Woman Named Red

by Stasia Black

He turns on the light and shoves the door shut behind him. I only have a brief second to note the lovely, large ornate bathroom before Kennedy has his arms wrapped around me so tight I can barely breathe.

  “Don’t you ever scare me like that again.” He gives my body a slight shake and that’s when I feel that he’s trembling all over. He pulls back and holds me at arm’s length so he can look me up and down. “Christ, I could have lost you before I ever met you.” He yanks me back to his chest and squeezes me to him all over again.

  “Tell me everything,” he breathes into my hair. “From the beginning.”

  “I— We—” I try several times to start but my throat is too thick. I can’t— He’s just being so— I shake my head back and forth, back and forth.

  “Shh,” he whispers, combing his fingers through my hair and completely ruining the bits I had pinned up, but I don’t care. I can’t. His touch, his words, the attention and emotion that’s coming off him—it’s too reminiscent of what I saw in the other room between Vale and Callie.

  But no. God. I mean, they love each other. And Kennedy and I… I mean, and we’re enemies. Just because he doesn’t know it doesn’t mean—

  “Scarlet, babe, talk to me.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I can see our reflection in the mirror, the way I look in his arms. I’m so tall, but he makes me look small. Protected. Safe. Lov—

  “Fuck me.” It’s a desperate request from a desperate woman. I jerk his head down to mine and start kissing him furiously.

  His lips are uncertain against mine but only for about a second. Almost immediately, his hands are on my waist, hoisting me up onto the counter. He massages up my thighs and he doesn’t hold back. He shoves up my skirt and he thumbs at the edges of my lacey underwear. Another online purchase that was entirely worth it, gauging by the way his pupils are going dark as he zeros in on where his thumbs delve under the edges of the fabric.

  Oooooooh, damn, how does he always know how to find that spot so quickly, every single time? My back arches and he runs a hand down the valley between my thrust-out breasts, then back up to my throat.

  And oh God, I’m liquefying at his touch. Literally. When one of his fingers moves the lace aside and pushes inside me, it’s all slick, inviting wetness. He grunts in low appreciation and he pushes his rock-hard groin against my thigh.

  He dips low and I think he’s coming in for a kiss. I arch up higher, wanting to meet his lips. But he’s a goddamn tease and he kisses and licks my ear, then down to my throat.

  For a second, I don’t realize what he’s doing. And when I do, it’s too late. He’s unwrapped the small scarf I have tied around my neck and pulled it off so he can kiss my neck without obstruction. He yanks back when he sees the bruises.

  “What the fuck?” He pulls back so that no part of his body is touching mine. He stares, horrified, at my throat.

  My body is still in sex-haze-mode and I reach for him. “It’s nothing. Come on, get that cock inside me. Make me feel good.” But he bats away my hands when I try to pull him back to me.

  “Shit, Scarlet.” He walks over and sits on the edge of the tub, dropping his head and running both hands through his hair. “What the fuck did I do?” He looks over at me, devastation filling his eyes. He puts his hands on the back of his head and stares at the floor.

  Shit.

  Shit shit shit shit shit. He was never supposed to see the bruises. I asked Kennedy to choke me for pleasure because I needed to take back what Francisco had taken away from me.

  But didn’t some small part of you envision this, too? I look in the mirror, shame washing over me like a tidal wave. There they are, bruises in the shape of fingers and a thumb.

  Because surely on some level, I had to know this might happen. Did I ask Kennedy what I asked of him just as a protection measure? In case he saw the bruises and I needed an explanation for how they got there? My cover would have been blown if he thought they were put there by anyone but himself. Or had I really done it hoping this would happen—that he’d see them—because underneath, I’m still out to punish him in every way I can?

  Callie kept talking about fairytale endings.

  Yeah, well, every day I’m feeling like less and less the heroine of this story and more like the villain.

  I swallow hard and turn away from the mirror. Toward Kennedy. “I got sick when I was seventeen. My dad hadn’t had any steady work for a few years and it was just…” I close my eyes. “…the last straw for my family. I had stage II melanoma. I was working part-time after school to help Dad keep up with the bills and take care of my little brother and,” I shrug helplessly, “I didn’t notice the lump under my armpit. Even when I did, I didn’t think it was that big a deal. I didn’t have time to go to the doctor and we didn’t have insurance anyway.”

  I open my eyes and look to the ceiling. Out of my periphery I can see that Kennedy’s head has come up. I know he’s hanging on my every word. I swallow. I never meant to share this with him and it’s harder than I thought it would be. And part of me hates that I’m only telling him because I need to distract him from the bruises on my neck. I can’t win. There are definitely no heroes here.

  But now that I’ve opened the floodgates, I can’t stop. “I started getting tired all the time and lost a lot of weight. I thought it was just because I was busy and always stressed out. I’d taken on an extra waitressing job and was working more hours but still trying to make good grades because it was important to my dad. Eventually I got fired from the second job anyway because I kept showing up late or having to bow out early because I felt dizzy or so tired all the time.

  “Dad finally sat me down and asked me, in total sincerity, if I was pregnant.” I shake my head, a sad smile on my face at the memory. He’d looked so freaked out in that moment, obviously scared out of his mind to be having that conversation with me, his seventeen-year-old daughter. He’d pushed forward anyway. He’d apologized for being so out of it ever since losing the restaurant. For drinking so much. He said he was sorry he’d let me and Enzo down but that he’d start doing right by us again. That he’d help me take care of the baby and anything else I needed. That Bianchis stuck together and family was everything.

  “I laughed in his face and then went red as a tomato, I’m sure. Once I eventually convinced him there was no possible way I could be pregnant unless there was another immaculate conception situation going on, he said he was taking me to the ER.”

  I cringe even now. “The ER,” I repeat. “Daddy didn’t have any sense—that was the most expensive way to go about it. We could have just gone to my regular doctor. But when Dad pressed about something being wrong and I mentioned the lump under my armpit, he went berserk. He dragged me to the ER that night and badgered the doctor into doing a chest x-ray.”

  “Is that when they found the cancer?” Kennedy asks, voice quiet.

  I nod, still not looking his way. “I should have seen the signs earlier. The night sweats, the tiredness. I should have paid attention to my body and known it was something serious. But I’d waited so long, it had time to grow…” My voice runs off as I remember the way my heart stopped in the moment the ER doctor, some young kid probably fresh out of medical school put up the x-ray scans on the wall and pointed out the orange-sized lump in my armpit. “It was so big.”

  “But they got it all? Between surgery and chemo?” Kennedy asks, his voice still like flint on stone.

  “Not at first.” I fiddle with one of the fancy soaps arranged in a little rack above the toilet. This is harder than I thought it would be to tell him. All his reactions are so strong. Like he’s so passionately offended at the way my body rebelled against me. “The first round of surgeries and treatments only got most of it. They didn’t get all the edges and within four months of ‘remission,’” I make air quotes, “I was back in the hospital with a partially collapsed lung and the tumor half-regrown.”

  His whole body tenses at my words. I pick up the soap I’ve been fiddling with and
inhale. Strawberry.

  Okay, time to wrap up this little trip down shit-memory lane. I force my face to angle back toward Kennedy even if I can’t bring my eyes to meet his.

  “Anyway, long story short, I was in and out of the hospital for a little over two years fighting cancer, and two weeks before I officially got released, my dad died of a heart attack.”

  I laugh, but the sound is far from happy. “It all just got to be too much for him. He was barely managing to put food on the table for him and Enzo, much less keep up any sort of payment on my hospital bills. I mean, they had reached astronomical figures by that point. More than we ever had hope of paying back. There was no choice but to declare bankruptcy, but Dad was too proud to ever do the paperwork for that.”

  I set the soap back down and breathe out, closing my eyes. “He didn’t mean to die and leave us to deal with it all right after I got out of the hospital. While we were grieving for him. But we lost the house. The car. They took everything.” I cross my arms over my chest. “They were going to take Enzo, too. I’d just turned nineteen and he was thirteen. There was no way they’d give custody to me. I was still weak and had no hope of holding down a job or finding a place to stay. Dad’s life insurance didn’t even put a dent in all the bills we owed. It was gone as quickly as it came in. Enzo begged me to run away.” This comes out as a whisper.

  God, that day. There were tears pouring down Enzo’s cheeks. Dad was two weeks in the ground and Zo had run away from the foster family they’d placed him with to come see me in the hospital. I’d just gotten my last scans that said I was clean and clear. He begged me to run with him. We’d lost everything. He said he couldn’t lose me too.

  “So we ran.” I hate that my voice almost breaks as I say it. I swallow and then try to speak calmly and with conviction. “We started with nothing except fifty bucks my brother had managed to get ahold of.” Enzo had stolen it from his foster father’s wallet but I was too exhausted and grief-stricken to quibble. It was summer, so we were able to sleep outside without too much discomfort whenever we could find a good spot, but we had no clue how to find food at the beginning. It was easier on me than Enzo. Since I was just coming out of treatment, I was at my skinniest and used to going without much. I’d already been through hell on Earth. Being homeless didn’t seem that bad.

  But Enzo had been used to a warm bed and three square meals. He was a teenage boy and had a bottomless pit for a stomach. He cried every night from hunger that week.

  I finally went to a library and looked up soup kitchens in the city. There were ones that served meals every day. At first I worried about them alerting someone because Enzo was so young, but he was starving, we were willing to chance it and run if we had to. But no one called anyone and later I learned that was policy. Some well-meaning lady came and talked to us about social service options—apparently with my breasts wrapped and my hoody, I looked like a young teenage boy as well.

  We thanked her and were on our way. We stayed away from that place and hit up another kitchen for a while. But even when we came back—they had better quality food—there were no problems.

  Kennedy’s arms close around me from behind, startling me because I have my eyes closed again, lost in the memories. I was back there. In those early days of Zo and me on the streets just figuring it all out, having no clue that it would be the next two years of our lives and how low we’d be brought before I decided to take drastic measures to get us out of it. I shudder.

  Kennedy’s hands caress up and down my arms. Soothing me. He kisses the back of my head. “You never talk much about your brother. Did something happen to him?”

  “He’s fine.” It’s an automatic reply. Because he is fine. He has to be. I hate that when he said he’d stay with Francisco and his crew while I did this, I agreed. I felt in my gut it was a bad idea, but after what had happened…that horrible night…I don’t even want to think about what might have happened if I just left him alone out there. If he’d decided to hang out with those other boys… Another shudder quakes through my limbs and Kennedy squeezes me closer to him.

  “You know you can tell me anything.”

  I close my eyes and drop my forehead. Him holding me feels so good, but at the same time, I want to pull away, to howl and punch him, to scream all my accusations and see what he has to say for himself. And then, because I’m a weak, stupid, idiot, I want him to pull me closer and I’d just call an end to my deal with Francisco. Kennedy would never have to know. Then we’d make dirty, passionate love.

  Stupid. Freaking idiotic. Dumb. Ridiculous.

  I pull out of Kennedy’s arms. “Come on,” I say, finally opening my eyes while fluffing my hair and running a finger underneath each eye to make sure none of my mascara is running. “We don’t want to be rude by staying in here so long. They’ll be getting ideas.”

  Kennedy grabs me by the hips and pulls me back against him. He’s still hard. “I thought that got you off. Don’t you want to finish what we started?”

  He drops his head and begins to kiss with the barest of whisper kisses on my neck across the bruised area. “After everything you’ve been through, you deserve to be worshiped.” One of his hands slips masterfully around the front of my dress and down between my legs.

  I fight against the groan of pleasure grumbling up my throat and remove his hands where they grasp me lightly. “Not tonight,” I manage to say, though I’m sure he hears the breathy quality to my voice. He immediately pulls back, though.

  After they think they have you, refuse them periodically so they never take you for granted. It increases obsession. More wisdom from my mother but it’s only part of why I’m pulling away from him.

  Him finding the bruises and mistakenly thinking it was him, reliving the past, even opening up to Callie—this night has been too intense.

  Be honest, Scarlet. It’s not just all that. It’s things between Kennedy and me. Every time we touch lately, it means something more. Having sex with him after everything I just told him? Seeing the compassion in his eyes and feeling the comfort in his touch while he penetrates me?

  I just can’t handle that right now. Not if I want to keep my focus on what I need to do.

  After straightening my skirt and rearranging my scarf to cover my neck, I pull open the door. I walk out into the hallway back to the dinner party with my shoulders back. Chin high. Like a soldier.

  “Scar—” Kennedy starts but stops once I’m in the hall. I’m thankful we’re in public and he can’t corner me again. At least not until we leave and are in the car. I’m suddenly feeling the need for another long ‘nap’ on the ride home.

  Callie and Vale go silent as we approach the table. “Are you all right, hon?” She asks me quietly, reaching for my hand once I sit down.

  I flash a giant smile at her. “Perfect.”

  She looks at me a little uncertainly, then over to Kennedy, then she nods, squeezing my hand before pulling back.

  The last course is brought out, a to-die-for dulce de leche cake.

  “Is it rude to ask for seconds?” I ask as I scrape the bottom of my plate for every last soaked, sticky crumb.

  Vale grins at me. “Not at all. I was going to wait until you left to grab another piece, but now I don’t have to.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts typing. “Anyone else for seconds on cake?”

  Kennedy and Callie shake their heads no.

  “You’re crazy.” I look at Kennedy. “Did you or did you not just taste that piece of heaven in your mouth that I did.”

  He’s smiling at me, a soft warmth in his eyes. “I don’t want to be distracted from watching you enjoy your piece.” He leans in and whispers so that only I can hear. “Because Scarlet, watching you eat that cake has made me hard as a rock. I’m looking forward to the sequel of Scarlet’s cake orgasm face.”

  Did he really just say that out loud? Oh my God.

  Right then, Vale’s cook, an older Hispanic woman comes out and sets down another piece of cake in
front of me and Vale. It’s so good, I can’t help greedily diving my fork in—or the way my whole body sags into the explosion of sweet rum flavor when it hits my tongue.

  Then I remember that Kennedy’s watching me and my eyes pop open. Yep. He looks like the Big Bad Wolf about to devour me. Holy crap, that’s hot.

  “We’ll have to get together again in two weeks to celebrate signing the closing,” Vale says, feeding a bite of cake to Callie, who I’ve gotta say, does look a bit orgasmic about it herself. If I look like that when I eat it, I can understand Kennedy’s hard-on while he watches me.

  But then Vale’s words hit me. Two weeks?

  “Oh, two weeks?” I ask, praying my voice is casual. “That’s when the deal you’re working on together will be done?”

  Vale spears a bite of cake and downs it with a nod. “If everything goes off without a hitch, which, according to our projections, it should.”

  “To a long and prosperous partnership.” Kennedy smiles and holds up his champagne glass. Vale and Callie smile easily and raise their glasses as well. It takes an extra moment and Kennedy nudging me under the table with his knee for me to lift my glass for the communal toast.

  “To closing in two weeks,” I say, forcing a smile that is the last thing on Earth I feel.

  Two weeks.

  Francisco wanted a date and now I have one. Two weeks and all this is over.

  Two weeks and I’ll break Kennedy Benson and then never see him again. Enzo and I will be on our way to our new lives.

  Just like I always wanted.

  Right?

  So why do I feel like running back to the bathroom and losing every bit of the delicious dinner I just ate?

  Chapter 14

  The bark is rough against my hands as I brace myself while Kennedy fucks me from behind. He’s got a good pace going and as always, is attentive to me, hand around my waist as he works my clit. I’ve never had such a patient lover.

  There haven’t been many to compare him to, but still. I had a boyfriend before I got sick but I’m not sure Tim knew girls could even have orgasms and he certainly had no clue how to get them there. Then I screwed a young social worker guy who worked at one of the homeless youth shelters for a while—at least until I found out he was also getting it on with half the staff and a couple other girls like me. Thank God I always made him use condoms. I didn’t love him or anything, but I hate liars.