by Helena Maeve
I nodded. It wasn’t a request, more of a ‘do as you will’ because I was too deep in my own head to plead. I’d take whatever he gave me—even if that meant nothing at all.
Ashley guided me onto my back and propped a pillow behind my head. “Look at me. Keep those pretty eyes on me, sweetheart… There’s a good girl.”
My legs parted of their own accord. I was wet already, my clit throbbing dully at the apex of my thighs. Ashley could’ve stuck with fingering me—he’d done it before and it blew my mind—but his idea of reciprocity meant going to his elbows, his breath warm on my sweat-damp skin.
I arched off the bed at the first swipe of tongue, curling my toes into the bed sheets. Apparently I wasn’t completely past speech, because I shouted his name as he sucked my clit into his mouth. It was like lighting a fuse. Being pushed around by a firm hand turned me on to no end. The unexpected and probably unearned privilege of Ashley’s tongue on me in the aftermath did the rest.
I tried not to move at first, but after the first handful of seconds, I was past the point of caring. I rolled my hips against his mouth, clawing my way towards release with gasping, harried breaths and a litany of keening noises. I would’ve been embarrassed if I could think beyond the supernova swelling at my core.
“Please, please…”
Ashley grabbed hold of my legs, forcing my knees against the bed as he speared his tongue and flicked it rabbit-quick against my clitoris.
I didn’t stand a chance. I cried out as I came, quaking so hard I nearly whacked Ashley in the hip with my foot. He moved out of the way but went on stroking me through the waves of orgasm with a slick palm. And just when I thought I could come down, he pressed two fingers into me, hooking them against my G-spot like he knew precisely what I needed.
I closed my legs around his wrist, my muscles pulling taut as I rode out another tide swell of pleasure into boneless exhaustion.
“Stop,” I panted, “too much.”
Ashley kissed my ear and nuzzled into my hair. “Okay. Stopping… Let me go?”
I needed a hot second to discover I was still clutching his hand to my cunt.
“Thought you were going to break my fingers,” he teased as he caressed my inner thigh. “How do you feel?”
“Good. Tired.” I tilted my lips to his, forgetting where my mouth had been. I remembered halfway through the kiss that some men weren’t crazy about the taste of their own cum. Ashley, mercifully, wasn’t one of them.
We pulled away for breath, both of us disheveled and spent.
“Could probably do with a shower,” I murmured. But the bathroom was too far, so I let Ashley grab a washcloth and clean us up as best he could while I downed half a bottle of Evian. “Oh, we missed the interview…”
“The what?”
“Barnes!” Leaping out of bed was a bit beyond my abilities at the moment, so I shambled, zombie-like, into the living room, tugging off my soiled sleep shirt and pulling on a bathrobe as I went. I heard Ashley coming up behind me after a few moments.
On screen, the pretty blonde news anchor was staring intently into the camera. I guessed the interview with Barnes was either over or it had been canceled. I turned up the sound.
“A source close to the investigation tells us tonight that DNA not matching Tracey Kane’s records was also found on Donna Barnes’ body. CNN has been unable to confirm this information, but speaking under condition of anonymity, the same source tells us that the DNA may be a match for Laure Kane, Kane’s wife and…”
I tuned out the rest as I sank into the couch cushion. My mother’s picture flashed on screen—black hair, freckled face, eyes like a pair of beads staring into me, reproachful.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Ashley said, clasping my shoulder.
“Yeah, I know.” It was enough that Donna Barnes had been in our house at some point. Easy for a hair from Kane’s shirt to get into the garbage bag, wasn’t it? There were probably some of mine, too, and I certainly hadn’t killed anyone.
I cast my thoughts to every police procedural I’d ever seen, my body pulsing with slow-fading bliss as I curled up against Ashley’s flank. Morbid and perverse as it was, but I couldn’t help feel every murdered, buried, exhumed thrum in my sore cunt like a plucked cord. I fervently hoped that Ashley couldn’t tell. Although at this point, he’d hardly be surprised. I already had poison in my blood.
The question was how much?
Chapter Fifteen
My schedule was as regular as it got. Yvonne knew full well I needed to leave early every other Friday. I made up the hours during the rest of the week, I never took longer breaks than the other girls—and for the most part I was fairly punctual in the mornings. But my track record was meaningless five days after I was outed as a serial murderer’s only heir.
I hadn’t realized that my personal details had been made available online until Yvonne came up to me to ask if I was okay.
Apparently someone had attempted to find out which department I worked in by asking around various counters. Security had intervened, but not before the busybody had made a scene. I’d been helping a client with a fitting and had missed the whole thing. I would’ve liked to miss the others, too—the valiant souls who figured out the lay of the store and fanned out with smartphones at the ready in hopes of catching a glimpse of me.
Yvonne told me she’d take care of it and, sure enough, by mid-afternoon my anonymous admirers were nowhere to be seen.
It should have ended there.
Yvonne was great about the whole mess. For once, she didn’t ask details or prod me with questions. She schooled the other girls on our floor into keeping their noses out of my business.
But it was a mistake to think that meant I was off the hook.
The summons came at the end of my shift. It was a brief chat, refreshingly direct. In the aftermath, I had to dig my nails into the strap of my shoulder bag to keep from crumbling.
I saw Ashley before he saw me. He was wearing black slacks and a handsome gray and burgundy checkered blazer. His shoes gleamed in the multiple rays of diffuse electric light beaming down from the ceiling. Those five or six seconds it took for him to raise his gaze to mine were no comfort. As I stepped off the escalator, I read on his face the same wariness he’d exhibited so often over the past couple of weeks.
“What is it?” he asked, marching toward me.
Now, I added mentally. What have you done now, Laure?
Exasperation was familiar. He took my shoulders in his hands, gentle like he wasn’t in bed—like I didn’t want him to be.
“I’m on leave until further notice,” I blurted out. “Just got out of a meeting with HR. It’s better for everyone. Apparently.” Yvonne had been present as my direct superior, looking more embarrassed than anything else. I didn’t blame her. I was pretty uncomfortable myself. “Let’s just go…”
Ashley fell into step beside me. “Shouldn’t you call Marc?”
“Why?”
“You’re being suspended for something that’s being done to you—”
“Ashley, they’ve started coming here,” I snapped, ignoring the clients who glanced our way. It took me a moment to notice I was still wearing my name tag. I ripped it off hastily and hurled it into my handbag with a shaking hand.
As if HR needed another reason to turn suspension into termination.
“I don’t understand. Who’s coming here? Reporters?”
That would’ve been preferable. I could take their publications to the cleaners, ruin them in court. I was powerless against private citizens with Internet access—at least until one of them threatened me with violence. So far the policemen I’d spoken to seemed to believe this was a mere annoyance. They’d suggested I learn to live with it.
I shook my head to dispel my aggravation. Patience was paramount tonight.
“I’ll tell you in the car.”
We stopped a taxi on the curb and Ashley gave the address of our destination while I pretended not to glance aro
und in search of idling pedestrians armed with phones. Rue de Sèvres wasn’t exactly deserted on a Friday evening, particular one as sunny as this, and the sidewalks were jam-packed with tourists and shoppers.
“Laure?”
“Hmm?” I hadn’t realized Ashley had been talking to me until he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked as tired as I felt. A pang of guilt stabbed between my ribs. I’d break up with you if I had the guts. But I didn’t, so we pressed on, blundering through limbo like two creaky dinghies moving vaguely in the same direction.
“I was asking if you’ve talked to your grandparents since Saturday,” Ashley repeated, terse.
“No,” I shot back, trying to rein in the urge to match his tone. He wasn’t angry with me, just like I wasn’t angry with him. The problem lay with was other people.
“So are they expecting us, or…?”
My answer was a shrug, precisely the kind of thing I knew would piss him off.
“You couldn’t be bothered to check?”
“It’s not like I’ve had a lot of time—”
“Really? It takes two minutes to confirm. Christ, Laure, I’ve got work to do!” he sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“So you keep telling me.” Last night’s tryst hadn’t cured us of all pent-up resentment. It was naïve of me to have expected that it would. “If you don’t want to come, I can drop you off—”
“Did I say that?” Ashley snapped as the taxi idled at a traffic light. I caught the driver glancing back at us in the rear-view. Heat flooded my face. Was this what relationships were like? Sniping at each other in public? Deliberately misrepresenting each other’s words?
I was clear-headed enough to see the precipice toward which we were hurtling, but I had no idea how to course correct. “Maybe the problem is that you don’t say anything.”
“You don’t exactly leave much room.”
“Oh, fuck you very much,” I snorted. “You’re the one who wanted me to tell my story like some fame whore!”
“I wanted you to get it out of your head!” Ashley retorted.
“Yes, because you’re sick of dealing with it.”
Ashley swore under his breath. “Do you have any idea how precious jobs are in the print industry right now? I know at least half a dozen other guys who could do what I do but better—and they don’t come with online stalkers. I’m struggling, too, you know.”
“How can I, when you don’t fucking talk to me?”
It seemed so obvious from where I was sitting. All Ashley needed to do was cut me out of the equation and he’d have peace and quiet. He could focus on his job, I could concentrate on going on benefits and my grandmother could pat herself on the back for being right all along.
“I don’t want you to know,” Ashley gritted out through clenched teeth.
We were in motion again, the whir of the engine loud enough to drawn out the hitch of my breath. “Why?”
He glanced at me. “I’ve been fired before. It did a number on me.”
I recalled what he’d told me about losing weight, about not recognizing himself in the mirror. I hadn’t broached the subject again because I didn’t know how. I was attracted to him the way he looked now, but I hadn’t known him before. I couldn’t claim that I’d want him regardless. I knew I had it in me to be fickle.
Ashley sighed. “To be honest, I’m not convinced I could bounce back again. With everything that you’re going through right now, do you need to worry about that, too?” He went on before I could answer. “Melanie’s right. You have a lot on your plate.”
“Since when do you and Mel talk about me?” I was going to say something about Carmen, but he hadn’t brought her up so I didn’t want to be the one to scratch at healing scabs.
“We don’t talk about you. It was just that first day, when we went to her place?”
“When you got me hammered so I’d calm down?”
“That’s the one,” he replied, the barest hint of a smile tugging at his lips.
I had a foggy idea of hearing him converse with Melanie as I drifted off, but liquor had blurred my memories of that day. I was glad. Every day since had provided me with ample reason to be afraid.
“Well, Mel’s been known to make mistakes.” She’d be the first to admit it. I let my head drop against the back seat. “Look at it this way, I’m about to be fired anyway. If you join me in unemployment, at least we’ll have more time to fuck?”
Ashley let out a throaty chuckle. “That’s one way to look at it.”
I took his hand in mine and threaded our fingers together. “One of us has to be optimistic. Can we call a ceasefire until we’re done with the dinner hostilities?”
My grandmother’s house loomed at the end of the street. I’d gone in alone and in a bad mood before, but I would feel better with Ashley on my side this time around. My nerves were tattered enough as it was.
Ashley nodded.
We split the cab fare like democratic coeds on a first date and climbed the stone steps to the front door. Like something out of a horror movie, it swung open before I could raise a hand to the knocker.
Grandmother appeared in the gap, her expression pinched. “I heard the car.”
“Yeah, I think the guy had a problem with his transmission…” I knew fuck-all about cars, but then so did my grandmother.
She ushered us inside without comment. Grandfather came out of his study to greet us before the clock struck eight. I was bowled over.
“What am I missing?” I asked, feeling like I’d stepped into Oz without quite knowing. “Were we not supposed to come tonight? Because we can—”
“Why not?” Grandmother interjected.
Because you’re both acting weird. The last time my grandparents had walked on eggshells around me I’d been nine years old, newly transplanted from Topeka to Paris after they’d buried my mother.
Grandfather cleared his throat before I could reply. “Ashley, will you have a gin and tonic?”
“Um, yeah, sure…”
“Make that two,” I quipped.
Grandfather didn’t even scowl, much less point out that it was unseemly for young women to imbibe.
“I’ll have one, too,” Grandmother added. She seldom touched her lips to anything that wasn’t fine wine. Something was definitely up.
We sat on my grandparents’ couch, breathing in the scent of gardenias and whatever cleaning products their maid used to scrub the mahogany with. I felt about as comfortable as an elephant in a china shop. “So there’s a good chance I’m getting fired,” I said, hoping to break the spell my grandparents seemed to have fallen under.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, apparently stalkers aren’t the kind of experience we want to sell our clientele.”
My grandmother made a low, acquiescing noise in the back of her throat and shot her husband a meaningful glance. I expected some scathing reminder that I’d failed to reach my potential—or perhaps a sharp retort to bring to mind all the breaks I’d squandered. Neither of them took advantage of the golden opportunity.
“If you’re still upset that I went to the States without telling you—”
“It was not your finest moment,” Grandfather cut in, “but we understand.”
“You do?” If my eyebrows climbed any higher, they’d become one with my scalp. “Okay, who are you and what have you done with my grandparents?”
He scoffed. Grandmother pursed her lips, a moue of displeasure twisting at her parchment-like features. I found it unspeakably comforting. “No need to be so melodramatic, Laure. We’re capable of compassion. And perhaps we haven’t always been…open on the subject of your father.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” I murmured. Twisting the knife in an open wound was how we dealt with conflict in my family.
“Yes, well.” Grandfather cleared his throat. “It’s never been our intention to deprive you of contact with him.”
“We assumed you wouldn’t wish to be in touch.”
/> I couldn’t disagree. For a good portion of my adolescence, I’d told other kids that both my parents were dead. I made up a boogeyman, a serial killer with Kane’s face who wasn’t any blood relation of mine. It comforted me, but lies are paper-thin shields. Sooner or later, the truth will out.
“When I went to see him last week…he mentioned sending me letters?” I recalled. “I never received anything.” With Ashley beside me, it was a little easier to bring up the subject.
Grandmother tapped a fingernail against the base of her crystal tumbler. “As your guardian, I didn’t think it was appropriate to allow him to poison your mind.”
“So he did write.”
“Yes.”
The gin and tonic settled into my knees with a handsome kick. “Did you keep the letters?”
Grandmother fixed me with a level stare. I was relieved that she didn’t look the least bit apologetic. I wouldn’t know how to handle her regret.
“Yes.”
My throat closed. “I’d like to see them.” They were technically my property, but I didn’t expect to gain much mileage out of that argument. My grandparents had never been anything less than generous, but there were fishhooks in every expensive meal, every year of paid private school tuition.
“I thought you might,” Grandmother said. She rose with a sigh and produced a stack of envelopes tied with ribbon from the sideboard. “He stopped when you turned eighteen. I expect he lost interest.”
Because I didn’t answer for nine years. I kept that to myself. I didn’t know that ten years ago I would’ve wanted to write back, anyway.
There was a lot I didn’t know.
“That’s not all,” Grandmother breathed. She drew something else out of the sideboard. All I could distinguish about it was that it wasn’t an envelope. “This was your mother’s. We found it among her things when we came to get you. Mr. Pruitt was kind enough to allow us to take a few mementos when we left.”
“You met Pruitt?” For some reason my thoughts clung to that detail above all others. “You never told me that…”
“He was Laure’s husband,” Grandmother pointed out thinly. “We would’ve liked to see more of our grandson, as well, but his father is not the…easiest character.”
