Dirty Little Secret

by Amber Rides

  Dirty Little Secrets

  By Amber Rides

  Copyright 2014, Amber Rideau

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  CUTTER

  My week was like a sandwich. Not a good one, either. More like someone took a perfectly delicious piece of meat, shoved it between two pieces of shit, and then made me eat it.

  Typically, I spent five days a week, ten hours a day hauling lumber for shitty pay, on an even shittier rotating schedule that messed with my sleep and generally put me in a bad mood. I spent a sixth day doing my eight hours a week of court-mandated community service. I won’t bother getting into that shit now. It’s a long, boring sob story for another time. The seventh day was dedicated to fantasizing about freedom, girls, and beer. Although not necessarily in that order.

  This particular week, though…It started with a bang. Two if you counted the sudden, startling one that came knocking on my door a few hours before I had to be at work.

  “Who the fuck is that?” I muttered.

  I could count on one hand the people who knew where I lived. Only two of them would come by unannounced. My probation officer, or the cop who had the hate-filled hard on for me. I couldn’t ignore either. Of course, that didn’t mean I had to like it. Or even be nice about it.

  I jumped up from my bed without preamble and fixed a scowl on my face.

  When I flung the door open, I was surprised to see that it wasn’t either of them.

  It was my ex, Brandy. In a fucking raincoat.

  “What the hell?”

  The words were barely out of my mouth before she pushed a hooker-red, painted-nail hand into my chest. She wore the perfume that used to be my favourite. I couldn’t even remember what it was called, but its cloying scent was all around, making me want to throw up my toast.

  “How did you find me?”

  “I didn’t know you were hiding.”

  “Only from you.”

  Let me offer some quick insight here, on my full-on hatred of the woman standing in front of me.

  She was a card-carrying bitch. She had mean and petty down to a science. If that’s not enough…There’s this.

  For three years, we dated. She kept a toothbrush on my sink. I bought her a ring. Oh. She fucked my best friend, for most of those three years. So I lit his house on fire. Then she started keeping her toothbrush on his – somewhat charred – sink.

  At that moment, though, she seemed to have forgotten all of it. Except for the bitch part, of course.

  “You’re pretty, baby,” she purred. “But not that smart. And therefore not that hard to find.”

  “And that’s why I spend my days hauling around large pieces of wood while you spend yours…What do you do again for money? Right. You seduce rich assholes.”

  She tapped my chest and winked. “And not rich assholes, apparently.”

  “Fuck you. Didn’t you get a restraining order against me?”

  “I did. A few times…The last of them expired last week. I’m assuming you’re not going to try to light me on fire again.”

  “Not today,” I agreed. “Besides. I wasn’t after you. You weren’t worth the time. It was that two-faced sonofabitch who needed to burn. What do you want?”

  “I want you, honey.”

  I didn’t let my surprise register on my face. “Not that I can blame you…But for fuck’s sake, why? Billy give you herpes? That’s what you get for sucking off a gigolo.”

  She didn’t take the bait. Or the hint.

  “I mean it, hon. I need you.”

  “Sorry, Brandy. You’re two years and one friend-dick too late.”

  She smiled a thin-lipped smile. “You look good, Mr. Lane. That is what you’re going by now, right?”

  “It’s my legal name now, so yes, I go by it. And by the way, you look like shit, Brandy.”

  She laughed, probably because she knew the second statement was a lie.

  One thing about my ex that’ll never change – she’ll always make an effort to look like a magazine ad. Flawless, tanned skin. Silky auburn hair. A body that made her bullshit worth putting up with. To a point, anyway. She usually dressed like a supermodel, too. Which brought me back to the raincoat.

  “What’s with the get-up, Brandy?” I asked mockingly. “Never took you for the P.I. type.”

  “Anyone else home?” she breathed.

  I looked around in as exaggerated a fashion as I could manage. The studio-style suite was the size of a box. My bed-slash-couch took up the majority of the room.

  “Don’t think so, Brandy,” I said.

  “What about up there?” She jerked her head toward the narrow, fold-down ladder at the other end of the room.

  Shit.

  I was usually really good at remembering to put it away.

  “Storage,” I muttered, then slapped on a grin to distract her. “There is one more place to check, though. Just let me look under here.”

  I bent down and pretended to look underneath the pull-out couch, and yelped in a ridiculously unmanly way when one of Brandy’s hands found my ass.

  “Jesus! What are you doing?”

  I wheeled around to face her. She dropped the raincoat to the floor. She had nothing underneath but a lacy bra and matching thong. She ran her hands up her own thighs and slipped a finger underneath the underwear.

  “You just wanna watch, baby? Or you wanna join in?”

  I hated the stupid bitch. But I was also a complete asshole, and not an idiot. When some willing, ten-out-of-ten, piece of ass presents itself, I’m gonna take it with barely a blink.

  “Grab a condom from the night stand,” I growled. “And turn around. I don’t want to see your face when I’m pity fucking you.”

  It was only partly a lie. I had no interest in seeing her face. Mostly though, I didn’t want her to catch sight of the blinking anklet secured just above my foot, either. No need to bring that particular item into the mix.

  It was over quickly, and for a second I felt bad. Then Brandy turned her head my way, and I felt disgusted instead. I still pulled up my pants from around my ankles so she wouldn’t see the offending piece of equipment blinking its little green light.

  “You want to cuddle?” she asked in a sickly sweet voice. “I know how you like that.”

  In reply, I lit a cigarette – strictly a no-no for a reformed arsonist, particularly since my house arrest prohibits my use of fire - and collapsed on the bed. Brandy eyed the exhale of smoke distastefully.

  Like I gave a shit what she thought. In fact, I’d quit, but it somehow seemed fitting that I use up one of the stale cigarettes left in the pack. To commemorate the fucking moment.

  “You want to know why I like to cuddle, Brandy?” I asked, and blew a ring of smoke in her direction.

  “Not really.”

  “Too fucking bad. I’m telling you anyway.”

  She flicked away a piece of ash that landed on her stomach and shot me an annoyed look.

  “It’ll give you something to listen to while you pull up your panties and put on your coat,” I told her.

  “Whatever,” she spat.

  “In tenth grade biology, we had a very enlightening teacher. Biggest fucking nerd you ever saw. He used to stand at the front of the class, pulling up his pants by their
goddamned suspenders. One day he segregates us and sends the girls off to learn about tampons or some other, equally unappealing chick-stuff, then tells us he’s going to talk about sex. We all looked at his weird ear hair and flaring nostrils and wondered the same thing. How is it possible that this man has ever had sex himself? Or with anyone but himself?” I paused to light a second cigarette, and grinned as I recounted what happened next.

  “Which part of coitus is the most important?” the teacher demanded in his nasally voice.

  The soon-to-be drop-outs responded with a shitload of obnoxious comments.

  “Which part isn’t important?”

  “Getting some!”

  “Making sure she has huge tits!”

  And the know-it-alls who thought they had the right answer added their two cents.

  “The orgasm.”

  “Telling her you love her.”

  “Making sure you’re married first.”

  The teacher shook his head. “You’re all wrong. The most important part of coitus is actually not the act itself. It’s what comes after.”

  “A nap?” I called out.

  The whole class laughed appreciatively at that one.

  “No, Cutter. If you think you can roll over and take a nap after you’re done, your career as a sex god will end around the same time as your sexual peak. Roughly four years from today.”

  This time, the whole class laughed at my expense. I sat back in my chair, embarrassed at being called out by a man in suspenders.

  “And I suppose you’d know that from experience,” I shot back.

  The teacher grinned. “No, son. I’ve never been your particular brand of pretty.”

  He turned around, reached into his briefcase, and yanked out a glossy photograph. Then he tacked the photo to the wall behind his desk. Cheers and catcalls met the display. It was a picture of a very attractive woman, all black hair and gorgeous, kissable lips. Oh, and she was in a bikini, splayed out on a bed with a come-fuck-me smile on her face and her finger crooked, just in case what she wanted wasn’t quite obvious enough.

  “That, gentlemen, is what a good post-coitus cuddle earns you. A man like me can be married to a woman like that,” the teacher informed us.

  “Right,” I scoffed. “Who? What man?”

  “I just told you. Me.”

  “No fucking way.”

  The teacher let the F-bomb slide. I’ve gotta admit, I might’ve, too, if I were tapping the woman who came to the classroom door that very second.

  I was too busy picking up my own jaw off the floor to notice if everyone else was as stunned as I was.

  She wasn’t just a woman like the one in the picture. She was the woman from it. In the flesh. Or less in the flesh, depending on how you wanted to look at it.

  “David, my love,” she said. “You forgot your lunch at home.”

  The teacher turned and shot us a wink. The fucker had planned the whole thing, of course.

  Then she – his gorgeous wife - dropped a brown paper bag on his desk, glanced at the pornographic shot of herself, and left. Like it was no big deal. I personally remember staring at that damned lunch bag, wondering if it was full of PB&J, or if it was cherry-flavored lube and more nude photos. I really fucking hoped it was the latter.

  “And that, my dear,” I finished. “Is the stupid-ass reason I never kick a woman out before copping a little post-coitus cuddle. So. You still interested?”

  Brandy shot me a disgusted look, but didn’t make a move to leave. She really couldn’t take a hint. I’d have to try harder.

  “You want to explain this?” I asked with a sigh.

  “Explain what?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Why you came to me for what you can probably get on any street corner.”

  She trailed a finger up my chest. “I don’t know where they’ve been.”

  “You don’t know where I’ve been, either,” I pointed out.

  “Sometimes a girl just wants to come home.”

  “That’s sweet, and I didn’t even have to cuddle you,” I said. “But two years is a long time.”

  “How much trouble can you have gotten into in two years?” she teased.

  “About one piece of trouble per week. That’s fifty-two pieces of trouble in a year. Sixty, if you count the two bonus months. So a hundred and twenty, total. Just in case you needed help with the math.”

  I grabbed her finger, which was now at my chin, and shoved it away.

  “You’ve changed, Mr. Lane.”

  I didn’t like the predatory glint in her eyes.

  “It’s time for you to get your shit and get out,” I told her.

  Brandy sat up. “Now?”

  “Sorry. You’re a little past your expiry date.” I rolled over and closed my eyes. “I’ve got stuff to take care of. And I need a nap.”

  End of slice one of my shit sandwich. Insert the meat.

  MELISSA

  If I had to pinpoint an exact moment when it all started to go down downhill, I would say it was the second I was born.

  After all, when you're a surprise baby, dropped into someone else’s already perfect life, you really have nowhere to go but down. And when that perfect life is already twenty years in, and your parents are thinking about college funds for their matching set of teenagers (one boy, one girl - it doesn’t get any better, right?) and they’ve been looking at RRSPs instead of bassinets…Well. You see what’s going to happen.

  In my case, this also included an underwear model of a brother, and sister who was once a pro-cheerleader for a major league football team that I won't bother to name. Oh, and my mom was a part of a premier, nouveau rich, politically connected family, and my dad was an ad exec, pulling a seven figure salary. Did I mention that? No? Well, there you go.

  My life was basically one big opportunity to mess stuff up.

  But somehow, I’d always managed to avoid the mess. Maybe I had an innately protective exterior. Like a turtle. Or maybe I hadn’t yet had the proper motivation. I mean, who wants to mess up a trust fund and a free ride?

  Either way, the first twenty point nine, nine years of my life, I managed to bypass the expectations of failure. And that's saying something.

  In fact, I groomed myself into the perfect child. The good girl. The perfect example of how an afterthought might just – maybe, baby – turn out okay. A four point oh GPA in high school. Scholarship to an Ivy League School. Handsome boyfriend with impressive biceps, who knew and respected my rule about not getting past second base. Two years of college under my belt, life (and hymen) still intact, and every reason to think it was going to keep going that way.

  I was like…Nice wallpaper. Guests admired me as they came in the door, but forgot about me pretty quickly.

  But then came the chai. A turning point, if you will.

  And the incident with the truck, of course. The straw that broke the camel’s back. Because if I'm being honest, until that second I think I could've got back up on that metaphorical horse and kept going.

  Looking back, I might ask myself why the hell I didn't.

  Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself here. I should start with the pre-chai, pre-truck bomb that landed in my lap on that morning of my twenty-first birthday, before the chai-truck day. Please. Don’t make a bigger deal of it than it is. By the time of the chai-truck moment, I’d had a full five days to acclimatize. In my world, near-to-a-week to come to terms with something was more than enough time. I was an expert at ironing out wrinkles. It was my thing.

  So when I found out The News, I evaluated whether or not I needed to change the direction my life was headed. And I made the choice to keep on my straight and narrow path. Who I am and who I would become weren’t related to my parentage. Not really really.

  And I’m ahead of myself again. Big sigh.

  Let me back it up and start with Monday morning.

  I was sitting in the middle of my parents’ over-sized great-room, looking at fabric swatches for pillows for their sof
as, and waiting for brunch to be served.

  My mom did brunches. And fundraisers. The occasional cocktail party. But she didn’t do big birthday celebrations, not for as long as I could remember, not even when I was a kid. There wouldn’t be cake, or gifts, or any acknowledgement that it was my birthday aside from a check. Which I would invest in a designer purse.

  Later, I’d go home to my apartment, and celebrate a little bit in my own way. My roommate, Shelby would have a low-fat muffin waiting, topped with a dollop of sugar-free icing and a candle. My boyfriend, Danny would come by after baseball practice and catch me up on the team gossip.

  But at that moment, it was just the two of us - Mom and me.

  As always, my dad was at work. My brother Garret, who was eighteen when I was born, lived in the UK, where he now directed commercials instead of acting in them. My sister, Julie, who was sixteen years older than I was, lived nearby, but had three kids of her own, and we’d never been close.

  Mom handed me a cup of coffee and gave me her usual dry kiss. I braced myself for an observation on how I was getting too fat, or too thin, or that my shirt washed out my skin, or a comment on whatever it was that she currently didn’t approve of.

  For the record, I would smile and take it, then move on, not just because I was cheerful and it was my birthday and the last week of spring semester, but because that was the nature of our relationship.

  Mom opened her mouth, “Those pants –“

  The doorbell rang, cutting her off, and I jumped up to answer it without being asked. That’s the kind of daughter I’ve always been. Dutiful. Helpful. Probably some other “fuls”, too, if I thought about it.

  So I opened the door, smiled politely at the courier, confirmed that I was, indeed, Melissa Hanover, and signed on the digital dotted line.

  Receiving mail at my parents’ house wasn’t unusual. I never bothered to change my address when Shelby and I got our place, so it didn’t seem odd to receive a package there. And of course, it was my birthday. So I opened it right then.

  Maybe I should’ve assumed that someone in some mailroom somewhere had mislabelled the envelope. Numbers and charts and stuff that looked straight out of a TV crime lab jumped up from the page, meaning nothing to me. But when I frowned and flipped over to page two, my own name caught and held my eye. I zeroed in on it.