by Lila Veen
“Hello Jenna,” Drake says softly and dangerously when he walks up to me. He looks at Justin with a gaze that indicates he should back away, which is exactly what Justin does.
“Need anything, Jenna?” Justin asks me, “I’m going to get something else to eat.”
I shake my head but I’m silently screaming, “You! I need you here!” My feet are melded to the floor and I can’t move. Drake’s gaze makes me look down and away. I desperately look in Devin’s direction but can’t seem to catch his eye. He is focused on Holly, and suddenly I am angry at her for being here. I’m angry at Justin for walking away, and I’m angry at Devin for ignoring me. I’m left alone to fend for myself.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I whisper. “You shouldn’t be here!”
“Nice to see you as well, Jenna,” he replies casually. He reaches into his suit pocket and pulls out a brown paper wrapped package. “I came to drop off your housewarming gift. It’s specifically for you,” he tells me, with all of his emphasis on “you”. He hands me the package and I clutch it against my chest. It’s very light. Then he winks at me a split second before Devin walks up to us.
“Mr. Carroll, right?” Devin says, shaking his hand. I feel a bit nauseous. “Devin Parker. It’s nice to finally meet you. Thanks for all of your help with the property tax transfer.”
“Oh, it was my pleasure,” Drake says, stressing the word “pleasure”. What is with him and the last word of every sentence? It’s gross. I can’t believe I found it alluring at any point in my life. “Call me Drake. I can’t stay for very long. I just wanted to drop by and make sure everything is going smoothly with the tax statements.”
“They seem to be coming through just fine,” Devin says. “I mean, we got the first monthly bill so I assume everything is fine. Are you sure you can’t stay? There’s plenty of food.”
“Oh no, I can’t,” Drake says. “I need to go to another house closing up on the north side. Anyway, call me if you need anything else. Jenna has my number.”
“Will do,” Devin says and walks Drake to the door. They shake hands again and Drake casts me once last glance that makes me shake all over. Then he turns and goes. When Drake walks out I breathe a sigh of relief. Devin is oblivious, but Justin comes back to me with a beer and asks if we can talk alone for a minute.
“Meet me on the porch,” I say, realizing I am still holding the package Drake gave me. I need to put it away someplace safe. “Let me go to my room and get my smokes.”
I walk to my room and put the package down on the dresser and my hands are still shaking. I look across the room at myself in the mirror and see Kate standing behind me. “Go away!” I say out loud to her, and then clap my hand over my mouth. I’m sure someone heard me shout. She smiles and blows me a kiss and vanishes. I breathe another deep breath and sigh loudly. My pack of cigarettes is on the floor next to my bed. I take one out and walk out of the room, past everyone in the kitchen and onto the porch. I need air, even though it’s stifling hot outside and the cool air conditioning made me forget it. Justin is already out there waiting for me. I light up my cigarette and stay standing and pace the length of the porch, trying hold myself together.
Justin sips at his beer and watches me. “Jenna, who was that?” he asks me softly. I’m sure I look like a maniac and he doesn’t know quite how to handle me right now. “Jenna, what did he say to you? Why were you so affected by him?”
I don’t want today ruined and I don’t want any trouble. I feel like Justin knows what’s up but wants me to say it. He’s watching me with a suspicious look on his face. I make myself stop pacing and look straight at him. “It was our real estate lawyer who handled the property tax transfer on the house,” I say, telling the truth but offering nothing beyond what I want Justin to hear. “He stopped by to make sure everything was okay.”
Justin nods. “He looks familiar,” he says. “Oh, wait, wasn’t he at Jack’s funeral?” I nod and take a drag. “Jenna, what’s wrong? Something feels off. A few minutes ago you were saying everything was going so well, and now you look like you’re ready to-“
“Release Kate?” I interrupt him.
He shakes his head. “I was going to say, ready to fall apart.”
I put out my cigarette. “I’m okay. Let’s go inside and mingle some more. I’m suddenly really tired.”
Justin shrugs and follows me in. The first thing I do is exchange my glass of sangria for Jameson, straight up. I proceed to return to some old habits and get dangerously drunk in the next hour. As the party winds down, I slowly feel relieved, just wanting the day to be over, and to be alone with whatever Drake came over to bring me. Everyone from Appleseed has to work that evening and so they leave early evening. Louisa and Joe take off just after the food is nearly gone, as Louisa has to make sure everyone is well fed. No one goes home hungry. Eventually it’s just Devin, Holly, Justin and me left. There isn’t much to clean up other than some trash and Devin and Holly and Justintake care of most of it. I contribute by draining all of the cups with alcohol left inside. Justin tries to get me to eat the small amount of food that’s still around to attempt to have me sober up. The truth is, I’m pretending to be much more drunk than I really am because I want to be by myself. I don’t want to break the news to Justin and tell him to go and he’s not getting the hint. I have a feeling I’m not going to get what I want.
Justin brings me to my room to go lie down. “I brought you something,” he tells me and I refrain from rolling my eyes. How many “presents” can a girl take in one day? He changes my attitude almost immediately when he pulls photographs of me from the first night we were together out of a yellow envelope. The ones where I am painted like a peacock and displayed nude on the covered chaise.
I breathe in and take a photo out of his hands. “Oh, wow,” is all I can say. I feel him sit behind me while I look at them and his lips are on my neck. I let him cup my face in his hand and run his other hand down my side and over my thigh, sending a shiver through me. I help him undo the button on my shorts and feel him slide his hand over me, his fingers slipping inside of me. He moves two fingers in and out of me gently and pushes me back so I am lying down on my bed with him beside me. As he hovers over me, he brings his hand up to his mouth and tastes me on his fingers. “Any good?” I ask him. In response, he brings my hand to the front of his jeans and I feel how hard it’s made him.
“What do you think?” he asks me. In response, I put my arms around his neck and bring him closer to kiss me. I can taste myself faintly on his lips and it arouses me even more. He moves my shirt up and over my breasts and pushes my bra out of the way and brings his face down to my nipples. He hasn’t shaved in a day or two and it scratches my skin when he is gentle, so I pull him toward me and he takes my nipple in his mouth and sucks hard. I gasp and fumble with his button and zipper on his jeans and push them down over his hips and he pushes himself inside of me instantly. We rock together and in a minute I’m coming and crying out and he is quick to follow, but quieter than I am, and I realize we aren’t the only ones home and I turn red with embarrassment.
“Oops,” I say. “I guess Devin is going to give both of us shit.”
Justin shrugs and rolls over to lie down next to me. “I have a feeling that he’s probably in his room with Holly doing the same thing.” I groan because that’s my brother, and it’s gross. Justin laughs. We lie still for a bit and then turn and kiss each other gently. He kisses my eyelids and I kiss his neck. He brings my hand down to feel how hard he is getting again. “See what you do to me?”
“I can feel it but right now all I see is you,” I tell him. I put my arms around him and lay on his chest and feel him breathe hard as I play with him. He is wet with my juices and my hand slides back and forth over him and soon I feel him come in my hand. “You’re a mess,” I say, and crouch over him and take him in my mouth to clean him up. He shudders as I take him all the way in my mouth, and then I lick my hand as seductively as it is possible to lick a
hand.
“You’re a minx,” he tells me. “Where’d you learn to be such a dirty girl?”
“Movies,” I tell him. “The Internet. Life.” Confessing my secrets doesn’t embarrass me as it should. I feel like I can say these things to Justin. He knows my dark side.
“I guess I already knew that,” Justin says quietly. “Maybe you’ll let me watch one with you sometime?”
“Maybe,” I say, not quite ready to make that commitment. “I don’t really share that with other people. Well, I never have before, but I’ve never really had a boyfriend before either.”
He grins. “So I’m your boyfriend, now?” he teases me. I groan and cover my face with a pillow and toss it toward him. He grins even more and throws it aside. It hurls its way over to my dresser and knocks into the forgotten package from Drake. “What is that?” he asks me. I look toward where his eyes are pointed and my heart skips a beat. He’s looking directly at the package.
He sits up and pulls up his jeans and walks over to the brown package. I watch in horror as he picks it up and turns it around in his hands. “What is this and where did it come from?” he asks.
“Um, I don’t know,” I said, sounding immediately like I’m lying, which is half the case. I sigh. “Drake brought it.”
“Drake?” Justin asks. “You mean, the lawyer?” I nod and cringe. Justin’s face look like he’s working things out. “Jenna, that night I picked you up, was it from his place?”
“Yes,” I whisper. Justin takes my affirmation as a cue to rip open the paper. It’s an unmarked DVD case. My heart feels like it might leap out of my throat as he walks over to the small television I have in my bedroom and opens the DVD player. He turns the screen on and it’s Drake fucking me the first night we were together, the night he got my yellow dress all wet. The night I so willingly fucked him. “Turn it off!” I cry out but Justin doesn’t move. He just watches the screen. He keeps watching and watching and I am watching him watch and feel my face grow hot with tears. He looks wistful, sad, and confused. Then I see his facial expression change to one of horror as the scene changes. It’s the same setting, but it is obvious that Kate has taken over me on the screen. I can’t watch the screen, I can only watch Justin as he takes in what Drake sent to me on that damned DVD, and then I hear myself scream and finally turn and look, and it’s Drake, fucking me over the control panel of his “screening” room, and that’s the last thing I see.
Chapter 14
“Hello Justin,” she purrs.
“Kate?” he blinks and stares. Slowly he realizes the difference. Her tone, her mannerisms, her look she is giving him – they all aren’t like Jenna. They are Kate, and he recalls the night he first encountered her. She seems much more mellow tonight, though. The last time she visited when he was here she was manic.
“That’s right. Good to see you again.”
He crosses his brows together. “I think the only time we ever met we watched a baseball game and there isn’t one on. So perhaps you should let Jenna come back out.”
She smiles bewitchingly. “Actually I watched you sleeping a couple of nights ago and went through your drawers. I’m sad to say I didn’t find much there.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” he says. “I have nothing to hide from you. Or Jenna.”
“I don’t have anything to hide from you either,” Kate echoes. “Actually, Jenna is the one with all of the secrets. She’s told you some things and left out a lot of bits and pieces. When you saw how much she liked what happened on that tape, she hid from you.”
“What do you mean?” Justin asks.
“I mean she likes it rough,” Kate says huskily. She pushes Justin back against the mattress and hovers over him. Her hair dusts against his face lightly.
“You mean you like it rough,” Justin says. “Jenna lets me make love to her. You let men degrade you and enjoy it.”
“She’ll get bored,” Kate says, “Don’t you want to degrade me?” she suddenly asks Justin, as though the idea just popped into her head. “Wouldn’t you like to smack me around and fuck me hard? Maybe you can fuck me in the ass. I’ll let you.”
“No,” Justin replies calmly. “I’d rather be with Jenna than do those things to you. I don’t know you very well.”
“I know you,” Kate says. “I know you like to feel like you’re helping everyone and feeling useful. What kind of charity case did you have before Jenna and Devin came along? Do you only date girls with problems so you can feel like a knight in shining armor?”
He actually looks hurt. “That’s not fair.”
She smiles. “But it’s true.”
Justin looks conflicted. “It’s true I like to help. But Jenna is special to me and if it were anyone else, I might not be so willing.”
Kate rolls her eyes. “Whatever. It’s charity.”
He sighs. “I guess I’ll go home.” He begins to gather his clothes off the floor and Kate grabs his arm.
“Why not stay with me?” she asks him. “I won’t tell Jenna. We don’t even have to do anything. And I can show you something you might want to see.”
“Show me what?” Justin asks, standing up and buttoning his jeans. He looks around and picks up his t-shirt off the floor. “I think I’ve seen all I want to see for tonight.”
“Oh, that,” Kate says, flipping her hand at the television. The DVD has stopped playing and the screen casts a blue glare through the room. “I can show you all sorts of movies like that. And I don’t mean the ones that were taken from the house, either.”
“What do you mean, movies?” Justin asks, looking at Kate. She smiles and pulls Justin toward her and begins to whisper in his ear and stops. Her expression glazes over and her lips stop moving….
*
“Kate? Jenna? Hello?” I feel Justin shaking me and I can’t figure out what’s happened. We’re in my bedroom and its dark except for the blue glow of the television. Justin is sitting beside me, looking perplexed.
“Was she here?” I ask him. He nods. “Shit, what happened?” Then I remember what I’d just seen and what Justin had just seen with me when I feel the glow of the television. My head sinks into my hands. “Fuck.”
“Jenna,” Justin says, pulling me toward him. “You need to talk to me. Do you think you can stay around long enough as yourself to help me understand a few things?”
I bite my lip and nod but I am not sure. I suddenly feel drunk. I might not have the best control over what I do right now. “I’ll try my best,” I say. “But if you start to get angry, please try not to show it. I’ll understand that you are, but you need to stay calm if you want me to stay myself. And try not to lead the conversation anywhere differently. I want to tell you everything but it’s hard to when I get pushed.”
“Okay,” he says, nodding. “I’m not angry but I’m confused and I’m hoping you can help me get the big picture.”
“The thing is,” I say, “I don’t really know the big picture.”
“But Kate does,” Justin says, “She just said something to me that I think might be important. I think if we try hard enough we can merge the two perspectives.”
“That sounds like some therapy shit,” I tell him. “Are you going to be my therapist?”
Justin shrugs. “Maybe it’ll work. I’ve been doing some research about D.I.D.”
I roll my eyes. “Anyone can Google some shit about D.I.D. It doesn’t make them a therapist.”
“But you are comfortable with me, I hope?” he asks. “I mean, I know you are more comfortable with Devin, and if that’s the case and you want me to fuck off, just say so.”
I sigh. “I’m willing to try anything. I just don’t have much faith that anything will work.”
“Is there a way I can address difficult subjects with you without you changing into Kate?” Justin asks.
I shrug. “Without medication it’s hard to control. I haven’t really mastered it. And with medication, Kate is just gone.” I suddenly get an idea. “You can try talking to Kat
e, though. There are ways to get information out of her.”
Justin considers this for a moment and nods. “Okay,” he agrees. “Any advice for talking to her?”
I think about that. “She’s harsh. I think the best way to do it is argumentatively. Confront her. Don’t hold back.” I look at him and force myself to smile. “I guess you can take the same approach with me.”
“I wouldn’t,” he says. “You just told me to do the opposite.”
I take his hand and pull him to me. “It needs to be done. Something happened that night that I asked you to pick me up and I think I might be in trouble.”
I go on to explain about how I originally became involved with Drake. I was attracted to his charm and probably his money, but when Justin made his feelings clear to me, I wanted to end things with Drake because I realized that Drake was good for Kate, but not for me, and I needed to do what was best for me. At the time it wasn’t blatantly obvious but I realize that now. That night I went to Drake’s to break things off and he showed me the video he had taken of us, the same video that he dropped off earlier at the housewarming party, in my DVD player right now, I felt violated. Then he took everything too far and raped me. I watch Justin’s face as I tell him everything, but he is unreadable, and I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that or terrified. “What are you thinking?” I ask him finally when there is no more to say.
“I’m thinking that there is something else that neither one of us knows about in the story,” Justin says. “The break in the other night has something to do with this. The DVDs from your house were stolen and Drake drops off a DVD that’s a sex video of you. What do you think that’s about?”
“Drake broke in?” I say, and it makes sense. “But why? If he had the video at his house, what would he be looking for here?”
