastic bags, one of which was labeled David. Then she said, “Nicki Hill’s my pretend name. My real name’s Katie Walker.”

  “So?”

  “Think about it.”

  “Why? Is that name supposed to mean someth—”

  My stomach lurched. I jumped to my feet, then vomited.

  “Jesus, David!”

  I puked again. I couldn’t help it. When I finally had the strength to speak I said, “This isn’t funny. How do you know about that?”

  “Because I’m Katie.”

  “That’s impossible. Total bullshit!”

  “Sorry to break it to you David. I know you haven’t heard that name in 23 years, but it’s the name you gave the hospital so no one could trace me back to you and Mom. I’m your daughter. Your first born. And that swab contains enough DNA to prove it.”

  21.

  “YOU CAN’T POSSIBLY be…I mean…This can’t be true.”

  “I understand it’s hard news to hear, but you’ll come to accept it over time.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing. I mean, you didn’t have any problems with me before today.”

  “You’ve…you fucked me? Your own father? And fucked your brother?”

  “You know I did, so there’s no need to be so dramatic about it. To you it’s a big thing. You know why?”

  “Yes. But clearly you don’t. Jesus Christ!”

  “Don’t act so superior. Let’s not forget how much you loved the sex. You certainly loved it more than I did.”

  I shook my head. Nothing made sense.

  She went to the kitchen, got a large plastic garbage bag and a roll of paper towels and brought them back to the den. She got down on her hands and knees and started cleaning my mess off the hardwood floor. I tore a few paper towels off the roll, took them to the kitchen, ran some water on them and brought them to the den, got on my knees and began washing the areas she’d cleaned. As we worked, she said, “You got Alison pregnant and gave me away.”

  “We were children! We weren’t even married!”

  “Oh, please. You got married a few months after I was born. You could have gotten me any time you wanted, but instead you and Mom decided to start a new life without me. I was shuffled from one foster home to the next, and each was worse than the one before, because the older I got the more things they could do to me.”

  She inspected the floor carefully, then stood and got a mop and some disinfectant from her laundry closet, and finished cleaning the floor while I took the garbage bag to the garage and placed it in her trash can. I came back to the den as she finished up, then waited while she put the mop and disinfectant back in the closet.

  When she reentered the room she said, “They usually placed me in a home where the foster parents had one or two kids, and sometimes other foster kids. And you know what the men always told me the day I moved in? They said, ‘I’m going to be like the father you never had, so don’t call me Rick. Don’t call me Frank. Don’t call me Jim. Don’t call me Bennett.’ They all said, ‘Call me Dad.’ And they introduced me to their sons and daughters and the other foster kids and said I should think of them as my real brothers and sisters. But you know what happened? The fathers and sons usually found a way to get me alone. While you and Alison were creating your perfect little family I was getting serial raped by grown men.”

  “I—look. I know it was hard on you. But that doesn’t justify tricking Michael and me into having sex. It’s unnatural. It’s…perverted.”

  “Are you kidding me David? I’ve been fucked by so many fathers and brothers in my life you and Michael are just one more set. The only difference is I genuinely care about you.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “If I am it’s your fault.”

  “Your mom and I were young. We couldn’t take proper care of you.”

  “You can tell yourself that all you want, but it’s not true. You had Michael, your little prince, less than two years after abandoning me. And you kept him. Fine. I could’ve accepted that. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t have wanted you to give up your own son. But let’s fast-forward six years: by then your business had taken off and you were making money hand over fist, and you looked around your perfect little kingdom and decided something was missing. What could it be? What could make your world even better? And then it hit you: a little girl! But Alison didn’t want to go through another pregnancy, so after spending a lot of time and money you adopted Jessie.

  Adopted her!”

  I sighed. “This sort of talk isn’t productive.”

  “I was still out there, David, only eight years old, worrying all day what might happen to me after the last lights were turned off. Your perfect little family required a cute little girl? Well guess what, Dad? I was a cute little girl! I mean, I only have a couple of photos to prove it, but if you saw them I don’t think you’d accuse me of being a beast.”

  For the first time she looked like she might cry as she said, “You guys wanted a sweet little girl, you could have adopted me.”

  22.

  “I GET THAT, Nicki. But you’re right: we didn’t adopt you. And now you’re punishing me for it.”

  “Like I said, I’m giving you the chance to make it right. Two million dollars won’t bring back my innocence. It won’t give me the childhood I never had. It won’t allow me to have children of my own someday…but it could help me have a future.”

  I let her vent some more before saying, “I’ll make you a deal: if the DNA results prove conclusively that you’re Katie, I’ll pay the two million. But you’ll have to agree to move away and never contact our family members again.”

  She shook her head. “Why am I not surprised to hear that your solution to ‘what should we do with Katie?’ is to banish me from your family again, while not bothering to consider I am your family?”

  My turn to vent: “You want to know why? I’ll tell you: it’s because you didn’t knock on our door eighteen months ago and say, ‘Hi Dad, I’m Katie, your long lost daughter.’ Instead, you seduced your biological brother and used him to get closer to me. Then you seduced me, your own father, and got me to participate in the most disgusting sexual acts imaginable. I don’t ev
en think there’s a word for what you’ve done. It’s the most degenerate thing I’ve ever heard of! The highest possible degree of perversion.”

  She looked at me as though seeing me through different eyes. Then, very calmly said, “You’re a hypocrite, David. And by the way, there is a word for what I’ve done, and it’s a common one. It’s called incest. And here’s something interesting: I don’t recall ever hearing you define our relationship as perverted until today. Thirty minutes ago you couldn’t get enough of me. For the better part of a year you wanted to be inside me. And when I finally let you, you felt like you’d died and gone to heaven. Well maybe you hate to admit your own daughter gave you the best sex of your life, but it doesn’t change the fact I’m the exact same person I was thirty minutes ago when you offered to do anything to keep our sexual relationship alive.”

  “You find that strange? That I could enjoy having sex with a woman right up to the moment I found out she was my daughter? And she knew it all along?”

  “Yes. I do find that strange. Because in our case, daughter is just a title. It means nothing. You’re 42, I’m 23. We never saw each other till last year. You fell in love with me. And whether you want to acknowledge it or not I’m still the woman you wanted to have sex with as recently as noon today. You were willing to leave Mom for me!”

  I stared at her in disbelief. Then lowered my voice and said, “You knew what you were doing. You knew I’d be repulsed to hear the news. You counted on it. It’s the reason you taped us having sex. It’s the reason you knew I’d pay you the money. So don’t bullshit me about how being my daughter is only a title. You’ve heard my terms. Take it or leave it.”

  “I’ll take it. But you might want to climb off that big white horse, because ten minutes ago you offered to pay me twenty-five hundred a month to keep the relationship going. The same relationship you now claim was perverted. But over the years, as your net worth kept rising, five million, ten million, twenty million, fifty million, and counting…you never once picked up the phone to try to find me. You’ll pay twenty-five hundred to fuck a pretty 23-year-old every Friday but you won’t pay ten cents to help your own daughter get some clothes, food, or medical treatment after getting an abortion from her rapist. I waited my whole life for you to find me. But you never even tried. You think I’m perverted? Think about this, David: in my whole life the only way I was able to get your love and affection was to let you fuck me.”