Vehn (Exotic Ink Book 1)

by LS Anders

  She leaned in closer; large luminous hazel eyes thickly fringed with a darker version of her hair stared back. She wore very little make-up, and mascara drove her crazy. It always tended to end up smeared in an arch shape under each eyebrow because her lashes were so long.

  Actually, her eyelashes were ridiculous, and her hair was too vibrant. Maybe she should tone it down with some hair color and trim her eyelashes while she was at it. In her opinion, she was a little too hip-y. Ryder had always referred to them as “child-bearing hips”.

  She straightened up quickly, realizing she was falling back into that old self-destructive pattern of being too critical of her self-image. Under Ryder’s tutelage, negative perceptions toward her body had become an old habit. One that would occasionally rear its ugly head.

  She closed her eyes and, taking a deep breath, remembered the cognitive-behavioral therapy her psychologist, Dr. Zigamonty, had taught her when she went to this dark place. Dr. Z, as she commonly referred to him, used this method to reprogram her brain to think in healthier modes. It was more like he deprogramed the mess Ryder had made so she could be more like herself again.

  Her being the good little victim and Ryder being the master control freak, he had done a fabulous job of nurturing the kernels of her insecurities until they had manifested into a full-fledged mental condition. And two years of his consistent abuse had precipitated her desire to binge and purge. He had even managed to create new insecurities she never even knew existed. Dr. Z had said that that was the nature of a controlling person—to manipulate their victim into thinking they were unworthy by using real or invented flaws.

  Thanks, dickhead!

  “Shake it off, Callie,” she chided herself out loud. “I refuse to fall back into this shit!”

  Opening her eyes, she looked at her reflection again and began mentally listing all the qualities she liked about herself instead of what she thought were negative perceptions towards her body.

  Good quality #1. She liked being above average in height, because at 5’9 she felt it slimmed her down, plus she had some kickass long legs.

  Good quality #2. She had a small waist and liked wearing midriff tops to show off her abs. Not too muscular, but just enough tone to show some definition thanks to regular visits to the gym.

  Good quality #3. Her boobs were a full D cup, which she tried to downplay with tops that covered all of her cleavage… not an easy task. She had tired long ago of having men’s gazes lock onto her chest as if it were a homing beacon. But she did have a rather nice rack.

  Rayna had even told her once that she should try and be a plus-size model because of her “flawless porcelain skin and good bone structure” but Callie never was much for having her picture taken.

  She looked from her reflection to the photo of Vehn and back again trying to picture the two of them as a couple. Sheesh! Who was she kidding? He would never fall for someone like her. After a year of therapy, she had managed to mostly regain control of her life and her prior personality before Ryder, which meant she was aggressive and spoke her mind. Her worst flaw being her inability to keep her mouth shut. Actually, she had the ability, just not the inclination. Not to mention she had a mouth that could embarrass a sailor.

  Rolling her eyes, she figured she would have better odds of getting hit in the face with a petrified cow patty in the middle of Central Park than she would have at ever meeting him, so it didn’t matter anyway. Besides, the magazines always showed him smiling with his arm around a hot model type, as in tall and skinny not curvy Amazonians.

  She could never fit into that category he preferred even if she only ate celery sticks for the rest of her life; her boobs and booty were just way too curvy. All dieting and exercise ever got her was a firmer butt and smaller waist which just accentuated her large breasts and rounded hips.

  It didn’t matter, he was only her fantasy, and he already had a girlfriend. It was just a matter of time before he married the lucky little bitch. Just as well; she didn’t think she could deal with being under the endless scrutiny that came with dating a celebrity. She had just barely healed from that last bullshit, and her wound was still relatively new, the scab still fresh enough it could still easily be reopened.

  Hell, just last week she had read some nasty tidbit in a tabloid about his girlfriend. True or not, she wouldn’t want that type of publicity. Look at what only one man had done to her self-esteem. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what the opinions of millions would do to her. There wasn’t enough therapy on the planet for that shit. Being the girlfriend of a famous person was not something she would want to face… probably not even for Vehn Mathieu.

  However, given the near impossibility that they’d ever meet, she couldn’t help but wonder if he would be intimidated by her like most men were. She figured it was either her aggressive personality or her 5’9 stature that made men shy away from her.

  Looking down at her five-inch knee-high suede boots, she decided she wasn’t doing herself any favors. But there was no help for it. She was a high-heel shoe junkie and the proud owner of over 200 pairs, and shoes were one thing she would never give up. Not for a man and not for an apartment in the city.

  She had tried the whole roomy thing when she'd first moved to NYC four years before. She and the loathsome girl had shared a really sweet apartment near Greenwich Village, but her precious shoes had been forced to live in a climate-controlled storage unit. Oh, the horror of it all! Her imperious roommate didn’t share her affinity for footwear, and Callie was unable to convince the girl that shoes were life, as important as the air you breathed or the food you ate.

  Aside from their shared love of Greenwich Village, she had nothing in common with the other girl. They didn’t agree on anything, and Callie was tired of bending over backwards trying to follow all the stupid endless apartment rules the girl had laid out for her when she’d first moved in.

  She was forbidden from making any noise from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon, that being the other girl’s nighttime since she worked third shift. That sucked for Callie, because that was her breakfast and get-ready-for-work time. She wasn’t allowed to leave any of her personal belongings anywhere in the apartment aside from the shoebox-sized bedroom she paid a premium amount of rent to inhabit. And heaven forbid if she left her face soap or shampoo in the fucking shower of the one bath they shared!

  Sunday was the only day off work the two shared, and the horrid girl had made it abundantly clear she had no intentions of becoming friends. Callie was a necessary annoyance that was allowed to dwell in a 150-square foot box attached to the other girl’s personal property, tolerated only because she paid a portion of the rent allowing the other girl to continue living in the desired area.

  Callie was so thrilled to have found an apartment she could afford in Greenwich Village, she had put on blinders and pretended to be all right with the living arrangements set by that female tyrant.

  She had hung in there for the better part of a year when her bullshit-o-meter reached its max capacity. It seemed the only woman she was ever able to stand living with was her best friend Dylan, but she was the owner of Wicked Brews and had remained in their hometown of Chicago to manage her bar.

  Callie had made the tough decision to move to another city after her mother died. Everything in Chicago reminded her of her mom, and she just couldn’t deal with the grief anymore. When the opportunity had arisen for her to work at Exotic Ink, she packed her bags and moved to New York City, leaving Dylan behind. She didn’t really miss Chicago—she had simply traded one city for another—but she did miss her dear friend.

  Anyway, desperate to leave the horrible roommate behind, she had decided to accept Ryder’s, her then boyfriend, offer to share an apartment. She’d been super excited that she would have the extra space she needed to move her shoes out of storage since together they would be able to afford a two-bedroom, but he had other ideas regarding the room’s use. Little did she know that would be the first of many
compromises she would have to make over the next two years.

  The control freak he had turned out to be didn’t like her to have any contact with friends or family. Her mom had been the last of her immediate family, so he didn’t have to worry about alienating her. At first, she thought it was just him being envious of her friends, wanting all of her attention. That maybe he was just being jealous, like she was choosing her friends over him. But in reality, it was a way worse situation than that.

  He would get mad and punish her by ignoring her or became violent, breaking her stuff. He always seemed to know what objects she loved most and made sure to destroy them all, including what little bit she had left that had belonged to her mother. She’d hated leaving her shoes in storage, but she discovered it had been a blessing in disguise and wished she’d kept her mother’s things in there, too.

  When she did what he wanted, he rewarded her with unexpected gifts and romantic dinners to really nice restaurants. There was no in-between with him. Either the relationship was incredible or it was incredibly horrible. So, she had learned he was easier to live with if she just didn’t call anyone and ignored her friends. Whenever he would pick her up at work, he always acted perfectly normal. Everyone seemed to like him so she managed to keep the truth about her crazy relationship quiet at the studio.

  She had been so naïve. Moving in with him had proved to be the singular worst decision she had ever made in her life. It was so obvious to her now that he hadn’t wanted anyone interfering with his control over her, but when she was in the relationship, she had been blind to his machinations.

  It had taken a visit from Dylan, a restraining order, and police intervention to get him to vacate long enough for her to find another place and move out. Thankfully, Dylan had finally had enough of being ignored and had made the trip from Chicago to New York to find out why her phone calls had gone unanswered and what had happened to her friend. If it wasn’t for Dylan’s intervention, Callie wondered if she would have had the strength to kick Ryder out.

  Just another reason why she loved that girl. Not for the first time, she wished Dylan had been born a man. They would have made the perfect couple, but neither she nor Dylan swung that way.

  Dylan had stayed and helped her find a new place in the short amount of time the police had allotted. Her real estate agent wasn’t able to find anything within her budget in the city, and another roommate was out of the question, so she expanded her search across the Hudson. Settling for a short subway trip away from the city, she found a place to call home in the Williamsburg Borough of Brooklyn.

  Dylan had been the one to talk her into using the money from her mother’s life insurance policy as the down payment, and she was thankful she had. Once she’d done a few upgrades in the kitchen and baths, it appraised for a lot more than what she’d paid for it, and she would suffer her shoe withdrawals no longer since her horde of shoes had taken up residence in their very own space in the second bedroom.

  Callie knew it was strange and she had never divulged this to anyone, but there was a calming therapeutic quality to having her shoes where she could touch them and wear them whenever she wanted. She believed this had helped her during her therapy to heal quicker from Ryder’s abuse. And now that she had moved back in with them, she would never part with them again. Not even if someone gave her an apartment in NYC. Not even if she met the most wonderful man in the world.

  As far as relationships went, she wasn’t in any hurry to jump back into one of those. She was gun shy now thanks to Ryder. She hadn’t been on any dates since him, and at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, she had no prospects in sight. Maybe it was her or maybe it was just guys in general. They always seemed to look but not touch. She was too aggressive, and that must have been a turn off. Well, she wasn’t about to change for anyone, again.

  Fuck that!

  She had been down that road. She had compromised way too much of herself in her last relationship and had learned a hard lesson. It had taken her a long time and a lot of therapy to get past the mental damage done by that a-hole, and she wasn’t about to jump back into a relationship with another prick like him. If she ever found another man she was interested in, he would either accept her as she was or he could just forget it!

  Maybe she would meet her someone at the shop like the others had.

  Her eyes wandered back to the framed photo of Vehn. She took a few steps closer staring at his mesmerizing green gaze. His eyes always made her heart do a little flip. With the exception of Vehn, no other man could make her weak in the knees, and she didn’t even know him, but he was not a possibility for all kinds of reasons. Expelling a sigh of unrequited longing, she realized no one would ever compare to Vehn.

  “Goodnight, baby. See you tomorrow.”

  With that, she blew out her candles, turned off her lights, and went home alone.

  After the funeral, Evana and Callie waited outside Callie’s Brooklyn condo for the cab that would take them over the Williamsburg Bridge back into Manhattan where they were meeting Avie and Cale at Tribeca Grill for a late lunch. Evana and Callie had met at her place that morning and ridden together in Callie’s Civic to St. John’s Cemetery in Queens where Brent’s body had been laid to rest.

  It had been a nice service… blah, blah, blah. A funeral was a funeral. Someone had died and the people that were left behind had to deal with the grief and loss. It had sucked, and she was really glad it was over. She had always detested funerals. They left her feeling raw, like she’d had microdermabrasion on her soul, the rough exfoliation bringing her emotions to the surface. It was worse now since her mother had died.

  At least the sun had made an appearance instead of it being a cold, rainy, even shittier day.

  Callie shifted her overnight bag on her shoulder, wishing again she hadn’t agreed to the sleepover at Evana’s. All she really wanted to do was stay at home, curl up in her bed with her favorite blanket, grab one of the books off of her waiting-to-be-read pile, get lost in a fictitious feel-good story and forget about her own grief for a while.

  Evana’s movements as she checked her watch drew Callie’s attention away from the depression she was slowly sinking into. She was about ankle-deep in it now.

  “Callie, you ok? You seem a little off,” Evana asked.

  Callie took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly before answering. “Yeah, I’m good. It’s just that funerals have always depressed me. Especially after my mom’s. They dredge up all that old shit, like I’m reliving her death all over again.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Evana breathed.

  Before she looked away, Callie caught a glimpse of sadness float across Evana’s violet eyes.

  Oh shit! Realization slapped her hard making her feel like a selfish bitch.

  This was the first funeral Evana had been to since Kyle’s. No wonder she had asked the girls over for an old-fashioned slumber party. She hadn’t wanted to be alone, because she knew firsthand what it felt like to lose a spouse, and she knew Rayna didn’t need to be by herself. Rayna had done much the same for Evana when Kyle had died, and she was returning the favor as any good friend would.

  Here Callie was, all up in her own head over her mom’s passing. She hadn’t even considered what Evana was going through. Not to mention Rayna.

  What a terrific friend she had turned out to be! All she’d done was execute a perfect swan dive in some serious self-pity over losing her mom a few years ago instead of focusing on her friends who needed her now. Determination firmly in place, Callie shook off her gloom as best she could and plastered a smile on her face that she didn’t really feel.

  “So, you wanna share a bottle of Pinot Noir?” she asked, hoping her cheerfulness didn’t sound as fake to Evana as it did to her own ears.

  “You know it,” Evana smiled a little. “Have you already decided what you’re going to order?”

  “Do you really have to ask?” Callie returned with a playful huff. “I think you already know the answer.”r />
  The girls exchanged a smile, bumping shoulders as they watched their cab turn the corner and pull up in front of Callie’s building.

  Tribeca Grill was their favorite restaurant in Manhattan and always the busiest. But luckily for them, Evana knew one of the owners so getting a table at the last minute was never an issue. They had the most extensive wine list Callie had ever seen, not to mention the menu was amazing. But as amazing as it was, she and Evana never strayed from the grilled salmon.

  “Tribeca Grill, 375 Greenwich Street, please,” Evana told the cabby as they slid into the backseat.

  The combined funk of fifteen thousand different varieties of B.O. assailed their senses. It would seem that every person that had ever been in the cab had left a hint of their own personal scent behind, ranging from cheap perfume to straight up ass.

  The cab driver gave each girl a once over before nodding his head. It was unclear to Callie if he was approving of their looks or acknowledging the Manhattan address. Since he didn’t ask Evana for more detailed directions, she assumed it was the latter.

  “Eyes front, Mister. Wouldn’t want you having an accident,” Callie advised as the cabby continued to peer at them through his rear-view mirror.

  Evana ducked her head, rubbing a hand across her forehead, most likely to hide her embarrassment at Callie's bold comment.

  Callie usually spoke her mind, but decided to keep her mouth shut now to spare Evana any further embarrassment by somehow managing to refrain from adding, “And roll down the damn windows and air this bitch out every now and then.”

  Evana’s purse buzzed. She fished around and pulled out the cell tapping in quick succession over the smooth little screen. “That was Avie. She and Cale are already there waiting on us at the table. I asked her to go ahead and order us wine.”