Daddy Dearest: A Christmas Story

by Rachel Burns

  Why couldn’t she understand that he needed to know who she was and where she came from? She had to know that the uncertainties were plaguing him. Didn’t she know that she could trust him with her secrets? He’d told her time and time again that she could trust him, and that he wouldn’t call the cops on her.

  “Sir, forget the chicken. I can see how mad you are. I’ll just leave. It’s better for both of us. I’ll move on now.” She promised him after reading the clear signs on his face. He hated himself for keeping her here. It was obvious to her.

  She walked towards the door that led to the restaurant.

  “That was it. After all this time, that was your goodbye?” he accused her.

  “It’s best this way,” she repeated without looking back at him.

  He jumped ahead of her and stopped her before she could leave. This was a routine that they did every day. “Why are you such a cold bitch?” Sawyer asked her.

  For a brief second, he thought he saw pain in her eyes. But then, she continued to ignore him, showing absolutely no emotion. She was shutting him out again.

  “I think it would be best if you leave now.” He agreed with her.

  She nodded at him and glanced at the door. “Could I take the things you got me to wear with me?” she asked him.

  His heart felt as if it were being ripped apart. She didn’t even try to talk him into letting her stay. He was shocked and mad.

  “Sure. Take your stuff. I’ll even drive you to a bigger town so you can get a ride with some trucker there. You can always trade sex for the ride.” He didn’t mean it. He only said it to hurt her, but when she nodded in agreement with him, he wanted to go livid and choke her.

  He was right. Getting rid of her was the best thing that he could do. He should have listened to her the first night and let her go. He never should have let this drag on so long. She’d warned him several times.

  “We’re leaving in twenty minutes. Don’t take any of my stuff.” He walked past her and went to his cook, who was having his lunch break. His cook gave him a look, but he could see that Sawyer wasn’t up for talking.

  “I’m going to be out for a couple of hours. Keep the place running.”

  “Sure thing, boss.” His cook picked up his plate and went back to work.

  Five minutes later, Morgan came down in the clothes she had originally been wearing when she first arrived and with her new things in a plastic bag. She looked him in the eye and told him that she was ready.

  Fine, Sawyer thought. If she doesn’t care about me, then I won’t care about her either. He turned away from her and walked out to his truck. He got in and waited for her to climb in on the other side. She did without a word. This was going to be a long drive, he thought.

  They exchanged no words until they got to the large truck stop.

  He pulled into a parking spot, still debating what he should say to her.

  She sat quietly beside him. A moment later she spoke. “Thanks for the ride, sir.” She opened the door and got out.

  Sawyer watched her go into the truck stop without even once glancing over her shoulder at him. Then she was gone, out of his life for good. And she didn’t even care enough to look back at him.

  Chances were that he was better off without her. In the years to come, he would look back on this day and mentally pat himself on his back for going through with this.

  He pulled away and drove in the direction of home.

  While he drove, he thought of the things that he should have said to her. Nothing was nice, but he was mad. Morgan was literally driving him mad. Of course, it hadn’t worked out.

  Still, it bugged him that he had meant so little to her.

  Chapter 17

  Morgan walked into the diner still holding her breath. She was begging herself not to cry. It wouldn’t do anybody any good. Sawyer would laugh at her if he saw her crying.

  The thing that hurt her the most was that she thought that he might be different, but he wasn’t. He was a man, and they just used women to get what they wanted from them. Women were a place where men could get rid of pent up aggressions.

  Morgan went into the bathroom and hid in a stall for a few moments. She’d decided that she would cry herself out in there and then wash her face and continue on. Maybe she’d be able to find a woman trucker who could take her someplace new. But where could she go.

  Interest was probably already piling up on the costs for her stay at the hospital and on her other debts as well.

  Her eyes stung with tears, but still she fought against them. She couldn’t think about her life and what had all happened to her or what was going to become of her without screaming. Now wasn’t the time to cry. She had to get away from other people and be alone.

  Morgan washed her face at the sink and went back out. She tried not to look over at the spot where Master Sawyer had parked, but her eyes moved directly to that spot. It was now empty. He was really gone. She hadn’t meant much to him. She’d been so right not to trust him.

  Not knowing where to go she took a walk behind the restaurant. She walked into the woods behind the restaurant. She walked on until she figured that she was truly alone.

  There was a tree stump that she let herself sink down on. The tears came naturally, and she let them come. She prayed to God, reminding him that she existed, but it felt so wrong trusting a man. Men were all the same. They wanted to hurt women and control them.

  Morgan bawled into her hands, asking God why he put her on this Earth. What had he been thinking? She wondered if there had ever been anyone as unloved as she was.

  When she had cried herself out, she got up and walked on, still sniffing and trying to understand why she was here, and what she was going to do from here on out. Hitching rides hadn’t really worked out for her. She had no plan, nowhere to turn to, and no one who loved her enough to care for her. Her father despised her, her boyfriend had only been using her to get close to her father, and Sawyer wanted her to be his slave, obey his every word, and call him master. He didn’t love her either, obviously. If he had, he wouldn’t have kicked her out.

  The worst part about that was that he had tried to like her. In fact, he had taken two weeks to try to get to know her, and she had failed. He realized that it was better to get rid of her. And he had wanted to get rid of her quickly. He thought she was the type of person who often traded sex for personal favors. That was why he had assumed that she would trade sex for rides. After all, she had done it with him too, trading sex for him not calling the cops.

  Morgan came to a cliff. She looked over the edge. It overlooked a beautiful valley with tall pine trees and a river that meandered along in the distance. It was the perfect place to end everything.

  She debated with herself, telling herself that it was the best way to go. Everything could be over with, and the pain that constantly stabbed at her heart would be gone.

  “Just do it already,” she scolded herself. “You have nothing to look forward to in life. You can’t find a job because you can’t tell anyone who you are. It’s either this or starve,” she yelled at herself. It was the difference of a fast death and a slow one.

  Still, her feet remained on the ground.

  She was so mad at herself. Why was she clinging to life when her life had died with her mother? Since then, nothing good ever happened to her.

  Morgan pictured herself just doing it, the feeling of fall, then the pain from landing, and then death. Everything would stop then.

  But what if she only wounded herself? What if she couldn’t move and wild animals found her? That wasn’t how she wanted to die. She wanted to do something that would make the pain go away. It should instantly go away. Would it if she did this? She hesitated looking down at the fall.

  She needed a guarantee.

  Morgan’s body refused to listen to her mind. It clung to life, refusing to see the logic in this.

  Disappointed in herself, she turned away, telling herself that she would sleep out in the open tonight
. Maybe that would convince her body what she had to do, and that it needed to let her do what needed to be done. Maybe ants and other bugs would try to eat her, and she would get a rash, which would annoy her so much that she would want to die. That might convince her what had to be done.

  She walked on until she came to a pond. It was hidden between rocks and trees. It was beautiful. Had any human ever seen this before, she asked herself.

  Of course, they had. She wasn’t that far from the truck stop. When she spotted a bench and a place to grill, she realized how ridiculous her thinking had been. This was someplace where people might show up. But would anyone show up today?

  She decided that she would go for a little swim. It was already getting late, and today was a boring Tuesday. She had the chance to enjoy this all by herself. She undressed so she was only in her underwear. Then she got into the water, easing herself into it. It was ice cold. It felt as if the water was stabbing her and robbing her of her breath.

  She shivered, knowing that her body would soon get used to the temperature in a second. In fact, she stayed in the water for hours, going in and out, thinking that this would be a nice end to her life. She was alone and could do what she wanted. That was all she ever wanted. Tonight just as it was about to turn dark, she’d go back to the edge of the cliff and jump. Finally, she had a plan.

  She knew that it was the right decision, but still tears came to her eyes. She had to think back to when she was a kid, and she believed that she couldn’t go to heaven if no one cried for her. Now she’d be able to test that theory. No one would even know that she was dead. She sat beside the pond and stared at it for a long time before she dove in for the last time, knowing that it was about to get dark soon.

  Morgan swam as much as she could, enjoying the water and remembering the nanny who had been kind to her all of those years ago.

  Then she got out of the water and dried herself off with the clothes she had in the bag. She changed into fresh panties and into a clean clothes.

  She took the time to ring the water out of her hair and slightly comb through it with her fingers.

  Morgan took a deep breath and headed back to the cliff.

  She got there too early. She had sort of planned that she wanted to jump just as the sun was setting.

  Should she wait for it, or should she just get it over with before her courage left her?

  She stared out over the beautiful valley. It was a pretty place for her last remains to lie.

  Morgan closed her eyes, and her shoulders lifted up as she took a deep breath. Her lips formed an O as she took her last breath. She shifted back, moving her weight so she was ready to run and push off the side of the cliff.

  She was shifting her weight back and then forward when she heard someone call out her name. Her first thought was that she had truly jumped, and now the angels were coming for her. They were going to let her into heaven. She was thrilled.

  “Morgan. No, wait. Don’t do it!”

  Morgan recognized that voice. It was Master Sawyer.

  She was horrified, and her body came to a halt at the edge of the cliff. “Oh God,” she panted, slightly turning towards him. How had he found her? And why would he look for her? It was his idea to get rid of her.

  “Don’t do it, Morgan. You can come back home with me,” he told her. His hands were reaching out towards her, but he remained where he was.

  “You don’t understand. I can’t do that.”

  “Of course, you can. You have so much to live for.” Sawyer was so mad at himself. He knew that submissives could feel lost without a master guiding them. She had just seemed so indifferent.

  “Trust me. I don’t. This is the best option for me. Just turn away and go,” she begged him.

  “You think I would do that?” he questioned her.

  She looked at him without saying anything. He had gotten rid of her at the drop of a hat this afternoon. It made sense to her.

  “I wouldn’t. I tried to drive away, but I came back for you. Morgan, we’ll go home and talk about everything.”

  “It’s your home, not mine.”

  “Where is your home?” he asked her, trying to keep her talking.

  Morgan glanced over her shoulder at the ravine. That was supposed to be her home. She shook her head, refusing to admit that no one loved her, even now. “Trust me. No one would even miss me.”

  “I would.”

  “I doubt that I would be good for you.” Morgan’s heart raced. She had wanted to end everything. And now that he was here, she couldn’t. He was slowly stepping closer.

  “You’d have to come with me so we could find that out,” he told her, talking to her as if she were a wild animal that he wanted to calm down.

  “I spent two weeks with you. You didn’t like me. No one ever does,” she stated.

  “Because you didn’t tell me anything about yourself,” he protested.

  “And I never would.”

  “Come on. I’ll give you something to eat, and you can take a bath and think this through. You need a moment to breathe.”

  “Stop!” she screamed out. “If you come any closer, I’ll jump. You’ll push me into it. I can’t think with you here. Please, leave.”

  “I can’t do that.” Sawyer had seen that she had been about to jump when he arrived. She would do it if he turned his back on her. “Morgen, I want you to come to me and to give me your hand.”

  She shook her head. “This is my destiny. I don’t mean to upset you, but this is what I’ve been wanting to do for several years now. I’ve finally found the perfect place.” This was an opportunity that she didn’t want to let slip through her fingers.

  “No, this isn’t the perfect place. The perfect place for you is with me. We’ll go back, and you can stay with me. I’ll give you a job. When you have a little money in your pocket, you’ll see that you have options. Lots of them. Come to me.” His body began to shake because she was backing away from him, heading towards the edge. One more step back, and she’d fall over it. He had to be ready to leap forward and grab her. But he needed to do it in a way where they didn’t both go over the side of the cliff.

  “You can’t hire me,” she told him. It wasn’t as if she could give him her social security number. If she did, the police would find her, and she didn’t have the money to pay for her hospital stay, and she didn’t want them to make her testify against Robert. She could already see him grinning at her, and then his lawyer destroying what was left of her soul.

  “It’s my place. I can hire whoever I want,” Sawyer told her.

  “People are looking for me. I can’t let them know where I am,” she confessed.

  “Why are they looking for you?” he asked her.

  “They’ll want justice.”

  “What did you do to get them to want justice?” he asked her as several things went through his mind.

  “I can’t let anyone find me. You wouldn’t understand.” She could see that he thought that she was the bad guy, but nothing could be further from the truth.

  “Tell me. Give me the chance to try to understand,” he begged her.

  She shook her head and looked over her shoulder, longing to have her life over with. She belonged down there. This was her own fault because she had been too chicken to jump before. Now she was missing the sunset. She kind of liked the idea of arriving in heaven on pink and golden clouds.

  “Morgan, look at me,” he barked at her.

  She turned her head back to him, snapping out of her dreams. “I’ll sleep in the woods tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll go into the restaurant and talk to a few people. After that, I’ll come back here. People will know that you didn’t push me.”

  “What?” He had no idea what she was talking about.

  “You’re worried that people will think that you tried to kill me, right? That’s what you really care about. If I jump now, it will leave you in a bad situation. I understand that.” It was getting dark. She hoped that she would be able to disappear be
tween the trees. She didn’t want to talk about what was happening. It would be better for her to be left alone.

  Damn, Sawyer thought. She was right. If she did jump, this could spread a very bad light on him. “Thank you. That would be a big help for me,” he said playing along, because it bought him several hours where he might be able to convince her not to hurt herself.

  She nodded at him.

  “Perhaps, we could go back now and people could see us together,” Sawyer suggested.

  She thought about it for a moment. “Why?” she asked him.

  “I’m afraid that people will get the time mixed up. I don’t want anyone to jump to the wrong conclusion.”

  She shook her head and looked back at the sunset. “I’ll stay here. I promise that I’ll do what I said I would do.”

  “I can’t let you do that. I really can’t,” he protested.

  “Yes, you can. People walk past me all the time without really seeing me. They think they know me and my story based on a few facts, but they don’t know me. They haven’t got a clue.”

  “Did your master try and help you? Is he the one looking for you?” Sawyer asked her, trying to be careful with his words.

  “I already told you, I don’t want to talk about him.”

  “I know, but now you’re standing here, wanting to take your own life. Now is the time to talk about everything weighing on your soul.”

  “Nothing is weighing on my soul. It felt very light until you showed up,” she sassed at him.

  “Hey, do not talk to me that way. Do you need a taste of the strap right here and now?” he threatened her, remembering how obedient she was when he scolded her and punished her.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude, Master Sawyer. It was just a nice feeling to almost be over with everything.”

  “I understand now. I could give you a nice safe feeling too. If you come with me, we could try it for a week or two. You can earn money in the diner, and I’ll pay you cash. If you want to leave me then, you’ll have the money to do it by bus. You’d be able to go wherever you wanted to go. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? I mean, there has to be something that you still want to do with your life, something that you want to see?”