"Jesus, Dannie... I mean... holy hell..."
Danae could only give a small, rueful smile and slight shake of her head to her brother, Frank. She ran her fingers nervously through her thick, black hair to try to distract from the sudden flush she knew was rising in her cheeks. Frank, and everyone, had no idea. The story she'd just told, the words she'd said out loud... well, calling it
sanitized
was being generous.
In her mind's eye, she'd been seeing all that had happened with Lucien, all she'd done, while her mouth had filtered out the worst. Blunted the jagged edges.
Mom and dad really don't need to hear about how their baby girl became a psycho sex monster. Definitely don't need the play-by-play descriptions.
She was more right than she knew about that.
"I can't... you..." Danae's mom was sitting up in her chair after having slumped way, way down during the tale, and took a deep, rattling breath to steady herself. "It's taking everything I have to stop myself from filling in the blanks." She swallowed. "The huge, Lincoln-Tunnel-sized blanks..." She looked to her husband sitting behind the gathering, big arms crossed in front of his chest, chin tucked down, obviously envying his ability to just be wordless.
Danae looked too, and got a whole different feeling. "I'm... daddy, I'm so sorry." She wanted to say more, but she didn't have the strength. Hell, she didn't even have it in her to keep facing his way, so she shifted to Mister and Missus Alonso the, thus far, comment-free older couple. "Do I need... should I keep going?"
Mister Alonso thumbed the crucifix at his neck, sighed, then nodded. Like her father, he was a stoic man, though his still waters were less deep than self-enforced. She'd gotten hints over the years that her kindly neighbor had a... less than savory youth. His wife looked down on him with sympathy in her eyes, then mirrored her husband's nod.
Then there was doll-like, little baby sister Tina.
"Fucking fuck, Dannie. Yes you should fucking keep going!" The vulgar vixen was waving her toned arms while twisting her gym-molded butt irritably in her chair. "You still haven't explained how... still with him... all that...
why
you..." The arm-waving took on a distinctively angry air. "What the fuck?"
No one wants to see their idols crumble.
Danae always knew that Tina had put her up on a pedestal, and now that pedestal seemed to have been buried six feet underground. "Why I act like I do now." She ran both hands down her face, looked up at the ceiling of the home she grew up in, and took the plunge. "The story... it gets worse." She turned her face away until the sudden pressure behind her eyes was subdued.
Danae unfocused her vision to take in everyone. Everyone and no one. "Whatever. It happened. Let's just... let's get it over with." Still, she found herself hesitating and having to force herself to continue. "So, Virginia's limo had dropped us off somewhere, and I'll be damned if I had any clue where we were..."
__________
I was just happy that I was free of Lucien. Glad that I'd seen what he was, what his world was... shit. Before it was too late? Was that even true? Could that even be true? What kind of escape had I truly made? I felt like I'd climbed free of a pit, only to now be floating at sea. Directionless. Lost. What agency did I even have in my own life anymore?
No. I could fix it. I could find a way to navigate a way forward. You know, as soon as I saw one. It would be rough, but I'm an intelligent woman. I'm a teacher, for god's sake, even if my students weren't exactly PhD candidates. Middle school kids are challenging in their own way, and I'd been damned good at my job. Well, once. Before...
I remembered something that, oddly enough, Virginia's driver, Angelo, told me on the on the way. He said that
before
didn't matter, and to keep focused only on what was ahead.
Next
was what was important.
However that little proverb would pan out, whatever '
next'
meant,
now
was me following behind Virginia to what looked to be a pleasant, secluded cottage on the shore of a nice, placid lake. The place was big enough, I suppose, if far, far short of Lucien's gargantuan estate. It appeared to be an oasis of peace. An island away from everything. Best way to describe the feel of it. I liked it. The only incongruity was the gate before the cobbled walk up to it; fancy as fancy could be, like there was something important on the other side, which, no doubt, was absolutely true.
"You're welcome to stay here, Danae." Virginia chortled a bit as she patted me on the shoulder. "That was lame. Obviously you're welcome. I brought you here for a reason, right?"
I tried to hide the reflexive reaction her touch—the first since Lucien's place—had elicited in me. Even with what we'd just been through... or, hell, maybe
because
... that contact with my beautiful sister-in-law, my husband's twin, no less, stirred me up something fierce. Even just that innocuous pat. I had to stop myself from licking my lips when I glanced up at her, and I nearly failed. I still bit the lower one for a heartbeat. "Th... thanks, Gin. For everything. I mean that with every part of me, but..."
"But you want to know exactly what that reason I mentioned is." Virginia shot me a sympathetic look as she unlocked that ornate gate with nothing less than a silver and gold key. Like I said... fancy. She didn't actually answer my question until she opened the door to the cottage. "Well... uh... ta da?"
Not a bit of it was a surprise. I'd been expecting it, knowing for a certainty what I was going to be facing as soon as I'd seen Virginia make a call in the limo, but I realized something fundamental the second I saw my husband stand from the overstuffed chair he'd been in.
I wished he wasn't there.
Don't get me wrong, Beatty is a lovely man. If that sounds dismissive, that's not my intent. Everything from his fit form to his grounded good looks, even his scarred and calloused contractor's hands, it's all... pleasant. Comforting, even. Far from a firebrand, he just naturally seems to put everyone at ease. Usually. Not this time. This time he set every muscle clenching and every nerve jumping just by being there. It also didn't help that he was surrounded by what had to be every pastel egg and bunny in the world. Virginia's Easter fetish definitely made the whole scene come off as surreal, like it was all a big con.
The combination made me want to turn around, run to Virginia's limo, and promise Angelo a never-ending string of blowjobs if that's what it would take to convince the chauffeur to get me out of there. He seemed like a good guy, but everyone had their flipping point.
