Sinning Forever

by Heidi Lowe

  Now that her real (and very human) daughter was in her life, would I still have a place in it as her lover?

  The question troubled me for the rest of the night. It was the last thing on my mind when she kissed me goodnight in the lair, told me she loved me, and we closed our eyes for the long sleep.

  There was no doubt in my mind that she did. Only now, that love would have to be divided.

  I'd never seen Jean make such a fuss about the house before. It had been a couple of nights since the bust up at the motel, and the big meet was scheduled to take place tonight.

  "Did you get the grapefruit juice? She likes grapefruit juice," she said to Sandra. "Oh, and the chocolate pretzels?"

  Sandra, who was busy sweeping an already spotless floor, nodded, remaining as polite as ever, even though it was obvious that Jean's constant questions were grating on her nerves. No one liked their competence being questioned. Sandra got everything right the first time; she didn't need reminding.

  Jean drifted through the rooms, spraying another helping of air freshener everywhere, choking me in the process, until I snatched the can from her and put her on a timeout.

  "Jean, the house smells fine. You don't need any more of this."

  She let out a little laugh. "I'm sorry. I must seem crazy right now. I just want everything to be perfect."

  You would have thought that the queen of England was on her way over, the way she was fussing. Never mind the fact that this wasn't Clara's first visit to the house.

  When Robyn arrived, Jean was upstairs changing her blouse for the second time that evening.

  "You really didn't know about her?" I asked her when we sat in the lounge.

  "I was just as clueless as you. I can't believe she kept it from me." She shook her head, looking vexed. "I can understand not telling you. I mean, we all know how much you overreact. But Jean and I don't have secrets."

  I meant every ounce of the menacing look I shot her. This was my girlfriend she was talking about. If anyone had the right to know about her secret daughter, it was me. So what if they'd been friends longer.

  "Clearly you do," I mumbled with disdain.

  She watched me with a curious look in her eye. Then a smirk made its way to her face. "So how does it feel not being the center of the universe anymore? I'm sure that must be hard for you. Wanna talk about it?"

  "Go to hell," I said. She couldn't miss an opportunity to rub it in my face. Instead of letting her really get to me, I hit back with, "How's Nadine? Get her wedding invitations yet?"

  That was enough to wipe the smile off her face. And now we were both shooting daggers at each other. We were still doing it when Jean stepped into the room.

  "Are you two fighting again?" she said, buttoning the sleeves of her blouse. "Can't I leave you alone for one minute?"

  She was about to scold us some more when the bell rang. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. With a nervous energy, Jean straightened her blouse, ran a hand through her hair then went to answer the door.

  "Hi, love," I heard her say.

  The reply and the brief conversation in the foyer came in French. I couldn't even enjoy listening to my girlfriend speak it in her sexy way, because this wasn't for my benefit. That was their thing. It infuriated me that I couldn't understand a word they were saying.

  As they joked and laughed, I sat there seething, trying to identify familiar words. A crash course in French was needed, asap.

  Through the corner of my eye I saw Robyn watching me, watching my fury rise. When I looked at her I expected to see a self-satisfied smirk. But it wasn't there. She looked concerned.

  "I've never liked that language," she whispered. "I always thought it sounded too nasal, too dramatic. And I hate that nothing is ever pronounced the way it's spelled."

  That was why Jean kept her around: Robyn could defuse any situation. Kept her cool under pressure. Those qualities were invaluable in business, but especially in dealing with Jean's sensitive girlfriend who didn't like sharing her.

  Some of the rage left me just in time for Jean and Clara to enter the room.

  The resemblance was uncanny now that I knew they were related. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before. Now, as the two of them stood side by side – same height, same shade of lipstick, as though they'd bought it at the same time – they looked like sisters. A random person on the street, without prior knowledge, would have thought they were.

  I stood up when Robyn did, though I hadn't intended to.

  "Clara, this is Robyn, my good friend and assistant," Jean said.

  Robyn came forward and shook Clara's hand.

  "Nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you," Clara said. Then, without waiting for the introduction, she approached me, her hand outstretched. "And you're Lissa. Hello again."

  "Hi," I said, feeling the blush creep to my cheeks. The way she smiled, the way her brown eyes sparkled with amusement, made me embarrassed about our previous encounter.

  Jean clapped her hands together. "So, who would like a drink?"

  "And this is Sebastian when he was three. In Disneyland Paris. And this was taken at Sabrina's sixth birthday party. She begged us for the pony, and when we hired it, she was afraid of it," Clara said.

  The pictures made the rounds, from Robyn to me, and then to Jean, who had already seen all of them but couldn't seem to tear her eyes away. Her smile never ceased; I'd never seen her this happy. I may have been the world's worst girlfriend, but seeing her this ecstatic over these children – her flesh and blood – only depressed me. More so when I gave the pictures a cursory look and saw how much even the children resembled Jean. The little girl especially.

  I forced a smile and passed the pictures along when I was done with them. How long would I be able to keep up this charade? One thing was for sure: Jean, who sat beside me, was so engulfed in admiring her good-looking offspring, that she was oblivious to my misery. I didn't know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  "How old are they now?" Robyn asked, reaching for her drink. She'd been asking most of the questions, as though trying to suss Clara out. I got the feeling, though it may have been in my head, that Robyn didn't trust her. Her barrage of questions sounded a little too unfriendly.

  "Sabrina is ten, Sebastian is seven."

  "You must have started pretty young," Robyn continued, barely letting her finish talking before firing out the next one.

  "Robyn!" Jean scolded. She smiled, but her eyes shot a warning look Robyn's way.

  Clara laughed. "It's okay. Yes, my ex-husband and I were in school together. We thought we would last forever. We didn't. It happens. I wouldn't have done anything differently."

  "Where are your kids now?" I chimed in. Why had she left them to look for this stranger who, previously, she didn't want anything to do with?

  "They're away at boarding school."

  What did that mean for her stay in the States? With any luck it will be short, then we can go back to our lives.

  "Boarding school," Jean said with a wry smile. "Ah, I remember my days there. The trouble I used to get into!" She chuckled. "Hopefully that mischievous streak doesn't run in the family."

  I wanted to puke so damn hard! It was as if she was actively trying to rub salt into the wounds this stupid family reunion had caused.

  Clara leaned forward eagerly. "You were naughty in school?"

  "Oh, absolutely. The naughtiest. Smoking, drinking, sneaking away to meet the boys from the all-boys school down the road...or doing kissing experiments with some of the girls in my dorm. The teachers came down a lot harder on me than many of the others."

  "Why?" Clara asked, before I could.

  "Because I was a lady, and thus should have been setting an example. Whenever I got into trouble, they used my full title: Lady Jean Margaret Posey, you ought to know better." She laughed.

  I gawked at her. "You're a lady? Like, a real English lady?" This was the first I'd ever heard her speak about it.

  "I was... I th
ink the title became void once I turned." It wasn't easy for her to say that; it never had been, but now it seemed extra difficult. I'd always gotten the sense that her condition embarrassed her. Having the same one myself now, I could understand that. There wasn't anything more excruciating than being around the living, having the constant reminder that you were no longer like them.

  "Your middle name is where I got my name from," Clara said. "I didn't know that. My father never said."

  I frowned. "But your name's Clara?"

  "Clara is what everyone calls me. A nickname. My real name is Margaret. And now I know why." She looked at Jean affectionately, and Jean returned the look.

  My blood boiled. I'd never been more jealous in all my life.

  As the evening progressed and we learned all about "perfect Clara" and all of her "wonderful accomplishments", my jealousy meter rose to new heights.

  "She's a trained chef. Isn't that just amazing?" Jean beamed. "A chip off the old block, as they say."

  By the end of the night, Jean had slipped comfortably into her role as mother. I observed the way she looked at Clara: with pride only a parent could have. That goofy smile wouldn't leave her face, not for a second.

  "I don't trust her," Robyn said when we were alone, while Jean walked Clara out to her cab.

  "At least we agree on something," I said.

  "You're just saying that because she's replacing you. Unlike you, I'm a pretty good judge of character. After all, I spotted your gold-digging, grubby hands a mile away when I first met you."

  I wasn't offended. She said stuff like this to me all the time. So I ignored her like I usually did.

  "What do you think she wants?"

  Robyn shrugged and threw some cashews into her mouth. "Who knows? Whatever it is, though, you can best believe she'll get it. Jean's besotted with her."

  TWENTY-SIX

  My fingers frantically tapped out a reply to Oliver's text as I sat in bed, leaning against the headboard. Inside the bathroom, the faucet ran as Jean freshened up after the busy evening.

  He'd been obsessively texting me on the hour, every hour, to get the scoop on how the evening was progressing.

  She's not my stepdaughter, and she's just as annoying as I thought she would be. I can't wait till she goes back to the French mountains, or wherever she came from! was my response to the latest message. I could just imagine his evil cackle upon reading my disparaging words. He loved misery, especially other people's. By sharing my woe with him, I was merely feeding his hunger to see suffering. But there was no one else to talk to about it. Petr was having so much fun in Ireland, he rarely had time to reply to my texts. I thought about messaging Rosie, but then reasoned I had to maintain that employer/employee relationship, and not try to be friends.

  I hit send and quickly shut the messenger down when Jean appeared at the door, fresh-faced, makeup free. She didn't need to wear it at all; in fact, she looked more beautiful without it. Besides, I couldn't appreciate her shade of lipstick anymore, now that Clara wore it too.

  "Petr?" she asked.

  "No, Oliver," I said, setting the phone aside.

  "Let me guess, he wanted to know how tonight went?" She climbed into bed and kissed me, smelling like all of my favorite desserts rolled into one.

  "He was just curious," I said nonchalantly.

  "And? What did you tell him?" It was her way of asking me how I really thought the night went. I knew we would have this talk. Me meeting Clara was important to her, she'd said so many times. She was anxious to know what I thought of her daughter, whether I thought the sun shone out of her ass like she did.

  I shrugged. "It was fine."

  "Fine?" She watched me carefully. "Is that all I'm going to get? Fine?"

  "What do you want me to say?"

  "What did you think of Clara?"

  I shrugged again, finding myself on the spot. "I don't know. She was courteous, seems intelligent."

  Jean laughed. "Courteous? That's how you describe someone who delivers your mail, Lissa, not someone in your family."

  "Yeah, well she's not in my family!" I blurted out. I didn't mean it to come off as cold as that, and I immediately regretted it. Jean's doleful look made me feel two feet tall.

  "Thanks for being honest," she said.

  "I didn't mean it like that." God, why was she so sensitive when it came to Clara?

  "You don't like her, I get it. I sensed it the whole night."

  So my efforts to play nice had been made in vain. She'd seen right through the facade. Did she also know how Robyn felt about her precious progeny? Perhaps Robyn had done a better job of concealing her true feelings.

  In that split second, I made a hasty decision for the sake of my relationship. I looked at my girlfriend with sincere eyes, took her face in my hands, and said, "I like her. It's just a lot for me to take in, that's all."

  She smiled as I kissed her. One kiss led to another, and another. Her lips were addictive.

  I needed to exorcise the stresses of the evening, and what better way to do that than to make love to a beautiful woman – my beautiful woman? She needed the reminder that we belonged to each other, and I needed the reminder that, no matter how related Clara was to her, she could never enjoy Jean the way I could.

  Safe in that knowledge, I yanked off every meager item of clothing she had on, in a race to savor the promised land that lay between her thighs. No time was wasted on the journey down, no kisses spared. I needed to taste her, I needed to hear her whine and whimper while my tongue did acrobatics on her sex.

  I loved the way she submitted without question, lying back and letting me claim what was rightfully mine.

  Her juices were already in full flow by the time I got down there, and I dove in hungrily, devouring all I could of her. My tongue worked tirelessly, giving her stiff bean lashing after lashing, forcing deep moans from her lips.

  I added my fingers to the mix, pressing them against her bean while my tongue continued its perusal of every moist corner of her sex. She writhed beneath me, unable to keep her body still.

  Gently, quietly at first, my name escaped her lips in a strangled moan. It made me feel powerful.

  I didn't care that she hadn't reached her peak when I stopped. I wanted to kiss her, to look at her then reconvene. I wanted to see how ravaged my assault on her sex had left her; how breathless.

  When I looked at her, however, I didn't see someone I wanted to kiss. A sudden, inexplicable anger consumed me, its origin a mystery. There was love in her eyes but...hate in mine.

  I felt my hand wrap around her soft, pale neck, and tighten. The love in her eyes gradually turned to fear, then horror as the air was cut off from her lungs.

  "Lissa, you're hurting me," she choked.

  The voice inside my head told me I didn't care, that I shouldn't care, that this was what she deserved. But yet another voice told me to stop, that I didn't want to hurt her.

  They were both so loud, both making valid points. I don't know what prompted me to choose the latter and release her, but when I did, the former vanished.

  I scrambled off her, gawking down at the offending hand as though it didn't belong to me.

  She sat up, rubbing her neck and staring at me with a mixture of fear and anger.

  "What the hell is wrong with you?" she shouted.

  "I don't know," I said, and wept, covering my face with the unoffending hand, as though the other one would attack me next. "I don't know."

  What had I done? How had this happened? One minute we were making love, the next I was trying to choke the life out of her, and not in a sexual way.

  "Something just came over me, and I wanted to hurt you, but I don't know why?" I bawled, stepping off the bed and as far away from her as possible, afraid I would try to harm her again.

  "Were you mad at me for some reason?"

  "No. I don't know what happened to me."

  "Come here," she said, her voice gentle, her eyes soft. No trace of my hand print remained
around her neck.

  I shook my head, only backed farther away until my back was against the wall.

  "Lissa, it's all right."

  "What if I try to hurt you again? I don't want to do that."

  "Then you won't."

  I hesitated for a moment before making a slow, reluctant journey back to the bed. She reached out her hand for me and pulled me close, cuddled me to her.

  "Do you think it has something to do with the change?" I asked, hoping that would explain everything.

  "Probably," she said. "It will pass."

  I couldn't enjoy the remainder of the night with her, fearing that at any moment I might attack her again.

  *****

  My dreams up until that night had always been memories, nothing new or fantastical, like dreams often were. Merely nightmares, where I relived the most harrowing moments of my life.

  Tonight's one was different. As soon as it began, I knew it wasn't a memory. I was in the lair, having just woken up. When I looked beside me, Jean was still out cold. I studied her face, her motionless body. She wasn't breathing, and her skin had the pallor of a dead person. I'd never had the chance to see her this way; was that how I looked during the long sleep?

  Somehow in the dream I knew not to be afraid that she wasn't moving or breathing. Dream-me knew she was alive.

  I climbed out of the box, felt the cold tiles against my feet as I wandered to the door. I keyed in the code for the entry system almost robotically, without thinking. I'd done it so many times it had become habit.

  When I reached the top of the basement steps, I knew I was dreaming when I noticed the window. Instead of the usual darkness outside, I saw sunlight behind the blinds.

  I gasped and nearly fell backwards down the stairs. Since turning, I'd only ever seen daylight in one dream – the day my mother left. Jean said her dreams were rarely set in the day.

  This was a huge deal.

  I was so excited to experience the day, even if just in a dream, that I started twisting the blind open. The pain that hit me, however, made me yelp. When I looked at my hand and arm, it was as though I had third degree burns. The skin was scorched and red. It hurt so badly, it was as if I could really feel it.