PLAYER (21st Century Courtesan)

by Pamela DuMond

  “This has been on the schedule for months, Rosemary,” he says. “The Bethany Synod elders flew in from Oklahoma. We need to hammer out the details for the convention next year.”

  “I don’t know if I have ‘next year’,” she says. “I’d rather spend the rest of the day on the water with my family.”

  A hush falls, just the sound of the engine and the boat cutting through the water.

  “You said you didn’t want to talk about that this weekend,” Bill says.

  “I changed my mind.” She juts her chin out defiantly. “If I don’t say things now, when in the hell am I going to say them?”

  Patrick and Danica gaze pointedly out across the water rushing by the motor boat’s wake. Dylan eyes me, his board shorts wet, his legs already turning pink because they haven’t seen sunshine in God knows how long.

  “It’s the elephant in the room,” Rosemary says. “I’m having surgery in a few days. If we can’t talk about our feelings now, when are we going to talk about them? Why don’t we just get it all out the next couple of days? Let the shit fly. Let the love fly.”

  “Hear, hear,” Danica says, grabbing another beer.

  “Not a great idea, Mom.” Patrick runs a hand through his hair.

  “I love you, Mom,” Dylan says. “I’m sorry I stayed away for so long.”

  “I love you too, Dylan,” she says. “I forgive you.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Patrick says. “Can we just go home?”

  “That’s the point, Patrick,” Rosemary says. “That’s what we’re finally doing.”

  Danica walks with me from the dock to the main house. “I confess I’ve only met Dylan a few times,” she says. “But this is the happiest I’ve ever seen him. I think you’re good for him.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Welcome. Look, I know what happened between him and Patrick. A world of hurt feelings. But Patrick wasn’t the only shithead responsible for that mess.”

  “Dylan?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “He handled it the best he could. Dixie was a shithead. She was mad at Dylan for not wanting to be a bigger part of Lighthouse, not taking a more substantial role. She walked out on him and slept with Patrick, who was drunk. Afterwards, he felt like an asshole but Dixie had already bragged to Dylan and the damage was done.”

  “Damn,” I say. “That explains some things.”

  “Patrick apologized to Dylan but that fell on deaf ears. What a mess. Possibly the biggest shithead in this whole mess was Lighthouse Cathedral. So many expectations. The bar is set so high that failure becomes more the norm than success.” She pauses before walking in the main house. “You coming inside?”

  I look at my watch. I have to meet the Ma Maison client at Sycamore Springs Country Club in a few hours and there’s something I need to finish with Dylan before I go. Just dotting my i’s and crossing my t’s. “Nope. I’m wiped from the day.”

  “Time out on the boat and the sunshine can do that to you.”

  “I think it was the Lighthouse picnic.”

  She frowns. “That too. Don’t let these Lighthouse holier-than-thou assholes get to you, Evelyn. Trust me, someone’s going to try. They did with me.”

  Dylan lies naked in bed. His skin is flushed either from too much sun out on the boat or because I’m straddling him, caressing his face, his shoulders, his chest, his stomach – basically everything on his glorious body except for his dick. His cock’s rock hard from me brushing my wet pussy across his stomach. Yes, I’m turned on, but more importantly I’m determined to get to the bottom of his messed up core wound, and find the bitter belief that’s shutting him down.

  “Baby,” he says, his breathing coming faster. “You’re killing me.”

  “Me too. Remember a few days ago when you found the scar on my head when we were fooling around?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think we were onto something. We were close to finding the thing that’s zapping your mojo. You’ve got a game tonight. Want to try again? You know — before the game?”

  “What do you want to do,” he asks, eyes wide.

  I know he wants me to let this go because right now he just wants to fuck me. That would be the easy thing. I’ve never really done this before, this sex and empathy and healing thing blended together. I might just make a big fat mess of this and then hopefully we’ll both have a good laugh at my expense and I can live with that. What I can’t live with is knowing I got this close and I gave up. That’s not who I am.

  “Mold your hand onto my skin. Mold your hand into the scar.” I take his hand and place it on the scar on my head, an inch into my hairline. “Every scar has a story.”

  “Why are we doing this, again Evie? Are you sure we can’t just have sex?”

  “No. Trust me, Dylan. Close your eyes. Feel this scar, tell me its story, and then we can have sex.”

  He closes his eyes. “Scars happen after you’ve been sliced open. Injured. Suffered.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “Scars happen when the body tries to repair tissue because pain has torn into the body. The worst scars usually happen with the toughest injuries.”

  “Yes. What does my scar feel like?”

  He crinkles his forehead. “It feels like it’s pushing me out. Pushing my hand away. Something bad happened to you Evie.”

  “It did.”

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Queasy asks, flip-flopping dramatically in my stomach.

  ‘Keep going,’ Hope says, throwing an encouraging fist punch, and I get a hit of adrenaline.

  “Let’s not talk about me right now.” I still my hand on his chest. I close my eyes and silently count three, two, one. I move into the empathic layer within me. The outside world drifts away and I feel.

  I simply feel.

  Heaviness fills my chest. I wade into the ocean of Dylan’s sorrow, the waters rising. The weight of the world wears on my shoulders and I am eighty-four years old, not twenty-four. His core wound is within me. It’s furtive, panting, eyes darting, sneaky, staying one step ahead of me. But it’s been stealing from him for a while now, and like any thief who hasn’t been caught in a while, it’s growing bloated from its undeserved, vampiric success.

  I circle it, my hand skimming across Dylan’s body as the predator twists inside him. It disappears behind a black veil of fear. Dare I go there? Dare I pull back the curtain? Who am I to confront Dylan’s shitty belief? I’m no hero. I boast no supernatural abilities to lift myself up. I’m just a rental date who met him a few weeks ago wearing a borrowed dress.

  But I’m also the girl who willed life back into Wyatt Wolfe. I’m the girl who puts others’ needs first – my mom’s my sister’s. I’m the girl who has to try. I need to identify these sensations. The heaviness, the drowning, feel familiar. And then it dawns on me that I’ve already been given the answer.

  Guilt.

  “I love you, Mom,” Dylan said to his mother on the boat. “I’m sorry I stayed away for so long.”

  “I love you too, Dylan,” she said. “I forgive you.”

  Dylan found out Dixie cheated with his brother and it wrecked him and he left. He bailed. He stayed away. He’s felt guilty ever since. It’s killing his mojo. But the funny thing is, that guilt’s not going to make his mom better. Losing his game, screwing up the life he built is not going to make his mom better. On the other hand, owning these feelings is a big first step toward healing Dylan, healing his relationship with his mother, and getting on with all the love that they share.

  I open my eyes and stare into his. “You feel guilty,” I say.

  “About what?”

  “When did you leave home?”

  “When I found out about Dixie. Five years ago.”

  “You left to keep your sanity when your marriage fell apart. You left in anger.”

  “Yes.”

  “Now your mom’s sick and you’re blaming yourself. Magical thinking,” I say. “We think we can control everything. We can’
t.”

  “But she is sick and I did leave.”

  My hand on his stomach starts sweating as that fucked up belief tries to wriggle away from me. I grit my teeth and hold onto that belief. I’m not letting this sucker go. “If your career crashes and burns, it justifies you returning to Texas and Lighthouse Cathedral. In a strange way, it’s doing you a favor, a service. It’s making the decision for you.”

  “That can’t be.” He props himself up on his elbows, looking a little pissed.

  “This life no longer suits you.” I don’t move my hand and yet I pull that angry predator out of Dylan inch by squirrely inch. “I get a feeling this life has never suited you. You know how on the boat today you mom forgave you for not coming home?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did that make you feel?” I pull the guilt into my hand and I capture it. I can almost see it squirming in my palm all, slick and whiny and entitled. I close my fingers into a fist. What a fucking asshole his guilt is. He doesn’t need this wound anymore. He needs to work on healing and get on with it.

  “Sad.”

  “She forgave you,” I say.

  “I shouldn’t have left her.”

  “Tell me that you could have stayed.” I lean forward, run my other hand across his face, a finger across his full lips. I kiss him. This man – this delicious man. “Tell me you could stay after what happened with Dixie.”

  “You don’t know the worst of it.”

  “I do, Dylan.” I slide my hand over his hard dick and he moans. I straddle his thighs, circle his cock with my hand, and lightly run my fist up and down it. “Lighthouse might have a huge congregation, but at the end of the day it’s a relatively small, close-knit community. People talk.”

  “Becky?”

  I nod. “And others.”

  “Do you think I’m an asshole?”

  “No. I think you are deserving. I think you are kind. I think you are a bright star on a dark winter night.”

  “Really?” His eyes are dark with lust and something else – I’m not sure what.

  “Look, Dylan.” I stop stroking his cock and move my core over his. I hold my closed fist in the air and open it.

  “What?”

  “Remember when you asked me to wish you good luck at the game in Chicago when we met?”

  “I do.”

  “This is your guilt. Here. In my hand. It’s no longer in you. We’re letting it go. Releasing it to the wild where it can stalk about, grumble that no one understands it anymore. This guilt is no longer yours. Let’s wish it good luck and kiss it goodbye.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” I say a silent prayer.

  ‘Dear God, take Dylan McAlister’s guilt. He’s carried it long enough. It’s time for him to heal. Thank you. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’

  “What will I do without it?” he asks as I center my core over his beautiful cock and lower myself onto his hardness. He moans.

  I lean forward and fuck him. “Positive things, Dylan. We can work on mantras. ‘I am enough.’ ‘I am forgiven.’ ‘I am calm.’ ‘I am strength.’ ‘I am respect.’ Say the words, Dylan. Say them as you fuck me.”

  He says them. “I am strength. I am calm.” He turns me over. He’s on top of me now, staring down into my eyes with a fierceness. “I am forgiven. I am enough,” he says and thrusts into me harder.

  “You are.” I wrap my legs around his waist as he penetrates me deep and deeper. He says the words over and over as he fucks me and on the fourteenth or fortieth time, I know he believes them. There’s something different in his touch, in the tone of his voice. It’s clearer. “Evie. Evie!” He climaxes, groaning, chest slick with sweat.

  He owns his pain instead of his pain owning him. I know in my bones, that bent, battered, Dylan has broken through.

  My beautiful, broken man is finally healing.

  12. Prodigal Son

  PRODIGAL SON

  I pick through the clothes in my suitcase and find a country club kind of dress that works for the wedding date with this Ma Maison client but would also fit in with Dylan’s poker game.

  I put on makeup in front of a mirror hanging over a hewn wooden desk in the living room and watch him out of the corner of my eye as he gets dressed, pulling on his pants, shrugging on a light cotton shirt. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how handsome he is. My phone pings with an incoming text. Amelia messaged me right at the time we agreed on.

  Amelia: I’m fake texting you at the time you told me. Good luck.

  I read her text, sigh theatrically, and frown. “Dang.”

  “Something wrong?” Dylan asks.

  “My mom needs me.” My nose is growing.

  “She okay?”

  “I think so.” I walk up to him and button his shirt, making my way up his hard abdomen and sculpted chest. Deceit is not something I’m comfortable with. It’s a shitty feeling and I promise to avoid it from here on out. “I’ve got a situation. I can meet you at the game later, but first I need to spend some quality time with Mom.” God, I sound like a phony asshole.

  “I thought your mom was in Wisconsin.”

  “She is. But she’s wound up and I need to calm her down. Have a heart-to-heart. Facetime for a few hours. I’m going to go to a mall, grab something to eat. Go somewhere I can have private time.”

  “Mall’s aren’t all that private.”

  “Malls are malls are malls. Generic. Mom doesn’t know I’m on the road. She might have more anxiety if she knew I wasn’t in Chicago.”

  “Okay, Lucky Charm,” he says, and kisses me on the lips. “Do you want me to drop you somewhere?”

  “Nah, I’ll order a ride.”

  “I’ll text you the address for the game. We can meet up later.”

  “Fair warning,” I say. “Mom can talk for hours.”

  “No rush.” He opens the door of the cottage and walks out, but pauses. “Baby?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re amazing. You heal me. Thank you.”

  I watch him leave and I blink back tears.

  And so, at the end of the day, it’s not a mission of endurance as much as one of cutting the cord. The cord of guilt. Dylan doesn’t belong in Texas anymore. Maybe at some point when he was a child, being molded by his parents, he belonged here. To a life of service. Duty to an institution. But Dylan’s life veered left while his family’s lives marched forward. Their separate paths didn’t make them less of a family. It just made them diverse.

  Dylan McAlister needs to play the game and he needs to do that well. He needs to travel from state to state. City to city. Stay up all night. Sleep all day when he needs or wants. Just because he’s different from his family doesn’t mean he’s worth less. Dylan’s worthy of love just like everyone else.

  My driver messages that he’ll be arriving in five minutes. As I head to the front door I see Dylan sitting in the kitchen with his mom. She’s wearing a cotton shift with “Winter is coming and I can’t wait!” on it. A globe lamp is glowing overhead, a moth beating against the kitchen screen.

  “You always were my favorite, you know,” his mom says, and shuffles a deck of cards on the table.

  “No, I wasn’t,” he says. “Patrick was.”

  “Patrick likes to say he was. But you’ve always been my favorite, Dylan.”

  “Mom.”

  “I’m so glad you came home, honey.” She pats the back of his hand. “But if you stay, I’ll kick your ass.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. You don’t belong here anymore. I know it. You know it.”

  “What about…”

  “Yeah, the cancer,” Rosemary says. “Now that the ice is broken, you’ll come back more often. We’ll see each other more. And we’ll figure that part out, moment by moment. Step by step.”

  “Okay.” He sighs and shuffles the deck.

  “I like Evie a lot,” his mom says. “Do you think you found the right girl?”

  Woah
.

  “Not for you to worry about, Mom.” He cuts the stack. “High card wins.”

  “What are we betting on?” she asks.

  “You decide.”

  “I win, Dylan, you go for broke on Evie. Don’t play half-assed for her. Play smart. When the time is right, put all your money on the table. Don’t lose her.” She grabs his hand, squeezing it.

  “I will, Mom. I will once you are squared away.”

  God, I hope she’s squared away soon. Wait-wait – does this mean Dylan and I have a future together?

  “I win, you don’t wait for me.” she says. “Dreams have a way of getting away from you if you let them sit by themselves for too long. People do that too.”

  The tears are coming and I can’t screw up my wedding date by showing up with smeared makeup. I walk quietly past the kitchen, open the front door, and see my driver already waiting at the end of the long driveway.

  The driver drops me just inside the gates at Sycamore Springs Country Club. It’s a three story L-shaped red brick building surrounded by sweeping manicured green lawns. A brook winds around the grounds, with small, picturesque walking bridges spanning its width.

  A Rolls Royce is parked at the club’s entrance, where a tuxedoed twenty-something groom is helping the beaming bride out of the back seat. Coiffed women in designer cocktail dresses and suited men make way for the newlyweds. There’s a smattering of applause and a few chants of “Kiss the bride!” The cute couple look at each other, laugh, and oblige their fans.

  “Evelyn.” A meaty hand slides down my bare shoulder and I wince when it lands possessively at my elbow. “So glad you could make it.” A shiver runs through me because I know this man’s voice. It’s Glenn, the Fast Food King. Dylan’s poker rival. The portly, sweaty man with the skinny tongue who can’t help but lick his lips when he sees a young, attractive woman. Even worse? He’s doing it now.

  It’s all I can do not to make a run for it. I could bolt past the guard at the front gates and squeeze out. Oh man, fuck Madame Marchand for doing this to me. But leaving will just seal my fate. I’ll definitely be out of a job. I won’t be putting a dent in Ruby’s tuition, let alone paying for Mom’s medicals in a month from now. I need to bite the bullet and just get this done. “Glenn,” I say, and force a smile. “What a nice surprise. How do you know the bride and groom?”