Everyone's Dirty Little Secrets

by Miles, Matthew

  Jaime was afraid of how far he’d really go, so she was relieved when his mother – her stepmom – showed up.

  “Mark, get off of her,” she shouted, slapping him on the back of the head.

  But her real anger was reserved for Jaime, staring down at her with disgust in her yes.

  “And you,” she sneered. “Put some clothes on. And go home. You don’t live here. Stop teasing Mark.”

  Flaunting herself at Mark became her new favorite hobby after that. She decided to take control of the situation. She had him stealing booze for her, scoring pot, and best of all, keeping his hands off her – simply by making him think she would let him. So he didn’t need to sneak up on her any more.

  It drove her stepmother crazy, of course.

  Crazier than it was driving Mark.

  Which Jaime relished.

  Tensions at the house were already reaching a boiling point whenever Jaime was there, well before the day that Jaime let Mark climb in the hot tub with her. She normally wouldn’t let him get that close, but he had bought a joint from an older high school kid for her, and they were smoking it together – while their sister Jane was out at the pool, drinking the wine coolers Jaime had made Mark steal for her.

  When her stepmom came home, Jaime was spaced out and giggling, stoned, in the Jacuzzi, while Mark was playing with himself under the water.

  And Jane was lying in a puddle of puke, twitching in a fit of near alcohol poisoning.

  Jaime’s father didn’t really fight on her behalf when her stepmom banned her from the house forever.

  She thought it was a relief to him, an excuse to sever the last tie to his previous life.

  Surrounded now by the luxury of Siobhan’s property – the mansion, the pool – memories of those awful, confusing - painful - years threaten to drown her.

  Except she feels now like she’s coming home, claiming what should have been rightfully hers.

  Dodge is in the Jacuzzi when she walks in, staring into space.

  *****

  Chuck pauses to listen at the pool house door. It’s only polite, after all, to know what he’s intruding upon. They have to see this coming, in any case. No one even asked what he is doing here. Jaime’s friend excused herself from his company, from his stare, as soon as Jaime vanished after Dodge, striking out for the bathroom and liquor cabinet in the house.

  He hears nothing. He is not sure if he is surprised by that. He knows they’re doing something, but it would be the height of indiscretion if it makes much noise.

  The main room is empty, but there are a couple of articles of clothing strewn on the bar - a tie, a jacket. That’s when Chuck sees the wallet. This is a tough call. He looks toward the closed door to the Jacuzzi room.

  Jaime could be naked in there, which he would kill to see.

  This is only going to get weirder here, though.

  Time to get while the getting is good.

  He snatches the wallet - and the passport under it.

  And walks out the gate that is never closed.

  *****

  Jaime unloads her best smile.

  Dodge isn’t staring into space anymore. He’s staring at her.

  This is not an innocent smile. She walks slowly toward, and steps up on, the edge of the Jacuzzi. She makes sure, as she plunges into the water, as she glides toward him, that his eyes never leave her.

  “Jaime,” Dodge says, stopping her at his knees. “You got to go. This is only going to make things worse.”

  “I have a plan, Dodge,” she says, pushing his knees apart with her hands and sliding herself between them.

  She presses against the fabric of his trunks. He can’t stop her, of course.

  “She’s going there tomorrow, Friday,” she tells him. “Rod Dressler’s.”

  He doesn’t move, so she wraps his arms around her shoulders herself.

  He doesn’t resist.

  “This is your chance,” she tells him.

  He just sits there, still as a rock.

  “You’ve got to go there, and get photos of them together. She has more to lose than you do, so you’ve got to turn the tables here.”

  She stares into his eyes, their noses barely an inch from each other. She doesn’t want this to go on much longer. It will break the spell. She just needs him to agree.

  “OK,” he promises.

  Just to break the tension.

  Finally.

  “I’ve got to find Brigitte,” she tells him, pulling away, climbing out of the tub.

  He looks bewildered, sitting in the Jacuzzi, alone all of a sudden, as she looks back from the doorway.

  “Dodge,” she says, reclaiming his attention.

  He looks up at her. She can’t believe he even looked away.

  “This is all going to work out,” she promises.

  She leaves him in the sauna and heads back out to the pool, smiling - the smile she usually reserves for him. Brigitte is back, floating on the air mattress, and Jaime can’t contain herself, giddy at her conquest. She takes a big, flying leap onto Brigitte from the edge, toppling them both into the deep end.

  *****

  Siobhan worries about Dodge. She hasn’t spoken with him in almost a week. It’s Friday. She hasn’t seen him since Saturday, but knows she will tonight. She came right to the office from the city. She wants to wrap a few things up for the week. She wants to make sure Jaime is working. She suspects Jaime disappeared for a few hours while Siobhan was in the city. No return calls, no email responses.

  Dodge hasn’t called, never responded to her message. He didn’t show up for their meeting on Monday – just left for Montreal, not a word.

  Siobhan is no fool. She knows she is missing something.

  She will put an end to all of this - tonight.

  Or so she thinks, until Jaime knocks on her door.

  “Yes?” she asks.

  She is curt, on purpose. She doesn’t feel like dealing with Jaime and her mysterious disappearance. It’s Friday afternoon. She wants to go find her husband and set her house back in order. She doesn’t care whether Dodge showed up for their meeting or not. He covered the Montreal event like she needed him to. It’s Friday. She wants to go home and have a cocktail by her pool, with her husband, and get on with her happily married life.

  But that doesn’t mean she can’t send Jaime a little signal that she is not oblivious to whatever she is up to. She just stares at Jaime, waiting for her to say whatever she has to say.

  “Dressler needs you tonight,” Jaime tells her, with little ceremony, picking up on Siobhan’s chilly demeanor. “Soiree at his house.”

  Siobhan doesn’t give her the satisfaction of a response. She just closes her laptop, because she needs something to do that indicates the conversation is over. But she knows somehow that Jaime, despite showing no emotion whatsoever, is happy delivering the news for some reason, beside herself, even

  She wants to call Dodge, make a plan for later, but she stops, staring at her mobile. No recent or missed calls, no voice mails, no texts.

  Dressler’s it is.

  *****

  Jaime is on top of her game. She is schooling Siobhan right now. Everything is going her way. So of course she is beside herself. She tries to not let it show. But damn. These suckers are eating out of the palm of her hand.

  The truth is, she loves Siobhan. Siobhan is perfect - she’s hot, her husband’s hot, she’s loaded, she runs things. She is in charge of every detail. It’s amazing to Jaime.

  She doesn’t want to hurt Siobhan.

  But Jaime loves this game, loves how everybody has ceded just a little bit of power to her - the assistant, the low woman on the totem pole - and how she has massed all of those little pieces of power into something that allows her to control more than any of them realize.

  Dodge’s weakness is obvious - it’s every man’s weakness. She’s actually amazed at how well he controls himself around her, the way she throws herself at him. She can’t believe he hasn’t gon
e for it.

  She wishes he would.

  She would stop him, of course. At least for now.

  But that’s not the impression she’s giving him.

  Doesn’t matter, though.

  Because he did it once already.

  One time his reserve broke.

  And it still makes her smile thinking about it right now.

  It’s part of what motivates her right now.

  But not yet.

  Siobhan’s fatal flaw, though, is harder to find. She is so used to being in charge that she has no idea when she’s not. That she could even not be in control. She’s no Nero or anything. Which is what makes it difficult to exploit. But she has lessons to learn.

  And Jaime is going to school her.

  “Mr. Dressler?” she says into the phone when he answers. “It’s Jaime. Siobhan would love to join you for dinner.”

  She’s hanging up when Siobhan walks out from her office, her computer bag over her shoulder. She’s leaving.

  “Did we get any mail today?” she asks Jaime.

  Jaime shakes her head, not wanting her voice to betray her mood.

  Siobhan is gone.

  There is no mail. That is strange. Thinking of it, Jaime realizes she hasn’t seen Mr. Chuck all day.

  All day long she usually sees Mr. Chuck.

  *****

  Passport to peril, laughs Chuck in his mind, giddy.

  He keeps saying it over, holding Mr. Dodge’s passport in line at the airport.

  Beside himself, you could say.

  Passport to peril.

  Credit card to crime.

  Going crazy.

  Killing time.

  Amsterdam. Dam dam Amsterdam. Dam dam, Amsterdam.

  *****

  The drone of thumping helicopter blades provides the perfect soundtrack for Dodge to think.

  Feeling above it all, the flight gives him some perspective. Away from Jaime, he can think clearly.

  He’s not really up here for research this time, though he follows the flow of cars out of habit, mesmerized by the domino effect of brake lights blinking to life, one after the other in a delayed succession stretching out car after car after car. Christmas tree lights strung out on a highway.

  He needs to slow down. Needs caution - perspective.

  After the flight, he’s going home. If Siobhan is not there, she is not there. He is not sneaking out to Rod Dressler’s after her. He is not going to be paranoid, or jealous. If she is really cheating, the truth will come out on its own. He doesn’t trust Jaime. Not like she’s malicious. But the constant flirting and teasing is dangerous. It could go too far. Too easily.

  It has gone too far.

  Not just the time - the one time - the time he lost control, the time it just happened.

  Not the time he just went for it, when she leaned against him just a little too long, when he tugged her by the belt loop of her jeans to the couch, felt its cold fabric warm in his hands.

  No, it isn’t just the one time that makes things too far.

  It’s the way all of his thoughts go screwy and he starts thinking stupid things like he has to follow Siobhan and get pictures of her with Dressler.

  He doesn’t want to see that.

  Until he sees Siobhan’s car heading up the Thruway below him.

  Then knows he has to follow her.

  Knows that the truth has found a way to be found out.

  *****

  Chuck - or Mr. Dodge, as he now calls himself - breathes in the smell of the dirty canals from the cobblestone streets of the red light district, watching a prostitute watching him from a display window. In the morning, the skin shops parade out the less attractive hookers. If someone needs a whore at ten in the morning, they probably aren’t too picky. Save the more desirable products for the lurid night, for when the judgment of pleasure-seeking tourists gets skewed by hash and cocaine enough that they might be willing to indulge in a new thrill.

  Real live licking dicking sucking fucking.

  A family show.

  Chuck is easily distracted though, a pair of jean shorts commanding his attention, his eyes rolling along the thighs of the girl wearing them to where her thin legs sprout from knee high, droopy brown leather boots. Fixing his eyes on her bare shoulder blades, protruding above the back of a white halter top, he falls easily into stride behind her.

  Despite almost zero luck with women, except for maybe catching a glimpse through a bedroom window, Chuck isn’t into prostitutes.

  He’s not a virgin. He hung around a frat party at a community college once, where no one was watching the doors, a kegger that was pretty much open to anyone willing to throw in five bucks. He got lucky late that night – some poor girl passed over by even the most indiscriminate frat dudes.

  When only Chuck was left.

  He knows this is his sweet spot. Knows the vulnerability of the one who never gets picked. Knows what it’s like to be worse than not picked - what it’s like to be left behind. Abandoned.

  Chuck gets those girls.

  Not a lot.

  But a couple of times.

  Chuck never gets the girl like Jaime.

  No, they go to guys like Dodge. Hell, guys like Dodge get Siobhan - and Jaime. Chuck likes Dodge. The guy’s never a jerk, he’s not fake, he minds his own business, does his own thing. Hell, he even has a way of pissing off the police. And getting away with it. But the thing is, he’s nothing special. It ain’t like he’s Romeo. But he gets it all.

  Chuck even looks like Dodge. Jaime even tells him that. So it ain’t like Chuck is horrible looking or anything.

  He’s weird though. He knows that. He acts weird and creeps women out.

  He just wants to have sex with them, though.

  Maybe Dodge is so lucky just because Siobhan likes him, for whatever reason. That happens. People fall in love. But since Siobhan likes him, and everybody is in awe of Siobhan, Dodge gets everything.

  You can’t hate a man for that.

  But Chuck never gets lucky.

  So Chuck has to become Dodge.

  He looks like him. He has his passport, his credit card. He is Dodge. He can do whatever Dodge would do here.

  Dodge wouldn’t follow this woman in shorts and boots.

  Chuck would.

  He will be Dodge after he follows these legs.

  Wherever she stops.

  He stops being Chuck.

  Becomes Dodge.

  *****

  Siobhan has a bad feeling. Maybe it’s the ominous thumping of helicopter blades perpetually trailing her. Makes her think of Dodge. A Friday night visit to a client is not in the job description. She wants to find her husband. But Dressler is money – her biggest client by far. She goes the extra mile for him.

  This is a bit much, though. Wading through traffic on the Thruway on a Friday rush hour commute.

  Siobhan doesn’t do house calls.

  She exhales visibly when she hits the exit ramp. The traffic is no better, but it’s a step. Off the Thruway.

  She doesn’t know why Dodge finds it so fascinating.

  The traffic.

  It’s just annoying.

  She should be at home.

  Cocktails by the pool.

  She just wants to get drunk with her husband, put the tension behind them and get back to having fun when she doesn’t have to work. It’s why she marries a guy like Dodge, doesn’t have kids. No drama, no responsibilities. Work, then play.

  *****

  Dressler checks himself in the mirror, adjusting the wide sash on his kimono. It keeps coming loose under the weight of the sword he jammed through it.

  He’s getting his samurai on.

  That’s what he likes to call it.